Sitting of 5 November 1970

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

  BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)
  Order for Third Reading read.
  To be read the Third time upon Monday next at Seven o'clock.

  CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)
  Order for Third Reading read.
  To be read the Third time upon Monday next at Seven o'clock.

  GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)
  Order for consideration, as amended, read.
  To be considered upon Monday next at Seven o'clock

  TEESSIDE CORPORATION (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [Lords]
  Ordered,
  That in the case of the Teesside Corporation (General Powers) Bill [Lords], notwithstanding anything in Standing Order 198 (Notice of Second Reading) the Agent for the Bill may give notice to-morrow of the day proposed for Second Reading.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    First Offenders
    Mr. Greenasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to restore discretion to magistrates in the manner of treatment of first offenders.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I take my hon. Friend to be referred to the provisions in the Criminal Justice Act, 1967 which, with certain exceptions, require magistrates' courts to suspend sentences of imprisonment imposed on first offenders and offenders in certain other categories. I am keeping under review these and other provisions relating to the suspension of sentences of imprisonment with a view to possible future criminal justice legislation.

    Top Security Prisoners
    Mr. Thomas Coxasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was to be his Department's future policy regarding the imprisonment of persons rated as top security prisoners.
    Mr. Maudling: They will be dispersed among selected prisons with the necessary degree of security.
    Mr. Cox: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. During the period before that dispersal takes place, in view of the disturbances that have occurred in top security prison wings, can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be no cut in financial expenditure in view of the need to improve both the conditions and the security of such prisons?
    Mr. Maudling: There is no suggestion of any cut in expenditure provision for the prison service.
    Mr. Fowler: In the case of the four security wings that remain, will my right hon. Friend consider changing the policy of his predecessor and allowing representatives of national newspapers to see the conditions in those wings, so that they can inform the public of them?
    Mr. Maudling: I am prepared, without commitment, to consider that.
    Mr. W. T. Williams: Does the Home Secretary not consider that the time has come to institute some kind of inquiry, however informal, into the effects, both physical and mental, upon prisoners detained in these top security wings and upon the staff, upon whom there is a good deal of pressure in maintaining these wings? Can he tell us what effect the presence of security wings of this kind has upon other prisoners in the same prison?
    Mr. Maudling: That is the sort of consideration that we have in mind in the policy of dispersal. I agree that there are serious questions of the effect upon prisoners. That is why we are pursuing this policy as rapidly as we can. The actual availability of premises is the limiting factor.
    Mr. Woodnutt: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that a greater problem is the detention of violent prisoners, who are not necessarily top security people? Will he reconsider the question of dispersing them and considering, instead, putting them all in a special purpose-built prison? There is no doubt that dispersed in individual prisons they are like a bad apple in a barrel.
    Mr. Maudling: I know my hon. Friend's interest and concern in this matter, but this decision was taken after careful study by the Advisory Council on the Penal System, and I think that it is the right one.

    Criminal Proceedings (Legal Aid)
    Mr. Clinton Davisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to require criminal courts to keep records of the grounds for the refusal of applications for legal aid in criminal proceedings.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle): No, Sir.
    Mr. Davis: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in certain courts, especially in the Inner London area, there is a grotesque incidence of refusal to grant legal aid in summary proceedings, and that at the Marlborough Street Court
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    there is a 68 per cent. refusal and at the Lambeth Court a 71 per cent. refusal? Is it not quite clear that the disparity that exists is due to the fact that justices' clerks are apparently applying different sets of criteria in the granting of legal aid?
    Mr. Carlisle: We are aware that there are varying percentages in the granting of legal aid in the different Inner London courts, but my right hon. Friend has no information to establish that the courts are not using their judicial discretion properly; indeed, part of the variation depends on the different types of case going to different courts. We do not feel that requiring the courts to declare their reasons would be justified.
    Mr. Elystan Morgan: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that it is quite unsatisfactory that there should be such grotesque disparities? Would he consider issuing a circular to justices' clerks?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am not sure whether the Home Secretary would be entitled to issue a circular on a matter which is purely within the judicial discretion of the courts, but certainly we are anxious that all the courts should use their judicial discretion in the same way.

    Fire Services
    Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the Government's plans for the future of the fire service in Great Britain, following publication of the Holroyd Report.
    Mr. Maudling: Her Majesty's Government endorse the Committee's conclusions that the operational efficiency of the fire service, in terms of attendance and performance, is highly satisfactory, that the service should remain under local authorities' control and that recruitment should continue to be based on the principle of one-tier entry; but they will form no detailed conclusions on the specific recommendations without full consultation with the local authority and fire service associations, which will be undertaken as soon as all concerned are ready.
    Mr. Judd: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that very positive reply. Would he not agree that, in view of the

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    very difficult work being done by firemen and fire officers throughout the country, often in difficult circumstances, any doubts about the future structure of the service, particularly in view of the length of time that they have waited for the report, must be resolved as quickly as possible, in the cause of efficiency and morale? Can he promise an early statement in detail from the Government?
    Mr. Maudling: I hope that my state-men today will be of some assistance. I agree that it is important to press ahead with these consultations on this very important report.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: But would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that some of the recommendations of Holroyd could be implemented much more quickly? Would he assure us that we shall not have to wait until all the recommendations can be implemented?
    Mr. Maudling: We shall press ahead as fast as we can, after adequate consultations.
    Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will detail official bodies consulted to date on the Holroyd Report on the fire service; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Richard Sharples): The County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Greater London Council, the Association of County Councils in Scotland, the Convention of Royal Burghs, the Scottish Counties of Cities Association, the Chief Fire Officers Association, the National Association of Fire Officers and the Fire Brigades Union.
    Mr. Sillars: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that while we are awaiting the final judgment of the Holroyd Report and the ultimate report we shall get from Lord Roben's committee on health and safety at work, fire authorities could make a very important contribution to safety from fire in factories and the home by using more extensively than is the case at present operational firemen on fire prevention duties?
    Mr. Sharples: That is certainly a matter that I should like to look at.
    Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what
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    representations he has received from the Fire Brigades Union on fire service pay and conditions; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Maudling: The normal machinery for negotiating fire service pay and conditions is the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Fire Brigades; but the Fire Brigades Union have asked me to set up an independent tribunal, and I am considering this request.
    Mr. Sillars: Will the Home Secretary accept that the patience of firemen and of our fire service generally is stretching to breaking point? Will he accept as a genuine statement from the Fire Brigades Union that the firemen have lost confidence in the current negotiating machinery in so far as it relates to the current claim on pay and service conditions?
    Mr. Maudling: I have seen both the Fire Brigades Union and the local authorities. I think that both sides are equally sincere in the position they have taken. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am not a direct participant, but I hope that in my independent position I may be able to do something to resolve the deadlock.

    Community Relations (Training of Police Officers)
    Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to increase the number of police officers throughout Great Britain with special training in race relations.
    Mr. Barnesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to increase the provision of special training courses for police officers in community relations.
    Mr. Sharples: A working party is examining this matter. My right hon. Friend will review existing arrangements in England and Wales as soon as he has the working party's report.
    Mr. Judd: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. Would he not agree that, in view of the first line and highly delicate, sensitive work performed by the police in this area, there is an urgent necessity to step up the special preparation and special

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    training to help them to do the job as properly and effectively as it can be done?
    Mr. Sharples: Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The working party has met twice already. I think that we should await its report, but I appreciate the urgency.
    Mr. Barnes: Is it not the case that very little formal training, as opposed to talks by senior police officers, has been carried out hitherto, especially into the customs and psychology of different community groups? Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that, in mixed community areas, it is very important that all policemen should receive formal training of this kind?
    Mr. Sharples: Yes, this is one of the matters which the working party will be examining.
    Mr. Longden: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is an urgent need for an increase in the number of police officers, whether with special training or without?
    Mr. Sharples: Yes, Sir, I am.

    Adoption
    Mr. Goldingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he intends to take to introduce new legislation concerning adoption following the Report, Adoption of Children.
    Mr. Walter Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take to amend the law relating to foster parents and foster children, following the publication of the Houghton Report.
    Mr. Carlisle: I would refer the hon. Members to the answer given on 29th October, by my right hon. Friend to Questions by the hon. Members for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone), for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) and for Blyth (Mr. Milne).—[Vol. 805, c. 167–8.]
    Mr. Golding: Will the Minister assure us that the proposals to make it possible for mothers to give their final consent to adoption at a much earlier stage will be taken very seriously? Will he take into account the strong feeling that adoptions should be transferred from magistrates' courts to family courts?
    Mr. Carlisle: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that all the proposals in the working party's paper will be given careful consideration. The purpose of the working paper was to enable interested parties to comment on them before the Committee put forward its final recommendations.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: Will my hon. Friend take note that many hon. Members, while welcoming the general principles of the report, are uneasy about the recommendations that adoption agencies should no longer be allowed to make bringing up in a particular religious persuasion a condition of adoption? Will he assure us that he will have full consultations with all the Churches on this matter before reaching a final decision?
    Mr. Carlisle: I can only repeat that the whole purpose of the Committee's working paper is to give it an opportunity to receive further evidence and consult all the relevant bodies before coming to its final conclusions.
    Mr. Walter Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is still considerable public concern in this matter? Will he take into account recommendation No. 53 in the Houghton Report, which calls for the court to have discretionary powers to appoint persons with special qualifications to assist the court in its deliberations?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am aware of the public concern in this matter, and so is the Committee, which is why it has decided to proceed in this way—so that every view can be fully aired before hand.

    Prisoners (Employment)
    Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take further steps to provide useful employment for prisoners in Her Majesty's Prisons during their periods of detention.
    Mr. Carlisle: A large-scale programme for improving prison work is in hand.
    Mr. Greville Janner: I welcome the Minister's statement. Would he agree that it is detrimental to the rehabilitation of prisoners that they should be kept locked in their cells for the bulk of their waking hours? Would he bear in mind

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    especially the shortage of working facilities in maximum security conditions, such as in Leicester?
    Mr. Carlisle: I agree entirely that people should not be kept locked in their cells for longer than necessary. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have many problems of overcrowding which must be faced.
    Mr. Fowler: As the Minister says that the main obstacle in the way of provision of better working facilities is the very serious overcrowding in our prisons, would he consider publishing proposals on how the prison population could be reduced?
    Mr. Carlisle: My right hon. Friend is at the moment considering various ways in which alternatives to imprisonment can be applied, as set out by the Wootton Committee, which recently reported.
    Mr. Elystan Morgan: Is it not a fact that the whole prison system will soon be bedevilled by heavy overcrowding? How soon will the Minister be bringing plans to the House for new prison building?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that we are at the moment faced with heavy overcrowding due to an extreme increase in the prison population in the early months of this year. I am happy to be able to say that the figures seem to have levelled out since the summer, but we are, of course, pressing ahead with our prison building programme.
    Mrs. Renée Short: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in some of the prisons of this country, prisoners are working only about 14 hours a week in prison workshops, and that, in order to improve this state of affairs, the Government must be prepared to invest a great deal more money in building new prisons and new workshops and bringing the existing ones up to date? In the present state of mind of the Government, it does not look as though any more money will be found for this purpose.
    Mr. Carlisle: I am aware that the situation is unsuitable in certain prisons, but, on the second part of that question, the prison building programme which we have is that which we inherited from the
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    previous Government. We are doing our best to speed it up.

    Gaming Act, 1968
    Mr. Buckasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement concerning the operation of the Gaming Act, 1968.
    Mr. Carlisle: The Act is in general operating well; but, in agreement with the Gaming Board, my right hon. Friend contemplates that in future the areas in which licences for general gaining may be sought shall be determined by a general formula instead of being individually selected. He is discussing the details of this formula with the Board and will make an announcement shortly. There will be no additions to the existing areas for the second licensing period, but the change should result in some additions for the third period so that successful clubs will be able to start operating in June, 1972.
    Mr. Buck: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that many of us will regard it as a substantial step in the right direction, because many of us take the view that the attempt to limit hard gaming by areas is somewhat absurd? As this is a somewhat complicated Act, will he institute a debate on its operation ere long? In the meantime, would he consider relaxing some of the restrictions on soft gaming, like bingo, in particular the restrictions on the advertising of bingo, which seem absurd to many of us?
    Mr. Carlisle: My hon. Friend has asked me several supplementaries. The question of a debate is one for the Leader of the House. As for bingo, to the best of my knowledge, no approach has been made to the Home Office about any alterations on the lines that my hon. Friend suggests. I note his comments about what we are doing with regard to hard gaming.
    Mr. O'Malley: If we are to have these gambling casinos, would the hon. Gentleman consider the anomalous situation which exists whereby the proprietors of these casinos can use recorded music in the casino but cannot employ live musicians?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am aware of the position, but we have no proposals at the moment for allowing live entertainment with gaming.
    Sir E. Bullus: What will be the criteria for the newly selected areas? Will an area like Wembley, which is a sporting area, be included?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am afraid that my hon. and gallant Friend will have to await the statement which my right hon. Friend will be making as soon as possible. It will, of course, then depend on the criteria whether Wembley is included.
    Mr. Elystan Morgan: Is the hon. Gentleman in a position to undertake not to give in to the pleas of his hon. Friends and thereby wreck the principle of the designated areas which, according to the Gaming Board, was the only way in which the whole principle of the 1968 Act could be carried out?
    Mr. Carlisle: As I said, we are proceeding with this matter in conjunction with the Gaming Board. Our intention is that in future areas should be determined by a general formula rather than being individually selected; but the hon. Gentleman will have to await the statement from my right hon. Friend.

    Electoral Registers (Form A)
    Mr. George Cunninghamasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to improve the design of Form A used in compiling electoral registers.
    Mr. Sharples: This form was redesigned in 1968 and minor improvements have since been made.
    Mr. Cunningham: Does the Minister realise that one reason why Form A finds its way into the drawer and is ignored is that it does not point out sufficiently clearly that it is an offence not to return it? Will he consider amending it to obviate this difficulty?
    Mr. Sharples: The hon. Gentleman has written to me about this and I am considering this suggestion along with some of his others.

    Immigration (Legislative Changes)
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now make a statement on his proposals for changes in the law regarding immigration.
    Mr. Maudling: I would ask my hon. Friend to await publication of the Bill which is to be introduced this Session.
    Mr. Wall: When my right hon. Friend is preparing that Bill will he give particular attention, first, to those Britons who, because of generations of service to the Crown by their families, were not born in this country, and therefore have no right of entry, and, secondly, to those who, although they have no direct contact with this country, have British passports and should, therefore, be given some priority?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly give consideration to any point raised by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: Now that the Secretary of State has had an opportunity to look at the books, may I ask him to say whether immigration from the Commonwealth is out of control?
    Mr. Maudling: Now that I have had an opportunity to look at the books I am confirmed in my view that the proposals contained in our manifesto were wise, and we intend to carry them out.

    Secretary of State (Visit to Scotland)
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his official visit to Scotland on 11th July; and what was the cost to public funds.
    Mr. Maudling: My visit was private and entailed no cost to public funds.
    Mr. Hamilton: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I knew his visit was private but I did not know the cost. [Laughter.] May I assure him that it cost a lot less than the Prime Minister's private visit on the same occasion?
    Mr. Maudling: In fact, I think that public funds made a profit out of me. However, it was worth it to see the opening at St. Andrews.

    Northern Ireland
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his most recent discussions with the Northern Ireland Government concerning the situation in Ulster.
    Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on his recent consultations with the authorities in Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Maudling: I had discussions, which were confidential, with Major Chichester-Clark on 30th October.
    Mr. Wall: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Sir Arthur Young enjoyed the confidence of the responsible minority in Ulster? Will he assure the House that Sir Arthur's resignation was not caused by political pressure from the majority at Stormont?
    Mr. Maudling: Yes, I firmly give that assurance.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: Since the whole future of civil peace in Northern Ireland depends on the police enjoying the confidence of the minority as well as of the majority there, may I ask my right hon. Friend to say what steps he proposes to urge on the Stormont Government in view of Sir Arthur Young's very worried statement yesterday?
    Mr. Maudling: I have only just seen the statement. It was made by Sir Arthur Young in his position as Chief Constable, responsible to the Stormont Government. I am certain that Major Chichester-Clark and his colleagues will be examining it as a matter of urgency.
    Mr. Rose: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take action on a report published yesterday which shows that there are eight members of the R.U.C. still in the R.U.C. after having been found guilty of assault? Does he agree that such action is absolutely imperative in view of the effect that this will have on the minority in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Maudling: This is a constitutional matter for the Northern Ireland Government.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Does my right hon. Friend recall that both General Freeland and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Belfast referred to the outside influences involved in last week-end's disturbances? May we have an assurance that the intelligence staff will follow up their inquiries into the activities of these outside influences?
    Mr. Maudling: I saw those two statements, which I thought were designed to be helpful, and which were helpful. There are certainly some evil influences at work in Northern Ireland at the moment and we shall do all we can to prevent them from doing harm.
    Mr. McNamara: Although I agree that the Home Secretary is right in that comment, may I ask him to agree that there are evil influences at work on both sides? Does he accept that while the present state of affairs, as revealed yesterday by the Chief of Police in Northern Ireland, remains, and while no action has been taken against the people who were involved in Samuel Devenney's death—[Interruption.]—the fears and suspicions of the minority, not only in Derry but in the rest of Northern Ireland, will be strengthened far more than if positive action were taken in this matter?
    Mr. Maudling: I would certainly not say that the evil influences concerned were only on one side. I have never said that and I know that that is not true. As for the rest of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, that is a matter for the Northern Ireland Government and I know that Major Chichester-Clark will be examining it as a matter of urgency.

    Mr. Rudi Dutschke
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the reasons for his decision to expel Mr. Rudi Dutschke from Great Britain; and whether he will reconsider the case.
    Mr. Maudling: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on Thursday, 29th October, to a Question by the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose).—[Vol. 805, c. 177–8]
    Mr. Hamilton: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a good deal of disquiet about the way in which this matter is being handled? Is it not a fact that Mr. Dutschke has adhered quite firmly to the conditions under which he was allowed to stay here? Is it not grossly unfair on him not to be allowed to know the reasons why the Home Office chooses to seek to expel him?
    Mr. Maudling: Parliament has provided that there shall be an appeal from

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    the Home Secretary's decision in this sort of case. While an appeal is pending I think it would be wrong for me to express any view on the merits of the case. However, I would not accept that the premise on which that supplementary question was put was necessarily true.
    Mr. Lane: Now that my right hon. Friend has decided the form that the appeal proceedings are to take, can he confirm that the hearing will now proceed with the least possible delay?
    Mr. Maudling: I certainly hope so. This is a matter for the tribunal to decide; but, from my point of view, the sooner the better.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: Under that part of the Immigration Appeals Act, which came into force on 1st July, was Mr. Dutschke informed in the first instance of his right of appeal under that Act?
    Mr. Maudling: He was informed at the first appropriate moment of the decision that had been taken and of his right of appeal and so on. He, or his legal advisers, have been kept fully informed ever since.
    Mr. Richard: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that this decision is causing very great public concern in academic circles outside this House—[Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may howl, but my postbag bears out what I have said, rather than their howls.
    Does the right hon. Gentleman also recognise that if there are good reasons for the decision he has taken, it is absolutely critical for the well-being of the immigration policy of the Government and of the country that it should be justified publicly? Is he aware that if, at the end of the day, it smells as though an illiberal decision has been taken behind closed doors for non-public reasons, that will redound to nobody's good, neither his nor the country's?
    Mr. Maudling: I have said that the appeals system places an inhibition on me in the giving of the reasons to the House. The sooner I am able to give them, the better pleased I shall be.
    Mr. Callaghan: Let us be clear about the procedure. Do I understand that the Home Secretary has referred this matter
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    to a special tribunal because there are security considerations alleged to be involved? If so, does he intend, at the end of the day, to publish what those security considerations are supposed to be? If not, how could he have given such an affirmative answer to my hon. Friend?
    Mr. Maudling: Under the appeals procedure under the 1969 Act, where security information is involved which cannot in the public interest be made public, there is a special procedure laid down—this procedure was laid down in the last Parliament—to which I have scrupulously adhered.
    Mr. Callaghan: With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. He gave my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) an assurance that when the inhibitions on him were released, he would be able to publish the reasons. I am asking him whether he is giving an undertaking to publish the reasons, which may be security reasons, and, if not, how he is able to justify them?
    Mr. Maudling: Clearly, I cannot publish what it is not in the national interest to publish—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—a situation for which the previous Government provided in their legislation. Apart from that one particular factor, the more that is published the better it suits me. As for the facts about the circumstances in which Mr. Dutschke came here and remained here and has asked for a different basis to remain here, the sooner I am able to make these known without inhibition, the happier I shall be.

    Scientology
    Mr. Peter Archerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will discontinue the ban on overseas visitors wishing to study Scientology, pending publication of the Report by the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster).
    Mr. Sharples: No.
    Mr. Archer: While appreciating that this is not the time to comment on the details of the case, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman does not agree in general that there is a limit to the length of time over which any group may be

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    selected for discriminatory treatment without announcing the reason?
    Mr. Sharples: An inquiry into this case was set up by the previous Government, and it is the policy of the present Government to adhere to the policy of the previous Government, in that we should await the report of the inquiry.
    Mr. Evelyn King: Is it not the fact that there are in this country always a great many eccentric beliefs, faiths and sects; and that it is usually a great error for them to be isolated by the Home Office for treatment?
    Mr. Sharples: An inquiry is taking place into this matter, and it would be wrong for me to comment, in addition to what has been previously said, while that inquiry is taking place.

    Dangerous Wild Beasts (Protection of the Public)
    Mr. Croninasked the Secretary of Slate for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to protect the public from dangerous wild beasts in private ownership.
    Mr. Carlisle: The Animals Bill clarifies the liability at civil law of persons who keep potentially dangerous animals. Other aspects of this matter are being studied, but my right hon. Friend is not in a position to say anything at present about the need for further legislative provisions.
    Mr. Cronin: Will the Under-Secretary of Slate expedite his studies, having regard to the serious danger to the public, particularly to small children? Will he bear in mind that several thousands of potentially dangerous wild animals are imported without restriction every year; and that the cases of injury winch receive publicity are a very small minority of the total?
    Mr. Carlisle: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are studying the problems involved, although I am happy to say that injury to members of the public in this country by wild animals is infrequent.

    Vehicle Speeds (Radar Monitoring)
    Mr. Blakerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in the development
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    for use by the police of a method of monitoring the speeds of vehicles by radar which provides a visual record.
    Mr. Sharples: Proposals by interested firms for the development of a new vehicle speed meter are under consideration.
    Mr. Blaker: Is my hon. Friend aware that I was told in February that the Home Office was working on a development of a device for this purpose? Is that the same device to which he has just referred, and can he tell the House when he expects to have practical results?
    Mr. Sharples: There are a number of different suggestions in this field. I cannot say at this stage when we expect to have the results. The technical problems are very real.

    Obscenity
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Secretary of Stale for the Home Department whether he will order an inquiry into the operation of the present laws relating to obscenity.
    Mr. Maudling: No, Sir.
    Mr. Goodhart: Is my right non. Friend aware that many people who have hitherto considered themselves to be broad-minded and tolerant are appalled by the obscene performances now appearing in some theatres and cinemas and, as the present system of law has quite plainly broken down, does he contemplate any change in the legislation?
    Mr. Maudling: The Question on the Order Paper asked whether I would order an inquiry. I think that there have been enough inquiries. The facts are pretty generally known. The law is fairly clear in these matters. I have no proposals to amend the law. I have not yet seen any improvement which would be effective and useful, but it my hon. Friend has any suggestion he cares to put forward I shall be glad to consider it.
    Mr. Arthur Davidson: Is the Home Secretary aware that his brief answer was correct? Will he refuse to be pressured, even by someone for whom I have such respect as I have for the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart, into launching into any campaign which would ultimately lead to censorship of artistic effort?
    Mr. Maudling: These are difficult matters. I shall be glad to consider any concrete proposals that may be put forward by hon. Members.

    United States Forces (Deserters)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will grant political asylum to United States forces deserters in Great Britain who have concientious objection to the war in Vietnam; and if he will make a statement about his decision in the case of Robert Cranshaw.
    Mr. Maudling: A deserter from the Armed Forces of a N.A.T.O. country is subject to the provisions of the Visiting Forces Act, 1952 and, with the authority of a court of law where necessary, may be handed over to his national authorities. The Act makes no provision for exemption from this procedure. It has not fallen to me to take any decision about Mr. Cranshaw.
    Mr. Allaun: Is not this a departure from the British tradition of granting such asylum, which is provided to refugees from other countries? Will not the Home Secretary follow the example of Canada, which has announced that its Visiting Forces Act will apply only to Service men based in that country? These men have come from other countries, and not from Britain.
    Mr. Maudling: The law is quite clear. It was passed in 1952, based on an agreement made in the summer of 1951. I must follow the law.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: Will the Home Secretary answer the precise question? Does the law as drawn apply to men who have deserted elsewhere than in this country?
    Mr. Maudling: Yes, Sir. It does.
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many United States forces deserters in Great Britain have been arrested and handed over to the United States defence authorities since the beginning of the Vietnam war in 1965.
    Mr. Maudling: This information is available from police records only from January, 1968, since when there have been 10 cases.
    Mr. Allaun: Will the Home Secretary categorically deny that a round-up by American authorities in this country has recently begun?
    Mr. Maudling: I am not aware of that, but the United States Service police in the United Kingdom may, under the Act to which I have referred, arrest their own deserters.

    Private Zoos
    Miss Lestorasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will set up an inquiry into the regulations governing the establishing of private zoos.
    Mr. Carlisle: My right hon. Friend is considering representations which have been made to him on this matter, but he is not at present in a position to make a statement.
    Miss Lestor: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply. May I draw his attention to the fact that there has been a mushrooming of small private zoos in the last few years; and that from the representations that I have received, and from my own observations, it appears that they leave a great deal to be desired in terms of security and of the standard of care for the animals in them? There is also danger to the public because of inadequate security measures in respect of many of the more dangerous animals.
    Mr. Carlisle: As to the care of the animals, the hon. Lady probably knows that under the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, it is already an offence to cause any unnecessary suffering to any captive animal. As to her other comments, my right hon. Friend is, as I say, at present considering representations he has received.

    Cinematograph Act, 1962
    Sir R. Thompsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the unsatisfactory position arising from increasing abuse under Section 5 of the Cinematograph Act, 1952; and whether he will introduce amending legislation.
    Mr. Carlisle: My right hon. Friend is aware of the recent devlopments to which my hon. Friend refers, and he is considering the problems that they raise.
    Sir R. Thompson: Is my hon. Friend aware that in my constituency a cinema is perfectly legally under the existing law screening shows and making publicity of a character utterly revolting and obnoxious to thousands of my constituents—
    Mr. William Hamilton: How do you know?
    Sir R. Thompson: Is my hon. Friend further aware that when Parliament framed this legislation it did not intend this kind of use to be made of Section 5? Will he expedite his arrangements for getting us out of this tangle?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am aware that a club has recently been opened in my hon. Friend's division of Croydon, South. On the general principle, it is a question of striking a balance between the necessary interests of minority groups, which were intended to be covered by Section 5, and, on the other hand, the protection of the public from the type of influence to which my hon. Friend refers.
    Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Will the hon. Gentleman concern himself more with the enforcement of fire regulations in club cinemas, because it is that type of flame which is much more his concern than the type of flame which is in the mind of the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir R. Thompson)?
    Mr. Carlisle: I do not think that arises out of the Question, but I understand from my hon. Friend that that is covered by the Fire Precautions Bill which is due to have its Second Reading next week.

    Borstal Institutions
    Mr. Waddingtonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average length of time now spent in Borstal institutions by offenders sentenced to Borstal training; and what was the length of time spent by such offenders in such institutions in 1967, 1968 and 1969, respectively.
    Mr. Carlisle: About 10 months in England and Wales; corresponding figures for 1967, 1968 and 1969 were 12·3 months, 12·4 months and 10·7 months, respectively.
    Mr. Waddington: Are not many young offenders being kept in borstal institutions for only six or seven months?
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    Because of shortage of accommodation, are not young persons being kept in borstal, very often, for so short a time that it is impossible for the authorities to give them any adequate training in a skill, which is one of the main purposes of borstal training?
    Mr. Carlisle: In the closed borstals in the North, the period of training has been less than that in other parts of the country and was for a time based on a course of only 28 weeks. I can assure my hon. Friend that that matter is being considered and that the trainees in those borstals spend a good deal longer under training than 28 weeks.
    Mr. W. T. Williams: What is now the percentage of recidivism in borstals?
    Mr. Carlisle: If the hon. Gentleman means the proportion of those who are convicted within three years of leaving borstal, I regret to tell him that I believe that the figure has risen to 70 per cent. from 50 per cent. when borstals first started.

    Police Force
    Mr. Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his estimate of the present shortage of policemen in England and Wales; and what plans he has for improving police recruitment.
    Mr. Maudling: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to Questions on 29th October by the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson), Dearne Valley (Mr. Edwin Wainwright) and Sunderland, South (Mr. Bagier).—[Vol. 805, c. 163–4.]
    Mr. Fowler: In view of the seriousness of the police recruiting situation, will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that he has no intention of repeating the policy of the last Government and artificially restricting police recruiting?
    Mr. Maudling: I have every intention of strengthening the police forces.
    Mr. John Fraser: How will the Government's attitude on public service pay affect police pay and police recruitment in future, if police pay does not come up to the level for which the police are asking?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that there is a later Question about police pay.
    Mr. Callaghan: As obviously the question of pay affects the shortage of policemen, and as the Federation has apparently claimed a substantial increase, will the Home Secretary tell the House what instructions he has given to his representative on the Police Council as to the Government's attitude towards police pay?
    Mr. Maudling: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman, above all people, would know that when the Police Council reaches an agreement it submits it to me for my decision. It would be impossible for me in advance to announce what my decision is likely to be.
    Mr. Callaghan: I am not asking to be told what the decision is. I am asking if any instructions—and, if so, what—have been given to the Home Secretary's representative on the Police Council, who is one of the representatives on the official side who decides what offers should be made.
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly not disclose any instructions given in the course of a negotiation. What I will disclose is the undertaking given in our manifesto to strengthen our police forces.

    Racially Discriminated Employment
    Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will propose legislation to amend Section 6 of the Race Relations Act so as to make it illegal to advertise racially discriminated employment not only in respect of positions in this country but also in respect of overseas employment.
    Mr. Sharples: Section 6 of the Race Relations Act, 1968 already makes it unlawful to indicate an intention to discriminate on grounds of colour, race or ethnic or national origin in an advertisement which appears in this country and offers employment either here or overseas.
    Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Are not most of the jobs in South Africa which are advertised in this country racially discriminatory? If what the hon. Gentleman says is true, is it not true that the law is not being enforced; and will he enforce it?
    Mr. Sharples: It is for the Race Relations Board to take action if it considers that the law is broken in any particular case.

    Children (Employment)
    Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will institute an inquiry into the employment of children with a view to ascertaining to what extent the law is being broken and whether legislation is required to strengthen the existing legislation and to provide more effective means of enforcement.
    Mr. Carlisle: I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to his Question on 29th October.—[Vol. 805, c. 185–6.]
    Mr. Jenkins: Will the hon. Gentleman look at this matter again? Will he refer to the inspectors of the Greater London Council, who will tell him that more and more infringements of this law are occurring and that it is not worth while to take proceedings because purely derisory fines of 10s. or so are imposed?
    Mr. Carlisle: As I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier, a research project is taking place into this matter, the object of which is to find the facts.

  NATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
  Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister when he will next take the chair at the National Economic Development Council.
  Mr. Sheldonasked the Prime Minister how many times he has taken the chair at the National Economic Develop-Council.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I took the chair at meetings of the Council on 20th July and 19th October. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is Chairman of the Council, but I intend to take the chair myself from time to time.
  Mr. Marten: Now that the Government have taken action to reduce the rate of Government expenditure, which was one of the main causes of inflation, is it not up to employers and employees to do their best and try to reduce

  1255
  the ridiculous rate of wage claims, which is such a big factor in price increases?
  The Prime Minister: Yes. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer dealt with this point in his speech yesterday.
  Mr. Sheldon: Is the Prime Minister aware that a Treasury Written Answer to a Question yesterday showed that for each£100 of investment in plant and machinery the incentive used to be worth£52 under the grant system and that this has now been reduced to only£36 as a result of the new scheme for allowances? What does the Prime Minister intend to do about this serious loss of incentive?
  The Prime Minister: I saw the Answer to the hon. Gentleman's Question. He did not take into account the changes which have been made in respect of buildings as well as of plant and machinery. As for the development areas, he did not take into account in his Question—nor was it taken into account in the Answer—the money to be spent on infrastructure for the benefit of industry in development areas as a whole.
  Mr. Alfred Morris: When the Prime Minister goes to the N.E.D.C., will he explain to the trade union members why they should now take any notice of all his election talk about trade union legislation when he himself has falsified all his election talk about rising prices?
  The Prime Minister: The policy about trade unions was clearly set out long ago in the pamphlet which we published and it was then dealt with again in our election manifesto. It has been set out in the document for consultation with the trade unions and it will be embodied after consultation in the Bill.
  Mr. Duffy: If the next meeting of the N.E.D.C. reflects the same level of anxiety about confidence in industry as was demonstrated at the October meeting, will the Prime Minister consider an early, if limited, reflation?
  The Prime Minister: The discussion at the October meeting was a very well-informed discussion about the problems of investment in the longer term, which emphasised not only the need for new
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  investment but also the need for the better use of existing investment. There was general agreement that these are the two aspects to which not only the Government but also industry must address itself.

  INTERMEDIATE AREAS
  Mr. Arthur Davidsonasked the Prime Minister whether he will pay an official visit to the intermediate areas.
  Mr. Marquandasked the Prime Minister what plans he has to visit the intermediate areas.
  The Prime Minister: I have no plans at present to make official visits to these areas.
  Mr. Davidson: I am not entirely surprised at the Prime Minister's Answer. Has he seen the report in the Guardian today to the effect that the Confederation of British Industry, at yesterday's meeting of the N.E.D.C., expressed great concern at the effects that the Government's measures would have on the regions? Would he study that report carefully?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, of course I will study the report. What I think that the Government should do is study very carefully the discussion in the N.E.D.C., because this is the purpose of the discussions that we carry on with both sides of industry.
  Mr. Marquand: To attract new industry into the intermediate areas, is it not necessary not only to have financial inducements, to which the Prime Minister referred earlier, but also to have the stick of an effective I.D.C. policy in the prosperous areas of the country? Is the Prime Minister aware that there is a good deal of anxiety in the Erewash Valley intermediate area because in all the plethora of statements we have had from Ministers in the last ten days there has been no mention of I.D.C. policy in the rest of the country? Will he assure the House that the I.D.C. policies applied under the previous Government will continue to be operated by his Administration?
  The Prime Minister: I have always emphasised that the two aspects of policy

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  for regional development must go together, and the I.D.C. policy is an essential element in it. I have emphasised also that there must be a degree of flexibility in using this policy, so that we do not create a situation in which firms which cannot move away to expand just do not expand, because that does no one any good.
  Mr. Waddington: Although I do not feel that the existing incentives in the intermediate areas have proved very potent, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he recognises that there is some doubt now as to the precise nature of all the incentives which will in future be available to intermediate areas? Will he ask his right hon. Friend to make a statement about this matter as soon as possible?
  The Prime Minister: If it is required for the convenience of the House, I shall consider that. I understand my hon. Friend to suggest also that there should be a reissuing of information to firms in these areas regarding what inducements are available. If that is required, we shall be willing to consider it as well.
  Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Will the Prime Minister take it that in the Yorkshire coal-mining area there is tremendous dissatisfaction at the lack of decision by his Government regarding intermediate areas, and will he as soon as possible give some hope to that area to make certain that investors and industrialists can provide the employment which ought to be there, and which would be going there except for the change of Government?
  The Prime Minister: There has been no lack of decision. Obviously, we had to review the question of what was available for the intermediate areas as well as the development areas, and the conclusions were made available to the House at the first opportunity when we returned after the recess.

  MINISTRY OF OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  Mr. Goodhartasked the Prime Minister what plans he has for continuing the work at present undertaken by the Ministry of Overseas Development.
  The Prime Minister: This work will be continued by the Overseas Development Administration as part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under the day-to-day charge of the Minister for Overseas Development.
  Mr. Goodhart: I welcome the Government's pledges on the volume of overseas aid, but will my right hon. Friend keep in mind that much of the money will be wasted if the programme is not well administered? Will he give an assurance that the experts and the expertise which hitherto has been concentrated in the Ministry of Overseas Development will not now be dispersed among a number of Government Departments?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; it is the intention to hold together what my hon. Friend has described as the experience and expertise existing in the previous Department.
  Mr. Oram: Will the Prime Minister ensure that the major criterion for disbursement of aid will continue to be the development needs of the developing countries and not political considerations now that aid comes under the Foreign Office?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir; the criteria will remain the same. But the hon. Gentleman must know, as all right hon. and hon. Members should know, that there are bound to be some political considerations—there always have been—involved in the use of development aid. The criteria will remain the same.

  DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY (CONCILIATION SERVICES)
  Mrs. Castleasked the Prime Minister to whom he intends to transfer responsibility for the conciliation services of the Department of Employment and Productivity under his machinery of Government proposals.
  The Prime Minister: I am not contemplating any transfer.
  Mrs. Castle: I quite accept that there is not much left to transfer, but does the right hon. Gentleman remember that, when the Ministry of Labour became the Department of Employment and Productivity, he himself demanded that what

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  he called the Ministry of Labour's statutory duty to conciliate should not be subordinated to considerations of incomes policy? Is he now satisfied with his right hon. Friend's refusal to conciliate in the local government manual workers' strike, and, if so, how does he justify that refusal?
  The Prime Minister: Because both in law, under the Conciliation Act, 1896, and in practice, the Secretary of State's powers to conciliate are discretionary.
  Mr. Bob Brown: Will the Prime Minister accept that, if the new definition of conciliation as applied in the municipal employees' strike continues to be generally applied, it will be almost like abolishing the conciliation machinery of the Department altogether?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir: I do not accept that.
  Mr. Michael Foot: As the discretion of the Minister in this matter has led to his decision, or his failure to conciliate, in the municipal workers' strike, is there any possibility of discretion being used to stop the disaster of a spreading national coal strike?
  The Prime Minister: As it is a discretionary matter for the Secretary of State, he will decide each issue as he thinks best at the time.

  MR. GROMYKO (EXCHANGE OF VIEWS)
  Mr. Healeyasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his official talks with Mr. Gromyko in London.
  The Prime Minister: Mr. Gromyko and I had a full exchange of views on major issues, and in particular about European questions.
  Mr. Healey: Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether Mr. Gromyko agreed that mutual and balanced force reductions should be a subject for discussion in the framework of a possible European security conference, and whether he now agrees to the calling of such a conference? Second, may we be told whether the Prime Minister discussed with Mr. Gromyko the large-scale deployment of Soviet missiles in the standstill zone in
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  violation of the cease-fire agreement over Suez, and was anything said by Mr. Gromyko in this respect responsible for the surprising failure of the Foreign Secretary to refer to that violation in his recent major speech on Middle East matters?
  The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman knows that it is not customary in confidential discussions of this kind to reveal details of talks. As to the last part of his question, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has constantly alluded to that point in his speeches.
  Mr. Maclennan: Could the Prime Minister say whether he took the opportunity to discuss with Mr. Gromyko the importance of movement on the question of Berlin if the treaty between the West German Government and the Soviet Union is to be ratified, and our interest in seeing that this matter is expedited?
  The Prime Minister: When I made special reference to European questions in my Answer, I was referring to the question of relations between the Federal Republic and the Eastern Socialist States, Berlin, and the question of the preparation of a European security conference.
  Mr. Blaker: Did Her Majesty's Ministers in their conversations with Mr. Gromyko point out that our balance of trade with the Soviet Union is unfavourable to this country and has in recent years been growing worse, and did they urge him to encourage his own Government to buy more from us?
  The Prime Minister: That matter has been raised frequently, not only by this Administration but by the last.
  Mr. Fernyhough: As the Foreign Secretary used the Soviet threat in the Indian Ocean to justify his desire to sell arms to South Africa, did Mr. Gromyko either allay or make more meaningful the fears which Her Majesty's Government have about the Soviet threat in that area?
  The Prime Minister: I found that Mr. Gromyko was well informed about the progress which the Soviet Union has made in the countries of the Indian Ocean.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: Would my right hon. Friend say whether the discussions in respect of Europe included any reference to Soviet intentions in respect of Czechoslovakia?
  The Prime Minister: That subject was not specifically dealt with.

  CENTRAL POLICY REVIEW STAFF
  Mr. Gregor Mackenzieasked the Prime Minister how many people are employed in the central capability unit of the Cabinet Office; and what is the cost to public funds.
  The Prime Minister: The staffing of the Central Policy Review Staff is now the subject of consultation with Lord Rothschild. Costs cannot yet be estimated; but the staff will not be large.
  Mr. Mackenzie: Does the Prime Minister intend to fix a ceiling on the number of people employed and on the amount of money to be spent on the unit? Second, to what extent will this unit be responsible for the evaluation of budgetary and, particularly, defence decisions?
  The Prime Minister: The staff will be small in any case. I do not think that there is an actual ceiling on the amount, but it will be a small staff and the expenditure, therefore, will be limited. Budgetary matters will continue to be dealt with in the Treasury.
  Mr. Jennings: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there are many other capability units in this House, namely, backbench Members of Parliament? In the new pattern of Government, the new concentration of power, will he make sure that the rights, powers and privileges of back-bench Members are constantly safeguarded?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Crosland: According to the White Paper, the first task of the new unit is to produce a definition of strategic objectives. Are we to assume from that that the Conservative Party came to power without a definition of its objectives? If, as it appears, that is the case, is it not somewhat eccentric to entrust the task of defining objectives not to a group of Ministers responsible to Parliament but to a small group of officials headed by a Labour Peer?
  Mr. Jennings: Hear, hear.
  The Prime Minister: I do not see why the right hon. Gentleman should be particularly prejudiced about that. As for
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  the work of the unit, of course political objectives are laid down by the Cabinet and the organisation itself will be setting its own objectives within that framework. I should have thought that that was a sensible way to go about it.
  Mr. Raphael Tuck: Will the right hon. Gentleman be careful not to go towards the American system of presidential government in which his team of advisers are not responsible to Parliament?
  The Prime Minister: Ministers are responsible to Parliament. I believe that it is responsible to provide the best analysis which can be obtained within the machinery of government. This unit is within the Cabinet secretariat and therefore at the disposal of the Cabinet as a whole and individual members of the Cabinet. This is, therefore, in no way a movement towards the presidential system. In fact, it is exactly the reverse. It is giving the collective body of the Cabinet better analysis than has been available in the past.
  Mr. Healey: Would the Prime Minister assure the House that he will refer the problems of Concorde and South African arms to the central capability unit before taking a final decision in either of these matters and will explore fully the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action on both issues?
  The Prime Minister: The particular projects to be dealt with by the unit will be settled by the Government and the Cabinet secretariat.
  Sir F. Bennett: Will my right hon. Friend remind us to which House of Parliament Lord Balogh and Mr. Kaldor were responsible when they formed part of the incapability unit of the late Government?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Harold Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will state the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): Yes, Sir.
The business for next week will be as follows:—
MONDAY, 9TH NOVEMBER—Motions on the Southern Rhodesia Act (Continuation) Order and on the Southern Rhodesia (Matrimonial Jurisdiction) Order.

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At Seven o'clock the Chairman of Ways and Means has named Opposed Private Business for consideration.
TUESDAY, 10TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Family Income Supplements Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 11TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Education (Scotland) Bill.
Motions on the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations.
THURSDAY, 12TH NOVEMBER—Motion to take note of the Green Paper on Select Committees of the House of Commons (Command No. 4507).
FRIDAY, 13TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Income and Corporation Taxes Bill.
MONDAY, 16TH NOVEMBER—Supply [5th Allotted Day]: Debate on a Motion to take note of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts in Session 1969–70, and the related Treasury Minute.
Motion on the Motor Cars (Driving Instructions) (Amendment) Regulations.
Mr. Harold Wilson: May I express my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for meeting our view that there should be a whole day for the debate on Tuesday of the Family Income Supplements Bill, even though that may have meant some re-arrangement of business which may have caused him some inconvenience?
Mr. Orme: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is impossible to hear what is being said.
Mr. Speaker: I think that the microphones and loudspeakers are not working.
Mr. Wilson: In that case I will speak up.
Should there be any Government statement next week, would the right hon. Gentleman do his best to ensure that it is not made on a Friday morning, if that can be avoided? We all understand that sometimes situations develop overnight and make it necessary to have a statement on a Friday morning, but when such a statement is just a further working out of policies which must have been decided some weeks before, will the right hon. Gentleman try to meet the convenience of the House by trying to get it on another day? If they must be made on a Friday, will he take care to ensure that the Opposition and all other hon.
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Members are notified not an hour before—
Mr. Onslow: As you did.
Mr. Wilson:—but, if possible, a day before the statement is to be made?
Mr. Whitelaw: I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said about a day's debate on the Family Income Supplements Bill. I am glad that we have been able to meet that request.
I accept that statements on Fridays are not convenient for the House and I will do my very best in all circumstances to avoid them. Sometimes it is absolutely inevitable, but if they can be avoided they will be. As for giving notice, I have lived for six years knowing the disadvantages in which the Opposition are placed when told about statements on a Friday morning. No one knows that better than I do and I shall try to give longer notice in future.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that we have much business before us and that 70 hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. I hope that we may have a few business questions.
Mr. Jay: Will there be a Government statement next week explaining the Government's policy, as promised, for reducing the cost of living?
Mr. Whitelaw: If there are any statements to be made on that subject, no doubt they will be made; I do not know of any at the moment.
Mr. Swain: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position at the moment to give the House any understanding of when the Coal Industry Bill will be introduced? If not, will he discuss with his right hon. Friend the urgency of this Bill, so that we may be discussing it at the earliest possible moment.
Mr. Whitelaw: I myself promised that this Bill would be introduced very soon and I therefore have a personal commitment to it. I am most anxious that it should be, and I am doing everything I can to ensure that it is, introduced as urgently as possible.
Mr. Iremonger: Can my right hon. Friend say when we may debate my Motion to expel the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin)?

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[That this House is of the opinion that liberty and justice are nowhere so imperfectly maintained in the United Kingdom as to justify violent breaches of the peace for political motives, least of all by honourable Members of this House, who have sworn allegiance to the Crown on taking their seats; and that, therefore, although an honourable Member might be re-elected if expelled and if so would naturally thereafter be accepted by this House, this House should not tacitly condone violent breaches of the peace for political motives by any honourable Member and that, accordingly, the honourable Member for Mid-Ulster be expelled the House.]
Mr. Whitelaw: I have no suggestions in my mind for that sort of debate.
Mr. Wellbeloved: In view of the statement yesterday about London flood protection, will the right hon. Gentleman consider a debate on this most important subject?
Mr. Whitelaw: I could not give any hope of an opportunity for such a debate in the near future. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the House decided on Tuesday night that there should be more time than in the past for Private Members' Motions, and there would seem to be a good opportunity for a Motion on this subject.
Mr. Dempsey: As more building workers and joiners in Scotland are unemployed at this moment than for many years, and as rising unemployment has become a serious problem, is there any prospect of an early debate on the general unemployment situation in Scotland?
Mr. Whitelaw: I could not promise time for such a debate in the near future, but there are always opportunities for these matters to be debated and I will call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
Mr. Orme: What is the Government's intention with regard to the Industrial Relations Bill?
Mr. Whitelaw: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the consultative document has been published. In due course the Bill will be published. When it is published, it will have a Second Reading, and then it will go through the House.
Mr. Marks: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to the Motion, which stands in my name and in the names of 100 other hon. Members, asking the Government to increase the National Insurance retirement pension?
[That this House calls upon the Government to increase immediately the level of the National Insurance retirement pension.]
Will he arrange for a debate and will he remind his right hon. Friends that within six months of taking office the Labour Government raised the pension by 12s. 6d. for a single person and—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman may ask for a debate, but not argue merits.
Mr. Whitelaw: I have noticed the important Motion to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I will certainly call the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security to this question.
Mr. Roy Hughes: May I call the attention of the Leader of the House to my Motion No. 86 on social security benefits and hourly-paid members of local authorities?
[That this House, concerned at the loss of social security benefits, such as sickness and unemployment benefit, pension rights and redundancy payments, which are suffered by hourly paid workers who are members of local authorities, appreciates the valuable voluntary service that is performed by such individuals, and bearing in mind the need to make local government as representative of the community as possible, urges Her Majesty's Government to take early action to remove this anomaly.]
In view of the raw deal which these people are now getting, will he arrange an early debate on the matter in order that it may be properly ventilated?
Mr. Whitelaw: The fact that I do not respond to the hon. Member's views about the treatment accorded to these people is simply because it does not fall within my province to do so at business question time. I could not find time for a debate in the present situation.
Mr. Denis Howell: In view of the statement made outside this House yesterday by the Minister responsible for sport about the serious situation which has

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developed in sport, would the right hon. Gentleman kindly arrange for the Minister to make a statement inside the House?
Mr. Whitelaw: I did not notice that my hon. Friend said anything which had any serious implications for the future of sport.
Mr. Maclennan: In view of the continued absence of the Secretary of State for Scotland from the House, would the right hon. Gentleman arrange for him to make a statement?
An Hon. Member: On anything.
Mr. Whitelaw: Earlier this afternoon I noticed the Leader of the Opposition and one or two of his right hon. Friends muttering, "Oh, not another statement!" I think the hon. Member ought to discuss with his right hon. Friends the possibility of someone making a statement about nothing in particular. As for the Secretary of State for Scotland, he has been constantly in this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] He has had a considerable amount of Scottish business and if there are any hon. Members opposite who are suggesting that my right hon. Friend did not make a statement on housing at the same time as the other housing statement was made, I hope that they will remember the actions of their Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), who was studiously silent on many other such occasions in the past.
Mr. Arthur Davidson: Would the right hon. Gentleman help to put everyone in Lancashire out of their suspense by arranging for his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to make a statement about whether the Government are to build a new town in central Lancashire?
Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to what the hon. Member says, and if there is a statement to be made, no doubt it will be made.
Mr. Carter: Could I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to Early Day Motion No. 84:
[That this House, in view of the possible strategic vulnerability of part of Great Britain's fuel oil supplies, as evidenced by Her Majesty's Government's obsessive
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anxiety to maintain a military presence East of Suez and, at least by South African proxy, in the Indian Ocean, believes that it is essential to maintain a viable coal industry in Great Britain.]
As this is a sincere attempt to help the Government out of their difficulties, could he arrange for a debate on this subject?
Mr. Whitelaw: As I promised earlier, the Coal Bill will be introduced at an early stage. No doubt there will be an opportunity then to debate the Second Reading of the Bill as soon as reasonable after its introduction.
Mr. Sillars: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware of Early Day Motion No. 94:
[That this House deplores the fact that, despite the presence of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the statement of policy on Scottish housing subsidies was made on 3rd November by the Secretary of State for the Environment who has no ministerial responsibility on this matter in Scotland; and regards this as deliberately engineered to deny Labour Members of Parliament representing the majority party in Scotland the opportunity to question the Secretary of State for Scotland on policies which the right hon. Member for Moray and Nairn knows are unacceptable to the Scottish people.]
I take it from his previous answer that he is aware of this. Will he accept that we do not want the Secretary of State for Scotland to make a statement about nothing but we most certainly want him to make a statement about housing subsidies in Scotland? Does he appreciate that, as Scottish Labour Members of Parliament represent the vast majority of the Scottish electorate, they are entitled to question the Minister responsible for Scottish housing but have been denied the opportunity?
Mr. Whitelaw: All I would say to that is that on all statements about what are United Kingdom matters with which Scotland is concerned we shall follow exactly the same procedure as was laid down by the previous Government.
Mr. John D. Grant: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether there will be a statement on the Government attitude to the findings of the independent committee of inquiry into the local government manual workers dispute?
Mr. Whitelaw: I have nothing to say about that today. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment wishes to make a statement on this or any other subject next week, he will no doubt do so.
Mr. Ashton: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier about the Industrial Relations Bill, would he be prepared to take the Committee stage on the Floor of the House in view of the vast interest there is in the country and among Members in this subject?
Mr. Whitelaw: In accordance with precedent, the hon. Member should wait and see what happens.
Mr. Alec Jones: Would the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. and learned Friend the Chairman of the Conservative Party, who happens to be the Secretary of State for Wales, in a part-time capacity, to make a statement to this House on the effect of the Government's measures and cuts as far as they concern Wales?
Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly note what the right hon. Gentleman says and draw it to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend. But I certainly do not accept that he is Secretary of State for Wales in a part-time capacity.
Mr. Harold Wilson: Since the former Chairman of the Conservative Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] Since the former Chairman of the Conservative Party, now the Chancellor, thought that it was a full-time job to be chairman of the party, how can the present Secretary of State find time for Wales?
Mr. Whitelaw: Whatever my right hon. Friend the Chancellor may have said about his job, he certainly made a very considerable success of it—[interruption.]—as the right hon. Gentleman was perhaps one of the first to know. As for the Secretary of State for Wales, he is doing both jobs with great success. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: The right hon Gentleman must not drift into merits when discussing the question.
Mrs. Castle: Reverting to the point raised earlier about the local government manual workers' strike, will the right hon. Gentleman convey to his right hon. Friend not only that he should consider
1270
making a statement about this very serious and deteriorating situation, but also that we would expect him to do so at the beginning of next week?
Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly note what the right hon. Lady has said and I will call it to the attention of my right hon. Friend. Obviously, in advance of the publication of the report and whatever else may happen, I could not make a firm commitment on this subject. Perhaps I should also apologise for having been drawn further than I should have been on the last question.
Mr. Heffer: On a point of order. For many of us on this side of the House it is quite impossible to hear what is being said. Can we not have the microphones put in order so that we can hear what the Front Bench and others are saying to us?
Mr. Speaker: I gathered from the expressions on the faces of hon. Members that something had happened to the public address equipment. I have sent a message. I cannot intervene from the debate to see that it is done. Whatever needs to be done will be done effectively. We have a lot of work ahead of us.
Mr. Thorpe: Since the Leader of the House is the custodian of the rights of Front and back bench Members, and without going into any particular case, and making full allowance for the fact that some Ministers have not perhaps been in this House as long as they might wish, can he try to persuade all of his Ministerial colleagues to realise that when they are winding up a debate it really is expected by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House that there shall be some answer to the debate that has preceded it? As to next week's business, can he make it clear that if any Minister gets up and merely reads out a typewritten speech as an answer to a whole debate to which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides have made serious contributions, this will no longer be tolerated by the House?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am sorry that hon. Members have not been able to hear what I have been saying in the House. I will try to talk a little louder. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party makes an absolutely unexceptionable statement as to what is the

1271
normal practice in winding-up debates. I do not know why he should make general statements of that order. I would not accept the implication as far as any of my hon. and right hon. Friends are concerned, but I would certainly hope to ensure that Members of all parts of the House spend their time during debates being strictly relevant to the subject under discussion.
Mr. Maclennan: On a point of order. I distinctly heard the Leader of the House say that he would spend his time seeing that Members of Parliament kept in order. I would be grateful to have your advice if this is a new function of the Leader of the House.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker is glad to receive help from time to time from anyone. He is worried only when he receives hindrance from either an hon. or right hon. Member.
Mr. Russell Kerr: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate when the House will have an opportunity of debating the historic Report of the Select Committee which inquired into the affairs of the Bank of England?
Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot give any undertaking on that at present, but I realise the importance of the House having the opportunity to debate the important Select Committees' Report. I very much hope that when it debates them, Members on both sides of the House who were not on the Select Committees will take part in the debates and show the Committees that the House as a whole is interested in their reports.
Mr. English: Reverting to the question of the Leader of the Liberal Party, the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), would the right hon. Gentleman explain why one of his colleagues last night stated that he was addressing himself to industry when most of us thought that he was addressing himself to the House?
Mr. Speaker: We cannot have an inquest on what took place in a debate on another day.

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER'S SPEECH (OFFICIAL REPORT)
Mr. Speaker: I have received a statement from the Editor of HANSARD about the matter raised in the House yesterday, reported in C. 1111 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for today, which I undertook to look into. In his note to me, the Editor says:
"In his point of order, the hon. Member for Bolsover said that he had been up to HANSARD and while there heard representations being made by the Government side to the Deputy Editor of HANSARD with regard to this question".
That was the matter of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Editor goes on to say:
"In fact what he heard was a telephone conversation between the Deputy Editor and the Speaker's Secretary concerning a passage in the HANSARD report of something that happened in the House on another day. No approaches or representations were made to HANSARD by the Government side or by any of the Chancellor's officials.
When the hon. Member for Bolsover asked for permission to see the typescript report of the Chancellor's speech he was told that it was for the Editor to decide whether it could be shown to him but unfortunately the Editor was not immediately available. (The rule is that hon. Members may not see the typescript report of another Member's speech.)"
Mr. Skinner: I trust that it is clear from your statement, Mr. Speaker, that what I said yesterday was said in good faith, but I realise that it was based on a misapprehension. Therefore, I would wish to withdraw any statement I made yesterday which could be taken as casting any imputations on the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his assistants.
Mr. Latham: On a point of order. I apologise for not having advised you, Mr. Speaker, of this point of order in advance and for not acquainting the Government Front Bench with my intention to raise it, but I hope that it is appreciated that it has emerged only very recently. I emphasise that my point of order is not intended to be related in any way to the statement just made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on the events which led to the statement.
I wish to draw attention to c. 1101 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of yesterday's debate in which the Chancellor of the

1273
Exchequer is reported as having made the following statement:
"The result of the new system of exemptions, remissions and refunds—I come to the sort of case raised by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot)—is that a typical family with two children, with an income of right up to£1,000 a year—the hon. Member mentioned£1,000 a year—will not have to pay any of the increased charges for school meals, prescription charges or health charges which I announced last week".
The report of the spech concludes with a further reference to this matter which reads:
"He"—
that is, my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale—
"wants to go back to Ebbw Vale and to tell his people that it is all terrible for everybody with an income of under£1,000 a year, but that is not true."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 1101.]
My point of order is this. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is present, does not agree that that was what he intended to say, that that report of his remarks is correct, or does not agree on reflection that that statement, taken literally, is true and concludes that, unwittingly or inadvertently, he may have misled the House, would it be possible for him either to amend and correct that statement in HANSARD, or would you permit him, Mr. Speaker, during and
1274
before the conclusion of the debate which is to follow, to make a statement to correct what he said or justify it to the House?
Mr. Speaker: With respect, that was not very much like a point of order.
First, now that the other part of the business is over, I take this opportunity of expressing on behalf of all of us our admiration for the work of the HANSARD reporters and of the jealousy with which they stick to their independent position, independent of both sides of the House. The Editor is an independent officer of the House responsible only to Mr. Speaker.
On the issue which the hon. Gentleman has raised, the hon. Gentleman simply disagrees with part of the statement which the Chancellor of the Exchequer made yesterday. I am trying hard to get to the debate in which Members may make such points as the hon. Member sought to make as a point of order. It is not a point of order.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[The Prime Minister.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [4TH ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

  PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND TAXATION
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [4th November]:
  That this House approves Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer's Statement of 27th October on Public Expenditure and Taxation and the White Papers, New Policies for Public Spending (Command Paper No. 4515) and Investment Incentives (Command Paper No. 4516).—[Mr. Barber.]
  3.57 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I beg to move to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "condemns the policy of Her Majesty's Government, as outlined by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer on 27th October, as being mean and unfair between different sections of the community, particularly in the social services and housing; and notes that the resulting tax changes will mean big remissions for the richer taxpayer at the expense of those living on lower incomes, who will bear the brunt of the social service cuts and charges and the main burden of the Government's policy of raising prices."
  The debate so far has concentrated on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement last week, and inevitably many of the speeches have been directed to the basic Conservative philosophy of, in the words of the Amendment, the "mean and unfair" cuts directed towards enabling the Government to improving the living standard in cash terms of, roughly speaking, families with an income of£3,000 a year or more.
  I am glad to see the Prime Minister here today. There were suggestions that he did not have the stamina to listen to his Chancellor of the Exchequer right through to the long, bitter end. I sympathise with him. If he has read HANSARD—
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I thought the right hon. Gentleman knew that I was engaged in talks with the Prime Minister of Israel which were arranged some weeks ago. I thought
  1276
  it was only right that I should continue those talks.
  Mr. Wilson: No, Sir. I did not receive that message from the right hon. Gentleman. But if he did meet the Prime Minister of Israel—and I am delighted to hear that he was meeting her yesterday afternoon—he will have found her a better man than any of the nonentities on his own Front Bench.
  But if, not having been able to be present yesterday, he has read HANSARD, as I am sure he has, he will have formed a resolve never again to leave a matter of great moment to the hands of his right hon. Friend. Indeed, many of my right hon. and hon. Friends felt that yesterday's speech by the Chancellor was the most incompetent performance by a senior Member that they had heard for 25 years. I am bound to say that he did not hold the record very long.
  But there is one further point for the right hon. Gentleman. When, in very different circumstances from these, the previous Government had to make serious reductions in Government expenditure for the purpose of strengthening Britain's balance of payments, not to make tax changes, and when the expenditure programme which had to be outlined covered the whole range of Government activities, from defence to the social services, I did not duck the job of presenting it to the House and leave it to a colleague. In 1966 and 1968 I was prepared to tell the House and the country everything that was involved, because these decisions are the decisions not of the Treasury or its Minister but of the Government as a whole. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman, with the reports coming to him through the Whips, will now harden his determination that never again will he leave the task of seeking to make mare plausible fundamentally indefensible policies to the troupe of Caligulan consuls of whom we have heard last week.
  But there is another reason why he should have taken the responsibility, if he could not be here yesterday, to speak in the debate today. After all, he spoke this morning to the Institute of Directors He found time for that. I must remind him that he is accountable to this House as well. One reason why the Prime Minister should be speaking in this debate

  1277
  is that it is fundamentally about the confidence trick which he perpetrated last June. He will recall how after the Selsdon Park conference I warned—[Interruption.] Yes. We did not hear about that last June—I warned what Tory policies would mean for the social services, rents, council house rents and the tenants who suffered under the old Tory Rent Act, and for the health services, and education. The right hon. Gentleman last spring was never wanting in instant pronouncements proclaiming that that was the last thing they intended.
  It is true also that during the Election campaign the hardline Selsdon theme was muted. No one could have been more ingratiating than the right hon. Gentleman. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I shall quote some of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks in a moment. Hon. Gentlemen opposite perhaps missed them at the time because they were too busy.
  No one has been at greater pains than the Chancellor to say that what he has been announcing is only a beginning, but his statement is a total denial, a betrayal, of every promise the Conservatives made in the election. I could refer, for example, to family allowances, on which the right hon. Gentleman was utterly specific in his commitment. In a letter to the Child Poverty Action Group, published on 5th June, he stated:
  "We accept that, as Mr. Macleod said in his Budget speech, the only way of tackling family poverty in the short term is to increase family allowances."
  It was reported that same day that:
  "The Group,"—
  that is, the Child Poverty Action Group—
  "which was worried that the Conservatives might introduce means tests for family allowances is now satisfied that the Conservatives have given a categorical pledge to the poor'".
  Nothing, even in the speech of the Chancellor yesterday, was more pathetic than his wriggles and evasions in explaining why, under the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman who made that promise, the Government have lost no time in reneging on that promise. It may have been that he thought that he had successfully led the Child Poverty Action Group up the electoral garden path. It seems that the Group did accept what he
  1278
  said, but it is wiser now, as its comments on this limited sop—means tested at that—to the most poverty-stricken members of our society have shown. But it served the right hon. Gentleman's purpose in June.
  But what I think the right hon. Gentleman would most wish us to forget is the whole series of his increasingly shrill pledges about prices as the election went on. What could have been more pathetic than his denial on Tuesday that:
  "I have never used the words 'at a stroke'."?—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd November, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 847.]
  There is one thing that could have been more pathetic, and that was his evasive attempt to justify what he had said, in a letter to me delivered that same night, of which, of course, the Press got a copy—and I do not complain about that. What the right hon. Gentleman is now trying to say is that he did not in that sentence say:
  "at one stroke to reduce prices."
  He wants to create the impression that he never said anything about reducing prices, but that he spoke about reducing the rises in prices. Does he still maintain that fiction that he did not say anything about reducing prices?
  Hon. Members: Answer.
  Mr. Wilson: No. I will help the right hon. Gentleman. I would not have thought it necessary in the House once again to recall that utterly misleading pledge which he issued two days before the election about prices. Or did he issue it? The letter the right hon. Gentleman sent to me seemed to dissociate himself from responsibility by referring to what he called
  "the statement issued by Conservative Central Office."
  It was in fact issued by the right hon. Gentleman at the end of his Press Conference. I have it here. It is headed
  "The Rt. Hon. Edward Heath, M.B.E., Leader of the Conservative Party.
  A statement on the Conservative approach to rising prices. Tuesday, 16th June, 1970."
  In any case, lest this was to be the right hon. Gentleman's intended escape hatch, I would remind him of the words he used in the debate on the Gracious Speech when challenged by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr.

  1279
  Roy Jenkins), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said:
  "This statement was put out with my full authority after discussion with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that morning."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th July, 1970; Vol. 803, c. 518.]
  That is all right; he accepts that. In that case, perhaps he will have another look at the terms of the letter he sent me. Did he say
  "at one stroke"
  a phrase which he denied to the certain knowledge of 400 Members of Parliament on Tuesday? Did he use the phrase
  "reduce prices"?
  An Hon. Member: Get on.
  Mr. Wilson: Hon. Members had better listen to what the right hon. Gentleman promised. It is necessary, because of the denials, to pin the right hon. Gentleman firmly down to what he said, words which he intended should persuade the electorate into voting Conservative, and which clearly had no little effect in doing so.
  After setting out his own fanciful version, on his own responsibility, of what a continuance of Labour's economic policy would mean, he went on in his statement of 16th June:
  "But there is a very real alternative which ought to be pursued immediately. That alternative is to break into the price/wage spiral by acting directly to reduce prices. This can be done by reducing those taxes which bear directly on prices and costs, such as the selective employment tax,"—
  He said that this was to be done immediately, but we have heard nothing about it being done immediately—
  "and by taking a firm grip on public sector prices and charges such as coal, steel, gas, electricity, transport charges and postal charges.
  "This would, at a stroke, reduce the rise in prices…"
  I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman will now deny that those were the words he used. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hurry up."] I am sorry. The P.P.S. to the Chancellor is anxious to hear this, I should not like him to be disappointed. It will take a minute or two longer than I intended.
  There was a period in the earlier weeks of this Government when there was an attempt to suggest that it was not the right hon. Gentleman but a humble official of the Conservative Central Office
  1280
  who was responsible for the statement. I think that the right hon. Gentleman's acceptance of responsibility in the House and again this afternoon must dispose of that attempt. In any case, if he really wanted to repudiate the Central Office official, he would have sacked him—like the unwise gentleman who, at the beginning of the campaign, told Hampstead Young Conservatives that there was no reference to a value-added tax in the Tory manifesto because, to quote his words,
  "… it might lose us votes."
  He said that when he was asked why there was no commitment in the manifesto to a value-added tax, and went on to say that they would listen to the Treasury when they got in. That was the point.
  However, the right hon. Gentleman did not sack him. I gather that, having been promoted, he is happily at work in the Cabinet Office—[Interruption.] If the Prime Minister does not know, he must have slipped in when he was not looking—perhaps the Secretary of State for Wales wanted to get rid of him.
  There we have it.
  "An alternative to be pursued immediately … to break into the price-wage spiral, to act directly to reduce prices."
  If the right hon. Gentleman had spoken in this debate he would no doubt have gloried in telling the House how he has, at a stroke, taken action directly to reduce the rise in prices, or perhaps he would have told us how he has pursued immediately this alternative to act directly to reduce prices. I am sure that he would have gloried in telling the House how it has been done, because some of us are ignorant about the process that he has followed. We have not seen evidence of it yet.
  The governing adverb in this statement was "immediately". The right hon. Gentleman said that he "immediately" intended to reduce taxes which bear directly on prices. He specified the selective employment tax. I have not heard from the Chancellor that this was to be reduced immediately. It is not among the collection of financial Bills which we have been told will be before us next week. All that I have had from the Chancellor, after repeated pressure, is a refusal to give an assurance that the Government will not increase indirect taxation.

  1281
  As for the selective employment tax, I am pleased that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are at one in denying the Prime Minister's statement last February that S.E.T. will be not reduced but abolished in the first Budget. The right hon. Gentleman said that last February.
  I have given the facts and the quotation to the House. I do not want to weary the House by giving it again. If the right hon. Gentleman does not agree, I will gladly give it again—[Interruption.] I gave the evidence to the House. It is for the right hon. Gentleman to choose his own moment, either in this debate or on some other occasion, to say whether he accepts that quotation as being accurate. I have quoted from the official transcript, and I heard him say it on a certain television programme. I will not weary the House by giving it again, unless he wants me to. If he continues to deny that he said it, he must make it clear and I will see that the House has it. I have it here if the House wants it. He said it. I have given the evidence to the House. He has had four months to rebut what I then said to the House. He has not done so, and we know why.
  An Hon. Member: He is a twister.
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: Twisty Teddy.
  Mr. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman also offered a new policy, which sounded plausible, for intervening in the process of price inflation. The passage which I have just quoted was his pledge to take a firm grip on public sector prices and charges such as coal, steel, gas, electricity, transport charges and postal charges. He had hinted at this policy earlier in the election, and I pointed out in reply to him that to hold down public sector prices and charges so that the profit rate and, therefore, the payment to the Treasury of interest on borrowed capital by the industries concerned would fall below the targets set by the Treasury and embodied in the Treasury's financial plans and the Budget.
  If the right hon. Gentleman did what he said on 16th June, it would mean a subsidy by the Treasury—that means the taxpayer—pound for pound to the extent that public industry profits and repayments to the Treasury fell short of those targets. The Chancellor of the
  1282
  Exchequer will not deny that that is what he has found. We warned the right hon. Gentleman that this was the result of his policy. He denied it at the time. Now perhaps he will tell us whether he has learned the facts. He was not long in office before the Treasury taught him the facts of life, though he would not accept them from me during the election. If he had done, perhaps he would not have given that misleading pledge to the electorate and we would have been denied the pleasure of seeing some hon. Gentlemen opposite in this House at all, let alone on those benches.
  It is now clear why he rejected, in one of his instant opposition exercises, my proposal before the election that his policy should be costed by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In the election, he knew that he could only win by misleading the British people.
  It is not an assertion for which I will deny the necessary evidence to the House. But it is worth while pausing for a moment, however painful to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, to consider the prices and charges of those commodities on which he was to take a firm grip. First, we have coal prices, which the Government now agree should rise by 16 cent., slanted against the domestic consumer. Then comes steel, where they have given a big increase and apparently there is more to come, for a reason which I shall examine in a moment. Gas and electricity, which had kept prices steady for three years under the Labour Government, are now to be permitted, or I should say encouraged, to raise their prices. Then we have transport charges. How I remember the right hon. Gentleman at one of his Press conferences saying that a year or two more of Labour Government would involve not only a 3s. loaf but a 1s. minimum fare. But a 2s. loak—towards his 3s.—was promised us in the Tory Press yesterday to be coming before Christmas. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will give us a guarantee that it will not rise further on its way to 3s. Price control of bread has gone now under this Government. But what about the 1s. minimum fare? That was inflicted in urban transport on London Underground travellers in August of this year, when the right hon. Gentleman had been in office just a month—[interruption.] I wish that the travellers could see the

  1283
  laughter on the faces of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. We did not agree with this decision. It was a decision made by the Tories on the G.L.C. and opposed by the Labour opposition on the G.L.C., and the right hon. Gentleman and his Government could not move fast enough in their rush to fall over themselves to endorse it in August.
  The right hon. Gentleman should know that we announced that we did not accept the arguments in favour of it, or the figures which were related to decimalisation in their first formulation. He will know, because it is on the record, that we had announced that it must go to the National Board for Prices and Incomes for impartial assessment, and I have little doubt that any impartial investigation would have reported that these charges at this time were not justified. No wonder right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are in such a hurry to wind up the National Board for Prices and Incomes.
  On postal charges, again we did not accept the Post Office Board's proposals and stated in this House, as the record shows, that we saw no justification for them. We said that they must be referred to the National Board for Prices and Incomes. The Post Office raised them without any Government authority. It jumped the gun—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and we said—[Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite had better listen—
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett: Would the right hon. Gentleman do this House the courtesy of remembering that not all hon. Members are hon. Gentlemen?
  Mr. Speaker: As a feminist, I think the hon. Lady has a point.
  Mr. Wilson: I apologise to the hon. Lady. I should make it plain that I am really paying her a compliment because my reference to "hon. Gentlemen" was to those hon. Gentlemen—whom I can see plainly are hon. Gentlemen—who were barracking. I naturally assumed that the hon. Ladies in this House were too much ladies, or gentlemen, as the case may be, to be barracking.
  It just happens that every "public sector price and charge" which was quoted by the right hon. Gentleman in his statement
  1284
  of 16th June has either gone up or is due to go up. If I have missed any of them, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will remind me.
  The 16th June statement which he seems so anxious to forget, even to deny, was not his only statement. I should have to make a speech as long as the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday, and longer than the House would be prepared to put up with, if I listed all his other pledges on prices. But there is just one I will mention. I was deeply moved by his appeal to the housewives of Leicester. I happened to see it on television at the time. I am sure he will be eternally grateful to me that in the Labour Party political broadcast last night we devoted a considerable part of our allotted time to ensuring that his imperishable words should not be too quickly forgotten. He told the housewives of Leicester what the housewives had been telling him. He said:
  "Is it any wonder that housewives keep telling me, as they have done again and again in the last few months, that they are having to cut down on the family's weekly joint, getting cheaper meat, smaller cuts? That they are having to buy standard eggs from the supermarket, instead of large ones? To make the children's shoes last just a little longer?"
  I wonder if he will not state categorically the result of his action "at a stroke" The cheaper meat and smaller cuts on which the Leicester housewives were counting are now giving place to larger and higher quality cuts of meat at the same price. On the question of eggs with which he was so concerned I have read estimates that egg prices, seasonal variations apart, and comparing like with like, will be on average 2s. 6d. a dozen higher next year than they are this year. Does he deny this, or confirm it, or does not he bother himself any more with such details? I should not like to think that the housewives of Leicester who were counting so much on it will have to subsist on pullets' eggs from now on.
  We all know that care and compassion have always been the right hon. Gentleman's stock-in-trade. We remember the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in a Conservative political broadcast saying "I care and Ted cares, too". One thing which he cared about in June was children's shoes. I should like to know today what action he has taken to ensure that they "last a little longer".

  1285
  It will be difficult for him, in the light of the total abdication of the Government from any issue where private enterprise can take the decisions or make higher profits. Obviously he cannot ensure better quality for children's shoes, but the House will always be ready to give him a generous hearing on that subject.
  A housewife in my constituency told me only this week that the price of "Jumping Jacks"—that is a brand of shoes, not fireworks—has not been reduced. I have no doubt that this question is already before the multidiscipinary Central Capability Unit. If the right hon. Gentleman's experience is different from that of my constituent and others who have spoken to me, no doubt he will tell me. My constituent unfortunately had to take back to the retailer a pair of these shoes. It was not that they were not lasting longer, they did not fit. The shop assistant said, "We were waiting for you, madam. That particular pair of shoes bore the wrong price tag. They have now gone up. You were charged 29s. 11d. and they are now 32s. 6d., but we had not had a chance to change the label". Nobody expected the result of 18th June. The labels were not printed at that time.
  Apparently, there was nothing he cared about more in Leicester than the price of school meals. The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "the dinner money at school takes more out of her purse"
  —that is, the housewife—but apparently not enough for the right hon. Gentleman. He will not deny that the increase in school meals in two stages announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take out of her purse about 5s. per week per child.
  The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues made no secret of their tactics in the election. They were to go all out for the women's vote—even to try to persuade them to vote differently from their husbands. The right hon. Gentleman became a temporary supporter of "women's lib" during the election, and even Lysistrata was not more eloquent than he was. He reminded them of the secret ballot. I think the House will agree that he had some success in arousing a separatist housewives' vote. His present policy of dividing the nation began in his election plan of dividing the family. But
  1286
  he now shows a remarkable impartiality between husband and wife, as he should. As he attacks the housewife by the prices part of his policy he has made it clear that any attempt by the husband through his trade union to stand on his own feet—that is the "in" phrase—and to fight for higher wages will be most rigorously resisted.
  I do not think that anyone will dispute the resolve of the right hon. Gentleman to make nonsense of his pledge that a Conservative Government would not have an incomes policy. Of course they have an income policy—not incomes but wages, particularly the wages of the lower paid.
  On the very day that he made his pledge on family allowances, the right hon. Gentleman attacked the Labour Government for not giving 30 per cent. to the doctors—and he ratted on that one as well. He has now declared war on wages in the public sector. It is true that his policy has not been very consistent. [Laughter.] This is why the streets and rivers are polluted—because of the right hon. Gentleman's policies. It is nothing to laugh about.
  In early August Ministers were proclaiming that, while they would not intervene in private enterprise wage settlements, they would jump heavily on public sector increases. Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it clear that there was no discrimination in the Government's policy and, in one of the few lucid passages of his speech, proceeded to explain how that discrimination would be applied. In August we were told that a pattern of wage increases exceeding 10 per cent. must at all costs be reduced to single figures. In October, last week, we were told that 14 per cent. was the criterion. Should there be a settlement of the public employees' dispute on the lines reported to have been recommended by Sir Jack Scamp, there will be a rush on the part of Ministers to prove that 10, 14, 18 and 19 per cent. are all the same thing and that Ministers have had a glorious victory.
  The right hon. Gentleman's incomes policy defies rational economic analysis. I do not know whether the multidisciplinary Central Capability Unit includes a psychologist. It really needs an expert, probably in morbid psychology, to understand the Government's behaviour over wages and industrial negotiations.

  1287
  In July we had a totally unnecessary dock strike and state of national emergency. There could have been the same settlement without a strike, but the strike happened because of the stiff-necked attitude of the Prime Minister, for it prevented him from intervening to break a procedural deadlock which it was his duty to break. [Interruption.] The result in cash would have been the same, but without the damage of a strike. Hon. Gentlemen opposite hoped—this was said at the time—that their stubbornness in resisting the dockers would deter other unions from putting in claims I wonder if they still think that?
  The most sustained message emanating from the Government on these wages questions has suggested that the higher wisdom of the Government's incomes policy is to choose one wage claim this autumn, preferably one where the unions concerned are weak—and it would help if their members were chronically underpaid—for a showdown.
  In their total ignorance of industrial conditions and union problems, they believed that if they could hold out to the bitter end in this selected strike, and inflict humiliating defeat on this selected union, that would deter stronger unions from pressing their claims and all would be well. It would be masters and men in harmony—the old Tory philosophy. But there had to be a showdown. They were hoping it would be the miners or the railwaymen, but the timetable slipped and it had to be the public employees.
  We have had the showdown—bravery and courage—not on the beaches this time but in the sewers and garbage heaps. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cheap."] But this is fantasy. If they had won such a battle, against the public service employees, do they really believe that other unions with a strong claim would converge on Downing Street with white flags of surrender?
  When the Government chose this particular strike on which to have a fight—and we have drawn attention to some of the more unsavoury methods with which it has been fought—they only succeeded in placing public sympathy behind the men and women whose service is indispensible to the very life and
  1288
  health of the country. The Government are coming to realise that.
  Where Government conciliation officers were withheld, Sir Jack Scamp was called in. I was wondering whether it is part of the Prime Minister's policy to examine what things now done by Government should be performed by private enterprise. Certainly Sir Jack Scamp has shown that he can do it better than the Prime Minister. The reason, of course, is that Sir Jack Scamp wanted to achieve a settlement—[Interruption.]
  Knowing his reputation, I am sure that the Prime Minister will take this, what can only be a total humiliation, like a gentleman. I am sure that there will be no more threats to the local authorities about what will happen if they pay more than the figures that have been set. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give an assurance that the rate support grant negotiations will not be used as a means of punishing those undisciplined, mainly Tory, local authorities which made it clear in advance that they would accept Sir Jack Scamp's findings. I take it that he is ready to make it clear that there will be no recriminations for local authorities if they pay a higher figure than that set.
  Here we have a Government who are determined to divide society inviting all the consequences of that division. They can threaten their American-inspired industrial legislation, but any improvement in industrial relations in this country must depend on all concerned thinking that what is being done—this applies not only to industrial relations but to a very wide sphere—is just and fair. I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman has thought what would happen if the industrial workers decided to acquiesce in his legislation—I do not think that they will—and simply worked to rule? That could do more damage than all the strikes imaginable.
  The Leader of the Opposition has an obsession—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—I meant to say the Prime Minister is obsessed. In making this mistake I am in harmony with his right hon. Friends, many of whom seem to believe that I am still the Prime Minister. [Interruption.]
  The Prime Minister is obsessed—this applies to all his colleagues on the Government Front Bench—with the idea of

  1289
  one down, everybody down—one union down, all union resistance will end. Strange that a Government who owe so much to industrial political contributions should be equally occupied with this decimation theory for private enterprise, and not just trade unions.
  The Government have this obsession with bankruptcies. Week by week we read that what is required is a squeeze so tight that it results in the spectacular bankruptcy of a very large firm. Last week one Conservative newspaper was speculating which large firm would go—would it be British Leyland, Cammell Laird or Rolls-Royce? Apparently the theory is that one major firm must go into bankruptcy pour encourager les autres. [Interruption.] One of my hon. Friends tells me that the Prime Minister is nodding in assent. Let me make it clear what I am saying so that he knows with what he is agreeing.
  The Prime Minister: I wish to make it plain that I was not nodding in agreement with the allegation the right hon. Gentleman was making about firms going into bankruptcy. I was thinking that after five and a half years of his administration many great firms in this country find themselves in difficulty.
  Mr. Wilson: Whereas we were able to intervene to save firms which had a great future, the present Government would not have intervened—and now there will be no money available for them to intervene in future. All the time we are hearing in speeches from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite—still more do we read about this as a result of the stuff they feed out to the Press—that there must be bankruptcies.
  This seems an extraordinary doctrine for a Government who believe in private enterprise. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that I was saying that he and his hon. Friends believe that one spectacular bankruptcy will terrorise other firms into more efficiency and more efficient business methods.
  This is not an economic policy. This is economic totemism. It is a tribal assertion of the need for individual sacrifices to appease the gods, in this case the gods of greed and privilege and economic success, regardless of the methods and motives of those whose philosophy is not service to the State, not concern for
  1290
  the community, but the private profit of those who seek their reward by exploiting society.
  That is the essence of their policy, but I was even more worried—I had to apologise to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry last night for not being able to return in time to hear all of his speech. But the philosophy which he enunciated last night comprised extraordinary strictures about the lame ducks of British industry—[Interruption.]—not fear but the hope of profit would lead them to increased efficiency and increased profit. Now we are told that it is bankruptcies that will drive them into efficiency.
  The Secretary of State might have been better advised in his homilies on competition to tell us about things which he really knows; for example, how competition works in the oil industry—[Interruption.]
  Mr. John Gorst: On a point of order. I wonder, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you would kindly give guidance to new hon. Members. Is it in order for right hon. Gentlemen to read both their jokes and their speeches?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Wilson: It would be helpful if the Secretary of State would explain how competition works in the oil industry to keep prices down, because some of us in the House are ill-informed on how competition operates in that industry. How with such spontaneity one firm takes the lead in raising prices and others follow 24 hours later. And now the right hon. Gentleman has taken over responsibility—and I congratulate him—for monopolies and mergers, I suggest he might refer to the Mergers Panel the take-over of the British Government by Royal Dutch Shell.
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman is fond of using the oil industry as an example of the failure of competition. Could he give the House one example of any commodity which has risen in price in real terms, less taxation, more than the price of a gallon of petrol?
  Mr. Wilson: I must confess that the point had not struck me the way the hon. Gentleman puts it. To be fair to the oil industry, I would think that some others

  1291
  in competition and in monopolistic industries have risen more than the price of oil. The hon. Gentleman said "more". Did he mean "less"?
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: On a point of order. I did make a mistake. I meant less. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The tight hon. Gentleman knows the point I am making and it is a serious one.
  Mr. Wilson: I do not want to tell the hon. Gentleman. He has made the point.
  Hon. Members: Answer.
  Mr. Wilson: All I can say on the matter is that studies I have seen have shown that a number have risen less in public industry—[HON. MEMBERS: "Which ones?"] It depends on the period of years one takes. I would include gas and electricity over a considerable period, and in terms of productivity and price also the coal industry. But if the hon. Gentleman, who knows the industry so well, does not know the difference between "more" and "less", we now understand that the price went up when it was intended to go down.
  I should like to put to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry one or two points for the occasion on which he next addresses the House—and may I say that we all look forward to hearing him. He made comments about the lame ducks of industry. Perhaps he might name them.
  Last Friday morning he announced arrangements for the ending of I.R.C. I think that it was the right hon. Gentleman's personal decision to wind up that Corporation, and I very much regret it. He should have thought twice about it. He should not have taken the heady atmosphere of the Tory Party Conference too much to heart, for they are always nice to new Ministers. Nor should he be driven into a major decision of policy as a result of being inebriated with the exuberance of his own velocity.
  It is not only I.R.C. that has played a major rôle in restructuring and modernising industry, as I hope he would acknowledge. There will come a moment when he will wish it was there, put out his hands to find it and find that he has slit its throat. If in dealing with the difficult problem of financial relations between
  1292
  Government and industry, which is a difficult problem in every Government—and the Prime Minister has set up a new Department of State with literally nothing else to do, the Ministry of Aircraft Supply—there is a great deal to be said for an instrument, provided, it is carefully chosen, interposed between Government on the one hand and industry on the other, to take the decisions in individual cases.
  I know some right hon. Gentlemen—this was the old theme song of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—regarded I.R.C. as nationalisation by the back door. That is what he used to say. If that is what he still thinks, and I am sure he does not, then he or the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry should tell the House whether they think that industrialists and financiers of the calibre of Sir Joseph Lockwood, Lord Stokes, Mr. Charles Villiers, Lord Kearton, Mr. Michael Clapham, Vice-Chairman of I.C.I. and Sir Maurice Bridgeman, until recently one of the towering figures of the British oil industry, would really lend themselves to a policy of clandestine nationalisation? Or, for that matter, would inject capital into firms where it meant wasting public money.
  I will tell the right hon. Gentleman, and also the Prime Minister, where his policies will lead. Is he prepared to face up to the bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce or British Leyland or will he not find that he himself, not I.R.C. because it will have gone, will have to find the money? Perhaps he has already made up his mind that come what may, whoever may be involved, the Government will harden its heart. [Interruption.] I ask the right hon. Gentleman not for whom the bell tolls—it tolls for him. The question of the bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce and British Leyland is not a laughing matter and the Prime Minister knows it.
  The Prime Minister: I am not laughing at that.
  Mr. Wilson: Whatever he may have said to the Institute of Directors this morning, I am telling the Prime Minister that, if this were to happen, the Government would either have to find the money themselves directly instead of finding it through the I.R.C. Or, if not, the first result of their decision not to do so would be the takeover of a firm that is vitally

  1293
  necessary to Britain in peace or in a national emergency, vitally necessary to keep British—a takeover by predatory American interests, who would be only too glad to have it. That is where the right hon. Gentleman's policies are leading.
  There is something else which, in default of a speech by the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry might have explained last night. He might have explained the Prime Minister's thinking, or indeed his own thinking, on the subject of prices. In the private sector the first decision was to stop reference to the National Board for Prices and Incomes and ultimately to abolish it. They stopped the early warning system and so their first action was to have no control on private enterprise price increases, whether justified or not. They would rely on competition. That is what we were told from the Front Bench in July. But by September it was not merely a rejection of any form of price control. It was a policy of actively encouraging any price increases.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer will not deny the accuracy of Press reports suggesting it was his policy at a time when company liquidity is low—and it may become lower as a result of his recent Measures—that industrial liquidity should be improved by the simple method of raising prices and taking it from the consumer. I am now quoting the words attributed to him. I think it was the day that the Chancellor flew to the Commonwealth Finance Minister's Conference that what purported to be his thinking—I do not think he will deny that it was his thinking—was headlined in a number of national newspapers. The headline in The Guardian was
  "Tories to let prices go free".
  In the Daily Telegraph:
  "Price rises to rebuild working capital in order … Companies may raise prices with tacit Government blessing".
  In The Times:
  "The shortage of company liquidity is acknowledged; and it is argued that the solution lies in raising prices where this is necessary for maintaining profits, investments and working capital."
  That was the message that went out from the Treasury at that time:
  "The solution lies in raising prices".
  But it is not what the right hon. Gentleman said in Leicester. It is not what
  1294
  he said two days before the election or at any time. It is now not only a question of permitting prices to rise, but a question of encouraging them.
  There has been a similar development of new thinking on public sector prices. The Prime Minister promised action to hold them down, and yet he will not tell us whether when he made the promise he knew that this would be impossible. Did he know that he would not be able to do so but that prices would go on rising and in many cases rise still faster? Did he or did he not know that when he gave the pledge to the country in June? If he did know it—and he told us in the House that he did not—then it is impossible to acquit him of grossly and totally misleading the country.
  If, on the other hand, he says that he did not know, that he thought he would be able to do it, that it was all so easy, it had all been worked out at Selsdon Park, and he comes in and finds that he cannot do it, he cannot be acquitted of total incompetence. The right hon. Gentleman can make his choice. He must tell us what the real position is. Perhaps he will one day when he summons up courage to address the House.
  But there has been a spate of speculation, which I do not believe entirely originated in the fertile minds of financial journalists, that the right hon. Gentleman wants public sector prices to rise more than they have as well as private sector prices. This seems to be what we are reading—[Interruption.] Yes, this is the message which is coming through, and for this reason: that the Secretary of State and, no doubt, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have decided to appease their more hawkish supporters by bringing private capital into the ownership of our great nationalised industries. But, knowing as they do that private capital will not flow into these industries at their present level of profitability, this means a decision, for doctrinaire reasons, and no others, to raise public sector rates and charges presumably in all those sectors listed by the right hon. Gentleman—coal, gas, and the rest—in his speech at Leicester. So that we have in the public sector, as in the private sector, first, a willingness to tolerate the price increases which he

  1295
  said he would stop, and, in addition, an encouragement to the entrepreneurs in the private and public sector alike to raise their prices above the present level.
  I conclude with this observation. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will be very pleased. They do not like to be reminded of what the right hon. Gentleman has said. If I inflict on hon. Members opposite a certain vicarious squirming for the right hon. Gentleman, I apologise. But the Chancellor's package, as my right hon. Friend made clear yesterday, is an exercise in fiscal regression—I will not argue that again, because he gave the facts and figures—the more you have, the more you get. If you are at the very bottom of the scale, there will be a public relations exercise for your relief—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] We will be debating it next week—if you are willing to accept the indignities of the new means-tested State, which many of our people are not. But for most of our people, those below and those around the average industrial earnings and the corresponding levels of salaries, they will pay the price of the promised tax cut.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, when he was Prime Minister, once spoke in his bountiful way about donations when he had to answer a question about increases that were urgently necessary for old age pensioners. I am sorry that I criticised him for that, because he was ahead of his time compared with the doctrine of the Government of which he is now a member. The right hon. Gentleman spoke six years too early, and all to enable a Government infatuated with their own ideology to make tax cuts which, because of the basis on which these cuts have been financed, will help no families save those who live in conditions much more tolerable than the mass of those to whom the right hon. Gentleman was appealing in his meretricious pronouncements last June.
  So their course is set clearly. Fiscally, it is a policy to divide the nation between those who already have and those who vainly, after the right hon. Gentleman's election promises, hoped that they might have. It is a division, too, between regions. It is essentially a divisive philosophy.
  1296
  The right hon. Gentleman, who invoked Disraeli in his euphoric postelection pronouncements, is now set on a course to create two nations within Britain: two nations in social terms; two nations in regional terms. He must know that the problems of this nation can be solved only by the creation of a single community where the problems of each individual are the concern of all. When he says that the freedom of any individual must be the responsibility of that individual—that is what he says—he must recognise that concern and care for that individual must be the responsibility of the community and of the Government.
  But Her Majesty's present Government are not only turning their backs on the creation of a fair and just society in which it is possible to make this appeal; they are actively encouraging the doctrine of greed and self-interest in every speech that they make which will make such an appeal impossible.
  The philosophy of this Government is not even, to use a familiar American expression, one of shared greed; it is a doctrine of unfairly selectively shared greed.
  An Hon. Member: Why is the right hon. Gentleman writing his memoirs?
  Mr. Wilson: I am writing a short history—[Interruption.]—to give the real facts of those six years in place of the twisted misrepresentations by right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I hope that when they read the real facts, instead of those that have been given through Tory Central Office, right hon. Gentlemen will be ashamed of what they said. This is where we on these benches assert the doctrine of shared concern, of commonly shared burdens, to assert the responsibility of all of us for the problems of every member of our community. It is on that issue that we shall be dividing tonight.
  4.57 p.m.
  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Maurice Macmillan): This is only the second time that I have had the pleasure of addressing the House immediately after the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. The first was the occasion of my maiden speech in a debate opened by a Tory Chancellor

  1297
  of the Exchequer with whom I was not, if I remember rightly, in quite such close accord as I am with my right hon. Friend. I appreciate the reference made to me in my right hon. Friend's speech. In turn, I should like to pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friends the Financial Secretary and the Minister of State both in recent weeks and, indeed, while we were in Opposition. On that occasion I apologised to the right hon. Gentleman for not following his argument more closely. I am almost inclined to do so today, for the House has learned that what he leaves out is as important as what he puts in; that what his famed memory recalls so aptly for the occasion is no more relevant than what, with equal aptness, it rejects.
  The right hon. Gentleman remembers, for example, almost everything that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said; but he has apparently forgotten a great deal of what he himself did while he was occupying that position. The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten the total failure of his statutory wage and price freeze with the resulting escalation of inflation as a result of that measure. He has forgotten the failure of his voluntary incomes policy. He has taunted my right hon. Friend with the possibilities of American take-overs, but has forgotten that it was under his Government that Rootes became controlled by Chrysler.
  All the same, it is, I think, difficult—I see his point—for the right hon. Gentleman to keep to the subject in this debate and to attack closely the Government's actions, with the possible exception of the rather spurious attack on family income supplement with which my right hon. Friend will deal later, should he catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  It is difficult for the right hon. Gentleman to attack the Government's actions on public expenditure, which in some ways are similar to his own, so he has confined his attack to our reasons instead. He says that our motives—that is the motives which he chooses to impute to us—are evil. That is his view. He has created a strange mythical monster, the Selsdon man, who I thought would intrude into the debate today, but he did not quite do so. The right hon. Gentleman created him as evidence for his allegations, just as the Piltdown man was created as evidence for a theory. But the
  1298
  Piltdown man was a fraud. The British public have so judged the right hon. Gentleman's creation—that is all it is, a fraud—and they have so judged his view of the Tory Party. They have shown that they do not accept it, and his hustings speech is a little late in the day.
  The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that he will be believed if he goes on saying the same thing over and over again. Three times recently he has said his piece—in a speech at Camden Town on Sunday, 14th October, in a broadcast on Sunday, 1st November, and last night in a party political broadcast. Is the right hon. Gentleman trying to usurp the rôle of the Bellman?
  "Just the place for a snark
  I have said it twice
  That alone should encourage the crew
  Just the place for a snark
  I have said it thrice
  What I tell you three times is true".
  But it is not true, not even when the right hon. Gentleman tells the same story all over again to the House of Commons for a fourth time just to make sure.
  Most of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was devoted to the classic complaint of all bad losers, "we was robbed". forgetting, or choosing to forget, just how much of the events that he described immediately following the election were caused by the follies and incompetence of the Government which he headed. The right hon. Gentleman is doing the country and, indeed, his own party, no real good by trying to obscure the real issues in this way. If the changes that we are making, if the charges which the right hon. Gentleman has described, are really a savage attack on social justice, then so were the same sort of changes and charges made by his Administration.
  Let us look at the facts. We are making savings in education, so did the right hon. Gentleman when he headed the Government. We are going to raise the price of school meals in April, 1971, and in April, 1973. So did the right hon. Gentleman in April, 1968, and in April, 1970. But we are making free school meals available for more children than before.
  There are some things which right hon. Gentlemen opposite did in Government that we are not doing. We are not cutting the capitation grants to direct grant schools. We are not putting off raising the school-leaving age. We are not cutting

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  back on school building. On the contrary, we are increasing the school building programme and giving priority to extra new starts, as we said we would. We are replacing old primary schools and providing new primary school places.
  Mr. James Callaghan: My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) intervened in the debate last night to say that she understood that the total amount to be spent on schools and on education was the same next year, 1971–72, as it was last year,£186 million. Can the hon. Gentleman say in what way, if the figures are the same, the education programme has been increased? Is it not the case that resources have been switched from one area to another, and there has been no increase in the total amount that it is proposed to spend?
  Mr. Macmillan: The school building starts programme for 1972–73 already existed, although it was not announced. The Government have added an extra£21½million starts to it. That is the Great Britain figure. This addition will lead to a net increase of£28 million in expenditure on educational building. The total school building improvement starts programme for 1972–73 went up from£13 million to£44 million. These again are Great Britain figures. In addition to the£21½ million there has been some switch of priority within the educational building programme, and that is precisely and exactly the situation.
  There has been an increase in starts, as I said quite categorically, and I say it again, of£21½million, a net increase in starts of£21½million. This is leading to extra school building of£28 million. In addition, there has been some switch of priorities so that we have, extra to the buildings,—
  Mr. Callaghan: What are the reductions?
  Mr. Macmillan: The reduction is due to—
  Mr. Callaghan: I do not want to know what it is due to. What is it?
  Mr. Macmillan: It is a lowering of the amount planned for what is called basic needs, which is simply a figure put
  1300
  into account mathematically and demographically for the number of extra children born in any year. It fluctuates from year to year on a calculated basis according to the birth rate. It has nothing to do with choice, and is known as "roofs over heads". It is a factor which allows for the increase in population. Apart from that we have, as I have said, made extra starts of£21½million over and above all that, leading to an extra spending on education of£28 million over the period.
  Mr. Callaghan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his explanation, but I wonder whether he would clear up one point. Will he make it clear that there is no increase in the proposed total to be spent, but that there has been a switch, which means that there are some increases, and some decreases? The total is the same. Why did the hon. Gentleman go on trying to give a misleading impression?
  Mr. Macmillan: There will be an increase over that previously planned of£28 million spent over the period resulting, as I have said before, from£21 million extra starts in 1972–73. There is an increase in school building, and if the right hon. Gentleman finds his sums difficult to do perhaps he will put down a Question for Written Answer so that he can read at leisure the answer which he will receive from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science who can give him a long, detailed explanation which he will be able to study and understand.
  We are increasing school building and giving extra priority to new starts. We are not, as the previous Administration did, cutting back local health and welfare programmes by an average of£5 million a year for three years, which they did. We are making additional provision for health and welfare, including hospitals and the care of the old, of£110 million over four years,£20 million of it in the first year.
  Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot pretend that by their nature our savings are more damaging to the effectiveness of the Welfare State than were theirs. They cannot do so with arty degree of objectivity. They can pretend, but they can do no more than that. Nor is this true of the amount. In January, 1968, alone, leaving aside all the other

  1301
  cuts they made, the previous Administration reduced expenditure for the year following in education, health and welfare, by£68 million. The changes that we are making in these programmes amount next year to a net reduction of£70 million.
  There are some very important differences. First, our savings have not reduced the resources available for main line activities, nor do they cut capital programmes. Secondly, these are not panic cuts, made in response to a series of crises, but the first part of a considered policy—a policy designed to ensure that public spending increases, but at a level which is socially effective without becoming economically damaging; a policy to maintain a consistent level of social and other expenditure which is not crippling to the economy but which keeps the Welfare State developing while preventing it from becoming a spendthrift society.
  We are increasing the real resources, public and private together, which will be devoted to education, health and welfare. We are making increased public provision for primary schools and the health and welfare services. I make no apologies to the House for these increases; we shall continue them. But we can do so only by the most careful control of public sector expenditure as a whole. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition knows this quite well. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) himself made the need for control quite clear when he addressed his party's conference in 1968. On that occasion he said:
  "Since we came to power public expenditure has risen nearly four times as fast as the national income … but it is not a process which can go on without limit, at least it cannot go on without limit unless we seriously believe that people, ordinary people, our people our supporters are indifferent to how much tax they pay, and I do not believe that that is the fact."
  The right hon. Gentleman is correct. Just look at the record. In the financial years 1964–65 to 1965–66 public expenditure was rising by 6·7 per cent. while the gross domestic product was rising by 2·6 per cent. only. No wonder public expenditure cuts had to be announced in July, 1965. But they were not enough. Between 1965–66 and 1966–67 public expenditure was still rising by 6·6 per cent. I am leaving out of account investment
  1302
  grants and additional payments under the S.E.T. system. During the same period the gross domestic product was rising by 1·7 per cent., so there were again cuts in public expenditure in July, 1966—but still not enough. Between 1966–67 and 1967–68 the rise in public expenditure was 9 per cent.—leaving out of account investment grants, S.E.T. payments and regional employment premiums. If I were to include them the increase would be 11·7 per cent. Let us leave it at 9 per cent. The gross domestic product rose by 1·8 per cent., with the same results. No wonder the economy was under pressure.
  There followed devaluation and further massive cuts in programmes in July, 1968. The Leader of the Opposition was at least consistent in his blindness, if in little else. The emergency action that he was forced to take—and about which he is now boasting—in 1965 and 1966 proved ineffective, for the simple reason that he would not face the fact that public expenditure cannot, without disaster, be allowed to rise regardless of the state of the economy. Even the admittedly more effective action taken in January, 1968, did not prove enough to restore the situation fully, which is one reason why we are having to take action now. Every time the right hon. Gentleman was blown off course, just like the Bellman all over again:
  "But the principal failing
  Occurred in the sailing
  And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
  Said he had hoped at least
  When the wind blew due east,
  That the ship would not travel due west."
  I suppose that it is too much to hope that the right hon. Gentleman, in opposition, will not retreat even further into his world of fantasy in the accusations that he makes of Government policies and programmes. His right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) has a more realistic, if more cynical, point of view. Speaking on the air on 1st October, he said:
  "The ironical fact is, you know, that in the period"—
  of Labour Government—
  "we indefatigably went on increasing our public expenditure sector, despite the lack of growth, and therefore had to tax the worker in ways which probably lost us the Election."
  And some taxation it was!The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and the right hon. Member for

  1303
  Stechford between them—I think I am right in saying this—put up taxes by almost£3,000 million.
  That is the third big difference between our policies. We have set our hands to reducing taxation, and we have made a start, even if it is not a very big start. I am not saying that 6d. off income tax will have a measurable immediate effect in terms of extra work. Hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House recognise in their more objective moments that very high marginal rates of taxation are a disincentive. It is no good the right hon. Member for Stechford trying to blur the issue with comparisons of average rates, with or without social security contributions—which in other countries tend anyway to fall on the employer and so, through the price of goods, on the consumer.
  The right hon. Gentleman must have had the real problem at heart—the problem of marginal rates of tax—when he said, in his Budget statement in 1969:
  "I have carefully considered whether, even in a year as difficult as this, it would be justifiable for incentive reasons, and for the encouragement of savings, to mitigate slightly the rates of tax on high earned incomes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th April, 1969; Vol. 781, c. 1031.]
  He was not able to do it. I am sorry that he was not, for we would seek to reduce the marginal rate of tax whether on managerial salaries or shop floor overtime. This is because enterprising people at every level undoubtedly feel overtaxed. They feel that they are carrying too big a burden of escalating public expenditure, some of which, at least, is not spent as effectively as it should be. In the same way, industry and commerce feel, with a certain amount of justification, that public sector investment and wasteful public help for private lack of enterprise, is taking too much; with the result that the private sector takes the burden in falling profit margins and credit squeezes while the public sector remains relatively unchecked and sometimes inadequately controlled.
  Of course public expenditure must increase to develop necessary programmes, but there is a limit—as hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite found to their cost—to the burden that can be put upon productive enterprise. I believe
  1304
  that the things that the public sector must do, and do more effectively, are those things that need to be done and that, in the words, I think, of the late Lord Keynes,
  "it is not reasonable to expect individuals or groups of individuals to do for themselves."
  It depends on what we mean by "reasonable". No doubt if one took the economies of scale to the limit it would be more efficient and cheaper—and probably better for all concerned in terms of nutritive value for money—if we were to abolish the kitchen in all town houses and feed the people at British Restaurants. But very few, even among hon. Gentlemen opposite, would go quite so far as that in extolling the virtues of public enterprise. It is, as the right hon. Gentleman is fond of quoting, a question of priorities.
  There are really two questions—first, how much must be provided wholly or partly by the State and how much must be left to individuals or groups of individuals, and, second, of that which the State provides, in whole or in part, how much should be paid by the user and how much by the taxpayer. Some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen were at least asking these questions earlier on, but the Leader of the Opposition made no real attempt to answer them. He did accuse us of not facing the real choices, but, as I have shown, in that sorry record of mounting public expenditure, cut regardless to meet a need which he could not control, it is they who have failed to face the real choices and it is their Government, in their failure, who have sharpened the problem which faces the British people and the Government today.
  Perhaps I could digress for a moment and take up a point made by the right hon. Member for Stechford yesterday. I know that it is important that Ministers should seek to answer a debate, and it is also reasonably important that those who open the debate should address perhaps a little more than 10 per cent. of their speech to the subject of the debate. Perhaps a little about the policies rather than abuse of the people would also help towards a more constructive debate.
  What I should like to do is try to answer a serious point made by the right hon. Gentleman. He appeared to think that the sole or main purpose of the reductions in public expenditure was to

  1305
  allow the Chancellor to take sixpence off the Income Tax. Of course that is absurd. The purpose of the reduction in public expenditure was to keep it going in future at a rate which could be contained within the expansion of the economy. In the course of his argument, he expressed some doubts about the demand effect of the totality of the Government's Measures, basing this on the analyses by Mr. Wynne Godley in the Financial Times, which suggest that the package will increase total demand by about£150 million.
  The right hon. Gentleman doubted whether the change in the programme and in taxation would be broadly neutral in their effect on demand in 1971–72, as my right hon. Friend had told the House on 27th October. First, I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that higher charges have a considerable demand effect. The extensive reductions which we are making in direct purchase of resources by the reductions in expenditure and by the higher charges will have a big effect on demand.
  Some other measures, like the abolition of the I.R.C., will have a smaller demand effect. Of course, on the other side, on the taxation side, it is a question of calculation, to some extent of judgment, as to what would be the demand effect of the reductions in income tax and corporation tax, but in particular the cut in corporation tax will have nothing like a pound for pound effect on demand. Taking all this into account, it is entirely justified to conclude that the net effect of the package will be broadly neutral in 1971–72.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: Can the hon. Gentleman make it clear what he regards as the demand effect of the cut in income tax?
  Mr. Macmillan: I am not prepared to go into a detailed argument on this. It has never been disclosed before.
  Mr. John Mendelson: An incredible Treasury team.
  Mr. Macmillan: The method of calculating these things has never been disclosed by any Government. The right hon. Gentleman knows that there is no reason why my right hon. Friend should disclose this, any more than he himself
  1306
  did. But the method of calculation used by Mr. Wynne Godley was not precisely that used in the Treasury.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: Would the hon. Gentleman then tell us what is the difference between the methods used by Mr. Godley and the methods used by the Treasury?
  Mr. Macmillan: Certainly not. The right hon. Gentleman is either more dishonest or else more naive than he appears if he thinks that I will say things which he in this position would flatly refuse to say himself. But I do understand why this debate has been in parts stormy. I understand why right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, having lived so long in a world of illusion, find it difficult to face reality and accept policies appropriate to our real situation, which have to be brought in.
  But our purpose is clear to achieve a steady increase in real wealth over a period, so that everyone may, within a reasonable time, see their own prosperity increasing in real terms. We have made it clear that the Measures which my right hon. Friend announced last week represent the first necessary part of a new strategy. It is one which involves searching and continuing examination of every function of Government itself, of every activity which places a burden on the nation's resources and of the return which we get in financial and other terms from each. It means a rigorous examination of the priority which each activity should have in competing for a share of those resources.
  Several of my hon. Friends have referred to the large capital programmes of the nationalised industries. We are studying ways in which private capital will play a much larger rôle than in the past, because we believe that this will both improve decisions on investment and ensure that the best use is made of resources.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition seemed to think that this was the reason for some sinister forcing up of prices. He must have forgotten that, earlier in the debate, he had decided that it was necessary to force up prices to prevent a burden being put on the taxpayer. He must choose which prong of the fork he is going to prod us with.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not trying to misrepresent me; if he reads my speech in HANSARD tomorrow, he will see where he is wrong. In the earlier part of my speech, I said that his leader, the Prime Minister, had said that they were going to hold back prices in the public sector. I said that he had found when he got into office that he could not do it, because it would place an additional burden on the taxpayer. I did not say that it was a question of pushing up prices still higher to save taxes: that is a very different argument.
  Mr. Macmillan: The right hon. Gentleman made it clear that, in his view, success in holding prices would transfer the burden from the consumer to the taxpayer. He made it plain that there was no doubt about it. He then said that we were referring to keeping down prices and now says that we are putting them up on purpose. He must be clear whether it is failure of will or of intent that he is accusing us of.
  This strategy that the Government have adopted means that simply because something should be done it must not necessarily be done at the taxpayer's expense. That is why our policy towards industry and commerce, with the same objective of increasing the national wealth, is to reinforce success. It is the reverse of the sort of 1914–18 policy of the previous Government, to support failure at a considerable cost. The whole of this process of critical examination has been started in the Measures already announced.
  As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in the White Paper on the Reorganisation of Central Government, the necessary organisation to carry it forward as a continuing and rigorous discipline has already been done. As the further stages in this development of policy unfold, so also will the effects on our strategy, on increasing the nation's wealth, sharing its benefits and providing properly for those in misfortune.
  Above all, the aim of all our policies is to awaken the country to a new sense of responsibility for its own destiny. There has been too much reliance on the readiness of Government to intervene, to provide, to act as a substitute. There has been too much baling out of inefficiency, too little opportunity and scope
  1308
  for those who can plan and provide for themselves and save. It is too often taken for granted that whatever antics industry gets up to, on the high financial wire, the Government's safety net will always be there.
  As a result, there has grown up a warped judgment of the economic incentives which are so necesary to our prosperity and of the social services which are vital both for the relief of poverty and for investment in the health and education of the nation. They have both become, in the eyes of all to many, resented for their cost; despised for their protection of the feckless, the cynical and the relatively prosperous; cluttered with anachronisms and too thinly spread to make the most effective impact where the need is greatest.
  We are as dedicated as anyone to the presentation and strengthening of the social services as our increased provision for them clearly demonstrates. Where-ever there is poverty we shall seek to cure it; where there is unavoidable stress we shall try to ease it; where there is real need we shall seek to meet it; where there is social gain, in health and education, and in incentive to work and save, we shall invest in it. But we shall also consider that those who can be reasonably expected to work and strive and provide for themselves and their families for their business and for their country shall have more, both of the rewards and of the responsibilities of doing so.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. I am sure that the House will forgive me if I remind it that an enormous number of hon. Members are most anxious to speak in this debate. It will greatly facilitate their position if all hon. Members try to keep their speeches short.
  5.33 p.m.
  Mr. Greville Janner: It is a kindly custom of this House that a maiden speaker should pay tribute to his immediate predecessor as Member of Parliament for his constituency. I understand that this is the first time in the history of this side of the House that any maiden speaker has had the privilege of paying such a tribute to his own father. I do so with delight because, for over a quarter of a century, with my mother at his side, he served

  1309
  first the citizens of Whitechapel and St. George's and then those of Leicester, West and then of Leicester, North-West with tremendous enthusiasm, great energy and abundant good humour.
  I have been told by hon. Members on all sides that his elevation to the other place has given great pleasure. It certainly has in his constituency, where they were delighted that he took the style of Janner of the City of Leicester, thus combining the name which I am proud to bear with that of the constituency which he was honoured to serve and which I am now so pleased to represent. May I, as his son and successor, be permitted to wish him many happy and energetic years of service in his new and youthful career.
  Leicester achieved political fame even before the ill-fated election speech of the Prime Minister. Parliament was held there in 1414 and Cardinal Wolsey died in the ancient abbey not very long afterwards. I sometimes wonder whether he would have allowed himself to do so had he known that the abbey would one day become the most picturesque polling station in England, the ballot box of which would serve to send to Parliament an hereditary series of Socialist Members of Parliament. I learned very quickly that Leicester has earned its reputation as a prosperous city made prosperous by the hard work of its people. I also learned that there is a great deal of hardship, need and poverty and loneliness in that city, along with all others.
  It is precisely because these Chancellor's measures make worse the position of the under privileged that I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech upon them. It is clear that the old and the ill will suffer as a result of these measures. They cannot but suffer when food costs more, fares cost more and drugs are to cost more. They will not benefit from the 6d. off income tax which they do not pay, still less from the reduction of 22½per cent. in corporation tax. The older they are and the more ill they are, the more they will suffer and the less the Chancellor's measures will do for them. When the standard of living of the ordinary man is affected, he will go to his union and fight against a reduction in his standard of living and his union will fight this Government, and any other, that attempts
  1310
  to clip its wings and prevent it from doing its job.
  The old people have no union and the ill have no one to fight for them. They have no weapons with which to strike. What are they to do? Are they to say, "We will not buy food because it costs more, we will not take drugs because they cost more"? There will be those who do not buy drugs and do not eat the food and none of us will take pleasure in that. But they have no weapons and the Government are not afraid of them. Not one crumb of comfort has the Chancellor given to them. It is these people who need help and who ought to receive it.
  There is one part of these measures which does not appear to have been noted. For the first three days that a man is genuinely ill, he will not receive sick pay. Why not? The answer given by the Chancellor was that circumstances had made this anachronistic. Among the circumstances he referred to was the Redundancy Payments Act. Does he not know that this Act does not help old people, that when a man reaches 65 and is made redundant he gets no redundancy pay? Does he not know that a woman, an honourable Lady even, who reaches the age of 60 gets no redundancy pay? Is he unaware that the sick are not helped by this great Act?
  A man who is dismissed as redundant and gets a job the next day, losing not one penny, will get his redundancy pay and quite right, too, because then his period of continuous employment starts all over again. But a man who is ill, who suffers an accident, who has worked for the same company all his life gets nothing. He gets no compensation of any sort as a result of this Act yet it is to be made the excuse for removing sick pay from an ordinary person who is ill and cannot work.
  The philosophy of this was summed up a long time ago:
  "Unto everyone that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath."
  The answer which has been given is, "Well, we will help the needy." May I quote from a statement in the remarkable speech last night of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He said:

  1311
  "…our policy …is to make sure that those who really cannot fend for themselves get real help, tailored to their needs …the poorest among us were effectively helped by the Chancellor's measures."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 1214.]
  The poorest among us are the elderly and the ill, and they are not helped. What the Chancellor means is that if a person is poor enough and can satisfy some official that he is poor enough, and if he humbles himself and asks for it, he will receive supplementary benefit. This does not work.
  May I give an ordinary example? After a meeting there I was asked to go to the house of a constituent who had fallen ill, a young married man with two children. He was not able to get benefit and the inspector had come to his house and asked what his income was, what his capital was, what he could show for himself. He could show nothing. He had nothing but debts and a little home that he was building up. When he said that he had nothing, the inspector asked, "What's in that?" and pointed to the little boy's piggy bank on the mantelpiece. My constituent told the inspector to get out of the house: he was not interested when he had to say how many pennies there were in his little boy's bank. He called me in, and I told him to tell the inspector, who was to return the next morning, that such nonsense would not be allowed by this House, and that if the inspector wanted to know what was in the child's piggy bank the matter would be raised elsewhere. The inspector returned, and I am happy to say that the piggy bank was not examined and my constituent got his money.
  But this is a "piggy bank" budget. It pinches pennies from the pockets of the poor and puts them in the pockets of the prosperous. Supplementary benefits are not good enough. It is not good enough to say to someone: "You are poor. Prove the extent of your poverty and we will give help tailored to your needs." People will not go for such help. They are too proud to do so. They will be afraid of being refused, or of being treated as my constituent was treated. I hope that what I say will not be taken as an attack on all those operating the service. Most of them
  1312
  are humane and do an excellent job. But there are exceptions and it is they who make people like my needy constituent afraid to seek supplementary benefit. No one wants charity.
  The right way was that adopted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins). He said, "We will give more family allowances and then that money will be taken from the wealthy by taxation. No one has to crawl and ask for help." That is the right way. It is based on the concept of the nation as a family in which we do not allow the ill or the old to go in need. We do not ask them to say what they need. When we assist members of the family we do it as quietly as possible. I believe that to be the concept of Socialist policy and philosophy. We are now to have the days of charity back again; days when there is to be a means test, a poverty test: "Prove your poverty, brothers and sisters, and we will give you help, tailor made to your needs". It is not good enough.
  I know that it is very late in the day, when policy is made and the debate is halfway through, but I hope that it may not be too late to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reconsider whether he cannot provide some crumb of comfort for the elderly and the ailing, and give some hope that we are not to go back to the days of the Poor Law and of charity. If not, I respectfully suggest that, tonight being Guy Fawkes' Night, the right hon. Gentleman takes his entire budget to one of the bonfires which will soon be burning merrily near Westminster, so that the needy and the ailing in my constituency and elsewhere will not regret that Guy Fawkes did not do a better job.
  5.45 p.m.
  Mr. A. G. F. Hall-Davis: This is the first occasion on which I have had the pleasure of following an hon. Member who has just made his maiden speech. I have, therefore, particular pleasure in welcoming the contribution just made by the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner), and congratulating him most genuinely on his sincerity and natural eloquence. There has been a convention in the past that one attempted

  1313
  to be not over-controversial in one's maiden speech. I am not sure that it was a good convention. It imposed restraint on hon. Members which sometimes raised their blood pressure considerably, and as I well understand that in such a debate as this it is a difficult convention to observe, the hon. Member will perhaps not take it amiss if I, too, touch on one or two controversial topics. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay him is to take up some of his points.
  I have listened to the whole of the debate, and what has struck me most forcibly is that from the other side of the House there has been no challenge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's basic statement that the Government's action has brought about a fundamental change in taxation prospects. The main plan and theme of these changes is that there has been this fundamental change. With Government expenditure rising at a rate of 3·5 per cent. a year the prospects were of ever-increasing taxation unless a great improvement in the rate of growth had resulted in future years. At 2·8 per cent. we have opened up good prospects of not just this reduction in taxation but of continuing reductions in taxation in the years ahead.
  Listening to speeches from the opposite benches I was reminded of a man who was the proud owner of a one-string fiddle. He sat day after day with his finger always on the same place on the string, moving the bow backwards and forwards with a never-varying motion. One of his friends asked, "Why do you do this?" He replied, "Other people are looking for the perfect melody—I have found it."
  To listen to hon. Members opposite, one would think that they had found the perfect balance between public expenditure and private disposal of personal income; that they had found the perfect and ideal balance between direct taxation on the one hand and indirect taxation and the financing of public expenditure on social provisions by other means on the other. The record proves otherwise, and that is why changes are being made.
  I suggest that references to tax systems and levels in other countries, such as have been done by hon. Members opposite in attempts to prove that at certain levels of taxation we are not over-taxed, are
  1314
  not relevant to our needs. I do not feel that the response of individuals to different systems and levels of taxation is necessarily the same in different countries. Further, I believe that at different times in a country's experience the attitude of individuals to what is the right balance between direct and indirect taxation in that country will change.
  What has happened in recent years is that feeling in the country has crystallised on two central themes; that taxation is too heavy and that, in particular, direct taxation takes too much out of the wage packet when it is handed to the man who has earned his pay. This crystallisation of opinion is something which the Labour Party refused to recognise, because the mood that had grown up was contrary to that party's own pet theories, long adhered to. So the electorate dismissed the right hon. Gentlemen opposite from office.
  During the debate we have heard a good deal about compassion from hon. Members opposite. Indeed, the Amendment to the Motion refers to this quality, and I confess that I listened with some interest to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition in order to hear his views upon it, but I was not able to.
  My constituency contains many old-age pensioners. I know that most constituencies do, but mine contains many—much above the average number. In some parts, 40 per cent. of the population are old-age pensioners. What has happened in my constituency since 18th June? The over-80s, who did not qualify under the 1947 Act, have received pensions. This was not something that the Labour Party omitted to do. It was something that it refused to do time and time again, despite repeated opportunities presented by Conservative Members who were then in opposition.
  Many low wage earners in my constituency will benefit from the family income supplement. Hon. Members opposite have concentrated in this debate on the technicalities of the point. I well understand that, if hon. Members opposite think that a pledge has not been fulfilled in full, they are entitled to make the points that they have made, but I would have expected them to have at least recognised that the family incomes supplement is a milestone in social policy.

  1315
  It is direct action to help those whose need is greatest.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's description of this as a milestone, because the concept is at least two and a half centuries old. It was developed at Speenhamland and impoverished workers in the countryside for generations thereafter.
  Mr. Hall-Davis: This illustrates my point about the refusal of hon. Members opposite to take any action, however beneficial it might have been and however much it might have been sought by the people, that conflicted with their theories. I have no doubt that when some of the low wage earners in my constituency who are prevented by lack of manufacturing industry from enjoying the wage levels current in many other places, and who have been held back from prospects of immediate expansion in their area by the late Government's development area policies, receive no less than£3 a week as an addition to their income they will not be concerned with Speenhamland, nor with the theories of hon. Members opposite. They will say that at last one of the pockets of identifiable poverty has been dealt with, and dealt with rapidly, and that it was a pity that the Labour Party did not overcome its theoretical objections and do something about it.
  Miss Bernadette Devlin: To bring the matter down to the level of ordinary people, I will ask one simple question. The hon. Gentleman is talking about a rapid solution to the poverty-stricken low wage earner. Has he ever done as I have done and as my mother did before me—sat in a council house whose rent she could not afford and tried to work out how to fill in the forms on which the giving of that money depended? I have done it. As long as I stand in this House I will not do anything to impose such humiliation on any other member of my class. It is nothing other than poverty-stricken begging of the State—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. Interventions will be found to be more effective if they are kept brief.
  Mr. Hall-Davis: The hon. Lady has touched a note which I think is regrettably common, if over-emphasised, from hon. Members opposite. It is the implication that no one can sympathise with another human being and fellow citizen unless they have shared his experiences in every respect. I am not sure as to how far one is justified in personalising experiences. I have not shared the hon. Lady's experience, and I greatly sympathise with her in it. I was born in industrial Lancashire and lived in a community where my father was a doctor and where over 20 per cent. of the adult male population was unemployed. I was entirely aware of the problems to which the hon. Lady referred. I did not say that I regarded this as a solution to the whole problem of poverty. I said that it would be welcomed as quick action to give amelioration in a clearly identifiable situation.
  Mr. Elystan Morgan: The hon. Gentleman has referred to the family incomes benefit scheme. What percentage of the people will be benefited by such a scheme? Will it be a significant percentage? If it is not a significant percentage, how can it be a milestone?
  Mr. Hall-Davis: Five hundred thousand children live in families which will benefit from that provision. That is a sufficient cause for satisfaction on my part. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will address himself in winding up to the specific point that has been made.
  I have referred to one subject which has been touched on by hon. Members opposite. I turn now to one which has not received the same mention—that is, the question of growth in the economy. This has a direct bearing upon the ability to remove the causes of unhappiness and distress we have been debating in the last two days. It is not surprising that we have not heard much about growth from hon. Members opposite, for in the last six years the growth in the domestic product was less than half of what it was in the previous six years. In the decade 1960–70 Britain will be the bottom of the O.E.C.D. growth league of 22 countries.
  A slow growth has a twofold importance and consequence. First—this has a direct relevance to the debate—except when one is trying to deal with very narrow sectors of the community growth

  1317
  must be a better alleviator of poverty than any redistribution which is possible in a democratic society which has already moved as far down that road as Britain has.
  Of course we want compassion in our society, but it is far better to secure growth and remove the need for compassion on the scale that arises when growth is inadequate. Therefore, when we are considering the question of how the nation may feel unified and how we can proceed on the basis of a harmonious community, growth is as great a factor as, if not one greater than, the question of distribution and redistribution. In the field of economic growth the record of the last Government was one of almost total failure.
  There is another consequence of slow growth. A prolonged slow growth in a free society can only result in inflation. The present cost inflation stems largely from the denial of expectations of reasonable increases in living standards which took place over almost the entire life of the last Government. The present cost inflation stems also from the statutory incomes policy pursued by the last Government. It stems also to a considerable extent from the abdication of responsibility by the then Prime Minister and his colleagues when, either because they were not prepared to stand up for what they believed to be right or, worse, for reasons of electoral advantage, they let wages rip and almost encouraged this to be the case.
  This summer inflation was almost out of control. [An HON. MEMBER: "What is it now?"] It is therefore important that we should talk about this, recognise this fact, and recognise the consequences.
  The first consequence which is already evident is that a rampaging cost inflation does not benefit the wage earner. All the evidence now shows that if there is no real growth in the economy prices overtake wage increases at an extraordinarily rapid rate. For those outside employment inflation is a social evil, and one that the public will not tolerate. This is the second reason why hon. Members opposite are no longer the governing party but are in opposition.
  I trust that I carry many hon. Members opposite with me in expressing the hope that we shall continue to resist any pressures to return to a statutory incomes
  1318
  policy. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on having taken up this policy firmly, and I hope that hon. Members opposite who in the last Parliament fought vigorously and vocally for the abandonment of a statutory incomes policy will make their voices heard again. I hope, also, that they will raise their voices in support of moderation in wage claims, for if the present wage inflation continues the siren voices demanding a return to some form of statutory incomes policy will grow louder, and they will come from many quarters, and eventually—I say this without hesitation—if inflation does not moderate, those voices will be joined by the broad body of people who will not tolerate indefinitely a social evil such as inflation.
  I do not believe that those who are responsible for lodging wage claims and conducting wage negotiations wish to feel that they are contributing to the creation and growth of a social evil. Anyone would strongly resent an accusation that he was contributing to the pollution of our environment. Anyone would have resented most strongly 30 years ago, in the days to which I referred in replying to the hon. Lady the Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin), an accusation that he was taking action which would lead to an increase in unemployment, which was recognised then as a great social evil.
  Inflation at the level at which we see it now and have seen it for the past 12 months is a social evil. Once people understand this, and once they see that they have a reasonable expectation again of an improvement in their living standards, they will not want to contribute to any course of action which is an influence towards the perpetuation and intensification of what for many people is a most damaging social evil.
  In speaking of the Government's attitude towards wage negotiations, the Leader of the Opposition used a phrase to the effect that the Government believe in, "One down, everybody down". With respect, the Government have at no time said that. In fact, it is the opposite process which must be watched. What has been so damaging in recent years under the statutory incomes and prices policy has been that the productivity loopholes in that policy allowed wage

  1319
  claims and wage increases to be made of a dimension not seen in this country before, and to be made in circumstances in which attention was focused directly on them because of the controversial nature of such questions at that time. What we must avoid, if at all possible, is wage claims of a level which of themselves establish an inflationary norm which comes to be accepted as a target, as an end which can be achieved.
  Once people realise that this Government's policy is to reduce the burden of taxation on them, we shall over the coming months, I am certain, see a moderation of claims and of settlements. This will be achieved not by a statutory prices and incomes policy but by a consensus, a consensus among those sitting on either side of the negotiating table, a consensus between employee and employer. We have a voluntary incomes policy now. There is no need for the employee to accept a wage offer; he can withdraw his labour and press his claim. There is no need for an employer to settle unless he wishes to do so.
  No one likes to give up cherished beliefs or to be told that his theories will not work. But experience has shown that the policies of right hon. and hon. Members opposite would not and did not work. They did not work to secure economic growth. They did not give us scope for ameliorating poverty and improving the critical elements of social provision which all knew to be necessary.
  New policies are being followed now. As a result, I have no confidence—[Laughter.]—we all make the occasional slip, but it does not change the sincerity or correctness of what we say. I have every confidence that, as a result of these policies, all will benefit in the community. They will benefit partly by well directed social provision, and partly because the general strength of society and the economy will advance at an acceptable rate, which it has not done over the past six years.
  6.5 p.m.
  Mr. Edmund Dell: The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) spoke of the very real dangers of inflation at this time. I sure him that people will not stand by see their standard of living cut. In
  1320
  that sense, the Chancellor's mini-budget last Tuesday was inflationary. The hon. Gentleman said also that no one could challenge the Chancellor's statement regarding the prospects for taxation. In fact, the Chancellor has not explained to the House or the country the real economic meaning of the package which he has presented. What we say is that we object to the package on social grounds. We object on the ground that it discriminates against large numbers of people.
  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury spoke today about the Labour Government's control of public expenditure. Of course, public expenditure has to be controlled. What we object to is the way public expenditure has been cut and charges increased in order to give an undiscriminating bonus to the rich. This is the gravamen of our charge against the Government, and the Chief Secretary made no attempt to deal with it.
  The debate has been notable mainly for the frank brutality with which the Government's policy was stated by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He divided the population—we can understand that; it is the Government's objective to divide the population—into lame ducks and those who can thrive in a bracing climate. The climate of this Chamber was somewhat bracing last night when the right hon. Gentleman was speaking, but I did not notice that he was thriving all that much.
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): What my right hon. Friend said was that it was no good to treat the whole population of this country as though they needed help.
  Mr. Dell: If the right hon. Gentleman studies his right hon. Friend's speech, he will find that he said rather more than that. He appears to believe—he applies it, apparently, not just to the last Government but to Governments over many years—that the country's policy in these matters has been conducted for a long time by reference merely to the lame ducks, lame duck individuals and lame duck companies. Such a view is nothing but outrageous nonsense. There is one thing to be said, however, about the lame ducks of industry, a matter on which, unfortunately, I have some knowledge.

  1321
  Lame ducks in industry are the result of bad management, incompetent management, management which is sometimes even unable to assess its cash flow prospects with any accuracy. It is true that the Labour Government did try on several occasions, when there was hope for a firm by replacing the management, to avoid the creation of mass unemployment, particularly in the development areas where many of these cases occurred. The victim of incompetent management is not the management itself but the thousands of employees on behalf of whom that management is unable to discharge its responsibilities.
  If it is the policy of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that in future, whatever the social consequences, whatever the unemployment which will be caused, and whatever, indeed, the prospects of a firm under better management, that perhaps temporarily lame duck firms will be allowed to sink, causing mass unemployment, he will give rise to a great deal of industrial trouble.
  The stated objects of last Tuesday's announcement was to break out of the cycle of high taxation and low growth. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale took the same theme for his speech.
  As for high taxation on high income earners, there has certainly been a reduction in the taxation which they will pay, but for most of the population it will simply be a redistribution of taxation against them. I see nothing in the policy which will do anything about the low growth rate. The idea that this policy has some relevance to the low growth rate is evidently based on the idea that there are incentives; but what incentives are there in the policy?
  The incentives are given indiscriminately to anyone, whether he is in a position of responsibility of any sort or not, and whether his income is earned or unearned. It is given, as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry would no doubt say, like casting cream around. We remember that last night he told us that our development area policy was like throwing cream around with the idea that some might go into the cup. This policy is real cream worth hundreds of pounds, and in certain instances thousands of pounds, to rich people who do not necessarily carry any
  1322
  responsibility for the country's future growth rate.
  Incentives for investment have been cut. We have to remember that this is the less, but better government. We are to have less, but better government; less but better investment incentives; less but better dentistry, no doubt; less but better prescriptions; no doubt ending up with less but better food.
  The fact is that allowances against taxes are a worse way of stimulating valuable investment than the investment grant system. A study into the operation of the investment grant system was initiated by the Board of Trade in 1969. The Government could not wait to see the completion of that study before coming to this entirely doctrinaire decision to abolish investment grants.
  For some industries, shipbuilding, for example, the result is clearly harmful, especially for shipbuilding which in many cases is confronted by subsidised competition by foreign countries. It will undoubtedly be weaker in confronting that competition; and the abolition of investment grants will be followed in 1974 by another decision relevant to shipbuilding—the abolition of the regional employment premiums.
  The point has been made from this side of the House several times in the debate that the investment allowance system is worse for new companies, for companies undertaking major expansion, for companies with vast projects which see a profit return only at a distant date. In view of what we have been told of the Government's attitude towards competition, it is interesting to note that the effect of the decision on competition is to make it more difficult for new competitors. If there is a monopoly position and a new firm comes into the market and wishes to build itself up into the market, it will find that this decision has made doing so more difficult. A new firm will not yet have a profit record against which to set an allowance. The effect of the decision will, therefore, be directly opposed to the Government's alleged competition policy.
  I have always been somewhat sceptical of the reality of the Government's love of competition. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in a former incarnation often spoke of his interest

  1323
  in the maximisation of profits. There is a conflict between the maximisation of profits and the maximisation of competition. I think that the Government will go for the former and not the latter. Their talk about competition is something which will have to be judged in the light of the statement which we are about to hear, but also in the light of a decision which has had the direct effect of making it easier for everyone who is established to compete against everyone who may come new into the market. It is no wonder that in Europe the whole tendency with investment incentives, as shown by a recent report of O.E.C.D., has been towards the grant system which the Government, in their wisdom, have now changed.
  Grants have undoubtedly been beneficial in the development areas. They were operated under considerable difficulties at a period when we were transferring resources on a large scale to help the balance of payments. Despite a rapid rundown of traditional industries in the development areas, their relative unemployment rate during the period of the investment grant improved. The proportion of investment in the development areas increased substantially in the period during which investment grants operated. Originally, the proportion of investment in development areas estimated was 20 per cent., but by the end we were having to calculate on 33½per cent. The investment grant had a clear effect at the time of the 5 per cent. premium during 1967 and 1968.
  The Government have broken every promise which they made to the development areas. I will go through a number. First, they suggested that, although there might be a cut in assistance to industry in development areas—and there has certainly been a cut in the direct assistance to industry in the development areas—this would be compensated for by money spent on improving the infrastructure. What has happened? Some miserable proportion of the£25 million, which is to be built up to, will go towards infrastructure improvements to compensate for the large reduction in other assistance to development areas.
  Mr. John Nott: If the hon. eman's assertions are correct, can
  1324
  he tell me why it is that in the South-West development area, which, as he is aware, is the area which I know best, unemployment was in the latter years of the Socialist Administration double what it was when the Labour Party came to power? Secondly, is he aware that£14 million was spent on regional development of the South-West development area during that time and that the road programme in the South-West will be£100 million more in the next five years?
  Mr. Dell: I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman is benefiting from the policies laid down by the Labour Government—I am not so glad that he is benefiting, but I am glad that his area is.
  I am speaking of the general position of the development areas which benefited when there were investment grants. There were promises that compensation for reduced aid to industry would be greater work on the infrastructure, but there will be no significantly greater work on the infrastructure under the policy announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It will be only an insignificant proportion of the£25 million.
  The Government have not even abolished the discrimination between manufacturing and servicing in development areas. For years, we used to hear speeches about the iniquity of distinctions between manufacturing and service industries in the development areas, but there is still to be such discrimination. We have not been told why, but it is to continue. Why is not free depreciation given to the service industries? Apparently, at long last, the Government, with greater wisdom in this regard at any rate, accept the importance and desirability of some discrimination. At any rate, there will be some discrimination in the development areas.
  They said—and this was often the theme in debates when I was speaking for the Labour Government and the right hon. Gentleman, now the Secretary of State for Social Services, was speaking for the Conservatives—that there should be a closer link between incentives and the creation of jobs. What has happened? There has been a change to free depreciation. What relation has free depreciation to the creation of jobs, any more than investment grants have? As a matter of fact, the specific task of

  1325
  creating jobs was better done by investment grants, plus regional employment premiums, than will ever be done by free depreciation.
  Free depreciation is an aid to capital-intensive industry just as investment grants were, and I myself have never objected to the assistance which the Labour Government gave to capital-intensive industries. But all that has been done now is to provide this£25 million of additional expenditure under the Local Employment Acts, and that is a figure to which we are to build up, which will be dependent on the number of projects coming forward, and the Prime Minister told us that the number of projects was something which could not be forecast. Of course they cannot be forecast. They can be forecast even less at a time when incentives in the development areas are being reduced.
  Mr. Hall-Davis: Is it not correct that the White Paper says that the rate of grant under the Local Employment Acts in the development areas will be increased from 35 per cent. to 45 per cent., which is not something to which we shall build up? Does the hon. Gentleman contest the statement:
  "It is also estimated that the differential benefit provided to the development areas by free depreciation … will be broadly equivalent to the present cost of the regional differential in the investment grant scheme"?
  Mr. Dell: I do not know whether or not to dispute it because the facts have not been presented to the House. I put a Question to the Chancellor for answer yesterday, asking him for the calculations which led him to the conclusion that the differential was the same. I have not yet had an answer. When I receive one I will be able to comment on the hon. Gentleman's intervention.
  Until then, all I know is that, according to the reports in the Press today, the C.B.I. was saying to the National Economic Development Council yesterday that it did not agree that the differential had been maintained. I notice that Answers given to Questions by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) yesterday suggested that the differential has not been maintained by a wide margin. I would like to see the additional projects under the Local Employment Acts which will compensate for the
  1326
  reduction in differential shown in the answers to my hon. Friend.
  This bears on another promise to the development areas which the Government have broken. I refer to their promise to maintain financial incentives. One may say that the differential has been maintained, and about that we wait and see. Meanwhile, what has not been maintained is the total expenditure on development in development areas—whether for industry, under the Local Employment Act, through R.E.P. or in any other way. I therefore do not see how this policy will enable us to break out of the cycle of high taxation and low growth, and there is no evidence that it will achieve a higher rate of growth.
  I concede that for a country with a low rate of growth there are difficulties in knowing how best to finance the social services and education. Had the Government said, "We are cutting incentives to industry in the interests of developing the social services and education", that might have been an argument worth considering. But to give out this bonus indiscriminately to the rich is deplorable, and I am glad we will be opposing it in the Lobby tonight.
  The Prime Minister was quoted in The Times, from an interview on 27th October last, as saying:
  "You cannot make a nation richer by first making it poor."
  Somehow the right hon. Gentleman seems to believe that he can make the nation richer by first making its people poorer.
  6.23 p.m.
  Dr. Gerard Vaughan: I am mindful of the fact that this House will not wish to be diverted for long from the main theme of this debate, even for a maiden speech.
  While I will certainly not be following some of the lines of thought followed by my predecessor in this House, I hope that, if it is his wish, he will soon return to this place and to his many friends here—though not, I trust, to the constituency which I have the honour to represent.
  Reading is a place known, regrettably, to far too many people as the first major traffic block west of London. This is soon to be changed as the M4 progresses. It is a thriving, lively, industrial town with one of the lowest unemployment

  1327
  rates in the country. It has always been a regional centre, and in the early days it had no fewer than 19 bridges across the Thames. Historically it is associated with its abbey and its prison. Industrially it is associated with two Bs, biscuits and brewing, a most healthy combination, I assure hon. Members. It has a medical centre and it is a university town. It is appropriate that for the festival which Reading is holding next year it has chosen the title, "A Total Town". That is what Reading is.
  Apart from myself, there are three hon. Members in this House who have represented my constituency: my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery), the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) and my hon. Friend the Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett). I do not know whether this is a record, but certainly it is a comfort to me in going through this somewhat traumatic experience of making a maiden speech. I turn now to the main topic of the debate, and I realise that in speaking today I am committed to be as uncontroversial as possible. I will do my best to be so.
  I feel sure that hon. Members on both sides will have noted with satisfaction that, contrary to what has been happening in recent years, the figures for emigration from this country and the figures for the brain drain are, for the first time, showing a considerable drop. I put this point first because I believe that this is due to proposals such as those that are before the House today and the style of Government from which they emanate.
  The statement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, of course, only one part of the long-term strategy of this Government. However, I believe this change in the brain drain has come about because a larger number of people in Britain now feel that this is a country in which they wish to remain—to work and bring up their children. The proposals and measures before us today are an essential first step in a process of bringing a sense of purpose and financial reality back into our affairs.
  As a medical person—although my main interests these days are, I confess, more in the spheres of environment and planning—I wish particularly to support the proposals for the National Health
  1328
  Service, not just those relating to geriatric and mentally ill patients, though I welcome them very much, but the general policy. Incidentally, I had hoped that we might have had some extra provision for pensioners in general.
  I support the changes in prescription charges and those relating to milk. A great deal of nonsense has been talked by hon. Members about the damage that this might cause for individual patients and children. I cannot see that these statements are medically sound or that these things are likely to happen. I admit that I am not quite as happy about the dental charges, for I fear that they could lead to a deterioration in our dental services. I was relieved to learn that ceilings for health and dental charges are likely—
  Sir K. Joseph Sir K. Joseph indicated assent.
  Dr. Vaughan: —and I am glad to see my right hon. Friend assenting to that.
  Proud though we are of the National Health Service, if we are honest we will admit that it is today a sick service. It is desperately in need of the skill and intellect which I know my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will bring to bear on it. It needs reorganising and bringing up to date. Much of the building programme needs to be re-examined. We are getting far too many medical buildings for the sake of architectural prestige rather than for the uses to which they will be put. We recently had a new drugs centre built, only to have it closed without ever having a patient admitted to it. "An administrative error", it was called.
  Do we really need the extensive increases in regional staffs which are being contemplated? I appreciate that this is not the sort of debate in which to go into the details of the N.H.S. I hope my right hon. Friend will shortly introduce a number of proposals which will reintroduce—this is why I spoke earlier about the need for a sense of reality—a sense of purpose into this great service of which we are proud.
  I hope that other charges will be introduced in the next few months so that we may transfer from the national shoulder to the shoulders of individuals who are prepared to accept it their share of the cost of the N.H.S. It is on these terms that I welcome the measures and proposals which are before us, and I thank

  1329
  the House for extending its courtesy to a maiden speaker.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: I ask for the indulgence of the House as I make my maiden speech. I hope that the House will forgive me if, by chance, I make any remarks which could be construed as controversial and that it will remember that we are dealing with very controversial matters.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan) on the fluency and sincerity of his maiden speech, although he will understand when I say that I wholly disagreed with much of what he said.
  It would be quite wrong of me not to take this opportunity of paying a sincere tribute to my predecessor, Alderman Clifford Williams, who brought to the House a wealth of knowledge and experience in mining and local government matters and who served the people whence he came with great diligence and energy.
  My constituency is made up of the three urban districts of Nant-y-glo and Blaenau, Abertillery and Abercarn, all lying in the western valley of Monmouthshire, the most beautiful mining valley in South Wales—the valley of the Ebbw. It is not without interest that the official seal of Abercarn displays Big Ben, commemorating the long association with the district of Sir Benjamin Hall, who lived at Abercarn House.
  It is only right to say that not the least of Abertillery's distinctions is that at the last election it had the highest percentage Labour vote in the United Kingdom. The constituency is confronted with the problems and difficulties which stem from the rundown of the mining industry and the compelling need to provide new factories and new jobs for men who are among the most industrious and adaptable in the nation. As a result of these problems, almost the whole constituency was designated a special development area by the last Government. I am therefore more than grateful for the opportunity of taking part in this debate on proposals which my constituents regard with mounting dismay and anxiety.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement has been described as a mini- 1330
  Budget. I prefer to call it a midi-Budget. It is no accident or coincidence that the last 5½years of Labour administration coincided with the age of the mini. We said, "Let the people see; keep as little as possible from the people." With the advent of the present Administration, we have had the launching of the midi. The Conservative Government believe in keeping the people guessing and in covering up as much as they can. But there comes a time when the guessing has to stop. I believe that we reached that moment, if not before, during the speech last night of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. One of the most disturbing features of that speech was that, in spite of the fact that regional policies and the development areas are his special responsibility, he did not deign to deal with them or to mention them once in that extraordinary speech.
  I should like to deal with the Chancellor's proposals from the point of view of my constituency. They must be judged against the background that at least 15,000 jobs must be created in my part of Monmouthshire within the next 10 years. Of course, there were gaps in the Labour Government's provisions in the development areas, indeed even in the Principality. But in 1969–70 investment incentives in Wales alone amounted to£80 million, in sharp contrast with 1963–64 when the overall amount spent throughout the United Kingdom by the Conservative Government was£17 million. We were not surprised therefore when the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry told us last night, in that telling phrase, that he had no wish to look back at the "tangled skein" of the past. There were good and valid reasons why he shied away from it. Perhaps he would be interested to know the position in my constituency during the last 20 years.
  Between 1951 and 1964 only one Board of Trade factory was authorised as opposed to four between 1964 and 1970. We had only two privately-owned factories between 1951 and 1964, in spite of the fact—and this is the important point—that so-called investment allowances, first introduced in 1954, provided companies with tax relief on plant, machinery and building, the same kind of allowances as right hon. and hon. Members opposite are trying to force on the nation.

  1331
  Those allowances were abolished not merely because grants were more equitable and more certain but for the very good and compelling reason that they did not provide the necessary jobs. Last year investment grants alone brought£41 million to Wales. It has been estimated that we in Wales may expect to obtain a mere£5 million from assistance under the Local Employment Acts, and there can be no doubt that Wales will be much the poorer if the Chancellor's proposals are accepted tonight.
  Even the present Director of the Confederation of British Industry, writing in the London Evening Standard on 29th October, expressed misgivings about the Government's odious package. He said:
  "It is very doubtful whether on present information development areas will be as attractive to new investors as before "
  No one on this side of the House will dispute that. We believe that it is a gross under-statement. The reality is that industry will lose£100 million or thereabouts as a result of the switch to allowances, even taking into account the cut in corporation tax. It is the Exchequer which will gain substantially by these proposals as opposed to the regions, which, together with others in the community less able to bear the brunt, are being asked to pay the price for a cut in corporation tax and the so-called cut in income tax. But the regions have been doubly penalised by the proposed cuts in the road programme and the increased cost of transport which will undoubtedly follow.
  We fear, too, that firms just starting up—the kind of firm which, with the previous incentives, would have benefited considerably—will no longer be able to afford to take the risk of going to development areas like South Wales against a background of mounting unemployment. There is no point in right hon. and hon. Members opposite paying lip service to improvements in education when we are in jeopardy in South Wales of having the kind of situation which Aneurin Bevan referred to—the best educated dole queue in the United Kingdom.
  What we on this side of the House cannot understand, try as we may, is this: why put South Wales and the other development areas in jeopardy? We cannot see the common sense. Not only is
  1332
  it a negation of common sense, it is morally and economically unsound for certain areas in Great Britain to be prosperous, wealthy and thriving whilst other areas are struggling for their very survival. These proposals underpin that position and buttress the imbalance in the economy, in particular in the south-east and the Midlands, at the expense of areas like South Wales and the North-East.
  We cannot understand this, but some clue may be found in the bizarre philosophy propounded last night by the Secretary of State in a speech which could have been made one hundred years ago in this House, and probably was. This is what he is saying—and he put a gloss on it when he addressed the Development Council of Wales reception at the Hilton Hotel this week—"profitability is everything, and nothing matters as long as profits are all right."The Government believe, they say, in sturdy independence. We heard again tonight from the Chief Secretary this phrase, "shoring up success". The Government say that the rest of the community are to be written off, in that classic phrase, as lame ducks. We now know that the terms "disengagement", "non-intervention", and "less government" are euphemisms for indifference; indifference to the ever-growing army of the poor, indifference to the thousands of unemployed, indifference to the thousands of old-age pensioners who will be so grievously affected by these proposals, to say nothing of the thousands of children of the so-called lame ducks. Those who have the misfortune not to live in the Secretary of State's "bracing atmosphere" have to struggle and fumble as best they may.
  We are witnessing a return to the days of patronage in the social services. What the so-called lame ducks want is the opportunity to get out of the vicious circle, whether they be pensioners, the unemployed, the new poor or the new categories which are being created almost daily by the Government. This is all we on this side of the House ask on their behalf. They cannot by themselves do this. What they say and what we say is that it is the duty and moral obligation of government to create a framework which can release their private enterprise and their energies. It has never been put better than by Jim Griffiths when he

  1333
  introduced the National Insurance Bill in 1946:
  "…to those who profess to fear that security will weaken the moral fibre and destroy self-respect, let me say this. It is not security that destroys, it is insecurity. It is the fear of tomorrow that paralyses the will; it is the frustration of human hopes that corrodes the soul. Security …will release our people from the haunting fears of yesterday …and their gifts and energies for the services of the nation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1758.]
  I commend that passage to the attention of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. If these proposals and the speech of the Secretary of State are indicative of what we may expect in the Tories' "better tomorrow", most people in this country would prefer "all their yesterdays".
  I beg the Minister to inaugurate a crash programme for the regions. We need regional development agencies with powers and funds to set up new industries. The agencies should be charged with providing roads and houses in the right places at the right times. The I.R.C. could have taken on this task but, unfortunately, if these proposals are accepted tonight by the House, the I.R.C. will be no more.
  Secondly, I ask the Minister to restrict the issue of industrial development certificates in the richer parts of the country. On this side of the House we are determined to see that the regions, the valleys of Wales and our valley communities shall not only survive but prosper. We find the proposals in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer repugnant, not simply because they are shabby, spiteful and irrelevant, but because the Government still persist in their congenital hypocrisy of attempting to cover these proposals with a veneer of compassion. If the proposals are accepted, we shall see the dawn of the "selfish society". I thank the House for its indulgence.
  6.46 p.m.
  Mr. John Nott: Although I represent another Celtic part of the British Isles, I am not very good at pronouncing the name of the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but I congratulate the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Jeffrey Thomas) on a very good maiden speech. Representing as I do another development area in the United Kingdom, I look forward to debating
  1334
  the subject with him in future. I do not agree with what he has said, but that can wait for another time.
  I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan), who represents a very different type of constituency from those of the hon. Gentleman and myself. He made an excellent speech which was very short, and I am sure that will immediately endear my hon. Friend to every hon. Member in the House.
  I want to devote a few words to one aspect of the White Paper, the subject of aerospace, and I wish also to refer to Concorde. If I indulge in a preamble, it is only to support in a logical manner some heresies in which I will indulge towards this symbol of our national virility and the Anglo-French détente.
  I do not mean to be dramatic, but I conceive that the economic situation in this country is extremely grave, and I regard the action that the Government must take on aerospace as being a crucial test of their realism and determination. Concorde is for the Tories rather what prescription charges are for the Socialists. It is a difficult and touching subject but nevertheless I intend to dwell on it just the same.
  If I reflect upon the period of Socialist Government, I believe that they made two main mistakes. The first was to exaggerate rather than to minimise their economic inheritance of 1964. The second was to lack the political will to take decisions which an objective observer would have earlier performed. We know the consequences. The Socialist Government lost their mastery over events until events ruled them, and each one of the sacred tenets of Socialism—prescription charges, unemployment, and so on—one by one were sacrificed not out of choice but from necessity.
  Had somebody and one particular person—namely, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—acted just a little sooner with just a little more courage in those early days—and it would have taken great political courage—there is not much doubt in my mind that I would have been speaking tonight for the other side of the House.
  The new Tory Government cannot be accused of the first mistake made by the Socialist Government in 1964. The

  1335
  economic situation is in my view quite critically bad but the Government have kept their head and rightly talked with optimism of what the British people can achieve given an environment in which initiative and hard work really thrive.
  But let me sound a note of warning which will not cause the flight of a single pound—or should I say one hundred pence? With inflation running at 7 per cent. a year, involving a doubling of the price level in less than 10 years, we have a situation potentially more evil in its consequences even than 1 million unemployed. Inflation undermines and saps the livelihood and confidence of all those whom it is the Government's prime duty to protect: the elderly, the pensioner, the redundant and, in particular, the poor, the large low-income families. It hits the weakest in society, not those of working age. I do not wish to see a single unemployed person, but I repeat that inflation hits the weakest members of society.
  Moreover, unlike depression and the unemployment which accompanies it, it provides a climate in which the spiv and the monopolist can really thrive. It permits also and encourages a vast misapplication of our national resources because with inflation at 7 per cent. it is difficult to make commercial mistakes; the rise in money values will just float one to success.
  There is plenty of room for disagreement about how inflation should be checked but essentially there are only three ways of doing so. These are by cutting private consumption, private investment or public spending. Essentially the Socialist Government acted not from choice but from necessity on consumption by constant and everlasting rises in taxation. There was inadequate private investment and in the early years escalating public expenditure which went far beyond the rise in gross national product.
  I believe their actions on consumption cost them the election and cost the country even more. It meant for the nation five years of lost growth, national humiliation and a steady erosion of the self-confidence of the British people.
  I regard the Chancellor's statement as most important mainly as an avowal of an entirely new philosophy. Why should not the Conservatives have an entirely
  1336
  new philosophy different from the Socialist Party? I do not detract from the measures in any way when I say that the Chancellor's statement is not subject to full analysis until we have seen the Budget of 1971. I congratulate my right hon. Friends particularly that the war against the woolly-Socialist philosophy of certain previous Tory cabinets has at last been won. I will not recall too starkly the opening words of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury but he made this point about somebody who is rather closely related to him, and I support entirely what he said.
  I come now to the main subject with which I wish to deal; namely, aerospace. With inflation running at the current rate, and the need, in my view, not just to simplify our tax system but to reduce our taxes right across the board, even the huge and highly welcome savings in Government expenditure which the Government have just announced are not enough. If inflation can be checked, then they are enough. But I believe that among certain union leaders there is a desire to play for high political stakes. I do not easily see the current rate of inflation being brought within control. Since in my view higher allocations are required for pensions and for the social services particularly in the areas to which my hon. Friend the Member for Reading referred, then there are only two remaining areas for further savings of Government expenditure.
  One area is that of the nationalised industries and the other is that of aerospace. I do not believe that the nationalised industries can be financed to any great extent in the private capital market. The gilt-edged market could provide another£100 million or so but there are no large sums of money to be found in private capital markets for the further financing of the nationalised industries—certainly not on a fixed interest basis with inflation running at 7 per cent.
  Therefore, if we wish further to reduce the burden of tax for the British people, which is my own philosophy, there is only one way in which we can make savings through the public sector industries and that is by allowing them to raise their prices so that they can be more self-financing for the future. However, with cost inflation running at an equivalent of 9 per cent. in industry I have doubts

  1337
  whether any Government, in these conditions, can allow the nationalised industries to raise their prices to the extent that would be necessary to make them self-financing in a proper way.
  Therefore, by a process of reductio ad absurdum—and I do not ask hon. Members opposite to agree with me but merely to admit that there is a miniscule of logic in what I say—I come to the only major saving left; namely, aerospace.
  That brings me, of course, to the Concorde. Concorde is a great British technical achievement. I wish I had not got to raise the subject in this debate. Sir George Edwards is a great industrialist, and it must be almost impossible to try to run an industry with chaps like me sniping at him from the House of Commons. I very much sympathise with him; but the fact is that Concorde's development programme is to cost on current estimates somewhere in the region of£820 million shared between Britain and the French, and only half of that sum has been spent so far. This means that there is another£200 million as an absolute minimum to be spent by us before we even get to more than six production aircraft. It is involving this country in approximately£1 million per week. However favourably one regards the Concorde as a British achievement, I do not believe we can afford this sum. With great reluctance I have come to the view that Concorde must be cancelled, and it is vitally important that the Government should act quickly before more of our national resources are drained away.
  It will be said in answer to these points that Concorde has become a living symbol of the Anglo-French détente, and I shall probably be asked how we can conceivably do such a terrible thing as to murder this great technological achievement at a time when we are seeking entry to the Common Market.
  I believe that the French have threatened the British Government with repercussions upon our negotiations if we cancel the project. I can only say that it does not bode well for entry if it demonstrates that this country is unable to decide for itself how it should run its own economy in the period leading up to entry. If it means spending another£200 million on the Concorde over the next few years, I submit that
  1338
  that sum must be added to the costs of entry to the E.E.C. We are now in the process of negotiating whether those costs should be£300 or£400 million across the exchanges. If we continue with the Concorde against our better economic judgment, I suggest that the Concorde development programme must be added to the cost.
  I have a little experience of negotiating with the French in business. It must be said with a stiff upper lip that they do not negotiate like Englishmen. They have what I would describe as a rather limited respect for compromise. They are very tough and ruthless, and one has to call their bluff. If we as a nation, even before entry into the Common Market, are incapable of calling the Frenchmen's bluff on Concorde it bodes ill for what will happen when we become a member of the E.E.C.
  I come finally to the B.A.C. 3–11 and the airbus. Here again, we are deep in the politics of the Common Market. I am quite prepared to see the issue influenced on political and Common Market grounds but if our economy is to be crippled or we are asked to sell our industrial assets overseas as a result of our understandable desire to enter the Common Market, we shall not be strong enough to enter, if this House wishes to do so, when that time comes along.
  I congratulate the Government on their measures. I shall be more easily able to judge them when the Budget comes in 1971, when I hope to see a completely different grading of our taxes. In the intermediate term, in my view we are in an infinitely worse economic position than we were in 1964. It is crucial that the Government find further savings in public expenditure, and, by a process of reductio ad absurdum, aerospace it has to be.
  7.4 p.m.
  Mr. John Mendelson: The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), to whose speech I listened with great interest, will have to accept my apology for, unwillingly, not following him into the fascinating subjects of the Concorde and the Common Market. Being aware of my views, he will know that I am tempted on both counts. However, the Secretary of State for Social Services is to wind up the debate. In view of that, I intend to devote my remarks wholly to the social services.

  1339
  Before parting finally from the hon. Gentleman, however, who apparently has found after a great deal of thinking that the French behave like the French, I warn him that he will have a tough time if we ever enter the Common Market. He will find that the Germans behave like Germans, and that the Italians behave like Italians. He had better think hard before making up his mind to support his right hon. Friends in their negotiations.
  In the case of the speeches which we have heard so far from the Government side, the debate has been full of generalisation. By that, I do not mean to imply that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is the only offender. There is more excuse for him to speak in more general terms because it is always a difficult task for anyone, however experienced and eminent in another walk of life, to master the technique of this House. But for other Ministers, especially the Treasury team, to remain in the general and refuse to move to the particular can only be a deliberate conspiracy not to inform this House on an important occasion when we are asked to accept what are very important changes in the Government's social policy. In view of that, I shall invite the Secretary of State for Social Services to deal with a number of detailed points, the answer to which hon. Members must know before they vote tonight.
  I want first to return to a promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday when he said in reply to an intervention that if hon. Members wanted to go into further detail about the effect of the social policy changes on different categories of people, they would have to ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. I did not regard that as a satisfactory answer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury team have no excuse for saying that they have not looked into those details. Anyone who knows anything about our system of Government knows that the Treasury is always directly involved in costing processes and decision making.
  We now have the Secretary of State for Social Services with us, and my first point concerns prescription charges and the people who will be hit hardest by the
  1340
  proposed increase. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said a great deal about exemptions. I do not wish to refer to exemptions at the moment. Instead, I want to discuss the wide range of people who are at work but who are earning lowish or limited incomes and who do not have two small children.
  Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer tried to be very clever. He kept on talking about exemptions and then said that a family earning£20 a week and having two small children will not feel the impact of any of these new impositions, the implication being that the country consists only of couples with two young children. That is obvious nonsense. In my constituenciy alone there are thousands of people in their fifties who have no small children. They are wage earners who, especially in mining areas like my own, tend to suffer more than usual from chest and other diseases. In the case of dust-producing industries, obviously there is a high incidence of these diseases. So far, we have been unable to get from the Chancellor of the Exchequer any estimate of the effect of these very great increases upon such people.
  At present, hundreds of thousands of these people have to pay out considerable sums in prescription charges. Hon. Members represnting similar constituencies will be familiar with the housewife who complains, "My husband is still at work in the pit"—or it may be the steel works. "For some years he has had a chest disease"—or it may be arthritis. "He needs regular prescriptions, and we do not fall within any exempted category." At present, such a family has to pay 7s. 6d. a week or perhaps 8s. over a fortnight. According to my own calculations, that sort of sum will go up to 15s. or£1. Those categories of people have not so far been mentioned by any right hon. Gentleman. It is passing strange that the Government should introduce—
  Mr. Timothy Raison Mr. Timothy Raison (Aylesbury) rose—
  Mr. Mendelson: I thought that the Secretary of State was about to intervene, and I was going to give way to him.
  Sir K. Joseph: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of what is called the "season ticket"? That enables a person who will

  1341
  frequently require a prescription to get a great discount by buying a cheap ticket.
  Mr. Mendelson: Of course I am aware of the season ticket. I will have something to say about the introduction of that idea later.
  I can supply evidence which has been brought to me by my constituents. I know that the total amount is considerable and that it is bound to go up. This charge will go upon the shoulders of people who have no way of being completely cured. This will accompany them to the end of their working days until they are retirement pensioners, which may be periods of seven, eight, 10 or 12 years. It is passing strange that we have heard nothing from any right hon. Gentleman throughout the debate, nor when the Chancellor first made his statement, about the incidence upon these hundreds of thousands of people.
  I move to another category which is larger than the one that I have just mentioned but includes some of them—namely, the chronic sick. We know that those who speak for organisations concerned with the chronic sick—many hon. Members on both sides are in touch with them; this is not a particular privilege or pre-occupation of hon. Members on this side of the House—must have received communications expressing the deep concern of the chronic sick following the Chancellor's announcement. It is again passing strange that we have not heard any hon. Gentleman opposite, or hon. Lady for that matter, voicing any opinions of the people so severely affected. Before 18th June we heard a lot from Tory Members about the chronic sick, but we have not heard a word during the two days of this debate.
  A spokesman for the chronic sick 'phoned me this morning and urged me to raise this point with the right hon. Gentleman and with the Government. He talked about what is called, by people who know a great deal more about it than I, the twilight zone of people in employment. These are the chronic sick who manage, by exercising all their energy, to hold down a job. We know that the real contrast between chronically sick people and the rest is that normally a man who is healthy and does his job
  1342
  might occasionally have a cold. But the chronic sick are in a different category. They sometimes have to force themselves to continue in regular employment. The representative who contacted me this morning—the Ministry must know about it—pointed out that many of these people, with all the new impositions that are to come their way as employed people, might now have to give up their employment and move into another category.
  My next point concerns the way that some of the social changes have been presented by the Government side. I found offensive, for instance, the attempt to tell us that the millionaire's lady and Judy O'Grady are both simple housewives on the same level and that they face similar problems when shopping for their groceries. This is no way to treat the impositions that the Government are inviting the House to approve. We want none of this hypocrisy. We want, at least, a serious approach to the problems created by the Government's measures. The Government know that for about 8 million people—the category that I call the lower paid—the impositions which have been outlined will have a serious effect, and that 6 million of those 8 million people will not be reached by any of the compensating measures that the Government have proposed. Therefore, it is no good making play with the increased compensation on the other side—the further exemption from certain payments—because 6 million people among the lower paid will not be touched by that.
  I have said nothing yet about those who are not among the lower paid, who have achieved a higher level of wages because they have been in a particular trade all their working lives. But here we come to what we saw at all Tory conferences in recent years—the naked class bias which was illustrated before they got into office. We saw on television, year after year, delegate after delegate going to the rostrum and complaining that people who are now earning decent incomes are now being supported by the State, living in council houses, and going to Spain for holidays. There was deliberate hatred that so many working people have been somewhat better off in recent years—particularly under a Labour Government. But even

  1343
  before that there had been a growing improvement in the standard of living—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman, who has been in the House some time, knows that I have never restricted the improvement in the level of wages to the year 1964. There has been a slow—but accelerated under the Labour Government—gradual growth since the war in the standard of living of working-class people. The Government are receiving the plaudits of many of their class-minded supporters because they are to do something about it. The reason behind it—it would be wrong and unworthy to call it a philosophy—is to see that working class people are forced to spend practically all their money on higher rents, higher food prices, prescription charges and similar items. What they want is a better standard of living for those earning more than£3,000 or£3,500 a year. This is the real indictment of this Government in what they have done.
  I move to another aspect of the problem. These measures have been praised. We have had them praised today in maiden speeches, including one from the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan), on which I cannot comment because they were maiden speeches. But those plaudits and praises will disappear as time goes by when people begin to find out how many sincere people who are supporters of the Tory Party care about our social services. I know a number of such people. This is not a monopoly of the Labour Party or the Liberal Party. Not all are like those delegates who went to the rostrum at the Tory conferences and displayed their naked class hatred. There are many hon. Members opposite who have been associated with organisations for helping the chronic sick. When the incidence of these measures on the groups that I have indicated becomes clear, they will receive complaints and hear stories of heartbreak, and many hon. Members opposite will think again about these measures. But today, in their foolish euphoria about these measures, they bring their plaudits to the Government. Therefore, when this Government, after a number of years, goes on the scrap heap of history, we on this side must make sure that we have the right kind of policy when the next Labour Government is in power.
  1344
  It will be noted that there is an Amendment to my right hon. Friend's censure Motion. Hon. Members on this side who signed it are not alone in wishing to see the total abolition of prescription charges. This, as everybody knows, is a parliamentary device to bring the matter before the House. I wish to record, for the benefit of my right hon. Friend the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who is to wind up for this side, that the annual conference of the Labour Party in 1967 and 1969 unanimously passed a resolution demanding the abolition of prescription charges. We know, too, that my right hon. Friend, who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, and, therefore, one of the custodians of the policy of the Labour Party, was on the platform but did not rise to oppose the Motion. We are therefore entitled to believe that he, like my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and all the other members of the leadership of the Labour Party, accepted the resolution, are in favour of it, and are determined to carry it out. It is the task of our Front Bench to make it quite clear to the people of this country that they have an alternative Government, that they do not have to carry on with that lot on the benches opposite. People ought to know that the Labour Pary is prepared to adopt the opposite policy to that adopted by the Conservative Party.
  I propose, in passing, to say something about the imposition of prescription charges by my Government. Whatever reasons may have been advanced for that step—and there is not time now to go into them—I do not accept many of them. There will be another occasion to debate the reasons. Whatever they were, it was estimated by my Government that there would be a saving of£25 million by the imposition of prescription charges. Many of my hon. Friends—and I see that one of our leading specialists on the subject is in his place—told the Government that there would be no such saving. They told the Government that once the costs of administration were met and all the exemptions were taken into account there would be nothing like that saving. The actual saving was reduced to£14 million, which many of us predicted would be the case.
  Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Does my hon. Friend remember that it was£14·8 million, but that about£7 million was taken out for administrative expenses and other costs? I estimate that the saving was between nothing and£5 million.
  Mr. Mendelson: I accept the improvement of my statement and that additional information from my hon. Friend who knows as much about this subject as does anybody in the House. It was that kind of saving for which the measure was originally introduced, and many of us predicted what the result would be.
  When the right hon. Gentleman replies to the debate and gives us his answers he must not ride off on generalities and assurances about groups that we have not particularly dealt with in the debate. He must address himself to the problems of those who will be hard hit by these new provisions, and he must try to explain to the House how, as someone who for years has been saying that he has a sense of social responsibility and that he regards this as part of his ethical approach to public life, he can be a party to the kind of proposals being introduced by the Government.
  My right hon. Friends must see to it that we make it clear, and the sooner the better, that the return of the next Labour Government will mean the abolition of prescription charges and the creation of a free national health service as originally introduced by my right hon. Friends in the immediate post-war period when we had a great reforming Labour Government which created institutions that are the envy of the world. We should make it clear to everyone that no matter how much damage the Conservative Government do to them we shall restore these institutions to what they were intended to be.
  7.23 p.m.
  Dr. Anthony Trafford: I have the honour to represent The Wrekin, a constituency which has many remarkable features. One of these is that the hill from which it derives its name is not actually within its constituency. The constituency has within it a good cross-section of the national community, because it has agriculture to the north, industry, both heavy and light, scattered throughout it, and what would
  1346
  be described as dormitory areas to the conurbations to the south.
  Until June the constituency was represented by Mr. Gerald Fowler, who was particularly interested in education and who, as many hon. Members know, made his mark here as Minister of State. He was a very good constituency Member and I more than anybody else know this for obvious reasons.
  I welcome the Chancellor's statement, but I should like to make one or two comments on it. The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) was not quite right in claiming that humanity, or compassion, or interest or social responsibility is the responsibility of any one party. They are spread throughout both parties.
  Mr. John Mendelson: I did not make that claim.
  Dr. Trafford: I should like, first, to make a few comments on prescription charges. I hope that we shall hear more of the philosophy behind this imposition by the Chancellor. It is not that I do not believe that it is right that charges should be imposed for those who can afford to pay them, but that I am today and always have been puzzled by the imposition of prescription charges.
  If they are intended as a source of revenue, there are other alternatives. If they are intended in some way to reduce demand on the Health Service, it seems to me that there are many other effective methods of doing this, particularly perhaps to impose a charge at the point of primary contact for it must be the experience of every hon. Member that if he attends his doctor's surgery it is rare for him to leave without having some form of prescription.
  But that is a secondary effect, and in practice today there is already some degree of deterrent to demand. I am talking about the development of the group practice, the scheme whereby a patient who may wish to see a particular doctor finds it slightly more difficult to do so, and also the appointment system which again makes it slightly more difficult for him to see a particular doctor. It is not therefore necessary to impose a charge at that level to make a change in the level of demand on the service itself.
  If the intention is to reduce the level of the drug bill, again, in my view, there

  1347
  are better ways of doing it. For example, it is feasible to divide all drugs into those that are essential, and those that are not, and we should then make the former free, and charge for the latter. I agree that there are difficulties in doing that, but they are not insuperable, and indeed that division has already been made to some extent. The administrative complexity of the present system is expensive, and I think that any attempt to correlate the cost and the charge would be difficult and open to the same objection.
  Second, I welcome the Chancellor's intention to devote much of the money that he saves to the social services in a different direction, but I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to remember that illness usually starts in a community, often from non-medical causes, and that it is the inadequacy of community services that necessitates admission to hospital, which is by far the most expensive way of looking after anybody. First-class hospital charges are considerably less than hospital costs.
  I assure my right hon. Friend that were he to build a hospital of 10,000 beds in an area where there was no great demand on hospital services, it would soon be full. The reasons for this are many. Perhaps one reason is that the weight of demand on the social services has often, and indeed greatly, been shifted to the hospital services as a result of the inadequacy of those within the community, which is the proper environment in which a man should live. I remind my right hon. Friend that about 30 per cent. of all patients in acute hospital wards are there, not for medical, but largely for social reasons. One may say, and I hope this will not be misinterpreted on the other side of the House, that they are there for the wrong reasons. The fact is that 25 per cent. of the time spent in an acute hospital ward is largely wasted time, largely waiting time. Incidentally, talking of waste, 20 per cent. or more of the food is wasted.
  I should have thought that it was in those directions that we could have looked for an area in which to cut costs and make the necessary changes. Because they arise largely as a result of the
  1348
  inadequacy of community services, I hope that my right hon. Friend will see fit to shift resources accordingly.
  The Chancellor talked about the question of the expenditure of money on the building programme. Although we are bound to welcome this, I must point out that in some areas there has been a misallocation of resources. So far as I know, nobody has ever been asked to justify the expenditure of millions on a hospital structure in an area where there were already seven acute beds per 1,000 population—and a shrinking population at that—where areas with less than two acute beds per 1,000 have been kept waiting and areas with no beds at all per 1,000 have still no hospitals. That is the sort of area which might be a fruitful source for inquiry.
  I want to suggest a further idea to my right hon. Friend. When he introduced the chronic attendance allowance he made no reference to the acute. It would be a helpful measure to introduce a form of attendance allowance for the acutely sick, rather on the present Scandinavian pattern. Frequently an acutely-ill person cannot be looked after at home by relatives—where, incidentally, he may be medically as well as socially better off. He has to be kept in hospital, or transferred to hospital, purely for economic reasons, although they are economic only as far as he is concerned; they are uneconomic for the State. This happens to be an area in which humanity and economics completely coincide.
  I welcome the family supplement scheme. It is a great advance. I recognise the difficulties involved, especially in terms of marginal money incentives, and the difference between a man with four children at£18 or£25 a week and a man who is unemployed and receiving supplementary benefit. I recognise that difficulties exist, but I also appreciate that there is great potential in this field and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have the flexibility and imagination to amend or expand the scheme as he gains information about its operation.
  We must remember that the biggest enemy of those in receipt of lower incomes is inflation. That is due partly to Government expenditure but also partly to the consequences of cost-push inflation.

  1349
  It is ironic—perhaps a better word would be tragic—that those who speak so frequently, so passionately and, I am sure, so sincerely about wishing to help the lower-paid workers leave the site of their speeches and by their actions carry out measures which are most harmful to the lower-paid workers. A huge wage demand may well benefit one sector of the community but will increase the rate of inflation as a whole and therefore hit most hard the poorest.
  I could not help reflecting, during the debate on the coal industry—and I do not wish to single it out—that given the fact of a 12 per cent. wage rise, a 16 per cent. price rise, import restrictions and the inability to buy private sector coal, the Central Electricity Generating Board purchase of National Coal Board coal, with all the restrictions on conversions, and so forth, that it applied—and if the estimates of the Central Electricity Generating Board are correct, and assuming that there are about 300,000 people in the industry—the general public is sub-sidising the people in that industry. They are not regarded as the most lowly paid, which means that this is a good example of the point I am making.
  Frequently, also, there is seen that other peculiar and curious phenomenon that has affected the social services, namely, that the least affluent often sub-sidise the most affluent. To me that is real social injustice. There is considerable difficulty in devising an entirely just and acceptable social service system, as was found by the previous Administration. As a purely historical speculation, I wonder, if Lord Keynes had written his work 20 years earlier and it had been accepted that much earlier, what sort of report Lord Beveridge would have written, and what sort of system we would have finally developed.
  Knowing that most people tend to handle their money with greater care than other people's money, these measures are obviously something to welcome. Any move towards paying people to pay their own bills rather than paying the bills for them is welcome. I welcome not only the Chancellor's statement but, in particular, the incomes supplement scheme. I hope that it works well, because it could mark a new and important beginning to the organisation of social care in the coming decade.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. James Hamilton: It is my pleasure to congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Dr. Trafford) on his first speech in the House. It was well delivered, very fluent, and easily understood. As he said, if he lives up to the reputation of the previous incumbent of his seat I am sure that he will make a remarkable contribution to our affairs. I am not allowed to follow him, but I believe that I am the first Member from Scotland to make a contribution to this debate.
  It has been stated that this is a minibudget. My hon. Friend said that it was a midi-budget. In my opinion it is a maxi-budget and will mean, in essence, that the maximum amount of economic pressure will be brought to bear upon the people least capable of standing up to it.
  Scotland is virtually a development area. One of the problems facing it is the situation in respect of development grants. We read in the Press today that the C.B.I., which the N.E.D.C. met yesterday, had made it indelibly clear that it regarded this as a retrograde step in terms of bringing industry to the development areas. In my constituency last weekend I was talking to a leading Scottish industrialist who conveyed to me his great fear that this would operate against North Lanarkshire, which is a development area. It is also worthy of note that in Lloyds List of 31st October there was an attack on the cessation of the payment of development grants for the shipbuilding industry—an industry where last year there was a record production. That is proof, if proof were needed, that the system of giving investment grants to development areas is to be applauded.
  It is also noticeable that the people of Scotland, to their credit, have recognised the tremendous contribution made by the previous Labour Government by returning to the House 44 Labour Members of Parliament. All that we have on the Government benches are 23 Members, besides which there are three Liberals and one Scottish Nationalist. Under the present Standing Orders the Scottish Grand Committee is allowed 15 Members. In essence they cannot out-vote the Opposition. Secondly, the people of Scotland readily recognised

  1351
  during the General Election campaign that a gigantic fiddle was being attempted upon them. The General Election was fought on the issue of the economy. In the last four days there was a stampede over rising prices. The Prime Minister will readily concede, I think, that because of the voice of the opinion polls, which convinced everyone that the existing Government would be returned, he made irresponsible statements, one of which was that "at a stroke" he would reduce the cost of living and rising prices. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
  The Government also said that the best policy was private enterprise, which gave competition. We now see what has happened in the oil industry. One petrol company put up the price of petrol by 1d. a gallon, and all the others followed suit. If that is private enterprise working, it will not be to the advantage of the development areas or indeed of the rest of the country.
  To their credit, when prescription charges were reimposed by my own Government many of my hon. Friends voted against them because they felt so strongly. I abstained on that issue. Did the Government make the necessary representations to the B.M.A., as the previous Government did when, by a very small majority, the B.M.A. agreed that the over-12s, or children attending secondary school, could do without free milk? This has not been done over the cessation of free milk to children over seven. In a letter I received only yesterday, a teacher in my constituency pointed out the anomalous situation that in one class she has children of seven and others who are older. How can she tell the children over seven that they are not entitled to free milk?
  Another point which very much concerns people in my constituency is the cuts in local authority subsidies. No matter how it is analysed, it must mean an increase in council house rents. It is not just a question of these rents being increased. So far we in Scotland have heard nothing from the Secretary of State of what the situation will be. Nevertheless, there will be form filling on a large scale. Many people are reluctant to fill in what can be very complicated forms, and many are not capable of doing
  1352
  so. Consequently, they will be required to pay the full rent.
  There will be an addition on the rates as well as the rents. This will be borne by everyone. It is argued, with some justification, that owner-occupiers, because of the taxation relief on the interest on their mortgage repayments, receive a far greater subsidy than the council house tenant.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: Perhaps my hon. Friend will also deal with another class who get a 100 per cent. subsidy in addition to the 6d. off the income tax, a subsidy which is worth£2,650 a year. I refer to the Ministers of the Crown. They are not going to have to pay economic rents. If it is justifiable, should not Ministers pay this£2,650?
  Mr. Hamilton: That is a most acceptable point for me, because it strengthens my argument.
  Part of the Government's platform during the General Election was an immediate cut of 6d. in the pound off income tax. Those from constituencies like mine could have told them what it would mean to the average wage earner in the industrial belt of Scotland. We now recognise that the so-called cut of 6d. will mean that a man with two children at primary school will be approximately 8s. 2d. a week worse off.
  I should also like to know whether the Government have given any thought to old-age pensioners. One of my constituents wrote to the Prime Minister and received a letter from his secretary to the effect that pensions had kept in front of the rise in the cost of living. That was a complete somersault from what they were saying before the General Election. If the Government cannot give me an answer tonight, I have put a Question on the Parser for the Prime Minister himself on this important matter.
  Whether we like it or not, the workers now recognise that with the advent of this Government an Industrial Relations Bill will be introduced. The performance last night of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry made it indelibly clear why we have so many strikes. We are always prone to ridicule the workers and the trade unions without recognising that it

  1353
  takes two to have a tight and that the employers are the perpetrators in many instances. By his attitude last night, the right hon. Gentleman annoyed many of my colleagues because he would not show himself conciliatory in any way. I hope that the Government will recognise this, especially the Prime Minister, who is responsible for selections. After all, the right hon. Gentleman held high office in the C.B.I. He is obviously used to expounding C.B.I. philosophy. I hope that he will recognise what that organisation has said about investment grants and that the Government will make a hasty retreat and return us to the situation which existed under the Labour Party.
  I urge the Government to give serious thought to the road they are travelling at this critical time in our history and to recognise the strong expression of public opinion about this so-called mini-budget. If they do not have second thoughts, we shall be heading for economic ruin, with all that that means for the living standards of our people.
  7.52 p.m.
  Dr. Tom Stuttaford: Although the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) pointed scornfully at hon. Members on this side of the House when he was condemning prescription charges, it so happened that on the two occasions when he pointed he was pointing at two hon. Members who are opposed to prescription charges. The emphasis he put on his finger-pointing, therefore, lost its meaning.
  Everybody in the N.H.S. was concerned lest we had slashing cuts in the service. The Press reports on the subject did not augur well, but, fortunately, in the event such cuts did not occur. Indeed, the hospital building programme has been enhanced. Understaffed and under-financed hospitals will not suffer. More money is going to help the geriatric sufferers and the mentally sick.
  In an admirable maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Dr. Trafford) clearly expressed the medical objections to prescription charges. The hon. Member for Penistone did the same, but in highly over-emotional terms. We have always felt that these charges represented a bad tax. Unwittingly, I, as a doctor, have been a tax collector for Labour and Conservative Governments
  1354
  alike. These charges have continued, whichever party has been in power. Doctors return home to their practices after doing their rounds with their pockets full of coins. This money must be sent to the tax man.
  Fortunately, the number of exceptions from prescription charges is to be increased, and I understand that people—I believe it applies to income rather than earnings—on£1,000 a year with two children will be exempt. We have been told that the executive council prepayment charge—the "season ticket", as it is known—which enables patients to obtain and pay for prescriptions in bulk is to be a better bargain, and this partly answers the anxieties expressed by the hon. Member for Penistone.
  Those of us concerned with the N.H.S. have found that the chronically sick suffer the most, and the various categories of the chronically ill who have been exempt from prescription charges have been too narrow. The chronic bronchitic undoubtedly finds that, as his earnings begin to fall as his illness progresses, the money he spends on prescriptions increases. This is common to every doctor's surgery and is not restricted to the industrial North and Midlands or the mining areas of Wales. This type of chronic bronchitic is found all over the country, as are chronic heart cases, which have not been exempted from these charges.
  Two things will happen if the charges become too excessive. The first is that doctors will prescribe more drugs, so that there is greater wastage. With larger amounts of dangerous drugs about, there is more chance of their falling into the wrong hands or the black market, through either carelessness or casualness.
  Secondly, the doctor who has his patients' welfare at heart will prescribe more composite pills. Most manufacturers make this type of pill, which is just a pill but with different ingredients. These pills are dearer—that is, dearer to the service—because instead of their being manufactured from the national formulary they are made up separately, wrapped nicely and so make larger profit for the pharmaceutical industry.
  I have always been worried about the idea of any charge of this type being on a sliding scale. It is bad enough to have a tax on illness. It is far worse when

  1355
  that tax operates on a sliding scale so that the more sick one is, the more rare one's disease, the greater the cost. A tax of this kind is indefensible in medicine.
  My hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin dealt more ably than I can with the problem of deterrents. We frequently hear that it is a deterrent for the patient to have to pay for his prescriptions. In my experience at my practice, that has not been the case. Generally speaking, a patient goes to his doctor, receives advice and then evaluates whether his illness is sufficiently grave for him to cash the script that night or wait until pay day. Prescription charges do not, therefore, provide a deterrent in the sense of stopping people visiting their doctors. If anything, they stop them—though only for a day or two—going to the chemist.
  Mr. Pavitt: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on each occasion prescription charges have gone up since 1956 the drug bill has gone up, and that last year it rose by£11 million, or 8 per cent.?
  Dr. Stuttaford: I am grateful for that comment, but there are other reasons why the drug bill is bound to go up.
  Mr. Raison: Will my hon. Friend agree that the reason for the bill going up has nothing to do with the fact mentioned by the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), but is entirely due to drugs becoming increasingly expensive?
  Dr. Stuttaford: It may be a deterrent to a very small section of the community to come forward, but the male wage earners in the poor families will, I hope, be saved by the fact that the wage level is to be increased£1,000 a year. In that case, these people will come forward, too.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Sheldon: I was very interested in what was said by the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford). I could never understand the reason for putting on the prescription charges. I could appreciate the argument against waste which says that one should not give free bread because giving necessities like that can lead to a certain amount of waste, but I never saw that argument applying to prescription charges. People do not
  1356
  enjoy a prescription; they get it only if the doctor thinks they should have it. Raising money by making people pay when they are ill is really a transfer of the raising of money from those who are well to those who are ill. When one considers the cost of collection of these relatively small sums, from the efficiency point of view it is far better that the money should be raised through general taxation and revenue and not by collecting it from those least able to support such payments.
  I objected most strongly to the tone of the comments of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about the most unfortunate members of our community. I found his term "lame ducks" slighting, and even offensive. I am associated with the Inskip League. These are disabled people. I go to a number of their functions and meetings, and I also visit a number of the people, who do a great deal in very difficult circumstances. If in my constituency I were to refer to them as "lame ducks" it would be regarded as insulting. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman does not understand how remarks of that kind can react in the minds of many people who are disabled in some way but have nothing else wrong with them. They are entitled to the same sort of treatment as more fortunate members of the community receive.
  We are told that the whole purpose of the package is to expose our people and industry to the bracing climate which every now and again Tory philosophers think we are ready for, and deserve. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) referred to the article in the Sunday Times which showed that as a result of the concessions and the taxation offsets in this budget the average family earning£3,000 a year would be no better off, or even a little worse off. He showed that there was a regressive effect.
  I am surprised that in these two days no one has so far mentioned the fact that those with unearned incomes will do even better. We know that the ordinary person will suffer. We know that the rich people will do rather better. What is not generally realised in that those with unearned income will do best of all.
  Let me give one or two examples. As a result of these proposals, a

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  single person earning£1,500 a year will save£21 a year, but a single person with that amount of unearned income will save£29. A married couple with all earned income will save£17; if their income is all unearned, they will benefit to the extent of over£25. A married couple with£3,000 of earned income will benefit by£46, but if that income is unearned their benefit will be£63. All along the line those with invested income do much better. I should have thought that those were the people to whom the argument about the bracing climate was the least applicable. If the argument is that we need to provide incentives to the "wealth creators", as the Secretary of State called them, I cannot see how this kind of incentive can apply to those enjoying large unearned incomes.
  I believe that here we see the real reasoning behind these proposals. Dressed up in the guise of efficiency, of modern management, of the new capability unit, we have the pre-war Tories coming into their own, with the money going to those with the largest incomes and even more to those with unearned incomes. We see little of the incentive effects.
  Let me take an example of how we might have tried to produce certain incentive effects or, perhaps, reduce certain disincentive effects. I go now to the other end of the scale from those high in industry who may be guiding the affairs of their companies. I speak of those who suffer from the earnings rule. At one stage in the arrangement their pension is reduced by 1s. for every 1s. they earn. This has been a very unhappy state of affairs for some time. In effect, they pay 100 per cent. of their extra income, because they fail to receive the corresponding benefit. There is therefore a zero incentive to earn.
  Now we are going further. As a result of the various means tests to be applied to prescription charges, rent rebates and supplementary benefits we will inevitably have a situation in which those people will give up more than the extra 1s. they have earned. We shall have the absurd situation in which we shall rely on the ignorance of these people, as otherwise they would not work. It is here that we might have thought of the wealth creators, because I do not believe that the wealth creators are only at the top of industry. The wealth creators are in all
  1358
  parts of industry. They are not exclusively those earning over£3,000 a year. Something might have been done in the interests of those who take the view that, rather than merely remain in retirement, they will find a job that is useful and create wealth for the community as well as a better standard for themselves.
  We shall need to launch the counterattack in favour of direct taxation as being the fairest way of raisins money. As a result of a lack of growth in the economy, people have become over-obsessed with the levels of direct taxation and are not quite so conscious of the benefits they receive. In all countries, as incomes have risen so has the demand for social services and social benefits. The one has been able to keep pace with the other.
  Unfortunately, because of our lack of growth, this has not been so; so people have tended to notice the cuts that have been made in their pay packets more than the benefits they receive. One thing that the Tory Government will be showing these people is that, when they reduce the standard rate by the magnificent sum of 6d. in the pound, the effect on them will be so small that they will be much more conscious than they have been for many years of the benefits that they are receiving. This lesson, dearly bought, will be fully learned.
  Our taxation system needs fundamental correction. We have a shape of a curve that is nowhere near an ideal shape. Over the years we have not improved it. We have worsened it. I am not talking about the Finance Act with its hundreds of Sections added over the years. That is bad, but it is a different kind of badness. I am talking about the shape of the curve. It should start off very small—almost imperceptibly small. Now a person either pays no tax or he pays it at the rate of 32 per cent. This is appalling. One should drift into income tax and it should rise steadily.
  That is not the only anomaly. There is the middle range where there is a particular kink in it so that certain people get benefits halfway along. There is the crowning disgrace of all that, when the rate of tax is reduced, because surtax is the slab on top of it a disproportionate benefit is given to those paying surtax. A Chancellor, in deciding which people shall benefit, can either introduce

  1359
  impossible complications or decide on the straight cut which gives this large concession to surtax payers, for which nobody can find justification.
  We need to tailor the whole income tax structure and join surtax with income tax and develop it along the curve that we want so that we can decide who will get benefits, who will make payments, and how much and how variable those payments of income tax will be.
  Fundamentally, at the bottom of all this there lies the accent upon the growth of the economy. I am not one of those who wants growth for growth's sake. I believe that the importance of growth, the importance of the expansion of the economy, the importance of what we get out of the country's productive resources fundamentally and at the end, depends upon what is done with the money that the country raises.
  I therefore believe that growth in itself is politically neutral. At the end of the nineteenth century our gross domestic product per head was the highest in the world—greater than that of the United States, double Germany's, double France's, treble Italy's. We were a great, powerful and most wealthy nation. It would have been a very great England if we had only known how to distribute the wealth at that time.
  The most saddening thought is that by the time we got through to the idea of the proper redistribution of the country's wealth we were no longer wealthy. We need to understand that in terms that the comparative wealth of the economy has been in a long and almost uninterrupted decline. If continued, this would lead to our relative unimportance as a nation. In the first decade of the twentieth century America overtook Britain's power and wealth and assured for itself the economic domination of the world. Because of our relative decline, not only is the position we once held now taken by the United States but it is being increasingly taken by many other countries, too. We must ensure that we put growth as our first priority, because it is the foundation of all the social advantages and benefits we hope to achieve.
  I particularly deplore the Chancellor's early commitment to the defence of the
  1360
  pound, the same mistake that we have made repeatedly over the years. I remember hesitantly advising Iain Macleod not to make any commitments of this kind and I was delighted to see him nodding his head on that occasion. It is a great pity that the succeeding Chancellor did not adhere to that view.
  Nobody can be sure that any road can lead to growth. All that can be seen are the first steps. I am not like those clever men who say that this step leads to that step, leads to the other step. We cannot proceed in that way. We can make the first approaches towards growth and not be inhibited by any preconceived notions of defence of the pound, east of Suez nonsense, or any other part of what is today increasingly irrelevant. The first step is expansion and the ending of a permanent deflationary climate.
  I am particularly sad about what is being done for the regions. Regional policy was one of the great successes of the Labour Government that will be long remembered as finally taking unto Government the full responsibility for an equalisation of wealth throughout the country. I did not agree with all the measures that were undertaken, but I certainly agreed with the money that was being spent and the idea behind it. I wanted to see it spent much more selectively in a number of ways, but I believe that over a period its selectivity would have been sharpened and that it would have been directed more forcefully towards the precise improvements that I felt were needed.
  Under this Government there has been a decline in the commitment to regional development. A Question of mine elicited yesterday the information that the value of the investment grant for£100 of investment expenditure was worth in the development areas£52 as a result of the investment grant and it is now under the present scheme worth only£36. It is all very well to talk about the infrastructure, but that is not the precise kind of open commitment that a manufacturer had when he went into such an area. It is not something on which manufacturers can base their plans and place their reliance and so go to Scotland or the North-East. We now have a very pale imitation of the splendid achievements that were the Labour Government's.

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  As to the demise of the I.R.C., there are many cases in which Governments come to power and have to carry out a certain number of dogmatic measures to which they are committed. The I.R.C. did not fall into that category. There was no commitment to end it. No one could even call the I.R.C. a Socialist creation. Similar institutitons are being introduced in France, in Italy, and in the European Communities.
  The job which the I.R.C. was set up to do needed to be done. The purpose was to look at industry from the national viewpoint. Those who feel that there is a national viewpoint to be represented must believe that the I.R.C. could always have a rôle, looking at industry not from the viewpoint of one firm taking over another, not from the standpoint of the particular manufactured articles involved, but looking at it from the viewpoint of the people engaged in the industry and of the country as a whole.
  The I.R.C. did that job superbly. It was one of the most effective, efficient and workable solutions to a problem which has bedevilled every Western country. We pioneered the achievement of success in it, and the Tory Government, to their shame, have set about its destruction. Unquestionably, they will find the need for an instrument of this kind in the future, and it will be to their great shame that whatever temporary measures they may devise to meet that need will never be as good as the instrument which they have destroyed.
  In a short time, people will become convinced of the disadvantages of the Chancellor's minor adjustments in direct taxation coupled with the loss of benefits. They will do their sums. They will find, under the veil of the Government's policy, that what it is all about is the funnelling of yet more wealth to the wealthy. I am not one who believes that all the Tories who have been in the House have been vicious men in one way or another. There was a generation, not so much represented now, who, I believe, were as individuals somewhat ashamed of what the Tory Government did between the wars. Unfortunately, as I say, they are not so well represented here now as once they were, and we have in their place men who are trying to be efficient and pretending to be compassionate. Their compassion has been exposed. Their lack
  1362
  of efficiency will be discovered. Their measures will, as a result, be rejected by the people as they come to be understood.
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: As the first speaker from Northern Ireland in this two-day debate, I shall, while complimenting the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), ask to be excused if I do not follow his argument in detail. We are always glad to hear him, his speeches liven up our debates, but, as time is short, I shall restrict myself to making a special plea for two groups of industries.
  I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on the general purport of the reforms which he has introduced. The philosophy behind them, the idea of reducing taxation, will, I believe, give much greater incentive to this country and will produce the necessary rapid increase in our gross national product to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred. There are, however, two groups of industries which the Chancellor would do well to consider carefully. I refer, first, to shipping and shipbuilding, and, second, to the aviation industry, which was mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott).
  I ask the Chancellor to remember that the shipbuilding and shipping industries are in a special position within the nation's economy. It is not, perhaps, fair to an industry such as shipbuilding or shipping, which has to meet international competition, to subject it to the close type of argument followed by the Chancellor in his speech opening the debate and in the White Paper on which the debate is based.
  I ask for special treatment for this industry, first, because the industry has to compete against foreign shipping and shipbuilding concerns. For the sake of brevity, I shall devote myself to the shipbuilding industry, of which I have some special knowledge. Britain's competitors abroad in shipbuilding are heavily subsidised. I refer, in particular, to the European competition which we face. To take just two examples, France subsidises her shipbuilding industry quite openly to the extent of about 15 per cent., with on top of that an extra 1 or 2 per cent. regional assistance given to shipyards in certain parts of France, and

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  Italy does the same. The result of this was seen only recently when, towards the end of the Labour Government's period of office, a contract for the building of a ferry steamer for British Rail, in which a lot of Government money is invested, was placed not in one of our own shipyards but in Italy. This is a deplorable state of affairs, considering that the Italian yard was able to cut its price because it receives 15 or 16 per cent. subsidy from the Italian Government.
  When an industry in this country faces that sort of competition from abroad, one has either to match that competition or face the prospect of our industry going out of business. It is not sufficient, therefore, to say that we shall replace with investment allowances the investment grants given to our shipyards to help them modernise and keep abreast of the latest developments in shipbuilding. It is common knowledge that many of our larger shipyards have been making substantial losses each year rather than profits. What use is an investment allowance if one has no profit against which to set off the allowance? One can set off a capital allowance only if one has a profit. That is my first and main reason for asking that some special provision should be devised by the Treasury to assist our shipbuilding industry.
  I do not, however, rest my argument on that point alone. There are two other factors affecting the viability and profitability of our shipyards to be taken into account. First—again, this is a matter of common knowledge—in the fierce world competition in shipbuilding, particularly from Japan, long-term contracts have to be made. Shipbuilding contracts are essentially long-term, entered into in one year, with the building not commencing, perhaps, for 12 months or so thereafter, and the ship itself not being finally delivered and paid for until three, four or even five years later. These long-term contracts are taken at fixed prices by British shipbuilding yards in order to obtain orders; if they did not quote fixed prices, the orders would go to Japan or somewhere else. What is important, however, is that such long-term contracts are frequently frustrated by rapid rises in the costs of materials and labour which were not fully foreseen by the yard when
  1364
  making the contracts. The price of coal has risen rapidly and with it the price of steel, while the wages bill, particularly in the last 12 months, has been escalating at a frightening rate. This has meant that orders which seemed profitable two or three years ago are now being completed at a loss, and yards such as those in the Upper Clyde, Harland and Wolff, Vickers and Swann Hunter are returning losses in their annual accounts.
  This is a matter of which the Government should take cognisance, because to some extent they are responsible for the rapid rise of prices. It is part of the duty of the Government to keep down prices. If as a result of these rises our shipyards lose money, the Government should not with a sweep of the pen take away money on which the yards are relying for modernisation and keeping up to date.
  Finally, but by no means least, the Government should consider the shipbuilding industry in the knowledge that we are a maritime nation and that it is in the national interest for the shipbuilding industry to be preserved. I do not argue this only from the defence point of view, even though defence is vital, but because we are a trading nation. If a large proportion of our yards are forced to close down as a result of changes in Government policy, we shall have to buy boats abroad, and that will result in a large loss of currency to Britain as a whole.
  Mr. Dell: Does the hon. Gentleman regard Harland and Wolff as one of the lame ducks mentioned by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry?
  Mr. McMaster: It is an interesting speculation. If time allowed, I should like to deal with it. I do not regard the firm as a lame duck, for the reasons I have given. I believe that our shipyards are as capable as any in the world. All I am saying is that if foreigners get special subsidies, we have to match them. If there is unfair competiton, we must be prepared to match it.
  Mr. Callaghan: I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. If he does not think that Harland and Wolff, which has been receiving large grants, is a lame duck, to whom does he think his right hon. Friend was referring when he

  1365
  mentioned lame ducks? What kind of company was meant?
  Mr. McMaster: I am tempted to follow that, but several hon. Members still wish to speak and I had better not do so.
  If we were to give up assisting our yards and they went out of business, the country would have to finance its purchases of ships from abroad by increased exports, and there is no proof that the men employed in the yards and their expertise could be diverted to other export industries to make up the difference. Another factor is that almost 50 per cent. of the money spent on building ships in this country comes back to the country in taxation, and that would not happen if boats were bought abroad. The full effect of the replacement of investment grants by allowances should be tempered to this industry.
  Another factor of particular concern in Northern Ireland—and many hon. Members who are interested in the position there will have this in mind—is that we already have some 7 per cent. unemployment in Northern Ireland. As the country knows, we have been faced with civil unrest. If our yard went out of business, some 10,000 or 11,000 men in Belfast would lose their jobs and this could do nothing but add to the unrest in Northern Ireland, besides adding greatly to the burden of unemployment which has to be borne by the country as a whole.
  I should like to hear a little more from my right hon. Friend about what the Government mean when they say in the White Paper in reference to the development areas that they intend to improve the infrastructure and to adopt other measures to assist them.
  I welcome the comment in the White Paper and in the other White Paper on investment incentives that these proposals will be discussed with the Government of Northern Ireland, who act as the agents of the United Kingdom Government in putting these reforms into effect. But I should like to know more. We in Northern Ireland are likely to be detrimentally affected by the reforms I have mentioned; that is, the abolition of the capital grant and the regional employment premium. I accept the argument that this will help service industries, which
  1366
  are particularly important in Northern Ireland, where they take up a lot of slack. This is particularly true of tourism, which is growing rapidly.
  Nevertheless, we have large manufacturing industries, like shipyards, textiles, linen, Gallaher's tobacco factory and aviation, all of which the regional employment premium benefited. I hope that my right hon. Friends will pay attention in these social reforms to ensuring that their measures, which are not mentioned in detail in the White Paper, make up the leeway which is likely to be lost in this sphere.
  My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives said that he would like the Government to make further economies in the aviation industry and suggested that we should abandon Concorde. This, again, is a special case, which I feel the Government should consider. It is a matter of common knowledge, no matter what decision is made over Concorde or the air bus—whether to support the BAC 1–11 or the European airbus and let Hawker Siddley take a larger share—that this is a field in which the Government are right to take a hand, because the sums involved are so large that they cannot be raised on the market.
  This is for two reasons. The first is the amounts involved. For Concorde, it is nearly£1,000 million for development, before we produce any. It is actually about£820 million at the moment, but I gather that this figure will rise a little before we see the final account. The second is that not only can no private concern raise money like this but the risk is far too great. Therefore, the Government must take the risk in this enterprise, or we abandon the aircraft industry entirely. As it is a leader in technology and in breaking new boundaries, and since it is an important prestige industry, it requires special help from the Government.
  Therefore—I am now attacking the theory behind the White Paper—I suggest that, while in general one supports the ideas behind the White Paper, there are certain industries, particularly shipbuilding and aviation, which deserve special consideration. I hope that my hon. Friend will say that he is prepared to look at them separately and in some way to treat them differently.
  8.39 p.m.
  Miss Joan Lestor: I hope that the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) will forgive me if I do not take up his arguments because I want to deal with one or two items of particular interest to me.
  I start with a quotation which seems to me very apt to this subject. It was said by Robert Lowe a hundred years ago as the House approached the Education Act, 1870:
  "I do not think it is any part of the duty of Government to prescribe what people should learn except in the case of the poor where time is so limited that we must fix upon a few elementary subjects to get anything done at all The lower classes ought to be educated to discharge the duties cast upon them. They should also be educated that they may appreciate and defer to higher cultivation when they meet it and the higher classes ought to be educated in a very different manner in order that they may exhibit to the lower classes that education to wit, which, if it were shown to them, they would bow down in deference."
  There are two strands of deference in that quotation. One is that the poor must defer to the rich, and the other is that those who do not have higher cultivation and education should defer to those who have it.
  I make that quotation not only to show how we have progressed in our attitudes in the hundred years that we have had our public system of education, but also because the Secretary of State for Social Services must try to explain what the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry meant last night when he said:
  "…the essential need of the country is to gear its policies to the great majority of people, who are not lame ducks, who do not need a hand …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 1211.]
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyme (Mr. Sheldon) said, this attitude underlies what the Government have done and propose to do.
  It is about time that someone made it perfectly clear that when people use the social services, the Health Service and other services to which they are entitled they have paid for them. People receiving retirement pensions, people in hospitals because they are sick and women having children under the Health Service have paid for these benefits. They are not lame ducks. Medicine and welfare services were introduced not to
  1368
  remove poverty, but to ensure that they were available freely at the point of need. That does not mean that people have not paid for them. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry undermined his case last night.
  It has been said time and again in this debate, "You did it first. You took away the milk from the older children, you put up prescription charges and, therefore, you cannot point the finger at us, because we are building on what you started to do". Like my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson), I did not agree with some of the things which the Labour Government did. But the circumstances were different. We did not deliberately set out in our social policies to take from those who do not have it to put it in the pockets of those who do.
  The electorate is sick to death of listening to the argument, "You did it first". Let me turn the argument around the other way. We did not sell arms to South Africa. Perhaps the Government will follow our lead in that respect. We can all do a bit of analysing, but I do not think that it impresses anybody and I do not believe that it helps us one iota to talk about poverty. It seems that this debate is primarily about poverty—creating poverty, trying to do something about it and, perhaps, on the basis of what we have heard, trying to legislate the poor into existence.
  I wish to talk generally about the family income supplement and the exemptions which many members of the Government genuinely feel will help to alleviate poverty. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) said yesterday, quite rightly, that one of the difficulties in any system which has exemptions is applying for exemption. That applies to the family income supplement. This is why the Government will do a great deal better out of their proposals than they believe they will. In 1966, 850,000 people were eligible for supplementary benefits but did not apply for them. The latest evidence shows that only 808,000 households benefit from rate rebates, yet an increasing number of people are eligible but have not taken advantage of the scheme. Many children qualifying for free school meals do not take advantage of them. Plowden pointed out that although one

  1369
  would expect to find a greater number of free school meals being taken in areas of the most social difficulty this was not so. Various methods have been tried for explaining the rebate schemes and the benefits available. We know the difficulty of getting this information across.
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite sometimes forget about people and how they can be humiliated and embarrassed. To refer to people who receive social benefits as "lame ducks" is a sure way of stopping needy people from applying for them. This is what the Secretary of State has done. More explanation and information should be given to people about social benefits.
  I have here a letter from a constituent. She is a woman whose husband has left her and she has, I believe, three children. I had explained to her that she was entitled to apply for free meals because of her difficult circumstances. She says in her letter that she knows this, but she does not want to do it:
  "I know that the school that you refer to does go out of its way to avoid other children knowing. I am aware of that. It happened to me. I had free meals, I had free shoes through the school clinic. It was not whether other people knew, it was whether I knew, and I knew I had them. I felt my family had let me down."
  Whether we like it or not, people believe that they are treated as if they were receiving charity to which they are not entitled. This is why I object so much to the attitude which is adopted about school meals. We are all guilty of it. School meals, which, after all, benefit children, should be part of social housekeeping. We should devise a system to enable children to have school meals without making them feel conspicuous when they have to pay at the point of consumption so that everyone knows about those who cannot pay. Children can be humiliated, and when they are that humiliation stays with them for a long time.
  The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) took issue with the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Miss Devlin) when she said, "Have you ever known poverty as I have?" He said, "But you do not have to experience poverty to understand it." There is something in that, but to have known poverty helps one to listen to people who are experiencing it. Similarly in Indus-
  1370
  trial relations, there are people who spell out all the cures for disputes in, for example, the engineering industry when they have never worked on the shop floor and probably do not know the difference between a monkey wrench and a monkey nut. Yet they believe that they can talk abut the causes of disputes and can legislate about them. I do not say that one cannot talk about poverty if one has not experienced it. But people who have experienced poverty, social humiliation, and embarrassment and who have been discriminated against are usually the people who do not think they should have to prove their poverty in order to apply for social benefits.
  One of the cardinal principles of social welfare in the 1970s—and this is a principle that we on this side of the House have accepted, and if any of us have not done so we should have—is that it is far better if a few people get something to which they are not entitled than that any one family should go without. We should so try to organise matters that society treats all people the same and then afterwards we can try to do something about the lame ducks. With their proposals the Government will only ensure that families in need will go without and that the only people who will apply will be those with tough hides. [Interruption.] It is not funny. Some of us know about these things and have experienced them.
  With the best will in the world, the difficulty about this whole principle is that people have to contract in and people do not like having to prove their poverty.
  Mr. Charles Curran: I have a good deal of sympathy with the hon. Lady's case, but I should like to ask her one question. I see the force of what she is saying about children being discriminated against if they are given free meals on application. Would she take the same line if it were proposed that, instead of exempting children who cannot afford to pay, we were to give the money to the parents so that the children could pay?
  Miss Lester: I was trying to say that, however we finance school meals, we must move away from the situation as it is now when the child is made to feel humiliated because it knows it is getting free meals. There are discussions taking

  1371
  place about how this could be done and I will not go into that argument now. It is the principle with which I am concerned this evening.
  Another aspect of the situation that concerns me is that an open-ended sum is involved in these calculations. In 1974–75 not only will money by way of school meals and welfare milk, be taken out of the pockets of people rearing children, but there will be an open-ended sum geared to the rise in the cost of school meals. This is why this argument is so important.
  The situation now, which I do not understand, is that pre-school children in play groups and nursery schools will get free milk if they are in nursery schools and play groups, but children at home will cease to receive subsidised welfare milk. Why are they to get free milk and the others not? Is it considered that children in special schools by definition are more in need of milk than children who are not in special schools? I do not know to what extent this matter has been thought through. We must approach the question of school milk more sympathetically. The situation may even arise that doctors will start prescribing milk. At the moment there is some disagreement among them as to the value of milk, but in the end this may mean that if a doctor considers that a young child should have milk he will prescribe it.
  There are other hon. Members waiting to speak and I will come to my last point. It relates to the situation of old people as a result of these proposals. I have tried to make out a case on the effects of poverty. We are not dealing with this problem at all but are making it worse.
  When we on this side of the House were in office, we did a great deal for the elderly. As was demonstrated yesterday, our record is a very reasonable one. The fact remains that everyone who is old and in difficulty thought when young that everything would be all right when he or she grew old. Young people think the same way today. But it never is all right. I hate doing it, but in my constituency I constantly nag my local council about concessionary fares for old people, and I write to the Minister for Posts and Telecommunications asking why old people cannot be exempted from the cost of T.V. licences. In fact, I see that
  1372
  consideration is being given to the possibility of allowing old people free admission to museums and galleries. But this is wrong. Every time that I do it, I know that it is wrong. We should not have to make old people suffer, be humiliated and be discriminated against because they are poor. That is the wrong way of looking at poverty, and if we are to tackle the problem we have to think much more about it.
  Another effect of what the Government propose is that in many instances it will affect others who in some way are underprivileged. The cuts in further education, for example, will mean increasing the fees charged by local authorities in England and Wales for courses at further education establishments from September of next year. This proposal will hit a large number of people who left school at an early age and want to improve their education standards. Young people in industry who are on day release will also be affected, especially those employed by smaller firms which will not be able to afford the increase in fees. On the face of them, these are sound ways of saving money but, in social and privilege terms, they are designed to discriminate, and they will.
  Having said all this, if we had no prescription charges, if all children had free school meals, if these decadent measures had not been proposed by the Government, we would still be left with poverty. It is clear that the Government have not thought through the way in which poverty should be tackled. They have talked a great deal about a family income supplement to alleviate the worst side effects of their proposals. However, they have not faced the fact that, if we are to deal with aspects of poverty affecting families with young children, family allowances must be increased, while, at the same time, tax allowances at the other end are abolished. Obviously by doing that we will bring in people who do not really need help. But, by reducing income tax by 6d., we shall also benefit a large number of people who do not need it.
  8.58 p.m.
  Mr. Timothy Raison: Representing the constituency that I do, I am acquiring a certain sensitivity about the repeated references to ducks to which we have been subjected in the last hour

  1373
  or so. I remind hon. Members that Aylesbury ducks are notorious for their ability to stand on their own feet—that is, until a butcher gets at them.
  Throughout this long debate, there has been one conspicuous gap in the Opposition's analysis. There has been a complete failure on their part to look at the real problems which beset our social services. They are problems which have been becoming more and more apparent in the last few years and ones which any Government, sooner or later, will have to tackle.
  The merit of the present Government's approach is that they have shown that they are prepared to start tackling the problems now. The first has been the enormous increase in the sheer amount of money demanded by the social services. The individual services have been increasing in cost each year at the rate of 6–8 per cent. Beyond that, there is the major switch in the balance of the population. With the passing of each year, the number of dependants increases numerically very much faster than the number of providers.
  We know that in the long run there is a risk of substantial technological unemployment again adding to our burden. We know that many of these social services demand ever higher costs. This is particularly true of drugs. These things are becoming more expensive the whole time. We know that we have higher expectations on the part of the public—rightly so—of the services being provided. We know that the people who staff the services also have higher expectations. The fact that the social services are inevitably generally labour-intensive means that this will add to our economic problems in manning them. We know, above all, as has been pointed out, that there are still substantial pockets of real need remaining, and in some cases they are far more than pockets.
  We know all these things. We know that the pressure on the social services is minting the whole time. Yet hon. Gentlemen opposite will not face the real question that is posed: what are we going to do about it; how shall we provide the resources to enable us to get the social services that we need today? They are rooted—we have seen this time and again—in the concepts of the 1920s.
  1374
  They simply will not apply themselves to the problems of today.
  To my mind, the merit of the Government's approach is that they accept the facts. They accept that there are needs to be met. They realise that needs change, that the needs of the 1920s are not identical with those of today, and they try to concentrate on meeting those real needs.
  The introduction of the measures of selectivity that we have seen in the Chancellor's statement of last week set the kind of pattern for which we have to look in future. In that sense it was an extremely important statement. I believe that it will enable us to provide better services in future.
  This is a matter close to my heart. The question is: what are we going to do; how shall we meet the needs which exist?
  One school of thought, to which many hon. Members opposite clearly belong, is what might be called the relative poverty school. Essentially, they say the whole time that the answer is to go on redistributing wealth; that if incomes at the lower end go up, they must go on and on, and no real attention must be paid to how we can provide for what we have to do at the moment. The trouble about the relative poverty approach is that it seems incapable of picking out priorities in the way that we must at the moment.
  The point put forward against this on our side—the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) also shared this point—is that the ability to provide the things which must be provided depends on economic growth. This is the absolute key to the problem. How are we to get this economic growth going? I am sure that the Chancellor is right and that our policy is right to stress that we shall not get economic growth going unless we can create a climate of encouragement for those who have been called the wealth creators. This is fundamental.
  We had a certain amount of argument, yesterday particularly, about the extent to which a reduction in direct taxation is an incentive. Hon. Members opposite said that there is no evidence that this is so; others contradicted it. I concede that in the present state of psychological

  1375
  and economic research there is probably not much evidence either way. I do not think that we have the ability to study these things. But I think that everybody who has worked in industry knows that there is something in this point about incentives. It is vitally important to give the people who are in a position to give a stimulus to industry the chance to feel that their work is worth while and that the rewards available to them really do exist.
  I should like to look more closely at some of the specific policies which have been put to us today, but there is not time. I hope that I can claim genuine interest in the development of the social services. I firmly believe that the policies that have been put forward are designed to help people as a whole.
  9.5 p.m.
  Mr. James Callaghan: The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), who has had to compress his remarks, referred to what he seems to think is a new policy of helping the wealth creators. The hon. Gentleman is only 10 years out of date, because it was in 1961 that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), did precisely that. I remember that in his Budget Statement that year the right hon. and learned Gentleman told us—and for greater accuracy I have here a copy of what he said—that he wished to give an incentive to those in positions of responsibility in our national life. Those are almost the words used by the hon. Gentleman this evening. The right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to say that
  "the present scope and level of surtax is a substantial disincentive to effort and initiative."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 819.]
  and therefore he must take steps to correct that substantial disincentive in order that those in a position of responsibility in our national life should be able to release those springs of energy which were going to transform the country.
  When the right hon. and learned Gentleman raised the surtax limit from£2,000 a year to£5,000—[Interruption.]—nurses at that stage did not count. First, there was not an election on the horizon. Second, they were not people who were
  1376
  holding responsible positions in our national life. It was the wealth creators that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was after when he raised the surtax limit from£2,000 to£5,000. It did not compare with the beggarly 6d. off that we have had now. It was something dramatic and important.
  What happened in the following two years? The hon. Member for Aylesbury has followed these things for many years, and, if I may say so, he has made a substantial contribution in the matter of social services. Does he recall, because I am sure the former Chancellor does, what happened in the following two years? The gross national product fell, exports fell, imports rose, and the balance of payments deteriorated. Where was the great spring forward which that reduction in the surtax level by such a tremendous sum was supposed to bring?
  Mr. Selwyn Lloyd Mr. Selwyn Lloyd (Wirral) rose—
  Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. and learned Gentleman clearly wants to tell me what it was. I wish he had not waited 10 years to do so.
  Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman is always fair. Would he not agree that the increase in the g.n.p. in 1963 and 1964 was equivalent to 4 per cent. a year? The surtax reduction was bitterly criticised. Did the right hon. Gentleman do anything to change it when he got in?
  Mr. Callaghan: No. What I am attacking—
  Hon. Members: Oh!
  Mr. Callaghan: I am not going to spend my time this evening debating that aspect of it, except to say that I was bitterly attacked by the Opposition when I increased the surtax contribution in one of the years when I happened to hold the office which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had held. The real point, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Opposition Front Bench cannot dodge it, is that we have had these incentives. We have had this claptrap earlier. We have had the action following the claptrap, and the result was a calamitous decline in almost every index by which we measure our national prosperity.
  The plain truth—and I am surprised that the hon. Member for Aylesbury did not admit it—is that the motivation of

  1377
  people as to how they work, where they work, and why they work lies much deeper than a miserable 6d. off income tax. The hon. Member for Aylesbury knows that as well as I do.
  Having made those comments, I should say that I congratulate the hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches during this debate—my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner), the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan), the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Dr. Trafford), and my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Jeffrey Thomas). I do not wish to be invidious and pick out anyone but, speaking as a fellow South Wales Member, my heart warmed to my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery, who made a most powerful speech about the regions.
  I should like to make some comments on four major aspects of the debate in trying to sum up for the Opposition. I think the House will agree that I have listened to most of the speeches during the last two days—I have missed very few of them—and I think that they have concentrated on about four things.
  First, there has been the impact of the Government's measures—as far as can be foretold—upon the regions. Secondly, there has been the question whether or not the Chancellor has any counter-inflationary strategy. Most of his hon. Friends seemed to think that he had not. Thirdly, there has been the fact—and a lot of attention was concentrated on this—that the Government have deserted their policy of bringing prices down and are now deliberately encouraging and allowing prices to rise. Fourthly, there has been the philosophical argument whether it is or is not the right thing, at the present juncture of our affairs, to put charges on the lower-paid and make them worse off in order that other people should be better off.
  These are the issues on which the debate has focused. I begin by discussing the question of the regions. It is a pity that the Chancellor was not here when his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) spoke. He would have discovered how that hon. Member reacted to the new, bracing climate now being imported into the shipbuilding industry. The hon. Member's speech was one long moan about the consequences
  1378
  of what the Chancellor is doing to the shipbuilding industry, and a plea for special help. We asked him—somewhat cruelly, perhaps—whether he thought that the shipbuilding industry was one of the lame ducks referred to last night. "No", he said indignantly—and with his constituents we can excuse him saying such a thing.
  Mr. McMaster Mr. McMaster rose—
  Mr. Callaghan: I am sorry, but I cannot give way. I allowed the hon. Member for Aylesbury to go on until five minutes past nine, when I could have risen earlier. I allowed him to make his speech. I must be allowed to make the comments that I want to make. I am ready to take it out of the Secretary of State's time, but I do not wish to do that. I shall sit down at half-past nine.
  The whole point about these regional incentives, about which we who come from the regions feel so deeply, is that the Government have decided to make these far-reaching changes in advance of making a thorough-going study of the problem. That is gambling with the future well-being of the regions and with their prospects of securing new industry. This is a change that they should not have made without first making their long-term thorough-going review of it. It is not as though the regions, at the moment, are looking very hopeful. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynoro Jones) had a reply from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I shall have something to say about that later. It is a pity that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry does not listen to these debates.
  Sir K. Joseph: I have a message from my right hon. Friend that I was going to give. He is fulfilling an obligation, to which he has been committed for some weeks, to address the centenary dinner of the I.C.F.C. He is coming here as soon as he can.
  Mr. Callaghan: That will not do. I shall say now what I have to say about him. He has been absent from the House through the whole of these two days, except for the opening and closing speeches. He made no serious reply to the debate last night; instead, he made a brutal and insensitive speech. He is a new Member, and no one wants to

  1379
  hound a new Member. [Laughter.] I remember what hon. Members did to Frank Cousins! It does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to talk about hounding a new Minister. It is well known to the House that a new Minister has a special obligation to come to the House and learn what it is all about. If the right hon. Member had done so we might not have had the kind of insensitive speech that we had last night from him. He has listened to none of our comments. [Interruption.] His dinner has not been going on since lunchtime. He has listened to none of the things that have been said of him today. I shall say something more about him later.
  I come to my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen. Dealing with new industrial sites in Wales, inquiries have been made, and I am sorry to say that in the third quarter of this year—it is far too early to ascribe blame to the Government for this—the number of inquiries for new sites was the lowest for the year. I am not blaming the Government for that but what I do blame them for is making a leap into the dark with this change in regional policy without first of all investigating it and saying what the consequences will be.
  It is over a year ago that an inquiry was set in hand on this question of the effectiveness of the investment grant. On 22nd October, 1969, a Committee of this House was told that a full inquiry was being set in hand by the previous Government. That was repeated at a later stage, and a Committee of this House reported that it hoped the inquiry would be carried out and completed at an early date in order that it could consider what changes had been made. What has happened to that inquiry? I notice that paragraph 14 of the White Paper says:
  "A thorough-going study of regional-development policy has been put in hand."
  There is nothing new in that. It was put in hand as long ago as October, 1969. If a thoroughgoing study has been put in hand now, why do they want to make changes before seeing the results? If it is a leap in the dark, as I believe it is, if it will worsen the position of the regions as many of us fear, why could they not wait? Why could the Chancellor and the
  1380
  Secretary of State for Trade and Industry not wait until then?
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said last night that it is a wasteful way of doing it. He put it more graphically. He said:
  "It reminds me of trying to put the cream in your coffee by spraying a jugful of cream around the room in the dark."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 1218.]
  Reminds him!That is what they get up to in the C.B.I. Just imagine the scene—all these tycoons of big industry sitting in the dark while someone goes round spraying the room. No wonder they all finish up as—what was the phrase?—"a soft, sodden morass of subsidised incompetence" Well, if they have cream all over them I am not surprised.
  In paying a compliment to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, I thought that his speech was well worthy of his predecessor, the former hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford, Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport. He went on to make a comment—and far be it from me to attack HANSARD—which amid the laughter that followed his original remark was not caught by HANSARD. He said, "It is better to switch the light on." These revelations of the way they conduct the affairs of the C.B.I.! All sitting down, groping at their papers in the dark, finally switching on the light after they have sprayed all the cream around. It confirms all our beliefs about the quality of big business and the manner in which they reach decisions. I can promise him that if he goes to have a cup of tea in a workers' canteen he will not be subjected to this sort of indignity.
  I agree that it is better to switch the light on first, and this is why I ask the Chancellor: why has he not waited for the report of the Committee of Inquiry that he has set up and that was in being long before he came into office, dealing with the effect of investment grants, before rushing into precipitate action?
  The Secretary of State said that it had failed in its purpose, but that is not so. On the very day on which the right hon. Gentleman said that, the shipbuilding industry—as the hon. Member for Belfast, East pointed out in a statement—was telling us in headlines in the newspapers that

  1381
  its order books were the fullest for 10 years.
  The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman has rushed into this out of a sheer ideological sense that he must take some action irrespective of the consequences. We believe that he is putting the development areas very much at risk and that he should have waited for some time before taking this step.
  I say this because unemployment in these areas is too high. Action should be taken to bring it down. There are more men out of work in this country, as the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Knox) said yesterday in what I thought was an excellent speech, than we should tolerate. The Chancellor has a big balance of payments surplus, and this brings me to the next point I wish to make, which is that there is a four-sided quadrilateral which every Chancellor must tackle. [Interruption.] Quadrilaterals are usually four-sided.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: Not under this Government.
  Mr. Callaghan: I am sure that the Foreign Secretary would agree with me.
  The balance between having a healthy balance of payments, getting a reasonable rate of growth, keeping unemployment low and keeping stable prices should be maintained. We know, of course, that the Government have deserted the last objective. Indeed, they have thrown it overboard. They do not want stable prices but price increases. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Nobody can deny that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said recently that he had no intention of subsidising food any further. He wants prices to rise. Nobody can deny that the Minister of Transport said at a conference recently that port charges were too low. And nobody can deny, in view of what is taking place in the oil and coal industries and the forecasts we have of what will take place in the electricity and gas industries, that fuel prices will not rise.
  The Government have deserted the stable prices factor, but what about the other three? I believe that the level of unemployment in Britain is such—I agree that the cushion can be rapidly snatched away—that, in view of the
  1382
  balance of payments surplus, the Chancellor could afford to take a somewhat greater risk in order to put more men back at work. [Interruption.] I do not think he needs to be so cautions. After all, the balance is designed to put men back at work.
  There is nothing extraordinary in what I am saying. There are times when the Chancellor must put the balance of payments first and say, "The balance must come above all right now." There are, however, other times when he can say, "I have a substantial balance of payments surplus, I expect to have a substantial balance during the whole of 1971 and I am determined, therefore, to arrange my priorities in a different way." Unemployment is at such a level—I accept that it has remained at this level for a considerable period—that the time has come when the right hon. Gentleman should have his priorities a little differently arranged. I therefore press him to put more men back at work, as he knows it would be possible to do.
  I come to the deliberate decision of the Government to help the better-off at the expense of the lower-paid. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Hon. Gentlemen opposite need not be ashamed of this. If this is something in which they believe—and they are entitled, if they believe in it, to put it into force—they should not run away from it but stand by their philosophy. They should be prepared to say clearly, "We believe it is better to put£140 million in charges on to the lower-paid"—not the worst-off because they want to cater for them through the F.I.S.—"so that the better-paid may have relief from their taxes."
  I hope that this will be defended in the country. It was what they were elected to do, they say, and they have done it. But they must not run away from the consequences. It is of no use the Prime Minister standing on the steps of No. 10 on the day after the election and saying, "It is our intention to create one nation and to heal the divisions" when they make divisions of this sort. It is our very strong feeling that nothing will be able to bridge this gulf between us; that they cannot build or bind up one nation together if at one and the same time they deliberately take steps to make the best off better off whilst making the lower-paid worse off.

  1383
  The Government really have taken upon themselves the injection of a philosophy which, with the best will in the world, is setting the clock back. I believe that it is the end for the time being of any real attempt to say that there is one nation. We shall do our best to ensure that these policies are destroyed and rejected as soon as possible but, in the meantime, we shall do our best to make certain that we fight their policies as hard as we can.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not developed any realistic strategy for overcoming inflation—none at all. On the contrary, his measures are pulling against each other. His fiscal policy of reducing taxation is pulling against his monetary policy of tightening bank credit. His policy of allowing—indeed, of encouraging—prices to rise pulls against his policy of keeping wages down.
  Someone said to me as I was coming into the Chamber, "There is no need to have any mercy on the Chancellor: he never had mercy on us." But I do have mercy on the right hon. Gentleman. There are very few of us who have held that office, and it is a brute of an office. I should know, and so should the other two right hon. Members who have held it. In my view, the right hon. Gentleman has got, as has any Chancellor of the Exchequer, the most onerous job in Government.
  But there are one or two things that follow from that. The first is—and I hope that it will be believed that I am not being patronising—that his policies must pull together and not against each other. What was said by the hon. Members for Horsham (Mr. Hordern), South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and St. Ives (Mr. Nott) quite clearly shows that he has not convinced his own supporters that his policies at present are pulling together instead of pulling against each other. So I say to him that it is important that he should endeavour to reconcile what he is doing.
  Further, and I say this meaningfully, I hope that he will try to get at least the understanding of the House, even if he cannot, as he probably will not, get its full agreement and support. What he has done in regard to some of his figures is subject to some criticism. The City Editor of the Daily Telegrah had a cross-heading in his page "Adroit Mathe- 1384
  matics". I do not think I can say anything more condemnatory. What the right hon. Gentleman had to say about defence costing, what has been said about the education programme and about the shortfall in the nationalised industries are all examples of very adroit mathematics indeed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had better take it up with the City Editor of the Daily Telegraph, because on this occasion I agree with him. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take us fully into his confidence on these matters, and not try to put something across that cannot be sustained.
  I ask the Secretary of State why the date for the coming into operation of the family income supplement is proposed to be 1st August. If the income tax payers are to get their relief on 1st April why should not those who are already beginning to suffer the consequences of the Government's policy have theirs brought forward at least to that date, if not much earlier? I should be grateful to have an answer, because we shall press him on it.
  Second, we shall certainly want to see the limits of the family income supplement rate. I do not know whether the House is fully seized of the fact that a man with two children receiving the family income supplement whilst still at work will still get less than a family receiving the standard supplementary benefit scale benefits. I cannot believe that this is right. I therefore believe that the Chancellor should raise the limits as well as bring the date forward.
  Finally, I want to say a word about the rate support grant in relation to the settlement which has ben arrived at to-day as a result of Sir Jack Scamp's inquiry. What a condemnation this is of the Government! They have allowed a strike to continue for several weeks by standing back and taking no action. The result is that not only have the unions concerned got nearly everything that they were asking for, but Sir Jack Scamp has said to the Government that, given the pace of inflation in the country as a whole, there is no chance that it can be arrested by a somewhat smaller pay increase for local authority employees; all that would be achieved would be a deterioration in their position without a significant benefit to the country as a whole.

  1385
  Do the Secretary of State and the Chancellor believe that they can stand back in this situation? It is a situation of very great concern. How do they think that it will be resolved if they play no part in it and if, indeed, when they step in their purpose is to increase prices and to make it more difficult, therefore, for anybody to negotiate reasonable wage claims? How do they think that they can stand aside in the face of such a report? What do they intend to do about this situation?
  Over the last two days the Chancellor has presented not a single word that will give anybody in the House encouragement to believe that he has any strategy, let alone ideas, on how to conquer inflation. Until he can do that, his economic strategy will not be credible. We condemn the Government because they have behaved unfairly. They have divided the nation instead of uniting it. They have endangered and imperilled the prosperity of the regions. They have brought forward no remedy at all for conquering the inflation that is rampant in this country.
  9.32 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): My first pleasant duty is to congratulate four maiden speakers. Unfortunately, I missed the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner). I gather that it was a unique occasion for a son to pay tribute to a father who was his predecessor in the same seat. It was reported to me that the hon. Gentleman spoke eloquently and forcefully but that his speech had a strong political flavour.
  I heard the other three maiden speakers. I cannot imagine how they all get so much self-possession. None of them seemed the least abashed, as the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said. The hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Jeffrey Thomas) also made a political speech; he made it with great self-possession, and I am sure that the House will want to hear him again.
  Two of my hon. Friends, the hon. Members for The Wrekin (Dr. Trafford) and for Reading (Dr. Vaughan), spoke easily and fluently and said things very relevant to this debate. The House will not be surprised that these two, both doctors, managed, even in short speeches,
  1386
  to find points of disagreement between themselves on the medical component of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's statement.
  We have just had a very good humoured, slightly avuncular, speech from the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East.
  I hope that the House will allow me to address myself to answering the very large number of questions in the social service field which have been put by hon. Members on both sides, particularly by the hon. Member for Hitchen (Mrs. Shirley Williams), who spoke last night. After I have dealt with the questions I will try to turn to the underlying issues between the parties which have laid behind the speeches.
  First, charges. Except for our proposal to reduce the age exemption limit for dental charges from 21 to 18 and our proposal to move towards a proportionate charge for prescriptions, both of which changes will need legislation, we are making no changes in the substance of the charges. The items charged under Labour remain charged under the Conservative Administration. Moreover, we are not cutting the exemptions. The exemptions applied by Labour apply under our proposals.
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Sir K. Joseph: I am glad that hon. Members opposite appreciate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and are pleased to see him present in the Chamber. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Some of the things he said last night would have raised strong applause and agreement from many Labour audiences in this country.
  I was saying that we have kept all the exemptions which Labour had. In fact, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has devoted£7 million to increasing the exemptions. I shall repeat my right hon. Friend's claim, which met with a certain incredulity last evening. I confess that I take a little blame on myself for the lack of knowledge which the House had about the effect of the exemptions. A Question has been answered today, and will appear in HANSARD tomorrow morning, spelling out all the details. I think that it was my fault that I did not put it down a couple of

  1387
  days ago so that the House would have the details.
  Hon. Members: The Minister cannot put it down.
  Mr. G. Elfed Davies: On a point of order—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman can put a point of order without dramatic gestures.
  Mr. Elfed Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the Minister to put down a Question to himself?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not understand that to be what the Minister said.
  Sir K. Joseph: A Question was put down. My right hon. Friend announced in his statement that all the exemption limits had been raised by about 30s. The effect will, I think, interest hon. Members. I take, for instance, the charges for teeth and eye treatment. A family with three children will be totally exempt—the children are exempt anyway—on an income up to almost£1,200 a year, and with two children up to nearly£1,100 a year. Now, prescription charges. The children are automatically exempt. A man and wife and three children will be exempt up to an income of about£1,150 or£1,175 a year. [An HON. MEMBER: "Gross or net?"] Gross pay. Before that figure is taken, there is a£2 disregard for any wife's earnings. Thus, the scale and number of exemptions is, I think, far more extensive than the House realises.
  I should explain, also, that there is to be a ceiling on any potential dental charges, and also when we move to a proportionate charge for prescriptions. The maximum dental charge will not be more than£10 for a course of treatment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It replaces a maximum for dentures of£6 5s., and a large percentage of dental treatments will be charged at a lower figure than now.
  The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) asked me about exemptions for single people and couples without children. These people get exemptions up to a limit above the supplementary benefit level, but it varies with individual rent and I cannot, therefore, give him the net figure.
  Mr. John Mendelson Mr. John Mendelson rose—
  Sir K. Joseph: I have a great deal to say and I do not think that I have time to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he would allow me to write to him.
  The House is probably aware that there is a "season ticket" for prescriptions, and any individual who is subject to a charge can, for 30s., buy as many prescriptions as he wants, or as he needs, for six months. So for something over 1s. 1d. a week a man who needs prescriptions and whose need for them is not covered by the exemption which is available for some chronic illnesses can get as many prescriptions as he needs.
  But, as was effectively pointed out by the hon. Lady the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor), there is still the problem of take-up. The Government will embark on an elaborate campaign to get as large a take-up as possible of all these means-tested benefits. Because of the extra exemptions arranged by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, some people will pay less for school meals after 1st April than at the moment. I ask the House to bear in mind, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) welcomed, that£110 million extra, over and above the other increases in the Health Service which will evolve over the next four years, has been allotted by my right hon. Friend to improving the treatment of the mentally handicapped and the geriatric, the elderly, and other National Health Service priorities.
  I turn to the family incomes supplement. I must emphasise that all people who will be eligible for family income supplement are, by hypothesis, exempt from all the charges we have been discussing. The F.I.S. is not intended to make up to them for charges. They are not subject to charges. It is meant to produce an improvement in their standard of living.
  The family income supplement will involve an additional test: that I cannot deny. We shall seek to simplify the test. The F.I.S. test will entitle anyone eligible automatically to free prescriptions, and we shall try to arrange that it shall be a passport to exemptions from other charges.
  It is true that when we were the Opposition we expressed our preference for an increase in family allowances with

  1389
  clawback as our first step in tackling family poverty. [HON. MEMBERS: "You promised it."] No, we expressed our preference. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said—I have seen the letter—that it seemed to him at the time that this—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must listen to both sides.
  Sir K. Joseph: But now that we look at it with the greater facts available to the Government, we prefer "FIS".
  Hon. Members: Fizz! [Laughter.]
  Sir K. Joseph: I do not know why hon. Members find this laughable.
  Hon. Members: Look behind!
  Mr. Speaker: Now back to the debate.
  Sir K. Joseph: The fact is that, compared with the family allowance increase proposed, this Bill will put into the poorest working household sums of up to£150 a year. One hundred and eighty thousand of the poorest working households will qualify and 20,000 households on the wage stop will benefit, many of them being taken off the wage stop. Moreover, the Bill will bring help to households with one child, which a family allowance increase would not have done.
  The Bill is a first step in our programme for tackling family poverty. We only wish—and I agree with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East—that we could get it into payment before August. But the administrative job—and we tried our best to reduce it—makes this the first time—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones) must control himself.
  Mr. Alec Jones: On a point of order. I am the Member for Rhondda, West. The hon. Member at my side is the hon. Member for Rhondda, East (Mr. G. Elfed Davies).
  Mr. Speaker: The stricture was levelled at both hon. Members.
  Sir K. Joseph: We can now see coming into sight the second step to relieve family poverty.
  Many households have gross incomes above the family income supplement
  1390
  level and therefore will not be eligible for it. But, because of high rents, these families are among the very poorest in the land. The announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment earlier this week of a national rent allowance in future for tenants of local authorities and of private dwellings means, that, except for households living in furnished accommodation—and that represents about one-sixth of the total private rented accommodation sector—there will be rent allowances perhaps 18 months to two years from now for the very poorest households.
  Therefore, this is a second step in the relief of family poverty which all those—[Interruption.] The hon. Member is right that wherever one tries to help there is a problem about the cut-off point.
  Meanwhile, perhaps the most serious hardship occurring in the country is the result of the inflation started by the last Government. It is a scourge for the elderly on fixed incomes. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale) yesterday and my hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) and St. Ives (Mr. Nott) today emphasised the damage which inflation is doing to the elderly. Supplementary benefits, under the arrangements of the last Government agreed by us, were increased this week and we are due to review pensions next year.
  There is no doubt of the evil which was left by the last Government. We warned the country that the fires of inflation lit by the last Government could not be rapidly quenched and that the people who are suffering are the poor and the elderly.
  Behind this debate the discussions about the charges and the family incomes supplement there is a clash of judgment.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton) rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. If the right hon. Gentleman does not give way the hon. Member must resume his seat.
  Mr. Heffer: What about the three waiting days?
  Sir K. Joseph: The three waiting days is simply adopting a proposal put forward—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Heffer: Answer the question.
  Sir K. Joseph: The Opposition and the country should welcome the clash of vision and strategy between the—
  Miss Devlin Miss Devlin rose—
  Sir K. Joseph: The Government—
  Miss Devlin Miss Devlin rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Mere repetitive standing does not make a Minister give way.
  Sir K. Joseph: Both sides of the House agree that the country's progress under both Conservative and Labour Government's has been sluggish.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Hear, hear.
  Sir K. Joseph: Both sides agree that other countries are passing us in their standards of living. We do not agree between the two sides on the causes. This side of the House believes that one of the ingredients of our sluggishness is the high marginal rate of taxation. My right hon. Friend does not claim that 6d. off the standard rate is enough in itself to transform the country's prospects. But it is a first step, it is a sign of hope.
  The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East mocks any idea of incentives. We do not agree. If we can galvanise the performance of management, men and investors we shall benefit everyone. We desperately need the best talents in our industry—
  Hon. Members: Send him back.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. May I remind the House that noise does not help.
  Sir K. Joseph: The best candidates are not always ready to take the job that they could handle well because there is no worth-while reward for the great efforts involved. The Labour Party look at the position as a static one. They look at those who might benefit now; we look at those who can transform the country's prospects if they are given the chance of a reward commensurate to the effort they would have to put it. The people of this country want to be able to save, to build up capital. If they are to torment themselves with the difficult jobs they must be offered the same sort
  1392
  of prospect that is available to the successful man in Western Europe and Scandinvaia.
  The party opposite do not recognise that it is not only managers, directors and investors who are interested in getting direct taxation down. During the election all their supporters said that direct taxes were far too high. There are abilities and talents to be released at all levels of income in the country, and the country as a whole, everybody in it, will benefit. If we get the exemptions right, then charges rapidly become accepted, but tax levels remain a running sore, and that is why my right hon. Friend was so right to concentrate on getting down direct taxation.
  The Labour Party does not share our view, but some of its hon. Members do, and I suspect that in that demonstration of synthetic indignation by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) we saw a man who hankered to be allowed by his party to do just that. Our belief is that much that both sides want—regional prosperity, higher real incomes, better social services—will sooner come from galvanising managers and workers than from increasing taxes in order to maintain subsidies.
  Let us for a moment put the charges about which there has been so much complaint into proportion. The right hon. Member for Stechford calculated that a family above the exemption limit earning about£27 or£28 a week would have to pay possibly 10s. a week in extra charges. Let us take his figure. What proportion does that represent of the net increase in earnings that that household will have had in the current year? It will be a quarter or a third.
  The Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Stechford have labelled my right hon. Friend's statement "divisive". [HON. MEMBERS: "Which one?"] Do they mean the increase in charges? We have not added a single charge. We have increased charges and we have increased exemptions. Why are we divisive and why were they not when they did the same thing? Why? Why?
  Mr. Callaghan: I can give the right hon. Gentleman the answer straight away. It is because he is making the better-off even better off at the same time, and this is dividing the country.
  Sir K. Joseph: Will the right hon. Gentleman now announce that the Labour Party policy is to abolish charges?
  Mr. Callaghan: What I will say quite clearly is that we shall operate, when we become the Government, in a way which will ensure that the better-off people in this country—
  Sir K. Joseph Sir K. Joseph rose—
  Mr. Callaghan: If the right hon. Gentleman wants me to answer it, I will answer it.
  Sir K. Joseph Sir K. Joseph rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Sir Keith Joseph.
  Mr. Callaghan Mr. Callaghan rose—
  Sir K. Joseph Sir K. Joseph rose—
  Mr. Callaghan: The right hon. Gentleman is giving way, and I wish to make the position quite clear—
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Francis Pym)The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Francis Pym) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the Amendment be made:—
  The House Division: Ayes 280, Noes 308.

  Division No. 18]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Davidson, Arthur

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Albu, Austen

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Alldritt, Walter

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Allen, Scholefield

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, Central)

  Hilton, W. S.

  Ashley, Jack

  Deakins, Eric

  Horam, John

  Ashton, Joe

  Delargy, H. J.

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Atkinson, Norman

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Dempsey, James

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Barnes, Michael

  Devlin, Miss Bernadette

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Barnett, Joel

  Doig, Peter

  Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)

  Baxter, William

  Dormand, J. D.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)

  Beaney, Alan

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Hunter, Adam

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Driberg, Tom

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Janner, Greville

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Dunnett, Jack

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Eadie, Alex

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

  Booth, Albert

  Edelman, Maurice

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  John, Brynmor

  Bradley, Tom

  Ellis, Tom

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  English, Michael

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

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

  Evans, Fred

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, South)

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

  Faulds, Andrew

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Fernyhough, E.

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

  Buchan, Norman

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

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

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Jones, Barry (Flint, East)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Judd, Frank

  Campbell, I. (Dumbartonshire, West)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Cant, R. B.

  Foot, Michael

  Kelley, Richard

  Carmichael, Neil

  Ford, Ben

  Kerr, Russell

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Forrester, John

  Kinnock, Neil

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Lambie, David

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Freeson, Reginald

  Lamond, James

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Latham, Arthur

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Garrett, W. E.

  Lawson, George

  Cohen, Stanley

  Gilbert, Dr. John

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Coleman, Donald

  Ginsburg, David

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Concannon, J. D.

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.

  Leonard, Dick

  Conlan, Bernard

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Grant, John D. (Islington, East)

  Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, Central)

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Lewis, Ron, (Carlisle)

  Cronin, John

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  Loughlin, Charles

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington, S. W.)

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, East)

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

  McBride, Neil

  Dalyell, Tam

  Hardy, Peter

  McCann, John

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Harper, Joseph

  McCartney, Hugh

  MacColl, James

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Steel, David

  McElhone, Frank

  Pardoe, John

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  McGuire, Michael

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Mackie, John

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Strang, Gavin

  Maclennan, Robert

  Pendry, Tom

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Pentland, Norman

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Swain, Thomas

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Taverne, Dick

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Prescott, John

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)

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

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

  Marquand, David

  Probert, Arthur

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Rankin, John

  Tinn, James

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Tomney, Frank

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Torney, Tom

  Meacher, Michael

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Tuck, Raphael

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Richard, Ivor

  Urwin, T. W.

  Mendelson, John

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Varley, Eric C.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Millan, Bruce

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n & R'dnor)

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Wallace, George

  Molloy, William

  Roper, John

  Watkins, David

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Weitzman, David

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Moyle, Roland

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

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

  Whitlock, William

  Murray, Ronald King

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

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Ogden, Eric

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Sillars, James

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Oram, Bert

  Silverman, Julius

  Wilson, Alexander Hamilton)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Orme, Stanley

  Small, William

  Wilson, William (Coventry)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, North)

  Woof, Robert

  Paget, R. T.

  Spearing, Nigel

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Paisley, Mr. Ian

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Mr. William Hamling and

  Palmer, Arthur

  Stallard, A. W.

  Mr. John Golding.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)

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

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Emery, Peter

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Farr, John

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Fell, Anthony

  Astor, John

  Channon, Paul

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Chapman, Sydney

  Fidler, Michael

  Awdry, Daniel

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Balniel, Lord

  Clark, William (Surrey, East)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Clegg, Walter

  Fortescue, Tim

  Batsford, Brian

  Cockeram, Eric

  Foster, Sir John

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Cooke, Robert

  Fowler, Norman

  Bell, Ronald

  Coombs, Derek

  Fox, Marcus

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Cooper, A. E.

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

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Cordle, John

  Fry, Peter

  Benyon, W.

  Corfield, F. V.

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

  Berry, Hon. Anthony

  Cormack, Patrick

  Gardner, Edward

  Biffen, John

  Costain, A. P.

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Critchley, Julian

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Blaker, Peter

  Crouch, David

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  Body, Richard

  Curran, Charles

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  Boscawen, R. T.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Dance, James

  Goodhew, Victor

  Bowden, Andrew

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Gorst, John

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  Braine, Bernard

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack

  Gray, Hamish

  Bray, Ronald

  Dean, Paul

  Green, Alan

  Brewis, John

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Grieve, Percy

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Dixon, Piers

  Grylls, Michael

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Gummer, Selwyn

  Bryan, Paul

  Drayson, G. B.

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

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

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Buck, Antony

  Dykes, Hugh

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Eden, Sir John

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Burden, F. A.

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  1396

  1397

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Maddan, Martin

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Madel, David

  Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Maginnis, John E.

  Scott, Nicholas

  Hastings, Stephen

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Havers, Michael

  Marten, Neil

  Sharples, Richard

  Hawkins, Paul

  Maude, Angus

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

  Hay, John

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Mawby, Ray

  Simeons, Charles

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Heseltine, Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Hicks, Robert

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Soref, Harold

  Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Speed, Keith

  Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

  Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

  Spence, John

  Holland, Philip

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Sproat, Iain

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Moate, Roger

  Stainton, Keith

  Hordern, Peter

  Molyneaux, James

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Hornsby-Smith Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Money, Ernle D.

  Stewart-Smith, D. G. (Belper)

  Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Monro, Hector

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Stokes, John

  Hunt, John

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Sutcliffe, John

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Mudd, David

  Tapsell, Peter

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Murton, Oscar

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  James, David

  Neave, Airey

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

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Normanton, Tom

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Nott, John

  Tebbit, Norman

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, South)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Temple, John M.

  Jopling, Michael

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Osborn, John

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Kellett, Mrs. Elaine

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, North)

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Tilney, John

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Kilfedder, James

  Percival, Ian

  Trew, Peter

  Kimball, Marcus

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, South)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Pounder, Rafton

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Kirk, Peter

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Kitson, Timothy

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Waddington, David

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Knox, David

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

  Lambton, Antony

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Lane, David

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Walters, Dennis

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Raison, Timothy

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Warren, Kenneth

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Redmond, Robert

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'd field)

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, East)

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

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

  Rees, Hn. Peter (Dover)

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Wilkinson, John

  Longden, Gilbert

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Loveridge, John

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  MacArthur, Ian

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, North)

  Woodnutt, Mark

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Worsley, Marcus

  McLaren, Martin

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Wylle, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  McMaster, Stanley

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Younger, Hn. George

  Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

  Rost, Peter

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Royle, Anthony

  Mr. Reginald Eyre and

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Mr. Jasper More.

  Main Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes, 308, Noes 279.

  Division No. 19.]

  AYES

  [10.16 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Batsford, Brian

  Body, Richard

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Boscawen, R. T.

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Bell, Ronald

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Astor, John

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Benyon, W.

  Braine, Bernard

  Awdry, Daniel

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Bray, Ronald

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Biffen, John

  Brewis, John

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Balniel, Lord

  Blaker, Peter

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Bryan, Paul

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

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

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Buck, Antony

  Hastings, Stephen

  Mudd, David

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Havers, Michael

  Murton, Oscar

  Burden, F. A.

  Hawkins, Paul

  Neave, Airey

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Hay, John

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Normanton, Tom

  Carlisle, Mark

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Nott, John

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Heseltine, Michael

  Onslow, Cranley

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Hicks, Robert

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Channon, Paul

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Chapman, Sydney

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

  Osborn, John

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Hill, James, (Southampton, Test)

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, North)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Holland, Philip

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Clark, William (Surrey, East)

  Hordern, Peter

  Percival, Ian

  Clegg, Walter

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Cockeram, Eric

  Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Cooke, Robert

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Coombs, Derek

  Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)

  Pounder, Rafton

  Cooper, A. E.

  Hunt, John

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Cordle, John

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Corfield, F. V.

  Iremonger, T. L,

  Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

  Cormack, Patrick

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Costain, A. P.

  James, David

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Critchley, Julian

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Crouch, David

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Raison, Timothy

  Crowder, F. P.

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Curran, Charles

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, South)

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Jopling, Michael

  Redmond, Robert

  Dance, James

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, East)

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Rees, Hn. Peter (Dover)

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Kellett, Mrs. Elaine

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Dean, Paul

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Kilfedder, James

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Kimball, Marcus

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Dixon, Piers

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, South)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, North)

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Drayson, G. B.

  Kirk, Peter

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Kitson, Timothy

  Rost, Peter

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Royle, Anthony

  Eden, Sir John

  Knox, David

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Lambton, Antony

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Lane, David

  Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

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

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Scott, Nicholas

  Emery, Peter

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Farr, John

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Sharples, Richard

  Fell, Anthony

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

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

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'd field)

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Fidler, Michael

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

  Simeons, Charles

  Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Loveridge, John

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Soref, Harold

  Fortescue, Tim

  MacArthur, Ian

  Speed, Keith

  Foster, Sir John

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Spence, John

  Fowler, Norman

  McLaren, Martin

  Sproat, Iain

  Fox, Marcus

  McMaster, Stanley

  Stainton, Keith

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

  Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Fry, Peter

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Stewart-Smith, D. G. (Belper)

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

  Gardner, Edward

  Maddan, Martin

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Madel, David

  Stokes, John

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Maginnis, John E.

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Sutcliffe, John

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  Marten, Neil

  Tapsell, Peter

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  Maude, Angus

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Gorst, John

  Mawby, Ray

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

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Gray, Hamish

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)

  Green, Alan

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Grieve, Percy

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Temple, John M.

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Grylls, Michael

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Gummer, Selwyn

  Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Moate, Roger

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Molyneaux, James

  Tilney, John

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Money, Ernle D.

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Trew, Peter

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Monro, Hector

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  1400

  1401

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Warren, Kenneth

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Worsley, Marcus

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  Waddington, David

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Younger, Hon. George

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

  Wilkinson, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Mr. Reginald Eyre and

  Walters, Dennis

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Mr. Jasper More.

  Ward, Dame Irene

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Lambie, David

  Albu, Austen

  Dunnett, Jack

  Lamond, James

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Eadie, Alex

  Latham, Arthur

  Alldritt, Walter

  Edelman, Maurice

  Lawson, George

  Allen, Scholefield

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Ellis, Tom

  Leonard, Dick

  Ashley, Jack

  English, Michael

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Ashton, Joe

  Evans, Fred

  Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

  Atkinson, Norman

  Faulds, Andrew

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Barnes, Michael

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Barnett, Joel

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Loughlin, Charles

  Baxter, William

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Beaney, Alan

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, East)

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McBride, Neil

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Foot, Michael

  McCann, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Ford, Ben

  McCartney, Hugh

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Forrester, John

  MacColl, James

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  McElhone, Frank

  Booth, Albert

  Freeson, Reginald

  McGuire, Michael

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

  Garrett, W. E.

  Mackie, John

  Bradley, Tom

  Gilbert, Dr. John

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Broughton, Sir Alfred

  Ginsburg, David

  Maclennan, Robert

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

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

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

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Grant, John D. (Islington, East)

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Buchan, Norman

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

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

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

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

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Marks, Kenneth

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  Marquand, David

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, West)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Cant, R. B.

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hannan, William (Glasgow, Maryhill)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Hardy, Peter

  Meacher, Michael

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Harper, Joseph

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Mendelson, John

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Mikardo, Ian

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Millan, Bruce

  Cohen, Stanley

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Coleman, Donald

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Concannon, J. D.

  Hilton, W. S.

  Molloy, William

  Conlan, Bernard

  Horam, John

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, Central)

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Moyle, Roland

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Cronin, John

  Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)

  Murray, Hn. Ronald King

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)

  Ogden, Eric

  Grossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington, S. W.)

  Hunter, Adam

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Dalyell, Tam

  Janner, Greville

  Oram, Bert

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Orbach, Maurice

  Davidson, Arthur

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

  Orme, Stanley

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Paget, R. T.

  John, Brynmor

  Palmer, Arthur

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

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

  Pardoe, John

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, Central)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, South)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Deakins, Eric

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Delargy, H. J.

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

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Dempsey, James

  Jones, Barry (Flint, East)

  Pendry, Tom

  Devlin, Miss Bernadette

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

  Pentland, Norman

  Doig, Peter

  Judd, Frank

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Dormand, J. D.

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  Kelley, Richard

  Prescott, John

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Kerr, Russell

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Driberg, Tom

  Kinnock, Neil

  Price, William (Rugby)

  1402

  1403

  Probert, Arthur

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, North)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Rankin, John

  Spearing, Nigel

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Steel, David

  Wallace, George

  Richard, Ivor

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Watkins, David

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

  Weitzman, David

  Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Storehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n & R'dnor)

  Strang, Gavin

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Whitlock, William

  Roper, John

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Rose, Paul B.

  Swain, Thomas

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

  Taverne, Dick

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

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

  Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

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

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Tinn, James

  Woof, Robert

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Tomney, Frank

  Sillars, James

  Torney, Tom

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Silverman, Julius

  Tuck, Raphael

  Mr. William Hamling and

  Skinner, Dennis

  Urwin, T. W.

  Mr. John Golding.

  Small, William

  Varley, Eric G.

  Resolved,

  That this House approves Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer's Statement of 27th October on Public Expenditure and Taxation and the White Papers, New Policies for Public Spending (Command Paper No. 4515) and Investment Incentives (Command Paper No. 4516).

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That at this day's Sitting the Business of Supply may be taken after Ten o'clock; and that the Proceedings on the Civil Estimates 1971–72 (Vote on Account) and on the Motions relating to Ways and Means may be entered upon and proceeded with at any hour, though opposed.—[The Prime Minister.]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES 1971–72 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT)
  Motion made and Question proposed,
  That a sum, not exceeding£4,835,616,500 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the Civil Departments, as set out in House of Commons Paper 143 for the year ending on 31st March, 1972.—[Mr. Patrick Jenkin.]
  10.28 p.m.
  Mr. R. H. Turton: I rise only to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the Motion is quite contrary to the recommendation of the First Report of the Select Committee on Procedure in the last session. The Committee recommended that the Vote on Account be taken on one of the two days when public expenditure is debated. This practice was adopted in the last Parliament. Will my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary give an assurance that tonight's precedent will not be followed, and that in future the Vote on Account will be taken on one of the two days on which public expenditure is debated? All of us appreciate the unusual circumstances of the present year, but this was an important recommendation and it would be a pity if the House changed its procedure and did not give that opportunity. Will my hon. Friend also give an assurance that there will be a two-day debate on public expenditure when the public expenditure White Paper is produced?
  10.29 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): I am very happy to respond to my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton). He asks for two assurances. The first is that our taking the Vote on Account after the White
  1406
  Paper, "New Policies for Public Spending", this time should not be treated as a precedent. I am very happy to give him that assurance. As he acknowledged, I think, it was a rather special occasion this year that we had the extra White Paper setting out the changes of direction of the Government's policies on public expenditure. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already made it clear that later in the Session there will be the usual full five-year expenditure White Paper, which will be debated in the House.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton then asked for an assurance that there will be a two-day debate. I promise to draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, whose province this is, to his remarks. That there will be a debate I have no doubt, but as to its timing, that must be arranged through the usual channels. The main point is that it should not be a precedent that we take the Vote on Account separately from the five-year expenditure forecast White Paper. I gladly give that assurance.
  Question put and agreed to.

  WAYS AND MEANS

    INCOME TAX
    Resolved.
    That—

    (a) income tax for the year 1971–72 shall be charged at the standard rate of 38·75 per cent. and, in the case of an individual whose total income exceeds£2,500, at such higher rates in respect of the excess over£2,000 as Parliament may hereafter determine; and

    (b) sections 6(2) and 7(b) of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1970 (marginal relief for persons with small incomes) shall be amended, for that and subsequent years of assessment, by substituting—

    (i) for the reference in section 6(2) to 55 per cent. a reference to 52·5 per cent.; and

    (ii) for the reference in section 7(b) to 50 per cent. a reference to 47·5 per cent.—[Mr. Patrick Jenkin.]

    CORPORATION TAX
    Motion made, and Question,
    That it is expedient to make provision for reducing the rate of corporation tax for the financial year 1969 except for such purposes as may be specified in any such provision.—[Mr. Patrick Jenkin.]
    put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 90 (Ways and Means Motions), and agreed to.
    Bill ordered to be brought in upon the foregoing Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Maurice Macmillan, Mr. Patrick Jenkin, and Mr. Terence Higgins.

    INCOME AND CORPORATION TAXES
    Bill to fix the standard rate of income tax for the year 1971–72 and make an alteration in the marginal relief for persons with small incomes, and to reduce the rate of corporation tax for the financial year 1969, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 28.]

  AUTISTIC CHILDREN
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Rossi.]
  10.32 p.m.
  Mr. Paul B. Rose: Some hon. Members may have read an acutely disturbing and deeply moving account in a Sunday newspaper of a mother's struggle to raise her autistic child. The account concluded:
  "Autism is a monstrous event, outrageous to life, which time, energy, intelligence and love can modify but not remove."
  Yet there is hope for autistic children, though one of our greatest problems is our lack of knowledge of the causes of, and sometimes what constitutes, autism.
  I shall never forget my first personal experience of this, to me hitherto unknown, phenomenon. I returned home one evening in my car, stopped at the end of the garden path and saw my children playing with my neighbour's children. With them was a bright-eyed, fair-haired little boy and he was playing with the garage door, which in any event was hanging dangerously almost off its hinges. For fear that the door might fall on him, I shouted to the little boy, but there was no response. I shouted again and again, but there was no reaction from him. It was as though I was not there. At that point his mother came for him.
  1408
  Later I spoke to my wife about the incident and to my horror I discovered that this bright, lovely-looking child was, in fact, autistic. It appears that his autism was discovered by accident when he was in hospital for something entirely unconnected with autism. To this day that child has no specialised treatment whatever. Then there are the autistic children who must travel more than 200 miles from Manchester to get any treatment at all.
  I understand that autism is a quite recently discovered phenomenon, so that perhaps it is understandable that the facilities for treatment are inadequate. But on looking into this subject one finds that it is not merely that facilities are inadequate or that there is inattention but that there is virtually a complete lack of facilities over a very wide area. The bulk of the facilities, anyway, are situated in the affluent South-East. For example, only one in 11 autistic children in Cheshire is treated in autistic units. On the other hand, one autistic child in seven is in a hospital for the mentally subnormal. I believe that there could be no worse place to send an autistic child: to put a child in such a hospital is to make his improvement virtually impossible.
  John Roper, writing in The Times of 18th November said:
  "Autistic children are vulnerable to the bad effects of living in an understaffed institution. They are helpless and bewildered, unable to defend themselves against boisterous children and cannot tell the staff that they want anything, especially if it is affection, attention and cuddling."
  The result of this kind of treatment is that children whose main problem is in their inability to relate and communicate will either become more drawn into themselves or more disturbed. It is hard to think of a worse way of dealing with them.
  Dr. Wing, a member of the scientific staff of the Medical Research Council pointed this out, and said:
  '…very little is known about the basic cause of autism, but lack of medical treatment does not mean that nothing can be done. Skilled and patient teaching, and understanding by relatives and neighbours, can do much to help the autistic child and his parents."
  I believe that psychiatrists who advise local authorities and still prescribe treatment in units which are reserved only for

  1409
  mental illness are committing a terrible crime against these children. Some of these children have a very high I.Q. One has been to university and obtained a mathematics degree. Others get their G.C.E. Some have a remarkable skill in such things as music and mathematics. It is precisely this peculiar aspect of autism that I find rather fascinating, because it gives hope in a situation that might otherwise be one of despair.
  Last year it was reported that in a memory test 4-word messages were recalled better by autistic children than by a similar sample of ordinary children. The curious thing was that the normal children naturally performed better when the words were made up into sentences, but the autistic children were not affected either by whether the messages were in the form of sentences or were common words. This raises a distinction between memory and ability to understand. It is rather as though beings from another planet were set down in a world and in a culture-language pattern to which they cannot relate and in which they are only able to draw attention to themselves by shouting and screaming, for the fact is that, as the experiment showed, there seemed to be no automatic coding process with these children. They are not capable of benefiting spontaneously from the ordering of the material that comes to them.
  The terrible fate that awaits an autistic child if sent to a hospital for the subnormal is that he will probably end his days, rocking in a chair, scratching himself because he has nothing else to do—rotting in his own private hell. And all this in a society which has just resolved to spend money on forces east of Suez, and which can spend hundreds of millions on the Concorde.
  I quote once more from The Times, which has been particularly valuable in putting forward the problem of autism. In its first leader it said:
  "It is an indictment of a country's social services that children who could benefit from specialised education are none the less doomed to spend the remainder of their days in a mental hospital. There is the economic cost to the community of paying for institutional care which need not have been necessary. There is the social cost of people never being able to contribute, as they might have done, to society at large. And there is above all the human cost of individuals being denied the type of fuller life which they might have been enabled to enjoy."
  1410
  I believe that specialist training should be a right for these children. This was recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris)—who was here a moment ago, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and who will probably seek to catch your eye on his return—in what is now his historic Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, because in Section 26(1) of that Measure he makes it a duty for every local education authority
  "…to provide the Secretary of State at such times as he may direct with information on the provision made…"
  for, among others, children who suffer from autism. Has the Under-Secretary called for such information? Whether he has or has not, what action does he propose to take under Section 26?
  What action does he propose to take to end the disgraceful situation which was revealed in his reply to my Question on 2nd November that in Manchester there is only one unit "specially for the autistic" among only
  "four units for mentally ill or seriously maladjusted children with 57 beds"
  and that there are only 40 beds in this great city of Manchester for mentally ill adolescents? The Under-Secretary said—or his civil servants presumably said, because it is the language of callous complacency:
  "Autistic children are usually treated with other mentally disordered children."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd November, 1970; Vol. 805, c. 273.]
  That is the very worst way in which he could treat them.
  What is so disturbing also is the regional imbalance. On the very day after I applied for this Adjournment debate the National Society for Autistic Children published its report on facilities available for autistic children. The report showed that in many areas provision is non-existent, that autism is not recognised as a group which is deserving of a specialist education, that 1 in 7 of these children were in sub-normality hospitals—a total of about 700.
  I want to quote a few figures applying to the North-West and the North. In Derbyshire with a population of 152,200 under 15, there is no unit for adolescents. In Cheshire, a more affluent area, two small units cater for 10 children in a population of 272,400 under 15. It is

  1411
  estimated that there must be on average about 110 autistic children in that area, so 1 in 11 in that affluent area of Cheshire is getting treatment.
  In Lancashire two units cater for 15 children with a population of 609,900 under 15. The estimated number of autistic children is 244. Again there is no unit for adolescents. Going further afield to Cumberland and Northumberland, there is not a single unit for either children or adolescents. Looking at a map of Britain, in a vast area of about nine-tenths of the country there is no facility for the special treatment of autistic children. Some parents have actually moved house and changed jobs to try to get some help. This is not a possibility that is available for many families.
  This is not the first time that this problem has been aired in the Chamber. There was an Adjournment debate by Dr. Edwin Brooks on 10th December 1968—a very valuable colleague who unfortunately will not be back until the next election or perhaps before. He led the way in pointing out that a lifetime of dependency and institutional existence can be saved if we have the will to do so.
  One of the points I stress is that, whereas for very good reasons the blind and the deaf attract interest and support on a voluntary basis, the ignorance surrounding autism is such that it tends to inhibit voluntary effort. There is always room for voluntary effort so that parents with similar problems can get together with specialists and willing helpers can also come to their aid.
  Above all, there is a need, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe recognised in his Bill, for public provision and proper diagnosis, because in some areas, as Dr. Brooks pointed out, children are often not even diagnosed as autistic when they manifestly must be. It was inconceivable, for example, that at that time only one child in the City of Liverpool was designated as autistic. Yet, if my hon. Friend the former Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science is right—he pointed this out in a debate—1 in 3,000 children is likely to be autistic and therefore it is unbelievable that there was only one autistic child in Liverpool at that time. We need to get our diagnoses right.
  1412
  There is need for money to be spent on research. I for one, after today's debate, would be willing to give up my shabby 6d. relief in income tax if money were to be spent on autistic children, on these more unfortunate children in our society. I say that as somebody who is blessed by having three healthy and happy children of my own.
  I should like to hear about the regional imbalance and how the Minister is going to correct it. What new facilities are to be provided, particularly in the North-West? How much money is currently being spent on this problem, on research, and on education? How many people are engaged in specialised courses on teaching for the autistic, because this is a very specialised job?
  I am not satisfied with the reply which was given on 15th July this year to my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) by the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, when he said that,
  "Psychiatrists generally do not favour the provision of separate units in hospitals for autistic children."
  Which psychiatrists, and what specialised knowledge of autism do they possess to make them say that, in a field in which research is pointing more and more obviously to the conclusion that, apart from those autistic children with additional handicaps, such a diagnosis would be manifestly incorrect, and autistic children can only be damaged by being treated in that way.
  I regard it as a terrible indictment of the reactionary thinking of the Department that it did not think it right
  "to engage in any general development of expensive and highly specialised units".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th July, 1970; Vol. 804, cc. 1690–3.]
  I wonder how much the "Ark Royal" costs, as a fly on the ocean, when the Minister can dismiss lightly 4,000 handicapped children in that offhand way.
  There was at least one grain of humanity, hope and compassion at the end of the Minister's reply to that debate, when he expressed the Government's "real concern" and said something about the "integration of the education services". But action by local authorities and by the central Government is what we want, not merely expressions of concern. The National Society for Autistic

  1413
  Children is appealing for£100,000—and I urge a great public response—but£70,000 out of that£100,000 is already earmarked for four units, none of which is in the North of England. As the latest report of the Society concludes, there is not only a tragic lack of facilities, but 22 out of 32 educational units are in the South-East, while huge areas involving many hundreds of autistic children have no facilities at all. That£100,000, of which£70,000 is already earmarked, is nothing to what local authorities and the central Government ought to be providing to help these children, to help a section of our society which is forgotten.
  Above all, as a North-West Member, I am particularly concerned about the problem as it affects my constituents and others living in the region who are struck by this terrible tragedy. I shall be grateful for an answer from the Minister dealing specifically with the facilities which he intends to see are provided in the North-West. I hope that, after this matter has been debated on three different occasions now on the Adjournment, we shall at last see a glimmer of hope, of compassion and of enlightenment on the part of those who advise the Minister on this heart-breaking problem, so that money is spent on these children, money spent where it is most needed, to make provision for those whose plight may well be hopeless if the Minister does not act, and act quickly.
  10.48 p.m.
  Mr. Alfred Morris: I am greatly encouraged by the interest and concern in this deeply human problem shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose). The House will recall that we had debates earlier this year, during the passage of what is now the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, on the problems of autistic children and other children suffering from different forms of early childhood psychosis. As the Under-Secretary of State knows, Section 26 of that Act, which is associated with my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), and many others, places a new duty on every local education authority—
  1414
  "to provide the Secretary of State at such times as he may direct with information on the provision made by that local education authority of special educational facilities for children who suffer from autism or other forms of early childhood psychosis".
  I hope that, in consequence of this debate, we shall hear that the Secretary of State is now making a direction under Section 26.
  Section 26(2) provides further:
  "The arrangements made by a local education authority for the special educational treatment of children suffering from autism and other forms of early childhood psychosis shall, so far as is practicable, provide for the giving of such education in any school maintained or assisted by the local education authority".
  I emphasise the importance of the word "shall" in that subsection of Section 28.
  I know that the Under-Secretary and his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science are both extremely concerned that we shall extend—and rapidly extend—public provision for children suffering from autism or the other disablements which I have mentioned. I am certain that we can rely on them for a constructive answer to the plea so eloquently made by my hon Friend.
  10.51 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): May I begin by expressing my gratitude to the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) for once again raising this difficult subject? I ask him to believe me when I say that it is not for want of compassion, certainly on my part or on the part of any of the officers in my Department, or that of my hon. Friend, that the needs of these children are not fully and completely met. Indeed, any of those who, like myself and, I imagine, the hon. Member and certainly many officers of the Department, have seen, met and encountered the condition in the child, be it in or out of hospital, can be nothing but appalled and must long to be able to do something effectively.
  The trouble is that the present state of our knowledge is such that there are so many areas of uncertainty about the condition which we describe as "autism". Hon. Members will probably be aware that the total number of autistic children, whether in the community or in different types of hospital,

  1415
  has itself not been fully established. We do not have very good statistics on this subject. Various estimates have been made of the total, but it seems likely to to be mercifully relatively small.
  The trouble is that autism is a symptom and not a single condition. Austistic children do not form a homogeneous group. It may be due to a variety of causes, as the hon. Member will appreciate. Among them there are sensory defects, emotional disturbances of various sorts and damage to the brain. Similarly, there is a wide range of variation between one child and another in the severity of the symptoms and the relation of the symptoms to each other. Sometimes one is much more conspicuous and sometimes another.
  As the hon. Member rightly pointed out—and this is one of the most problematic aspects of the question—there is a great range in the tested intelligence of autistic children. They may, on the one hand, be to all intents and purposes perfectly normal in their mental capacity and, on the other hand, the capacity may extend to the very lowest of the measurable limits.
  The point I want to make is that the group is not at all uniform. Individual autistic children have very different needs and a very different capacity for development. Because of the variety of forms that autism may take and the variety of its underlying causes, we still have a great deal to learn about the nature of the condition and, above all, the best approach to diagnosis and treatment.
  Mr. Jack Ashley: May I remind the hon. Gentleman that Sections 25 and 27 of my hon. Friend's Act deal with blind-deaf children and with children suffering from dyslexia? I hope that he will take that into account when discussing the problems of autistic children.
  Mr. Alison: The hon. Gentleman is referring to the Morris Act. I take his point, but I am sure he will understand if I do not deal with it now.
  On the subject of the best means of diagnosis and treatment, there is one quite clear point. It is that the earliest possible age of assessment is of paramount importance. The earlier that the condition is diagnosed, the more hope
  1416
  there is of doing something about it. Generally, it has to be done in a hospital setting, in order to have the best diagnostic and psychiatric facilities available.
  Medical treatment, where appropriate, varies according to the nature of the condition. But, in the present state of our knowledge—and this is part of the tragedy—what is provided in many instances is in the nature of care rather than cure. That is the limitation of our knowledge at present. A minority of autistic children, especially those with emotional disturbance, are found to benefit from psychiatric treatment in hospitals, and we should not rule out hospital treatment, though I acknowledge the point that there are people in hospitals who would probably be better out of them and in the community. The majority can be managed at home. I am glad to have my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science with me, because education and training is thought to offer much the best hope to the majority who can be managed at home.
  There is still much difference of opinion among those who are professionally responsible as to the most effective form that the education of autistic children should take. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science told hon. Members on the last occasion that the subject was debated in the House of a research project set up in 1966 to make a comparative study of the progress made by children in three units in the London area catering in different ways for children with autistic symptoms. I understand that the results of this project are expected within two years. But it is unlikely that any single educational régime will be shown to be the best for more than a small proportion of these children.
  Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the work being done in my constituency, which has one of the few autistic units in the country? Part of the tragedy raised by the hon. Member for Manchester, Black-ley (Mr. Rose) is revealed by the fact that people are prepared to move into the constituency in order that their children may be educated—not going to hospital, but to school. Does not he consider this to be a possible means of at least alleviating parental suffering, where

  1417
  a child shows no response at all to parental love?
  Mr. Alison: I take that point. But again there is a division of opinion about the best way of providing schools or units which cater exclusively for these children. On the one hand, this may make possible more specialised treatment such as that to which the hon. Gentleman refers in his own unit, where an intensive study of the problems can be conducted. On the other hand, a group of children lacking meaningful speech or other means of communication may be almost unteachable in such a unit unless the staffing ratio is high enough to permit individual tuition for much of the time. This can be achieved only at the expense of other, equally deserving groups of children with severe mental and emotional handicaps, since the number of teachers with the willingness and the experience to undertake the work is not unlimited.
  The hon. Member for Blackley touched on the position of adolescents, and I confirm that there are very few units for adolescent autistic children. But that may be partly due to a point of definition. The apparently withdrawn behaviour which gives the condition its name, particularly in the earlier age group of 8 to 10, may itself undergo a considerable change as the child develops.
  The other problems associated with the child at an early age—difficulty in communication, educational backwardness and sometimes emotional disturbance—may carry on after autism, the condition itself, has been left behind and these later aspects of the condition of the adolescent are likely to remain the main determinant of their educational attainment.
  I have little time and I am bound to telescope what I have to say, but I should like to touch on the position in other parts of the country. Children's units are unequally spread over the country and some regions are better served than others. The hon. Member
  1418
  for Blackley will be glad to know that the scale of hospital provision for children in the Manchester region is about the same as for England as a whole. Hospital boards have plans for about 350 more beds and while some plans are more advanced than others, the increased provision should help to restore the balance for the country as a whole.
  I should like to say a little more about the north west since the hon. Member specifically asked me. I am told that there are educational units for autistic children at Eccles, Lancaster, Oldham and Salford in Lancashire, and at Birkenhead, Neston and Holmes Chapel in Cheshire. But these units do not indicate the full extent of the provision. A number of children are placed in special schools or junior training centres, while others are, of course, in psychiatric hospitals.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science is considering the issue of a circular of guidance to local education authorities which may include a request for information about the numbers of autistic children and arrangements for their care and education, but because of the lack of any clear-cut and generally accepted definition of autism, any information at present available or likely to be gathered in the near future can give only a rough indication of the needs or of the provision which exists to meet them.
  It is for this reason, as well as on more general grounds of policy, that the planning of services must be seen primarily as a matter for local education and health authorities acting in concert with hospital services—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at two minutes past Eleven o'clock.

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  New Cruisers
  New Cruisers
  H.M.S. "Lion" and H.M.S. "Eagle"
  H.M.S. "Lion" and H.M.S. "Eagle"
  Gurkhas
  Gurkhas
  T.A.V.R.
  T.A.V.R.
  Jet Trainer
  Jet Trainer
  Command Paper, 4521
  Command Paper, 4521
  LAW OF CONTEMPT
  LAW OF CONTEMPT
  RENT TRIBUNALS (LEGAL AID TO TENANTS)
  RENT TRIBUNALS (LEGAL AID TO TENANTS)
  LIMITATION ACT, 1963
  LIMITATION ACT, 1963
  SENTENCED STUDENTS (APPEALS)
  SENTENCED STUDENTS (APPEALS)
  PORNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE (CIRCULARS)
  PORNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE (CIRCULARS)
  CUBE-CUTTING
  CUBE-CUTTING
  BLOOM TRIAL (COSTS)
  BLOOM TRIAL (COSTS)
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Developing Countries (Private Investment)
  Developing Countries (Private Investment)
  Developing Countries (Aid)
  Developing Countries (Aid)
  Tanzania (Aid)
  Tanzania (Aid)
  Overseas Aid
  Overseas Aid
  Refugees (Aid)
  Refugees (Aid)
  European Economic Community
  European Economic Community
  Overseas Aid
  Overseas Aid
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Unemployment Benefit (Dismissed Lorry Drivers)
  Unemployment Benefit (Dismissed Lorry Drivers)
  Mobile Radiography Unit, Sheffield
  Mobile Radiography Unit, Sheffield
  National Health Service Administration
  National Health Service Administration
  Pensioners (Transport Costs)
  Pensioners (Transport Costs)
  Health Service Charges and Milk
  Health Service Charges and Milk
  Retirement Pensions
  Retirement Pensions
  Analgesics
  Analgesics
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Competition and Prices (Royal Commission)
  Competition and Prices (Royal Commission)
  Hotel Industry
  Hotel Industry
  Dollar Land Holdings Limited
  Dollar Land Holdings Limited
  Industrial Sites, Wales
  Industrial Sites, Wales
  Rotax
  Rotax
  Bloom Trial (Costs)
  Bloom Trial (Costs)
  Professions (Restrictive Practices)
  Professions (Restrictive Practices)
  Oil Wells (North Sea)
  Oil Wells (North Sea)
  North Sea (Oil Pipeline Contracts)
  North Sea (Oil Pipeline Contracts)
  Brewing and Tobacco Industries (Contributions to Political Parties)
  Brewing and Tobacco Industries (Contributions to Political Parties)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  International Debts
  International Debts
  Balance of Payments and Exports
  Balance of Payments and Exports
  Office Machinery (Writing-down Allowance)
  Office Machinery (Writing-down Allowance)
  Investment Incentives
  Investment Incentives
  Nationalised Industries (Capital Expenditure)
  Nationalised Industries (Capital Expenditure)
  Public Servants (Emoluments)
  Public Servants (Emoluments)
  SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH INVESTMENT)
  SOUTH AFRICA (BRITISH INVESTMENT)
  PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (TALKS)
  PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (TALKS)
  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LAND)
  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LAND)
  EX-MINISTERS (MEMOIRS)
  EX-MINISTERS (MEMOIRS)
  PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS (SALARIES)
  PUBLIC APPOINTMENTS (SALARIES)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Cereals
  Cereals
  European Economic Community
  European Economic Community
ENVIRONMENT
  Steel Box Girder Bridges
  Steel Box Girder Bridges
  Invalid Carriages and Chairs
  Invalid Carriages and Chairs
  Housing Subsidies
  Housing Subsidies
  Cleveland Potash Ltd. (Brine Pipeline)
  Cleveland Potash Ltd. (Brine Pipeline)
  Local Authority Finance
  Local Authority Finance
  Local Authorities' Employees (Sickness Benefit)
  Local Authorities' Employees (Sickness Benefit)
  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT AND SENIOR OFFICERS (PAY)
  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT AND SENIOR OFFICERS (PAY)
SCOTLAND
  Dalmellington High School
  Dalmellington High School
  Geriatric and General Nursing Beds
  Geriatric and General Nursing Beds
  Hunterston Public Inquiry
  Hunterston Public Inquiry
  Western Regional Hospital Board
  Western Regional Hospital Board
  Gambling Clubs
  Gambling Clubs
  Dental Charges
  Dental Charges
  Ayr (Schoolbuilding Finance)
  Ayr (Schoolbuilding Finance)
  Highlands and Islands Development Board
  Highlands and Islands Development Board
  National Health Service
  National Health Service
  Erskine Bridge
  Erskine Bridge
WALES
  Welsh Language
  Welsh Language
  Reservoirs (Recreational Use)
  Reservoirs (Recreational Use)
  River Dee
  River Dee
  Roads
  Roads
  National Health Service
  National Health Service

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

AEROSOL FIRE EXTINGUISHERS
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made with discussions with the British Standards Institution as to the inadequacy of aerosol fire extinguishers to put out fires in the home.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, at the request of the Home Office, the British Standards Institution has set up a sub-committee to look into the feasibility of preparing a British Standard prescribing tests for the performance and reliability of small fire extinguishers, including these of the aerosol type. If such tests can be evolved, it will be possible for more precise guidance to be given to the public on the suitability of small extinguishers for given types of fires.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. May I remind him that it is almost exactly the reply which was given in the other place on May 16 last?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the sub-committee was set up only in June of this year, so there has been progress since the date that the noble Lord mentioned.

HOSPITALS: USE OF STANDARD ELECTRICAL SOCKETS
3.9 p.m.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make about a recent circular from the Department of Health and Social Security on the use of standard 13-amp socket outlets in hospital installations which it has been suggested do not comply with the I.E.E. Wiring Regulations.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, this circular letter reminded hospital authorities of the need to standardise electrical socket-outlets in hospitals to facilitate the use of mobile electrical equipment. This applies especially to medical apparatus which may be needed quickly for live-saving purposes. The letter stressed that every effort should be made to replace 5-amp. and 15-amp. sockets by 13-amp. sockets as soon as possible. It also reminded authorities that 13-amp. sockets could be used for most mobile X-ray machines subject to certain safeguards and the use of special plugs.
Detailed advice on the use of these plugs had been given to hospitals in a separate paper and was not repeated in the letter. Hospitals have since been reminded that these two guidance documents should be treated as complementary and given further advice on the marking of these plugs for safety reasons. I am assured that the Department's current advice (if the noble Lord will excuse an unfortunate pun) provides a safe and effective way of supplying electricity to mobile X-ray machines.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for a valuable Answer, may I ask whether he is aware of one sentence in the circular which reads:
"It is considered suitable for two 13-amp. sockets to be connected to each 15-amp. circuit. …"
Is he satisfied that that is satisfactory?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we are satisfied that the safe use of 13-amp sockets is assured. The noble Lord will realise that it is only put into operation under the guidance of properly qualified electrical engineers in hospitals, and that it is the only way of getting mobile X-ray equipment into use in the wards without rewiring the whole of every hospital.

ARMED FORCES: BOY ENTRANTS
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 conclusions they have reached on the recommendations of the Donaldson Committee on boy entrants in the Armed Forces.]
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, we have received a full and valuable Report from the Committee which we are studying sympathetically with a view to the early publication of the Report itself and of the Government's conclusions.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I ask him whether he will consider publication of the Report in order that Members of both Houses, and the public, may have an informed estimation of its relevance and justice prior to the Government announcing their conclusions.
LORD CARRINGTON: No, my Lords, that is something which would be very unusual. But I can promise the noble Lord that he will not have to wait very long before he has the Report and the decisions.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the Army Cadet Force Association have been consulted at all in this matter? They are a body with considerable knowledge of this type of problem. If they have not been consulted, will my noble friend consider having a word with them?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am not in a position to say, offhand, whether they were one of the bodies which were consulted by the Donaldson Committee, but I will look into that.

EXHAUST FUMES FROM MOTOR CARS
LORD PARGITER: 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 intend, as the last Gov-
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ernment did, to enforce the fitting of pollution suppresssion devices on all new cars.]
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Yes, my Lords. A draft regulation was published on October 8 which would require new cars first used after October 1, 1971, to be equipped with a device to eliminate the escape of fumes from the engine crank case.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. There is legislation in some countries at the present time, and in certain States in America, which may differ from ours. There is also the European Economic Commission, which is proposing certain standards, and so on. I wonder whether it is possible to get some unanimity on this matter, to the general benefit of the industry and to the public as well.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, what the noble Lord has said is quite true. In America a higher standard is required for the exhaust gases of carbon monoxide, because in the Los Angeles area the climate is different from ours and smog arises directly from that. In Europe this does not occur, and although the European Economic Commission have recommended as an ideal for the future certain higher standards, the Government at the moment do not think this is a necessity. But they are still keeping it in mind.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the supplementary material provided by the noble Lord has a familiar ring. Could the noble Lord say to what extent the new regulation which will come into force will require similar forms of equipment to those required in Europe? Is there any question of uniformity between ourselves and Europe?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, at the moment I think the answer to that question is, No. This is a small modification. Half the cars being manufactured already eliminate crank case escape gases. This modification will cost only £1 and will be compulsory on all new cars as from the date I gave. Owing to the extra cost involved, at the moment the Government do not think there is further need to introduce legislation.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether Her Majesty's Government will consider in this new legislation requiring that suppression devices be fitted in diesel lorries, which emit the most noxious and dangerous fumes?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, this Question refers to cars. Also, bearing in mind that I shall be answering a Question on diesel lorries next Tuesday, I think your Lordships will be content to wait until then.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he agrees that this device will not in any case deal with the carbon monoxide problem, which is another problem, not arising from exhaust fumes?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: No, my Lords, not directly; but, as the White Paper published by the noble Lord's own Government said, carbon monoxide fumes are not at this moment reckoned to be a serious danger to health.

PROCEEDINGS IN RELATION TO SPECIAL ORDERS
3.16 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.
Moved, That the Report be now considered.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
The Committee's Report was as follows:
The Committee considered the memoranda laid before them by Sir Robert Speed. Counsel to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and Mr. T. G. Talbot, Counsel to the Chairman of Committees, House of Lords, and also a note on the procedure of the Special Orders Committee, on which they heard evidence. They have in particular considered the questions that are asked of the Committee set out in Standing Order 216 which, in effect, form the terms of reference of the Special Orders Committee and the basis of its reports. For the reasons set out below the Committee are of opinion that the questions are such that the answers given by the Special Orders Committee to them are generally of little value to the House. The questions that the Committee are required to answer are set out in the Standing Order as follows:—
"The Special Orders Committee shall consider:—

(a) whether the provisions raise important questions of policy or principle;

(b) how far the Special Order is founded on precedent;

(c) whether, having regard to the answers to the two preceding questions and to any other relevant circumstances, the Order can be passed by the House without special attention or whether there ought to be any further inquiry before the House proceeds to a decision upon the resolution, and, if so, what form that inquiry should take, and shall report to the House accordingly."

Regarding the first question, all Public Special Orders involve decisions of policy and, therefore, it is the word "important" that is the key word contained in the first question.
The question of "importance" is bound up with the later question (c) whether the Order can be passed by the House without special attention and the implications of this question will be examined later in the report.
The form of the second question (b) though concerned with Public Special Orders is probably to be explained by the fact that in its early history the Special Orders Committee was principally concerned with Private Special Orders. This is one of the questions that is asked by a Select Committee considering a Private Bill. If an Order gave one company certain powers, it would have been capricious to refuse another Order giving a second company similar powers.
However, this question is now interpreted by the Special Orders Committee to mean whether the Order is or is not the first exercise of the power conferred by the Act under which the Order is made. In the Committee's opinion the answer to this question as interpreted above is of little relevance or assistance to the House. What the House wants to know is whether it has approved an Order in similar terms before and what difference, if any, there is between what is now proposed and what was previously approved.
As to the third question (c) a requirement that "special attention" must be given to a Public Special Order is meaningless since the object of the affirmative resolution procedure is that the House should give its attention to the Order; this is in contrast with negative resolution procedure where the House will give attention only if a member prays to annul the Order.
The second part of the third question, that is "whether there ought to be any further inquiry before the House proceeds to a decision upon the resolution, and, if so, what form that inquiry should take." cannot usefully apply to Public Special Orders. The only form of machinery to carry out a further inquiry that the House has at its command is a Select Committee and the Special Orders Committee has never recommended the reference of a Public Special Order to a Select Committee. It must not be forgotten that a Select Committee and the House have in general no power to amend a Special Order.
For these reasons the Committee are of opinion that the three questions in the Standing Order set out above should be replaced by a requirement that the Committee should be required to report to the House on every Order referred to it either that it had no comment to make or that the vires of the Order was in doubt or that there was some other matter that the Committee wished to draw to the attention of the House.
The Committee considered whether they should express an opinion or make a recommendation to the House as to what are the other matters to which the attention of the House should be drawn, and whether these should be included in the terms of reference of the Special Orders Committee or in the Standing Orders regulating its procedure. They were aware from the memorandum submitted by Sir Robert Speed that the terms of reference of the Statutory Instruments Committee of the House of Commons sets out such a list. However, after careful consideration the Committee came to the conclusion that it is not necessary to set out these points either in the terms of reference or in the Standing Orders. Nor was it desirable on procedural grounds for the Special Orders Committee to have an internal list of matters requiring attention which it would apply to Orders referred to it.
The Committee are of opinion that it should be left to the Special Orders Committee to decide to what points it should draw the attention of the House when it reports on an Order.
The Committee conclude that certain changes are desirable in the procedure of the Special Orders Committee when it reports to the House on Public Special Orders it has considered and to achieve them the Committee recommend that Standing Order 216 be amended as follows:—
Leave out from the beginning of line 57 to "and" in line 66 and insert:

"(a) whether they have any doubt that the Order is intra vires;

(b) whether there is any other matter in the Order or in the enactment under which the Order is made to which they think it expedient to call the attention of the House."

Line 111, leave out "(7) In the case of every Special Order".
Line 112, leave out "the Order" and insert "an Order such as is referred to in paragraph (3)(b) above".
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to. I think I should explain briefly to the House the Report from the Select Committee which I am asking the House to agree to this afternoon. The Report is concerned with the procedure of the Special Orders Committee; that is to say, the Committee to which are referred all Statutory Instruments which require an Affirmative Resolution of the House.
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The terms of reference of the Select Committee were limited to those Statutory Instruments which are in the nature of public legislation; that is to say, to Public Special Orders. The Special Orders Committee have taken the view for some time that their Reports to the House could be made more helpful and interesting if they were not confined to answering the three specific questions set out in Standing Order 216. The Select Committee agreed with this view. They recommended that the Special Orders Committee should be required by the Standing Order to report to the House on every Order referred to them, either that they had no comment to make or that the vires of the Order was in doubt, or that there was some other matter that the Committee wished to draw to the attention of the House. The Select Committee also recommended that it should be left to the Special Orders Committee to decide to what points they should draw the attention of the House when they report on an Order.
I believe that the agreement of the House to this Report will add to the effectiveness of the Standing Order and to the value to the House of the Reports made by the Special Orders Committee. If the House agrees to the Report of the Select Committee, I shall propose at an early date the necessary amendments to Standing Order 216. I am sure the House will join with me in thanking the members of the Select Committee for their Report. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be now agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be indebted to the Chairman of Committees for his explanation of this Report, and we all have some gratitude for the Select Committee who have given us the Report. But, speaking for myself, as a member of that Special Orders Committee (I do not know whether my colleagues on the Committee agree with me on this point) I, for one, am becoming very concerned about the extraordinary, tremendous powers and responsibilities which the Committee are going to lose! We have sat for hours in deliberation on these matters and have had the opportunity of deciding from time to time whether an Order before us raises important questions of policy and principle. When we

459
have decided that the Order does raise important questions of privilege, we invariably find that the House does not agree that they are important; and if we decide in the Committee that they are not important, it would appear that from time to time the House disagrees with us and your Lordships find that they are important.
Also when it comes to the question of precedent or whether the Special Order under consideration is founded on precedent, in like manner we have often found that it has been without precedent, but the House has never taken the slightest notice of it and the Order has gone through "on the nod". As to whether an Order requires special attention, there is a complete contradiction, because invariably when the Special Orders Committee have decided that special attention needs to be given, not a word is uttered in your Lordships' House; but if the Special Orders Committee decide otherwise, that an Order does not require special attention, an hour's debate in your Lordships' House may ensue. These are matters that I do not understand at all, and I am very concerned that our great powers and responsibilities in this respect are being taken from us.
And what, my Lords, are we getting in return? We have an alternative: we can either say that the Order is intra vires or, alternatively, we can come to your Lordships' House and say that we have not got a thing to say about it. So that is the situation, and what conclusion do I reach? The longer I have been on that Committee, my Lords, the more I have wondered why I continue to be a member of it, and I have definitely come to the conclusion that it is time the Committee was scrapped and that your Lordships did your own work.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am glad my noble friend raised this point. I think this very small change is a desirable one and I should have thought that it gave a little more opportunity to the Committee to raise matters in a way which is less constrained, rather than more so. But I was in any case going to say—and I am sure all noble Lords who have studied this matter will agree with me—that our Parliamentary procedures
460
for dealing with Orders of all kinds are totally inadequate. One day Parliament will have to face this question, because no Government will reduce the number of Special Orders. Various Oppositions will complain, but when they go into Government they do not do anything about it. I am not getting at the present Government, because it was just the same with us. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for saying this, but if the late lamented reform of the House of Lords had gone through, this was one of the major areas in which we had hoped to persuade another place also to do its duty and to do it jointly with us.
At some time this problem, which is growing all the time, will have to be faced, although I am not quite sure how, because it is a fact that unless there is some special "sex appeal" to a particular Order—and I am using that term metaphorically—your Lordships on the whole pay very little attention. I am in no way criticising my successor or my predecessors in regard to this matter, but I hope your Lordships will realise that there are some very important points involved, and I do not believe that Parliament is doing its job.
3.23 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I would say straight away that I have considerable sympathy with the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition in what he has just said. It is my belief, and probably it is the belief of all those who have looked at this matter—and I had the opportunity of looking at it in the context mentioned by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition of the "late lamented" Lords Reform Bill—that how we deal with Orders is a matter which should be considered by this House, and indeed by both Houses of Parliament. It is something that I have in mind.
But, coming back from that and having noted what the noble Lord, Lord Royle has said, I would say that this Report, which has been clearly explained by the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees, should in my opinion be accepted by your Lordships. I am sure it is important that the terms of reference of the Special Orders Committee should reflect as closely as possible both the functions and the powers of the Committee, and these proposed amendments, which, as the noble Earl has said, are very small, I

461
think achieve that purpose admirably. Therefore I hope your Lordships will be inclined to support the Motion moved by the Lord Chairman. I understand that the Lord Chairman will be replying to the noble Lord, Lord Royle, in a moment or two.
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, as a member of this Committee for about ten years I think your Lordships ought to know what goes on. In the Middle Ages it used to be the habit of the judges to call in banc on the Lord Chancellor to ask him what Parliament meant by a certain Statute. The Special Orders Committee really are in the same position as members of the public or the judges. They are there, and they ask representatives of the Ministry what the Orders mean, and it gives a unique opportunity to cross-examine in private the civil servants responsible for the Orders. I can assure the House that a great many useful things have come out of this during the ten years that I have been a member of the Committee.
These Orders are often extremely clumsy; they occasionally contain incomprehensible provisions. The Committee are not slow to point out to representatives of the Ministry the nature of these defects, and usually in the next Orders that come before the Committee the Minister has seen fit to rectify them. Now those defects cannot really be brought out on the Floor of the House. They are small matters, but they are important in order to produce a good code of statutory instruments. I feel that that is one of the main points in favour of the existence of the Special Orders Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Royle, may not agree with me, but I am firmly of that opinion. It gives me great pleasure to support the noble Earl who moved the Motion, because I think it will crystallise the functions of this Committee in the House. But I hope the functions in private will continue in the same way.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should thank all the noble Lords who have spoken, and particularly the noble Earl the Leader of the House and the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition for their support. The noble Lord, Lord Royle, I think was a little anxious that the Report might change the powers and
462
responsibilities of the Special Orders Committee. I can reassure him about that. There is no proposal in the Report to change the powers and responsibilities with which this Committee have been entrusted by the House. All the Report proposes is to alter the terms of reference, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe pointed out, in order to make the Report which the Committee make to the House rather more interesting—the Committee hope—than it is at the moment. I think that is also the answer to the complaint made by the noble Lord, Lord Royle, that the House does not pay sufficient attention to these Reports. If the Reports were more interesting perhaps they would be more widely read by your Lordships. The noble Lord, Lord Cawley, speaking from much longer experience than I have of the Special Orders Committee, also gave the Motion his support.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEFENCE POLICY
3.29 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON LORD CARRINGTON rose to move. That this House takes note of the Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy 1970 (Cmnd. 4521). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. Your Lordships will now have had time to study the Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy which I presented to Parliament last week. I thought it would be for the convenience of your Lordships if there was an opportunity to debate it as soon as possible.
May I first of all say that it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to produce Supplementary Defence White Papers? But on this occasion it seemed right so that we might at the first opportunity announce the steps which we are taking to fulfil some of the pledges and promises that we made while in Opposition and to remedy, so far as possible and as soon as possible, some of the gaps which on our return to office we found in the capability of the Armed Forces. I hope that at any rate most of your Lordships will feel that the measures outlined in this White Paper go some way to achieving both these objectives. To say that I was surprised or disappointed by the reaction of noble Lords on the Front

463
Bench opposite would, it must be confessed, be a sizeable exaggeration; but I hope that by now they will have decided on which basis they intend to attack the White Paper. Last week we were told by noble Lords opposite that it was impossible to do what we proposed on so little money; and at the same time that what we were proposing was so negligible as to be of no account. It will be interesting to hear later on this afternoon which of these two conflicting ideas has triumphed on the Front Bench opposite.
I do not intend to anticipate the usual Defence White Paper which will be published early next year, but shall deal only with the changes upon which we have already decided. I shall not speak at any great length now because, with the House's permission, I will reply at the end of the debate to any questions which have been raised.
May I first of all start in an area of policy on which I do not believe there is any difference between ourselves and the Opposition, and that is the priority which we give to our support for NATO. As I think I have said before in this House, in July, NATO is going through a difficult period—partly because of its very success. There has been no war in Europe for 25 years, and a generation has grown up which finds it almost impossible to believe either that a nuclear war could take place, or that a conventional attack on the Central Front in Europe is at all likely. I agree that that is so, so long as NATO exists as a credible deterrent to any such aggression, but to weaken NATO because there has not been a war, or to cut back NATO'S forces in the belief that no such aggression is possible, is one of the surest ways to make such aggression more likely. Britain's security depends upon maintaining the military strength of NATO.
I recently attended a meeting of European Defence Ministers in Brussels. We discussed the review which the Americans are now carrying out about the future level of their forces in Europe. There was general agreement not that America should do less but that Europe must now do more in her own defence. I must say that this seems to me a very reasonable view. The situation of Europe in 1949 was very different from that which
464
now exists. If we do more for ourselves—"burden-sharing" as it is now called—it will be more worth while to the extent that it contributes directly to improvement in Europe's own military effort. Those of your Lordships who follow American affairs will have seen the criticisms and questionings, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, about European countries and their defence policies, and the consequences which might follow are clear. Therefore it is important at the present time for all of us in Europe to show that we are really concerned about the maintenance of our own security and to match our words with action. This White Paper outlines measures which will enable us to make our contribution to this process, and I should like to explain them to your Lordships rather more fully this afternoon.
First, we are remedying a real weakness in our naval forces which would have resulted in the 1970s from the policy of the previous Government to phase out the aircraft carriers before providing the necessary alternative weapons. As long ago as 1966, when they announced their decision to phase out the carriers in the late 1970s, the previous Government said that they would provide the Fleet with a surface-to-surface missile system. When I took office in June, there were still no firm plans for this: we had lost three and a half years. And meanwhile the demise of the carriers had been brought forward to 1972.
We are now negotiating with France for the joint production of a surface-to-surface missile which we plan to fit widely in frigates and larger ships during the 1970s. The weapon will not have the range of the longest Russian surface-to-surface missiles, but will be an effective counter to any weapons of the Soviet Navy which are truly autonomous and do not rely on a vulnerable system of mid-course guidance. Meanwhile, as your Lordships know, we intend to keep the "Ark Royal". The Government of noble Lords Opposite spent £33 million on her less than two years ago, yet they planned to throw her away in 1972. We shall run her on until the late 1970s to help to tide the Royal Navy over until the new missiles and the new cruisers, perhaps with a V/STOL potentiality, come into service.

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She will be the only British carrier left after 1972, and naturally, she will not be continuously available.
But we are not alone in confronting the Warsaw Pact navies. We will contribute "Ark Royal" to SACLANT'S forces and her availability will, whenever possible, be phased with that of the U.S. carriers in order to maintain an effective allied carrier strength. The Supreme Allied Commander in the Atlantic has repeatedly urged this on us, and he, at least, will have no doubts about the importance of what we are doing. The "Eagle" will pay off, as planned by the previous Government, in 1972. A great deal of money—something in the neighbourhood of £20 million—would have to be spent on her now to equip her to operate Phantoms, and to bring her up to the same standard generally as the "Ark Royal"; and the manpower penalties—and your Lordships know about the difficulties there—of running her on alongside the "Ark Royal" would also be extremely severe. No decision has yet been taken about the eventual disposal. We have, however, decided to convert the "Hermes"—which could not in any case be adapted to fly Phantoms—to the role of commando carrier; she will replace H.M.S. "Bulwark" in the middle 1970s.
The measures which we can take to strengthen the Army are limited by the present manpower situation. We are, however, doing what is necessary to preserve a basis for future expansion: that is the real significance of our plans to retain units at company strength. We are also increasing the size of the reserve—the T. & A.V.R. Group A—in order to produce an uncommitted reserve of forces which will, as I explained last week, wear the same uniform, have the same call-out liability, and carry arms which are as modern as those of the existing Group A reserve units. We are now, as the noble Lord, Lord Clydesmuir, knows, discussing the details with the Council of Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Associations, and the Associations themselves. At the same time we are increasing our commitment of reserve forces to NATO by an additional armoured car regiment. Finally, we are retaining four or five battalions of Gurkhas, one of which will serve in the United Kingdom and help to
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relieve the present strain on the Army and to free other units for essential training and other tasks.
One of the more depressing discoveries was the low level to which the previous Government had allowed our tactical air force contribution to fall, particularly in Germany—and this at a time when the strategy of NATO sharply underlined the need for dual capable tactical aircraft. This is not a situation that can be put right overnight, but we have already put in hand the major changes in our share of the Anglo-French Jaguar programme which will enable us to increase the planned Jaguar force by four squadrons. We shall not be buying more Jaguars than had been planned under the Anglo-French arrangements, but nearly twice as many of these aircraft will be of the operational combat version, and relatively few will be trainers. We plan to meet the flying training task with a less sophisticated and much less expensive aircraft without in any way sacrificing the high standard of training which the R.A.F. needs.
All this, my Lords, represents a major transfer of resources from "tail" to "teeth", so that we can make a welcome and substantial increase in our air contribution to NATO within the new Defence Budget targets. The "Ark Royal", the reserve armoured car regiment and the four squadrons of Jaguars really are very substantial extra military contributions to the Alliance, and I hope that our American and European Allies will take full note of them—and that noble Lords opposite will too. But while we plan in this way to increase our support for NATO we also plan, as the White Paper puts it,
"to enable Britain to resume, within her resources, a proper share of responsibility for the preservation of peace and stability in the world".
I cannot, as I told your Lordships last week, say more about our plans for the Persian Gulf as yet. Your Lordships will know that Sir William Luce has been discussing with local leaders what part we could or should continue to play in that area by maintaining a military presence and he will be reporting in due course to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. In the meantime discussions are continuing.
In the Far East, however, our broad plans are clear as are the reasons for

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them. Whilst in Opposition we made it abundantly clear that though we had no intention of retaining a presence East of Suez on anything like the same scale as previously, we believed that it was in our interest and in those of our Allies in South-East Asia to maintain a physical presence. There is no nostalgia about this; we are simply taking a realistic and hard-headed view of what we believe to be in our interests. The previous Government planned to safeguard our interests there by keeping a general capability on this side of the world to whose use they would not automatically have been committed. I assume that they would in certain circumstances have been prepared to use that capability for otherwise what they proposed was a hollow sham.
We also plan to replace the automatic commitment under the Anglo-Malaysian Defence Agreement by a consultative arrangement which our Commonwealth partners have accepted, but unlike the Opposition we believe that by stationing a small part of our general capability on the spot—a capability which will be complementary to the contributions of the other four partners—we will greatly lessen the likelihood that we will be called upon to use it. There is no doubt at all that this is the view of our Commonwealth allies and that they believe with us that a modest British presence in South-East Asia, as a positive token of our intentions, will make a contribution out of all proportion to its size to the deterrence of any potential aggressor and to the maintenance of confidence in the area.
I should just like to make two other points about these proposals. First, in the political commitment which we mean to undertake in place of the AMDA (that is, the Anglo Malaysian Defence Agreement) we would exclude involvement in the internal security of Malaysia and Singapore; we would consult with our Allies about other contingencies. Second, the battalion group will be stationed in Singapore, as will the Nimrods and Whirlwinds; and we are planning to integrate the support and logistic arrangements so far as possible with the Australian and New Zealand forces, since the last thing we want is to re-establish a large British base in Singapore. However, we have not yet settled
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what the precise command arrangements for our forces will be, and we are discussing these at the moment.
It is not, of course, the slightest use comparing our present estimates of the cost of our military presence in South-East Asia with the figures which were bandied about just before the Election. After all, at Election time things tend to get a little exaggerated and figures such as the £300 million tend to get a little inflated. I do not think noble Lords opposite quite understood what I was saying. Perhaps they do now. We all recognise that, though perhaps in this case they got a little more than a little inflated. But nevertheless I think noble Lords opposite did—and I think probably genuinely—misconceive the purpose of our presence East of Suez. We never thought it necessary to station large forces in South-East Asia for this and our presence need not be very expensive.
We shall not be adding to our existing forces but only redeploying a fraction of them and, as your Lordships will have read in the White Paper, we estimate that this will cost between £5 million and £10 million annually. This estimate cannot be any more precise than that because we are still discussing with our four Commonwealth partners the exact form which the logistic backing and so on will take. We will reinforce our forces on the spot if necessary from our general capability, just as the previous Government would have sent forces to the area if necessary.
Of course, by stationing a battalion in South-East Asia we shall add somewhat to the strain on the Army—though this in turn will be mitigated by our decision to station a Gurkha battalion in Great Britain. And three of the frigates and the Nimrod aircraft will be less readily available for NATO than they would otherwise have been after 1971—though they will remain committed to the Alliance. And the artillery battery, of some 150 men, will cease to be available to NATO. But the effect of this on NATO will be very small, and will be greatly outweighed by the effect of the additions to our NATO contribution which I have described.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a question? He says that they will remain committed. Does this have a special significance?

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Is this comparable, say, to the brigade that was in England, which was specifically allocated to NATO and could immediately go into reinforcement?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes; it is only a question of being committed in a different category. But the ships and the aircraft being in Singapore, they will be at a slightly lower level of availability to NATO than otherwise they would have been. In any case, NATO cannot be totally oblivious to threats of peace and stability in other parts of the world—especially at a time when we see Soviet feelers, in the shape of their developing naval strategy, stretching out across the Indian Octan. The United States has welcomed our decision to keep some forces in South East Asia, and I believe that our action will add indirectly to the general security of the Alliance.
Lastly, I should like to turn to the effects of all this on the Defence Budget, which so puzzled the noble Lord, Lord Byers, last week: how could we do all this and still reduce the defence budget in 1974–75? Of course, defence has had to be considered as part of the general economic picture, and it would have been quite wrong to exempt the defence programme from the exercise to reduce Government expenditure, especially when such painful cuts were being inflicted in other areas of the economy. We therefore subjected the programme which we inherited from the previous Administration to the most rigorous examination. We found, as the White Paper explains, that the costings of the previous Government were very much higher than the figures projected in their White Paper (Cmnd. 4234), which purported to set targets for expenditure up to 1973–74.
We took account of the fact that projections of expenditure four or five years ahead tend to be somewhat uncertain, and that, as the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, pointed out last week, the normal process of scrutiny nearer the time would have tended to narrow the gap between the costings and the targets. We made an allowance for realism which may very well be the same as the Labour Government would have done. But having been engaged on this scrutiny process myself over the last few months, and having looked at the Defence costings and the figures in Cmnd. 4234, I am bound to say that I cannot see how the
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Labour Government could possibly have closed that great gap without very serious damage to the Forces' capability.
One is left to speculate about what the last Government would have done. Would they have allowed the Defence Budget to rise substantially above the provisional targets which they set or would they not? I do not know. Those tags of "provisional" and "simply carried forward" on the Cmnd. 4234 figures for 1972–73 and 1973–74 seem to me, at all events, to tell a tale, perhaps of indecision, or even, conceivably, of conflict. It was certainly some kind of muddle. It is, I suggest, for noble Lords opposite to say, not for me. But having examined the long-term costings very carefully, we identified certain areas, such as the works research and development and general production programmes of lesser priority where hard savings could be made which, although painful, would not prevent us from meeting our commitments.
We have decided not to pursue proposals for the introduction of the C5, with first deliveries in 1974–75, to replace the Britannias, because this is unnecessary in this particular time scale. This alone produced 25 per cent. or so of the savings we have been able to make in 1974–75. My Lords, I do not pretend, and did not pretend on the last occasion when we discussed this subject, that I would not rather have avoided having to defer any items in our defence programme, for defence has been hard hit in these last six years. Nevertheless, having regard to the need for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reduce public expenditure in order that there should be room for manœuvre for incentives and for a start once more on the road to an expanding economy, this was something which I felt had to be accepted. But I would not have accepted any saving which impaired the capability of the Forces to carry out their commitments, and I am certain that nothing which we have undertaken to do in the way of saving money will impair their efficiency. But by a mixture of realism, both in regard to the existing programme and to the way in which we planned to meet our new commitments, and of a revision of priorities within the defence programme, not only have we been able to make significant savings in the long-term costings but we have, at the same time, honoured our Election

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pledges and made really worthwhile additions to the front line strength of the three Services.
My Lords, I do not wish to claim that this White Paper means, or indeed foreshadows, a fundamental change in our defence policy. The Armed Forces have had six years of chopping and changing, and what they need now is a little stability.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I just interrupt before the noble Lord continues? We are always in difficulty on numbers. Is he now telling us that so far as 1971–72 is concerned the Government have actually hit the defence allocation which was contained in the previous Government's Command Paper No. 4234, and that he has achieved this without major cuts, whereas we could have achieved it only with major cuts? I may not have understood that.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord misunderstood me. I was talking about the major cuts in 1974–75, 1973–74. I understand that the noble Lord is going to wind up for the Opposition, so I imagine he will have a lot of time to do his homework on what I have said. If at any time during the afternoon I can be of any service to him, I shall be very happy to help him with any of these figures.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, in that case perhaps the noble Lord would care to be of service to me now. I am really asking him to explain this point, because he is saying that the previous Government could have achieved this only by major cuts, whereas he has actually hit the figures, and indeed in certain cases further on has improved on them, and has managed it without major cuts. If necessary I shall ask these questions at the end, but he might explain it now.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord has not understood. Perhaps it is my fault that he has not understood what I have said. I said there were two targets: the targets in Command Paper 4234, which I said noble Lords opposite would have found it very difficult to achieve in 1973/74, 1974/75, without major cuts, because the long-term costings of their own Government showed that
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they were hundreds of millions of pounds in excess of this. I have said that they would not have been able to do this without major cuts. We have not come down to the figures in Command Paper 4234, but we have come down on the long-term costings without major cuts. I promise the noble Lord, if he is still puzzled, that I will willing go outside the House and talk to him this afternoon before he makes his speech.
I was, in point of fact, just about to conclude what I was saying. What I do claim is that within the constraints of both money and manpower inherited from our predecessors, we are producing a better defence and a more sensible defence for this country; and I hope that your Lordships will endorse our decisions. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy 1970 (Cmnd. 4521).—(Lord Carrington.)
3.55 p.m.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, when the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, presented his Supplementary Statement to your Lordships' House last week, I said that it did not seem to contain much that is very new or dramatic; and, in spite of what he has said this afternoon, I see no reason to change that view. Listening to some of the grand designs being outlined before the Election—the plans for a complete reversal of Labour policies East of Suez; plans for the last-minute reprieve of doomed infantry regiments by bellicose lieutenant-colonels riding down to London on white chargers; plans for the reconstruction of the Territorial Army, and sundry other martial projects of very high promise to the electorate—one might really, I think, have expected something a little more exciting in the way of a Conservative defence policy. But let me make it clear that I am not complaining that the defence policy of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, turns out to be very much the mixture as before. He will be the first to admit, I know, that the loud noises of critics in Opposition sometimes begin to sound rather empty when the real facts are known and the real decisions have to be made. However, there are some new developments in this Statement, and we must ask ourselves what they really mean.

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First of all, let me say that there is no very great argument between us on the subject of NATO, and on the proposition that, in the light of a possible withdrawal of American forces from Europe, the European countries must do more about their own defence. I think there is no need for us to argue about that. Although, as I have said, it is not possible to see any substantial change in the overall shape of defence policy, there are one or two new developments, both in weapons procurement and in the deployment of our Armed Forces, which in a moment or two I should like to examine a little more closely. I think it would probably suit your Lordships best if I were to follow fairly closely the lines of the Supplementary Statement itself. Perhaps I may say here that, whatever defects of content it may have, I congratulate the noble Lord on the fact that the Statement has the very great merit of being precise, and very clearly and lucidly presented. What I should like to do is to take the objectives which the Government have set themselves in the introduction to the Paper, and try to reach a conclusion about whether what is set out in the rest of the Paper seems likely to achieve those objectives; in other words, to judge the Government by their own standards rather than to engage in the sterile business of instant Opposition. The defence and security of this country is something to which all three political Parties are unequivocally committed, and it is too important a matter for the kind of debate that is devoted simply to the scoring of Party points.
So let us look at the first of the Government 's objectives:
"to enable Britain to resume, within her resources, a proper share of responsibility for the preservation of peace and stability in the world;"
Apart from the tendentious use of the word "resume", which seems to suggest that before the noble Lord and his colleagues arrived on the scene we had abdicated from that responsibility, apart from that rather curious piece of semantics, I find this aim an unexceptionable one. Of course we must take our proper share of responsibility for these matters, and when my Party were in office we had exactly the same objective. The important matter at issue is what exactly
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is that "proper share". As the Supplementary Statement says,
"Britain has long-standing associations with the Commonwealth countries of South East Asia …"
Perhaps I may say, in passing, that in the light of certain other plans which I understand Her Majesty's Government have in mind it is encouraging to learn that the Commonwealth still has a place in the calculations of the Party opposite. However, when we come to examine carefully how the Government intend to discharge these obligations, some very important questions indeed arise, and I think that the House has a right to know the answers to them.
First, what exactly does "a political commitment of a consultative nature" mean? How does it differ—and I should like specific answers to these questions—in terms of the obligations which it involves for this country from the Anglo-Malaysian defence agreement? Are we committed clearly and unequivocally to the defence of this area against external attack; or are we committed only to have consultations about what happens if there is an attack? This is a very important question, as we shall see when we come in a moment to the question of the deployment of ground and air forces ashore on Singapore Island.
Then what is to be the command structure of these forces? I asked this question last week and I am still no clearer about what the answer is. Will all Five Powers involved participate in the command arrangements, or only some of them; and if only some of them, which? We should not underestimate the importance of this question and of getting a very clear answer to it before we go very much further. I should have thought that the lesson of American involvement in Vietnam was vivid enough in the mind of everybody to convince Her Majesty's Government that it would be utterly irresponsible to commit British troops to operations of the kind that might arise in South-East Asia, without a very clear understanding of who will command them and through what machinery they will receive their political direction.
This leads me to the most important single difference between the approach of the present Government in South-East Asia and that of the Labour Government, whose policies the present Government

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claim to be putting into reverse. I refer, of course, to the decision to station a battalion group of British troops, some maritime reconnaissance aircraft and a number of Whirlwind helicopters ashore on Singapore Island. Let us for a few minutes address ourselves to some questions about exactly what this particular deployment is meant to achieve.
We have been told, as I expected we should be told, that it is welcomed by the countries concerned. That is hardly surprising. If the British Government are prepared to maintain a presence of British troops on the ground in South-East Asia, we should hardly expect the Governments concerned to complain. Everybody likes the feeling of being helped. But what we ought to be asking ourselves, and what defence planners ought to be asking themselves, is a more profound question: is it in our national interest, and is it in the interest of the people in the area, that these troops should be there? It is not enough to say that they have welcomed it. What are the realities of the situation?
In offering an answer to this question, I make the assumption—and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has confirmed this—that these troops are not meant to support the Governments of the countries concerned if they are faced with internal difficulties. The noble Lord has assured us—and I accept that assurance—that they are not there in the traditional imperial policing role, to carry out duties in aid of the Civil Power in case of subversion or revolution. If that assumption is correct, my first question is: can the Government be really sure that, in the event, British troops will not become involved in internal security operations? If there are riots in the streets of Singapore, are the British troops really going to stay in barracks, and are the British Whirlwind helicopters really going to stay ostentatiously grounded on their airfields? What happens if the Government of Singapore asks for help? Will the Government say, "No; these troops are here to save you only if you are attacked from outside. Attack from within is nothing to do with us." Is that what the Government believe will happen? If it is, they have a confidence in their own firmness of purpose which I feel bound to say I find difficult to share.
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But let us be generous about this, even if only in search of truth and intellectual clarity, and let us assume that British troops will be used only in the event of attack from outside; and that, even if their very presence causes internal unrest, as is quite likely, the Government will be resolute enough to keep them out of any involvement in it. That is a very charitable assumption, but let us make it. Do the Government believe that the presence of an infantry battalion and a handful of British aircraft is really going to deter anyone who decides to attack Malaya and Singapore? If they do, then I suggest that they are living in a dream world. The presence of British troops, of foreign troops, on the Asian mainland is far more likely to provoke interference than to prevent it.
And what if there is an attack? What if an attack takes place, in spite of the enormous deterrent capability of a battalion group and a number of Whirlwind helicopters? What will the infantry battalion do then? Will it plant its regimental colours on Bukit Timah and win another battle honour? No, my Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who knows a great deal more about military matters than a number of his more talkative colleagues, knows quite well what will happen. He knows that either the troops will have to be withdrawn in circumstances of maximum political humiliation—that is one alternative, and one that I should have thought would be unpalatable to a Government who seem to make such a virtue of not being pushed around by foreigners—or, which is the more likely course of action, the battalion group, if it is to have any military significance at all, will have to be reinforced on a massive scale.
Let us make no mistake, my Lords. This process of keeping troops ashore in Singapore is going to land us once again with the familiar obsessive nightmare of the military planner—the open-ended commitment, sucking in troops, weapons and money for which there is absolutely no provision in the Government's White Paper. This is a blunder which the Conservative Government, if they stay in office long enough, will bitterly regret.
Perhaps we should spare a few brief moments for the Persian Gulf. I have a natural reluctance to intrude upon private grief, so I will pass over this question

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almost as hurriedly as the White Paper does. I believe the simple fact of the matter is that the Government have discovered, as I could easily have predicted they would, that we are not wanted in the Persian Gulf. Certainly, the Shah of Iran does not want us: he said so loud and clear; and it is, after all, the Persian Gulf. My guess is that we are simply not wanted there by anybody. The White Paper talks of continuing discussions with leaders in the area to see how Britain can best contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability, and so on. I think the answer is an easy one. The way that Britain can best contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Persian Gulf is by leaving the policy of the Government's predecessors unchanged. And I believe that, if they were honest, the Government would say that they have really decided, in effect, to do this. How else could they produce a White Paper which is apparently so precisely costed, if the future of this important military area remains unresolved?
But just in case the Government decide, as they may well do and as they are obviously doing in South-East Asia, to create the optical illusion of reversing Labour policies by establishing some symbolic presence in the Persian Gulf, I think they ought to realise the implications—not least the very real possibility of a clash with Iran over some territorial claim. If this is what the Government really want, an old-fashioned naval engagement in the Persian Gulf with one of the countries in the area whose goodwill is so important to us, then it might be better to draw a decent veil over all this, so that the Government can, as I hope, come to some sensible decisions about the Gulf without too much embarrassing advice from this side of the House.
To sum up on the first of the Government's stated objectives, my conclusion would be that there is nothing whatsoever in the White Paper to suggest that Britain's share of world responsibilities for peace and stability is likely to be any greater than it was under the Labour Government; and that in the matter of stationing ground troops in Singapore they have made an empty gesture that
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may yet land us in another disastrous military adventure in South-East Asia.
What about the second objective:
"To improve the capabilities of the Armed Forces, to overcome their manpower difficulties, and to enhance their role in the community ",
First of all, let me say, quite flatly, that there is nothing in the White Paper to indicate any solution to the chronic manpower difficulties of the Armed Forces, and there is nothing in the White Paper to show how they are going to enhance their role in the community. The White Paper states rather pathetically:
"Everything possible will be done to make life in the Services sufficiently attractive to compete successfully in all respects with civilian employment; and to enhance the status of military service in the national life."
Yes: I dare say everything possible will be done. But, my Lords, that kind of statement of pious intention can hardly be dignified with the name of a plan, or of a defence policy. When the Government have decided precisely how they are going to solve the manpower problems and how they are going to enhance the status of the Armed Forces in society, perhaps they will let us know and then we shall have something concrete to consider, and perhaps even to criticise.
On the capabilities of the Armed Forces, I think it is possible to offer some tentative congratulations to the Government. The negotiations with the French Government to fit the EXOCET missile in surface ships of the Royal Navy sounds, to me at any rate, like a very good idea if it can be done at reasonable expense; so I shall pass over that particular proposition simply saying that I hope the plan will be successful. There will be arguments both ways about the military value of retaining the "Ark Royal", even if that can be done within the budget. I must confess that, to me, it looks like a fairly ineffective gesture. I cannot really believe that retaining this rather aged aircraft carrier will increase the naval capabilities of the Western Alliance to any spectacular extent. And perhaps when he comes to reply the noble Lord will answer again one specific question about this noble piece of maritime antiquity. As "Ark Royal" is now to remain in commission until the late 1970s, will the noble Lord tell the House how many major refits she will require in

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that time, and how long these refits will require her to be taken away from sea service and therefore away from the defences of the Western Alliance?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord would like me to answer that question now. She will have to have two further refits, each of under six months. I was wondering whether I might ask the noble Lord a question. He has made some very rude remarks about "Ark Royal" and her capabilities. Would he tell me why the previous Government spent £33 million refitting her?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I do not think I made any rude remarks about the "Ark Royal" and her capabilities. What I said was that she is an aged aircraft carrier. That is a statement of fact: that is not a value judgment. I am sorry if it has hurt the noble Lord. I know that his experience as First Lord of the Admiralty has made him susceptible to criticisms of bosun's pipes and bow-waves but he really must not take these things too seriously.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am not.
LORD CHALFONT: I have simply said that I doubt whether retaining this aircraft carrier will add very significantly to the defences of the West, and I stand by that judgment. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his information about the two refits. It means that in the course of the new service of "Ark Royal" she will in fact be out of commission for about a year undergoing major refits. Do I understand that correctly?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords. She will be operational about two-thirds of the time—that is the actual figure—but, of course, the aircraft embarked in "Ark Royal" will be able to fly from land-based airfields.
LORD CHALFONT: Yes. I do not want to enter into an exchange with the noble Lord at this stage. I am sure that my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition will deal with this when he winds up. But this is of course a difference, not only of strategic concept but of organisational concept as well. It was the Royal Air Force which was to look after that capability in previous plans.
May I come now to the question of the Gurkhas? I think the decision about
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retaining the Gurkhas is one with which anyone who has ever served with Gurkha troops will find it very difficult to quarrel. I should just like to make one point, in case there should be any misunderstanding either inside or outside your Lordships' House. The Labour Government had made and announced no decision at all about the future of the Gurkhas. So I hope—and I am sure nothing could be further from the noble Lord's mind—that no one will try to represent this as a last-minute reprieve in which the gallant Brigade of Gurkhas has been saved by the Conservatives from a fate worse than death under the Socialists. Axe we going to have another interruption?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord but, of course, I never said that there had been a decision. Indeed, I think one of the Ministers in the Ministry of Defence in the previous Administration had said that there was no decision to be taken until the end of 1971. But the fact remains that there was no provision in the long-term costings for the continuation of the Gurkhas.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I repeat that we had made and announced no decision. Therefore, although I am not in any way complaining about the decision to retain the Brigade of Gurkhas, I hope nobody is going to turn this into a great political steam-hammer, because it really is not one.
I should, however, like again to ask a specific question which I hope can be answered at the end of the debate. It is an important question, so perhaps the noble Lord will address himself to it specifically. What is this Gurkha battalion which is stationed in this country going to do? All that we know so far is that it is going to relieve other units to do other things. This is understandable. It will presumably be stationed somewhere in England, and this will allow a British battalion to go off to Northern Ireland or to Rhine Army or wherever it may be needed. But what is it going to do in England? Is it simply going to train, or has it some kind of operational role? If it has an operational role, could we be told what it is? Is it going to be used for duties in aid of the civil power? If not, where is it going to operate and what is it going to

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do? This is a serious question, and not merely a debating point.
I think it would be ungracious, too, to cavil at the Government's decision to increase our reserves, provided they can do it within their estimated costs. Again, I do not want to say anything more about the plan for the reserves except that I wish the Government success in implementing their plan if they can do it within their financial ceiling. I think, too, that the increase in the front-line strength of close-support aircraft is a move in the right direction. There is, however, one important question which we must have answered before we on this side can give it an unqualified welcome and our support. Are the Government convinced that aircrew can be trained to fly the Jaguar, which is a highly sophisticated aircraft? Will they be fit to fly it operationally if the same aircraft is not available in fairly large numbers in the training role? What are the plans for advanced trainers? Are we going to modify some existing type of aircraft, or are we going to have a completely new trainer to replace the existing jet training aircraft? If so, is this included in the long-term costings? I should like some answers to these questions, because they are not answered in the White Paper.
I have been reasonably kind to the Government's plans in the last few minutes, but there is one aspect of them which I think must have been dreamed up by some music hall comedian temporarily attached to the Ministry of Defence. What I am talking about is this bizarre idea of pretending to keep regiments in existence by forming what has been rather inelegantly called mini-regiments or independent companies. In my own regiment, which was an infantry regiment, we once had an officer of somewhat languid tendencies who frequently gave it as his opinion that the ideal infantry regiment would consist of an officers' mess, a wine waiter, 22 batmen and a regimental band. This new Conservative brain-child seems to be coming somewhere near that specification.
May I ask for some factual information about what seems to me to be a blatantly political gesture? These are the questions. Is this new kind of mini-regiment
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to be commanded by a lieutenant-colonel, with all the paraphernalia of battalion headquarters, the regimental colours, the mess and the silver on guest nights? If so, perhaps it was not a music hall comedian at work at all: perhaps it was Professor Parkinson. Is the company, then, to be commanded by a major, as companies should be? If so, can the Government say how they propose to attract officers into a regiment in which the ceiling of promotion is so low? As a certain honourable and gallant gentleman said in another place last week, there are at present no officers at Sandhurst ready to go into the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, one of the regiments allegedly reprieved by this remarkable new policy. Will the Government tell the House how, having made this apparently simple political gesture, they intend to make military sense out of it?
These are serious questions, and the noble Lord will be well aware that the disquiet which we on this side of the House feel is shared by many officers and men in the Army. I find it hard to imagine what these companies are going to be used for, It is an axiom of military organisation, with which I am sure the noble Lord is familiar, that the smallest unit which can exist independently in operation is the battalion. One can only conclude that these strange new units have no military function at all, merely a political function. If they have a military use, it would be interesting to hear what it is. So I am afraid we must conclude that the Government have not been altogether successful in achieving their second objective. There is nothing but a pious statement of intent on manpower difficulties. There is nothing to tell us how they are to be overcome. There is nothing to tell us what the targets for manpower planning are. We must give the noble Lord credit for certain measures which, if they can be implemented within the defence budget, seem likely to improve the capabilities of the Armed Forces; but it seems to me a great pity that this should include a useless piece of window-dressing which is obviously designed to placate those who made such an extraordinary uproar about the much-needed reorganisation of the infantry.
My Lords, this brings me to the third and last of the objectives which the

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Government have set for themselves in this White Paper;
"to establish and maintain a sound financial basis on which to develop and carry out defence policy and plans in the years ahead."
Before we take a brief look at the way the Government think they are going to do this, I hope we can clear up one rather puzzling passage in the White Paper and in the noble Lord's speech. I refer to paragraph 37 in the last part of the White Paper, where it says:
"The costing of the defence programme which the Government had inherited considerably exceeded the provisional allocations for defence."
That is in Cmnd. 234—I am paraphrasing a little in the interests of saving time.
Unless I am missing some abstruse point of semantics or philosophy, this seems to me to be no more than a statement of something that is obvious and commonplace to anybody familiar with the technique of long-term costings; namely, that actual projects sometimes cost more than it was estimated that they would cost in the long-term fore casts. When that happens, obviously, either more money has to be found or the projects have to be cut to fit the money available. Why go to the trouble of explaining such childishly simple concepts in the White Paper?—unless, of course, it was to suggest that the Labour Government had done their sums wrong. Fortunately the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, put the matter in proper perspective in your Lordships' House on October 27, when he said that he was making no accusations against the previous Government.
When the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, spoke on the following day, and to-day, he was not disposed to be so frank and gracious. He indicated again to-day that it is up to us to explain the difference between long-term costings and actual costs, but he knows quite well that there is nothing for us to explain—the difference is a normal function in the process of long-term cost forecasting. It is up to him, on the other hand, if I may say so—and he may shake his head until it comes off—to explain why this tendentious statement was put into the White Paper at all. Will he, when he comes to answer—or he can do it now if he wants to interrupt me again—admit quite honestly that it does not mean that the previous Government produced mis-
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leading figures? If the noble Lord is prepared simply to say that, I will leave the subject and, I hope, never refer to it again.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the position is this. The previous Government produced the White Paper, Cmnd. 4234, in which it was stated that a certain sum of money was provisionally allocated for defence. It was provisionally allocated for all the other spending Departments and the total was added up for the years 1972–73 and 1973–74. We were then told that the Government were going to spend in 1973–74 whatever it was—£22,000 million. The noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition shakes his head, but let him look at the White Paper. It says: "Public expenditure by programme: Provisional allocation, 1972–73, 1973–74 at 1969 survey prices"—total £22,170 million. And 1973–74, £22,950 million. What does that mean if it was not a forecast of what was going to be spent? At the same time there were long-term costings in the Ministry of Defence which did not bear out those figures. It would therefore have been necessary for the Government of the day to have reduced those long-term costings either to that figure, or raised that figure. As the long-term costings are more realistic than that figure in terms of what one is going to spend, you have to save the money somewhere.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the noble Lord really is having a field day to-day—four speeches in one day! Perhaps the best way to handle this is that when the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, takes the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, out behind the "gym", to explain these things to him, I will come along and explain a few things to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may we have the meeting in the Grand Committee Room?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that clear and lucid explanation of the situation, which I find totally confusing. However, let us come to the Government's own long-term costing: that ought to be rather more interesting. Their policy, it seems to me, rests on two major propositions: first, that they intend to save by 1974–75

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£132 million on the Labour Government's defence programme; and secondly, that no major projects now on order are to be cancelled. That is an admirable programme, one might say at first glance; but let us look a little closer than a first glance.
Let us remind ourselves, for example, of the way in which the Government plan to fulfil the second objective of improving the capabilities of the Armed Forces, and their first objective of taking a proper share of global responsibilities. The annual extra cost of deploying the forces in South-East Asia is, we are told, between £5 million and £10 million a year. But this is not quite such a simple figure as it appears. In fact, it is totally misleading, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, admitted when I asked him about it last week, it represents only the difference between keeping a given force in Singapore and keeping it at home. Your Lordships will note that this does not give any figure for the cost of producing or keeping in being the forces that will be needed to go to Singapore in the first place. He says that there will be no increase to existing forces needed for this purpose. But what about an increase to planned force level? How much will they cost? And as we were talking about the bandying around of figures, may we look a little closer at the figure of £100 million which the Prime Minister himself was bandying about at Election time? I should say it is rather nearer to that than the £10 million which we have been offered. In any case it is going to cost something, and the whole project is likely to cost substantially more, in my view, than the White Paper suggests.
What about the French EXOCET missile? I know that we shall not be told how much that is going to cost, but I can tell the noble Lord one thing, in case there is any doubt in his mind: the Government will not get it for nothing. It is an expensive, advanced guided missile system, and the French will ask a very high price for it. What about "Ark Royal"? The White Paper says that no changes will be needed in the manpower programme of the Royal Navy. Well, we will take his word for that. But will the noble Lord, in turn, accept that whatever he may say about the money already spent on "Ark Royal"
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—and there may be two views about that—it will cost more to keep "Ark Royal" in service than to take her out of service? Presumably he will, because one of the reasons given for not maintaining H.M.S. "Eagle" is potential cost. How much are the "Ark Royal's" major refits going to cost between now and the late 1970s? Presumably, they will not be done for nothing.
But we have not finished yet. The rundown of major Army units is to be halted. Four or five Gurkha battalions are to be kept in the order of battle. A reserve force of 10,000 men equipped with modern weapons is to be created. All this costs money, and a great deal of money; because the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, knows better than anybody that it is Vote I that really runs away with the Defence Budget; the money actually needed to keep and pay all these extra soldiers—provided, of course, that they can be recruited. Finally, we are told that we are to have a new modern jet trainer. Whatever the choice of that is, I suppose eventually it will cost money. No one is going to give us new jet trainers for nothing, and I presume that they will not be run up by the R.A.F. on a "do it yourself" basis.
So now we have three propositions, and not two: no major projects are to be cut; a number of new and expensive commitments in manpower and equipment are to be taken on; but the Defence Budget is going to be reduced. The noble Lord, Lord Byers, is not the only Member of your Lordships' House who is amused by that kind of arithmetic. I have never been very good at mathematics myself, but even I know that if I start spending more money in the shops and do not cut down my expenses in other ways, it is very unlikely that I am going to reduce my overall expenditure. So how are Her Majesty's Government going to perform this small miracle?
The White Paper refers rather vaguely to the fact that a number of projects of lesser priority, mainly in building and equipment, will be cut or deferred. We have learned, my Lords, that one of these projects is no less than the C5 transport aircraft, and if noble Lords opposite think that a project of lesser priority they are very much mistaken. It represents a major change in strategic thinking and it is no good hiding it away and keeping

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it out of the White Paper as though it were something of no consequence. The truth is that the Government know perfectly well that they cannot make their own arithmetic come right without further economies and further cuts of a very substantial kind, or without exceeding their long-term cost estimates—a procedure which they seem to think reflects some kind of moral turpitude. We on this side of the House shall wait with interest to see which course they choose.
The White Paper gives us a hint by referring to
"adverse consequences for the Services which the Government would have preferred to avoid."
So the Armed Forces cannot say that they have not been warned. But what about the adverse consequences to the rest of us? It is not only our soldiers, sailors and airmen who are likely to feel the effect of this familiar brand of Conservative defence thinking. I am afraid that on the third of the Government's objectives we shall have to reserve judgment until we can see the detailed workings of the noble Lord's mathematics. On his present showing, I give him no more than a beta minus for some very eccentric calculations. I am prepared to make now the forecast that the Government will have to come back to Parliament before long and say they are very sorry but find that, after all, they need more money for defence than they thought they would.
My Lords, I am afraid that this just will not do. I am sorry to have to say this to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for whom I have a great personal admiration, and indeed affection; but his first Defence White Paper is not good enough. It smacks too much of the bad old days which used to lead me into expressions of sorrow and anger when I was Defence Correspondent of The Times. Those of you who have read in that paper this morning the revealing letter from the former Conservative Defence Minister, Lord Head, will, I think, have been reminded of the techniques. First, you work out how many recruits you are likely to get by means of an actuarial estimate and then you proudly announce that as your recruiting target. I had thought, my Lords, that the time of Sandys was running out. But evidently not.
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Here we have a White Paper which sets out a policy which is designed to be ail things to all Conservative men. There is something here for the East of Suez brigade, something for the Infantry politicians, something for the Admirals and a little, although precious little, for the Air Marshals. But there is no real, serious attempt to tell us how the money or the men are to be found to put all this into practice. To me, one of the really bad things about this White Paper is that, if I may use a rare Americanism, the Government are taking our Armed Forces for a ride. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen deserve something much better than this. They have loyally served this country through, as the noble Lord said, a period of great change. I do not think that he should blame the Labour Government for the change; changes have taken place all over the world, and we have had to take account of them. The Armed Services have served this country loyally through this period, a period for them of great instability and uncertainty. The present Government pretend, with this White Paper and with the bland words of the noble Lord opposite, to put all this right. They know that these policies will only make it worse.
But an even worse aspect of this White Paper is that it takes the whole country for a ride. It promises better military forces for less money. That is simply not possible. It promises a new share in preserving peace and stability in the world; yet not once in the White Paper do we find mention of arms control, disarmament or peace-keeping operations—not once. All it does is to perpetuate the presence of British troops in South-East Asia—scarcely, I should have thought, a contribution to peace and stability.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I repeat: scarcely, I should have thought, a contribution to peace and stability in the world.
Finally, the White Paper pretends to be something new and dynamic when, to the extent that it differs from any previous policies, it is simply the old Tory stage army technique writ large. The Government are trying to take on too much with too few men and too little resources. The Government, the Armed Forces and the

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people of this country will live to regret it bitterly.
4.34 p.m.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will not continue to describe the "Ark Royal" as a Naval museum—otherwise we shall find the Government charging an admission fee. We have in the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, one of the most disarming Defence Ministers I have ever met. If anyone thinks that a disarming Defence Minister is a contradiction in terms, then I want to assure him there is no more a contradiction than the arithmetical part of what I thought was otherwise an excellent speech. I am still bemused, completely bewildered. As I understand it, the Government claim that while they will exceed the costs for defence set out in the previous Government's White Paper (Cmnd. 4234) they will not exceed the unpublished cost estimates prepared by the previous Administration before they left office. So we are dealing with two sets of books, one that the House has seen and one that the Government have seen. The one the Government have seen has never been approved by anyone.
This excess over Command 4234 is therefore claimed as a cut in public expenditure. This is pretty unusual arithmetic. It can amount to political sleight of hand in order to honour an Election pledge. Taking the Labour Government White Paper figure for 1972 (the year after next) of £2,230 million, compared with the Government's proposal of £2,270 million, the correct form of the announcement should have been, "We are delighted to be able to tell you that the cut in public expenditure for 1972 in Defence Estimates will be minus £40 million and may well be more." This is a cut in public expenditure, not compared with any of the figures which the public have seen but with the figure apparently left by the last Government. I do not understand how the Government now claim to be giving the country a better defence system than the Labour Government would have provided at less cost than they privately estimated. If I could join the seminar which is going to take place during the afternoon, I would say that if the noble Lord has achieved this then it is some achievement; but I am not convinced at the moment.
I do not believe—and this is what
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Lord Chalfont also said—that the difference can be made up by deferring some projects of lesser priority. What was said in Command 4521 was:
"These savings will reflect … the results of the normal annual scrutiny of the long-term costing of the defence programme. …"
I think we are entitled to know what are the projects which are to come under the microscope. Certainly we ought to know by now what is likely for 1971–72. The Government say:
"These savings will reflect … partly the determination of the Government to make economies wherever possible within the priorities of its defence policy."
Where are the Government now looking for these economies which they hope to make in 1971–72? They then say:
"No major projects now on order will be cancelled. …"
The Government must know exactly what projects are going to be affected otherwise they could not give a figure for the savings that they expect to make next year. If they do not know, then the figures can command no confidence. I should like to know what precise Labour policies are left in the unpublished set of books which the Government are discarding in order to make so-called savings. I believe that this White Paper is the result of a good deal of very odd guessword in order to redeem the pledges made in the Election of a cut in public expenditure. We all know how inaccurate long-term costing can be and how flexible it can be as you roll the years forward. I am desperately worried that while we may think we are getting better defence for less money, in fact we are merely concealing from ourselves the bill which will come in the next year or two.
So far as the presence East of Suez goes, I would say that it is not so much a presence as a small visiting card. In so far as it turns out to be a useful training area for troops, perhaps we cannot object, but if it were to distract attention and effort from our prime commitment to Europe, we on these Benches should be very worried. I hope that my noble friend Lord Gladwyn, who will be speaking later, will tell us something of what happened in Luxembourg over the last two or three days at the meeting he attended which was devoted to the defence of Europe. So far as East of Suez is concerned I hope, with the noble

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Lord, Lord Chalfont, that we shall be told something of the different political structures which are likely to be discussed with the other Powers for implementing the Five-Power defence arrangements. As I understand it, this force will be used only after full political consultation where the threat of aggression is external. Presumably this means in circumstances where an attack is made from outside on either Malaysia or Singapore. I take it that it would not operate if the attack were on Indonesia.
Conversely, if there is an attack on Malaysia or Singapore, may I ask the noble Lord whether Five-Power action is subject to a veto by any one Power or is the decision to operate a unilateral one? Will the military and political command structure be such that if a majority is in favour of action everybody is committed? In this way Britain could find herself in a war of which she did not approve. I suspect that more and more the question will be asked, "What is this force really for?". It certainly is not adequate to deal with a Malaya-Indonesian type of confrontation, if that should ever happen. But it could act as the thin edge of a wedge to drag a great many more British troops into a war, the defensive character of which had not been properly conceived.
It now appears that, in addition to the role we are undertaking in Singapore, we are going to commit troops to some undefined task in the Gulf. What precisely is it that Her Majesty's Government hope to achieve in this area? Is it to act as a policeman, to keep law and order between the potentially hostile States in the area? If so, considerable manpower might be involved and considerable cost. Is it to counter the Russian penetration of the area—in which case, ought we to be taking on such a commitment on a unilateral basis? Or is it to protect the supplies of oil on which the West is dependent for its industrial growth? If this last is the reason, have Her Majesty's Government considered the dramatic difference which will occur, so far as Western dependence is concerned, if the oil potential of Nigeria and the North Sea is as great as some informed people think it may well be. If it is, it would transform the economic and political relationships of the West and the
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Middle East, so far as dependence on oil is concerned, in a remarkable way. If this is so, would it not be wise to encourage the Persian Gulf States to come to terms with their own security now, rather than place them in a false position at a later date.
To revert once more to the small force committed in the Singapore area, would it not be far better for such a force to be dedicated to the United Nations for general peace-keeping purposes, rather than tied up on a permanent basis in a limited area of the world?
There are two other matters that need further thought. We welcome without reservation the expansion of the Territorial Army and of the Army Volunteer Reserve. We should like to know more about how it is proposed to recruit this force, and also what is proposed should be done about recruitment generally. Are the mass media being used in the best possible way? Something much more fundamental than television and magazine advertising is needed. Perhaps the noble Lord would consider having some specialised "think tank", which seems to be fashionable nowadays, to help to get the recruits we must get if the Armed Forces are to be properly manned.
Finally, may I ask the Government what is their policy concerning the Polaris force? I cannot see any mention of this in the White Paper. It is a crucial question and we have a right to know the Government's intentions. Are they contemplating going in for the next generation of submarine missiles? And, if so, how does this affect the costings we have been given. My Lords, if I have been critical of the way the Government have juggled with the figure, I do not wish to be thought ungenerous in any way to those who serve in Her Majesty's Armed Forces. One has only to look at the conduct of our troops in Northern Ireland, in the most distressing circumstances, to feel the strongest pride in the quality of our Armed Forces.
4.44 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will not think it discourteous if I make my remarks rather concisely to-day. After all, this is only an interim Report, and no doubt we

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shall have a much fuller Report, as my noble friend Lord Carrington has said, probably next February. There seems to be a fair agreement, as the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has said, about the capability of improving on the suggestions in the Report—that is to say, having additional "teeth" in the Navy, additional reserves in the Army and increased operational aircraft in the Royal Air Force. I think that these are generally accepted as desirable.
I think it is fair to say that in the five months he has held office as Secretary of State my noble friend Lord Carrington has acted both with speed and with efficiency, in particular in laying the foundations of an agreement in South-East Asia. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, that this is no contribution to peace. At all events, four other Commonwealth countries take the view that it is, and I think their judgment on this is probably better informed.
Why is this important? The first reason is one that I have mentioned from your Lordship's House before. We went back on our word to certain Asian countries—notably Singapore and Malaysia. It is true that we have done this before in our history, that we are called "perfidious Albion" by the French; and, for all I know, other European countries have similar adjectives. But to do this sort of thing to an Asian country with which we have been closely associated for 150 years, a country which has looked to us for almost the whole structure of its life, is unforgivable. And I regret very much that Members of the noble Lord's Party have found it difficult to understand how serious this is. I regret it profoundly, and importance that the noble Lord should for that reason I think it is of the utmost have gone back to that country.
Secondly, there is no doubt whatever that these new proposals would increase stability. But I think that the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Byers, of a United Nations force would simply not create the sense of stability which a British force would give. It was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, that this might provoke other countries. I should have thought that the people in the area were the best judges of whether or not there was likely to be provocation.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I correct the noble Earl? I did not suggest
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that the force should be a United Nation-force in that area; I suggested that it should be dedicated to general peacekeeping throughout the world, instead of being tied up in that area.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, if a United Nations force went to Singapore it would not, I believe, have the stabilising effect that a British force would have. It is almost certain that in the course of a not too long period the Americans will withdraw from Vietnam. This will raise difficult questions in the whole area, and the question of the stability of neighbouring countries will become of increasing importance. For these reasons I think that the action which has been taken is correct.
I believe that SHAPE is just about right. It is all very well to talk as if we were alone. Our troops are there associated with local forces, and the local forces are not by any means negligible. I had the advantage of spending a day with the Singapore Army and I must say that they were an extremely vigorous and energetic body. I was impressed both with the quality of their training and with the weapons they were using. Any help that we gave would be a significant addition to the existing forces. Secondly, the cost would not be overwhelming. This is important because it is hoped, certainly by the people in the area, that this will be accepted, even if there is a Governmental change in this country.
When the Conservative Government were elected, there was cheering in public places in Singapore. May I say that I hope that that will never happen again? The people of Singapore should not worry about which Party is in power in this country. This should not be a matter on which there should be changes of policy fundamentally affecting the people in South-East Asia, and I hope that this will not happen again.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, dealt with a strategy which, frankly, I would regard as out of date. These are days when war is not declared, when war starts with guerrilla activities; and those who promote these activities take on a big responsibility. This is the main danger we have to deal with, and it goes back to the sort of stability which I believe these new proposals will give. The wars which start to-day apparently cannot be

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ended, whether in Vietnam, in Nigeria or in the Middle East. It is extremely difficult to end a war. Curiously enough, the ending of the only war which was brought to an end in recent years was due to the civilised qualities of the Indian sub-continent; but the others have gone on. It is for that reason that we have a special duty to try to see how we can contribute to the preservation of peace. Here I should have thought that without the slightest doubt we are playing our full part in seeing that war does not occur. If I may add what I believe is a Chinese proverb, which is very much in my mind (I do not know if it is in the minds of other noble Lords), it is that the success of Armed Forces depends on not finding it necessary to use them. I believe that that will be the success of our presence in South-East Asia.
4.50 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, the noble Earl who has just resumed his seat has suggested, as I understand him, that this matter of Defence should be treated in a less partisan fashion and more objectively. I fully agree with him. But he should have addressed that observation to his noble friend Lord Carrington, who it seems was less concerned about developing a rational strategy of defence than indulging in mild criticism of the previous Labour Administration. I challenge this at once.
I detect not an iota of difference between the defence policy of the previous Government and the defence policy adumbrated in the White Paper published by the present Administration. There is a suggestion about some Jaguars that will be forthcoming in due course. There is to be a battalion of Ghurkas retained in the United Kingdom. For what reason they are to be here nobody is able to say, and certainly not the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. There is to be a presence—and no more than a presence—East of Suez. What does this presence consist of? Can we be furnished with specific information about the matter? How many battalions are there to be in Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand or Australia? These are the four Governments with which we are to be associated, and which are expected to furnish a contribution to provide something in the nature of a deterrent.
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It was remarkable, I thought, when I listened to the noble Lord speaking from the Government Front Bench that he refrained from furnishing specific information about the manpower, the weapons, hardware and the like available to the four Governments with whom we are to be associated. Why should this be so? Is it because of security? Is it not in the public interest? If so, I can tell the noble Lord that what he should do, if he has not already availed himself of the opportunity, is to go into the Library and ask for a production issued from Chatham House connected with the Institute of Strategic Studies and he will get it all there. What does it amount to? Malaysia, one of the contributing nations, has actually only two battalions. The noble Lord shakes his head. Would he be good enough to furnish me with the actual number of divisions or battalions available to the Malaysian Government?
LORD CARRINGTON: I thought it hardly necessary if the noble Lord could go and look it up in the Library.
LORD SHINWELL: I cannot follow the noble Lord. Surely when he speaks of a presence we are entitled to ask what it is. What does it actually represent? It is either a formidable presence or it is ineffective. I suggest to the noble Lord that on the figures that are available, with which as a member of the Government he must be familiar, the presence—and I would say this also to the noble Earl who has just resumed his seat—is derisory. I regret that. When in the other place the Secretary of State for Defence in the previous Government formulated proposals about withdrawal from East of Suez, I also expressed regret; but at the same time I ventured to point out that we were never expected to make a substantial contribution to the defence of that area.
In the Attlee Government, with which I was associated as Secretary for War and Minister of Defence, we were informed about the creation of a Pact between the United States of America and the Australian and New Zealand Governments, known as the ANZUS Pact, and we were to be excluded from that Pact. I protested at the time, but my protest was ignored. That Pact, so far as I understand it, is still in existence.

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The noble Lord assents. When I asked a supplementary question the other day as to whether the United States, because of its association with the Pact to which I have referred, had been consulted, the noble Lord said that they had been, but offered no kind of information which could be regarded as satisfactory. What I think we are entitled to ask—and this is the question that the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, should have asked—is what contribution will be furnished by the United States of America in that area: because without a substantial contribution from the United States of America, there can be no question of providing a deterrent against aggression, or, in the event of aggression, of being able to face it. There is no argument about that.
The position of the Singapore Government is one of helplessness. If we send a battalion out there it will not make any substantial difference. The position of the New Zealand Government is even worse. They have contributed a battalion to Malaysia, less two companies, and they have hardly any aircraft worth talking about. In the case of the Australian Government, while they have contributed a battalion, and I believe some combat aircraft, generally speaking, without going into further details (they are available at the source to which I have referred), the presence referred to is of very little value indeed, unless, as I say, we can rely in that area on a substantial contribution based on the ANZUS Pact in order to deal with any aggression.
I now come to what the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence said about the situation in Europe. What is the position in the European command? The noble Lord said that it had been suggested, not only because of the likely withdrawal of some American Forces from Europe (although I do not think that is likely; I doubt it very much; I think it is in the interests of the United States that we have a formidable presence in Europe), and not only for the purposes of defence of European countries, but in the interests of the United States itself—that goes without saying—that the European countries associated with NATO, the six countries, should step up their defence contribution.
What is the position in that area? The noble Lord, in his original speech, said that we had been able to maintain peace
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for 25 to 30 years in Europe because of NATO, by which he meant that we were ready and able to resist anything in the nature of Soviet aggression. I think that that is purely fictitious. I do not believe that at any time the Soviet Union contemplated war in Europe. After all, there was no reason why she should, because the Soviet Union has been capable of obtaining all that she requires without going to war—as, for example, in the case of Czechoslovakia. There was no question of war in Europe. The idea that because we were maintaining a combined defence force in Europe under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation we were able to deter anything in the nature of aggression is simply a military nonsense. Moreover, what kind of contribution are we making in NATO? Again the noble Lord did not furnish any information, but I will furnish some information for him. The total contribution, in divisions, for the whole of NATO, apart from Turkey and Greece, which are in a different category, is about 21 divisions, and I doubt whether there is a single division up to strength. Of course there is a vast number of aircraft—much of it by this time practically obsolete. There is also a nuclear element ready to operate if and when it is necessary.
I should like to make a few observations about this. The fact of the matter is, whether noble Lords like it or not, whether defence experts, in or out of the Services, like it or not, the whole of our defence strategy and thinking has been bedevilled and confused because of paragraph 12 of the Defence White Paper submitted in another place by Duncan Sandys in 1958. What did it contain? It set aside any question of resisting aggression by means of conventional forces. In short, it postulated that nuclear weapons would be required to be used if and when conventional forces were found to be ineffective. Ever since then the whole of our defence thinking has been in a confused state because we are unable to divorce ourselves from the possibility of nuclear warfare. At the same time there is hardly any thinking person, either in the Soviet Union—if there are thinking persons in the Soviet Union—or in the United States, in this country, NATO or elsewhere who believes that any of the Powers will use nuclear weapons at any time. The use of nuclear

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weapons will mean complete destruction, wholesale devastation; and that is most unlikely to occur, certainly as a result of any initial action by any of the Great Powers, who are undoubtedly the greatest of the nuclear Powers in the world.
I never could understand in the course of our defence debates in another place, and I cannot understand it here this afternoon, why we do not consider defence strategy in all its forms. What are we driving at? Where do we contemplate aggression? If it is East of Suez—and I repeat what I have already said—our presence there, and the total military contribution available from Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, with our contribution, is of little consequence without the aid of the United States of America. Without their aid it would be impossible to deal with any such aggression. Because of the situation in Vietnam, and the state of mind among the American public, it is extremely unlikely that the United States would contribute the kind of military strength which would be essential in that area in order to deal with aggression, if ever it should occur. Therefore, what I wish to discuss is not merely the increase in manpower, the presence of a Gurkha battalion in this country, and the likelihood of obtaining new missiles from the French Government—no doubt at a very high price—for these are minor considerations. What we have to consider is what our purpose is, and, if we have a purpose and a role in the world, how are we going to maintain it.
Our military strength must be associated with our commitments. What are our commitments? There is all this nonsense in the White Paper about our role in the world, and keeping peace in the world. It is quite impossible for the United Kingdom, with its alleged military strength and resources, and even the character of its people, to maintain peace in the world. We have not been able to maintain peace in the world for several centuries without the aid of allies, and we shall never be able to maintain peace in the world in the future without their help. This included our allies from the Commonwealth countries, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. We should never forget the contribution that they made in two great world wars. That is why I regretted very much the decision of the
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previous Administration to withdraw from East of Suez, because in the absence of a definitive military contribution from the United States I felt that our friends in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and even such friends as we still have in Malaysia, would be left in the lurch.
What else remains? I should like to make reference to an increase in our reserves, our Territorial Auxiliary Reserves. One thing is certain: all the efforts of the noble Lord, the present Administration and the recruiting agencies will not increase our manpower to any considerable extent. It has been tried for several years now. It has nothing to do with unemployment. Sometimes it has been said that when there was vast unemployment men flocked to the Services, but it has nothing to do with it at all. Sometimes the recruiting figures go up, and then they go down. It has been oscillating over practically the whole period since the last war. If we cannot obtain manpower by voluntary means, what is the alternative? Some suggestions have been made about a return to National Service—to conscription. I have never accused the Conservative Party of wanting conscription—certainly the Labour Party does not want it. I believe it is far too costly, difficult to operate and, in the end, would be something of a military nonsense.
What we want is an abundance of reserves. The short service engagement, although it was rejected by military chiefs in the past, might have been resurrected. I would go so far as to suggest—although I do not suppose everybody would agree with me—that even a two-year short service engagement might be worth while if only for the purpose of training the younger men of this country, not in the arts of war—for we do not want another war—but in the functions that are associated with the Services. I think this would be an admirable thing to do. I believe that it would attract a very large number of men, and although a two-year service would not be very effective from a military standpoint, for various other reasons, even for social reasons, it might be a very desirable thing to try out. But whether that is done or not, I am convinced that the 10,000 men contemplated, the increase in the T. & A.V.R., would not be sufficient. I doubt very much whether the noble Lord will be able

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to get 10,000 additional men. And if we are to get the men, what is to be done with them? Are they going to be effectively trained? If not, do not have them at all.
Then I want to say this. There are some of my colleagues in the other place, and in the country, who are friends of mine who are against defence and regard it as unnecessary. I have never accepted that view. Every country in the world—even the neutral countries—has some measure of defence: Sweden, which is neutral; Switzerland, which is neutral. There is not a single country in the world that rejects the need for some measure of defence, even if it seems unnecessary. It may never be used, but nevertheless they want it. We are in precisely that position. The idea of other countries in the world having a defence organisation, and the United Kingdom, a great country—still great, in spite of many defects—having no defence at all would be highly objectionable, certainly to myself, and I believe to the majority of people in this country.
If we are to have defence, it must be adequate. If it is not adequate, what is the use of it at all? For example, it has been suggested that there should be a reduction of manpower. What is the point in that? If we reduce manpower, is it going to be of any advantage to the military forces of the country? There is now a conference proceeding in Moscow between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, where they are discussing reduction in manpower and reduction in "hardware". That is not a contribution to peace in the world—not at all. I would much rather see the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union co-operating, despite their ideological differences, in order to bring some influence on other countries to come to terms, to co-operate, in order to prevent another conflict. So to me the White Paper means little or nothing. It is no contribution to a deterrent East of Suez. So far as the European Command is concerned, it makes no additional contribution.
Finally, I must say this. Nobody on the other side must imagine that, because of this White Paper or the efforts of the Government, we can maintain defence on a lower level of finance. It is impossible. If we want adequate
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defence, we must pay for it. It is regrettable; maybe we cannot afford it. A letter appeared in The Times newspaper this morning from the noble Viscount, Lord Head, giving a remarkable disclosure of what happened when Mr. Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. Eden had resigned; Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister. He sends for Lord Head who was Minister of Defence. And what does he say to him? He does not say to him, "Look here! What do you think we should do in the way of defence? What manpower do you want? What kind of 'hardware' do you want?" No. He says, "I have come to the conclusion that the maximum amount you are going to get for the whole of the forces is so-and-so. Come back at 4 o'clock and tell me whether you like it. If you don't, you can go out." And Lord Head, to his credit, went out.
And I should like to add this on behalf of Lord Head. Politically, we never agreed, but I think that the suggestions made by Harold Macmillan about Lord Head, which appeared in The Times newspaper—these derogatory suggestions about Lord Head—are wholly unjustified. Lord Head, in my opinion, although he was a Conservative, was one of the best Ministers of Defence this country ever had. I am generous enough to admit that.
My Lords, we are in precisely the same position now. I should not be at all surprised if the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, received instructions, perhaps from the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, saying, "This is all the money you are going to get. Work it out the best way you can. Not a penny more." The noble Lord is doing his best, but it is not defence; it is not the right kind of strategy. Perhaps we cannot afford any more. Then all right: admit it. But do not talk; do not boast; do not indulge in bombast about our ruling the world and about the contribution we are making to peace.
5.15 p.m.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, because those of us who are sufficiently senior in the Services remember him as an excellent Secretary of State for War. We are lucky to have the benefit of his lively advice

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now. This Supplementary Statement contains remarkably little except real decision. It does not contain a great deal of policy. We shall no doubt get that in the regular Defence Paper in February or March. So I do not think we ought to criticise the Supplementary Paper itself in detail.
I should like to make just a few comments—not to pose any questions—on the Paper. First of all, it is pleasant to have a Paper which contains no cuts. I have been standing up here pretty regularly complaining about cuts. Of course we all knew that there were very good reasons for them, but we reached a point where I said that the defence forces were no longer capable of defending this country. I could not help agreeing with the author of an article in the Royal United Service Institution Journal recently when he said:
"We have witnessed a game of unwilling striptease, as a result of which all three Services have been left naked and I hope a little ashamed."
Well, no more of that, thank goodness!
In that connection, although the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is not in his place, perhaps I might tell him the value of the six independent companies. They are there in the "ready-use locker" for the time when we can recruit and fill them up to proper battalions. But in the meantime they are perfectly warlike companies, and many a battalion in the British Army would welcome the addition of a company. In fact, it has often had to be done before, and it is being done every day: add a company from another regiment, and off you go to war.
The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, complained about some of the platitudes written. I must say that I agree with one of them, that about Britain assuming her proper share in maintaining peace and stability throughout the world. Of course it is with allies—we all know that. It never has been suggested that we should do it alone. Almost exactly the same was written five years ago, in the Defence Review of February, 1966, when the previous Government said:
"Britain shares with other countries a general interest in seeing peace maintained. It is this interest above all which justifies our military presence outside Europe."
We all know that, unfortunately, for perfectly good financial reasons, the pre-
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vious Administration could not maintain that objective. I only hope that the brave decision now to remain outside Europe will be actually put into practice.
Although I was hoping not to mention East of Suez at all this afternoon (the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, covered it very well from the Commonwealth and the Singapore point of view), perhaps I ought to mention that our decision in that connection has given great encouragement outside the Commonwealth also. I was recently in Saigon talking to the Foreign Minister, and he quoted to me the different reactions to statements made at two international conferences which he was attending. At the first, the representative of the Government announced the British intention to withdraw from Singapore and Malaysia, and not one word was said. A year later, on another occasion, when a representative of the present Government said, "We are remaining, even if in rather small force", the whole international conference clapped. They were all foreigners, by the way, and not Commonwealth people. So I have departed from my own intention not to mention defence policy East of Suez.
I should now like to make one or two comments; and first a word about the Gurkhas. I asked a Question about the future content of the Gurkha contingent, and I had the pleasure yesterday of meeting the noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Harding, who asked me to make the following statement, for information, about his £1 million appeal for the Gurkhas. He will be putting it out in the Press fairly soon, I think, but this is what he said:
"This appeal is more important than ever, for two reasons. First, it is a continuing open-ended commitment, instead of a measurable closed one, and secondly there are more men, more Gurkhas and more Gurkha families to care for in the future".
Perhaps I may now turn to recruitment, on which the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence said that the whole of the present Government's plan turned, and on which he expressed a certain amount of justifiable worry. I must say that I sympathise with the Government, and with the Services, faced with the formidable task of taking in 40,000 Regular other ranks every year in order to keep up to strength. If I

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may offer one piece of advice on recruitment, I would say that I believe that we have been overdoing the easy part of recruitment. It may have been right (although I personally did not agree with it) to raise military salaries in a similar way to those in civil life; and certainly there was a need to raise Army and Navy pay. But to continue the allegory, and to say that membership of the three Services is somewhat like going in and out of a factory is quite the wrong way of putting it.
I believe that young men ought to be attracted by travel, of course; by the risks involved, and by the fact that service in the Armed Forces is an honourable profession, even if they adopt it only as young men. My experience as colonel of a parachute battalion bore this out. It was the fact that we could say there was a certain amount of risk and that we were joining an élite battalion—which incidentally was up to strength—which made people want to join it; and there we were alongside other battalions which were having great difficulty in maintaining their strength. In my view, the more difficult you make it, the more likely you are to attract recruits.
The other point I would mention about recruiting is that now we have this objective clearly in front of us we must help the Government in every possible way by ensuring that the Services now offer a worthwhile career and that there are no more cuts. It is an honourable profession, and it is not enough for the Secretary of State and his staff in the Ministry of Defence alone to say this. He must be supported not only by us, but also from the top of the Government—by the Prime Minister himself and the whole Cabinet, which in my view was not so in the case of the previous Administration.
I now come to a small point about the uncommitted Reserve, which we are all very pleased about. To my mind it was wrong to have a T. & A.V.R., however well equipped, just to "plug holes". I am sure that the idea of an uncommitted Reserve is right, and that it should start with the small figure of 10,000. Recruiting volunteers into the T. & A.V.R. is not the same as recruiting into the Regular Army, although in fact many of them do go on into the Regular forces.
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But the damage which has been done to the voluntary spirit in destroying the old Territorial Army is considerable, and I think we must give the voluntary spirit time to recover.
Lastly, may I say a word about maritime strategy which has not received much attention this afternoon. I think perhaps it ought to be called "Defence of sea communications with our Allies". I mentioned in a recent speech in your Lordships' House that we have read Defence White Papers for six years on end without any mention of this subject. We all know that our daily bread and butter, our very existence, depends on it, and I sincerely hope that it will receive due attention and treatment in the Defence Estimates which we shall see in the new year. In other words, I believe that we have turned the corner at long last in these decisions. I admire very much the way in which the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Defence has achieved this in such a short time. It is fairly easy to make decisions, even if admirably quick ones; it is not so easy to put them into practice. It will not be easy at all, but I sincerely hope that they will be carried out.
5.26 p.m.
THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: My Lords, for reasons which all too shortly will become apparent, I take part in this debate this afternoon with the greatest diffidence. In the first place, it is a very long time since I have taken part in your Lordships' deliberations; worse, my knowledge of the subject of defence can best be described as minimal, and finally—and perhaps worst of all—I have an uneasy feeling that my few brief remarks are not really covered by the terms of this debate, so I ask for your Lordships' forbearance. However, it gives me the opportunity of saying something that I have wanted to say for some time. I want to talk briefly about the position of the Simonstown base and the possible sale of aeroplanes and frigates to South Africa, and the attitude to this possibility taken by certain of our Commonwealth partners, principally those in the Continent of Africa.
I like to regard my self as a Commonwealth man. I have been privileged to serve for four years in the Commonwealth Office. Since then I have been Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society,

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and at the moment I have the honour to be President of the Royal Commonwealth Society. So I hope that what I am saying will be taken in good faith as a man who genuinely believes in the Commonwealth and looks upon it as a good multi-racial force and something which should be encouraged.
We must remember that the modern Commonwealth, consisting of 28 or 29 nations as it does now, is a gathering of nations—call it what you like—of totally independent sovereign States and each of those States has a first duty to its own peoples, which is to look after its own national interests. It would be considered outrageous if we were to try to bring pressures to bear upon one of our Commonwealth partners who was taking action that they regarded was in their national interest but which we did not particularly like. There would be an outcry, and rightly so. And so with us. It is a truism to say that it is the duty of any elected Government of this country to look after the interest of our own nation first, and the whole basis of the modern Commonwealth—and this is the reason for my intervention—is that we respect each others' national interests and realise that we all have our own problems. We must look tolerantly on each other, even if we are acting as our partners might not wish us to. Our Commonwealth countries, particularly the ones which have more recently gained their independence, would not tolerate any interference by us in their national affairs. So what is sauce for the goose, my Lords, is sauce for the gander. It is quite wrong for any one country in the Commonwealth, or group of countries, to try to blackmail us into doing, or not doing, something that is in our own national interest.
As I have said, I have no knowledge of defence. I have no knowledge of the importance of the base at Simonstown. I have no knowledge of the importance of the Agreement. I simply do not know how great the threat to the Indian Ocean is of the increasing Russian naval presence there. These things are totally unknown to me. The point I wish to make is that if in the view of Her Majesty's Government it is in our interest to maintain the Simonstown Agreement,
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it should be maintained, and our Commonwealth partners should appreciate that we are doing what the democratically elected Government of this country believes to be in our national interest. So, too, in the matter of sales of frigates and long-range reconnaissance aircraft, if it is in our national interest; if in order to combat the Russian presence this is what we should do, we must do it.
Of course apartheid is a loathsome doctrine. In recent years I have been helping to administer the turf, and in racing we have a phrase of which we are very proud—and I hope it is true—that on the turf and under it all men are equal. And so it should be with the human race, that all men, regardless of colour, creed or anything else, should be equal. That is certainly so. You can take a very logical and indeed honourable view that because of apartheid we should have no trade whatever with South Africa, a complete trade boycott; that is honourable and understandable, possibly even praiseworthy. It is not a view that I subscribe to myself. As a nation which exists on exports, if we ceased trading with all countries whose Governments we did not approve of we should soon have no customers at all. Your Lordships may think that that is a cynical view, but that is the view I hold. Certainly a total trade boycott is logical. But to say that it is quite all right for us to sell whisky and motor cars to South Africa and buy from them diamonds and sherry, thereby supporting the economy and the Government of the country, and to say that it is wrong to sell frigates and long-range aircraft, which could not possibly be used to enforce apartheid, is to my mind the sheerest hypocrisy.
I apologise that I have strayed from the subject of the debate, and I ask your Lordships' forbearance. I would only reiterate that Her Majesty's Government, whatever Government, must do what they believe to be in the interests of this country and must not be diverted by pressure groups from elsewhere. If anyone thinks that I am against the modern Commonwealth, they are wrong. If we start having one Commonwealth country trying to blackmail another, the whole edifice will collapse in a very short time. We must tolerate and understand each others' problems.
5.32 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I should be less than true to myself if I did not say that I agree with the proposal in the White Paper to expand the Territorial Army. I have always believed that we have a duty to defend our homeland—and meet the cost—just as I have a feeling that we ought not to dissipate the taxpayers' money nor imperil the lives of our men by attempting to police the whole world; and that was why I opposed the British Government's rather foolish expedition into Suez ten or more years ago. This House has heard my views of the Territorial Army on many occasions, so there is very little indeed to say about it to-night. But I do feel that the Territorial Army provides us with a very economical auxiliary force and it is a very good thing for the young men and women who join it. It is for that reason that for more than twenty years I was a member of the Territorial Association for my county, and but for the imposition of a seventy-year age limit I would at present be serving on the Eastern Counties Territorial Association.
I was never a Territorial myself. In 1914, when I joined the Army, I was only sixteen, and so I was not old enough to be one of those Saturday afternoon soldiers. And then when I came back from Germany four and a half years later as a twenty-year old company sergeant major I had to sit down and face the stern task of trying to educate myself for the next stage of life that lay ahead. The fact that I was never a teenager may perhaps have had some effect upon me in later life, but that would be irrelevant to this discussion; it is probably more a matter for a psychiatrist.
Two or three years ago, when in your Lordships' House I criticised my own Government for making cuts in the Territorial Army, I said at the same time that I saw much merit in the proposal of reorganising the T. & A.V.R. in such a way that they would be a first line reserve for the Regular Army. I believe that this very constructive experiment has paid off. In fact we get testimony to this fact in the White Paper itself to-day. We know that last year its strength rose by 7,000, that its strength is now 47,000. The White Paper says that this force is entrusted with very important tasks; it says that it is "well organised, well equipped and well
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trained." So I want to pay this tribute to the late Government for this very constructive step which they took in reorganising our Regular Army reserves.
If we were a conscript country we would not need a citizens' reserve army. But we are not a conscript country. I do not think anybody in this House or the other place wants us to be a conscript country; the professional soldiers certainly do not want it, and I am quite sure that the; electors do not want it. I think that, wisely, we have concentrated our policy on establishing a compact but highly trained and well-equipped professional army. But—and this is where the big "but" comes in—in the event of a war on the Continent of Europe the whole of that professional army, as well as with them nearly all the 47,000 trained reserves, would be committed to NATO, presumably in Europe, and where would we be then? We should be at the mercy of 50,000 ferocious paratroops who might descend on this country in a single night, and they would be assisted by some thousands of anarchists and Maoists and subversives of every kind who have made no secret of what their intentions are.
So the only criticism I have to make of this part of the White Paper is that I do not think that 10,000 extra Territorials is sufficient; I do not think it is sufficient to enable viable units or companies to be established in one district after another. I should like to ask whether it is proposed to set up territorial companies in various districts and what will be their link with the cadres that were established by the previous Government? What is to be the interpretation of the expression "light weapons" that has been used in connection with these units, and how are they to be organised geographically?—because my experience in the Territorial Associations has shown me that if men have to travel too great a distance recruiting will be hampered.
Finally, on this point, I should like to mention the consultations that are to take place. I hope that they will not take place merely with the national body of the Territorial Associations. I hope that they will go on, too, way down the line to company level, and that company officers and N.C.O.s will be given an opportunity of adding the wisdom of their own experience. As an afterthought,

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I just wonder whether the title T. & A.V.R. is glamorous enough to attract the adventurous young men of to-day? What would be wrong in calling it "Resistance", not as the main nomenclature of a unit but as a subsidiary piece of the title, in brackets, after the normal nomenclature? I am quite sure that there are thousands of young people today fired with enthusiasm, finding no outlet for their adventurous spirit, who, while not wishing to join the T. & A.V.R. might be inclined to join what they would call "the Resistance".
A moment or two ago I referred to NATO. NATO is the first line of defence of our homeland, but to be an effective line of defence and to be able to ward off the necessity for nuclear war in Europe it should have the most formidable conventionally armed army. Is this the case? Quite honestly, I think that our own country is contributing all that it can sensibly be expected to contribute in men, materials and money. But is this the case with some of the other European countries? First of all, there is France. We know that France has contracted out. We also know that for years past France has been conducting intimate diplomatic flirtations with Soviet Russia. We know that France harbours a huge Communist Party which exercises influence not only in the public administration but also in the manufacturing industries and in the transport undertakings of the docks and the railways. Even if the soil of France were defiled by an invader from the East, I doubt whether we could rely much upon support from that quarter.
Then there is Belgium. Those spiteful quarrels that are always going on between the Flamands and the Walloons are growing more bitter every day, and the respect in which the Royal Family there is held is being reduced every day because of the lax moral mode of life being practised by some of its members. Then we have Italy. Italy is a country with a huge Communist Party which exercises far more authority below the ground than appears on the political surface; and I wonder whether, if the West were confronted with a war with the East, Italy could be relied upon to put up a solid front in defence of the West.
The German Army is under strength. It is said to be short of 40,000 trained
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N.C.O.s. It is known that deferments there are far in excess of any of the deferments that were granted here in the days of the conscientious objectors' tribunals. I do not feel that the remaining countries of Europe are pulling their full weight, and if we look at the matter from a financial point of view there is no other country in Europe, with the minor exception of Portugal—and I do not suppose that Portugal would tip the result of a European war either way—which is paying to defence as big a proportion as we are of the gross national product. They are not pulling their weight. Of course NATO is not Europe alone. Canada is taking 10,000 troops out of Europe. The United States, the backbone of the Organisation, is thinking of taking a considerable number of troops out of Europe after next July; and Mr. Nixon himself has said in his Message to Congress, which is equivalent to our gracious Speech, that he feels that the time has come when Europe can itself bear the burden of the conventional forces that are required in Europe. So I hope that the present Government will continue to press upon the other countries in NATO the necessity for making a full contribution to this defence Organisation.
What is the order of battle in NATO to-day? The Eastern countries outnumber the Western countries in infantry by two to one. It may be that an Eastern infantry division is slightly smaller than a Western infantry division, but the preponderence is overwhelming all the same. In armoured units the preponderence is three to one. In aircraft the preponderence is two to one—a 50 per cent. superiority in tactical aircraft, but a 100 per cent. superiority in aircraft overall. Something else has happened in the last year or two. As a result of the invasion of Czechoslovakia there is a wide open window on to the Western countries of Europe, a wide open window that is backed with heavy armour. I sometimes wonder whether the real reason for the invasion of Czechoslovakia was in order to secure that window on to the West, and whether the liberalisation of the régime there merely provided a very convenient excuse.
What I have been trying to say with regard to the Territorial Army and NATO is that we ought, to concentrate all the money and men that we feel we can

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afford—and there is a limit to that—on the task of defending our own homeland, and not on scattering our troops and undertaking responsibilities throughout the world. For that reason, I am against taking on this open-ended commitment in Malaysia and Singapore. I do not want to argue about the size of our contribution or the size of the Australian contribution. I do not want to argue about the extent to which trouble in that area can come from internal subversion. I want to get right to the heart of the problem, which is that if we were involved in a war there, what would we do? Would we retire or would we reinforce? If we retired, our standing in the world would go down to zero. If we reinforced, we should see an escalating and mounting magnitude of the war, with the result that we would be committed to a British Vietnam which might bleed us white for many years.
I apply that same attitude to our intervention in the Gulf, whether that intervention is to be by the stationing of troops or by some less specific method, as hinted at in the White Paper. Some of the sheikhs in the district are opposed to our presence there—at least, that is the information I get from my secret informants in some of the harems. But some of them do want us there. This fact alone is fraught with some danger. If one group of sheikhs are pro-British and another group of sheikhs are, let us say, non-British, the pacification of the area does not seem to me to be an easy task. If trouble breaks out there, what do we do? Do we retire or do we reinforce? If we reinforce, against whom do we ultimately find ourselves to be fighting? Surely, it is the Russian Army, and that is something I dare not contemplate.
Then there is South Africa. References to South Africa have evidently been written in invisible ink in this White Paper, but we have been assured by one Ministerial speech after another during the last few weeks that South Africa and Simonstown are matters of vital importance to our overall strategy. I am not going to talk about apartheid, but I am going to say that if we provide arms to South Africa the black nations of Africa would regard that as a ceremonial British salute to the South African Government. The result would be to
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pitchfork them into the arms of Russia and probably of China, and probably to provoke some of them into providing naval bases, or even air bases, for use by Russia or China. I do not look forward to that with any degree of comfort.
I have contented myself with talking about defence and not about Party polemics, but I was rather sad to see in the White Paper a passage which referred to the "damage done to defence programmes" by previous defence reviews. That statement would have been a little more complete if it had also referred to the defence review carried out by Mr. Duncan Sandys about 13 years ago. Quite honestly, having regard to the mild nature of the proposals that are contained in the White Paper, I cannot see that the defence reviews of the last Government did very much damage at all. Anyhow, no one Party has a monopoly of military unprepared-ness in this country. I remember 1914, when I had to learn to slope arms with a broomstick, and then howl and charge at a sack of straw with that same broomstick as part of my bayonet training; I remember how I was trained as a machine gunner with an old Maxim that was a relic from the Boer War. No Party is quite pure in this matter, and it hardly behoves the present Government to attack the virtue of the Government which preceded it.
There is one more point about which a word should be said, and that relates to the costings on the last page but one of the White Paper. Long ago, about 45 years ago, I had charge of a costings system of a large public undertaking, and I would never have accepted from any of my assistants a statement of costings which consisted of a single line of totals and which did not examine some of the figures lower down. I am sure that we ought to be able to examine the figures lower down before we accept those bare totals given in the White Paper as being accurate. For example, do they allow for inflation? We know that inflation is going to continue, no matter what steps are taken to prevent it. Do they provide for the two-yearly increases in soldiers', sailors' and airmen's salaries? Do they provide for a continuation of the housing programme for the Forces, or is that going to be cut? Do they provide for all the new weapons and vehicles that will come

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from the research and development committees?—because nothing can be static where defence is concerned. Do they provide for the new recruits it is expected will be obtained? Do they provide for all those unforeseeable contingencies that arise in connection with a defence programme?
The White Paper says that the figures provide only for those matters upon which decisions have already been taken, but we know there are whispers that the Government may order another Polaris for £50 million or £60 million. We know that the Prime Minister is very eager to have a joint nuclear programme with France. All these things are left out of the calculations which are presented to us in the table of costings. I have a feeling that as the estimates each year are placed before us they will rise and rise, and rise again, and will bear little resemblance to the figures that we have before us to-day. It looks to me as though in this White Paper the Government are deliberately playing it cool. I suppose that is one of the tactics that we should expect in the "quiet revolution", as it has been termed.
I have just noticed the clock; I have been on parade too long. It is time, as they say in military quarters, that I was "stood down". But I should just like to summarise the theme that has been running through what I have been trying to say. First I, and I think most citizens, will willingly pay for the defence of our homeland. What we do not want to see is the dissipation of our financial resources, the taxpayers' money, on policing parts of the world 5,000 and 10,000 miles away.
5.55 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, before getting on to Europe, I should just like to say how warmly I support the arguments on what is known as "East of Suez" deployed by my noble Leader, Lord Byers, and by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont. Indeed, to a great extent I would share the views expressed in that connection by the noble Lord who has just sat down. I suppose this is not surprising, seeing that it is now over five years ago since I deployed very much these same arguments. At that time my attitude was not exactly appreciated on
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either side of the House, but I think it is now supported at any rate on one side.
I feel that it is rather difficult to envisage the exact circumstances in which our commitment to consult in the area of Malaysia and Singapore would actually come into operation. I know that questions have been addressed to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on this point, and of course he will reply to them when he comes to wind up. But I should like to ask him whether he would agree with the following scenario, so to speak. Is it not extremely unlikely that in the next ten, or even twenty, years there will be any direct attack on Malaysia or Singapore by any great Power such as China, Russia, or even India? It seems to me to be almost out of the question for an attack to come across the mountains or by sea, given the fact that the United Nations will probably still go on, and given the fact that it would probably not be in the interest of any great Power to do any such thing. That possibility, therefore, seems to be most unlikely, and can probably be excluded.
What, then, is the external aggression in regard to which we are going to be committed? Well, I suppose it is quite possible to imagine that when, and if, the American Army leaves South Vietnam, the famous domino theory might come into operation, and that various countries in the area, including, of course, Siam, Indonesia, and, I suppose, Burma, might, as the saying is, "go Communist". Nobody quite knows what that means, but they might anyhow go into the other camp, leaving Malaysia and Singapore as a little island allied, in some way, to the West, and whose political régimes, in principle, it would be to our interest, and the interest of the Free World, to preserve. I put that as the scenario.
But if that is so, if these leftish Governments come into power in the countries concerned and prepare external aggression, surely they will not attack Malaysia or Singapore with armies; what they will do, surrounding Singapore and Malaysia as they do, will be to stir up internal discontent and conduct all kinds of subversive operations inside the country. That will be how they will try to get Malaysia and Singapore on to their side and out of our orbit: that is surely what is most likely to happen. If that

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is so, technically it will not be a case of external aggression; it will be a question of subversion. Yet we hear from the noble Lord himself that in no circumstances would our commitment operate if it was a question of suppressing, or helping to suppress internal subversion by force of arms.
I think, therefore, we are in a dilemma, and I should like the noble Lord to explain, when he comes to wind up, how he faces this problem, and whether or not he agrees that it is a real one. I myself confess to great doubts whether our commitment to consult could ever operate, in the sense of being a guarantee for the independence of Malaysia and Singapore, unless we are prepared, as some noble Lords have already said, to have much larger forces there and to maintain their independence at all costs, whatever reinforcements may be necessary.
Turning away from the Indian Ocean, I suppose it may be to some slight purpose if, having just come back from a meeting of the W.E.U. General Affairs and Defence Committees with the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg, I tried to contribute to this debate a few thoughts on the important question of the defence of Europe. As it seems to me—and I think some noble Lords have already expressed this thought—the whole scene here is already overshadowed by the gloomy thought that in a few years from now, and whether there is a satisfactory détente or not, the bulk of the United States Armed Forces, and perhaps all of them, may have been withdrawn from the Continent. No doubt, in default of a perhaps unlikely European settlement, some American troops will remain in Berlin. No doubt, too, enough troops will remain in Western Germany to form, along with the great nuclear Power in the background, what might be deemed to be a sufficient deterrent to Soviet action. Let us hope so.
But the fact remains that, unless any withdrawal of American forces can be compensated by a corresponding increase in the strength and efficiency of European forces, we shall be in a potentially weak, or even very weak, position for resisting not perhaps direct aggression, but any pressure which the Soviet Union may in certain circumstances care to apply. I
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think that is obvious. Even as matters are, as the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, said, we are now outnumbered in the central area by about three to one in tanks and about two to one in aircraft; and in simple manpower terms we are sadly deficient, too. Nor, of course, are the French numbered among the so-called "integrated" forces. Finally—and this is the main point—there cannot, owing to the lack of standardisation and the consequent enormous number of individual and separate arms employed, be any interchange of weapons as between the various European contingents. Logistically, too, the whole set-up is, I am afraid, a fearful mess.
So, my Lords, it must be clear that in the event of any serious American withdrawal the present conventional defence of Western Europe could hardly be much more than a token one. For among other things the Americans would scarcely leave behind—indeed, I am sure they would not—their tactical nuclear weapons; and we are assured by those who are in a position to know—and notably by the recent Secretary for Defence, Mr. Healey—that any adequate defence of Western Europe would be quite impracticable without the use, or the threat of the use, of the tactical nuclears.
Therefore the real question is: How do we best prepare for such an eventuality? Are we, in effect, to sit back and do nothing, hoping, by one means or another, that the famous détente will have been achieved in the meantime, in which case we shall perhaps have no need ourselves to have any forces of our own on the Continent? Are we rather to put our trust in disarmament, believing that at long last, perhaps following on some agreement in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the Russians and the Americans, we shall be able to proceed with the famous mutual and balanced reduction of armaments? Or do we assume, contrary to the apparently well-informed predictions of some, and despite the example of Vietnam, that there will during the coming years, and in default of a détente, be no substantial reduction of American forces in the Federal Republic? No doubt the Government have a clear idea of the contingency planning which will presumably soon become necessary, and, if they can tell us anything about the prospects as they see

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them, that would be of the greatest interest and use.
But from the point of view of the necessarily rather uninformed Western European Parliamentarians, among whom I number myself, and from that of what I believe would be a large majority of the British Parliamentary delegation to the Western European Union, I have no doubt at all what the answer should be. It is that the Western European democracies, if they want to avoid subjecting themselves to pressure which in the long run might well change their whole way of life, must, in default of a still rather unlikely European settlement or meaningful disarmament, come of necessity nearer together and devise ways and means whereby their forces can be suitably combined and streamlined, thus not only greatly improving their capability, but even reducing their total cost.
This is not an impossible operation. To put it bluntly, the present system, under which we have a number of totally distinct and separate armed forces each complete with its own navy, army and air force, with its own varying and overlapping logistics, its separate command system and so on, is crazy. Indeed, a crazier system could hardly have been devised. If this had been put forward for Western Europe twenty years ago, everybody would have thought we were completely "nuts". In spite of the fact that some individual contingents, notably our own, are most efficient and provided with excellent weapons, you might just as well be trying to confront the great Russian steamroller with the armies of Frederick the Great. The whole arrangement is held together only by the containing power of the United States of America. What is obviously wanted soon, therefore, is some refashioning of the whole European defensive machine by common consent, and this with the object of creating—perhaps within the framework of W.E.U., which in its turn would mean within the framework of NATO or, if the French so prefer, of the Atlantic Alliance—a reasonably strong European contribution to the general forces of the West.
I repeat I do not believe that that is in the least an impossible operation and, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, said, I doubt if the pressure of the great Communist Parties behind
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the lines, so to speak, will make any difference. If we can get something streamlined and combined, with a common command and a common philosophy, we should have enough conventional forces to resist any possible Russian threat. After all, if you talk about enormous Communist Parties behind the lines in the West you must also remember the enormous forces of freedom behind the lines in the Soviet Union. Anything might happen if there were real trouble there; so we need not be too pessimistic.
To this end, it seems likely that during its session in a fortnight's time the General Assembly of the Western European Union in Paris will pass some resolution or resolutoins embodying a proposal—it is hoped as a result of some specially convened conference—for the establishment of what has been called a working group of high-level and independent personalities whose duty would be to prepare and submit for consideration to the Ministers a report on the whole question of Western European defence. The idea would be to give such persons access to all the necessary information, but not to subordinate them in any way to any particular governmental instruction. That would be the whole point. In other words, they would be told to write their report not from the angle of any particular country, but from the angle of the group as a whole. Clearly, they would also have to express a view on the future, in the event of Western Europe having one day to rely much more on its own defence and its own efforts, and less on the direct support of America, of the small and separate nuclear deterrents of Great Britain and France.
At the November meeting of the Western European Union Assembly, we are to have the honour and great pleasure of hearing our old friend and erstwhile colleague, Mr. Peter Kirk, the new Under-Secretary for the Navy. Nobody was, or is, a more convinced European than Mr. Kirk. So I sincerely hope that he will be able to convey to his friends at the Western European Union some encouraging message from Her Majesty's Government about the importance they attach to Western European defence and about the steps which they now propose to take—naturally, within the North Atlantic Alliance—to foster it. I hope,

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also, that we shall not this time have the stock reply from the Government; namely, (hat they really cannot be expected to bother about the reform of Western European defence, still less to begin to lay the foundations of the European Defence Community of to-morrow, until Britain is a full member of the European Economic Community. Agitating for an autonomous Europe with an adequate defence of its own will not, in any case, delay our entry into the E.E.C.; on the contrary, it might well assist it.
May I say, in conclusion, my Lords, that nobody desires a general European settlement more than we who sit on these Benches. Nobody, moreover, could be keener on linking this with some real easing of the present mad arms race than we. But peace was never achieved by simply abandoning the struggle, and there is no doubt that, in the sad circumstances in which we live, the establishment in this part of the world of a coherent and democratic group of countries with a reasonable defence of its own would do more to ensure peace, in the sense of preserving a real balance between the super-Powers, than almost anything else. This is a thought which could surely be communicated, I should have thought, to the people of this country by any Government convinced of its validity. Indeed, it would be one obvious way, one would have thought, of raising the sights of the average voter above the level of his porridge bowl and thus getting him to focus the question of our possible entry into the European Economic Community in a wider perspective. These, in any case, my Lords, are a few thoughts I throw into the debate, and if the Government can discern any merit in them at all I am sure there will be much rejoicing among our friends on the other side of the Channel.
6.12 p.m.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: My Lords, I propose to deal solely with one or two aspects of defence with which the Royal Navy is particularly concerned, but may I, in the first place, tell my noble friend how very pleased and indeed relieved are those Members of your Lordships' House who have had the honour of serving in the Royal Navy that he has found ways and means of retaining the aircraft carriers, "Ark Royal" and "Eagle", for
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a further period of years. The Navy will therefore have two fixed-wing carriers until the "Eagle" goes in 1972, and thereafter the "Ark Royal" until the late 'seventies, by which time, we are told in the White Paper, new cruisers capable of operating V/STOL aircraft will be becoming available. With the departure of the carriers, presumably these V/STOL aircraft, supported by shore-based aircraft, will be responsible for the defence of naval forces at sea against attack from the air. There may, however, well be occasions when naval forces at sea will be beyond the limits of endurance of land-based aircraft. Should such a force find itself in that situation, having no carrier in company, and make contact with an enemy force accompanied by a fixed-wing carrier—my noble friend will doubtless have considered such a situation and, I hope, have received assurances that the aircraft and the antiaircraft weapons carried by Her Majesty's ships will be well capable of holding off an attack by the planes of the enemy carrier.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? Which country with a carrier does he envisage is likely to be an enemy?
LORD STRATHCLYDE: There are a number of countries which have fixed-wing carriers in being. One never knows what is going to happen. We were told before the last war, "You do not need to think of anything for another ten years". Before that, we were told that there was never going to be another war. We have to prepare for all contingencies, and to have ships which are not so prepared is simply a waste of money and a waste of manpower.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord a little further? One cannot in fact prepare for all contingencies, and nobody knows that better than the Government, or any Government. I still wonder which particular nation, of those which have carriers or could have carriers in the next ten years, the noble Lord expects to be an enemy. If he cannot think of one, then we may as well recognise that.
LORD STRATHCLYDE: Of course, my Lords, there are many. There is that great nation which has ships sailing all over the world to-day. The noble Lord does not know what they are going to do any more than I do. It is a great defect if the Government have not taken thought of these matters and have not prepared to meet them if the necessity should arise.
As I understand it, with the operation of all fixed-wing aircraft passing to the Royal Air Force, the Royal Naval Air Service, of which all of us who have served in the Royal Navy are very proud, is to be faded out. But is it to be retained in some form to operate helicopters in the naval service? In the war of 1939–45 the anti-submarine campaign in the North Atlantic surpassed in importance and indeed in violence that in all other theatres of war—that is, so far as this country was concerned—and in consequence the war against the submarine in the outer seas passed almost unnoticed. But in fact the submarine attack against our shipping, particularly on the route to the Cape and in the Indian Ocean, caused considerable anxiety from time to time. With the Mediterranean closed, reinforcements for our troops in North Africa and the Middle East and our trade with all the countries bordering on the Indian Ocean had to proceed round the Cape of Good Hope. In recent months persons prominent in many new Commonwealth countries, and indeed some eminent people here at home, have been expressing doubts as to the importance to us of Southern Africa for the protection of the lines of communication across the sea to the Indian Ocean and to the East. Indeed, their words seem to suggest that Southern Africa provides no real measure of defence and that our arguments to the contrary are a mere smoke-screen to cover our real purpose.
My Lords, having forgotten what actually happened in the Indian Ocean during the last war, I have been refreshing my memory, and if your Lordships will bear with me I will venture to give briefly the outcome of my researches. The first German attack on the Cape route took place in 1942, when mines were laid off the Cape of Good Hope—a very sensitive area, with our troopships and supply vessels for the Middle East having to
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pass that way. These mines caused considerable dislocation to our trade and to our military traffic. In May, 1942, five Japanese submarines appeared in the Mozambique Channel and quickly sank 20 ships. The threat inherent in such incursions by enemy submarines and the dislocation of traffic they caused was very real and could be countered only by strengthening our anti-submarine forces. But in 1942 we also had to contend with both German and Japanese surface raiders in the Indian Ocean, which caused us to put as much of our shipping as we could supply with escorts into convoy.
The submarine attack continued, and in October, 1942, five U-boats were working in the focal area off Cape Town. They succeeded in sinking 24 ships, 3 of them being large liners employed as transports—a total of 161,000 tons. With the strengthening of our patrols and convoy escorts, they moved North to the Mozambique Channel where they found many easy targets, for we simply had not the vessels available to convoy all our shipping. Then, in May, 1943, another six U-boats arrived off South Africa, where over a period of three months they sank a quite disproportionately large amount of merchant shipping before they withdrew to the Japanese naval base in Penang to refit. In June of that year the Germans had seven U-boats working, and they sank ten ships off the south-east coast of Africa; and in July they accounted for 17 more. In Germany, evidently they were so pleased with these results that a further nine U-boats were ordered to the Indian Ocean, but only five of them reached that destination—that was the Cape of Good Hope, where they arrived in June and where they were joined by eight Japanese submarines.
Our losses of merchant ships continued throughout September and October, and in spite of more escort vessels and greatly improved air co-operation, and convoys over far more routes, June to December, 1943, saw 15 enemy submarines operating, which sank 57 merchant ships of 337,000 tons; while between January and March, 1944, nine enemy submarines sank 29 merchant ships of 188,000 tons. With more sea and air escorts we were gradually getting on top; and although they sank 17 more ships, by October, 1944, their successes had become so few and expensive that the surviving U-boats

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were ordered home to Germany, where ultimately three arrived safely.
My Lords, we overcame the U-boats in the Indian Ocean, as we did elsewhere, by creating an efficient convoy system, by providing adequate sea and air escorts and support groups and by close co-operation between land-based aircraft and ships at sea. Such a system cannot operate without bases—bases for the assembly of convoys, for the repair and maintenance of ships and aircraft, for the replacement of munitions and stores and to provide for the refreshment of those men employed on this arduous service. Such bases in the battle with the U-boats in the Indian Ocean, and which were quite indispensable, were provided at Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. To claim, after our experience in the last war and in view of the enormous advance in size, speed, endurance and armament of the modern submarine, that South Africa is of no importance to us is a claim which I submit cannot possibly be substantiated. If we are ever engaged in war, our shipping to and from those countries which border the Indian Ocean will be vital to us. To protect it and to ensure its continuance we shall require all the help in ships, aircraft and men that we can ourselves provide and that we can obtain from our allies, with the use of their ports made available to us.
We only just escaped being starved out in the last two wars. In the last war, in 1942 alone, after more than two years of preparation, nearly 8 million tons of shipping was sunk by enemy action. In all, during the war of 1939 to 1945 over 5,000 ships and 21½ million tons of merchant shipping, British, Allied and neutral, were sunk by enemy action. We survived the resulting blockade, but Japan did not. One of the major causes that led her to surrender was the blockade of her homeland by submarines, aircraft and mines. With the loss of 8½ million tons her shipping was brought almost to a complete standstill, her industry was in chaos, her economy breaking down and her people starving. Let us, in this country, never forget that the strategy by which Germany hoped to bring us to our knees and which only narrowly failed was applied with complete success against Japan. My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, has reminded us, the very
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life of our people is dependent on trade. In these circumstances no offer which can help keep the trade routes open is to be despised. Indeed, I am in complete agreement with the sentiments expressed this afternoon as to the situation in Africa and elsewhere which were voiced by my noble friend the Duke of Devonshire.
6.25 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, my speech to-night is going to be on a narrow issue and will I hope be a short one. I shall not attempt to assess the significance of the change in direction of policy brought about by the new Administration; history will prove whether it has been right or wrong. What I am going to try to do is to assess the implications of those elements of the supplementary Defence White Paper in so far as they affect the R.A.F. and to try to draw some of the consequentials of the decisions that the Government have taken in this field. The four decisions relate first to the "Ark Royal", then to a change of role of the Jaguar, then to the movement of Nimrods to the Far East and lastly the cancellation, or the decision not to proceed with ordering the C5.
The first two relate to the actual contribution we are proposing to make to NATO and, as both Parties have agreed, the defence of Europe and the containment of Communism throughout the world by means of NATO is our first priority. Within the NATO defence structure the Second Tactical Air Force is of great importance, and within the Second Tactical Air Force the R.A.F. has an important role to play. But as was pointed out by the Secretary of State himself, the R.A.F. contingent in Germany, although extremely efficient, is small; it is smaller than, for instance, the German contribution to the Second Tactical Air Force. Yet, in spite of this small contribution, we receive some of the senior command appointments. One of the questions that I think we must ask is whether, unless the British contribution to the NATO air forces in the central front is maintained, the privileged position that the R.A.F. enjoys at the moment within the defence structure may not start to fade somewhat. We have a special role in the central front, that of patrolling the border between East and West Germany.

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It is a special role; but that alone does not really guarantee us the somewhat preferential treatment within the command structure that we receive at the moment. We shall keep that only if we have an extremely efficient air force of the proper size for the role that we have to undertake.
I may have been somewhat obtuse, but I should be grateful if the Secretary of State when winding up could give me some reassurance about the strength of the British contribution to the Second Tactical Air Force under the new arrangements. He said, in reply to questions during the mini-debate that followed his Statement, that in so far as Buccaneers and Phantoms were being retained for the Navy, fewer of these aeroplanes would be transferred to the R.A.F. which as a result would have fewer of these type of aircraft to operate. The first question is whether the contribution proposed for Buccaneers and Phantoms in Germany will be retained and that aircraft that the R.A.F. will not now get will be, as it were, those that were earmarked for basing in the United Kingdom. The second question is this. Are the four squadrons of Jaguars to be in addition to the strength that was proposed by the late Administration? Are we, in fact, sending to West Germany four additional squadrons of close support aircraft? This is of first importance. This is a major contribution.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would mind if I were to answer him now, because there is often a lot to answer at the end of the debate. These are specific questions and it is easier to answer them now. The Buccaneers and Phantoms which will be embarked in "Ark Royal" are those which would have been part of the maritime force in the United Kingdom and not those which would go to Germany. The four additional squadrons will all be assigned to NATO, two of them stationed in Germany and two in this country; but assigned and earmarked to NATO. They will all be additional to what is now proposed.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. That is good news. It is also good news that
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there will at least start to be some compatibility between our French Allies on our right in Germany and ourselves. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, is of the first importance: that one of the great weaknesses of the NATO position in Europe at the moment is the lack of compatibility between the various national air forces. Every step we move towards having compatibility between the aircraft of the Allies is a major strengthening of the Alliance. At the moment, as most noble Lords will know, aircraft of different countries can refuel at each other's bases, but rearming has to be done at the home base, which is an obvious weakness of the Alliance. This again emphasises the great importance of the multi-role combat aircraft. It is mentioned in the Supplementary Statement, and I was very glad to see that the Italians have at last come in firmly into this project; because, with the multi-role combat aircraft, Britain, Germany and Italy will have a common aircraft with the ability to rearm as well as refuel at each other's bases and that is good news.
My Lords, may I turn for a moment to the Nimrod. There is no doubt that the Nimrod is a magnificent aeroplane and the crews are very pleased with it; but the numbers are not large. The Maritime Reconnaissance Force was, under the past Administration, being reduced to only two stations operating Nimrods. The Shackleton station at Ballykelly was going to close when the two Nimrod stations were fully operational. The number of aircraft allocated to maritime reconnaissance is comparatively small; although, of course, the productivity and efficiency of these aircraft is far higher than that of the old Shackleton. But I believe that this aircraft has a significance greater than its numbers, because the only certain sign that we shall get of the enemy's intentions will come when we spot the movement of the ships of the Warsaw Pact. Placed as they are in the centre of the front, it is impossible to tell, as I see it, whether or not movements detected by our various monitoring devices are simply exercises or whether they are the preparation for a military adventure. But the movements of ships are not so easy to conceal, and it is the Nimrod which will enable us to keep an eye on this

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aspect of enemy activity and give us certain warning of their intentions.
For this reason I am wondering whether the move of a number of aircraft to Singapore, with, presumably, the consequential need to move spares and men, would not justify an increase in the Nimrod numbers; possibly not a large one, but would it perhaps justify an increase? Better still, perhaps, from my point of view, would it justify the retention of the station at Ballykelly? That is a large modern station lying in an area of great unemployment which, When the Shackletons go, will have only a small military garrison based within it. This is a battle that I have fought for many years without success, and I hope that perhaps one day it may be won.
Again referring to the Nimrod, I should like to ask the noble Lord one further question which he may or may not be able to answer. The Nimrod is a magnificent reconnaissance aircraft but at the moment its potential as a submarine killer is limited. I should like to know whether there is any development of a weapon capable of countering the fast and deep-diving Russian nuclear submarines that are now coming on the scene. The decision to introduce EXOCET as a surface-to-surface missile is right and welcome. My mind would be less concerned if a similar weapon were under consideration for countering the threat coming from below the surface. This type of weapon is one which would have to be used by Nimrod as well as in other anti-submarine vessels and helicopters.
Finally, my Lords, I should like to ask one question about the C5 replacement. Rightly or wrongly, the Government have decided to maintain a presence in the Far East and increase it slightly. The need, therefore, for proper lines of air communication is as great as ever. The Britannias are ageing and will phase out in the middle of the 1970s. Is it possible for the noble Lord to give the House any indication of what is to take the place of the C5? I do not weep about its going. The thought of having a battalion of troops in one of these vast machines, and it meeting with some accident or hazard of war, is unacceptable to me.
Regarding this question of strategic reinforcement, the question I ask myself is whether we base our plans sufficiently
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upon the capacity of the national airlines. As the noble Lord knows, there is a point during a period of tension when the national airlines are requisitioned and brought into the strategic plan. I am wondering why we should wait until a crisis develops before such an action is taken. That is something I do not understand. I should have thought that the power to use the national airlines should be obtained now in preparation for any future crisis, rather than that we should wait until the time when a crisis arises. This thought has crossed my mind when considering attempts to provide strategic mobility for the Armed Forces without heavy expenditure on a type of aircraft such as the C5 or its replacement.
My Lords, that is all I wish to say to-day on this rather narrow field. I thought that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, was of great importance, and the sort of speech I hope to make myself when we debate the main White Paper to which I look forward with interest and curiosity.
6.36 p.m.
LORD THURLOW: My Lords, it will not surprise those of your Lordships who have heard me speak from the Dispatch Box opposite on defence matters during the last there years that I most warmly welcome the Supplementary Statement on Defence. And the appointment as Secretary of State of my noble friend who entrusted me with the task of expounding some aspects of Conservative Party criticism, fears and intentions, gives me immense pleasure and confidence. In my opinion he has only one disadvantage; it is that he is a former Grenadier. And not only my noble friend but also his Minister of State and one of his Under-Secretaries. It is well known that Grenadiers have a profound contempt for all other regiments and arms of the Service, and in particular for Generals. Perhaps I should not say "profound contempt", but rather that they have a deeply ingrained, if somewhat unjustified, sense of their own superiority.
The outstanding impression that I get from the Supplementary Statement is that it makes increases in our Forces where they are most needed, and emphasises the necessity for having an organisation capable of expansion to meet

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the unexpected threats. I hope and believe that this will have a beneficial effect on recruitment. I most warmly welcome the words in paragraph 21 referring to the six infantry companies and other sub-units reprieved by the Government which are described as "a nucleus for potential expansion". The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, was very scathing about this, but I need not say more because the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, pointed out how useful extra companies can be; and as is said in the Supplementary Statement, these are definitely the "nucleus for potential expansion" when manpower and money are available.
I very much welcome the reference to the Gurkhas because the depot and base organisation of the Gurkhas would be capable of raising and training more units if they were ever required.
Having spoken so often in your Lordships' House about the Territorial Army, I am delighted of course at the decision to establish more T. & A.V.R. units. I hope the Government will ensure that there will be real national coverage by the Territorial Army of the future, and that the units will be trained to fight as units and not looked on as just pools of military manpower. This is most important, as otherwise we shall not get the recruits to join these units; and we must remember always that the Territorial Army has always been a valuable source of recruits for the Regular Army. That is why national coverage is so important. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland (I have always agreed with him in his speeches about the Territorials) that a greater number would be preferable. But this is a good start.
I would ask the Secretary of Stale to look into two aspects, when his advisers on the Council of the Territorial Association report to him. One is the retention and increase of the Yeomanry. Even if, for the moment, they cannot be provided with armoured vehicles, they would prefer to remain as a cadre, so that their traditions and names can be preserved, in case they were ever needed in future. They would prefer this to vanishing altogether.
The other problem that will face my noble friend is the provision of drill halls, because, sadly enough, the former Gov-
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ernment had time to dispose of a great many which are now badly needed. I hope that immediate steps will be taken to prevent any further disposals and to acquire premises where needed.
I welcome the addition of four squadrons from a soldier's point of view, because the Army is so lacking in close support aircraft. I should like to give credit where credit is due to the previous Government for the training that has been carried out by units abroad, and I hope that the present Government will carry on that excellent work and send out battalions to train in other countries, particularly Commonwealth countries. Such training has been immensely popular with the units concerned and has done them a great deal of good. I should also like to congratulate the previous Government on the excellent equipment that the Army has to-day, and I hope that this high standard will be maintained.
I would ask the Secretary of State to look favourably at the position of Malta; and if any request comes in from the Malta Government for the retention of the present garrison, I hope that this will be most favourably considered because, as my noble friend knows, it is an excellent and popular station.
Finally, on quite a small point, may I ask my noble friend to re-acquaint himself with the work and the needs of the Soldiers', Sailors' and Air Force Association. He well knows the importance of contented Service families. As a former commander of units and formations, now as President of the S.S.A.F.A. in my own county, I know well what invaluable work our staff do abroad among Service families, who are often left alone in strange places for long periods, as well as at home, where our nation-wide network of volunteers are always investigating problems of the Serviceman abroad. Will my noble friend ensure that units abroad get the service they ask for? We in S.S.A.F.A. will find the personnel, if more are needed, as I think they are. Indeed, both our Chairman, Sir Reginald Denning, and I feel that the time may shortly come when units stationed in this country, but frequently despatched temporarily abroad, leaving their families behind, will have need of S.S.A.F.A. sisters on their establishment to look after their families.

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To conclude, I warmly wish my noble friend every success in his problems. After such an auspicious start, I am supremely confident that a new and happier chapter will open for all three Services under his energetic and experienced guidance.
6.46 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I was in some doubt as to whether I should speak this afternoon, and after hesitation I decided not to do so, because I was doubtful whether it was correct to bring up in this debate on the White Paper the subject which was closest to my mind at the present time, and also because, unfortunately, I have an engagement that I cannot avoid and shall not be able to remain until the end of the debate. However, the subject in question—the Indian Ocean and the supply of arms to South Africa—has been raised by two noble Lords who have already spoken and I feel that I cannot let the matter rest there. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Napier and Ettrick, for allowing me to retake my place in the list of speakers.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that we must not allow a naval or military threat in the Indian Ocean to become a reality of the sort it was in the last world war, and must do all we can to avoid that. I agree with the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, that we must not allow ourselves to be pushed around by other countries and diverted from our true duty of defending this country. But there my agreement ceases. I do not believe that we are being pushed around by other countries, whether in the Commonwealth or out of it.
I believe that the Commonwealth countries, almost all of them, and particularly Tanzania and Zambia, have done what all good friends should do, frankly and honestly to state what are likely to be the consequences of certain actions that we are contemplating. That is not being pushed around; that is honesty and friendship. Do not let us get emotive about this and say, "We refuse to be bullied by these people." There is here no question whatever of bullying any more than there is any question of the Government of South Africa bullying us when it talks to us about the supply of arms and the Simonstown Agreement.
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The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, to prove his point, quoted figures of how many ships we lost for many years during the war. I am sure that his figures are right. But while we were losing those ships we had, to all intents and purposes, the whole of the African Continent, including South Africa, working in the closest co-operation with us and we had full access to all the military and naval bases of that Continent that we wished to use. In spite of that, we suffered those great losses for many years. So that on that argument alone, if on no other, surely it cannot be asserted that just one base on the Eastern side of South Africa can possibly be a defence against the potential menace of Russian submarines.
But there is more to it than this. The next war, if it should ever come, will be a total war. Ships and submarines will be involved; land forces will be involved; aircraft will be involved. But so will strategic materials; so will the civilian populations of the countries. We must not fall into the mistake that most countries inevitably fall into, of planning to fight the next war as if nothing had changed since the last war. Surely the Maginot Line reminds us sufficiently vividly of that. What we must aim to do, if we are to avert a war, and if we are to avert this particular crisis in case there should be a war, is not merely to have one more base, or even one base in South Africa: it must be to rest our defence upon collective security and upon the good will and co-operation of as many of the countries in the area in question as we can possibly bring on to our side That is where our security lies; that is where the defence of this country lies, as well as the defence of the other countries concerned. There we start with an enormous advantage, because we have the Commonwealth—the Commonwealth which the noble Duke supports, but which I am afraid, if the policy which he advocates is carried out, will disappear overnight; and for that he and his honourable friends who advocate that policy will have to bear the responsibility.
From the point of view of defence alone—and there are many other aspects into which I will not go now—we must hold the Commonwealth together—particularly in this matter of the Indian Ocean, and we must ensure that the threat of Sino-Soviet penetration, about which

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in the old days we heard so much but about which we now hear perhaps rather too little, does not once again become a reality. The Tanzan Railway is being built by the Chinese at the present time. Can your Lordships imagine what they must be thinking to-day in the Kremlin and Peking when they see what we are proposing to do with our proposed sale of arms to South Africa? Can your Lordships not imagine those people rubbing their hands in glee and saying: "This is just what we wanted them to do. It makes our task of penetration into these loyal member countries of the Commonwealth infinitely easier than it would otherwise be."
Collective security, particularly within the Commonwealth, must be the key to our defence in that area. We have already accepted that in Europe we must have collective security, and that is why we have NATO. We do not need such a formal organisation, but we should act on the same lines in the Indian Ocean. It should not be too difficult to achieve this, because, quite apart from any ties of Commonwealth, we have the same objectives as do those countries of Africa and of the Indian sub-continent which are most affected by all these matters that we are now discussing. After all, they wish to retain their independence—an independence which we gave them. They do not want to surrender their independence of any power bloc, whether it be a power bloc of the East or West, of China or Russia, of Europe or the United States. They want their independence, just as we want them to have their independence, and as we want our independence. There we have a community of interest.
They want to develop peacefully so that the standard of living of their people can rise. We want that as well. That is why we are giving them aid—insufficient aid, but aid all the same. Our objectives are the same there. They want to see apartheid abolished; we want to see apartheid abolished. We have identity of interests there. Above all, they want to avoid the risk of any race war in South Africa; and we want to avoid that, too. So in these vital matters we have complete community of interest.
Surely, my Lords, the way to achieve what they want and what we want is not for an edict to go out from West-
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minster, as in the day of good Queen Victoria: "We, the British Government, have decided that we are going to do this. You may like it or you may not; it is of no concern to us. We are continuing with it. We are not going to be pushed around by a lot of other countries." That is not the way to do things in these days. The way to settle a problem of this sort, which affects directly the countries of the Indian subcontinent, and also of South and East Africa (it affects us also, I agree), is for a conference to be held: not a conference under the glare of spotlights, as with the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, but a conference, in one of those countries, of (shall I say?) Ministers of Defence and Ministers of Development of those countries and of ourselves under the chairmanship of one of the leading statesmen of those countries—and they have great statesmen who are also in spite of the strains to which they are to-day being subjected, loyal members of the Commonwealth. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, might go in his capacity as Minister of Defence. He would be attended by his experts from the Ministry of Defence and from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and also, I should hope, by experts in development. These matters could then be discussed.
If, as a result of these joint discussions, the best form of defence for the Indian Ocean area could be agreed upon, we should then have a very strong bulwark with which to protect ourselves. It is of course conceivable that, in spite of our community of interests, we might not be able to agree. In that event, I agree with the noble Duke, our prime responsibility would be for our own security. I find it hard to believe that we could best assure that by "going it alone"; but we should obviously have to reserve the right to do so. Nevertheless, the way I have suggested must surely, towards the end of the twentieth century, be the way in which the security of this country can be best preserved; the way in which the Commonwealth can be built up into an even more important factor, not only in world peace but in world development and in the development of the ideals for which we all stand, rather than the type of action that is now being proposed by noble Lords opposite.
6.57 p.m.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, I am speaking in your Lordships' debate this afternoon only because, together with my noble friend Lord Crawshaw, I visited our forces in the Far East a little over a month ago. My few remarks therefore will be confined in the main to this theatre, although I should first like to give a very warm welcome to the Supplementary Statement which has been produced by my noble friend the Secretary of State in such a short space of time. That it has been so favourably received by the country at large is due, I believe, to the fact that people can now see that a start has been made in restoring confidence, and indeed credibility, in the United Kingdom's defence policy. I found it both revealing and encouraging that the additional costs of our contribution towards the new Five-Power Force in the Far East will be only some £5 to £10 million a year: and I can confirm to all your Lordships from my personal experience in September that our decision has been wholeheartedly welcomed both by Malaysia and by Singapore.
I had not myself been in Singapore for some twenty years, and in that time it has changed out of all recognition. Today it is positively clean and is developing at a truly astonishing rate. Incidentally, the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, referred at some stage of his speech to Bukit Timah. I think I should point out that in all probability Bukit Timah in a short space of time will have disappeared. Its top will be chopped off and the spoil deposited in the sea, thus producing the reclaimed land for further development. It should not be ignored that we are still the largest stakeholders in the island, followed by the United States of America and then, some little way behind, but catching up, Japan. The problem that faces this part of the world in the foreseeable future is obviously one of stability. It is no good pretending that Communism is not very active just under the surface. It is. I do not believe that China presents a military threat, but she does present a political one. I therefore endorse the statement in the White Paper that our presence, along with that of our Commonwealth colleagues, which the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, appeared
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to ignore, will contribute towards stability.
May I draw my noble friend's attention to a few specific problems which we found? Due to the rundown of our forces currently in progress, families are returning to the United Kingdom several months ahead of their husbands and fathers. This is, I fully accept, unavoidable, but it must impose a heavy resettlement problem on the Ministry of Defence. Is the operation being carried out on the basis of "Last in, first out"? Is the Department doing all it can to give individuals as much prior notice as possible as regards their future postings? Whilst accepting that this is not perhaps a fair moment to criticise, it would be dishonest if I were not to say that some of my colleagues and I were appalled at the size of the administrative tail in Singapore. At the same time, we do foresee some difficulties with the proposed integration of some support services with those of the Singapore Government. I believe that there will be a strong case for presenting our Far East role more positively than it has perhaps been in the past, since it was borne out on us very forcibly that the gulf between public knowledge on the subject and the understanding that we were able to gain is very considerable.
I wonder if my noble friend, when he comes to wind up, will be able to comment on whether it is the plan, post-1971, that Servicemen serving in the Far East should, or should not, be accompanied by their families. Whilst obviously in some places it is unavoidable, I am certain from what I have heard that the nine-month unaccompanied tour is extremely unpopular. For example, I know of a regiment that is returning this month from such a tour, and yet within less than a year they will be proceeding on a further unaccompanied tour to Northern Ireland. The regiment is anticipating considerable discharges by purchase.
We were highly impressed by the efficiency of the Jungle Warfare School. It has done a magnificent job over the years, and it is the sort of organisation that we run superbly. It is excellent to see that the School is to be retained, although again there will obviously be difficulties with an integrated command structure. I can only express the hope

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that we shall continue to find the bulk of the instructors. The news concerning the retention of the Brigade of Gurkhas is very gratifying, for, as we all know, they are a superb body of fighting men. There is one point here that I should like to ask my noble friend the Secretary of State: in view of this decision, is it still the intention to move the Gurkha depot to Hong Kong?
My Lords, may I now turn for a moment to Hong Kong? There is, I believe, considerable room for improvements, both in the married accommodation and the amenities for the families of our forces stationed there. Many live in high rise blocks; some have no air-conditioning; and, short of a lengthy car drive, there is absolutely nowhere for young children to play. It is perhaps difficult for those of your Lordships who have not been to Hong Kong to visualise the congestion of humanity in such places as Kowloon. I should like to put in a strong plea that all Servicemen on tours of two years or over—single Servicemen—should be allowed one free-leave journey to the United Kingdom in the middle of their tours. One is pretty restricted in Hong Kong, and in some ways I found it not unlike being stationed in Berlin without the opportunity of getting out through the Corridor. I was impressed by the efficiency of the co-operation between the military and the Hong Kong police. Although I have no personal knowledge of how similar cooperation is working in Northern Ireland, I am sure that any interchange of ideas must be worth while. Finally on Hong Kong, I should like to pay tribute to the outstanding job that has been done by our Governor, Sir David Trench.
My Lords, like other noble Lords who have already spoken, I welcome the Government's decision on the Territorial and Volunteer Reserve, but I believe (and this has already been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Thurlow) that as a direct result of the previous Administration's policy there is now a serious shortage of drill halls. It would be interesting to know whether my noble friend agrees with me and, if so, what plans he has to rectify the position.
I come now to the question of manpower—not recruiting, but the problem of the numbers of Servicemen and civil
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servants employed in the various headquarters and in the Ministry of Defence. I know that Her Majesty's Government are presently giving most serious consideration to keeping the size of all headquarters to a minimum. They inherited from the outgoing Government a study of the command structure of the Army in the United Kingdom, and I believe that they can expect to produce considerable manpower savings. I have the highest opinion of the work done by our civil servants, having been one myself, but I do believe that if we can streamline the structure we shall make it even more efficient.
Finally, my Lords, a word about NATO—and this is my last point. We hear that there is an increasing complacency and apathy and, in some cases, a growing negative attitude towards NATO. There is a lack of willingness among some European countries to take their proper share of responsibility for collective security. Is it not, therefore, vital that from now on we should pay the utmost attention to the problem of giving effective information about NATO, looking always at the attitudes that the younger generation have towards the Alliance? I am sure that this aspect is of paramount importance.
7.6 p.m.
LORD CRAWSHAW: My Lords, I intervene in this debate this evening for the same reason as my noble friend who has just sat down, in that with him and eight Members of the other place I visited our Forces in the Far East in September. I found it a most interesting trip, and a most informative one. It was full of new experiences: on one occasion I was hoisted by a crane on to the flight deck of a converted aircraft carrier.
The appeal of seeing the Far East, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong, is something which was a great opportunity for me, and I know Servicemen who take the same view. I shall say more about that in a moment. I was also anxious to find out more firsthand about the work of our current Forces, with whom I had been rather out of touch, and to make some assessment as to whether we were getting good value for money spent out of the Exchequer, and whether this was the right sort of

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proportion. I hope that I went with a fairly open mind as to the significance of our presence in the Far East. We were able to discuss with all ranks of the Forces all sorts of problems and to gain their impressions of what they were doing. It was rather remarkable that we found few grievances in spite of the masses of conversations that we had, which reflected well on the men themselves and the quality of the administration.
I was impressed by the efficiency of a fine fighting force, and there is no doubt in my mind that this helps to create a stability and give confidence in an area where, as my noble friend has said, there are still enormous British interests. In Singapore, for instance, there is more British investment than that of the United States, Japan and Hong Kong combined. The Plessey Company have just invested £10 million there, and with this in mind I felt that our Forces produced a wonderful advertisement value. But they are not there to protect Japanese trade, and I hope that industry in this country will do more to try to exploit the situation.
I was also very struck by the alertness and enthusiasm of those serving in the Far East, and by their appreciation of being there. Some chief petty officers told me—and they said this out of earshot of their wives—that they would be quite willing to forgo the accompanied tours rather than not have the chance of serving in the Far East. To-day we have heard a little about the problems of recruitment. Brigadier Ovens, Commander of the Third Commando Brigade in Singapore, said that one good reason for serving in the Far East was that it provided a good reason for joining the Services. As I said in my opening remarks, that is an important point when you think of recruiting. As the noble Lord, Lord Byers, said, there are training opportunities in that area which are unique, such as jungle warfare training, and opportunities for low flying.
Coming to the proposed Five-Power defence arrangements as set out in the White Paper, I was impressed by the honest realisation of our forces that the Singapore set-up is much too large; and, like my noble friend Lord Napier and Ettrick, I was rather aghast at the size of the headquarters and the Army tail. I can see that there will be problems in deciding what real estate to keep for
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the Commonwealth Force and what to dispose of, but I do not think that they will be insuperable. My previous view before I went, that total withdrawal would be a mistake because, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, it would mean leaving our friends—the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Malaysians and Singaporians—in the lurch, was confirmed when I saw how relieved the Australians and New Zealanders were that we were going to contribute to a force in the area. It was further confirmed when I saw the pleasure of the Singaporians and the Malaysians who, as your Lordships know, do conflict in certain ways and both of whom look to this country, above all, to provide some cement—cement which will help to prevent the clashes between the Malays and the Singaporians, or Chinese, which the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, was worrying about.
This was emphasised still further when we went to see Dr. Goh, the Deputy Prime Minister, who said that our forces with their experience and expertise were not only more than welcome, but vital. And when questioned about so-called outside troops on Singaporian soil by two Members of the other place, he said, "After all, you in Europe are only too glad to have the Americans on European soil. So why shouldn't we have British troops on our soil?" It was certainly my impression that all of our party—in spite of the misgivings of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont—of Conservatives and Opposition concluded that we still have an important Far Eastern role, and that this token or gesture of a contribution to the Commonwealth Force will be, as my noble friend the Secretary of State said earlier on, an encouragement out of all proportion to its size; and that the Five Powers between them will make a viable force capable of showing an aggressor that we mean business. I am glad that the Government have made it clear from the outset what sort of size our contribution will be, as indeed the Australians also have done, because this will avoid the impression that we have an open-ended commitment. By adhering to the complementary pattern as set out in the White Paper we shall certainly produce a force that has to be reckoned with without further strengthening.
Obviously we must take account of what the people in the United States

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think. It was no surprise to me that the Americans in the Far East, at any rate—I was not able to talk with their top officials, but the ordinary Americans—are delighted that we intend to resume a share of responsibility in the Far East. I do not think they can now quote our total withdrawal in the Far East as a reason for even partial withdrawal in Europe, with all the consequences that this might have.
May I say a word or two about the Command structure. One of the greatest impressions I had was the excellent co-operation and the understanding that already exists between the Australians, New Zealanders and ourselves. I expected the Australians to be more American-orientated, but I think Vietnam had given them some experiences and had taught them that we in fact still have the highest standards. I saw the Singaporian Army on exercises and I am certain that, with typical enthusiasm they will reach a high standard in a short time. But at the moment they lack specialists and technical men, and they quite freely admit it. Because of the rivalries that exist between the Malaysians and Singaporians, I am sure that the Malaysians will not want to be considered second best and will strive to reach a high standard, too. At the beginning my impression was that we, or possibly the Australians, would have to take the top command—I may be wrong about that but it was my impression—because I think we, above all, can fuse the Five Powers together.
As regards the composition of our contribution, my noble friend Lord Napier and Ettrick dealt with the Army and I will say just a word or two about the other two Services. As to the Navy, I see that we intend to send five frigates or destroyers on station East of Suez to include Hong Kong, and I think this will be a valuable contribution. How valuable it will be will depend on how long we have to keep the Beira patrol in being, because Vice-Admiral Empson and his officers emphasised to us that this is a considerable strain and restricts their other activities. So I hope the usefulness of this will be re-evaluated. A possible variation on our contribution in that area, which includes obviously a vast area of the Pacific and Indian Ocean,
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might be, if not an aircraft carrier, at least one of the cruisers equipped with a vertical take-off aircraft, as mentioned in the White Paper; because the ghosts of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" lying on the bottom of the sea are too alive out there for anyone to forget what can happen to ships without adequate air support.
I do not know what the Government's intention is on the question of maintenance of the Fleet, but several chief petty officers were anxious to maintain a Fleet of this size with naval personnel, as is being done in Hong Kong at present. They thought they would compete with this and it would be a useful occupation for qualified men, instead of retiring them as early as they are retired at present.
As regards the Royal Air Force, I welcome the proposal for the Nimrod marine reconnaissance aircraft. I saw something of the value of the work the Shackletons are doing at present, and many of the photographs of the Russian ships that come through the Malacca Straits. I imagine that the Australians will provide the combat aircraft in the form of fighters. There is mention also of Whirlwind helicopters. I had several rides in these and found them very comfortable. I think there was a request for the twin-engine helicopter—called, I believe, the Wessex. We saw a most impressive exercise using this in support of the Army when they lifted guns and equipment on slings underneath the helicopter.
So much for South-East Asia; but one good reason to my mind for a presence there is that Hong Kong will not be in the same isolation as it would have been. My noble friend Lord Napier has already spoken about several problems in Hong Kong. There are clearly housing problems in Kowloon. I heard just the other day, from a friend of mine who is second-in-command of the Irish Guards who are due to go there this month, that they will be short of 60 married quarters. I understand that this is a problem which cannot easily be rectified. It is a problem and something which we shall have to come to grips with. I do not think there is much more that I can usefully say about Hong Kong. So far as I could see, all is well and it is really a matter of leaving well

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alone. The Services were operating well with each other and sharing the various amenities.
My Lords, that concludes a short account of my impressions of the Far East. I still cannot quite understand the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, when he says that our presence there is provocative. It seems to me to be quite the opposite. I very much welcome the White Paper as setting the trend. It may not be complete, and there is obviously a lot more to thresh out so far as the Far East is concerned, but I believe that we are on the right lines.
7.20 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I believe that one of the advantages of sitting on this side of the House is that our Members are accorded a great deal more latitude in expressing views that are sometimes at variance with official Front Bench policy. I must say that I have never joined with those who have advocated that Britain should withdraw from East of Suez, though I know that there are many on this side of the House—though certainly not at this moment—who hold this view deeply and sincerely.
I believe that withdrawal was advocated on the grounds of economy alone; certainly it was never on the ground that any of our friendly partners in South East Asia had asked us to withdraw. Quite the contrary. When a Ministry of Defence delegation visited that part of the world just two years ago, whereever we went (and my noble friend Lord Beswick, who led that delegation, were he here, would bear me out) not one voice was raised in favour of our withdrawal. Many understood our views, many sympathised; but not a single voice did I hear raised in our support. In fact there was a chorus of voices raised against our recall from East of Suez, and by none more strongly or more vehemently than our best friends in this region.
And most vehemently of all by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, whom many of us regard not only as one of the staunchest friends of this country but one of the great leaders of that part of the world. He is working not only on behalf of his own little island of Singapore, but also on behalf of the peace and prosperity of the whole of
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that region of South-East Asia; and we in Britain, I think, would do well to take his advice and to heed his warnings. There may be no magic increase in the number of troops or naval units, according to the Government White Paper, but in my view, for what it is worth, it was a psychological error ever to use the word "withdrawal" in the first place. It was a highly emotive word, used in a highly emotive context, and I believe gave the impression of abandonment. Rightly or wrongly—I believe wrongly—the impression somehow got about that we were walking out on them; and once a wrong impression like that gets around it is very hard indeed to put matters right again.
My Lords, I welcome the decision that has been taken to stay on in Singapore. But I would ask the Government which of our valuable installations in Singapore it is now intending to hand over. Is the great naval base, one of the best equipped in the world, still to remain in our hands? What is to become of the magnificent R.A.F. installations—the airfields, service hospitals and schools; the vast housing estates that we have built up on the island and on the Malaysian peninsular? Which of these are now to be handed over to Singapore or to Malaysia, or will they be handed over to the joint Five-Power defence force? Or will they still be retained by us on a maintenance, or even possibly on an operational basis? Then what of Singapore's citizens and their dependants, numbering about 70,000, many of them faithful friends of Britain, who expected to lose their jobs as a result of our withdrawal? How many of these are still to remain in our employ, as the Singapore Government so anxiously hopes?
I welcome our decision to stay in Singapore mainly because I believe that it will strengthen our ties with Australia and New Zealand. The need for these will become even more important when we enter the Common Market; and it will help to forge more strongly our links with these two great members of the Commonwealth. They are already committed in Vietnam, and, to their everlasting credit, not from narrow national interests but for the sake of peace and stability in that area. And when their withdrawal from Vietnam takes place—which we all hope may be very soon—

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these two great members of our Commonwealth will still remain as a stabilising force in South East Asia. That is why they welcome our active participation, jointly with Malaysia and Singapore, as a great unifying influence in the Far East.
But it is in the Persian Gulf that our chief anxieties East of Suez still remain to-day. I have mentioned before the danger of using the word "withdrawal" in a highly emotive context, but I notice that on this issue the Government are coy and non-committal. We are told in paragraph 6 of the White Paper that
"Discussions are still going on with the leaders in the Gulf and other interested countries".
Let us face the position clearly. We simply cannot go on policing the Arab oil sheikhdoms to-day on our own. What is our main interest in the Persian Gulf? I submit that it is not to maintain our troops in the Gulf at the expense of the British taxpayer, but to keep out the Russians. If Russia's navy can ever establish itself in the Persian Gulf, she will control the world's largest reserves of oil, and will certainly show no sympathy for the Arab sheikhdoms who own them. In fact the recent tragic slaughter of innocent lives in Jordan would be completely overshadowed by the holocaust that could follow if Russia were to secure a foothold in the Persian Gulf.
The oil sheikhdoms are well aware of this, yet they are likely to remain, for some years to come, a possible stabilising influence upon our oil supplies in the Middle East. We have to recognise this plain fact, whether we like it or not, whether they federate or do not federate; and for a while at least we must help to protect them. But why must we do so wholly at the British taxpayer's expense? If they want us to stay on in the Gulf, let them help to pay for it, in part at least, if not in whole. They have indeed already offered to do so. Certainly they can afford to do so, out of the royalties they have already derived from oil. Why, then, not request them to do so? The Commonwealth countries made enormous contributions to our Exchequer when the mother country was in danger during two world wars. What, then, is so wrong in our inviting the wealthy sheikhdoms of the Gulf to make a contribution to the
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British Exchequer for their own defence? If they want our protection they ought to help to pay for it, just as I believe Kuwait has already done for our R.A.F. instructors training its own squadrons.
My Lords, there is another way in which we can help to prevent not only a Russian presence in the Indian Ocean, but also a Russian foothold in the Gulf itself. That is by compelling Russia to maintain its naval supply lines around the Cape. If the Suez Canal were opened to-day the Russian fleet, now lying bottled up in the Eastern Mediterranean, could sail down the Canal to its base in Aden, a distance of over 1,200 miles, instead of having to undertake a present long haul of over 12,000 miles to Aden around the Cape. Think how the Russians must be waiting eagerly for that moment to arrive! And with an Israeli withdrawal from the East bank of the Canal, an Egyptian force will immediately occupy both banks. Then the reopening of the Suez Canal will be a certainty, and the passage of the Russian fleet to the Persian Gulf will follow as surely as night follows day.
When this happens it will be a black night indeed for the rich Arab States still living peacefully in the Gulf, and a black night for the safety and stability of the whole area, and for the peace of the world. So to-day we are faced with the anomaly that the little Israeli Army occupying the East bank of the Suez Canal is actually helping to protect the interests of the Arab States in the Persian Gulf, as well as the economy of Britain and of NATO and of the whole of western civilisation. How long are we going to persist in our present folly and to act against Britain's own interest by demanding Israeli withdrawal from the Canal?
How Russia, that lover of peace, that stalwart of the United Nations, must be laughing to-day at Britain's expense, and how, too, the Russians will soon be laughing at the expense of the peaceful Arab States in the Gulf, and at the expense of the whole of the freedom-loving world! And yet to-day here we are, in grave danger of committing this folly, and by a Conservative Government at that. And for what? I have already pointed out that the Arab States have nothing to gain but everything to lose by a Russian presence in the Persian

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Gulf. We have to realise the dangers inherent in our withdrawal. The moment we left Aden the Russians moved in. The moment we leave the Persian Gulf the Russians will do the same, and exactly the same will happen at Suez.
So for what are we betraying Britain's interest? For a United Nations resolution, and an ambiguous one at that. What is there, I would ask, so sacrosanct about a United Nations resolution? Was the United Nations right about Gibraltar, and do we intend to obey that resolution about Gibraltar, and give Gibraltar back to Spain? Believe me, the betrayal of 25,000 Gibraltarians would be as nothing compared with the betrayal of British interests in allowing the Russian Fleet to sail down the Red Sea and replace us in the Persian Gulf. And here we are, ready to hand back Suez on a platter and to release the Russian Fleet from its present confinement to the Eastern Mediterranean.
So I will conclude. Is it not first the duty of a British Government, of any British Government, to put British interests first and Arab interests second? And where in the long term both those interests happen to coincide, as they certainly do in the Persian Gulf, is it not our duty to act boldly in the interests of peace and in the true interests of the United Nations as well? Ought we not to show the United Nations how best to maintain peace, despite the blindness and follies and prejudices of that cacophony of voices now being heard, by a strange irony of phrase, on the shores of Lake Success? There seems to be a malign fate that bedevils all our Western pronouncements on the Middle East. The very day that President Nixon and Mr. Gromyko met so affably to discuss the Middle East two American Generals landed on Russian soil, and are still being held in detention. Only a few days after the Foreign Secretary's speech in Harrogate on peace in the Middle East, fighting breaks out again in the streets of Amman, with the end of Jordan's hard-won truce and the loss of more innocent civilian lives. So with whom is Dr. Jarring to negotiate now?
We all recognise that the Foreign Secretary's speech was inspired by the highest of motives, but its timing could hardly have been more deplorable. Should we not be wise now, at least for the time
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being, to concentrate on maintaining the cease-fire and give the Arab nations the chance to restore peace among themselves? If they cannot do this, there is little hope of their learning to live at peace with Israel and little hope for peace in the Middle East. But it will be a sad betrayal of Britain and the Middle East, the day the Russian Fleet is allowed to sail in triumph through the Suez Canal and down the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf, and—folly of follies—a betrayal that could be committed by a Conservative Government. It would indeed be a long time before any Government, even any Conservative Government, could live down such a folly and such a betrayal.
7.35 p.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord who has just sat down will excuse me if I do not follow him along the interesting lines on which he has spoken. I personally agree with a lot of what he said. I view with horror the Russian Fleet in the Red Sea. I am used to the days years ago when I served in the Eastern Mediterranean. There was only one Russian ship in the Eastern Mediterranean and she was known to our sailors as "a packet of Woodbines" because she was a cruiser called "Askold", with five very slender funnels. I wish to goodness it was the only Russian ship in the Eastern Mediterranean to-day.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, if the noble Lord will allow me to intervene, I believe she was actually a Greek ship.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, she may have been a Greek ship originally, but she was flying Russian colours when I saw her. I can tell the noble Lord another story about a Russian battleship at Port Said which refused to follow the instructions she was given when she left harbour and so she ran on to a German minefield because she went out of the swept channel. She blew up and sank, but as she sank she opened fire with every gun on the escorting British ships. I leave the noble Lord to imagine that, and I will not waste more time on it.
I rise briefly to support the Motion placed on the Paper by my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence, namely, to take note of the Supplementary

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Statement on Defence Policy 1970, Cmnd. Paper 4521. In doing so I must say first how very pleased I am—and I have already told him this—to see my noble friend occupying the position he does now, and how much I congratulate him on having achieved so much in so short a time and in the face of such a frightening legacy. I am sure he will be an inspiration not only to us all in this House but also to all the officers and men in the Services.
Noble Lords will remember that on May 13 last we debated another Motion to take note of another White Paper on Defence, Cmnd. 4290, produced by the then Socialist Government. A few weeks earlier The Times newspaper described this White Paper in these words:
"The picture presented is one of almost wanton neglect of an real provision for defence. If an emergency now overtook us we should have little or no supplies of ammunition or vehicles, of tanks or guns or medical supplies or any other equipment."
The Times prides itself on its correspondents, and indeed Lord Chalfont was once a well known Defence Correspondent of The Times. He was, of course, not on the staff when that was written. To-day your Lordships will no doubt have seen in the papers a series of advertisements run by The Times "cracking up" what marvellous correspondents they have. However, let that pass. That this comment was undoubtedly true was amply proven in the long debate that took place. I do not intend to follow the course of that debate. I wish only to say that when I left the Chamber on its conclusion I had never felt so unhappy, or so depressed and so anxious about our defences. This is true. I have attended a great many defence debates in your Lordships' House, and I found that feeling of depression very common among all my noble friends who had been taking part in the debate with me. I really felt that we were in a desperate situation.
Having regard to the course of that debate and the feelings which it engendered in me, I think it all the more remarkable that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence has been able to produce this Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy 1970, which demonstrates beyond all doubt that this Government have faced realities and taken note of the very real and serious dangers
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which face the country to-day. I cannot pretend for one moment that I am 100 per cent. satisfied with the White Paper. There are several matters, particularly in the naval sphere, on which I should like to seek further information before I feel satisfied. However, I hope that there will be another opportunity to debate the Government's defence plans when they have taken shape even further. In fact, the noble Lord has said to-day that there will be another Defence White Paper in the spring.
There are, however, one or two points which I should like to mention before I sit down. The first refers to the Gurkhas. I cannot say how much I welcome the decision to keep the Gurkha Brigade going. Many years ago, when I was a little boy, in a certain situation, my father always had a Gurkha guard on his gate. I understand that one battalion will be coming to London and will do guard duty at Buckingham Palace, and so on. The Foot Guards have their traditional birthday parade on the Horse Guards. Even the Royal Marines get there somehow to beat Retreat. Many other functions take place there. Would it be possible to have a special parade on the Horse Guards for the Gurkhas, to show these gallant soldiers in what affection and esteem they are held by everybody in this country? I merely throw that out as a suggestion.
My second question refers to the Royal Air Force. In paragraph 17 of the White Paper it is stated that
"The Royal Air Force will still assume responsibility for providing … air support for the Royal Navy from shore bases …"
This statement of course provokes, as it has always provoked over the last year, the question: what aircraft, and which bases?
As I mentioned when I spoke in the debate in May last, I believe that it requires no less than a squadron of aircraft to keep just two aircraft over a Fleet in nearby waters. This is a highly specialised role. It requires special training not merely in pure flying but in air and naval staff collaboration. Special training will be necessary. It is quite clear from our debate in May last that the previous Government had not got to grips with this problem, and I still think that it needs most careful consideration.

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Turning now to submarines, I believe that the Mark 24 torpedo has become what used to be called in naval circles in my days a very mouldy torpedo—in other words, it is not a good runner. Therefore, I think that the armament on all our submarines, particularly the Fleet submarines, requires looking at. So far as the latter are concerned, I am old and "square", but I would prefer to see a gun or two guns on board. However, this might upset the streamlining—I do not know. It might also be possible to fit them with some kind of guided weapon. At the moment I think they are under-armed.
Lastly, I would refer to helicopters, with which I include V/STOL. I hope that the decision to cease the fixed-wing flying training for the Navy will not mean that we shall in any way reduce the training in helicopters and V/STOL. I think that this is a most important aspect, particularly should war come. As your Lordships will know, in the last War we had what was called DEMS—Defence of the Equipped Merchant Ships Organisation. Among the ships we had were 29 MAC ships. These were merchant ships, grain carriers and oil tankers converted into small aircraft carriers. I think they carried one or two aircraft, and I may say that they were very popular with the merchant captains whom they successfully protected.
Finally, may I point out that there is no mention of the Naval Reserve in this White Paper. In the Socialist Government's White Paper there was a small paragraph which read:
"In war the R.N.R. would man their minesweepers, provide the manpower to back up the ships of the Fleet, shore headquarters, communications centres, and the Naval Control of Shipping organisation, and provide a nucleus of naval expertise within the ships of the Merchant Navy."
That is a bare enough statement. But are we sure that we have the Naval Reserve backing that we need? We have heard a lot about the Territorials and the Army Reserve, and I thought it necessary to remind your Lordships that Naval Reserves are also necessary.
7.47 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, it is with some trepidation that I, as a mere soldier, follow the Senior Service. But I
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would join with the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, in wishing our new Minister of Defence well; and I would express with the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, our admiration at the way in which he has tackled this not-too-easy problem that he found waiting for him. To my mind, the virtue of the White Paper lies in the fact that, among other things, it provides room for expansion and gives an urge to the possibility of expansion. It is a change of course in that direction. Further, it makes a determined effort to overcome manpower difficulties.
To my mind, the most important manpower difficulty confronting the Ministry of Defence is the question of officer supply for the Services. If there is to be (as in fact, given time, there will be) expansion of each of the three Services with modern technology and new devices, it will require men of the highest intellectual quality, well-educated and well-trained to operate the Services. Thus the universities are going to play, if not a more important part in defence, at any rate a more integrated part. This arises partly from the fact that a much bigger proportion of men aged 17 to 22 are now going to the universities and to colleges of higher education. In coming years, still more will be going to the universities, which are therefore not just taking some of the cream of that age group from which our future officers will be drawn but are milching it nearly dry.
The consequence of this is that if a sufficient supply of officers is to be secured there must be a steadily higher proportion coming from the universities than came heretofore from the schools. There is evidence of some success in the policy adopted by the late Government whereby the graduate entry for the R.A.F. is now the norm for permanent commissions, and it stands very greatly to the credit of the noble Lords, Lord Shackle-ton and Lord Winterbottom, that this is the case. By and large, I think that the universities are co-operating in this matter. Whether there is at present the same need for this policy for the other Services I cannot say, so long as a proportion of university students are encouraged towards the Services while they are at the universities. This encouragement requires not only the Service and university cadetships, but also an attractive military presence in the university.

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The Service units, the O.T.C., the university air squadrons and the naval section, might well be adapted to provide more opportunity. The air squadrons are in danger of being swamped by the university cadets, leaving only a very few places for the uncommitted student. A moderate increase in the establishment of the university air squadrons might be quite productive in officer supply, and certainly will make ultimately for a better understanding of R.A.F. problems as former cadets achieve high positions in the Civil Service, industry and the universities; and, I would add, perhaps most importantly, in the schools. In this connection the new defence lectureships, which the late Administration established at certain universities, are doing a great deal to foster a general understanding of defence problems. The high quality of the serving officers who have been seconded to the universities as fellows for a year or so has had a most salutary and beneficial effect. I think it would be to the ultimate advantage, both of universities and of the Services, if the number of fellows were increased.
As an old Territorial, I welcome the enlargement of the T. & A.V.R. to produce an uncommitted reserve. I must say that I was rather attracted by the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, that their role should be training for resistance. I think they would have to be organised as companies. I see no other way of doing it in the initial stages, when the strength is limited to 10,000.
I join with the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, in not understanding why there is any opposition whatsoever to the idea of independent companies. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, also has ridiculed this. But there always have been independent companies in the British Army; they date back to the beginning of the 18th century. It was a series of independent companies of Highlanders who dealt with minor matters of insurrection and rebellion in Scotland. Eventually, these independent companies were welded into the senior Highland Regiment, the Black Watch, but they were independent companies and they were used most efficiently by the English Army.
If your Lordships want other instances of the success of independent companies,
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you have them in the use of the formation of the Commandos; and the Marines, too, are virtually the same in principle. There have always been some isolated garrisons in the old British Empire—at any rate in the old, so-called bad colonial days—and you have isolated companies in isolated places doing a very good job. Since 1914 the infantry have been always adding or subtracting companies to and from the infantry battalion. The machine gun company has been sometimes within the battalion and sometimes outside; on occasion it has been welded into a machine gun battalion. There are other instances.
The logistics of the independent company are very simple indeed: they are attached to existing battalions for the time they are needed there. Their great virtue is that they give us room and opportunity for expansion when it is necessary. That, to my mind, is the burden of the Statement on Defence Policy. I think it will be so regarded by many Servicemen, and this also will help to solve the manpower problem.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves this very interesting point (I do not know whether he has discussed it with his noble friend, the Secretary of State for Defence), may I intervene? I fully acknowledge the nature of specialised units of this kind and one has even had smaller ones for particular purposes. But all the recent examples, without exception, as I understand it, are not intended to be with specialised functions but are intended really to keep alive the existing regimental tradition with a view to further expansion. If, when the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, comes to reply, he can indicate specialised roles of a kind that one has seen, then the idea begins to make some rather additional sense.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I had the feeling that perhaps I was irritating the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, on this point. I used the machine gun companies as an illustration, but there are others that I gave where the equipment was no more than the ordinary infantry rifle company; and that is what has happened in the majority of cases. I agree that they have a purpose if they serve as a means of expanding into a battalion, should that be necessary, but it is not necessarily their only purpose.

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They can be quite useful even if they are never expanded into a battalion but are there to meet any possible need to increase the number of battalions.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, can the noble Lord give us an example? There are special examples—for instance, the S.A.S. or the Commandos. I am very interested in this proposal.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, perhaps we had better leave it to the Minister of Defence to tidy up this argument.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, that is what I hope.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I am quite convinced—and I would willingly concede to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton—that the existence of these independent companies is a base for expansion as and when expansion may be required. Therefore, in so far as it is a well recognised fact that in defence problems the only certainty is that the unexpected is going to happen, I congratulate the Government on providing a policy that will enable us to deal better with the unexpected, when it comes, than was possible at the time they took office.
8.0 p.m.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I must ask the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, to forgive me if I do not follow him in what he said. It has been my good fate to succeed him in Defence debates in the past, and he always tends to talk about subjects of which I know very little. I should like very much to endorse the remarks of earlier speakers, who congratulated my noble friend the Secretary of State on this splendid Supplementary Statement. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, it is essentially a Statement of action rather than of policy, but the action is all pointing in the right direction. It is a real pleasure now to have a Government who, from their actions and intentions, clearly understand the proper use of defence. One hopes that, in a judicious way, they will apply the defence capability in the way it should be applied; that is, to the best advantage.
I also endorse the remarks of noble Lords who spoke earlier, especially the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, who said that the Government must have had the most appalling task in trying to sort out
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this matter after the damage created by the previous Administration, not merely in regard to the planning of equipment and the policy that was being developed, but also in regard to the morale of the Services. What is most needed—and my noble friend is aware of this, because he has mentioned it on other occasions—is a renewal of the sense of purpose, and a renewal of justification for the use of the Services, which the people in them have sadly lacked in recent years.
Having said that, there is one point on which I should like to take issue with my noble friend Lord Carrington. That relates to setting an exact terminal date for the decline of H.M.S. "Eagle". I have no disagreement at all with the arguments which are put for the retention of H.M.S. "Ark Royal", in that it is required until such time as alternative means are available of providing the support to Naval forces which carriers supply. I refer to alternative means in the shape of surface-to-surface missiles, and in the shape of V/STOL aircraft working from new through-deck ships. The carrier is essential in any properly balanced Naval force.
I shall not bore your Lordships with a repetition of what I have said on many occasions, in both 1967 and 1968. But may I be allowed to remind your Lordships that if one has a Naval force at sea, to perform any worthwhile function in the peace-keeping role, it must be credible and it can be credible only if it is properly balanced. In addition to other facilities, it must have the means of reconnaissance, the means of strike and the means of air defence. In this day and age a Naval force can have proper balance, with the sort of elements which I have described, only if it has fixed-wing aircraft. This is clearly understood by my noble friend, because otherwise he would not have retained the "Ark Royal".
The point at issue is: when will these facilities be provided in another way? It is made quite clear in the Statement that they are not expected to be provided in sufficient quantity, or of an adequate type, until the end of this decade. That is the purpose of retaining H.M.S. "Ark Royal". But as my noble friend has said, there are to be at least two occasions when she is being refitted, as

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she is expected to be operational for two-thirds of the next decade. On top of that, one must allow for the fact that aircraft carriers run into trouble, as indeed do other ships. The "Eagle" has recently run aground in Plymouth Sound, and the "Ark Royal" did the same about seven years ago.
As was mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Crawshaw, memories of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" are in everybody's mind in the Far East. It may be remembered by your Lordships that those ships were supposed to be accompanied by H.M.S. "Indomitable", but she had run aground, shortly before the occasion on which the ships were deployed to the Far East, when she was working up in the West Indies. Accidents occur at awkward moments, and if one accepts that an aircraft carrier is necessary, as the White Paper accepts and as we all agree, we must surely have some means of replacing a carrier if it is withdrawn from service according to plan or because of accident.
I therefore ask my noble friend to consider whether we can have the "Eagle" kept on a care-and-maintenance basis. There are great problems in doing this, but it could have a reduced crew and it could be kept in as good a state as is necessary, perhaps on varying lengths of notice. We should have to face the fact that a carrier would need a certain amount of docking and refitting, and if an operation was likely in which a carrier was needed there might have to be a shorter period of notice for the other vessel. I do not call for an answer now, because it is not the sort of question that can be answered quickly. But it seems to me that, notwithstanding its recent grounding, we have a splendid ship, in fine form and with modern equipment, though not perhaps the most modern equipment. Perhaps, too, it is not capable of operating all the aircraft that the "Ark Royal" can operate, but it could operate enough aircraft to fill a gap. It seems to me a tragedy that such a ship should be allowed to die in 1972. My noble friend has about six months in which to make up his mind, and I ask him to give special thought to that point.
Finally, I should like to welcome the I expansion of the T. & A.V.R., not only
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for the military reasons which are expressed in the statement, which have been endorsed by noble Lords with greater military experience than I have, but also because it shows a resurgence of encouragement for voluntary service. One of the tragedies of the last Administration was not only the cutting down of the various reserves of the Armed Services, but also the cutting down of other forms of voluntary service such as Civil Defence. It was tragic that the preparations for the Civil Defence were wiped out. There are to-day very few voluntary tasks for people to do for which they are not required to have quite a lot of training.
If one had a reasonable sort of education, there was a time when one could teach in a nursery school, but one can not do that now. One was allowed to do all sorts of things, but to-day every thing is becoming professional. If people are stopped from giving voluntary service to their country, one of the best spirits in this country is being destroyed. So again I would press my noble friend to think of means of increasing these Reserves in a useful way. One does not want to have them increased just for the sake of it, and I would not really go with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, for a form of National Service. But the Reserves of this country—
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him? I am afraid he misunderstood me. I did not advocate National Service at all. I mentioned a short-service engagement of two years, which would be voluntary, of course—not National Service.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, I must have missed the point when I was listening to him.
My Lords, I think that is all that I have to contribute, but again I thank my noble friend very much for a splendid resurgence of encouragement to the Armed Services of this great country.
8.11 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: My Lords, I should like to say what a privilege I consider it is for a person of my calibre to be able to make a contribution to this Defence debate this evening. I do not

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think that in what has been said so far there has been much reference to the consequences of defence, or to the fact that the people who are affected by any of the decisions which are being taken are the individuals themselves. If I speak with some criticism of some of the speeches that have been made, that criticism is based only on my reactions to the statements in those speeches which, if they were followed, I feel would affect the people in certain areas for whom we now have responsibility, as we had responsibility in the past.
The debate tonight has ranged over a very wide field, but I want to confine my remarks to paragraphs 7 and 10 of the White Paper which contain the Government's proposals for South-East Asia. It will be for the Minister of Defence, my noble friend Lord Carrington, to answer the points made in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, but if I understood Lord Chalfont correctly in what he said he charged that the proposals made by the Government to station British forces in Malaysia would, by their very presence, be more likely to provoke external aggression than if they were not there. My Lords, I cannot anticipate, nor indeed would it be right for me to anticipate, what my noble friend Lord Carrington may say in reply. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, who is now in the Chamber, was in Malaya during the Communist insurrection, but I can only say, having been there from the very start of the Malayan Communist insurrection, that it is my view, however much the noble Lord opposite may disagree with me, that the presence of British troops brings confidence, and that with the confidence of the population you get information.
May I refer to one incident? Information was badly wanted at the time of the murder in Malaya of the High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney. That was the beginning of the Malayan insurrection. With lack of information it was impossible really to know what was going on and what were the intentions and motives of the people who had perpetrated that act. With lack of information you get lack of stability, and in consequence—and I think the noble Lord will probably agree with me if he follows what I am endeavouring to illustrate—military operations in an area three-quarters of
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which is covered in jungle are very badly handicapped. It is impossible to bring many of your military operations to a successful conclusion.
As regards the political commitment which is mentioned in the White Paper, I cannot personally see anything sinister in the Government's proposals about this. It seems to me that all the White Paper envisaged in respect of the political commitment was to ensure that, if circumstances warranted it, it would be possible for whatever Government were in power at the time to proceed with consultations.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves that point, would he agree that at the time of the instance which he has mentioned—namely, the assassination of the High Commissioner—there were something of the order of 3,000 British troops in Malaya? By the time the Communist insurrection had been defeated there were 40,000 troops deployed, of which I was one. The point I was trying to make—and I hope the noble Lord will accept this, because I followed what he said with great care—is that you start off with a few troops, but once the commitment begins it is open-ended; and I see nothing in the Government's White Paper, which the noble Lord apparently endorses so clearly, to indicate how, if this happens again, we are going to produce 40,000 troops to go and fight in the jungles of Malaya.
LORD GRIDLEY: All I would say in answer to the noble Lord is that at the beginning of the Communist insurrection we honestly did not know in what way we were to go about things. We could have had thousands of troops in Malaya, but we had no information. I honestly believe that the presence of British troops brings confidence to the public and enables them to pass on information. That was our experience in Malaya, and I firmly believe that that is the way to deal with it.
My Lords, with regard to the commitment to post British troops to that area, I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, to whose speech I listened with the greatest interest, who said that sizeable forces, amounting to those forces which are established by the people in those territories, are available in the

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interests of their own defence, and that our commitment would mean our going to the assistance of those people in certain circumstances. I am of the opinion that from this really flows everything for which we have stood in connection with sound Commonwealth co-operation, and that it is a factor which ought to be encouraged at the present time, when this particular association is, I think, under a certain amount of strain. I therefore sincerely commend the Government and their proposals in this respect. I feel that they will do much in this area, and elsewhere in the Commonwealth, to illustrate what can be done with a certain amount of imagination to further Commonwealth interests in this matter.
My Lords, I want to say no more than that. I have confined my remarks entirely to an area with which I am acquainted. But I feel that a great debt is owed to my noble friend Lord Carrington for the imaginative proposals that he has made for this Five-Power Defence Treaty for South-East Asia. It gives me the greatest happiness and leads me to the sincere belief that in these proposals the Government will achieve what they intend.
8.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, doubtless you are familiar with those haunting lines:
"Yesterday upon the stair
"I met a man who wasn't there.
"He wasn't there again to-day;
"Oh! How I wish he'd go away."
"Haunting" is the word. All Defence White Papers for a long time now have been haunted by the man who "isn't there and won't go away": the phantom recruit. His manifestation in this Paper occurs on page 9 which deals with what paragraph 33 calls "the present serious deficiencies in manpower".
With your Lordships' permission I should like to speak briefly on that particular aspect, but from a point of view which has not I think been mentioned in this debate. So there is every chance of a short sharp speech. The difficulties of recruiting we know. The causes of those difficulties we know up to a point. But I question whether there is not one cause that is long overdue for attention; and that is the underrating by the people of the country of the usefulness and
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importance of the Fighting Services themselves. The new Government are faced with an uphill task in trying to set this right, but I rejoice in the knowledge that they mean to try. The key words are to be found in the last sentence of paragraph 35:
"Everything possible will be done to … enhance the status of military service in the national life."
Admirable! Napoleon had the same idea. "Soldiers", he said, "must be encouraged in all ways to remain with the Colours: this you will achieve by showing great esteem for soldiers."
My Lords, the Statement goes on:
"The Government recognises that there is no quick solution and that manpower constraints will remain a problem for some time to come: but it also believes that its policies will foster a fuller public understanding of defence and the rôle of the Forces, and thus help to create a climate of opinion favourable to recruitment."
Admirable again—though, I confess that I find it a little vague. For I do not see defence policies in themselves doing much to foster public understanding of them. Unless you can first arouse the public's interest, the public will not even bother to find out what those policies are. How then do you set about arousing interest in defence and esteem for soldiers, and for sailors and airmen, and with them the self-esteem (for of course that follows) of the men and women themselves? It is a matter of public relations.
A great deal of money is spent on advertising in the papers—and very high-class advertising much of it is, particularly that part of it directed at potential officers. But I ask myself why all these compelling advertisements (at least I find them compelling, and I read them all) do not produce more results. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, will answer by saying that nothing on earth will produce any results in the direction of increased recruiting. I have heard him say so this afternoon; but he will forgive me if I suggest that that is not an entirely necessary point of view. I have looked with the greatest of care at these advertisements. I have a collection of them here and I think that I find something missing from them.
But, first, what do we find? One thing that we can find is a pretty good idea of the kind of person at whom the advertising is directed. What kind of

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person are the Government trying to recruit?—I am thinking of officer recruiting in particular, but not necessarily exclusively. He must be physically fit, mentally alert and of a certain standard of brain power. He must be attracted to, and have an aptitude for, the taking of responsibility at an early age—responsibility for men and for advanced and costly weapons and machines. He must be self-reliant and responsive to challenge. He has no wish—not yet, at any rate—for a repetitive, humdrum, indoor routine. When it is all over—and it seems to be taken for granted that he will not serve for long—he will have qualifications and will be just the kind of chap that employers are looking for. And what is wrong with that? Nothing, so far as it goes. Unfortunately, by stopping where it does it adds up to a picture of a young man who can be persuaded to wear the Queen's uniform simply for the advantages that it will bring him both during and after his Service life.
What, then, is missing from this synthetic young man that we have built up from these advertisements? The answer is: a wish to serve his country. I find in the advertisements appeals to various excellent qualities but it seems to me that the sum of these appeals is this: "Measure up to our standards, our exacting standards, and we will give you a good, varied, interesting and responsible job; look after you and pay you well and equip you with valuable qualifications for civilian life." I detect very little to suggest that the job offered is vital to the defence of the country. There is no appeal to the simple will to serve. My Lords, I suggest, with no great originality but perhaps more strongly than it has been suggested hitherto, that the will to serve is one of the ingredients that mans the Fighting Forces of the Crown.
Ask a second lieutenant why he joined the Army, or a schoolboy why he wants to go into the Navy, and I daresay he will not mention that he wants to serve his country. He may not consciously think of it and may be shy of mentioning it if he does. But look about you! Is it not plain to see that there exists among the young of to-day a greater will to unselfish service towards their fellows than has been evinced by any other generation? The numbers who offer themselves for anything, from Voluntary Service
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Overseas to looking after old people in their homes, is ample and familiar evidence of this. Yet the Ministry of Defence, of all people, appear to be oblivious of it.
In times of peace, and what passes uneasily for peace, we rely for our defence on volunteers, and we might pause to reflect on what it is that the volunteer does. Of his own free will he assigns to others the right to expose him, without demur or even comment on his part, to the risk of injury or death. That may sound dramatic, and it is unlikely that he himself will think of it in quite those terms. None the less it is true; and if he thinks about it soberly he must know that it is true. Why then does he do it? Simply for the sake of the attractions and the advantages set out in the advertisements? In some cases, Yes, no doubt. But in every case or even most cases?—I do not believe it. I believe that the instinct of service, including military service, exists by reason of upbringing, education or tradition in many of those whom the Government wish to recruit but who nevertheless do not respond.
This then is my hope: that the Government will pursue the policy which the White Paper foreshadows, of fostering
"a fuller public understanding of defence and the role of the Forces".
They have made an admirable start, in a way almost a revolutionary start. For too long we have seen defence relegated to a lowly place in the order of national priorities. On Tuesday of last week, October 27, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his first statement on public spending and economic policy. And when he came to enumerate the actual measures that he proposed, how did he begin? With these historic words: "I start with defence …". So by this Government defence is regarded, as it ought to be, as the first responsibility of Government. I hope that we may look forward to a public relations operation directed to explaining to the electorate why it is, and must be, so regarded; encouraging people to show esteem for the soldier, and, in addressing the potential soldier himself, appealing to his will to serve, not for his own pleasure, satisfaction or advantage alone, but also for the safety and protection of his fellow men. When it is leadership you are looking for, my Lords, you might do

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worse than transmit the motto of the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. That motto might conceivably have been, "Serve by leading". It is not; it is exactly the opposite: "Serve to lead". The number of those for whom that notion has an appeal, whether consciously or only dimly apprehended, may be much higher than you think.
8.30 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I should first like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, not merely on being Secretary of State for Defence but also on the success he has had with his own Party. He has produced a White Paper and persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Gridley to say that it gives him the greatest happiness. I suggest that it does not take much to give the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, the greatest happiness. In the course of some fairly short remarks, as I hope, I shall deal with certain points about which we on this side of the House are not quite so happy.
I should like to start by stressing the basic agreement that I think exists on the main issues with regard to defence. In doing so, I am not trying to saddle the Government with our defence programme—although I think that they have kindly taken it on—but I think there is agreement on the basic principles. It goes without saying that the most important aspect of our defence effort (and it is the point at which the Supplementary Statement begins) is our loyalty and our commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. This is something which, in debate after debate, whether in Opposition or in Government, we have reiterated in your Lordships' House, but I see no harm in emphasising it again, and in stating that this is our first priority.
My Lords, this does not diminish our hope for some détente with the Warsaw Pact Powers. I do not blame the noble Lord for making no reference to this in such a short and necessarily rapidly prepared Supplementary Statement, but I hope that he will, now or on some other occasion, confirm his support for the initiative which the NATO Defence Ministers and in particular his predecessor, Mr. Denis Healey, took in this matter. There are the studies going on in NATO; and also, and in particular, I hope that your
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Lordships will appreciate the importance of the talks that are going on in Helsinki at the moment between the Soviet Union and the United States on the limitation of strategic weapons. Although one could point immediately to the fact that this does not solve the problem, none the less the fact that such talks can take place—when we look back over ten or twenty years—is in itself a sign of remarkable changes. And now is the time to keep the initiative going, when one detects a willingness on the part of the Soviet Union and other countries in Eastern Europe to advance to co-operation in these matters.
This does not suggest that we should not keep up our defences and play our part, and if I have some critical remarks to make—as had my noble friend Lord Chalfont—it does not in any way diminish our desire, while in Opposition, to see that this country plays its proper part in contributing to international stability. I think that the speeches from noble Lords on this side of the House, from my noble friend Lord Shinwell and others, made clear that desire.
The fact that there are doubts and anxieties is not just an aspect of Party politics. I ask noble Lords to recognise that defence is a matter about which it is right and proper to have discussion. There are options; there are different ways of handling it. The Government have in certain areas chosen different solutions to the ones that we had chosen; and they appear to have I managed it (I shall come on in a moment to the price tag) at roughly the same price, or at slightly less than the previous Government had intended.
In his Statement the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, complained, anyway by implication, that he was glad to hear one generous statement. I am bound to say that the noble Lord himself has not always been very generous. I sometimes wonder whether in his next incarnation the noble Lord will not be a wasp. He stings, and let me say in fairness to him that his stings hurt. Equally, let me say to him that he leaves very little poison behind; I say this in a complimentary sense. But the noble Lord really has made a number of extraordinarily provocative remarks from time to time, and not only when in Opposition. I expect

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that he will accuse me of lecturing him a bit on this. When the Opposition make points, some of which, the majority of which—I have to be careful about this; I was going to say some of which are serious; that is another Freudian slip of the kind that I am inclined to go in for—are serious, I hope the noble Lord will do us the credit of thinking that defence is something which can be the subject of the most detailed intellectual disputation. Anybody who has served in the Ministry of Defence knows just how much disputation there is between the Armed Services and their very able leaders.
Now that we have had a chance to study this White Paper I must say that I think some of our criticisms, indeed most of the criticisms which we made at very short notice before we had a chance to study it, are at least fair in the sense that they represent a reasonable point of view. I am perfectly prepared to agree that a number of noble Lords take a different view on certain points. As I say, I find it difficult to see the wild happiness in the eyes of the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, as a result of a White Paper which follows so closely on the policies of the previous Government. None the less, some sort of additional "sex appeal", or something, has been produced in this White Paper which has made noble Lords support it so enthusiastically.
I must take exception right at the beginning to the noble Lord's treatment of defence expenditure. He said it was up to us to explain the apparent discrepancies which are referred to in the White Paper. We have attempted to explain it to him and he has offered to meet me and explain it to me; but I think we might just try once again in your Lordships' House. The trouble about paragraphs 38 and 39 (quite a lot of play has been made about them) and about paragraph 37 is that they are extremely abbreviated and they fail to reveal the real facts. I trust the noble Lord has read the White Paper, Cmnd. 4234, to which reference has been made. It is a rather revolutionary document on public expenditure which, unfortunately, we did not debate in your Lordships' House. The purpose of that document was to give Parliament, and the country as a whole, some view extending over a num-
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ber of years, and with a rolling programme, of how expenditure was divided, so that people could look at the total allocation of resources. In relation to 1972–73, the White Paper, Cmnd. 4234 states categorically:
"The Government have not yet taken decisions on the level for individual programmes in 1972 and 1973."
If we look at the footnote, we see allocation on a provisional basis and allocation simply carried forward. But the decisions had not been taken, and the allocation made to the Defence Budget on this basis of £2,070 million in 1972–73 is simply carried forward at the same level for 1973–74. What makes comparison even more difficult is that the Government (I do not blame them for this because this is according to the convention) have updated the figures in terms of 1970 prices.
I am a little nervous about the Government's publishing their Defence Budget targets, because it is only too likely that these figures will change. Indeed, in the course of the summer, when noble Lords in the Cabinet were spending those long hours in the Public Expenditure Survey talks, which must have been very painful this year, changes and cuts would have been made in the programme, and even the figures for 1971–72 could not have been described as final. Furthermore, as there was going to be an over-run in 1971–72, there again, under the curious convention which I confess I have never completely understood, any increase in salaries and pay for public expenditure purposes are not taken into account. This is an important factor. Owing to the much better recruiting figures this year, expenditure has tended to go up, and provision to allow for the increases in military salaries and the big increases for single men, has knocked the figures a little sideways.
I say this because I hope that noble Lords will not now assume that there was some mysterious mistake on the part of the previous Government. The noble Lord opposite was given an opportunity to say that he was making a mistake. It is not for me to explain that he was making a mistake. He has left his simple and happy-minded supporters on the other side of the House under the belief that somehow they had caught out the previous Government. I think we can

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regard this particular matter as disposed of. I will not go on further, because I see the noble Lord nodding his head, either in slight disgust or perhaps in agreement. I hope that it is agreement.
That brings me to the issue which has caused such uncertainty in the minds of the noble Lord, Lord Byers, and others who have studied this White Paper. What sleight of hand, what miracle, has the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, wrought that has enabled him to make major improvements and to avoid the major cuts in the programme which he says would have been necessary under the previous Government in order to meet the targets? How has he managed to avoid these cuts without doing serious damage to the Forces? Admittedly he has pointed out that there will be adverse consequences for the Services, which the Government would have preferred to avoid. I should like to know what these adverse consequences are.
If the money can be found, and the price is right, I wish him luck in his negotiations in this matter of buying EXOCET, as making some contribution towards meeting what I acknowledge is a real gap. This is an important development. I do not think this is sleight of hand on the part of the noble Lord. I admit that the increase in the potential strength of the Air Force by four squadrons of Jaguars is diminishing the gap in relation to the Phantoms and Buccaneers, which now will continue on the carrier, granted that these are allocated for a naval role. We shall want to know what expenditure he has in mind now for replacements. The Gnats will scarcely continue, even if they are appropriate. I do not know how this fits into the R.A.F.'s highly expensive training programme. When we realise that it costs something like £50,000 to convert a pilot on to a Lightning, and that these training costs mostly relate to the capital cost of the aircraft and their maintenance, we shall be interested to know what sort of aircraft are to be used for advanced flying training in this type of operation.
I welcome also the increase of the new T. & A.V.R. I am not quite clear why these 10,000 men, if we can recruit them, should not be fully up to the standards of T. & A.V.R. II. I cannot remember whether the existing
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T. & A.V.R. II is fully recruited. Some noble Lords think that we abolished all our reserves in some way. In fact, although the numbers of the Territorial Army were diminished, we succeeded—and when I say "we", let me acknowledge that it was the men who undertook the duties of creating in the T. & A.V.R. II an infinitely more serviceable and valuable reserve—in improving the quality of T. & A.V.R. II.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, for his tribute on equipment. I think it does no good for any Party to imply that the Armed Forces are not well equipped. I am sure that on this the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will agree. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, who has been such an ally to the R.A.F., was able to acknowledge developments in that Service. I will not pursue with him the issue of the independent company. I am not sure that, in his attempt to find justification, he did not wax a little too enthusiastic in relation to both the 18th century and the individual companies proposed for to-day. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will answer the valid points made by my noble friend Lord Chalfont.
May I now deal with the question of the carrier? I am bound to say that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is entirely logical in the context of the Government's apparently declared policy. Although the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was enthusiastic about one carrier, he knows probably better than anyone the limitations on one carrier, because he played an important part in the Indonesian confrontation, and while he was there, or shortly afterwards, there was a time, at the height of the confrontation, when an attack was almost hourly expected, when not a single serviceable carrier was in the Far East.
The difficulty comes back to numbers. I would acknowledge the retention of the "Ark Royal" and its contribution to the general NATO military strength, but it is really misleading ourselves to suggest that it contributes significantly to the protection of the Fleet by itself. The noble Lord honestly answered that it will spend only two-thirds of its time at sea; and even then, because of major refits, the time that the carrier will be able to remain at sea actually operational, without

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having to have maintenance, even with Fleet Trains and so on, is limited. Numbers do count. This has always been the difficulty over the carrier. I admit that I may have certain prejudices on this from my own background, because I was in Coastal Command and always resented the attempts of the Navy to steal Coastal Command from us.
But, forgetting that, and looking at the various studies that have been made of this matter, the fact is that numbers do count. The idea of a Fleet of six or, preferably, ten carriers makes sense. But it is very arguable whether one carrier significantly adds to the security of the Fleet, as the chances of having it serviceable in the right place at the right time are slim. I shall be interested to hear what cogent reason has led the noble Lord to go on with "Ark Royal" but not to continue with "Eagle", or, for that matter, "Hermes", although I realise that there are difficulties of putting modern equipment into these.
On Malaysia a number of noble Lords have discussed this matter strongly and effectively. I think there is a general feeling in this House of personal commitment to Malaysia, and it is one that I acknowledge. But I believe there is an argument here. On the one hand, the noble Lord is going to station a battalion group. On the other, he appears, whether we like to see five or not, to be diminishing our capacity to reinforce that out of the general capability. All the exercises carried out by the previous Government were based on the ability to achieve a rapid movement of forces, and the recent exercises have been successful. The keeping of a presence there does give a hostage, and it does diminish our ability to decide whether or not to be involved. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, referred to certain moral responsibilities. But moral responsibilities, as we have seen too painfully, land countries in the most difficult situations. It is better, if one cannot fulfil them properly, to be honest about it. I make no reflection on the Government; I merely say that this is the real issue.
I have not time to join in with those who have argued the Simonstown situation beyond saying that the war in the Indian Ocean and the anti-submarine war was one that was fought in circumstances which I find it inconceivable will
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be repeated in a future war. But even granted that this could happen, the important thing in those days was the availability of bases in East Africa. It was not just Simonstown: the maritime aircraft were operating from East Africa as much from anywhere else. It will not pay us to have friends in South Africa if we have enemies in the other parts of the African Continent. I will not go into the moral arguments on this subject, but I ask noble Lords to realise that there is a real issue as to what, quite apart from the moral issues, is in the best interests of our country.
My Lords, I am sorry to have taken so long. We shall have further opportunities. I wish the noble Lord luck. I found the reference to the fact that the Chancellor of the Echequer the other day said, "I will now begin with defence" one of the most worrying statements that I have heard for a long time.
8.55 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I hope that I have the words right. May a generous, warm-hearted wasp, who in spite of the season is still fairly active, have the leave of the House to speak yet again in this debate? I should like to praise the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the Leader of the Opposition, for his generosity in acknowledging that what we have done in this White Paper really makes very worthwhile additions to the Forces—I think those were his words. I am glad that in the intervening period since last week he has thought better of his statement in Column 115 of Hansard that the Statement referred to major improvements in the capabilities which he had totally failed to detect. I am glad at any rate that the noble Lord has had second thoughts about that, and I am grateful to him. The noble Lord also said—and this is perfectly true—that the White Paper was confined to a certain number of subjects. I said at the beginning of the debate that this was really to announce what we are doing to remedy some of the gaps that we thought there were in the Services, and to carry out some of the promises that we made in Opposition. Of course, it does not deal with a whole host of subjects which a normal White Paper would deal with.
Several noble Lords have made interesting speeches which are, strictly speaking, outside the ambit of this debate, but, if

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I may say so, were none the worse for that. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, fresh from Luxembourg, made an interesting speech about European defence which is well worth studying, but, if he will forgive me, I do not think that this is the right occasion this evening to comment on it. My noble friend the Duke of Devonshire and the noble Lord, Lord Walston, talked, by implication at any rate, about arms to South Africa. I do not think that this is the right occasion for me to discuss that. But I would just say about my noble friend's speech that those of us who know him well and who have known his interest in the Commonwealth and the hard work that he has done for the Commonwealth over these past many years, will certainly acquit him of any bias against that institution. Whatever views there may be in the House about his speech—and no doubt some noble Lords opposite will not agree with it—we all know that he is passionately keen on preserving the Commonwealth as an institution for good.
I hope your Lordships will forgive me if the remarks that I make are rather scrappy. I shall try to answer some of the questions, though I do not think I could possibly answer all the questions that have been put to me. A number of your Lordships have asked about the representative companies. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, was rather scathing, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, had some queries about this subject. My noble friend Lord Balerno, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and others of your Lordships thought that these were good ideas. But the particular question which noble Lords opposite wanted me to answer was what these companies were going to do. As regards their duties, the situation is that three of the infantry companies will become air-portable companies in a brigade, one in each of the three brigades of the Third Division; another will be responsible for demonstration duties at Sandhurst and the Mons Office Cadet School, and the other two will carry out recruiting duties within their own divisions of infantry and assist in training with the T. & A.V.R. and Cadets and with public duties.
We are examining other roles which we think these companies might play. They will be commanded, the noble
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Lord, Lord Chalfont, will be relieved to hear, by majors, but the career implications are by no means as dreadful as the noble Lord has suggested. The companies remain part of their divisions of infantry, and, as he knows, personnel management is now conducted on a divisional basis: so promotion will be all right. I think they have a worthwhile job to do. They will be there, too, for any possible expansion of the Army. I think, if I may say so, it is a mistake that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, should dismiss, as I think he did rather lightly, the effect on morale of the retention of these regiments in their company position. I think all of us, whatever Service we were in, were proud of our regiments, squadrons or ships, and I do not think that those of us who are interested in the Services should underestimate the proper sentiment that they evoke.
A number of noble Lords asked me about the Gurkha battalion in the United Kingdom. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, and my noble friend Lord Ampthill asked me about this. The Gurkha battalion in the United Kingdom will serve unaccompanied on a tour of about 18 months, and, as we have already said, it will be employed on similar tasks to British troops and be available to assist in meeting the many infantry commitments. So it will help to reduce the strain on British units. As a general statement of policy this is fairly clear and is something which will be readily understood, certainly by noble Lords opposite and those who know about the tasks which the infantry battalions undertake in this country.
The actual duties will be settled in due course, and they will change from time to time, but the examples are: taking part in public duties—and I will certainly look at my noble friend's suggestion about a special parade to commemorate this—and assisting in training exercises, demontrations, and Army displays throughout the country. I do not think we envisage that they would assist the civil power, and they will not be used in Northern Ireland. With this battalion in Britain we should, for example, be able to send another unit there with less serious repercussions on the rest of the Army because the Gurkha battalion would be in this country. The remainder of the Gurkhas would be either in Hong Kong or Brunei,

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and I think it useful that there should be one battalion over here for the sake of morale in the Gurkha Brigade.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I ask for elucidation of that last sentence? What does the noble Lord suggest is good for their Gurkha morale in serving on Salisbury Plain? It was never good for my morale.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord is not a Gurkha. I believe that the last occasion on which a Gurkha battalion was here for some time was a great success, and the Gurkhas enjoyed it very much. If they are only going to serve in Hong Kong and in Brunei, probably they would welcome a period in which they can serve in the United Kingdom.
LORD CHALFONT: Yes, my Lords, I accept that. I should like to point: out that although I am not a Gurkha, being Welsh, I am a member of an oppressed minority, so I feel very strongly for the Gurkhas.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I should have thought that the noble Lord would feel very much at home on Salisbury Plain.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether this has been cleared with the Home Office? Will they be allowed to get into this country?
LORD CARRINGTON: So far as I know, my Lords, they will. I should like to mention one other area of the Ministry of Defence's business which my noble friend Lord Napier referred to, and that is the overheads of the Forces, especially in headquarters in this country. My predecessor began the task of streamlining, and if it will not upset noble Lords too much I should like to give him full credit for what he did. I believe that there is more to be done, and we have to make the greatest possible economies if our scarce resources of money and uniformed manpower are to be used to the best advantage.
The record of the Ministry of Defence in cutting down staff in recent years has been good, especially when it is contrasted with the expansion in Whitehall generally. Since 1964—a date which I remember very well—some thousand posts have been cut out of the Ministry itself, and others have been moved out
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of London. Another 2,000 have been saved in (Command Headquarters and, taking the complete, global picture—and this is, of course, accounted for to some extent by the rundown around the world—some 70,000 civilian staff, including 28,000 United Kingdom staff, have been reduced. Even so, that is not the full story. With the shortage of uniformed manpower civilians have to carry out as many tasks as possible in order to concentrate Service people in fighting units. Since 1964 civilian staffs have taken over 6,000 posts that were previously filled by uniformed personnel. So the real reduction in United Kingdom staff has been about 34,000 over the past six years. I do not think that that is at all a bad story in a Ministry which very often gets blamed for having a grossly over-inflated headquarters.
We have to go on with this process of reducing overheads and increasing management efficiency, and the Committee which was set up last year under Sir James Dunnett to study the headquarters organisation both of the Ministry and the Commands has already done a great deal of useful work, and is still going on with that work. Several noble Lords talked about the Territorial Army, notably my noble friend Lord Thurlow, who accused me—rather surprisingly—of being "anti-Generals" and said that I despise them. I assure him that nothing is further from the truth. As an acting-temporary-unpaid major during the War I have nothing but admiration for Generals, and still have a distressing tendency—even at this late stage—to stand to attention when I see red tabs and a red hat.
The noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, who I know is unable to be in his place at this hour, said a lot of useful things about the Territorial Army. I am anxious to listen to all that can be said about the expansion of the Territorial Army and now it should be carried out. All that we have done so far is to lay down the broad framework. I am only too keen to listen not only to the Territorial Council and to serving officers but to any of your Lordships, or anybody else, who feel they have something to offer in this respect. I note particularly the remarks of my noble friend behind me with regard to yeomanry and drill halls.

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The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, asked me about the C5 aircraft and what we were proposing to do about its replacement. I do not think that there is any particular urgency at this moment about the replacement. The Britannia, as he said, will have to be replaced after 1975. We need not make up our minds at this moment what that particular replacement should be. It may well be, as he indicated in his speech, that it ought not to be an aircraft quite so large as the C5. We must see as the years go on what types of aircraft are available and then make up our minds how we should replace the Britannia.
My noble friend Lord Napier referred to the size of the tail in Singapore which he and my noble friend Lord Crawshaw were both rather shocked at. It is precisely for this reason that I am anxious that there should not grow up as a result of our much more modest presence in Singapore a very large tail. It is for that reason that I think we should examine very carefully with our Australian and our New Zealand colleagues ways and means of sharing the logistic burden and of cutting down the size of the headquarters there, because I agree with him that this is extremely important. I think the current trendy phrase is that "one must present a low profile". Well, we shall certainly try to do that. He also asked me whether or not the battalion in Singapore would be accompanied. What we intend is that all those who are actually stationed in Singapore, rather than visiting, passing through, should be accompanied, because the Australian and New Zealand troops will be accompanied, and I think it would be out of the question that British troops should be in a different situation from the Australians and the New Zealanders.
My noble friend Lord Ampthill—and I am grateful to him for what he said about me personally—spoke about what was to happen to the Phantoms and the Buccaneers when they were disembarked from "Ark Royal" and from "Eagle". They will be stationed in air bases round the United Kingdom, and the Royal Air Force are confident of their ability to do the job which they have been asked to do. I share with him, on another subject, his slight unease about torpedo develop-
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ments. This is something we are looking into urgently in my Department.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone suggested that we should postpone the date of paying off "Eagle". But, of course, the difficulty here is that one really must have plans about manpower, and it is necessary to set a date when "Eagle" should be paid off. I will look more closely into the suggestion he has made about continuing "Eagle" as an alternative aircraft carrier, but I must tell him that this would really be a very expensive operation. Not only can she not at the present time fly Phantoms, but she needs a very extensive refit which we should have to take into account when making up our minds whether or not it was possible to do this.
Several noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Gladwyn and Lord Chalfont, and others—have asked me about the commitment in South-East Asia. I think noble Lords will know that under Article I of the Anglo-Malaysian Defence Agreement the United Kingdom undertakes to afford to the Government of the Federation of Malaya—now, of course, Malaysia; and the agreement is now also considered to be inclusive for Singapore—such assistance as that Government may require for the external defence of its territory. That is a very firm and bilateral commitment, to come to the assistance of Malaysia in the event of an external attack or threat of attack on the country. Our allies have accepted our view that this kind of commitment is no longer in line with present-day realities and that it must be replaced by one in which the three external Powers will have the same commitments towards Malaysia and Singapore, and in which all the five partners in the Alliance will consult together but will remain free to decide what action it would be appropriate for each one to take in the particular circumstances. There will be no veto and no majority vote. And, as I have said, the Command arrangements have still to be worked out in detail. Broadly, however, they will reflect the consultative nature of the new commitment as I have described it.
Incidentally, if I may say so, I really do not understand the insistence of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont—and here I agree with my noble friend Lord Selkirk, who knows more about that part of the

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world than perhaps any other Member of your Lordships' House, and my noble friend Lord Gridley and the noble Lord, Lord Segal—on the idea that a British military presence in South-East Asia would somehow be provocative. That is certainly not the opinion of the leaders of the nations in South-East Asia, who take exactly the opposite point of view.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I make the point which I tried to make in my earlier remarks: that, although the views of the countries concerned in this agreement are interesting and even important, it is not they who are going to be provoked. What I have suggested—and I think it a perfectly valid argument to put forward—is that the presence of foreign troops in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, in areas like South-East Asia and the Persian Gulf, about which I make a similar argument, is more likely to be provocative of trouble than a deterrent to it. It may be that noble Lords opposite do not agree with that; I can understand their difference of view. But I ask the noble Lord to believe that it is a valid argument which is held by a great number of people both from the political and from the military point of view.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not for one moment suppose that the noble Lord does not hold that view sincerely—of course not; but from my point of view I would rather take the advice of those who live in that area and the Governments of the people in that area as to whether or not our presence was provocative. It seems to me that they are likely to be much better judges of what is provocative on their own soil than noble Lords who sit in this House. As I pointed out in July, I think, to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, he is really rather inconsistent, because if he carries that view to its logical conclusion there would be no Five-Power defence arrangements at all in the area, which my predecessor, and his Government, strove so hard to create in order to fill the gap which would have been left by their own decision to withdraw British forces. Indeed, they welcomed the fact that Australia and New Zealand were retaining forces in that area. So I think the noble Lord is, if I may say so with no kind of a sting, a little at odds with some of his own Party on this matter.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am sorry to keep interrupting and I will try to keep this intervention brief. I would also ask the noble Lord to remember that when wasps sting they die shortly afterwards.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Bees!
LORD CHALFONT: I thought it was wasps as well. The point I am making is simply a point of physical presence. Five-Power agreements—yes. And even the ability to intervene in a certain situation from outside—yes. The point I am making, and I hope that the noble Lord will take it, is that it is the presence of troops on the ground, especially of foreign troops, in areas like South-East Asia and the Persian Gulf, which may be provocative.
LORD CARRINGTON: But, my Lords, the Australian and New Zealand troops were on the ground. I am afraid I do not understand the noble Lord's intervention. I hesitate to disappoint him, but I really am feeling remarkably well and as I understand that wasps do not die anyway, it is all right.
The noble Lord asked me a great many questions. I am sorry to concentrate on him, but I hope he wants the answers, and I apologise if I am taking rather a long time. He asked a number of questions about the revised plans for the Jaguar. It had been planned to use these aircraft to replace the Gnat and the Hunter for the advanced flying training of pilots going on to fly fast jet aircraft. As your Lordships know, the Jaguar is supersonic, and it has equipment representative of advanced frontline aircraft. Pilots would therefore have been introduced at a relatively early stage to an aircraft comparable with those in Squadron service. The essence of the new plans for advanced flying training is that pilots will in future graduate to the more advanced frontline aircraft, such as the M.R.C.A., through a first squadron tour on a less complicated aircraft, and the extra front line Jaguar squadrons which we are planning to form will provide greater opportunities for them to do this. We shall of course need a new trainer, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, for what can then be a less advanced stage of non-operational flying training. This will be very much less expensive than

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the Jaguar and its cost has been fully taken into account in our calculations. There are a number of ways of meeting this requirement. Both the main British aircraft companies have projects and there are also a number of European projects, but we have not yet finally decided which of the alternatives to use.
My Lords, may I for one moment return to the Defence budget. I do not wonder that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, looks uneasy. I am sorry that noble Lords have had some difficulty in following what I have said. I do not wish to be in the least provocative about this but I wish to explain exactly what I mean. The long-term costings are an estimate of the costs over the years ahead of the actual plans of the Governments of the day. They are none the less real for not being published, and it is no good (if I may say so) the noble Lord, Lord Byers, accusing me of a sleight of hand because they do not appear in a White Paper published by the previous Government. The actual plans which I inherited from the Labour Government were estimated to cost several hundred million pounds more in the years ahead (and I am not talking about next year) than the allowances which the previous Administration made for them in their wider economic plans. There was a big gap between the plans of the previous Administration and the financial targets set for their fulfilment.
To reconcile the two would undoubtedly have posed the previous Government with a very great problem, and having studied that problem myself on taking office I am bound to say that I do not know how they would have overcome it. However, the estimated costs of the previous Government's defence programme were also considerably more than we thought it would be right to allow in our economic plans, for the reasons that I gave in my opening speech. We have therefore cut that programme, but we have not cut it back to what, if Cmnd. 4234 is to be believed, the Labour Government would have done. We have raised our sights compared with what I imagine theirs would have been. The plain fact is that all three Services will receive a substantial increase in their capability, which will also be of considerable benefit to NATO.
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My Lords the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, suggested that there would be an addition, if not to our existing forces then to our planned forces, in order to support the military presence in South-East Asia. But this is not so. As I have said, we are not planning to add to the forces which we have inherited from the previous Administration, except in so far as the Jaguar squadrons and the Territorials are concerned. We shall be taking exactly the same forces in total as they would have had, but we shall be deploying a small part of them differently. And this will also apply to the Nimrods, about which the noble Lord, Lord Winter-bottom, asked me.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to continue a little with this. I shall not be long, and then I will sit down and allow the noble Lord to interrupt. We are concerned only with the extra cost of that deployment, which is, as the White Paper says, between £5 million and £10 million—indeed, the only extra forces we have planned to raise are the 10,000 additional reservists in the T. & A.V.R. Group A and the new reserve armoured car regiment, and this will cost about £6 million a year.
Even the "Ark Royal" will be manned very largely by paying off H.M.S. "Lion", and the remainder of the men required for her will be found from elsewhere within the Navy's current manpower. Her aircraft will come from those which the Royal Navy would otherwise have handed over to the Royal Air Force. Again, therefore, we are talking only about an extra cost of about £3 million a year to keep on "Ark Royal". The extra Jaguar squadrons will be financed by using resources released by the changes in our flying training programme.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord is talking about hundreds of millions of pounds. I am not sure to which year he is referring. It cannot be 1974–75, because Cmnd. 4234 produces no figure for that year, although that is the only one where there is apparently a big saving on the original long-term costing. For the year 1973–74 the previous Government had arrived at

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no figure at all; they had merely carried forward the previous years' figures. For the year 1972–73—and even then the Cmnd. 4234 figure is provisional—the difference is £70 million, and consequently the noble Lord has come down a bit below that. For 1971–72 they have in fact picked the precise figure that the previous Government had.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, if you project into 1974–75 the same figure in Cmnd. 4234, I think the difference between the long-term costings and Cmnd. 4234 over the years was something in the region of £350 million.
LORD SHACKLETON: But Cmnd. 4234 had no long-term figure at all for the year 1974–75. I think a little more "prep." would help the noble Lord.
LORD CARRINGTON: It is not a question of "prep." As the noble Lord's Government projected the same figure over and over again and called it provisional, I have done the same; and this seems a reasonable thing to do.
LORD SHACKLETON: Perhaps the noble Lord would read paragraphs 32 and 33 again. I do think he is not being fair. However, I think we have probably taken it far enough, and the House can judge and do their own research.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords I have an idea that Members of another place will take it from here anyway, so perhaps we might leave it.
May I end by saying something about manpower? The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, referred to this, as indeed did several other noble Lords. There is no doubt that we face an unfavourable and very difficult recruiting situation. The main recruiting field for the Services consists of the 15 to 24-year-olds who are fit and available for employment. Generally speaking, we recruit more men from the younger age group, 15 to 19. As a man gets older he gets domestic commitments which may discourage him from undertaking the obligations, as well as the adventures, of a Service career. The size of this field is declining; and we shall lose an age group where it hurts us most, at the younger end of the scale, on the raising of the school-leaving age. As more and more young men go on to higher education, as my noble friend Lord Balerno said, they will cease to
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be available to join the Services until they reach an age when they have married and have other responsibilities.
Over the last four years the proportion of these young men in the 15 to 24 age groups, fit and available for employment, who have been recruited to the Armed Forces has averaged 1·1 per cent. If we are to meet our average annual requirement in the long term for something over 40,000 male other rank recruits, we need to raise that percentage to 1·4. The increase may not sound very high, but it represents an improvement of a quarter. Moreover, since the age group from which we mainly recruit spans ten years, and we are seeking to recruit at the rate of 1·4 per cent. a year, this means that about 14 per cent. of each generation must join as recruits at some time between 15 and 24 if we are to make good our targets. We also have to bear in mind that in order to obtain a given number of recruits we need, in the light of experience, to obtain something like three times as many applications.
This is not the complete picture. I have been talking so far of other ranks. It would be quite wrong to say that all is well with officer recruitment. I listened to what my noble friend said and I was most interested in and will study his suggestions. But we are not getting enough engineers for the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force, Sandhurst is short, and in all the Services there are shortages in particular categories. There is, in addition, the question of the terms of engagement, and the Report of the Donaldson Committee will have a bearing on this. I do not believe there is any instant solution or brilliant new idea which is going to solve the problem.
As regards pay, unlike my noble friend Lord Bourne, I believe that the new Forces' pay structure, the military salary, is first rate, and I give the noble Lords opposite credit for that. We have to examine the whole body of conditions of Service life and try to eliminate those areas which tend to put Service life at a disadvantage compared to other careers. Above all, we must see that the Serviceman's job is properly recognised and that the importance of defence is understood by everyone in this country. I agree, too, with my noble friend Lord Bourne that it is not only comparable service but it is also adventure and excitement that the

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young man wants. This is the sphere on which I think we ought to concentrate. May I say, too, that I have not exactly got a "think tank", but I have got a number of exercises going on, and I hope that some useful ideas will be produced. Examinations into the structure of engagement about which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, spoke may produce something helpful.
My Lords, as I have said before on many occasions, perhaps the most important of all the responsibilities of a Government and a nation is to ensure the safety and security of those who live in it, for without that security nothing else is possible—no social advancement, no increase in material prosperity. And it is on the competence and the wellbeing and the morale of the men and women in the Forces that we ultimately rely.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

IPSWICH DOCK BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
  TRAFFIC CONTROL IN CENTRAL LONDON
  TRAFFIC CONTROL IN CENTRAL LONDON