Sitting of 3 April 1978

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
DEATH OF A MEMBER
Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Alexander Wilson, esquire, Member for Hamilton, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  WALES

    Welsh Language
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Wales what are the latest figures available for the number of people speaking the Welsh language; what are the equivalent figures for 1950, 1960, and 1970; what steps he is taking to further the speaking of Welsh; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris): I will with permission, publish the figures in the Official Report. Between 1951 and 1971 the number of Welsh speakers fell by over 170,000. This Government have taken and continue to take a wide and significant range of measures to support and encourage the speaking of Welsh.
    Mr. Roberts: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that, in view of the evidence that the number of those speaking the Welsh language is falling consistently, in spite of the strenuous efforts being made by the Government, much more emphasis should be laid on informal methods of supporting the language? Does he agree that the most important thing to do is to stimulate an interest in the language among young people, possibly in the first instance by extending radio and television coverage in Welsh?
    Mr. Morris: I certainly would not dissent in any way from the helpful comment of my hon. Friend. The Government are committed to the fourth channel. It is however, a matter of resources. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set up a working party to consider the issue further. It is helpful to note that, although some of the figures are very unhappy, there is a higher proportion of those in the 10 to 14 year age group speaking Welsh. That is indicative of the effort made in the schools.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: While I appreciate the efforts made by the Secretary of State in the past few years to safeguard the Welsh language, may I ask whether he is in a position to announce whether the fourth television channel will be allocated to Wales? Does he agree that all the programmes on such a channel should be in Welsh?
    Mr. Morris: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Although there is a high degree of agreement as regards the apportionment of the fourth channel, a significant minority would be against segregating the Welsh language on one channel. The Government are committed to this.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: Will the Secretary of State tell us whether the body which he set up three years ago, the Welsh Language Council, to undertake detailed policy-making in respect of the Welsh language still exists? If it is still in existence, may I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to tell us whether he has received a long report from the council which arose as a result of extensive public consultations in Wales? What action does he propose to take about the report of the Council, A gawn ni farn yr Ysgrifennyd Gwladol yn faun ar yr adroddiad yma?
    Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman asks for my opinion on the report of the Welsh Language Council. The council's activity has come to an end. That was announced during January. I have received its report. It is now with the printers and will be published during May.
    Mr. Ifor Davies: Does my right hon. and learned Friend appreciate that he deserves the highest praise for his recent announcement concerning assistance to the National Eisteddford, which has done so much to sustain and further the Welsh language? Is he aware that the development of Welsh primary schools has done a great deal to further the language, particularly in Glamorgan? Will he give an assurance that he will give every support to such schools and will afford them priority over expenditure in other directions such as the provision of bilingual road signs?
    Mr. Morris: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks concerning the
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    grant of £275,000 to the National Eisteddfod which has been welcomed throughout Wales. The money gives the Eisteddfod vital breathing space to consider its situation and its future. I am most encouraged by the response of the authorities to the remarks I have made. I have mentioned earlier the increase in those speaking Welsh in the 10 to 14 year age group. This shows the effect which the schools have. I have given the schools every encouragement. I have also given particular encouragement to Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin, the Welsh language playgroup movement, the grant to which has been increased almost ninefold since I took office.
    Sir Raymond Gower: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Government had done a great deal. Will he go a bit further and say that most post-war Governments have done a considerable amount in this area? Can he say whether the grant to the Eisteddfod is a once-for-all grant or will it be looked at again?
    Mr. Morris: I do not dissent from what the hon. Gentleman has said. I think that all Governments have done a great deal in the furtherance of the language. I want to place that on record.
    The grant to the Eisteddfod is to meet the present situation. I foresee that it is a once-for-all grant from the Government because the normal course of assistance for organisations of this kind is through the Arts Council.
    Following are the figures:
    The latest figures are from the 1971 census, when 542,425 people were able to speak Welsh. The equivalent earlier figures are from the censuses of 1951 and 1961, when the numbers able to speak Welsh were, respectively, 714,686 and 656,002.

    Literacy and Numeracy
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will make a statement on the paper entitled "Examination Achievement in Wales: Literacy and Numeracy", prepared for the Welsh national conference on education on 10th March.
    Mr. Wyn Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Wales what positive steps he proposes to take following the publication of the papers "Literacy and

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    Numeracy" and "Examination Achievement in Wales".
    The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Barry Jones): A very constructive discussion of educational matters took place at the conference in Mold on 10th March and I am arranging for an account of this to be published. Thereafter I intend to meet local education authorities and other bodies throughout Wales and consider with them how further progress can be made to combat the measure of under-achievement revealed in these papers.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Does not the Minister feel it strange that, in a paper that regrettably identifies clearly that the less able child in Wales is disadvantaged against his counterpart in England, there is only a passing reference to the principal difference between the education sustained by children in Wales and in England, namely, that in Wales a proportion of time is spent on the compulsory teaching of a language which, however worthy of preservation, as it certainly is, culturally, is nevertheless in terms of the modern world a dead language?
    Mr. Barry Jones: The hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) spoke to me in an accent which was not Welsh. I think that his remarks were insensitive. It is required by the local education authorities in Wales that all the children should be enabled to have an understanding of Welsh, certainly while they are at the primary school stage. I do not believe one whit that it prevents the Welsh nation or the Welsh people from being able to take their place in the modern world.
    Mr. Roberts: Does the Minister agree that there is no positive evidence to show that there is a difference in attainment between Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers? Does he further agree that, judging by the results of the recent Institute of Mathematics test in six authorities throughout England and Wales, the standard of attainment in numeracy is low among school leavers in England as well as in Wales?
    Finally, I should like to ask the Minister these two specific questions. Has he come to a firm conclusion about changing the date of the CSE examination in
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    Wales so that it does not fall after the spring bank holiday leaving date? Secondly, has he decided to give positive encouragement to children to take the CSE by the Mode 3 method rather than the Mode 1 method?
    Mr. Barry Jones: I believe that the hon. Gentleman has in his latter remarks raised two very serious points. Those points were raised at the conference held at Mold. I particularly refer to the inability of pupils in Wales to enter for the same subject in both the O-level and CSE examinations of the Welsh Joint Education Committee. I shall certainly be contacting the examination board in Wales on that matter.
    On the hon. Gentleman's second point about the conference at Mold, it is true, it seems, that the comparative unpopularity of school-based assessment, including Mode 3, is important. I shall be asking the examination board again to look at the matter.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. May I ask for the control of Celtic exuberance? May we have briefer supplementary questions and briefer answers?
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Will my hon. Friend totally disregard the absurd supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) which demonstrated, for the second time, that he knows absolutely nothing about Wales and would be best out of the Chamber on these occasions? Will he confirm that the standard of educational attainment in those schools in Wales in which Welsh is the first language is very high?
    Mr. Barry Jones: Yes, I can confirm the latter point. With regard to the provocative and perhaps insensitive remarks of the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), the best thing for me to say is that perhaps he was off beam a little.
    Mr. Hooson: Does the Minister agree that, nevertheless, the two reports disclose a disquieting feature of Welsh education, namely, the number of children who lack literacy and numeracy? Whereas the reports concentrate on secondary education, do not the findings indicate

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    that the real weakness is in primary education in certain areas in Wales which are not the Welsh-speaking areas at all?
    Mr. Barry Jones: I beleive that the hon. and learned Member has put his finger on a very important factor in the education of all our children in Britain and certainly in Wales, which is the quality in the primary school sector. That is the foundation for every child's education in Wales.
    I take this opportunity to say that we are not complacent about the educational attainment throughout Wales. When the record of the Mold conference has been delivered to the education service participants in Wales, we will expect to take strong action.

    Welsh Assembly (Electoral System)
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Wales which organisations and how many individuals have made representations to him to date in favour of a first-past-the-post electoral system for the Welsh Assembly.
    Mr. John Morris: No organisations or individuals have made specific representations to me in favour of a first-past-the-post system for Welsh Assembly elections.
    Mr. Knox: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that this shows very little enthusiasm for the electoral provisions of the Wales Bill? Will he use his influence on his colleagues in the Government to get them to amend the Wales Bill so that the elections will be by a system of proportional representation, which would be much fairer?
    Mr. Morris: As regards enthusiasm, I have received 1,900 letters from individuals and only 17 specifically came out in favour of proportional representation. Out of 160 organisations, in like manner, only nine came out in favour of proportional representation.
    On the second part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, the House discussed this matter on 1st March and, by a substantial majority, came down against proportional representation.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree, from his knowledge of Wales, that the reason for there being no representations on either side for or against PR in the conduct of the Welsh
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    Assembly elections is that people in Wales know that they will never get to that, because, fortunately, the Government have provided for a referendum which will ensure that the present proposals are sunk without trace whenever we have the referendum?
    Mr. Morris: My hon. Friend will fight that battle when he comes to it.
    Mr. Wigley: Given that we are to have a referendum, will not the Secretary of State take the opportunity to put a question on the method of election in view of the fact that 70 per cent. or more of the population have indicated that they prefer the PR method of election?
    Mr. Morris: I thought that the House had dealt with this matter on 1st March, We had a full debate. I replied to the debate, and there was a substantial majority against proportional representation.

    Devolution Bill
    Sir A. Meyerasked the Secretary of State for Wales how many communications he has now received from county councils in Wales regarding the Welsh devolution Bill.
    Mr. John Morris: I have received seven communications from or on behalf of Welsh county councils about the Wales Bill and connected matters.
    Sir A. Meyer: Will the Secretary of State say whether these communications from county councils show any more enthusiasm for the devolution Bill than is shown by his Back Bench supporters, only two of whom take the trouble to turn up to speak in its favour? Is it perhaps the case that they recognise an electoral albatross when they see one?
    Mr. Morris: I think that a whole range of my hon. Friends have taken part in one way or another in the debate on the Bill. As regards the local authorities, when the Welsh Counties Committee saw me at a series of conferences that I held in Cardiff in 1974 it came down firmly in favour of the executive solution that we proposed. In the course of time the committee has become very concerned with one aspect, which is Clause 13, dealing with local government reorganisation. The hon. Member should know that there

    9
    is enormous dissatisfaction in Wales with the present system of local government.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Government are not so much concerned with the vested interests as with the best system of local government for Wales? Does he agree that the last reorganisation was very much a gerrymandering exercise in favour of the Conservative Party? For example, the county of South Glamorgan was purposely created to make it Tory for ever. Likewise, the county of Monmouthshire and the county borough of Newport would still be Labour under the old system of local government.
    Mr. Morris: We know that right hon. and hon. Members opposite, because they supported the reorganisation and are responsible for the present sysem, are not ready to accept the liability of the albatross which has been strung around the neck of the Welsh people. But it is important now to consider what deficiencies there are, and, if there are defects, to ensure that amendments are made. There is a number of ways to do it—by appointing a commission, another nominated body, or by my civil servants, or by an elected body. I believe that the job is better done by an elected body.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that, quite apart from the question of local government reorganisation, on which the county councils have made their position plain, they are equally concerned that they will be cut off from central Government in the negotiation of their own finances and the rate support grant? Is not that an intolerable position in which to place local authorities?
    Mr. Morris: Certainly not. The views of the councils on the matter vary. Given the concern in the hon. Gentleman's former county of Pembroke, where people fought bitterly and deeply against local government reorganisation, I should have thought that he would have spoken for dismembering the old county of Dyfed, knowing that the county council has voted so to do.
    Mr. Roderick: Hon. Members opposite are fond of quoting county councils. Can my right hon. and learned F1iend give any evidence from the district coun-
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    cils' organisations as to their feelings on the matter? Has he any means of ascertaining the pre-1972 views of those county councillors who are vociferous in their opposition to devolution and reorganisation and whether their views are the same now as they were then?
    Mr. Morris: I would not want to go too far back in history, but we all recall the attitude taken by many who are bitterly opposed to the system of local government imposed on them by the Conservative Party, which is manifestly seen not to be working to the satisfaction of the people of Wales. It is important that the system should be looked at and recommendations made to this House to ensure that the matter, where necessary, is put right.

    Industrial Development
    Mr. Ifor Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made in connection with further industrial development in Wales in addition to the Ford development at Waterton.
    Mr. John Morris: Since the Ford announcement last September, work has started on the Hoover extension at Merthyr Tydfil to provide, in due course, nearly 3,000 additional jobs In the whole of Wales, 50 Government factories with a total area in excess of 600,000 sq. ft. have been formally or provisionally allocated, 60 offers of financial support have been made to provide 3,500 jobs, and applications are under consideration which could provide a further 2,600 jobs.
    Mr. Davies: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that encouraging reply, which is an indication of the confidence of Ford in the quality of Welsh workers. Is he aware that there is a very close connection between the car industry and the steel industry, particularly as regards the quality of steel, which affects both industries? Is he further aware of the unanimous decision taken last Thursday by the Steel Development Committee for West Wales calling for immediate investment in a new mill at Port Talbot with a view to the quality of steel? Will he remind the British Steel Corporation and the Secretary of State for Industry of the commitment in the House in July 1976 that this investment would be proceeded with immediately?
    Mr. Morris: If my advice had been followed in July 1976, that mill would have been well under way by now. It is a matter of deep regret that the matter was not taken up by the BSC at the time. I am concerned naturally about the quality of steel, both for tinplate and for the motor industry, and I know also that the decision, subject to manning agreements, to invest in continuous casting, amounting to £80 million to £100 million, at Port Talbot has been very much welcomed.
    Mr. Wigley: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman recall the debate in the Welsh Grand Committee when the question of stimulation of industry by the WDA was raised, and hon. Members on both sides pressed for greater risk-taking by the Agency? Has he since had the opportunity to discuss with the Chairman of the WDA the opportunities for that body to stimulate industrial development in Wales by taking a greater equity stake and bearing greater risk?
    Mr. Morris: The WDA continually looks out for opportunities to take investment by way of equities in firms. The amount that it has taken up so far is, as I recall it, about £7 million. Month after month, when I meet the chairman and chief executive of the board, this is one of the matters I discuss with them. I met the full board less than a fortnight ago.
    Mr. Hoyle: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that equally important as employment to Wales is the environment? Will he therefore ensure that the contract for the dangerous chemical Kepone, which is being shipped by the Allied Chemical Corporation of America to this country and is being disposed of by Re-Chem International at Pontypool, does not go ahead? What is dangerous to the American people is equally dangerous to the Welsh people.
    Mr. Morris: That does not arise out of the Question. If my hon. Friend will put down a Question, I will see that he gets a proper answer.

    St. David's Hospital, Carmarthen
    Mr. Nicholas Edwardsasked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will set up an inquiry into recent allegations concerning staff conduct at St.
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    David's Hospital, Carmarthen; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Barry Jones: The Dyfed Area Health Authority is making inquiries into recent newspaper allegations of misconduct by staff at St. David's Hospital, Carmarthen. It has so far found no substance in these allegations. My right hon. and learned Friend cannot make a statement before the area health authority's inquiries have been completed, but I should like to take this opportunity to express my sympathy with staff of the hospital who understandably feel, as I do, that their collective reputation has been unfairly impugned by these anonymous imputations.
    Mr. Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, despite the recent story in the Daily Mirror, the hospital enjoys a high reputation, and that I and others have received representations from patients protesting at what they regard as a disreputable slur on the staff? Is he further aware that so far neither the journalist concerned nor anyone else has come forward with any evidence of any kind? Will the hon. Gentleman undertake that, when inquiries are complete, there will be a full report so that the public may be aware of whatever the true circumstances were?
    Mr. Barry Jones: My right hon. and learned Friend will make a statement when he has had a report from the area health authority. I have great admiration for the work done by those who care for the mentally ill. But when allegations involving the wellbeing of patients are made, even though they are made anonymously, we have a responsibility to make sure that there is not abuse, and a thorough investigation provides the best possible answer to any unjustified slurs. I know that the staff of St. David's understand this. Indeed, I believe that they themselves requested the inquiry.
    Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Daily Mirror, which alone published these allegations, has failed to produce any evidence to substantiate them, either to the police or to the health authorities? Does he agree that this kind of sensational and irresponsible journalism should be heavily condemned?
    Mr. Barry Jones: The police were informed immediately of the report of the

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    Daily Mirror because the allegations, if true, would have criminal implications. I understand that the information made available to them did not, in their view, justify further formal inquiries on their part as police. I would add that we are ready to give further help to this hospital this year. Planning work is going ahead for two new units, totalling 70 beds, in order to replace some of the poorest accommodation. That will entail expenditure of over £500,000.

    Development Board for Rural Wales
    Mr. Roderickasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will increase the financial provisions made to the Development Board for Rural Wales.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Alec Jones): I am satisfied that we have made sufficient current provision for the Development Board for Rural Wales to carry out its tasks effectively. The figure for 1977–78 was about £5 million, and I expect that the sum available to the Board in 1978–79 will be of the order of £6 million.
    Mr. Roderick: Is my hon. Friend aware that the board may be too successful within its limits, in that way it may not have factories available to let before the year is out? Could he not allow it some extra funds in order to create some larger units and some custom-built units, which is what it seems to need? Will he also ask the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) to refute the comments he made in the Welsh Grand Committee when he put the future of the board in some doubt, thus jeopardising the activities of people in the area?
    Mr. Alec Jones: Having been in existence only a year, the board has made a most promising start, whether one is talking in terms of its factory programme—the numbers let or under construction—or in terms of grants or loans or of the policy consultative document. Indeed, I was rather disturbed that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Edwards) raised at least some doubt—which was commented on by Members of all parties on the Welsh Grand Committee—whether the Development Board for Rural Wales, an important board, would be assured of its separate existence should the tragedy of a Conservative
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    Government being returned to office occur.
    Mr. Hooson: Does the Minister agree that, whereas the Development Board for Rural Wales is the most promising agency for the development and resuscitation of rural Wales, one of its tasks should be to expand certain of the villages as well as the towns on which it is concentrating at present? To do this, does it not need extra funds from the Government?
    Mr. Alec Jones: I do not dissent essentially from what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. That is why I am particularly pleased that the board has now published for the first year its policy consultative document, on which the views of all local authorities and other organisations can be taken into account. When we have those views, my right hon. and learned Friend can make decisions.
    Mr. D. E. Thomas: With regard to finance, how is it that the board is able to give loans and is not able to give grants, unlike the Highlands and Islands Development Board in Scotland, which is able to give small loans and grants? Will the Minister look at this again?
    Mr. Alec Jones: It is true that the powers of the Development Board for Rural Wales are not identical with those of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, but we have found, certainly from its first year of existence, that the board has adequate powers to meet the task which it is trying to overcome.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: If it is correct that there are more industries wishing to go to Mid-Wales than there are factories to accommodate them, will my hon. Friend direct those industries to Anglesey, where there are factories to accommodate them?
    Mr. Alec Jones: I think that we could direct such industries to a number of parts of the Principality. I make it quite clear, in regard to the number of factories, that at this moment there are seven factories which are unlet, 13 are still under discussion, and 13 more have been announced.

    Tourism
    Mr. John Stradling Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has to assist the tourist industry

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    in those parts of Wales that are outside the development area.
    Mr. Barry Jones: The whole of Wales benefits from the Wales Tourist Board's expenditure on publicity, research and general promotion. My right hon. and learned Friend is considering the representations he has received to revise the arrangements for assistance to tourist projects under Section 4 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969.
    Mr. Thomas: I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is reviewing the matter, but will he not agree that the criterion of the boundaries which apply has no relevance whatsoever to the needs of the tourist industry in the areas outside, where the criteria are entirely different, particularly as his Government impose such vicious taxation policies upon those areas?
    Mr. Barry Jones: I do not believe that the taxation policy of the Government is vicious. I would say to the hon. Member, who has raised this issue with regard to tourism a number of times, that the matter of boundaries is not for my right hon. and learned Friend but for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry.
    Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Does my hon. Friend accept that there is some feeling outside the development areas that the Government are mixing two objectives—the real need to stimulate employment within the development areas, and the need to strengthen tourism? Will he promise to discuss this matter with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade?
    Mr. Barry Jones: I agree that there is great feeling about this. I experienced the strength of opinion when before Easter I visited the North Wales coast at Rhyl, Llandudno and Colwyn Bay, where people face the same predicament as the people in the Chepstow area to which the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thomas) referred. There that strong feeling came out very clearly, but the people were satisfied that the Welsh Office was listening as sympathetically as it could in the situation. Certainly, my right hon. and learned Friend will be having discussions in Whitehall with regard to this problem.

    Unemployed Persons
    Mr. Michael Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Wales what recent representations he has received about the high level of unemployment, particularly male unemployment, in the Cardiff area.
    Mr. Alec Jones: I received a deputation led by the Lord Mayor last November. I am well aware of the general concern about the high level of unemployment in the Cardiff area.
    Mr. Roberts: Is the Minister aware that the increase in male unemployment in the Cardiff travel-to-work area has over the last 12 months been 16·8 per cent. compared with a national average of 3·8 per cent.? Will he give an assurance that he will make maximum use of discretionary and steering powers to ensure that when East Moors works is closed a very bad situation will not be made catastrophic?
    Mr. Alec Jones: We are aware that over the past year, and certainly with the closure of East Moors works, the people living there faced a very serious problem, caused basically by unemployment. That is why we have already begun discussions with the Welsh Development Agency and with the city council and county council, in which we are proposing that work be started immediately on one or two sites in the Cardiff area. It is for that reason that my right hon. and learned Friend announced that about £4 million would be available immediately for the construction of factories and sites in the coming financial year.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: Is it not a fact that, under the policies of the Conservative Government, the East Moors steel works would have been closed several years ago? Indeed, if their policy were pursued, Britain would have no steel industry at all, with the result that many more thousands of people, in Wales in particular, would now be on the dole.
    Mr. Alec Jones: I am very grateful that I have no responsibility in this House for the policies or suggestions made by the Conservative Party while in power, but the Conservatives seem to be learning wisdom the longer they stay in Opposition.
    Sir Raymond Gowerasked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the latest number of persons unemployed in Wales; how many of these have been unemployed for more than three months; and what were the comparable figures in 1973.
    Mr. Alec Jones: On 9th March there were 88,479 persons unemployed in Wales. As to duration of unemployment, in January 1978 60,444 persons had been unemployed for more than three months. The comparable figures for January 1973 were 24,705 out of a total of 45,772.
    Sir R. Gower: Has the Minister reflected that he and his ministerial colleagues have now been in office for more than four years, and have been in office for 10 years out of the last 14? Are not these figures a very sad commentary on the quality of their service?
    Mr. Alec Jones: I am quite astonished that the hon. Gentleman, in discussing what is rightfully a serious problem in Wales and the United Kingdom, namely, the level of unemployment, should pay no attention to the fact that unemployment is a major problem affecting countries throughout Europe. Has the hon. Gentleman not heard of the world-wide recession? Has he not heard of the rapid increases in oil prices in recent years? It is true that unemployment is far too high in Wales, but the steps taken by the Government are intended to rectify that situation.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is my hon. Friend aware that it ill befits the official Opposition—whose policies of enthusiastic cuts in public expenditure, and the destruction of the agencies established to sponsor development and employment in areas such as Wales, would bring about a doubling of the unemployment rate—to make criticisms of this sort? Will he accept that there is need for an additional commitment, especially in the form of investment in the steel industry, and in the form of job sponsorship in Wales, so that we do not lose another generation of young people because of unemployment?
    Mr. Alec Jones: I agree with my hon. Friend that the measures which the Government have announced, specifically to help overcome unemployment in Wales, have almost inevitably been opposed by the Conservatives. I invite them to read
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    again the speeches they made in the debate on the Welsh Development Agency when it was set up. I invite them also to think of the doubt which they have cast about the long-term existence, as a separate body, of the Development Board for Rural Wales. It is the aim of the Government to increase investment and to try to ensure that we have a good, strong, viable economic basis for employment prospects in Wales.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: I am sure that the Minister is aware of the high unemployment figure in Ceredigion, in my constituency. In the towns of Cardigan, Llandyssil and Lampeter it is as high as 14 to 18 per cent. What plans has the hon. Gentleman in mind to persuade industrialists to come to our part of the country?
    Mr. Alec Jones: We are certainly aware of the problems facing the people of Ceredigion, and that is one of the reasons why we were pleased to be able to announce recently the advance factory programme in that area.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Is the Minister aware that what Wales needs is not a number of ad hoc expenditure schemes to disguise the disgraceful nature of the unemployment which has arisen under the Labour Government but cuts in taxation to stimulate the smaller business and the younger business on which the future employment of Wales relies?
    Mr. Alec Jones: The hon. Gentleman says that Wales does not need a great deal of expenditure on ad hoc solutions, but I invite him to say which of the measures the Conservative Party is opposed to would be subject to the type of cuts he suggests. Indeed, if its policies are carried out, many more people will be unemployed in Wales. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, as a consequence of the Government measures, 56,000 people in Wales have now benefited from the steps taken to save or create jobs, at a cost of over £50 million—public expenditure which the Conservatives would have cut.
    Sir R. Gower: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.
    Mr. Wigley: In view of the fact that only half the Questions relating to Wales have been reached, Mr. Speaker, may I ask that the orders in which Questions are taken should be reviewed and that Welsh Questions should be taken more frequently than once every six weeks?
    Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that Welsh eloquence has defeated us.

  CIVIL SERVICE

    Staffing Levels
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Minister for the Civil Service what recent discussions he has had with the appropriate trade union leaders regarding staffing levels in the Civil Service.
    Mr. Wrigglesworthasked the Minister for the Civil Service what are the current levels of staffing in the Civil Service.
    The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Charles R. Morris): Discussions about staffing levels are part of the normal process of consultation with the appropriate Civil Service trade union leaders. As my hon. Friends will appreciate, the Government have taken steps to contain the size and cost of the Civil Service, and will continue to do so in the future. At the latest available date, 1st January 1978, there were 738,000 civil servants. This is some 8,200 lower than the corresponding 1977 figure.
    Mr. Skinner: Have my right hon. Friend's negotiations with the various trade unions been hampered by the proposed cuts in various Departments? Have the threatened cuts in the DHSS resulted in the fact that old people are not being visited to the extent they should when claiming supplementary benefit? Should we not try to prevent this situation, and will he assist by telling the Ministers concerned that we shall not wear this any longer?
    Mr. Morris: I shall convey that point to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, but I remind my hon. Friend that public expenditure cuts have had an impact on all sections of the community. It would have been wrong to exclude the Civil Service from those cuts.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the figures quoted prove that much of the criticism made of the numbers of civil servants is unjustified? Do they not disprove the myth that the Civil Service is constantly growing in size? Does he also agree that cash limits have led to larger cuts in numbers in the Civil Service than were intended by the public expenditure cuts? Will he review the position and consider increasing numbers in such areas as were suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)?
    Mr. Morris: In reply to my hon. Friend's first point, I must point out that clobbering the Civil Service has become almost a national sport. It is right to criticise the Civil Service, but I believe that any criticism should be informed.
    On the subject of cash limits, this has involved particular Departments in under-spending their allocations. I shall bear in mind the point made earlier about home visits.
    Mr. Anthony Grant: On the subject of dispersal of civil servants, does that process have any effect on staffing levels, and is the Minister satisfied with having achieved only 9 per cent. of his target figures of 30,000 for dispersal?
    Mr. Morris: The question of the dispersal of the Civil Service will be dealt with in a later Question, but I am satisfied with the progress that is being made in implementing the dispersal proposals envisaged in the Hardman Report. The dispersal programme was scheduled to take place over a 10-year period, from 1974 to 1984.
    Mr. Pardoe: The Minister said that the number in the Civil Service had dropped by 8,000 compared with the previous year. Will he go a little further and say how the figure has changed since 1970 or 1974, and what criteria are used by the Government in deciding the appropriate and efficient levels of manpower in any particular public service?
    Mr. Morris: The size of the Civil Service is determined by the tasks which this House gives it to undertake. I had no responsibility for the Civil Service during the period from 1970 to 1974.

    Disabled Employees
    Dr. Edmund Marshallasked the Minister for the Civil Service what progress has been made in increasing the percentage of employees of Government Departments who are registered disabled.
    Mr. Charles R. Morris: I can assure my hon. Friend that I am very concerned to ensure that opportunities to employ registered disabled people in the Civil Service are not overlooked and Departments are well aware of their responsibilities in this matter.
    The numbers of registered disabled persons employed by Government Departments are collected once a year. The latest available figures relate to the year ending 1st June 1977 which I gave to my hon. Friend on 26th October 1977. Until the figures for 1st June 1978 become available, it is not possible to assess changes in percentages achieved by Departments.
    Dr. Marshall: If the Government are to give a lead in the employment of disabled persons, should not the proportion of civil servants registered as disabled be higher than the 3 per cent. prescribed for all large employers, and are not some Government Departments still well below that figure?
    Mr. Morris: I am not wholly satisfied with the progress made in recruiting registered disabled persons to the Civil Service, but we should not minimise the contribution made by the Civil Service to the employment of such persons. It is a fact that the Civil Service, in employing 14,000 registered disabled persons, is the largest single employer of such people.
    Mr. Hannam: How can the Minister be as complacent as he sounds when only 6 per cent. of Government Departments employ their quota of disabled persons compared with 37 per cent. employed by private firms? Is he aware that obstacles are placed on the Civil Service in respect of the employment of disabled people—such as the regulation that prevents sheltered employment?
    Mr. Morris: I do not accept that my comments could be interpreted in any way as complacent. I must remind the hon. Gentleman that not only do I have to face pressure from him and many of my
    22
    many of my colleagues, but my brother is the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, and he keeps me on my toes on this subject. It is not true for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that the Civil Service makes life difficult for registered disabled people to come into the Civil Service. We go to great lengths to recruit registered disabled people.
    Hon. Members: Too long.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. No wonder we are making slow progress.
    Mr. Hayhoe: Is the Minister aware that he will have full support from the Conservative Benches for any measures aimed at improving the employment of disabled people within the Civil Service? Will he give some estimate of the number of disabled people who are employed in the Civil Service who would qualify to be registered as disabled but who have not taken the step of registering as such?
    Mr. Morris: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support for the Government's efforts at recruiting such people to the Civil Service. I cannot give any estimates. There is a problem even within the Civil Service of encouraging disabled civil servants to register as disabled.

    Youth Employment
    Mr. Molloyasked the Minister for the Civil Service what contribution the Civil Service has made to the provision of jobs for young people in the context of Her Majesty's Government's work experience scheme for youth.
    Mr. Charles R. Morris: Thirty-six young people have been placed in Government Departments under work experience schemes. Discussions are proceeding about other schemes in a number of Departments.
    Mr. Molloy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the figure he announced constitutes a contemptible contribution to a vitally important area of activity? Does he agree that the pathetic endeavours undertaken by the Civil Service still leave vast room for improvement and will he give an assurance that those endeavours will be instituted very much more quickly?
    Mr. Morris: I made the point earlier that there are areas in which the Civil

    23
    Service can be criticised. I share the sense of outrage expressed by my hon Friend on this matter. I believe that 36 young people is a deplorable figure. He knows and the House recognises that the implementation of work experience schemes needs the full support of the trade union or staff association representatives concerned. The difficulty that we have encountered is that there is opposition from one of the major Civil Service trade unions.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Select Committees
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Lord President of the Council whether he has any further plans to reform the procedures of Select Committees.
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement on the future of Select Committees of the Commons and, in particular, on their terms of reference.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): Our Select Committee procedures are one of the matters under consideration by the Select Committee on Procedure. I suggest that we await its report.
    Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend still agree that, if Select Committees are to remain—and there seem to be a lot of hon. Members on both sides, excluding me, who want that—they need to be drastically altered? Does he agree that one way to do this is to have separate secretariats for all the parties represented, which would provide a partisan cutting edge that has not been exhibited by the recent reports made by the Select Committees on steel and on race relations, for example? These reports have proved to be very rosy, consensus, coalition-type policies.
    Mr. Foot: I am not sure whether all the aspects of the matter that my hon. Friend deplores would be dealt with by the remedy that he has suggested. When we look at the report of the Procedure Committee, we shall look at all these suggestions.
    Mr. Hamilton: Does the Leader of the House agree that the operation of Select
    24
    Committees makes the process of open government more open than it would otherwise be? Any move to restrict the endeavours of Select Committees would be regarded as very reactionary. Does he agree that, in principle, Select Committees should have the right to demand the presence of Ministers of the Crown if they so wish?
    Mr. Foot: These are questions that we must consider when the Select Committee on Procedure reports. If I anticipate that report in any way, I shall be accused of prejudicing the Committee's recommendations.
    Mr. Reid: Does the Leader of the House agree that there would be advantages to the Scottish Assembly in having a highly developed Committee system there? Although this House may lack the will to reform itself, Edinburgh presents the opportunity of returning genuine powers of scrutiny to Back Benchers.
    Mr. Foot: Back Benchers have very considerable powers of scrutiny if they choose to exercise them. It is wrong to suggest that these powers of scrutiny can arise only if Back Benchers are members of Select Committees. Our experience over many years suggests that the opposite conclusion is true.
    Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend agree that Select Committees or any other type of Committee of this House cannot be above the party political battle? It is up to every member of every Select Committee to investigate the position on the basis of what he sees as being in the best interests of the people of this country. On that basis, my right hon. Friend might like to look very carefully at the proposals being put forward to the national executive of the Labour Party by the Machinery of Government Committee. These proposals take such points into consideration.
    Mr. Foot: I shall look most carefully at all these proposals, which, I believe, should be considered with a clear and open mind. Like my hon. Friend, I believe that the maintenance of the party system is absolutely essential to the maintenance of democracy.
    Mr. Adley: I recognise the views of the Leader of the House on Select Committees vis-à-vis this Chamber. However,

    25
    will he agree that when a Committee's report is unanimous—such as the one on race relations—and in tune with the views of the vast majority of citizens, albeit not with those of the national executive committee of the Labour Party and the race relations industry, it is incumbent upon the Government, when intending to legislate on these matters, to take very careful note of such a report?
    Mr. Foot: I will not comment on that particular report because, obviously, the Government will make their opinions known at a later stage. However, if the hon. Member is suffering under any illusion that the House always accepts the unanimous views of a Select Committee, he should examine the way in which the House voted on the unanimous report of the Select Committee into the corruption allegations. This shows not only that the House of Commons rejected the report but that some of the members of the Committee rejected their own recommendations.

    Register of Members' Interests
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Lord President of the Council what proposals he has for the publication of the Register of Members' Interests.
    Mr. Foot: I think that this is primarily a matter for the Select Committee on Members' Interests.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Does not the Lord President recall that, in reporting to the House as long ago as December 1976, he said that the status of the publication of the Register of Members' Interests was severely jeopardised by the action of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) in not conforming with the arrangements that were agreed to by the rest of us? The Lord President himself, in answering me in August last year, said that he hoped to make progress with an early report. When can we expect some firmer action from him?
    Mr. Foot: I have had a considerable exchange of letters with the hon. Member on this matter and with some other hon. Members. However, not very many hon. Members have raised it with me. I believe that the recommendation of the Select Committee for dealing with this question is not a remedy which would assist the House, and for that reason I
    26
    have not come forward with any recommendations. I think that, on reflection, the House will reach the same conclusion.
    Mr. Madden: Will the Lord President confirm that the Register of Members' Interests is kept up to date and is available for inspection in the Clerk's Office upstairs? If the register is to be effective, does he not agree that considerable changes need to be made? For example, any fees drawn by MPs as directors or consultants should be shown, and share disclosure should be toughened up.
    Mr. Foot: Whether we should alter the instructions given by the House to the Select Committee is another question. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. van Straubenzee) was raising a particular question relating to the last motion put on the Order Paper from the Select Committee. The question about any proposals for widening the matter would have to be considered generally.

    Estimates (Treasury Control)
    Mr. Silvesterasked the Lord President of the Council if he has proposals for the modification of the control by the Treasury over the House of Commons Estimates.
    Mr. Foot: Yes. As announced in the Government's reply to the Eleventh Report of the Expenditure Committee (Cmnd. 7117), the Government have decided to accept the Committee's recommendation that in future the proposed new House of Commons Commission should exercise the role now discharged by Treasury Ministers in relation to expenditure on the services and staff of the House. Accordingly, the House of Commons (Administration) Bill, now before the House, provides that from 1979–80 onwards the Estimate covering this expenditure will be laid before the House by the proposed new House of Commons Commission.
    Mr. Silvester: I thank the Leader of the House for that degree of change. Does he think that the proposals are sufficient to restore to the House the power that was foolishly surrendered in 1708—the power to initiate expenditure on matters that the House regards as its concern?
    Mr. Foot: I have no doubt that many follies were committed in 1708 by the

    27
    temporary Tory majority prevailing then, though I am not sure whether it was prior or subsequent to the election of that date. I am eager to reform these follies, but I believe that the House will have the opportunity to examine the Bill, which will mean a real and substantial improvement in the way that the House conducts its affairs.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Will the Leader of the House answer the specific point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester)? Will the House have an opportunity to initiate items of expenditure, or will these still be the subject of a Treasury Minister's blessing?
    Mr. Foot: That depends on the form of expenditure involved. There is a division between the forms of expenditure proposed in the Bill. The best way to discuss this is as the Bill goes through. We want the Bill to go through and to be on the statute book this Session. I am sure that hon. Members will show an interest in the way in which the Bill is shaped.

    Select Committees
    Mr. Adleyasked the Lord President of the Council what plans he has for amending the relationship between Select Committees and the Government.
    Sir Bernard Braineasked the Lord President of the Council what is his policy towards the more effective use of Select Committees, and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Foot: This is a matter now being considered by the Select Committee on Procedure, and the Government will naturally give full consideration to this report when it appears.
    Mr. Adley: Reverting to the comments that the Lord President made just now, may I ask whether he agrees that issues like steel and immigration are matters of party political difference and bear no relation to the personal Select Committee report that he mentioned? In view of that, does he not believe that Governments will be wise to concede that in future, if there is a unanimous report of a Select Committee on an issue of national importance, there should automatically be a debate in Government time within three
    28
    months of publication of the report, and that at the end of the debate the Whips should be withdrawn and there should be a free vote in the House?
    Mr. Foot: I do not believe that that proposition should be automatically accepted. When the House considers the full question of the operation of Select Committees in future, it will agree that this is a matter of great importance for the future of the House as a whole. I do not believe that all hon. Members will jump to the conclusions that the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) has reached. We should await the report of the Committee which is examining the matter at length and then debate it.
    Sir B. Braine: I agree with the Lord President that we could await the Select Committee report on the structure of Select Committees, but does he not agree that an effective Select Committee system is much needed in order to improve the efficiency and working of Parliament so that it can check the miscalculations and follies of Governments and civil servants? Will he not at least ensure that Select Committee reports are debated on the Floor of the House while the subject matter is still topical and fresh in the minds of hon. Members?
    Mr. Foot: That course is highly desirable when there are such matters and that is what we seek to do when we can. However, I can think of no Government that would undertake that they would always arrange debates within a certain period. It would not be for the convenience of the House for that to occur. Members of Select Committees should also bear in mind that other hon. Members also have rights which must be preserved as well as the rights of those who serve on Select Committees.
    Mr. Hooley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the fact that recent Select Committee reports have given rise to great controversy is a matter for satisfaction rather than otherwise? Does he also agree that there should be some arrangement for minority reports or notes of dissent by members of a Select Committee if they strongly differ from the majority view?
    Mr. Foot: I understand that any minority on a Committee can insist on

    29
    having a minority report. That right must obviously be preserved.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Mr. Ridsdale: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you any way of restraining the Minister of State, Civil Service Department from giving such long answers? On Question No. 27, dealing with the important subject of jobs for young people, you were not able to call a supplementary question from this side of the House.
Mr. Speaker: It may be my imagination, but I have an impression that questions and answers have been longer today. I cannot understand why.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I very much regret that the House has suffered inconvenience on a number of recent occasions, and again today, through not having available papers in their normal printed forms. I fully realise what problems this causes for hon. Members in their conduct of the business of the House and, of course, we are doing all we can to ensure that the present difficulty is overcome and that it does not recur.
Her Majesty's Stationery Office management has informed the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service of the position and is currently in negotiation with representatives of the National Graphical Association, the trade union concerned. In the meantime, every effort is being made by the authorities of the House to provide hon. Members with essential papers.
Mr. Pym: The House will be grateful for the Lord President's statement, even though it does not add much to the sum of our knowledge. He says that HMSO has informed ACAS of the position, but has the management asked ACAS to provide conciliation or other services and what chance is there of a permanent solution? At the beginning of his statement the Lord President talked about a few recent occasions, but it is the impress- 30
sion of hon. Members that these occasions are occurring with increasing frequency and obviously the inconvenience not only to Members but to the whole staff of the House is considerable.
Amendments to the Wales Bill were last collated as long ago as 8th March and the latest amendment has not even been printed but is on one of these photographed sheets. Is there any prospect of amendments to the Bill being collated in a proper manner tomorrow and at regular intervals in future? The Wales Bill is the most important piece of legislation before the House at present and it is here that we find the worst effects and worst example of the inconvenience caused through not having proper parliamentary papers.
Mr. Foot: As I said, I fully appreciate the great inconvenience caused to hon. Members by such a hold up in the papers. The example given by the right hon. Gentleman of the Bill which will be before the House tomorrow and on Wednesday is a telling example of the situation. We shall do our best to meet the immediate problem by the methods that I have described.
The best hope that we have for securing a permanent solution to the problem lies in the reference which has been made to ACAS which is looking into some of the deeper and more long-term questions. In the meantime, we are seeking to try to gel a fairly early settlement in order to deal with the immediate situation. I hope that some progress will be made at a meeting that is to take place tomorrow but I am not suggesting that at that meeting we shall be able to secure the long-term recommendations for which the whole House is looking to see a solution of the problem.
Mr. Pardoe: Could the Lord President make such statements a little less mealy-mouthed in future and, for instance, say something to hon. Members about the nature of the dispute? Is it about pay? Do the Government guidelines have anything to do with it? What is the problem? There is no need for him to be quite so squeamish about telling hon. Members about the problem.
Mr. Foot: The question is not involved with pay guidelines. It is not a dispute of that nature. It is about manning levels

31
and manning discussions. Hon. Members should approach the matter with some determination, as I do, to try to secure the best and quickest solution to the problem.
I heard an hon. Member opposite say that it does not sound as though I am trying to do that, but that is not the case. I fully appreciate that the absence of such papers causes great inconvenience to hon. Members. We are doing everything possible to try to solve the problem, but I do not believe that the sort of detailed statement for which the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) has asked would have contributed to a solution.
Mr. English: The right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) was right to ask about a permanent solution. We are aware that this sort of thing has been happening every year for a succession of years.
Mr. Skinner: So what? Lots of people are inconvenienced outside this building.
Mr. English: I am not talking about inconvenience. I am talking about the disease and not about the symptoms. That is precisely what I wish to ask my right hon. Friend about. It is not sufficient for him to say that the cure can be left not with the Civil Service Department, which is the responsible Department and the Minister of State for which is on the Government Front Bench at the moment, but with ACAS, which is not an executive organisation responsible for taking decisions that the CSD should be taking.
Is anyone considering when the House will get back a separate printing organisation of its own, in separate premises and responsible solely to this House? Such an organisation is bound to have different sort of working, for example, during Sessions and recesses, from an organisation responsible to the Government on, presumably, a continuous basis. Will the Leader of the House tell us when that is going to happen?
Mr. Foot: I am not prepared to comment on whether my hon. Friend's proposal for solving the matter would be satisfactory, but I am doubtful whether it would be the best solution or the best approach to the problem. My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension when he says
32
that we are proposing to leave the solution of the problem to ACAS. This is an industrial dispute and we are seeking to secure the benefit and advantage of advice from an organisation which has better experience in these matters than any other body in the country and which has helped to solve some very complicated industrial disputes. I believe that it will also help in this dispute and I think the whole House should welcome the fact that the reference has taken place.
Mr. Peter Walker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the inconvenience to the House and contempt of the House is as nothing compared with the Government's decision today to make an announcement about the whole future of British Leyland's investment policy in a Written Answer?
Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman has not been following these matters perhaps as closely as other hon. Members who have been raising questions with me about them over quite a long period. I have indiciated to the House that there will be discussions. I think that for the right hon. Gentleman to raise this matter on this subject shows how out of order he is.
Mr. Heffer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is time that some Members learned that workers have real problems? If they are discussing the question of manning levels, it is because they fear unemployment. All workers fear unemployment. Should not my right hon. Friend leave the matter to proper negotiation between the parties concerned rather than to hon. Members who suddenly become industrial experts when in essence most of them know nothing about industrial relations and never will?
Mr. Foot: This is not a question of unemployment. I fully accept what my hon. Friend said. I think that he is absolutely right about the way in which we should try to solve industrial disputes.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call the four hon. Members who have been standing. Mr. Biffen.
Mr. Biffen: Is the Leader of the House aware that, as a consequence of this dispute the House is not in possession of the

33
Division list of the Division which followed the debate on the nuclear reprocessing plant at Windscale? Will he make available in the Vote Office a typescript of that Division list, because it is of considerable interest not only within the House but to a wider public?
Mr. Foot: I shall certainly see what can be done to meet the hon. Gentleman's request.
Mr. Skinner: Does my right hon. Friend take the view that I take, that, when these matters are raised, which is usually when printing difficulties arise, those outside who hear of these arguments will think that there is a whole set of parliamentary cry babies who complain the moment they get a little inconvenience? Would it not be fair to say that if Members of Parliament and Ministers decided to reform the House of Commons and got it on to a proper schedule, those who were providing the papers and the wherewithal would be able to produce those things much more easily?
Mr. Foot: I do not think that it is a question solely of inconvenience, although it is extremely inconvenient. It is also a question of how the House is to be best assisted in transacting its business in the interests of the whole nation. Therefore, we want to get a full, proper, permanent solution of the problem.
Mr. Rost: Is it not time that the Government realised that it is not so much a matter of the House being inconvenienced as of the effects on the country, our constituents and interested parties who want to follow what is going on in the House? Will the Leader of the House now put on record the Written Reply that he gave to me on Maundy Thursday, which unfortunately has not yet appeared because Hansard has not been printed, listing the appallingly long number of dates on which Hansard or official papers have not appeared in the House and showing the accelerating rate of disputes over the past four years?
Mr. Foot: There has been a considerable number of disputes over a number of years, as my hon. Friends have said. I believe that we have to try to solve those problems. I do not believe that we can solve them by some of the remedies that have been suggested today. But I
34
believe that from the full discussions and the ACAS report we shall have a chance of approaching the matter in the most sensible way. I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman and others have said about this being a question not only of the convenience of Members of Parliament but of the proper transaction of our democratic processes.
Mr. Ridley: Is the Lord President aware that the record of disruption and non-delivery is no longer acceptable? Will he now call for tenders from private printers outside Her Majesty's Stationery Office for doing the work, with a one-year's contractual guarantee that they will deliver for the period ahead so that, if HMSO printers will not print for us, we shall use those who will?
Mr. Foot: I am sure that the House can judge for itself how helpful that contribution was. If we left these matters to the cool wisdom of the hon. Gentleman, we should not have any papers at all.
Mr. Pym: The Leader of the House has revealed that there is to be an important meeting tomorrow. Will he make a further statement on Wednesday and thereafter keep the House informed as to what is happening in this difficult dispute?
Mr. Foot: I shall endeavour to keep the House informed. I am not sure whether it would be best to make a statement on Wednesday, but I shall certainly consider the representations made by the right hon. Gentleman.

WRITTEN ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
Mr. Emery: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have waited until the end of Question Time to raise the matter. Would you inform the House and perhaps the Government that it is the normal practice in the House for Written Answers to Members' Questions to be lodged with those Members and usually in the Library from 2.30 p.m. onwards and that the Members should receive those Written Answers before they are put on the tape or before a major statement is made about any of those Written Answers? I refer particularly to an important matter on which I find it strange that the Government should refuse to make a statement

35
—the future investment policy of British Leyland. The Member concerned with that Question should have received the reply before it was put out on the tape. Would you also tell me whether the Minister of State, Department of Industry, has made a request to make a statement on this matter, which I am certain is what the House would have wanted?
Mr. Speaker: The answer to the latter question is "No, Sir."
With regard to the first question, I believe that it is customary—it was when I was on the Benches—to have the Answer sent to the hon. Member concerned. But I do not know anything about the matter raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Ordered,
That the House of Commons (Administration) Bill be referred to a Second Reading Committee.—[Mr. Foot.]

SUPPRESSION OF TERRORISM BILL [Lords]
Mr. Stanbrook: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My point of order relates to the next motion listed on the Order Paper in the name of the Home Secretary—the Suppression of Terrorism Bill [Lords].
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman but I understand that that motion is not to be moved this afternoon.
Mr. Stanbrook: That meets my point.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Mr. Speaker: By leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on the two motions relating to Statutory Instruments.
Ordered,
That the Public Health (Ships) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 369) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Public Health (Aircraft) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 370) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Foot.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  12TH ALLOTTED DAY—considered
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Marshall.]

  THE ROYAL AIR FORCE
  3.47 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force (Mr. James Wellbeloved): It is particularly appropriate that the Royal Air Force should have been selected as the first of the three Services to be debated in the House this year. Two days ago the Royal Air Force celebrated its sixtieth anniversary—60 years of splendid achievement in peace and war which have shown it a worthy partner to the Royal Navy and the Army in the defence of the United Kingdom.
  The beginnings were remarkable. In 1914 few could have foreseen how rapidly aerial warfare would develop. After little more than three years of the First World War, it was decided to create a fully independent air arm, and on 1st April 1918 the Royal Air Force came into being. It inherited the achievements of its forebears, the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps—and earlier still the Royal Engineers—and added its own heroic chapter to the history of the Great War.
  After the Great War the RAF faced many challenges to its existence, but it overcame them to play a special part in military operations in the inter-war years. The RAF's peace-keeping operations in the Middle East provided one of the earliest demonstrations of the versatility and economy of air power. In other fields it won its place in the affections of the British people, pioneering new air routes and setting up new records in long-distance, high-altitude and high-speed flying.
  During those years there were important developments in aircraft construction and in ideas about the use of air power; and, with the Second World War, the RAF showed its greatness. We remember with pride and thankfulness the victory of the Battle of Britain, the defeat

  37
  of Hitler's invasion plans and of a great battle fought and won in the air.
  But that was but the beginning of the vital contribution that the Royal Air Force made in every theatre of war; in partnership with the Royal Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic; in partnership with the other Services in the campaigns in North Africa and Italy; in North-West Europe, the D-Day landings, Arnhem and the Rhine crossings; in Burma and the Far East; and in the enormous sustained effort of the strategic bomber offensive. The very aircraft of the Second World War are still names to conjure with—Hurricane, Spitfire, Mosquito, Lancaster and Wellington among many others.
  Yet, fresh though these Second World War achievements may see, more than half of the RAF's history has fallen since the end of that war. These years, too, have been full of achievement, with the RAF playing a vital part in peace-keeping and stability in what may well come to be seen as one of the most turbulent periods in history. The RAF gave great mobility and flexibility to our forces worldwide, and operated in Malaya, Kenya, Aden, Borneo and elsewhere. It made a very special contribution in the Berlin airlift, which is remembered with deep appreciation by all those who now live in free Berlin. Besides these actual operations, the RAF both in NATO and overseas displayed the unique contribution of air power in the deterrent role.
  It is now concentrating its responsibilities on NATO, and it has shown itself as one of the most highly trained elements in NATO's defences—respected among our allies both for its efficiency and for its contribution to the continuing debate on the tactical and strategic uses of air power.
  These 60 years of history were celebrated last Saturday in Westminster Abbey in a splendid and moving service of thanksgiving, where Her Majesty the Queen, and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh joined many serving and retired officers and men of the RAF in commemorating those 60 years of dedication and achievement. The congregation of over 2,000 included many who had fought in the Second World War—and, indeed, some 250 founder-members of the Royal Air Force, reaching back to the days of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.
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  The history of the Royal Air Force is superbly illustrated at the RAF Museum at Hendon where displays of famous aircraft, historic equipment and works of art enthral half a million visitors, young and old, every year. The trustees of the museum are now building a large new extension to commemorate the Battle of Britain, on land provided by the Ministry of Defence. The construction and operating costs of this venture are to be met entirely from the proceeds of a public appeal, launched last November. I take this opportunity of again commending this appeal to the House and to the nation as a whole as a practical opportunity for the people of this country to demonstrate their gratitude for the freedom that they now enjoy and that was preserved partly by the efforts of the Royal Air Force. They can make that practical demonstration by contributing to that fund in order to enable the Battle of Britain Museum to be created at Hendon as soon as possible.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: I will not give way because I have experienced the difficulty in past debates that in being generous and giving way on unimportant issues such as that which I have no doubt the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise I am then accused of being over-long in my speech.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: No. The hon. Gentleman will have ample opportunity of deploying all his arguments on pay and any other matters if he does the House the courtesy of being here for the whole of the debate and seeks to catch Mr. Speaker's eye.
  This brief account of the history of the Royal Air Force shows very clearly that the nature of air power, its inherent flexibility, means that the RAF has constantly to be able to adapt itself to meet new commitments and roles as they arise. To give but one example, the RAF has made major changes to its strategy and operational concepts as a result of the change in NATO's strategy from that of the tripwire, where the threat of massive nuclear retaliation was seen as a sufficient deterrent to a potential enemy, to its present strategy of flexible response.

  39
  This bears out my statement in last year's debate on the Royal Air Force that, because our strategic approach can change fairly rapidly, we need to ensure that the aircraft and weapons which we have in the Service are able to operate in a number of different scenarios. A prime example of an aircraft which is designed to provide such flexibility is the Tornado, which the RAF will be operating in the 1980s in the interdiction-strike, reconnaissance and air defence roles.
  Since a large part of the capability of the Royal Air Force for the remainder of the century will depend upon the deployment of this aircraft in these two roles, I should like to tell the House of the progress we have been making in these programmes. The total number of Tornado aircraft which the RAF will procure is 385; 220 of them will be for strike-attack and reconnaissance and 165 in the air defence role.
  So far, we have ordered 150 production models of the IDS version, the GR1, and we expect first deliveries to take place next year. This aircraft will provide the RAF with the capability to mount interdiction and attack sorties on the enemy's forces on the ground. The range, speed and avionic fit of the aircraft will enable it to penetrate enemy air space, exploiting tactical routing and the aircraft's excellent ability to fly in poor weather and darkness. The Tornado GR1 will indeed pose a formidable problem to an enemy's air defences.
  In the strike and conventional attack roles the GR1 will replace both Vulcans and Buccaneers. In these roles its ability to fly fast and low in all weathers with a heavy weapon load will give the RAF a new and powerful punch. New weapons now under development will add to its effectiveness—in particular, the very promising advanced airfield attack weapon, on which agreement in principle has been reached with the US for a joint development.
  Those aircraft which will have a maritime strike-attack role will also be able to make the maximum possible use of the versatility provided by the Tornado's airframe and avionics. They will carry the British Aerospace P3T anti-ship sea-skimming missile, which is a significant improvement over the TV Martel system
  40
  which is presently deployed on the Buccaneers. P3T will be guided by active radar in order to provide an all-weather day and night capability and will also be able to penetrate the enemy's electronic-countermeasures defences.
  In the reconnaissance role the Tornado GR1 will replace the Canberra reconnaissance force. The reconnaissance Tornado will be fitted with new sensors, including infra-red linescan.
  The Tornado F2 air defence variant is now in full development, and construction has begun of three development aircraft. The F2 will eventually replace the Phantom and Lightning aircraft currently in the air defence role. The Tornado F2 will be able to remain on station for prolonged periods, and will be armed with Sky Flash medium-range and AIM-9L short-range air-to-air missiles as well as cannon. In order to be able to carry out its air defence task of identifying potentially hostile aircraft at long range, the Tornado F2 will carry an important new air-intercept radar. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that the first phase of the airborne trials of this radar has been completed and the second phase will begin shortly.
  Because of the United Kingdom's geographical position, and the large airspace which we are committed to defend in order to ensure the security of the United Kingdom base, we need to have an air defence aircraft which can operate at long ranges, remain on its patrol station for significant periods and locate and identify at long range potentially hostile aircraft. The aircraft also needs long-range missiles in order that its radius of effectiveness should be maximised. The Tornado F2, together with the Nimrod airborne early warning system which we are developing, meets these requirements.
  The Tornado F2 is an aircraft particularly suited to the air defence needs of the United Kingdom, whilst in its role in Europe it is entirely complementary to the air superiority aircraft deployed by our allies. As the House knows, the Tornado has been developed by the United Kingdom in conjunction with our allies in the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy. The collaborative programme has proved an immense success with benefits for the air forces and

  41
  industries of the three participating countries. And we intend to take our collaborative programme beyond the stage of the manufacture of the aircraft.
  It is hoped that all pilots and navigators—be they German, Italian or British—destined for front-line Tornado squadrons will undergo aircrew conversion training together. Plans for the tri-national Tornado Training Establishment to be set up at RAF Cottesmore are well advanced. The Governments of the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany have already agreed in principle to the establishment of this joint training facility, and confirmation of Italian participation is eagerly awaited.
  The training task involved in converting aircrew to a new type of combat aircraft does not end when the aircraft can be flown in safety and with precision. The aircrew must be trained to operate the aircraft as a lighting machine. The second stage of training involves the development of this skill. The three partner nations in the Tornado project have looked closely at the possibility of establishing a tri-national weapons conversion unit. The establishment of such a unit in Sardinia has not proved feasible because the facilities that could be provided on the island would be insufficient to meet the needs of the three nations when taken together.
  We now hope that it will prove possible to establish a bi-national weapons conversion unit at RAF Honington, where aircrew of the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic will train together in the use of the Tornado as a complete fighting machine. The opportunities during the joint training programmes for the exchange of views on tactical concepts, operational practices and general airmanship would contribute greatly to the ability of the air forces of the participating countries to work together in both peace and war, to the mutual benefit of the partners and the Alliance as a whole.
  The introduction of the Tornado, in both its roles, is without doubt the major challenge facing the Royal Air Force over the next few years.
  Let me now turn to some of the other improvements in equipment that are taking place. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State told the House in the
  42
  debate on the Statement on the Defence Estimates that we had made an important decision to add to the RAF's airborne tanker fleet by buying and converting VC10 aircraft. The House may wish to know a little more about our plans for these aircraft.
  This planned new squadron of VC10 tankers has a significance out of all proportion to its size. Effectively it is equivalent to increasing our fighter and strike-attack forces but at markedly less cost.
  Mr. Neville Trotter: Will the Minister explain why the Government disbanded the third Victor tanker squadron if there was a need for additional tanker capacity?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: I am very happy to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that all of the five Victor tankers that were disposed of at the time of the defence review were virtually at the end of their effective life and would not have remained in service for very much longer, irrespective of the Government's decision. So I say quite clearly that the VC10s are a most significant and welcome addition to our tanker capacity. This is because these tankers allow combat aircraft to extend their range or endurance or to vary the balance between weapons and fuel carried at take-off. The ability to refuel in the air is of the utmost importance in the maritime strike-attack role as well as in air defence—where it enables combat air patrols to be mounted at some distance from the United Kingdom. The VC10 squadron will increase the RAF's tanker resources by fully a third.
  The VC10 promises to be an aircraft well suited to the task. It should have a better performance than the Victor K2 tankers which it will supplement and, of course, it has the advantage of being already in service with the RAF as a transport—so the training for aircrew and support for the aircraft will be reasonably straightforward.
  We are buying the VC10s second-hand. They will be extensively refurbished during conversion to the tanker role and will have a good useful life in front of them when they enter RAF service in a few years' time. All in all, it represents a sensible and very effective approach to improving the RAF's capability.

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  I mentioned in the course of the recent defence debate the steps that the Government had taken to improve the air defence of the United Kingdom. I am delighted to be able to give the House yet further details of the improvements we are making.
  We have agreed to purchase an additional Rapier short-range surface-to-air missile squadron to be manned by the Royal Air Force Regiment. We plan to deploy this squadron for the air defence of aircraft based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.
  We have taken another step to augment the surface-to-air missile defences by agreeing with the Swedish authorities that we should acquire their stock of Bloodhound missiles to augment the reserves which we already hold.
  Both these weapons represent further valuable enhancements of our air defence capability. Together with the purchase of the additional VC10 tankers, these decisions demonstrate the Government's determination to provide the most effective equipment possible for the RAF.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has announced recently that, subject to the satisfactory outcome of contractual negotiations, the RAF will order 30 Chinook medium-lift helicopters. This purchase will greatly increase the effectiveness of the Royal Air Force's support for the Army in Germany. The RAF's lift capability will be improved considerably. It will be possible to move heavier equipment, and the introduction of the new aircraft will result in a doubling of the total lift capability of the RAF over a 24-hour period.
  In the longer term, we are continuing our studies on how best to meet the RAF's requirements for an aircraft to replace the Jaguar and the Harrier when these reach the end of their operational lives. In this connection, we are exploring actively the potential for collaboration within Europe. We hope that we shall be able to make real progress in defining the specifications during the course of this year.
  I mentioned earlier the challenge that the introduction into service of the Tornado will present to the RAF. A large number of aircrew will have to convert
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  from the aircraft they fly at present to the Tornado, and the demands which this will place upon our training machine will be very great indeed. I should like to dwell briefly upon one part of the training programme which will be particularly crucial if the Tornado crews are to be able to make the best operational use of the new aircraft. This is their training in low flying in the Royal Air Force.
  Many right hon. and hon. Members have raised with me problems about disturbance caused by low-flying aircraft. I must stress that low flying is of paramount importance to the operational efficiency of the RAF. It is part of our deterrent posture, for a special feature of air power is the ability to counterattack swiftly and if necessary strike deep into enemy-held territory.
  To penetrate the highly sophisticated radar and missile defences of today, the most effective technique is for aircraft to fly very fast and very low. The ground features and interference make it difficult for radar to pick up and track the aircraft at sufficient range to allow time for the defensive systems to react; and it is difficult for enemy aircraft to intercept low-flying aircraft. Low flying is also necessary when the RAF operates in support of Army units on the battlefield, not least for attacking concentrations of enemy tanks.
  The techniques of following the terrain and of navigation when flying fast at very low level are difficult and can be acquired only by constant practice. There are severe limits to the skills that can be acquired on simulators or by flying over the sea. The necessary skill can be acquired only by actual low flying over land. Nor is it only a matter of initial training of pilots. The aircrew of operational squadrons must work at the techniques constantly to maintain their skills and improve them to the highest operational standards. Without constant practice in low flying, our aircrew would be like sailors who never went to sea.
  Furthermore, training of individual aircrews is not enough. The aircrews must combine in special exercises and in co-operation with the other Services and NATO units in order to obtain the experience of operating as part of larger forces.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: My hon. Friend will be aware that the large majority of people recognise that low flying in training is necessary and are remarkably tolerant about it. But could there be a little more co-operation between the RAF and some of the civil flying units on this matter, because they are very worried about some aspects of low flying? For example, could the low-flying map be published?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: We are carrying out in the Air Force department a review of the low-flying system in the United Kingdom. The consideration of that review is not yet complete. I am urging—and I am receiving every co-operation from my colleagues—that it be completed as soon as possible. My view is that it would be better for the low-flying system to be published, but these are matters that are still under consideration. I shall no doubt be able to make an announcement to the House in due course.
  With regard to low flying, there are all sorts of special checks that must be made from time to time to test the operational readiness of stations, because it is only through special checks and special exercises that we can provide the depth and scope of training that the RAF and other Services require.
  This vital training in low flying—essential to the RAF's ability to defend this country and maintain the freedom of its people—cannot be done without some disturbance to the public. Every effort is made to reduce the impact on individuals by distributing low flying as widely as possible around the country and over the most thinly populated districts. But it is not possible to keep clear of every small inhabited locality, and some disturbance is unavoidable.
  We attempt to reduce the impact of low flying still further by controlling the height and speed of aircraft. Certainly it would be very unpleasant if aircraft flew at the high speeds and low levels which would be necessary in wartime operations.
  Pilots are invariably briefed before flight to make sure that the planned heights are no lower than the particular sortie requires, according to the precise requirements of the type of training being undertaken. The speed of the aircraft makes a considerable difference to the
  46
  amount of noise generated, so pilots are restricted in the speeds they may use.
  We further try to reduce the disturbance by requiring that most low flying is done in daylight from Monday to Friday. But some low flying may be necessary outside these times—for example, during special exercises. In such cases I make it a practice to inform right hon. and hon. Members whose constituencies will be affected.
  Mr. Victor Goodhew: I appreciate the need to consider the people who suffer in the areas where low flying takes place, but the hon. Gentleman appears to have said that the pilots will not be able to fly as low as they will have to fly in operational circumstances, and that they will not be able to fly as fast as they should. If they are not to be allowed to do either of those things, how are they to be trained for war?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: What I said was that it would be very unpleasant if during peacetime RAF pilots were flying as low and as fast as they would be required to fly in war. In wartime they would be skimming virtually a few feet above the housetops at the highest speeds at which they can go. If the hon. Gentleman is advocating that we should have a training programme which imposes that sort of everyday burden upon the general public, he had better convince his colleagues on the Front Bench to put it forward officially as the policy of the Conservative Party.
  The policy which we are pursuing is to make it quite clear that low flying is an essential requirement for the training of the Royal Air Force, and we impose reasonable restrictions on height and speed to minimise the disturbance, but at the same time giving the maximum opportunities for proper training for RAF pilots.
  Mr. Norman Tebbit rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: I do not want to keep giving way, but I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Tebbit: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not seek to make this a partisan matter. Will he confirm that what he has said is that pilots will never be trained in the full operational use of their aircraft

  47
  until the first occasion on which they come to be required under combat conditions to fly at combat speeds and combat heights?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: What I can confirm without any doubt is that all the professional advice available to Ministers in the Defence Department is that the programme of training now being applied by the RAF is, in the professional view as well as the ministerial view, adequate for the RAF to meet its training requirements for its wartime operations. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman and the House should not be under any illusions or seek to misinterpret my remarks.
  We limit the speed and the height of aircraft in order to minimise the disturbance to the general public but at the same time maintain a training programme which is adequate in the professional judgment for the training of pilots to meet their wartime operational role.
  Mr. John Cronin rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: This must be the last intervention, otherwise I shall be accused of being over-long.
  Mr. Cronin: This intervention is meant to be entirely helpful. Is it not the case that the RAF has a reputation of flying lower and more skilfully at that low altitude than any other air force in the world?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: The RAF is the envy of every air force in the world, friend and potential foe alike, because of its professionalism and its ability to go low and fast.
  A few people have the impression that low flying is indulged in lightheartedly with pilots skimming low for the fun of it. The House will appreciate from what I have said that low flying is a very serious professional business. There is a strict code of rules regulating conduct in the air. All low flying is carefully planned, and there is a special briefing for every flight. The aircrew themselves are very aware of the need to minimise disturbance.
  Furthermore, spot checks are carried out in many parts of the country to establish whether aircrew are observing the rules laid down. As one might expect
  48
  there are occasional minor transgressions, due to the difficulties of observing the very tight rules, but our checks have produced no evidence of casualness or irresponsibility.
  Low flying is essential to the operational efficiency of the RAF, and we do everything we can to spread it fairly and reduce the disturbance it causes. Complaints that the Department receive are investigated most thoroughly. I am frequently in correspondence with right hon. and hon. Members about particular problems that have arisen in their constituencies, and we are constantly looking for improvements. But low flying must go on, and I fear that there will always be some inconvenience.
  I should like to take this opportunity of thanking those members of the public who are troubled by low-flying aircraft but who do not complain because they realise that the training being undertaken is of paramount importance for the defence of this country.
  I have spoken so far about the rigorous training that is necessary for the RAF to undertake its wartime task, and I have spoken more in terms of the equipment and machinery that it uses than in terms of the men who have to undertake this training. As the House is well aware, members of the Armed Services have, like the rest of the community, been subject to the provision of pay policy in the nation's battle against inflation. The effect on the military salary principle of comparability has been a cause of great worry to our officers and airmen, and, as I made clear in the recent defence debate, morale is not as high as I would like it to be.
  The special circumstances of the Services have given rise to much concern that they have slipped behind their civilian counterparts. We are well aware of the crucitl importance of the forthcoming pay settlement to take effect from 1st April.
  As the House knows, the pay increase will be made in the light of the recommendations made by the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. I can tell the House that the review body's report was submitted to the Prime Minister last Friday. As is the customary practice, the report will be published at the same time as the Government's decisions upon it, and

  49
  since the Government have not yet had time to consider the findings of the review body I cannot anticipate what those decisions might be.
  I recognise that recent years, involving as they have done redundancy policies, a reduction in the size of the Royal Air Force and a period of pay restraint for the nation as a whole, have caused a great deal of concern to the officers and airmen serving in the Royal Air Force. But, as every fair-minded person acknowledges, the tough and difficult decisions of the last few years are beginning to bear fruit. The inflation rate has been brought down from over 30 per cent. to under 10 per cent. and this real improvement will be felt by the Services as well as by the public at large.
  The steps that the Government have taken to improve the nation's economic strength are bringing results, and, as the economic outlook for the country as a whole improves, the Services can look forward to receiving their full share of the benefits that this will produce.
  Mr. Cranley Onslow rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: No, I will not give way any more. The hon. Gentleman will have ample opportunity to make his comments in his own way, should he catch the eye of the Chair, and I have no doubt that we shall hear the characteristic tone and nature of his contribution when it is inflicted upon us.
  The Services can look forward to receiving their full share of the benefits which will be produced by the success of this Government's policy. Already, the Government have been able to increase defence spending for 1979–80 by 3 per cent. over the figure for the previous year, in response to the NATO initiative in the face of the growing Warsaw Pact threat.
  Members of the Royal Air Force, and, indeed, members of all three Services, can now look forward to a period of stability and feel secure in the knowledge that we shall take every step within our power to ensure that the vital contribution which they make to the well-being of the nation will be adequately recognised both in terms of providing the most modern equipment and in ensuring that the remuneration of our Service men is
  50
  restored to full comparability as soon as possible.
  These have been difficult times for our officers and airmen, and I wish to take the opportunity, in this the sixtieth year of the Royal Air Force, to pay tribute to the courage, skill and determination of the officers, airmen and airwomen who have seen the Royal Air Force through two world wars and many difficult periods in our nation's history. The nation as a whole owes a debt of gratitude to their selfless dedication, which not only prevented the destruction of this nation by Hitler's forces but has played a very significant part in ensuring over 30 years of peace since the European dictators were vanquished.
  May I end on this slightly personal note? I have had the honour and privilege of serving as Minister for the Royal Air Force for one-thirtieth of those 60 glorious years. It has been one of the most worthwhile and rewarding periods of my political life. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve with men and women who are dedicated to the principle of preserving the freedom of our country and who have resolutely refused to fall prey to the party politics which have been introduced by so many Members of the Opposition.
  The Royal Air Force offers and will continue to offer a rewarding career for all young men or young women who wish to serve their country. It offers an exciting opportunity to fly as well as to enjoy the company of other dedicated citizens.
  I have great pleasure, on behalf of the Royal Air Force, in commending to the House the improvements which have been made by the Government to the strength and efficiency of the Service.
  4.24 p.m.
  Mr. Churchill: The Minister speaks, of course, not on behalf of the Royal Air Force but on behalf of this Socialist Government. He has treated the House to the predictable bluster and banter which we associate with him. The truth is that, despite his claims for what he has done in his association with one-thirtieth of the lifetime of the Royal Air Force, the present Government, of which he is a member, have done more damage to RAF morale in the past three years than the Luftwaffe did in the entire six years of the last war.

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  At the start of the debate, coinciding, as it does, with the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Air Force, I wish to pay tribute to the men and women who serve in the Royal Air Force today. Anyone who has had the privilege of seeing them at first hand, as several hon. Members now present have had during the past year, will have no doubt whatever that, as in the case of the few who saved Britain in 1940, the manpower of the Royal Air Force today remain the finest of their generation. I do not for a moment doubt that if they, too, were called upon to face the supreme ordeal, they would acquit themselves to the very limits of what their equipment permits. But it must be said that some of their equipment is older than the pilots who man it.
  A few months ago, I had the opportunity of visiting one of our V-bomber squadrons, based at Waddington in Lincolnshire. It was illustrative of the way in which the Royal Air Force presses efficiency to the absolute limits that four Vulcan bombers waiting on alert beside the runway but with their engines closed down and cold were able to scramble and get airborne within 88 seconds.
  It is that sort of professionalism which earned the Jaguar strike wing based at RAF Bruggen in Germany an unprecedented rating in a recent NATO tactical evaluation. Although the NATO team descended on the airfield at a weekend, when a high proportion of personnel were away from base, none the less more than 80 per cent. of the aircraft were "generated"—that is, placed on instant alert, with full war load—within a very short time indeed. The NATO team stated that RAF Bruggen had established "new standards for NATO".
  Only last month I had the privilege of flying on an RAF Jaguar training mission from Bruggen. Having flown on training and even combat missions with other allied air forces, I have no doubt that the expertise and precision with which our pilots fly is second to none in the world today. Even though at 200 ft. and nearly 600 mph we saw our targets only three or four seconds before we were over the top of them, accuracy was total.
  The House will be disturbed by the Minister's statement today, the clear implication of which is that this low-level
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  training, which has formed an essential part of the high state of readiness and expertise of the Royal Air Force, may be changed in the future. The Opposition would certainly not be in favour of any such change.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that over an area such as mine, where a great deal of low-flying exercises take place, aircraft should be allowed to go a few feet above the houses, at top speed?
  Mr. Churchill: What I am suggesting is that the Royal Air Force should continue to be allowed to train at the levels and at the speeds at which it has trained hitherto. The Minister has not made clear whether he was enunciating a new policy or merely reiterating an old policy.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: Perhaps I can clarify the matter for the hon. Gentleman. I told my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Mitchell) that we were reviewing the low-flying system, not—I hasten to inform the hon. Gentleman—the practice and methods of training, but merely the areas which are used for training. When that review is completed, I shall, no doubt, make a full statement to the House.
  Mr. Churchill: We are grateful to the Minister for clarifying the matter, but I reiterate nevertheless that the Opposition would oppose the placing of further restrictions on the Royal Air Force. We are delighted if the Government are of that opinion also.
  Because I, together with my right hon. Friends, have championed the right of those who serve in our Armed Forces to have a fair deal on pay, the Minister accused me in the debate on the Defence Estimates, of undertaking
  "a destructive campaign to undermine the morale of our fighting men for squalid party reasons."—[Official Report, 14th March 1978; Vol. 946, c. 249.]
  That is a serious charge and one which he well knows to be the reverse of the truth. The entire Royal Air Force knows who is responsible for undermining the morale of our fighting men. It is the Minister and his Socialist colleagues, who have shamelessly sought to take advantage of the fact that the Armed Forces have neither trade union representation

  53
  nor the right to strike. Nor do they ask for either.
  The Minister went on to deny categorically, as reported in column 250 of 14th March, that there was any truth to suggestions that certain RAF personnel this past winter faced a choice between "heating or eating". The Minister must lead a very sheltered life, because hon. Members on all sides of the House will testify that it is virtually impossible to visit any Service establishment these days without getting an earful about pay—unless one is seen to be unsympathetic, stand-offish or arrogant.
  The fact is that I have met senior aircraftsmen at RAF stations who, after stoppages, even allowing for rent rebate, are receiving less than £30 per week on which to keep a wife and four children. That figure is £20 per week less than the £49·40 clear, after rent for which this family would qualify under supplementary benefit. If the Minister took the trouble to inquire about the conditions faced by those for whom he has the honour to be responsible he would know that many RAF married quarters have electric heating only and totally lack insulation. The cost of heating such dwellings in the winter months is more than £10 per week. With small children there is no choice for a family but to have the heating on.
  In such circumstances a family on social security would qualify for an additional heating allowance—not so the senior aircraftsman. He is left with a mere £20 per week to feed, clothe and provide all necessities for a family of six. Could the Minister manage on such a pittance? Of course he could not. No one in this House could.
  It is in these circumstances that men in RAF stations in the United Kingdom this winter have been deliberately going short of food to provide for their children. The choice has been between "heating or eating". It is a scandal that it should be so. How regrettable that, unlike his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy—who has shown a genuine concern for the financial plight of those for whom he is responsible—this Minister has not even taken the trouble to find out that there are men in the RAF today who are living below the poverty line.
  54
  The Manpower Services Commission is currently paying out-of-work youngsters £43 per week for counting lamp posts. Why do the Government value an aircraftsman in the RAF at less than an individual doing an entirely futile and useless job, to the benefit of no one, least of all himself?
  In opening the debate on the Defence Estimates on 13th March the Secretary of State advanced that well-known Socialist doctrine, namely the doctrine of "equality of misery", when he said:
  "in the recent past almost all sections of the community have found that the rise in their incomes has not been enough to compensate for higher prices and that in consequence their standard of living has fallen.
  The Armed Forces are no exception to that, nor are they unique in having suffered in this way."—[Official Report, 13th March 1978; Vol. 946, c. 57.]
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Royal Air Force has, this afternoon, proclaimed himself to be an "equal misery wallah".
  But why have the Armed Forces fallen so badly behind? The answer is simple. This is a Government whose policies are not based on equity or on fairness but merely on giving in to those in our society who are prepared to go at them with a big stick. The Pay Code was imposed on the Armed Forces in all its rigour but it was not applied equally to many other sections of the community. Even the firemen, by the strike action they took, were able to secure an undertaking that at least their wages would not be subject to future Government pay policy. This is how the Armed Forces have come to fall at least 30 per cent. behind those in industry.
  When I say "30 per cent." I do not claim to be privy to the workings or even to the report of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. I am basing my remarks merely on the figures supplied by the excellent research staff of the House of Commons Library which show that average earnings increased between April 1975 and January 1978 by no less than 42 per cent. whereas the average earnings of the Armed Forces increased by only 14 per cent. This shows, particularly if account is taken of the months of February and March, which are not included in these statistics, that the pay of the forces has fallen at least 30 per cent.

  55
  behind the average industrial earnings since 1st April 1975.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Robert C. Brown): Why does the hon. Member expose himself to the charge of hypocrisy? Does he not recall that as a result of the policy of the previous Conservative Government, led by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), this Labour Government, after taking power, had to award the Armed Forces a pay rise of 30 per cent. in 1975, to restore lost comparabilities?
  Mr. Churchill: That was not the reason for the 30 per cent. award. The Minister knows that it was to compensate for the 30 per cent. inflation rate which his Government had created during the year that they had been in office. Furthermore, the Pay Code operated by the previous Tory Administration was operated fairly whereas this Government have patently operated the code unfairly. If that were not so, how else is it to be explained that the Armed Forces have fallen 30 per cent. behind average industrial earnings over the past two years?
  Mr. Tebbit: Perhaps my hon. Friend could extract from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army an undertaking that, if his Government's policy in 1975 was to give a 30 per cent. rise to the Armed Forces to restore comparability, we shall now see them making a further 30 per cent. rise to restore Armed Forces' comparability. That would make the Minister's case at least consistent, even if it remained false.
  Mr. Churchill: I agree completely with my hon. Friend. The Opposition regard it as essential and urgent that forces' pay should be increased substantially and immediately with a commitment to full comparability in a timescale at least no less favourable than that accorded to the striking firemen.
  In consequence of the defence Ministers' lack of influence with their colleagues the Armed Forces have got the dirty end of the stick from this Government. This has provoked a crisis in morale unprecedented in the 60 years' history of the Royal Air Force.
  The wastage rate, especially in key specialist trades, has now reached totally
  56
  unacceptable proportions. Trained manpower is the most important asset of the RAF. Yet there are now so many applicants for premature voluntary retirement that some are being told that they may not quit for eight years. Has the Minister any concept of what it does to the morale of men, their colleagues and their families when they are forbidden to quit their jobs for eight years? I have here a letter from a flying officer who writes:
  "I have been detained, most definitely against my will, for six months now and my wife and I have become most frustrated with the style of treatment that I have received. We are most unhappy and quite desperate to leave and create a new life elsewhere…I am, however, determined to leave at all costs. How would Mr. Mulley propose to detain me? Would it be necessary for me deliberately to commit a court-martial offence? Short of writing to the Queen or deserting, how else must I make my point? My wife and I are at our wits' end. Please can you help?"
  This is the sort of personal case of which the Minister should be taking care. He should see it as his role to be the trade union representative of the Armed Forces—a role in which he is so conspicuously failing.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: Perhaps when the hon. Member replies to that correspondent he might be kind enough to tell him that this Government are still operating the rules on PVR which were laid down in 1973 by the previous Administration. Whatever steps we may take or have to take to ensure that people conform to their obligations will be done under the rules which were approved by his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour).
  Mr. Churchill: The Minister knows very well that only under his Government have so many people joined the queue for premature voluntary retirement that they have had to be told that they cannot quit for up to eight years. But there is not only the crisis of those queuing up to quit but the fact that the supply of recruits has dried up, as the Secretary of State so starkly admits in paragraph 404 of the White Paper when he says
  "There has been a shortage of candidates of adequate quality to meet the recruiting requirements for the Royal Air Force. It has not proved possible to recruit the numbers required for the General Duties (Pilot, Navigator Aircraft Control and Fighter Control), Engineer, Security (RAF Regiment and Administrative Education) Branches, in some cases by

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  a substantial margin. The University Cadetship Scheme has attracted only half the expected number of recruits to the General Duties, Engineer and Administrative Branches."
  This is an appalling state of affairs at a time when the RAF needs to attract a whole new generation of recruits of the highest calibre to man the Tornado in the 1980s.
  As the Minister knows, the failure rate in the stream of pilots training for the "fast jets" is now running at an unprecedented level due to a drop in the calibre of those applying to enter the RAF. I am willing to give way to the Minister if he wishes to deny that this is the case.
  This state of affairs represents a political mishandling of the RAF of consummate incompetence. This same Government, who have so recently slashed RAF manpower by, according to the Minister of State on 13th March in a parliamentary reply, no fewer than 14,400—that is 14½ per cent.—and embarked on a programme of enforced redundancies which has shattered the lives of many who had devoted their whole lives to the service of their country by joining the RAF. now find themselves short of pilots.
  It is, furthermore, admitted that RAF Germany is under strength and no longer has the manpower to operate with maximum effectiveness on a sustained basis from the newly constructed, dispersed, hardened aircraft shelters. Who was responsible for cutting manpower in the first place? This same Minister, this same Government. These are the actions of a Government whose hallmark is one of gross ineptitude and bungling.
  Has the Minister considered that perhaps if he raised the pay of pilots to that of London bus drivers he would not have so much trouble recruiting and retaining men of the right calibre? What a pity it is that this great array of five Defence Ministers on the Treasury Bench has less influence over their Cabinet colleagues when it comes to pay policy than even the chairman of London Transport.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: I am sorry to intervene again in the middle of the hon. Gentleman's rhetoric, but if he can spare time at some time in the next few days to have another chat with his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham perhaps he would like to canvass with him the policy which was intro-
  58
  duced while the right hon. Gentleman was at the Ministry of Defence, when the Royal Air Force introduced a policy known as the bold and deficit policy which forecast many shortages of pilots in 1978 of a significant size. The hon. Gentleman, with the nonsense that he is now uttering, is completely ignoring, as he always does, the responsibility which his own colleagues bear for many of the difficulties which we now face.
  Mr. Churchill: The Minister is suggesting that it was well known several years in advance that there would be shortages in the recruiting of pilots in 1978. Why on earth did this Socialist Government then presume to cut RAF strength by 14,400 and impose enforced redundancies on pilots?
  The damage that the Government are wreaking on the Royal Air Force is not confined only to their disastrous and unfair treatment of the men and women who make up the RAF. They are doing untold damage to the capability of the RAF and, in the process, to Britain's contribution to the maintenance of peace by their repeated cuts and postponements in the re-equipment programme for the Royal Air Force.
  The Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee made a report on the "Cumulative Effect of Cuts in Defence Expenditure". Perhaps the Minister would care to listen to this.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: To this rubbish?
  Mr. Churchill: This is the rubbish, if he chooses to call it that, of a highly-respected Select Committee of the House which reported unanimously and which is composed of Members from all sides. Perhaps the Minister would wipe that smirk off his face and listen to what they said:
  "The Royal Air Force has suffered a serious impairment of its strike and offensive support capability, not only with the cancellation of an extra squadron of Jaguars but also with the major cut back in the delivery rate for the long awaited Tornado which is designed to replace up to five existing aircraft types and perform in a variety of vital roles. The danger of such a deferment is not simply that the numbers needed will not be achieved quickly enough, leaving an operational deficiency, but that there is a risk that the aircraft will be obsolescent before the last of them is delivered. The operation of the Harrier force is also adversely affected. …"

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  The Royal Air Force and Britain's defence industries remain the world's pacemakers in pioneering new equipment in many areas. Specific examples that one could cite are defence against chemical warfare, Rapier with Blindfire, the airfield denial and cluster bomb weapons and the Skyflash missile. The kit in the pipeline is excellent. Much of it is second to none in the world. But it is coming out of the pipeline far too slowly and in insufficient quantities bearing in mind the escalating military threat from the Soviet Union.
  We cannot know the intentions of those who wield power in the Kremlin. Even if we did, those intentions could change in the space of a weekend. What we know is that we are confronted today by a potential military threat that in conventional forces alone is greater than anything the world has ever seen and many times more powerful than Nazi Germany. We also know that the Soviet Union is today displaying in Africa distinctly aggressive tendencies. On top of this the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Haig, has informed NATO allies that we can now rely on no more than 72 hours of warning time in the event of an attack in Europe.
  Our policy and that of our allies in NATO is based on deterrence, that is, on being strong enough to prevent a war from ever happening. For such a policy to be effective it is essential to have sufficiently powerful forces at a high state of readiness and efficiency to convince any potential aggressor that there is nothing to gain but everything to lose from embarking on military adventures.
  But is the RAF today ready? Is it being allowed by this Government to play its full and vital part in the maintenance of peace in Europe? Knowing how fond the Under-Secretary of State is of seeking to construe any adverse reflections on pay or equipment of the RAF as criticisms of men and women of the RAF, let me make it perfectly clear that when I or any of my right hon. or hon. Friends make criticism, we hold him and his colleagues in this ramshackle Government exclusively responsible for such deficiencies.
  Since the catastrophic cancellation by the Labour Government in the 1960s of
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  the two main aircraft of the RAF the TSR 2 and the P1154, the equipment programme has been in disarray. It has to be said—and it gives me no pleasure whatever to say it—that, until Tornado enters squadron service next year or beyond, the RAF totally lacks a modern all-weather strike aircraft.
  For some three years now, the Soviet Union has been deploying, at a rate in excess of 1,000 a year, a new generation of supersonic swing-wing aircraft such as the Fencer, Flogger, and Fitter, the like of which the RAF has no equivalent. In these circumstances, it can only be a matter for the gravest concern that the Secretary of State should have announced with such complacency and unconcern, in opening the defence debate on 13th March, the slippage in the Tornado programme. Indeed, he appeared almost relieved that this was where the bulk of this year's additional £267 million defence cut would be found.
  The re-equipment of the RAF with the Tornado, including the air defence variant, is not now to be completed until the late 1980s. When the Tornado does eventually start to come off the production line, it is intended that it should be at the rate for the RAF of no more than three or four per month, while the Soviet Union's production rate for comparable aircraft has for at least three years been running at 90 per month.
  The dispositions that Ministers are making bear absolutely no relation to the level of the threat that exists from the Soviet Union today. Regrettably, Britain's defence policy is related directly only to what the Government perceive to be the level of threat from those Labour Members below the Gangway—I will exempt those sitting there today—who, unlike the Italian Communist Party, believe neither in defence nor in the NATO alliance.
  But the Government do not even make the best use of the equipment they have in service. Why do the very powerful forces of Harrier and Jaguar aircraft deployed in Germany today totally lack any air defence missile? The Opposition insist on knowing when this situation is to be rectified, for the lack of such equipment goes far to destroy the validity of an otherwise very powerful weapons system and places pilots at grave risk to

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  interception and destruction by any aircraft equipped with an effective look-down, shoot-down radar and missile system.
  In referring to the Jaguar mission that I flew last month from Bruggen, I mentioned the precision with which we flew over our targets. What I did not mention was the fact that we never made it to our target, as we were "bounced" by two air defence Phantoms from RAF Wildenrath. Although we were flying very low, the Phantoms had no difficulty in picking us up at a very great distance. Worse still, they knew that we were an easy prey. Had we been equipped with even a couple of Sidewinders or Magic missiles, they would have approached us with much greater circumspection. I hope that the Government will take effective steps to remedy that deficiency.
  Another case of failure to make proper use of existing resources is highlighted by the failure to arm the Hawk. At least 160 of these excellent jet trainers could be fitted up with bombs and cannon in a tank-busting role, piloted by instructors from the OCUs. When will the Hawk be given a war role?
  However, the greatest restriction on the readiness of the RAF at present rests in its level of war stock. I will not embarrass the Minister by giving figures. Suffice it to say that, in the light of experience gained in the October 1973 war. RAF war stocks are at an unacceptably, indeed dangerously, low level. At any remotely realistic wastage rate, Britain does not begin to meet the NATO requirement of a minimum of 30 days fighting capability.
  The Government have now undertaken to increase stocks of missiles and other key items of equipment such as—
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is being irresponsible.
  Mr. Churchill: What is irresponsible is that the Government have not rectified this situation and brought stocks up to a proper level. The Government have now undertaken to increase stocks of missiles and other key items of equipment, such as Sonobuoys, by one-third before the end of the year. Naturally, the Opposition welcome this development, but why do we have to wait for our allies to tell us to pull our socks up before doing what is so glaringly obvious?
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  But even with this increase, let there be no doubt that we still have a very long way to go before these stocks reach a level which could remotely be described as providing an effective deterrent capability. In consequence of the Government's reckless and irresponsible slashing of RAF manpower by 14·5 per cent., there now exists a serious shortage in certain key specialist trades, especially armourers.
  This results in the turn-around time of certain of our squadrons—I am specifically not referring to the Jaguar wing at Bruggen, which demonstrates a turnaround time of less than seven minutes, which is impressive by any standards—of double what it needs to be because there is a lack of trained armourers and personnel to turn the aircraft around.
  Mr. Tebbit: They are probably driving London buses.
  Mr. Churchill: How true! How sad!
  In the event that Britain did raise her war stocks to the proper level, it would be the lack of trained manpower that would be the principal constraint in maintaining the momentum of our fighting capability in wartime.
  In this context, it is difficult to conceive the reason for the situation pointed out by the Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee in its report on reserves published in May last year. It said:
  "We were surprised to learn that, apart from the 800 men assigned to specific emergency duties, as stated in the 1976 Defence White Paper, none of the remaining 33,000 or so Royal Air Force reservists have any specific wartime role."
  It is time that the Government took proper stock of this situation. Surely it would only be prudent to be able instantly to make use of the skill of those who have spent many years mastering specialist trades in the RAF and who are now in civilian life. There would be no shortage of work for the balance in protecting RAF fields both here and in Germany from sabotage or ground or airborne attack.
  The Under-Secretary's capacity for absurd exaggeration and the unfounded personal attack is well known. However, even he overreached himself when he declared on 14th March:
  "… under this Labour Government major steps have been taken to counter the threat to

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  this island from the Soviet Backfire and Fencer bombers, something that his Government"—
  he was referring to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour)—
  "failed to do in the four years that they were in office."—[Official Report, 14th March 1978: Vol. 946, c. 235.]
  Is the Under-Secretary so ill-informed on these matters that he does not know that the Backfire and Fencer—and he might have added the Flogger and Fitter—whose deployment has had the effect of increasing possibly as much as tenfold the tonnage of bombs which could be dropped on these islands in the event of war, had not even been heard of, let alone deployed, during the period of the last Conservative Government? The Minister made great play of the fact that the Government are now taking some very limited steps to take account of this greatly increased Soviet air threat to the United Kingdom. I am bound to say that his efforts are nothing to boast about.
  The United Kingdom's air defence depends upon Lightnings and Phantoms, which are short on legs and will be very long in the tooth before the Tornado ADV replaces them in the late 1980s. The airfield hardening programme in the United Kingdom is progressing at too slow a pace, and it is a scandal that only a single RAF base in the United Kingdom is equipped with a missile capacity against low-flying aircraft. We are delighted to hear that now a second one is to be, but we need a much bolder programme in this regard.
  Why is the Minister—and, indeed, the Secretary of State in his White Paper—so silent about the strategic nuclear role of the RAF? Will he tell the House whether the Government have taken a decision to stand down the V Bombers in 1982? Up to this moment, Britain's independent strategic nuclear deterrent has represented a powerful and serious capability, above all for the fact that the Polaris force of submarines has been backed up by the very powerful capability of the V-bombers. If they are to be scrapped, the RAF will no longer have the capability of striking a potential enemy in his heartland, and our deterrent will depend on two Polaris submarines—sometimes even a single one—on station.
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  It is idle for the Government to pretend that Tornado, despite its excellent qualities as a strike aircraft, is in any sense a replacement for V-bombers. Unlike them or TSR2, it does not have the range to strike beyond Eastern Europe. It is urgent that steps be taken to provide for an effective deterrent after 1982 or, if it is to be allowed to lapse by a Socialist Government—if by mischance we still have one after next year—let them state in plain terms to the people of this country that they are intending to lay the civilian population of these islands open for the very first time to the threat of Soviet nuclear blackmail.
  The Government's responsibility in these matters is very grave. The cause of the deficiencies of manpower and the delay in the equipment programme is to be found in the 18 per cent. cut in defence expenditure, brought in by the Government to finance Socialism—despite the fact that it would cause the loss of 218,000 jobs in the forces and defence industries, as the Minister of State made clear in a reply only a year ago. It was done also to appease the Left wing in the Labour Party.
  The sleeping-sickness which afflicted the Secretary of State last year seems to be engulfing the entire defence policy of the Government. Ministers are uniquely well informed of the threat, yet they cut, cut and cut again. Only a Government as devious as this one could announce, as they did in this year's White Paper on Expenditure, Cmnd. 7049, a further cut of defence expenditure of £243 million in 1979–80 and 1980–81, and trumpet it to our allies as a "3 per cent. increase."
  The next Conservative Government will accelerate the Tornado programme. The Minister of State says that that is not possible. It is a pity that he does not find a way of making that acceleration possible, for on that depends the viability of the Royal Air Force. We shall not only accelerate the Tornado production but we shall also press ahead with the formulation of the next generation to replace the Jaguar and Harrier, the AST403, about which the Government are being excessively dilatory.
  Deficiencies in manpower and reserves will be rectified. We shall give urgent consideration to the strengthening of our deterrent capability—in the light of the fact that we can guarantee only a single

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  Polaris on station beyond 1982—and to the possibilities of a cruise missile system. We shall strengthen the air defence of the United Kingdom. Above all, we shall grant full comparability of pay to the Armed Forces. We shall once again make a career in the Royal Air Force one the worth of which is properly recognised by the nation as a whole and in which the men and women of the Royal Air Force can look to their future with confidence.
  5.3 p.m.
  Mr. Roderick MacFarquhar: In the interests of brevity and of other hon. Members who wish to speak, I will not follow the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill), whose arguments have already been punctured several times by my hon. Friend the Minister, and doubtless will be again when the Front Bench replies.
  I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force are not regular readers of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, even though it is the leading newspaper of the capital of President Carter's home State.
  I draw the Minister's attention to a series of articles published in this paper on 8th January, 15th January and 22nd January 1978, in which Joseph Albright of the paper's Washington Bureau exposed the very serious defects in the safety of nuclear weapons and their installations. Some of these revelations may have been relevant only to United States installations in America and on the Continent of Europe, and I shall raise only briefly those matters which directly concern or could concern us in these islands. I shall be very happy to furnish my hon. Friend with copies of the articles if he wishes to study the question more closely.
  The most alarming aspect of Mr. Albright's revelations was the ease with which he was able to bluff his way into two nuclear weapons compounds where H-bombs for the United States Strategic Air Command were stored. Without doing anything illegal, he first obtained a set of Government blueprints showing the exact layout of the weapons compounds. One blueprint disclosed a method of knocking out the alarm circuits. Another
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  showed two unguarded gates through the innermost security fences.
  All Mr. Albright had to do to obtain this revealing material was to answer an official advertisement placed by the United States Corps of Engineers. Posing as a contractor considering tendering for the improvement of security facilities, he simply sent $5·30, accompanied by a five-line letter on his personal stationery. I have not been able to confirm a rumour that he signed the letter "Baader-Meinhoff". But within a week he received 53 blueprints and 300 pages of technical specifications, as well as an indication that interested contractors were invited to visit the sites in question.
  When Mr. Albright took up the invitation, he managed to enter two installations, offering no more proof of his bona fides than his social security number and his driving licence. At one base his briefcase was not even searched. He did not suggest in his article that he could have stolen an H-bomb, but his story indicated that a determined gang of terrorists might have done unspeakable damage. The matter has been taken up very seriously by the United States Congress and the Pentagon has also ordered an investigation. I hope that my hon. Friend will bear that in mind when he considers the matter himself.
  I should like to ask my hon. Friend two relevant questions. First, will he please contact his American opposite number and ensure that security conditions are better at United States bases in Britain than at United States bases in America?
  Secondly, will my hon. Friend review the security arrangements at RAF bases to ensure that no one could brazen his way into them as he might do at an American base?
  My second major point has to do with the security system of the nuclear weapons themselves. I understand from Mr. Albright's evidence that there are five types of United States nuclear weapons which are not equipped with modern electronic safety catches and "insensitive" high-explosive triggers. These are the Mark 28 H-bomb, the B 43 H-bomb, the B 57 theatre nuclear weapon, the B 61 Model 0 tactical bomb, and the B 61 Model 2 tactical bomb. Some or all of these are deployed in Europe,

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  including Britain. I believe, as part of the American Quick Reaction Alert Force.
  In view of the critical importance that the Americans themselves place upon having safer nuclear weapons—that is to say, B 61 Model 3, Model 4 and Model 5—will my hon. Friend again contact his American opposite number and ask him, as a matter of urgency, to substitute the safer bombs where these are not already deployed at United States bases in this country?
  Will my hon. Friend, when he is replying, inform the House whether British nuclear weapons held by the RAF have or do not have the modern electronic safety catches and "insensitive" high-explosive triggers?
  I believe that the American articles I have quoted reveal serious security questions regarding nuclear bases and weapons. I hope that my hon. Friend will give an undertaking tonight that he will institute a thorough investigation to ensure that in Britain—whether at British or at American bases—and at British bases abroad, there is, or soon will be, a far higher degree of security than that prevailing at United States bases in America and with some United States nuclear weapons probably stationed in this country.
  5.8 p.m.
  Mr. Neville Trotter: It is interesting that we debate the Royal Air Force tonight without any real comment from the Government Front Bench as to the threat which we face in the air—a threat which was very well elaborated by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill).
  The Soviet air force has changed its character in the last four or five years—very largely since the Labour Government came into power. There has also been a change in the Soviet Army. Why is that relevant? It is relevant for the reason that the Soviet Army has had a very large increase in the number of its anti-aircraft weapons in each of its divisions and corps. As a result of that, and the increase in its artillery support fire, it no longer needs to rely on the Soviet Air Force to defend it in Central Europe, and therefore a very large number of Soviet aircraft have been able to change
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  their roles to an offensive nature, which include attacks against this country. At the same time the new generations of Soviet aircraft have a range and a bomb load many times greater than those of their predecessors.
  As a result there is today a real threat to this country of an attack with conventional weapons of a sort that has not existed since the Nazi war. If a war broke out, we should face an attack of something like twice the scale of operations that existed at the time of the blitz, with conventional weapons raining down on Britain—and these would be of a very much more deadly nature than any that fell 30 years ago.
  The Royal Air Force has a very great task ahead of it. It is committed to helping our allies on the central front, to reinforcing the flanks of NATO, to guarding the sea lines of communication across the Atlantic, and, above all, to the defence of the United Kingdom and of the air space around it.
  We are considering today—or we should be considering—how well prepared the RAF is for these many heavy burdens. Unfortunately, there has been an extraordinary display of complacency from the Government Benches. The fact that the Minister is now turning his back is—I hope not—a further example of that complacency. Presumably, he has gone to seek some answer from the Box to the points made about nuclear weapons by his hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar). It is extraordinary that no realism has been displayed by the Government Front Bench as to the threat that faces us, nor has any impression been given to the House of the problems that exist in the Royal Air Force. It is incredible that we have to read in foreign papers and other sources about those problems.
  It is a fact that since the Government took office they have reduced the RAF by 15,000 men. If they are to stick to their original plans, they will reduce RAF personnel by a further 3,000. There has been a 15 per cent. reduction in the strength of the RAF in the last four years. We have now reached the situation in Britain where we have more taxmen than we have airmen. I believe that that is a wrong balance to strike in the public service.

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  We now have 500 first-line aircraft—fewer than the number in a country such as Poland—and only 13 per cent. of the aircraft we had in the 1950s. We have no reserves. In a crisis situation only 800 men would be called up in the RAF because there are no spare aircraft for them to man. As there are no reserve aircraft, the policy has been not to call up the extra 33,000 men who are available.
  The front line is far too small. There is no time to cover all the roles of the Air Force in detail today, and perhaps one will be able to talk about the central front in the Army debate, if one is able to catch Mr. Speaker's eye on that occasion. In regard to the sea lines of communication, I must stress the harm that was done to NATO by the withdrawal and disbandment of the Nimrod Squadron which for so many years has been based in Malta and which has been responsible for the identification and pursuit of a high percentage of the Soviet submarines in the Mediterranean. It so happens that the type of submarine deployed by the Soviets in the Mediterranean is particularly susceptible to detection by the Nimrod aircraft. I understand from the White Paper that the Government are strengthening their commitment to NATO by allocating Devon, Prince and Heron aircraft for a general maritime role. Those aircraft are unarmed and over 20 years old. I was tempted to think that in next year's White Paper we might see Flight Lieutenant David Cyster's Tiger Moth added to the long-range force as an additional commitment to NATO.
  I wish to concentrate, in the few minutes available to me in this debate, on the air defence of Britain. There is surely no greater task for the RAF, and no greater duty for any Government, than the defence of the skies above this island. Sir Andrew Humphrey, who sadly died a year or two ago, said just before his death that the air defence of Britain had been disbanded to a far greater extent than any other force. That is a very serious accusation to make.
  There are, according to a parliamentary Answer given a short while ago, 126 fighters in Royal Air Force museums. It is interesting to compare that figure with the 84 machines that we have in our front line to defend our skies. It would seem that in the event of a war we might be
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  able to mobilise a squadron or two of Hurricanes and Spitfires, but it displays an extremely serious situation when there are only 84 front-line fighters to defend our country, despite the threefold or fourfold increase in the threat from the Soviet Air Force against this country.
  When I served in the RAF in the 1950s there were 1,000 front-line fighters, and at that time the threat was infinitely lower than it is now. In 1939 we had not 39 fighters, but 39 fighter squadrons, and 20 years ago we had more than 50 fighter squadrons compared with the seven that we now have in this country. We are a prime target in the disastrous event of war breaking out. This country would be seen by our potential opponents as being the main base for United States reinforcements to Europe. We should be subject to an initial attack on a great scale.
  Comment has been made about the fighter version of the MRCA, which will total 165 aircraft. If we allow for the aircraft which no doubt we shall be basing in Germany for the fighter role, for training, for those in maintenance units and for those which, sadly, will have to be written off, I suggest that we shall not even be able to maintain the present 84 front-line strength out of a total fighter force of 165 MRCAs. I hope that the Minister will assure the House that there will be as many fighters when the MRCA come into the front line as we have now.
  There have been comments about delays in the delivery of the MRCA. Those comments come from two sources—not just the troubles which have arisen in regard to the construction of the aircraft, but from the conscious decision announced in the 1975 defence review that the rate of delivery would be reduced by a third. Therefore, we have seen not one but two reductions in the rate of delivery of this vital aircraft on which the future of the RAF depends.
  In the last year or so there have been some improvements in air defence, but the air defence of this country remains far below the needs of the present situation. The Minister took credit for the few improvements which had been made when he spoke in the main defence debate, but of course all those plans were inherited. He implemented some, but cut others. May I remind the House that so

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  far cuts amounting to £8,000 million have been made by the Labour Government?
  The Minister said that there had been a few minor cuts after the main defence review. In fact £887 million was cut from next year's estimates in the defence review and a further £528 million was cut in what he referred to as the minor subsequent cuts. In other words, for every £100 of cuts made in the original defence review, a further £60 has since been cut. The present Government have shown time after time that they have not given the defence of this country the degree of priority that it deserves.
  We have heard with pleasure that there is to be a second Rapier Squadron to defend Lossiemouth. There is also a squadron at Leuchars. That means that two RAF bases will be properly defended. What about the other 32? What are the Government's plans to defend the rest of the RAF? Why choose those two bases? What about the other stations that are completely open to the low-level attack to which the Minister referred as being the modern form of air warfare?
  I suggest to the Minister that there is a case for forming reserve squadrons of the RAF Regiment to defend airfields with the aid of Rapier. It would not require a great deal of training but would, I suggest, give good value for money. There are a large number of retired airmen living around most bases who would be delighted to join a Territorial RAF regiment and still have some contact with their old units.
  I should like to say a few words about the men and women in the RAF, without whom no Service can be efficient. It is true to say that they are still a superb body of men and women. I associate myself with the comments that have already been made about their courage skill and determination, and the dedication which they displayed, together with the other Services, at the time of the firemen's strike. I think that a particular word of gratitude is due, in face of the tremendous task that was carried out, to those at the training depot at Catterick where a large number of the Service firemen were trained—not just from the RAF but from the Army as well.
  The Minister paid full credit to the men for their dedication and service. But
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  when he speaks of a debt of gratitude to the men in the Royal Air Force, I suggest that the men and women in the Service want not just credit, but cash. The Sunday Telegraph in an article yesterday referred to recent visits made by its reporters to RAF stations and the pre-occupation they found over pay in every base they attended. It was the main subject of conversation, not just with the Press but among the Service men themselves.
  It is extraordinary and incredible that this Government should have led us into a situation in which we are short of one pilot in three. They have been making hundreds of pilots redundant. I flew on the flight deck of a civil airliner not so long ago with a man who had given the best years of his life to the Royal Air Force as a pilot. He was thrown out and he is now sitting with only two bars on his shoulder on the flight deck of a BAC 111 aircraft and he is having to work his way up again from the bottom. He had been in charge of all flying at his last RAF stations. There are hundreds of others who find themselves in that same predicament. Hundreds have been thrown out, while many others have taken voluntary retirement because they are fed up. Yet at the same time, the Government reduced the number of pilots recruited and trained. As a result we find ourselves with a very serious shortage.
  It will be extremely expensive to put that right because the short-service scheme which is being reintroduced was originally abolished because of the cost of training a pilot up to the necessary standards. It takes two-and-three-quarter years to train a pilot to the highest standard to fly the MRCA. These pilots will be able to leave the Air Force after a total of only eight years' service when it has cost nearly £500,000 to train them. What a false economy it was to make redundant so many pilots and encourage others to leave.
  We are not only short of pilots; we are also short of fighter controllers, engineers and many other ground trades.
  I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Stechford about our stocks of weapons. I am not sure whether we do in fact have 30 days' stocks. It does seem to be a State secret. The time stocks will last depends of course on the

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  rate of use. I suspect that NATO is still working on a rate of use that is based on pre-Yom Kippur war experience. Judging from that experience I believe that our stocks would last hours rather than days, in the event of an all-out conventional attack.
  There is distressingly little in the White Paper about the development of Smart weapons. It may cost £250,000 for each Smart bomb but one must allow for the fact that these weapons have an 80 to 95 per cent. accuracy. This is a very good investment if it results in saving losses of aircraft that each cost £8 million to £10 million. The RAF must follow lessons learned abroad. We have not been giving enough money or attention to the development of a modern generation of weapons. It is no good having superb pilots and superb training if at the end of the day when the pilot reaches his target and drops his weapons those weapons are 80 to 95 per cent inaccurate. In the case of Smart weapons, there is 80 to 95 per cent. accuracy.
  Technology is very expensive and the RAF suffers from this perhaps more than any of the other services. Not only is it very expensive, but it takes a very great time to bring any new development into service. Therefore, one must be prepared to fight at any time with what we have already. There will be no time in a future crisis to build new aircraft or develop new weapons systems. We are talking about a few days, not the few years it now takes to bring new developments forward.
  I commiserate with the Minister because he is serving in a Government which give very low priority to his Department. In my judgment there is little that can be done to improve the RAF without spending a great deal more money. It is right to spend money on giving a shield to the air space of this country. We need more aircraft and more money spent on paying those who fly and maintain our aircraft.
  I do not believe that our country cannot afford it. It costs each member of the adult population of this country about £1 a week for the RAF. That is two-thirds of what he spends on average on tobacco.
  5.26 p.m.
  Mr. Bruce George: I would like to add my congratulations to
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  those of other Back Benchers on the Government side to the RAF on the occasion of its sixtieth anniversary.
  I do not subscribe to the dismal or gloomy picture portrayed this afternoon and in previous speeches by hon. Members opposite of the potential performance of the RAF. I would rather rely for judgment on the writings of Mr. Andrew Wilson in The Observer yesterday than on analyses of hon. Members opposite. Mr. Wilson wrote in an article:
  "From some recent statements by Conservative defence speakers one might suppose that the Royal Air Force is on the point of collapsing for want of men and machines. They conjure up a picture of 50-year-old pilots flying 20-year-old planes against an opponent in central Europe who not only outnumbers the Allied air forces by nearly three to one, but is also overtaking them in quality."
  He says this view is simply not true. There has been an attempt by Conservatives and military men in both Britain and America to frighten the population into making an over-exaggerated response, one we cannot as a society afford.
  I do not think that any political party has a monopoly of patriotism. No one on this side of the House wants to sell this country down the river. We all want to see viable defence at a realistic cost. However, the cost of one new aircraft is the equivalent of a new district general hospital in Walsall, which I hope we shall be getting soon. Hon. Members must bear in mind the cost of one such aircraft when compared with important social services and developments. If defence spending were very considerably to be increased, many people who were suffering from a deterioration in education, housing and social services would wonder whether the expenditure on a magnificent defence system was worth while, because it would seem that the social system being defended was hardly worth defending.
  Mr. Churchill: It may have escaped the notice of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) that that same defence correspondent said in the same article:
  "The need to defend the Western Approaches and intercept attackers flying across the North Sea creates a need for more planes than currently exist or are planned. And this is despite the use of older aircraft (Lightnings), which are helping to hold the line till the air defence variant of the Tornado becomes available in the 1980s."
  Mr. George: I do not want to embark upon a theological discussion using Mr. Andrew Wilson as a mentor. I retaliate by again quoting Mr. Wilson who said:
  "The quite contrary truth is that in the past two years the decline into which the RAF was put has been halted. This decline was caused not so much by Labour defence cuts as by Mr. Duncan Sandy's 1957 White Paper which wrote off manned aircraft, and by a longstanding NATO strategy which relegated conventional forces to the role of a nuclear tripwire."
  Therefore, it may not be as simple as Conservatives suggest—that any one group of people is responsible for the decline.
  I do not think that the RAF should be relegated in this way to this limited role. A survey of the RAF by the Economist, which is hardly renowned for radicalism, said recently that the RAF—
  "now concentrated almost exclusively on Nato commitments and with the new multi-role, multi-nation aircraft, the Tornado, coming into production, it is convinced that it is getting back on the right flight path after suffering, through no great fault of its own, a traumatic series of programme cancellations and abrupt changes in defence policy in the 1960s and 1970s."
  The situation is being reversed. I believe that the RAF can look forward, with the acquisition of three of the most sophisticated aircraft in the world, the Tornado GR1, the Tornado F2 and the Nimrod AEW aircraft to a much greater role in future, and will be enabled to maintain its technological lead in the co-ordination of the air war of the future.
  The purchase of the Tornado means an investment of £3,310 million for production aircraft alone. That is no mean amount. In expenditure on equipment—on page 61 of the Defence Estimates—we see that expenditure for the RAF greatly exceeds that of sea systems expenditure and land systems expenditure. Therefore the RAF is not getting the raw deal that some Conservatives have suggested.
  The Defence Estimates show a continuation of the move begun 12 years ago to rationalise our defence system. I observe with some concern the atavistic ramblings of some Conservatives who seek to return to the position of Britain being ever-extended everywhere and effective nowhere. Our policy is to concentrate our defence efforts upon Europe
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  and this has meant an increase in NATO capabilities rather than a diminution of its capabilities or our contribution.
  The quality of the RAF was surely demonstrated last summer in Nevada when a squadron of Buccaneer aircraft was involved in the American Air Force training course designated Red Flag. In attempting to avoid Soviet-style SAMs and the best of American pilots, the Buccaneers were shot down fewer times in one month than the Americans' averaged in one week. We should not denigrate too much the existing equipment and the quality of our personnel.
  Since the mid-1960s, there has been an almost continuous programme to make better use of the forces and resources we have available. The hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) mentioned the vast number of aircraft that we have, but he will surely agree that we should concentrate on the quality of our planes. Bringing back into use aircraft that could not withstand a modern conflict is surely a regressive step.
  Mr. Trotter: Will the hon. Gentleman take on board the fact that the Soviets have increased by 20 per cent. the number of their aircraft in Central Europe in the last decade and that they now outnumber us by almost 2½ to 1?
  Mr. George: Obviously, if we play the numbers game, some might see a deterioration in the relative position of NATO and Warsaw Pact forces but from journals such as that produced by the International Institute of Strategic Studies we can see that the relative figures are much less damning than is suggested by some people who are seeking to make political capital out of the situation.
  We have to seek better value for money but, as I have said before—and this has not necessarily endeared me to my colleagues—I regret the cuts in expenditure on defence and we do not want any further decreases. I risk incurring the wrath of some of my colleagues again by welcoming that the expenditure cuts are being reversed. NATO has been tolerant in the last few years and obviously we have to pay our way and play a greater role in NATO than our economic situation of the past two years has enabled us to do.
  We are guilty in the House of playing the numbers game and the concentration

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  on this over-simplistic approach is disastrous. I quote an early authority. In 1934, Liddell Hart wrote:
  "The cult of numbers is the supreme fallacy of modern warfare. The way it persists is testimony to the tenacity of stupidity."
  The numbers game is too simplistic an approach.
  I do not want to see further cuts. I want to see Britain playing a greater role in NATO and I am glad that the cuts of the last couple of years—and I recognise why they had to be made—are being reversed. I want to see no further cuts that are not related to the reduction of tension and uncertainty between the Warsaw Pact countries and NATO.
  In this country we need not just to talk about numbers, but to think more seriously about strategic and defence issues. We must look far more closely at doctrine than we have in the past. The blind spending of money is surely not the answer. The addition of more than £1,600 million to the defence budget, as appears to have been suggested by hon. Members opposite, would do nothing in itself. This House must think seriously about strategic issues. Meaningful debate is being hindered by the concentration not just on numbers but on hardware and its capabilities and costs without as much as alluding to the strategic ends to which these tactical means are supposed to convey us. Clausewitz said
  "military power has its own grammar, but not its own logic."
  Parliament can help to provide this logic by considering not just the issues of manpower and hardware but by considering seriously the strategic issues.
  The attacks by hon. Members opposite can often be categorised as shallow electioneering. They try to portray the impression, supported by some sections of the Press, that only one party is concerned about defence. We are creating a society which is a better, more just, humane, compassionate and egalitarian society. I want that society that we are trying to create to be defended until such a time that our defence system can be dismantled by agreed disarmament, but that is at least a generation or more away.
  It is unfair of hon. Members opposite to assume that we on this side want to sell the system down the river and
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  dismantle our defences because we have loyalty to some other political creed. The listing in the News of the World recently of hon. Members who were supposedly members of some Fifth Column is a total nonsense. We are as patriotic as any political party in this House.
  I congratulate Ministers on what they are doing for the RAF, and I urge them not to be disheartened by the ramblings of hon. Members opposite. The RAF has a long and honourable history and I am convinced that it can play an even more important role in the years ahead in the defence of the better society that the Labour Government are seeking to create.
  5.37 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Nelson: The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) is a good friend of the RAF and has contributed to these debates in the past. I heartily agree with a good deal of what he said about the national commitment towards the defence budget. I am pleased that one hon. Member opposite has the courage to say these things to his Government and I hope that his words will be heeded. However, I cannot share his faith that the capability of the RAF is not outmatched by the growth in armoury and airborne power of other countries, particularly the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. If he thinks that our muster of aircraft is sufficient to deal with this threat, April Fool's Day has come a little late for him
  There is an immense threat to this country and successive Governments have failed to recognise the need to respond to this early enough. We have therefore been left with sizeable problems that will cost a great deal of money to sort out.
  This is the first debate on the RAF in which I have not been able to declare a constituency interest. The last RAF station in my constituency was closed by the Government at the end of last year. Chichester has long been renowned for such famous names as RAF Tangmere, the fighter station, and RAF Thorney, which was closed last year. All that is left of that once great RAF base is a ghost town of barracks, runways, married quarters and offices which are a tragic reminder of the Government's cuts in defence expenditure which have brought immense harm and difficulty to many of

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  my constituents and attendent problems to many Service men whose squadrons have been disbanded.
  More particularly and pertinently, it reflects the cuts in Transport Command which have not been discussed in this debate. The Government's cutting of Transport Command by one half has considerably reduced our flexible response. I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) and I noted that he did not refer to Transport Command. I hope that in the winding-up speech we shall hear something about the Conservative Party's commitment to look early in its new period of office, either this year or next year, at building up Transport Command and that this will be a favourable and early decision. I hope, too, that some of the ghost stations and facilities which have effectively been mothballed in recent years can look forward to a reuse once again.
  I wish to make one particular point. I believe that the RAF has had a very raw deal under this Labour Government. I wish to make my criticism as constructive as possible. I think that the RAF should have a greater proportion of the defence budget than it currently receives. As we heard during the debate on the defence White Paper, for 23 years we have had roughly the same breakdown in the allocation of financial commitments between the various forces. On this occasion I wish to explore whether this is proper and what changes we should consider for the future.
  Mr. Hooson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the percentage of the defence budget allocated to the RAF the Army and the Royal Navy has remained constant for the past 23 years, despite the changes in the threats to this country and the techniques that might be employed against us?
  Mr. Nelson: That was exactly the point I made. I question whether that is indeed proper.
  In my view, the RAF has had an extremely raw deal under Labour. Looking at the Budget in overall terms, we find that £6·9 billion is to be spent on defence in the forthcoming year. That is just under 5 per cent. of our GDP or £110 per head of the nation. Of that
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  budget—the hon. Member for Walsall, South referred to this point—43 per cent. goes on pay, 40 per cent. goes on equipment—the hon. Gentleman specifically talked about equipment—and the remaining 17 per cent. goes on miscellaneous charges. But of that 40 per cent. on equipment, which amounts to just over £2·7 billion, 34 per cent.—just over a third—goes on sea systems, a quarter goes on land systems and the remaining two-fifths or 41 per cent. goes on air systems. Of course, one might expect that, because RAF equipment is bound to be relatively more expensive than that of the other forces.
  Looking beyond the figures in Annex B to the White Paper and totalling the various apportionments of expenditure between the forces, we find that, in overall terms, the RAF accounts for less than 29 per cent. of our defence expenditure, assuming equal proportions of the overhead administrative charges for all the forces. In budgetary terms, I suggest that the RAF—I am open to correction—is certainly receiving less than a third of the overall budget and is therefore relatively badly off.
  Secondly, the RAF has had a raw deal in manpower terms. Over the last four years the number of RAF officers has fallen by 20 per cent. to 14,500 and the number of RAF Service men is down 14 per cent. to 65,400. Those reductions of 20 per cent. and 14 per cent. compare with a decline in the manpower of the other two Services, during the same period of this Labour Government, of about 5 per cent. Therefore, again in terms of reduction in manpower, the RAF has had an extremely raw deal.
  Thirdly, there is the question of morale and career prospects. Mention has already been made of the effect on morale of the cuts in the 1960s, particularly of the TSR2 and the F111, and, indeed, of the loss of the strategic deterrent which went to the Royal Navy. That may have been a proper decision in its own right, but to some extent it reduced morale in the RAF.
  The losses in the 1970s have been even more dramatic. The loss of half of Transport Command, to which I have already referred, the loss of 18,000 jobs and the changing views on the balance between missile and manned aircraft have

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  necessarily meant that there has been less opportunity for career promotion within the RAF and that morale has declined substantially.
  This changing shape of the Service has brought with it the attendant feature that the proportion of combat aircraft in the RAF has increased substantially. Whereas five years ago about half the RAF's aircraft were combat jet aircraft, the proportion now is about 80 per cent. That means that options have now been reduced for trained pilots and the failure rate of officers during training has increased to about 40 per cent. In the past it was possible for a man who had been through training, but did not come up to the necessary high demands of combat jet aircraft piloting, to go into Transport Command or other sections of the RAE. Because of the heavy reductions in expenditure and equipment which have hit those other parts of the RAF, those job opportunities have been substantially reduced and therefore morale has gone down.
  I believe that it costs about £500,000 to train a jet pilot. That is a phenomenal investment. It is absolute nonsense to pay these men peanuts once they have been trained. These people are the linchpin of our defence. A man who has been through jet training school and has the responsibility of flying an interceptor plane has a critical role to play at that point in the history of this country when he is called upon to use his skills in combat. Therefore, it is nonsense to pay such people less than we pay certain bus drivers.
  Mr. George: The hon. Gentleman talks about the enormous expense of training a fighter pilot. Will he have a word with his colleagues lower down the Gangway who sought to allow fighter pilots to leave instantly if they wished to do so to reconsider their views? It may be that they have an obligation, if so much money is expended on their training, to remain in the Service rather longer than they do. Simply to say "I want to leave", as one might leave any other job, may not be compatible with the interests of our society as a whole.
  Mr. Nelson: There is a limit to the extent to which people can be forced to do jobs that they do not want to do. The tragedy is that the pay and job oppor-
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  tunities and the equipment with which they have to work are of such a low standard and calibre that they do not have the incentive to continue. It is a negative attitude to say, "Let us talk about the extent to which voluntary applications for retirement should or should not be allowed." We should be talking about the needs and commitments of the RAF and paying the men who carry out this critical task the rate for the job. I look to the Minister, in considering the findings of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body, for a satisfactory improvement and increase in their pay. I hope that the House will have no reason to criticise the Minister if and when he makes such a statement.
  Another reflection on falling opportunities within the RAF is not only the reduction in the number of officers who have trained and passed satisfactorily the standard tests for pilots, but the lowering in standards which may follow if the Minister is not prepared to maintain the high standards which have been set in the past.
  Morale and career prospects in the RAF are serious matters. I believe that there is now serious concern at the volume of premature release applications and the low officer recruitment figures. The Government must deal with this problem much more incisively. The White Paper, in paragraph 404, refers to the shortage of adequate RAF officer recruits
  "in some cases by substantial margins."
  How many pilots are we short? What are the Government going to do, apart from what I suspect will be a petty increase in their pay, to deal with this problem?
  In terms of morale, percentage of the defence budget and manpower, the RAF has had a very raw deal over the last four years, and to a lesser extent over the last decade. I believe that there are now reasons for giving higher priority to the RAF within the defence budget, which I should state as follows.
  First, I believe that our failure to match the improved Soviet airborne capability means that we are vulnerable in a big way, particularly to Backfire and to Fencer. The fact that Backfire can now come in through our northern approaches between Iceland and the

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  north of Scotland without in-flight re-fuelling and attack from the western side of the country was only recently recognised when we had the common sense to turn our early warning systems to face west as well as east. That is a remarkable reflection on the Government's delay in responding quickly to the changing and increasing capability in conventional terms of the Soviet airborne power.
  However, our failure to match that capability has meant that the Soviets, by improving their own conventional hardware in the 1960s and 1970s, have raised their own nuclear threshold while we have effectively reduced ours. The threat to Britain now extends beyond the threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles, great as that is. These were mentioned in the defence debate when my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford spoke of the threat posed by the SS20s east of BAOR.
  However, the threat means that the Soviet Union can for a much greater period maintain a conventional capability, deploying aircraft which will approach at low levels and deliver conventional weapons. That raises their nuclear threshold, but we have reduced ours and it is a tragedy, and a fact of which I complained in my maiden speech and in successive RAF debates, that we have effectively reduced that terrible point when any Government will have to decide whether to press the button.
  I urge this Government and any future Conservative Administration to deal much more effectively with this matter by increasing the equipment of our Armed Forces. The Soviet's Backfires must be emphasised in this context. There are now up to 100 of them in service, and the fact that they can approach Britain through the back door must be taken very seriously. We look to the Government to deal with that threat.
  A second reason for giving the RAF higher priority is its critical role in NATO. The United Kingdom is seen as the air base for NATO in any European armed conflict. It is estimated that 40 per cent. of the air power of NATO would be based in the United Kingdom. In view of the probability that Soviet tactical air forces would attack United Kingdom air bases, missile systems, radar and communications, it is imperative that the RAF improve its defence capability as
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  soon as possible. I am not prepared to accept the Minister's bland assurances that the production and delivery of Tornados may not be speeded up before the end of the 1980s.
  The third reason is a rather more general one, but I believe that it is equally forceful for giving higher priority to the RAF. That is that air forces have assumed greater political significance in foreign affairs over the last decade or more. The Soviet Union has demonstrated that air forces can be used as a political instrument whose phychological impact, quickness of response and symbolic value as a commitment to a host country's interests exceed those of navies, which have been the traditional source of political operations. The day of the gunboat is ended. The day of the airlift has arrived.
  If we are to have any significant or credible diplomatic influence for good in the world and in supporting those interests which we must, we must have a more adequate Air Force capability. In its airlifts to Syria and Egypt during the Yom Kippur war, the lifting of Cuban legions to Angola and, more recently and frighteningly, the airlifts to the Horn of Africa, the Soviet Union has shown how quickly it can mount a substantial airlift of arms, equipment and personnel to countries where, as it sees it, it has an international role.
  We shall not be taken as seriously as we should be, nor will our world influence be used to its proper advantage, unless we recognise this change in the relationship of diplomatic influence and the air force capability of the country concerned.
  It is a source of great regret to me that the defence White Paper makes hardly any mention of the impact on Britain's defence policy of the changing international situation and political developments outside Europe. We have to look, for such analyses, to the equivalent publications in the United States, which are first-class assessments of the changing role and balance of power in the world.
  I am not suggesting that Britain should once again try to police the world, but I believe that, as a free and developed country, we must accept our responsibility to play a part in defending the freedom of other countries from subjection and in

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  protecting British subjects and interests internationally.
  The groupings and the tensions of the future may be very different from those of the past. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser), who spoke brilliantly in the defence debate, drew the attention of the House to the changing balance of power and influence in the world in future between those countries which produce commodities and those which consume them.
  I, too, believe that in future the differences between countries may not be the historical basis of what sort of system one uses—free enterprise or collectivism—but may relate more to the question, freedom or subjection. The changing balances of influence on world conflict and international affairs are things to which we should begin to wake up. It should influence our foreign policy, which has a direct influence on our defence policy and on the commitment that we should give to the RAF.
  The White Paper fails to recognise that Britain's diplomatic influence in international affairs is severely weakened by an inadequate defence capability or contribution, particularly the contribution that we make to the RAF. Many people would question whether we should have such an influence. I am sure that some members of the Labour Party who are not here today would be the first to cry that.
  I believe that we should have an influence for two reasons. First, Britain's experience, our history of democratic government and our responsible approach to international affairs still carry weight abroad and can be used to further the cause of freedom and opportunity nationally.
  Secondly, I believe that Britain's integrity is respected in world councils. This respect is based not so much on our imperial past but more on the stability of our institutions, the objective advice we bring to international issues and our recognition of the importance of human rights and the fulfilment of democratic principles.
  For these reasons, there should be a greater commitment to the RAF. To make my plea more honest and accurate, I will say that I believe that this should be done even within the present defence
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  budget at the expense of the other Ser vices. That may not be to the liking of many of my hon. Friends let alone to many Labour Members, but I believe in particular that, as and when a Conservative Government are re-elected, out of any increase in our defence budget, a much higher allocation should be accorded to the RAF than to the other Forces.
  The RAF has had a raw deal and it should get a higher priority. I have three suggestions for improving the situation. First, I would repeat what has already been said, that we must substantially improve the pay and conditions of the Forces, particularly for those at the sharp end of this country's defence. Second, we must improve, much more quickly than the Government are prepared to accept, our airborne capability.
  I refer particularly to Tornado. In the defence debate and in parliamentary Questions since, I have asked the Minister when the Tornados will completely replace the Vulcans, Phantoms and Lightnings. We have been told in a somewhat sneaky way that it will now be the late 1980s. The Government should not be allowed to get away with that. When the programme and the orders were initiated. we were told that they hoped the deliveries would be made in the mid-1980s. Of course there may be production line difficulties but if there were a period of armed conflict, could we afford not to deal more incisively with these problems?
  This may be far-fetched, but if this were 1939, would we really say blandly that there was not much we could do to bring forward the delivery date for Tornados?
  If the Minister takes this matter seriously, he should ensure that the backbone of the RAF capability into the 1980s is dealt with more satisfactorily. We understand that the 220 "Battlefield" CR1 versions and the 165ADVs or F2s, costing respectively £6 million and £8 million will be delivered towards the end of the next decade, and that the Government are satisfied that, with the improved defence capability and the Rapier squadron that we have heard about, this delivery schedule is adequate. I have severe doubts, large as the number of Tornados is which is to be delivered. whether they will he sufficient to replace the Phantoms, Lightnings and Vulcans which will be going out of service.

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  I suspect that there are very large gaps in our early warning system throughout the length of the country. Given our strategic importance in time of conflict in Europe, and with the presence of the full brace of NATO air forces here, we should improve our early warning system, but particularly our interceptor ability by increasing the number of Tornados on order.
  I come next to the question of the so-called AST 403, the proposed replacement for the Harrier and the Jaguar. I noted with interest what the Minister said this afternoon. He seemed to indicate that the Government were now considering sympathetically the possibility of joint collaboration with European partners. Originally we had open to us three options in deciding on the replacement for this all-important front line aircraft. His comments this afternoon indicated that perhaps the riskiest, but, nevertheless, from my point of view the most welcome of these options, has been chosen.
  It was considered at first that we might buy the American F16 or F18, but clearly given the interests of our aerospace industry and the capability of those aircraft for the next 20 years or so that decision would be greatly criticised, certainly in Parliament. Developing a British fixed-wing version of the aircraft with the RB199 Tornado engine might have severe operational difficulties and such an aircraft might be outmatched and made obsolete well before an acceptable time span had elapsed.
  The third option brings with it attendant risks, but it is the right one to take, and I hope that the Government will be able to indicate this evening whether they have chosen to take it. The option is to develop a short take-off, vertical landing supersonic aircraft with vectored thrust engines. I believe that work is being conducted on such a programme of research by Messerschmidt and McDonnell Douglas. These may seem curious partners in crime given the historical enmities between the three countries. In the changed world which I tried to describe earlier I believe we should consider sympathetically giving a far greater commitment to this joint effort to produce the AST 403. I know that the Government will be coming forward with a statement on this matter,
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  and I hope that by probing with Parliamentary Questions or by other means we may gain some prior knowledge of their decision.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising a serious point about a possible collaborative programme on the AST 403. We are pursuing this matter very energetically. The hon. Member, however, has indicated that he understands that this involves considerable delay in trying to arrive with potential collaborative partners at joint specifications for the aircraft. We are delighted to receive the hon. Gentleman's support in rebutting any accusations of unwarranted delay which may be made against myself and my right hon. and hon. Friends over the very great care that we are taking on this vital aircraft.
  Mr. Nelson: I must accept the Minister's assurances in that respect because I do not know. However, I urge upon him, even from a layman's point of view, that in considering the specifications of this aircraft, he should realise that it makes a lot of common sense to go for short take-off, vertical landing aircraft, given the emphasis that Warsaw Pact countries or any other highly able armed forces would place on knocking out the airfields, and given also our poor performance so far in hardening runways. Although the Army is doing excellent work on airfield reconstruction, short take-off and vertical landing after weapon delivery would be a most sensible option to pursue.
  Let me add my congratulations on the fine history of the Royal Air Force, but in paying tribute to its dedication and ability I should like to mention also the role of the Women's Royal Air Force, which is often neglected but which has for so long played a very important role in the defence of the country. The Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Homes have made a first-class contribution to medical care within the Royal Air Force for many years. I speak from personal experience since I was born in one in Germany in 1948. I therefore feel strongly that the Women's Royal Air Force should be given an accolade in the tributes that the House is paying today.
  I believe that I have made the case for the Royal Air Force being given a

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  greater proportion of the defence budget. I have indicated ways in which I should like to see that money spent. But, most important, I have indicated that sadly the RAF has had a raw deal under Labour. I sincerely hope that when my party is returned to office we shall give the RAF the tools to enable it to aspire to its motto. I hope that time will be soon and that our commitment will be enhanced by office.
  6.6 p.m.
  Mr. John Cronin: The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) made an interesting and well-informed speech. I will not follow all the points in it because there were so many of them that I should be presented with a difficult task. He did not err on the side of brevity. I do not think that he carried the House completely with his suggestion that the RAF should receive a much bigger share of the budget than the other Services. I thought that I detected slight movements in the form of the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) at the thought of Navy spending being cut in favour of the RAF.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: In fact, not so.
  Mr. Cronin: The hon. Member for Chichester referred to the morale of the RAF being decreased. I think that it is common ground on all sides—my hon. Friend the Minister has accepted this—that there has been such a decrease. It is important, however, that that morale should not be diminished further by irresponsible speeches. I get very worried about the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill). He is a dedicated and conscientious Front-Bench spokesman on defence affairs. I speak on this matter with some knowledge because I stood at the same Front Bench many years ago discussing RAF matters. I sympathise with his desire to make the case. I know that the most generous feelings of humanity affect him when he discusses Service pay and the effect on morale. But he must appreciate that much of what he says is having a detrimental effect on the morale of the Services.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) made an excellent speech in which he drew attention to this aspect. He pointed out how
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  frequently the defence correspondents, who are by no means Socialists, get a little bit weary of the hon. Gentleman's excessive aggressiveness and the effect that it might have on the morale of the Armed Forces.
  Mr. Churchill: Can the hon. Member not imagine that it is the excessively low levels of pay that are causing this collapse of the morale of the Royal Air Force and of the other Services, and not the fact that certain of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself, and Labour Members, have shown considerable sympathy with their cause which they are not able to advance in any other way and for which they receive very little sympathy from the Government?
  Mr. Cronin: The hon. Member is talking about the collapse of morale of the RAF. Who believes that the morale of the RAF has collapsed? Some of us have visited RAF stations in Germany and Britain and we know that there has been some impairment of morale. But to say that it has collapsed is the sort of irresponsible remark that a Front-Bench spokesman should not make. The hon. Gentleman means well, but he is behaving more and more like a bull in a china shop every time he comes to that Dispatch Box on defence matters, and he is doing harm. I suggest that he restrains that fighting spirit and adopts a more responsible attitude.
  The RAF has been subjected to a lot of traumatic changes in the past few years. All kinds of important aircraft have been cancelled. The hon. Member for Stretford quite rightly referred to them. They include aircraft such as the TSR 2, the P1154 jump jet and the Anglo-French AFVG. It is surprising that they are not in a very much worse state.
  While we are on the subject, and to be absolutely fair, I should have thought that the most appalling blow that ever occurred to the RAF's morale was in 1957. The hon. Member for Stretford talked about morale being impaired when certain aircraft are cancelled. But in those days Lord Sandys, the Secretary of State for Defence—the hon. Gentleman was riot in his present position then—wanted to end all fighting aircraft altogether. Heaven knows what effect that had on the morale of the RAF in those days.

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  There is no doubt that from the point of view of efficiency—I am sure that I carry both sides of the House with me in this—the RAF is probably second to none in the world. It has commanded the admiration of the air forces in NATO and in the Soviet Union and certainly in the United States. There is no doubt that not only is our Air Force the best trained but it is the most professional. The hon. Member for Stretford referred to the excellence of the work done by the Jaguars at RAF Bruggen. Another hon. Member referred to how well they did in Nevada under the Red Flag programme. It is certain that they are really a magnificent force.
  What is important is that the RAF has the spirit of the tactical offensive. What rather worries me about Opposition Members is that they keep talking about the defensive. This is quite contrary to the spirit of the RAF. The RAF thinks in terms of interdiction of enemy airfields, first, and in terms of taking out jump points, bridgeheads, road junctions and railway marshalling yards. Opposition Members think in terms of the tactical defensive. When they talk about the defensive measures of the RAF, they do an injustice to the very important tactical doctrine of the RAF—that is, the offensive objective on every possible occasion.
  Mr. Churchill: I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again. However, would he not agree, therefore, that it is deplorable that the present Government should be stripping the RAF of its strategic offensive role, which it has had for so many years and which even today plays a vital part in our nuclear strategic defence?
  Mr. Cronin: The strategic role has been taken over to a very large extent by the Royal Navy, by the Polaris submarine. Of course, the new Tornados will certainly have some strategic role.
  Mr. Churchill: Oh!
  Mr. Cronin: The hon. Gentleman should have listened to what the Minister said about in-flight refuelling.
  Mr. Churchill: Can they get to Moscow?
  Mr. Cronin: Certainly, with in-flight refuelling. I think that the hon. Gentleman is getting a little too pessimistic concerning that.
  Anyway, there is no doubt that the improvements in the RAF's equipment are now somewhat overdue. It is very pleasant to hear the Minister announcing today that there will be 150 production models of the Tornado aircraft. This is a tremendous step forward, because the chief criticism of the RAF, from the point of view of equipment, is that it has too few of too many aeroplanes at present. We have too many obsolescent aeroplanes, such as the Buccaneer, the Vulcan, the Canberra and the Lightning, and even the Jaguar and the Phantom are becoming somewhat obsolete. It is very good to know that we shall have the Tornado GR1, which is to replace the Vulcans, Buccaneers and Canberras, and the Tornado F2, which will replace the Lightnings and Phantoms.
  It is very pleasant to find one's ministerial colleagues announcing at the Dispatch Box measures that will greatly improve the fighting capacity of the Armed Forces and greatly raise their morale. It was delightful to hear my hon. Friend the Minister speak along those lines.
  I wish that my hon. Friend could have said a bit more about AST403, but I appreciate that that is very much in the future and will involve collaboration with other countries.
  I was delighted to hear that the Government are purchasing second-hand VC10s. What an excellent economy it is when second-hand aircraft can be put to a useful life and a strategic purpose.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Oh. really!
  Mr. Cronin: The important thing is whether they do the job.
  The hon. Member for Stretford meets RAF officers, as we all do. All will tell him that the VC10 does the right job. I see that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me. Why does he want to have a brand-new aircraft, instead, which will not do the job any better? It is financial irresponsibility. I see that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) is trying to come to the hon. Gentleman's rescue.

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  However, this indicates that the hon. Gentleman does not think in terms of cost effectiveness as much as he should, as a budding defence spokesman or Defence Minister in some remote future Conservative Government.
  Several hon. Members have made the point that there should be more stockpiling. The hon. Member for Chichester raised that point. That is certainly important. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will give some attention to the matter. There is no doubt that weapons are used up at a very rapid pace in modern warfare. The Yom Kippur war made it perfectly clear that both the Arabs and the Israelis were reduced to their reserves in a very short time indeed. Therefore, I hope that stockpiling will become a more important question for the Minister. At the same time, however, it is no good having the stocks without aircraft to deliver them. The Minister has made gigantic strides forward in his announcement about the 150 Tornados that we are to have in the near future.
  Another thing that concerns me is what we are to do about pilots to fly these aircraft. It takes two and a half years to train a direct entry pilot. If he goes through a university, it takes five and a half years. Of those who are trained to fly fast jets, only one in four qualify to do so. I am rather concerned whether we shall have a sufficiently skilled and adequately sized force of pilots to fly these aircraft when they are delivered.
  The Government have already taken some steps in starting short service commissions. I hope that that idea will be expanded. Also, I should have thought that there would be a very good case for augmenting flying pay. Some increased pay for these pilots would be a good thing if it could be fitted in as soon as possible consistent with the general rise in the pay of the Armed Forces.
  I come now to the question of the morale of the RAF. As I said earlier, both sides of the House agree that the morale is impaired. But it is impaired in rather a patchy way. Among the officers, I should have thought that morale was quite good, from my personal observations. But certainly the morale of the skilled senior NCOs is a good deal worse than that of any other section of the RAF.
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  RAF Bruggen has been mentioned in the debate on more than one occasion When visiting RAF Bruggen with some of my hon. Friends, I was very impressed with the very strong feelings that were expressed by the senior NCOs and warrant officers about pay. I think that this is justified. But it is so easy to attack the Government on this question. There is no escaping the fact that we must have some sort of pay policy, and it has been a very effective pay policy.
  Mr. Churchill: Unfair.
  Mr. Cronin: It has certainly put a stop to the runaway inflation that would have happened if we had not had an effective pay policy. Obviously, the Armed Forces are bound to suffer, like anyone else. I accept that they have suffered very much more and that they have had a raw deal. But many people have had a raw deal. University lecturers, the police force and quite a lot of other people have had a raw deal.
  Mr. Churchill: Socialist misery.
  Mr. Cronin: The hon. Member for Stretford talks the whole time as though nothing has happened except this terrible treatment of the Armed Forces, but many people have been suffering as a result of the pay policy. It is full of crudities and injustices. One hopes that they will he smoothed out in the very near future.
  There is no doubt that the RAF is having a particularly bad time. I think that most of us know how the RAF has had personnel teams touring the various stations, and they have reported that there is discontent in all ranks, to a greater or lesser extent, and among the wives, and they also feel that their case is not being put strongly enough to the Government. I am not sure that that is entirely true, because quite a lot of us have been putting the case strongly, but that is their feeling.
  There is also a great deal of moonlighting in the RAF, which should not have to occur. It is intolerable that RAF personnel should have to do other work in their spare time to supplement their earnings. It is even more unsatisfactory that some RAF personnel should be dependent on their wives for support.
  This is one of the unavoidable effects of the pay policy. I expect that the situation will shortly be greatly improved,

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  because at present the report of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body is with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I should be astonished if he had not heard what has been said on both sides of the House. I am confident that there will be a great improvement in the pay and conditions of service of the Armed Forces in the very near future. It will have to be consistent with the Government's pay policy, but even then it should be a very big improvement.
  Therefore, Opposition Members who are making such a tremendous noise about the Armed Forces' pay are to some extent over-reacting. At this moment the vital report is in the most important hands, and I am sure that very shortly we shall see a very big improvement in the Armed Forces' pay.
  One cannot end a speech on this occasion without referring to the magnificent service done by the RAF in its 60 years. All of us must feel very proud of its tremendous performance not only during the Second World War but as a very efficient fighting force during the past 30 years. It is wonderful how it has maintained its high efficiency and 1 think still quite good morale in spite of the adverse factors, the cancellations which have become necessary and the pay pause, which was equally necessary. It is a wonderful force, and it deserves all the encouragement and help that it will get from the House and the Government.
  I also believe that not only shall we give it much more money, which is what it needs, but much better equipment. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister was able to announce this, not merely for the sake of the RAF but for the sake of the Labour Party and the Government, becaues it is an indication that our economy is going steadily upwards. We are climbing out of the frightful inflation which was started by the Government of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). We are climbing out of that terrible despond and are reaching the heights, where the whole country will see a much higher standard of living.
  It is a happy thought that the obvious improvements that will take place in the RAF are an indication of how life will
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  improve for everyone in this country, provided we adhere to the same Government.
  6.23 p.m.
  Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I begin by adding my congratulations and those of my colleagues to the RAF on achieving its sixtieth anniversary. The RAF has an enviable record, which speaks for itself. On the Liberal Bench it is a matter of pride to us that almost throughout the last war, under the grandfather of the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill), the RAF was under the control of Sir Archibald Sinclair, as he then was, who was then the Liberal leader.
  What the RAF could be spared is politically motivated rhetoric. It does no good. The many people who have indulged in it give so many hostages to fortune that if they were over on the other side of the Dispatch Box the words that could be quoted back at them, no doubt when the country was again going through economic difficulties, would make matters very difficult. Playing the political game with the Armed Services is dangerous. I do not want to say any more on that subject.
  The Minister referred to the first Tornados being delivered next year. Can he not be a little more precise? There has been slippage, as it has been called, because of difficulties in production. It is well known that the Government have virtually had to make no defence cuts because of the postponement of the money that will be due under the Tornado programme.
  It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman gave the House a little clearer indication of the present position. After all, it is not the Government who have failed to produce the Tornado aircraft but industry which has so far failed to produce them on time. The Minister owes it to the country to be a little more explicit on this. I am sure that those in the RAF would be particularly pleased if he could give the House a little more detail.
  I have never thought that we debate defence intelligently as a Parliament. We indulge in party political points across the Floor. Looking around the Chamber now, I should have thought every hon. Member present was very keen that the country should keep up its defences and

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  make a proper contribution to defence in NATO. On the basis of my 16 years' experience in the House, I believe that if one took a graph of expenditure on defence one would find that it goes up and down depending on the economic condition of the country. Whatever is said by any party, the truth is that under economic stress the Services are regarded as fair game by any Chancellor of the Exchequer. It does not matter whether it is a Conservative Government or a Labour Government.
  What would be much more intelligent—I have often advocated this—would be to have a full-blown Defence Committee in the House, a Committee which continually investigated matters that affected defence, asked questions of civil servants, senior officers, and so on, and came to more intelligent and long-term conclusions on defence.
  The point has been made that the state of morale and confidence in the RAF has been damaged. I think that that is true. There are troughs and heights in the morale or confidence of all forces. I do not think that the RAF morale or confidence is any more damaged than that of the other Services, but it is very important that the matter be put right, if possible.
  I think that pay is a very important issue, but I do not think that it is the only issue that has affected confidence or morale. It is very important to try to analyse the other matters of concern.
  I made the point during the defence debate that it is absolute nonsense that this country still spends the same proportion of its defence budget on the RAF, the Army and the Navy as it has done for the past 23 years. I think that it was in 1954 that the proportion was last agreed, and that there has been no deviation from it. It means that there can have been no close analysis of the lessons to be learned from such things as the 1973 Middle East war. It shows that under successive Governments there has been a lack, in the Ministry of Defence, of a suitable body or a decision-making machinery to achieve the right decisions.
  For example, we hear in the House speeches advocating that more should be spent on the RAF, more should be spent on the Army, and more should be spent on the Navy. A good case can be made
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  superficially for any of those things. For example, we have heard in speeches from both sides of the House that BAOR is very important. It is said to be weaker than it should be, and we are told that we should spend a great deal on the British Army of the Rhine.
  An equally powerful case can be made for spending much more on our antisubmarine defences. Indeed, the proportion of its defence budget spent by the Soviet Union on its navy would lead one to believe that that might be the greatest area for expenditure by this country.
  We have heard today a very powerful case made by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson), for example, for much more expenditure on the RAF. He said that the RAF had had a very raw deal and that the proportion of defence expenditure on it should be greatly increased.
  What is the answer? When we look at the Soviet might we see that the truth is that this country could spend every penny it earns on defence and even then we would not be really sufficiently armed to defend ourselves against the Soviet Union. There must, therefore, be a much more intelligent appreciation of these matters. We cannot defend ourselves. We are part of an alliance, the NATO Alliance, and the real question is whether the sum total of our defence alliance is suitable to meet the threat made against us.
  I always listen with interest to the hon. Member for Stretford. It is his style to exaggerate somewhat, but I think that he speaks with a purpose, and he believes in what he says. Today, the hon. Gentleman was, in effect, making a case for tremendously increased defence expenditure all round. But if that were done and there was great social discontent in this country as a result, we should be far more vulnerable to the pressure of the Soviet Union.
  I have always thought that we ought to read with great care what is said by the Soviet leaders. In the defence debate I quoted the speech of Mr. Brezhnev at the twenty-third congress of the Soviet Community Party, when he said that the might of the Soviet Union together with, or as an adjunct of, its foreign affairs policy was the most important factor in the social development of the world today.

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  I quoted his words verbatim in that debate, but I am epitomising their effect now.
  We should pay attention to that speech, recognising that the greatest probable threat to this country is of an insurrection within one of the NATO countries and Soviet might being used, as it were, as a threat or a warning to everyone else not to intervene. This could lead to the erosion of NATO itself.
  I wish to relate that matter now to the question of the morale and confidence of the Royal Air Force. I believe that part of the lack of morale and reduction in confidence arises from the failure to give RAF personnel a clear idea of their long-term role in Britain's defence pattern. There must be a means of working this out. It has to be worked out within the Ministry of Defence. One great contribution which the Secretary of State for Defence could make would be to create a better decision-making machine at the very top in his Ministry.
  There are good decision-making bodies in the Department below the top level, but at the very top there is not. I am speaking of the very top level where one has to consider the politics and economics of defence matters, the military arguments and the scientific arguments, taking into account a proper analysis of Soviet thinking and doctrine and the rest. It is here, I believe, that we lose.
  It is pointless for us as politicians, however well informed we may be, to argue on the basis that "I was in the Royal Air Force so I must advocate the RAF case"—"I was in the Navy so I must advocate the Navy's case"—or the equivalent for the Army, according to one's particular predeliction. That is not an intelligent way of conducting our affairs today.
  Mr. Antony Buck: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will recall that in the defence debate I suggested that the Government should consider appointing Sir James Dunnett, the former Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, to investigate whether the present procedures were sensible. Prima facie, they are not. We have at the top a Defence Council which never meets, or practically never meets.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: Yes, it does meet.
  Mr. Hooson: I am sure that we are all grateful for that information, but, from the point of view of the House of Commons, it would be far better if we had a Committee with access to information and papers and a system of interrogation instead of our present practice of from time to time conducting debates of this kind in which speeches of a rather partisan nature are made.
  I believe that the greatest single contribution which we could make to morale in the Royal Air Force would be to pinpoint its future long-term role. Personnel in the RAF feel extremely insecure. Changes are made from time to time. Whichever party be the Government, in military decisions we tend to hiccup from one position to another, reacting to a given set of circumstances, instead of pursuing a proper analysis of what we have learned, determining what should be the long-term role of one Service or another.
  I turn now to what the hon. Member for Stretford said about the strategic deterrent. I take it that he is not suggesting that we should have a new generation of V bombers—that because the Royal Air Force had the strategic deterrent, it should necessarily remain within the RAF even if it is renewed. That might be the right place for it, but I do not believe that we shall reach a sensible decision by making points of that kind.
  The hon. Gentleman made a perfectly valid point about the possible need for a strategic nuclear deterrent—although I may well disagree with him since I think it more important to see the matter in the NATO context—but he presented the case as though he was suggesting that we should have a new generation of bombers to replace the V bombers even if it were proved beyond doubt that the submarine was the right place even for a future new generation of such weapons.
  Mr. Churchill: I was suggesting that our present independent strategic deterrent is viable today because not only is it based on having one or sometimes two Polaris submarines on station but it is backed up by the strategic capability of the V bomber force. From 1982 onwards, that part of it will be abolished, and from that moment on, unless alternative dispositions are made—whether a Cruise

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  missile to be air-launched or submarinelaunched—the deterrent will depend at times on a single Polaris submarine, and I believe that even the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that that cannot be regarded as a serious and effective capability.
  Mr. Hooson: This is where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. In my view, the right process for this country is to decide, as a member of NATO, whether we need an independent nuclear deterrent. If we come to the conclusion that we do, we should decide how and where it is best organised, by which force it should be carried or managed and so on, but we cannot take a decision of that sort on grounds of emotion in such a debate as this about the Royal Air Force, and there is no point in inflaming feelings or passions about it.
  The long-term problem for this country is to define clearly the role which the Royal Air Force should have, and this can be done only when there has been a proper analysis of the future threat.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hooson: Certainly. I am always ready to give way to the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I am much obliged. Is not the hon. and learned Gentleman pursuing party politics, just as he accuses others of doing, by trying—as the Liberal Party always does—to be all things to all men? He calls for a long-term determination or indication of the role and purpose of the Royal Air Force. Is he not forgetting that there was one in the form of the defence review which the present Government produced at the start of their period of office? It was designed to produce exactly that, but now the hon. and learned Gentleman wants it done all over again.
  Mr. Hooson: I was not at all impressed by the defence review, and I have no confidence that there was any really basic rethinking in it. That is the advice which I have always received on the matter—that there was no really long-term thinking—and it is the complaint of people in the Services that there has not been a sufficient review. The criticism is made to me constantly by experts who advise me on these matters that there was no proper
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  analysis of the results of the 1973 war by those who were concerned with defence matters in this country. Certainly, there were specialist inquests held as they affected certain disciplines, but I believe that we suffer enormously in this country from inter-Service rivalry and intersection rivalry within Sevices. The pesent Secretary of State could do a great deal by ironing out these problems and smoothing the rivalries away.
  I turn now to pay, which certainly affects morale. I am sure that all hon. Members present in the Chamber now would think it very foolish for any Government to allow such a situation as the present to continue any longer. I am, therefore, reassured to know that the report from the Pay Review Body is now with the Prime Minister.
  It is always easy to make partisan points about any given pay policy. All pay policies which I have known in this country have been introduced in times of emergency. None, therefore, has been fair. All have been extremely unfair to various sections. Hon. Members can get up and argue for their own section. We have heard hon. Members from below the Gangway arguing for the firemen. We have heard others arguing for the civil servants, the police and the Armed Forces.
  The truth is that none of these pay policies is eventually fair. They are introduced, presumably, because Governments have been forced into them. There may be a very good case, as my party believes, for a permanent pay policy, designed to be fair. But when they have been introduced so far they are said to be introduced in the interests of the country as a whole. I have yet to meet a member of the Armed Forces who thinks that the Armed Forces should be allowed to break the Pay Code. Most of them want the 10 per cent., like everyone else. Nevertheless, there is an important distinction which has to be made. There is the X factor—
  Mr. Churchill: The minus-X factor.
  Mr. Hooson: The hon. Member is being needlessly pedantic. It is the X factor, which has to be subtracted or added, as the case may be. It is capable of adjustment. It is acknowledged that the forces cannot earn overtime and have to work in the most incredible conditions.

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  They have to meet all kinds of contingencies. The X factor can be adjusted to deal with this. I believe that such an adjustment would have the support of all parts of the House, even of those hon. Members who sit below the Gangway and who are so critical of the defence budget. They cannot and would not complain of that.
  There is scope for some adjustment of clawback factors affecting those in the Services. The military salary concept was to provide pay and charges comparable with those in civilian life. Clearly, they have got out of balance and have to be put right. If they cannot be put right in one fell swoop, as with the firemen they can be put right over a period of a couple of years.
  The Minister has mentioned the subject of low-flying aircraft. They are the cause of great concern in areas such as mine, which is widely used for this purpose. Anyone who has experienced low-flying aircraft would completely reject the suggestion that aeroplanes should be allowed to fly at a few feet above houses at top speed. They cause great stress.
  As I understand it, the fact that there is a ceiling, a restriction, on top speed, does not mean that RAF personnel are not getting the opportunity of working in simulated war conditions. When the review is made—it is being undertaken at present—consideration should be given to staggering the times at which this low flying takes place and to ensuring that other towns and villages have their share of it. Otherwise some towns and villages will suffer constantly. It would be most helpful if there could be some element of sharing here.
  Representations have been made to me by the wives of RAF personnel about the registration of Service voters. The 1976 Act was well-intentioned. It intended to carry out the recommendations of Mr. Speaker's Conference. Nevertheless, it has been a mistake. There has been great resentment about the forms. I have a copy here. There is great resentment that the form has normally to be obtained by the spouse who is within the forces. The wife, or husband, greatly objects to this. There is no need for an attesting witness to the veracity of the application for the right to vote within this country. A normal
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  householder does not need an attesting witness. Why should Service personnel need one? While there is a case for this abroad, to make sure that there is no fraud, it surely cannot be said that there is a case for requiring an attesting witness for a voter within this country.
  Am I right in thinking that the Minister of Defence has made representations and that the "S" symbol opposite the names on the electoral role is now to be removed? I hope that I am right in thinking that that will happen. The argument has been put that diplomats, British Council employees, civil servants and their spouses abroad have the same kind of arrangement. It is not, I think, achieved by the same method and it is the method of achievement which is causing the problem.
  We know that there is an application by the American Air Force for the reactivation of RAF Greenham Common as a base for tankers. This is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson). This is obviously a matter of great concern because it affects an area of 50,000 inhabitants as well as the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Defence. One would have thought that prima facie this kind of base could be accommodated in an area away from a large urban population. What people are concerned about here, those interested generally in the defence of this country, is the method of achieving a decision. What consultations will take place? What weight will the Minister give to environmental considerations? What steps are being taken to evaluate, with the Americans, the possibility of using an alternative base? Any further information which the Minister can give on this matter about the machinery by which a decision is to be achieved would be appreciated by the country at large.
  6.47 p.m.
  Mr. Alan Lee Williams: I am pleased to follow the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), which was wholly constructive. He was right to draw the attention of the House to the need to look to longer-term developments in air power. It will not have escaped the notice of the House that this matter is now causing a great deal of intellectual curiosity among strategists and that a discussion on

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  tactics has been taking place between the United States Air Force and the RAF for some time.
  To do full justice to this debate and to the proud traditions of the RAF over 60 years it is no bad thing to look to the future. The RAF has evolved through various stages and it would be foolish for the House to fail to recognise that its role has profoundly changed. There is no point in hon. Members talking as if there has not been a change of this profound character. The reasons for it are fairly easy to evaluate.
  The RAF is now part of a European air force. That is why 1 very much welcome what the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery said about the need to look upon the RAF as part of a European contribution to NATO and not to talk, as some Tory Members have talked, as if the RAF were meant exclusively to take on the Warsaw Pact in a European war. There is a tendency to argue that way and it is a mistake. The RAF makes a unique contribution to the defence of continental Europe. It no longer requires a global capacity, which is why it is strikingly different from the American air force, which has a bigger range and capability. The American air force has more aircraft, and many more different types of aircraft, than does the RAF.
  For the record, the Americans have so many aircraft that they could not deploy all of them in Europe at any one moment. They spend over a quarter of their defence budget on their air capability. They have responsibilities outside Europe. But we are talking about a European contribution. The debate between the United States air force and the Royal Air Force is an interesting one. I do not believe—I am interested to hear the Minister's reply on this particular argument—that it is simply about technology. It is a question of tactics influenced very much by technology but not technology alone.
  Basically the argument is that the Americans believe that the use of high altitude flying in dealing with a frontal attack from the Warsaw Pact would be likely to prove the most effective. To put it shortly, I hope not oversimplifying it too much, the view of the Royal Air Force is that the way in which to deal with such a frontal attack is by low-altitude tactics.
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  I think that my hon. Friend the Minister will agree with me that the American air force has now decided seriously to look at the tactics deployed and the methods used by the RAF. There comes a limit when one tries to apply in Europe the methods and techniques that were used in, say, South-East Asia, where the terrain and weather conditions were totally different.
  It does not necessarily mean that we have to spend more money on the RAF. It seems that the amount of money that we spend on the RAF at present is about right. It gives us the all-round capability that we require. We do not need the aircraft for which the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) was arguing, because we do not need an air strategic capability for the Soviet Union. We have a strategic capability, but not a strategic role. I believe that it has been effectively taken over by Polaris and whatever succeeds that system. Therefore, the strategic nuclear role of the RAF has gone. It would be far better for the RAF if that were stated publicly. The role of the RAF is a tactical one in the aid of the Army in Central Europe. It has proved in its manoeuvres that it is very good at that role.
  I finish on an aspect which I think has an influence on the debate, and it has been shown very clearly in the contributions that have been made this evening. All the time that we have the attempt of a separate Service approach to defence matters, we will make a mess of things. The contribution from the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) was that we ought to spend more on the Royal Air Force. He made a very good case. He speaks very engagingly and with great knowledge. He made a powerful case for more expenditure for the RAF.
  The hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) surprised me when he said that he agreed. If a case can be made for more expenditure for the Royal Air Force on logical defence grounds, I would be in favour of it, but we all know that that is not how it is conducted. Each Service puts in its own bids and in the end a compromise has to be reached—generally the worst kind of compromise at the end of the day. It seems to me that we must try to move away from that approach.

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  Some time ago I made proposals which unfortunately got a very bad reaction wholly because I explained my ideas badly at that time. I suggested that, since the role of the RAF was no longer strategic and that the Air Force was now a tactical one, there should be a merger between the Army and the RAF. What I meant was not that the RAF role should be abolished. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army seems pleased with what I am saying. That was the reaction I had from people who wrote to me and from those who stopped me and asked whether I was proposing the abolition of the Royal Air Force. I was clearly doing no such thing.
  There is a strong case for merging at the very highest rank all the senior officers so that we keep our separate armed Services and all the functions that follow from that, so that we have at the top a genuine tri-Service approach.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: The hon. Member has made a very interesting point, but is not the Chief of the Defence Staff exactly what he is advocating?
  Mr. Williams: In my view, not since Lord Mountbatten has that been the case. Lord Mountbatten, when he was chairman of the chiefs of staff, showed what personality and drive could do in that direction. But that has not been the case since.
  Part of my argument is that we need to move towards that kind of approach if we are to get the right kind of decisions about defence and not go in for one defence debate after another in which hon. Members on both sides of the House make false, superficial party points. The time has arrived, since our proceedings are now to be broadcast and people, presumably, will listen to our defence debates, when we must measure up to that audience and provide it with the real debate about the future of the RAF.
  6.56 p.m.
  Mr. Hector Monro: The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Williams) made an interesting contribution to the debate, though I am not sure that I agree with him on almost anything that he said except that today's debate is about the Royal Air Force and we should be concentrating on that. The role of the
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  Air Force has changed over the last 60 years. It has been one of constant evolution and much more geared to a technical advance than perhaps the hon. Gentleman indicated, always having to be an advance within the Defence Estimates.
  Many of us could disagree with him over his last point, perhaps inadvertently, being critical of whoever may hold the post of Chief of Defence Staff and his colleagues in the Defence Staff. Today, when the Services are so advanced in technology, we need officers of the highest calibre such as we have at the moment in Sir Neil Cameron. I doubt whether we have ever had better Chiefs of Defence Staff than we have had over the last 10 years or so.
  Mr. Alan Lee Williams: May I make it clear that I was not making a personal attack on any member of the Chiefs of Staff? I was merely mentioning the unique contribution of Lord Mountbatten.
  Mr. Munro: I accept the point that the hon. Member was making, but I, too, stick to my point that we are exceptionally well served, in such an age as we are in, in the latter part of the twentieth century, in having Chiefs of Staffs who know so very much about the technological role of all the Services.
  As the Minister said in opening the debate, this is the week of the 60th birthday of the RAF. We applaud—I put on record my views, too—the esteem in Britain and throughout the free world in which the Royal Air Force is held at present, not only for its great traditions of the past but now for its present efficiency.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) mentioned the supreme effectiveness of the squadrons at Bruggen when he was there. I was not so long ago nearby, at Wildenrath and found the same super-efficiency. Quite rightly, NATO commended the RAF on its exceptional standard, when it came to action, under its present rules of defence operations. This is the parliamentary occasion, during the week of celebration of the Royal Air Force, on which we can all speak with pride of the Service. Those of us who have been in the RAF, the Royal Auxiliary Air Force or the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, perhaps feel a little wistful that Parliament

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  has not been as involved as it might have been in this week's celebrations. But it is not without significance that we chose this week for the new all-party RAF group to have one of its major meetings in the House.
  The right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison), the chairman of our new group, would have spoken in the debate, were it the custom for the Deputy Chief Whip so to do. He was the instigator of this important new group in which I am glad to serve as vice-chairman and in which we have been joined by the Chief Accountant of the House of Commons as treasurer.
  I emphasise that the group will not cut across party defence committees, the normal defence visits, or the Royal Air Force Association branch in the Palace of Westminster. But we will, we hope, establish a much closer relationship with the RAF than ever before. The membership is open only to those who have served in the RAF, the RAFVR, or the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, or any of the other branches of the Service. We will have close liaison with the Ministry of Defence, and I warmly welcome the helpful and co-operative view taken by the Under-Secretary of Sate.
  It is, of course, early days yet, but we believe that nothing but good can come from this venture, not in politics or in the defence estimates, but in enhancing the RAF that we have today by fostering and developing good will between Parliament and all ranks of the RAF. Comparatively few Members now have constituency interests in the RAF—that is sad, but a fact. It is easy, therefore, for hon. Members to become remote from the Service. This liaison will be of great benefit to those interested in the RAF both geographically and personally.
  The House has rightly congratulated the RAF on its 60th birthday. This would be the right day also to commemorate two recent events which have touched the fancy of all of us who have served in the RAF. The first is Flight Lieutenant David Cyster's dramatic flight to Australia in a Tiger Moth, and the second is Flying Officer Paul Warren-Wilson's circumnavigation of the world in a Piper Cherokee, which begins this week. These flights represent the spirit of the RAF at its best. I think that I am right in saying that these officers have received every
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  assistance from the RAF. Such ventures are something that we want to encourage as much as possible.
  This is also a day when we should be saying to our helicopter pilots "Well done". Year in and year out, they have tremendous achievements in terms of airmanship, rescuing so many people, particularly from the sea and the mountains. The standard of skill of our helicopter pilots—I include the Fleet Air Arm pilots.—is quite exceptional and deserves the highest praise that this House can give.
  At the same time, I would like those who look after public relations in the Ministry of Defence to concentrate much more on promoting the numbers of those squadrons involved in action in the RAF and Fleet Air Arm. It was nice to hear about No. 1 Squadron, or No. 73 Squadron, or No. 111 Squadron, or No. 617 Squadron, and others, including the auxiliary squadrons, rather than just "an RAF helicopter" or "RAF fighter". Let us hear the squadron number and bring the public into touch with the squadrons that do so much and form the RAF. I believe that this process could come with a lead from the Ministry itself. So many squadrons have as great an achievement as the great regiments of the Army which are household names.
  I want now to turn to the theme of the White Paper on defence and here I must be rather more critical. I turn first to the question of RAF training. The White Paper is very coy in relation to the RAF as opposed to the Fleet Air Arm, for which lists of aircraft and squadrons are given. The only reference in the White Paper to RAF training comes in a couple of paragraphs about the Hawk, but there is nothing else about other non-operational aircraft in service with the RAF.
  Could the Minister say a little about initial training and how we are getting on with the Bulldog? How many Bulldogs have we in service, and how many are ordered and in the pipeline? The Bulldog is an outstandingly good aircraft to succeed the Chipmunk, and we do not want to feel that we are in any way short of this very significant initial training aircraft.
  Most hon. Members who have spoken have raised the issue of the shortage of pilots. The Minister should tell us the

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  position. Once again the figure of 200 is being bandied about as the shortage of pilots at present. This is an extremely serious matter. It is early yet for the Minister to deal with the development of the short-service commission that he recently announced, but it should be possible for him to say a little about the failure rate not only in initial but in advanced training.
  Why are we short of 200 pilots? Every hon. Member has discussed the issue of pay, but is not the opportunity to fly very important too? There is the terrible term "job satisfaction", but in the RAF it is a question of the desire to fly. I have read in the newspapers that about 20 hours a month is the average for a pilot in the RAF. That is not much of a total if one joins the RAF in order to fly. I recall that 60 hours a month was regarded as a fairly meagre total and that only when one did over 100 hours a month did it seem like hard work.
  Is this cutting down of flying by the RAF deliberate policy? Is it because of a shortage of spares, particularly where we are dealing with American aircraft? Or is it simply a lack of money for flying time? The Minister should tell us which one of the three it is. I cannot believe that it is combination of all three, but it must be one of them.
  While I am on the subject of the opportunity to fly, I ask the Minister whether he believes that our squadron strength is sufficient for our front-line strike aircraft. At the moment, squadron strength seems to be 10 aircraft. Allowing for unserviceability, my view is that more pilots should be flying more than they are allowed to do and that 15 aircraft in a fighter squadron would be more satisfactory. This could step up the number of crews from 15 to 22. Such a situation would also be much more satisfactory for the air crews who have to spend long hours hanging around virtually at action stations—and I know that it is a wearying process.
  We spend about £500,000 to train a pilot, and it seems to me to be a false economy to reduce the chances of a pilot flying when he has operational efficiency. Our accident rate in the RAF is exceptionally good. The RAF goes to immense trouble in briefing, and considering the length of time briefing takes for com-
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  plicated operational exercises, the whole flying side of the RAF is handled extremely effectively. Are we not restricting this valuable experience and, if it continues, sailing close to the wind, to the point where the operational pilot becomes less effective than he could be, if we deny him sufficient flying practice?
  Again, in terms of the desire of air crews to fly, this process must have an effect on morale when one is so seldom allowed into the air. I believe that it is not uncommon now for officers of the rank of flight lieutenant and squadron leader to be out of the cockpit for six or seven years while doing staff jobs. From front-line operational service they go to a staff job for six or seven years. During that time they are never behind the controls of any aircraft. After conversion courses and upgrading they go back to command squadrons, but there is a tremendous hole in a key period in their flying life.
  This is a problem that ought to be looked at again. Is it a matter of distinct policy that our leading pilots should be away from an aircraft for six or seven years? If this is so, is it because there is not sufficent money to give them flying hours in other aircraft—perhaps Hawks? If they could put in some flying hours, even in non-operational aircraft, it would help to keep them in flying practice and keep up their enthusiasm to fly, which was their basic reason for joining the Royal Air Force. I believe that the question of morale is tremendously important, not only in relation to pay but in relation to this lack of flying opportunities for officers once they have reached operational effectiveness.
  I mentioned, in a Royal Air Force debate 10 years ago, that if senior officers were enabled to get regular flying practice it would not only do an immense amount of good but also give them great pleasure. We seem now to have only a very limited number of Service officers flying, and therefore the whole outlook of the Royal Air Force could change over a generation.
  I said earlier that these frustrations in flying were perhaps second only to pay. The Minister admitted that
  "morale is not all that I should like it to be. There are genuine anxieties and frustrations."—[Official Report, 14th March 1978; Vol. 946, c. 239.]

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  This affects particularly the key management group, between 25 and 35, the members of which could and should be flight commanders and squadron commanders in the Royal Air Force today.
  There are these frustrations due to lack of flying opportunities, but above all there is frustration over pay. This exists, of course, not only in the Royal Air Force but in the Army and the Royal Navy. Everyone who has been to RAF stations has met this as the principal topic of conversation. I think it is right, when the report of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body is before the Prime Minister, that we should vent our anger and our concern, so that, when he discusses the report during the next week, he will know that the House of Commons will not put up with any second-best procedure. He will know that, as all hon. Members have said, we want substantial pay increases for the Services, and these must be implemented as soon as possible.
  Several hon. Members have mentioned, as did the Minister, the issue of low flying. I absolutely accept that we must have it, and that it is essential. I appreciate the problems of maintaining air corridors for airlines. Our low flying air craft must be kept well away from them during operational exercises. The hon, and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said that a strong case could be made out for the provision of additional routes, so that the frequency of flights over existing routes could be reduced. I live in an area in which low flying happens regularly. I pass on to the Ministry of Defence the letters that I receive on this subject, and they are courteously answered, but I think that rather more than this is required, particularly at certain times of the year.
  I am a farmer as well as a pilot, and I know only too well that in April and May, when hill lambing is in full flow, the addition to low-flying aircraft certainly does not help the shepherd. If those two months could be kept virtually sacrosanct for the Lowlands of Scotland and the Highlands, and areas which are affected in this way in Wales and other parts of Britain, it would be greatly appreciated. Consultation with the National Farmers' Union could surely clarify any detailed problems that might arise in keeping
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  low-flying aircraft away from the hill country in those months.
  I come down on the side of the Ministry of Defence and the Minister in relation to the height of low flying. I think that 200 feet is perfectly adequate for training purposes. To go below that in peacetime would be to take an unjustifiable risk because aircraft are then coming down almost to the height of this Chamber, and beneath high tension lines. This involves taking risks which really cannot be justified when there is not a war in progress. I think that the Ministry is right in maintaining that 200 feet should be a basic limit for low flying. If lower flying is required, it should be done over the sea in the right conditions.
  Despite the regular criticism, year in and year out, of the meteorological service, I believe that, bearing in mind its resources, it does a particularly sound job. It is very helpful and friendly to pilots who telephone asking for advice at any time.
  We have now come from Lord Trenchard to Sir Michael Beetham, and from the Western Front to the Germany and NATO of today. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) mentioned the concern that exists in relation to what General Haig has said about the build-up of Russian forces, and whether we are prepared to meet them when the crunch comes. We are, of course, seriously under strength in aircraft and men. I hope that the Minister will give an indication tonight that the delivery of the Tornado will be speeded up. But, thank goodness, as I said at the beginning, our efficiency makes up to some extent, but not completely, for our handicaps.
  We must increase pay. We must increase strength in both aircraft and reserves. This cannot be done without increased expenditure, but it is one of the priorities that I believe this country is prepared to accept. I believe that this country wants a first-class defence. Without it, we can have none of the things that we want, such as new hospitals, schools and social benefits. Above all else, we must have strong defence in order to keep the peace.
  We are extremely well served by the Royal Air Force, as we are by the Army and the Royal Navy; therefore, we

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  should tonight be thinking not of cutting back on the RAF but of building on strength and giving the RAF all the encouragement that it deserves.
  7.18 p.m.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: One ought to start today by mentioning broadcasting. Broadcasting from this Chamber may make us behave ourselves. It may or may not make our speeches somewhat shorter—although certainly not all of them. But broadcasting does not seem to fill the Chamber.
  I should like to join in the tribute paid to the Royal Air Force, on its sixtieth birthday, by so many hon. Members who have spoken. The Royal Air Force has a splendid past and a splendid present record. Although it was not my Service, I have enormous respect, admiration and affection for it, particularly because I was lucky enough to be loaned to it during the 1939–45 disturbances. For many months I was living and flying with the Royal Air Force in the Western Desert. It did everything very charmingly, including destroying three of its aircraft in which I was a passenger. After that it was found expedient to return me to my own Service. However, everything it did was done entirely thoroughly and with the greatest possible élan.
  I do not disagree with any word that the Minister said in his opening tribute today to the Royal Air Force. Despite all that has been said, and despite many of the harsh things that I shall say, I agree that a career in the Royal Air Force is still an extremely rewarding one.
  By criticising the Government in these debates we are not criticising the Services as such. We are certainly not criticising the Royal Air Force today. On the contrary, it is our duty as an Opposition to act as a kind of watchdog. It is unfair for Labour Members to accuse us of making political capital in raising various matters which we regard as important in these Service debates. It is most unfair to accuse us of seeking to damage Service morale. If morale is damaged, it is not damaged by remarks made by hon. Members on either side of the House. Any damage that is done arises from conditions in the Services.
  A reasonable line has been taken by many hon. Members who have dealt with
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  the problems of the RAF. It is fair to say that most of the personnel difficulties arise first from over-stretch and, secondly, from disgracefully low rates of pay. Many statistics and examples have been given in recent debates, and again today, on the subject of pay. I wish to put the matter in a reasonable perspective and not to spoil the case by over-statement.
  Let me illustrate my remarks by quoting the case of a constituent. He is a senior NCO who serves as aircrew in a helicopter squadron. He is a highly qualified man, a master rate, and already has to his credit 20 years of service. He enjoys Service life and appreciates that it involves a greater degree of family separation than that experienced in any civilian employment.
  My constituent has kept most meticulous records of his duties during the year 1977. In that year, he spent 170 days away from home and he was away on duty altogether for a total of 4,776 hours. That included two tours in Belize, four in Northern Ireland, one in Denmark and several exercises and temporary deployments away from his base in the United Kingdom.
  One may well say that that is all part of the job. But what about the rewards for duties of that kind, with all the turbulence that goes with them? Somebody in normal industrial life working 40 hours a week, with an average of, say, four weeks holiday per year, would work about 1,800 hours. Anything more than that would rank as overtime. Yet this RAF man, who has worked well over double that number of hours—indeed, two-and-a-half times that figure—receives no overtime whatever; except that when on duty in Northern Ireland he receives a beggarly special allowance of 50p per day—less than the price of a packet of cigarettes, certainly less than a London office cleaner would be paid for half-an-hour's work.
  Furthermore, there is no possibility of that master aircrewman moonlighting. I am sorry to see that Ministers seem to regard such a practice with equanimity. I believe that it is disgraceful that any Service man should even have to contemplate moonlighting.
  Here is a man who undertakes many hours of duty and has heavy responsibility and yet, by common consent, has

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  a rate of pay 25 per cent, below that received by comparable civilian workers.
  I am glad to see the Secretary of State for Defence present, because he has already made it clear that he believes that forces' pay is not comparable with that of other workers.
  There are several thorns in the flesh of Service men over pay. For example, civil servants in BAOR are accommodated free of charge, whereas men in uniform find their charges increased year by year and discover that any increase they receive is only an "Irishman's rise". It would be hardly surprising if, under these conditions, Service morale were in danger of becoming seriously undermined, but I wish to emphasise that that is not yet the case. Even when called upon to stand in for striking firemen—who, incidentally, were being paid far more than the Service men—they carried out that job with exemplary willingness and efficiency. Although one might well have expected their morale to have been damaged, they put up a good show and did the work willingly and efficiently. It is to their eternal credit that their morale does not yet appear to be damaged.
  I disagree, on this point, with the comments made by several speakers in this debate, including the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. Morale certainly has not "collapsed" among senior NCOs and long-service, experienced personnel, but I must point out that there are worrying aspects to be considered. A Written Answer given to me a few weeks ago showed that 693 RAF officers had applied for premature retirement. Because so many officers wish to retire, the queue will be that much longer, which in itself is an unsatisfactory state of affairs, although I emphasise that it would be wrong to regard this as a collapse of morale.
  There is another worrying aspect of the matter which is not often brought out into the open. In the nature of things in the Services juniors tend to look to their seniors for almost everything—for justice, discipline and leadership. In other words, they look upwards. It is an extraordinary structure, but many hon. Members will fully understand what I mean. However, there is a risk that confidence by juniors in their senior officers will begin to be eroded. They are aware that their senior officers, right up to the Chiefs
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  of Staff, are aware of the problems of pay, but appear to be unable to produce the goods from the Government to put the situation right. I do not need to emphasise how dangerous the situation would be if the junior personnel were to lose confidence in their senior ranks. This argument is common to all three Services.
  Young men do not enter the Services to make a fortune. They enter it for the pride of carrying out a worthwhile job. They do not want to be unionised, and they would be ashamed to be involved in industrial action. I repeat that it would be wrong to say that their morale has collapsed, but it is right to say that Service men as a whole are furious about their pay. Their teeth are clenched and they are coldly and silently angry about the matter. They appreciate the nation's difficulties. They do not wish to be treated as a "special case", nor do they ask to be excluded from the sacrifices which face the nation. They ask only to be paid the rate for the job, according to the principles promised within the concept of the military salary.
  It is a political reality that the Government are facing a difficult dilemma, in having set a magic yardstick of 10 per cent, for the current year. But the Government can no longer hide beyond, the skirts of the pay review board, Clearly, the board is unhappy about the situation because in the last review a year ago it pointed out:
  "Our recommendations comply with the restraint measures set out in the White Paper "The Attack on Inflation" … We have again focused attention on the shortfall in relation to the pay levels justified on the basis of outside evidence that has arisen."
  The board was suggesting that what was happening was not fair, but felt constrained—rightly or wrongly, and I felt wrongly—to go along with what the Government said.
  The board then made this significant remark:
  "Effectively we are free only to recommend whether the pay of members of the Armed Forces should be increased by the maximum amount allowed by the pay limit or by some lesser amount."
  That is a grotesque situation, which cannot be repeated again this year.
  According to Press leaks the latest report which has just reached the Prime

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  Minister will recommend 10 per cent., plus 2+ per cent, in the X-factor, plus a freeze on food and accommodation charges. I do not know whether the leak is right, but it has been widely reported in the Press. We shall have to see the details but this report does not even begin to come anywhere near restoring comparability, which is the basis of the whole thing.
  The Government should be ashamed to come up with anything less than 20 per cent, plus a doubling of the X-factor immediately. I do not think that this would be resented by the trade unions. The average trade unionist is a very decent chap and would not begrudge giving the Service men a fair deal. I believe the public in general would be entirely in favour of such a step.
  There are other concerns within the RAF which arise from successive defence cuts under this Government. Reduced numbers mean a continuing situation of overstretch and turbulence. The Government's original defence review was supposed to produce a period of relative stability and calm. That is the expression the Government used in producing their review.
  A fair and balanced article in the Sunday Telegraph said that officers were leaving the Service at an alarming rate. There was also a severe shortage of pilots, particularly for the new Tornado, which is due to begin coming into service at the end of the year. The article also emphasised the shortage of spares and equipment, and the shortage of flying time.
  To sum up, the article says:
  "Successive cuts in the defence budget have left the RAF poorly paid, short of aircraft and starved of manpower."
  Yet the same article ends with the remark:
  "The outlook is not entirely black. The RAF is highly respected for its professionalism by the NATO Allies with whom it trains."
  The article quotes a squadron leader as saying that despite everything he is "still in love with the idea of being in the RAF."
  That is a marvellous spirit and is the sort of remark that leads me to believe that morale has not been damaged. While people under these difficulties show that
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  sort of spirit there is a moral duty on the Government and the Minister to make sure that they get a fair deal, and are not taken for granted.
  Certainly pay is not the only matter for concern. There is the question of the shortage of aircraft spares. A remark in the article to which I have referred shows that there is cannibalising of four aircraft in order to get one in the air. That sort of thing worries Service men.
  There is also the question of war stocks and reserves. Obviously that is a classified subject, and I do not expect an answer from the Minister across the Floor of the House. However, it would be nice to have a realisation by the Minister that we need a great deal of reassurance that war stocks are up to scratch. Also perhaps he could say whether there is still any restriction on flying because of fuel allocation.
  I was very interested in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) who pointed out the fact that the balance between the three Services has remained unchanged for 25 years. My concern is that there is a lack of maritime aircraft for the tasks arising from the fact that there is now a Soviet global presence particularly at sea and over the sea.
  In a recent debate on the events in the Horn of Africa I put forward the theory that possibly the vast Russian effort in the plains of Central Europe is really a smokescreen designed to keep our gaze in NATO away from other places in the world—where the Soviets are running rings around us. I think I said at the time that in the unlikely event that I was in the Kremlin, the last place where I would send a great army marching, if I wanted to have a go at the West, would be the plains of Central Europe. I would do exactly what the Russians are doing—topping up in Angola and supporting all the so-called independence movements around the world. This pays the most enormous dividends for the Soviet Union on the diplomatic front.
  If it is in fact the flanks of NATO, and the wider flank round the Cape which are the really crucial places, why are the Government withdrawing the Nimrods from the Mediterranean? The

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  Nimrod has a fantastic surveillance capability and has made an enormous contribution to the intelligence available to NATO. How can Britain exert surveillance over the sea areas which are vital to our future in conditions of emergency, as well as in peacetime, if we do not have maritime aircraft available?
  This leads into what I call the "blue water school" strategy. I am very unhappy that the RAF should be put in a position in which it is unable to exert surveillance over our merchant shipping, except within the narrow confines of the waters around the United Kingdom.
  Finally, the RAF in a great and glorious history, has overcome many difficulties. The obstacles that have been put in its path by the utterly mistaken policies of this Government are just the latest in its trials and tribulations. Indeed, "Per ardua ad astra".
  7.38 p.m.
  Mr. John Watkinson: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) because he speaks with authority on Service matters. There are two points that Government spokesmen will note. The first is his condemnation of criticism of his own Front Bench in running down the state of morale which exists at present in the RAF and the Services generally. I hope that the more bellicose Opposition spokesmen will take due note of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said.
  I also echo his remark in a later part of his speech when he spoke of the danger of concentrating too fixedly upon the central front. In saying that he echoes the remarks of General Haig when he talked of the danger of myopic vision in relation to Europe. But there are problems and dangers related to the central front to which I shall refer later.
  In fairness to the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester, he joined others in attacking the Government on the question of pay for the RAF and the other Services. There can be no doubt that there is a great deal of unhappiness over pay matters in the Services, and it would be exceptional if morale were not affected. However, hon. Members opposite fail to appreciate the wider perspective in which this matter must be seen. We have to consider not only the morale of the
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  Services but the morale of the nation at large.
  Conservative Members may not agree with it, but we have a pay policy and if it were breached for the forces or for one element in the forces, it would seriously damage the Government's economic posture and the morale of the whole nation. I have no doubt that Ministers would like to pay the Services a great deal more and probably accept the worth of the case for increased pay, but they cannot give way without breaching the pay guidelines.
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: This is a serious discussion of the most important point to arise in the debate. The hon. Gentleman seems to think that giving the forces what they deserve now would be a breach of the pay policy, but the forces were promised that they would keep pace with what everyone else was getting, yet in the past three years they have not even kept pace with the pay policy. That is the crux of the matter.
  Mr. Watkinson: I accept that there are hard cases. It has been spelled out by other hon. Members that as soon as we have a pay policy, there will be hard cases. However, the hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot say that the Armed Forces do not want to be a special case and then say that they should be given a pay rise of 20 per cent. That would immediately make them a special case and would create all sorts of difficulties for the Government with the rest of their economic policy.
  If the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) goes to an RAF base and asks the men whether they think they are underpaid, they will naturally say "Yes". We all consider that we are underpaid at present. The hon. Gentleman ought to ask them a second question—whether they believe that it is necessary for there to be an overall pay policy. They will almost certainly say "Yes". We know that from polls that have been taken.
  Mr. Goodhew: In a defence debate in another place on 7th December, Lord Peart, who was replying to the debate, said that the Government had great sympathy with the predicament of the forces and wish to restore them to comparability as soon as possible but that this would have to depend upon the general economic situation and constraints of the time.

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  The next day, the Home Secretary announced the terms of the settlement with the firemen and said that they would be restored to comparability over the next two years and that this was guaranteed regardless of economic circumstances of the time. This is a nasty difference which has been noticed by the Services.
  Mr. Watkinson: I did not hear what was said in another place, though I have heard references to the statement by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. The Government must hold firm on the pay policy for the rest of the year. If we can phase in the necessary increases during the next two years or so, that will be a welcome development, but there must not be a breach of the policy now.
  Having defended Ministers on this question, I should point out that I shall be raising later the question of RAF personnel who are suffering a severe loss of morale at RAF Innsworth in my area.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) raised again a question that is periodically brought up in debates—the desirability of much more powerful Back-Bench committees. A Select Committee on defence would be an ideal institution for the House. Defence is a highly specialised subject where there is a great deal of bipartisan support. It would be an ideal subject for a Select Committee, and I lend my support to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery in that suggestion.
  It was in a Select Committee—the Public Accounts Committee—that we recently considered the question of the Tornado aircraft. The decisions on the Tornado have been made, but there were elements that emerged during the questioning that raised doubts. For example, evidence was given to the Committee that the cost of the aircraft could be well in excess of the estimate of £6+ million. Given what we know about the development of aircraft projects in this country, it would not be strange if the eventual cost were far greater man the estimate. This must have severe repercussions for the defence budget because the Tornado will take an enormous slice of that budget and there are worrying factors concerning the cost of the plane.
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  In addition, in my travels around Europe I have not found a great deal of enthusiasm for the Tornado among other armed forces in Europe and I find this slightly disturbing, especially when we know that the Germans have cut back their orders for the plane. It would be interesting to know the reasons for their decision.
  Mr. Ronald Brown: My hon. Friend has complained bitterly about some of the answers he received on the Tornado, but he is fortunate to have got any answers at all. I asked questions in the last defence debate that have still not been answered. Before he speaks too harshly to Ministers, perhaps he will remember that he is fortunate to have received any answers.
  Mr. Watkinson: We must all live in hope.
  Turning to the broader issues of the central region, I must say that there is a danger of over-concentrating on the problems there. There are problems, too, on the flanks. Nevertheless it must be admitted that the might of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in the central region has increased dramatically in quantity and quality. We cannot deny that and there is a self-evident threat there.
  There has been a total transformation in the Warsaw Pact air forces. They have changed from an interceptor, ground support air force system to a highly offensive, attacking capability. That must have profound consequences for the West.
  Obviously certain conclusions can be drawn. The Opposition see the possibility of the threat, however remote—and I believe that it is very remote—of a no-warning attack and jump to the conclusion that it is just round the corner. I disagree with them on that matter. They are right to draw the attention of the Government and of the people to the build up of those forces. That is inescapable, and we must respond to it. I think that we have responded in the correct way by increasing defence expenditure. But we must ask certain further questions about the Soviet Union and its policies and why it is building up its forces in that area.

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  I do not take the view that we are in danger of having to endure a no-warning attack in the central region. It has suited the Soviet Union very well, because of the nature of its society, to build up forces in that area. It is able to do so because of the tyrannical, dictatorial nature of its society. The Russians decided, as we did, that they have to depend on conventional weapons. They have been more purposeful than us in their build up. That build up having taken place, they are able to exert a great deal of pressure upon the West, as has been exemplified by the speeches that we have heard from Opposition Members. The pressure is present.
  It is important for Opposition Members to realise that there is a conservative military industrial complex in the USSR which has a position of great dominance and authority at present. Its decisions have been accepted and its policies continue. We in the West, because of our open democratic society, are able to switch and change our policies more easily than are the Soviets. They are rather like a super tanker; it seemingly takes years for a dictatorship to change its mind or to change the direction in which it is moving.
  There is then a build up in the central region, but I do not think that there will be a no-warning attack. However, the nature and quality of those forces and their aggressive potential are such that we cannot realistically ignore them. Therefore, I support the Government's policy of increasing defence expenditure.
  I turn now to two brief constituency matters. The first issue has been raised on two occasions by the Opposition; namely, low-flying aircraft. The northern part of my constituency suffers from low-flying aircraft. I appreciate and understand the need for low flying over our land base. Indeed, the Under-Secretary has sent me several courteous replies to my letters on this subject. I agree with Opposition Members that if planes have to fly low over our land base, we are entitled to ask for a greater degree of variation wherever possible.
  When the planes fly over my constituency the noise is horrendous. I had the good fortune to go walking in the Yorkshire Dales last year. For some extraordinary reason, the low-flying planes over the Yorkshire Dales did not seem to make any noise. I do not understand
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  why. I am not wishing all the low-flying planes upon Yorkshire. However, the noise from such aircraft can be thunderous and terrifying to older persons in the northern part of my constituency. Must the planes pass over the northern part of Gloucestershire on their way to exercises? Is it not possible to vary the flight path? It is not as if they exercise only in that area, but I understand that many pass over it. I hope that the Minister will consider that matter.
  The last matter that I wish to raise relates to RAF Innsworth in the northern part of my constituency. I appreciate that the decision relating to RAF Inns-worth, which is to "disperse" it to Glasgow, is as yet not final. Indeed, I understand that no decisive step will be taken until some time in the mid-1980s. Nevertheless, the decision is important because it affects morale which is exceedingly low at RAF Innsworth at present.
  The prospect is that a significant base in my area will be moved to Glasgow as part of the Government's dispersal policy. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will not be surprised to hear that over two-thirds of those at the station who we asked whether they wished to move said that they did not want to move and that they would support any activity which could be carried out to prevent the move. I have to report that only one member of RAF Innsworth supported the move to Glasgow. He was a Scot. No one else was actively prepared to support the move.
  What will it mean for my area if RAF Innsworth is moved to Glasgow? It will involve the loss of about 1,400 jobs. That will have a significant effect on the economy of the northern part of Gloucestershire because, in terms of pay alone, it is estimated to amount to about £3 million a year.
  Ministers, when questioned about the Government's dispersal policy, sometimes give the impression that they intend to move RAF Innsworth to Glasgow and then to move something else in to replace it. That seems an odd form of dispersal policy. It appears to involve two different units: RAF Innsworth going to Glasgow and another unit possibly coming to north Gloucestershire. That seems an extraordinary supposition.
  RAF Innsworth is a highly skilled centre. The personnel involved are highly

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  skilled. Therefore, the move to Glasgow will not of itself provide any great new job opportunties for people in that area. I notice that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is nodding his head.
  I have had the pleasure of visiting RAF Innsworth and been enormously impressed by it. The buildings and the equipment are excessively modern. If the move to Glasgow is made, will it mean the Ministry of Defence building a new military base with new buildings and computers in that area? If so, it will cost a great deal of money.
  I have introduced these matters into the debate because they are of concern to people in my constituency. I hope that my hon. Friend will take note of what has been said on this matter. I do not expect him to reply to the issues that I have raised, but I hope that he will accept my contribution as a marker of the feeling being expressed in the northern part of my constituency—a feeling that I think will grow in intensity as we move closer to the 1980s.
  7.59 p.m.
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I should like to start my speech by paying my tribute to the RAF in its sixtieth year of existence and reminding the House of those famous words of Sir Winston Churchill:
  "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."
  Indeed, we all know that at one time in our history the RAF saved our nation. It brought us to peace and to the freedom that we now enjoy. For that we shall always owe a great debt of gratitude to the RAF, the most junior of the three Services.
  It seems that in this debate we have changed the question that the Government tried to put before us some years ago when they suggested that we could have only the defence that we could pay for. At the time it seemed a fresh approach, but the truth is that the defence we ought to have is the defence that we need to meet whatever threat faces the nation.
  Now that that simple reality has broken through, we are seeing this change of mind and heart by the Government, the suggestion that the forces should be increased once again and the concern
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  expressed from the Treasury Bench that perhaps the pay of the forces is as low as we all say and that it is high time that something was done to give them back the parity to which they have a rightful claim.
  But as we say that, Ministers continue to remind us of the pay policy. They suggest that that pay policy is the most important policy of this or any Government. That is their fallacy. If our nation or Western Europe cannot defend itself, the pay policy is a worthless scribble on paper. If we ever allow ourselves to suppose that a policy born of failure and chaos, created by Government, shall take pride of place over the defence of our nation and our freedom, then all our priorities and values are singularly out of joint.
  Some hon. Members have said that if one asks two questions—first, whether someone is satisfied with his pay and, second, whether he believes in a pay policy—the answer will be "No" to the first and "Yes" to the second. They say that the "Yes" justifies the Government in holding on to a 10 per cent, norm as the flat rate for everybody.
  But that, too, misses the point, that defence is the first priority and that those involved in defence must be a priority. That in turn means that they have a right to a larger rise which guarantees that their morale recovers and that we have sufficient forces to defend our nation and to meet our treaty obligations.
  Mr. Watkinson: If the hon. Gentleman had attended previous debates he would have heard his hon. Friends argue that the police and the firemen, as well as all branches of the forces, are special cases. Surely it makes nonsense of a pay policy to yield in all those areas.
  Mr. McNair-Wilson: If one cannot defend oneself, one's nation is at risk. If one cannot defend society, society is at risk. Thus, our first priorities have to be the defence of our nation and of society, and those things take pride of place for me. What others argue is their business; I argue what I believe. Therefore, whatever the Armed Forces Pay Review Body may have recommended will, I hope, be accepted by the Government without quibble.
  This debate, which should have been a paean of praise for the RAF, in terms of its having the aircraft, the equipment and men it needs, has turned out to be a

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  dirge. That is not because any of us wishes it—certainly not the Minister, who is a doughty champion of the Service that he represents—but because the Government have had to cut defence spending to try to scramble together a sort of economic policy within which they will claim some success, when we all know that the roots of that success lie elsewhere.
  So this question of money is a great shadow over this debate. At Strike Command, at High Wycombe, I talked to some very senior officers. One summed up the situation by saying, "Too few aircraft, too few pilots and a shortage of other ranks." It is all there in those three phrases. It is in fact all there in paragraph 404 of the Government's Statement on the Defence Estimates for 1978, except that there it is written in such an anodyne way that if one did not bother to probe one might be persuaded that things were better than they are.
  The Minister knows this, however, and we all know it. If the Opposition go on saying it, that is our duty, for our task is to vote Supply and to criticise Governments when they are making a hash of things. That is what we have done, and shall go on doing until we become the Government.
  The Royal Air Force, which once boasted thousands of aircraft, has now shrunk to 740 first-line aircraft—smaller than the Polish air force. That must indeed be a record for our great Royal Air Force. About 100 aircraft are earmarked for the defence of this island. I have heard hon. Members say that we should not be thinking about the Royal Air Force defending Britain any more; that we should think instead of a European air force; they say that we should think about NATO, about putting all our eggs into some treaty basket and expecting everybody else to feel about Britain as we do.
  General de Gaulle was right when he said that in the last analysis the person who would fight for France was a Frenchman. In the last analysis, the person who will care about fighting for Britain is somebody from this island. Thus, if we entrusted our defence to some treaty, we should be taking a very dangerous step. No one has suggested that the RAF should not have a responsibility for the defence of this island, and I hope that nobody ever does.
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  But things are clearly not as they should be. The Royal Air Force has 100 aircraft to defend this island and it lacks art air superiority fighter. It is unlikely to have such an aircraft until 1985, when it will have the ADV version of the Tornado.
  It is surely not out of place to pose some of the doubts which exist in so many minds and which have been expressed today about the Tornado A moment ago I was talking about the air defence version, but paragraph 32 of the White Paper ends with these slightly cryptic words about the Tornado:
  "and test data indicate that service requirements will be met."
  That is not quite the definitive statement that I should have liked to read. I do not think that that sentence would be phrased in that way if the Government were as sure as they should be that the Tornado will do all the tasks for which it was designed. That phrase is far from a final statement that the aircraft has lived up to its promise, and I hope that the Minister will comment on it.
  I hope that the Minister will tell us that such bugs as existed in the RB199 engine are now finally cured and that the aircraft is now meeting the whole of its performance range. I hope that he will also say that it has the range which most Service chiefs seems to be worried that it lacks and that when the aircraft goes into service in 1981 it will be able to do all the jobs on which we are pinning our hopes.
  Some of my hon. Friends have quoted from the article in the Sunday Telegraph by Duff Hart-Davis. I should like to read a short quotation. Talking about Royal Air Force personnel, he says:
  "The worst problem for most is that they scarcely get enough flying hours to keep themselves sharp. The aim is that everyone should have a minimum of 20 hours a month, and this is considered barely adequate."
  He quotes a pilot as saying:
  "If we flew any less, we would not just become operationally inefficient: we would become bloody dangerous to ourselves and everyone else."
  Those words sum up the problem of money in the Royal Air Force. I think that they sum up the dangerously low level that we have allowed that great Service to reach, and that we are now beginning to play with the defence of our nation if we do not do something about it.

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  There is then the question of how many pilots we are short. In reply to a Question on 21st March the Minister of State told me that in his view the shortfall of pilots was less than 3 per cent. I might well ask "Three per cent. of what?" If there are 740 operational aircraft in the RAF—I am told by a senior officer that the shortfall is between 100 and 150 pilots—that is not 3 per cent. Either the Minister of State or that senior officer has the facts badly wrong. If I say that I believe the word of the senior officer in preference to that of the Minister of State it is not because I wish in any way to cast a slur upon the Minister's honesty, but merely to suggest that he was giving me an answer which did not meet the facts and perhaps satisfied some form of words which allowed him off the hook without admitting the true shortfall.
  If it is also true, as so many of my hon. Friends have said, that it takes between two and a half and three years to train a pilot, what are we going to do in the next three years? How are we going to maintain the Royal Air Force at its first line of readiness? How will it go on meeting its commitments? How will it go on defending this nation and fulfilling our treaty obligations to NATO? Again, I hope that the Minister will say something about the shortfall, whether he really believes that short service commissions will give him the pilots he needs and whether those pilots will be adequately trained to fly our jet strike aircraft.
  The RAF lacks an air superiority fighter aircraft. I think that if it had its way it would like some American F15s in squadron service. As that same senior officer said to me, even if we had them we do not have the pilots to fly them, so there is not much point in pressing for them.
  In fact, I understand that ironically there is every chance of F15 aircraft being stationed in this country. I think that the United States Air Force is currently considering forming an F15 unit, no doubt with all the pilots, equipment and spares it will require, to keep those aircraft flying, and yet the aircraft will play no part in the defence of our island. They will not come under the command of the C-in-C RAF Strike Command. The United States Air Force, flying out of RAF stations in the United Kingdom,
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  comes under the command of the United States Air Force (Europe). The senior officers of the Royal Air Force have no right to order how these aircraft shall operate or what missions they shall perform.
  If this brings me to a constituency point that I suspect the Minister knew that I had up my sleeve, I hope that he will forgive me. The United States Air Force currently has earmarked for its exclusive use a number of Royal Air Force stations. They are Lakenheath, Upper Heyford, Mildenhall, RAF Welford, just outside my constituency, RAF Green-ham, in my constituency, RAF Skulthorpe and RAF Wetherfield. They are standby deployment bases. Yet these bases, which are earmarked for the use of the United States Air Force, in no way impose a responsibility on the United States Air Force to tie their operational activities within the United Kingdom into the RAF's flying pattern. Those bases are commanded by a United States commander. They take their orders from the commander in Western Europe. The way they operate and the noise procedures their aircraft follow are all governed by the United States commander.
  We know that the United States authorities are seeking another base in the United Kingdom. I know that they have told the Ministry of Defence that they would like to open RAF Greenham Common as that base. All of us living in West Berkshire wonder what lies in store for us if the Ministry agrees to that request. That base has been closed operationally for 14 years. Now the United States Air Force is seeking to station 15 KC135 tanker aircraft there on a permanent basis. They are the military version of the Boeing 707, but they are a "primitive" variety of that model and they are among the noisiest four-jet aircraft in the world. They are probably as noisy as, if not noisier than, Concorde when taking off or landing.
  That base has been on standby since 1964 and the Ministry of Defence had clearly made up its mind that there was little chance of its ever being reactivated. I have had assurances from Ministers, including the Minister at the Dispatch Box today, that it was not envisaged that the base would ever be reopened for operational flying. Worse than that, the

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  Department of the Environment, on appeal, has allowed a large number of planning consents. A whole mass of housing estates has grown up around that base, and in some of these young couples have sunk most of their savings in buying houses in a belief that the base would never be operational and that they could live there in peace and quiet.
  When the Department of the Environment gave its consents it must have been as sure as the Minister was that the base was not likely to become operational. How ironic that in the month that the Americans put in their request for Greenham—February this year—the Government produced its document, "Airports Policy". Paragraph 54 of that document states that
  "aircraft noise emerged as a matter of widespread concern. The Government recognises the genuine anxieties which exist and, … it will continue to maintain and develop a range of ameliorative measures as an essential component of its airports strategy. In the Government's view the maximum value from direct measures, such as those governing aircraft noise abatement procedures and the noise certification of aircraft, can only be realised if they are supported by firm and widely understood policies covering, among other things, the identification of those airports where the main growth in traffic is to be concentrated; the definition of aircraft flight paths; and the control, under the Town and Country Planning Acts, of residential and other noise-sensitive developments in areas subject to aircraft noise.
  What cold comfort those words are to my constituents when they find themselves faced with what in effect will be an airport on their doorstep. They are told that because Greenham is RAF Greenham Common and is therefore a military base there can be no public inquiry and there will be no compensation for noise and no sound insulation grants. They are the victims of having a base on their doorstep, against which they have no right of protest through any statutory procedure. Is it any wonder that I brought a petition to this House a few weeks ago with 16,000 signatures protesting against the reactivation of Greenham Common? Is it any wonder that one of my headmasters—12 schools will be affected—has written a letter to The Times pointing out that when an American strike group was stationed a Upper Heyford in 1976 the examination standard of his children dropped markedly. In addition to those schools, some of which
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  have been built since 1964, there are two hospitals.
  Thousands of people living in houses and going to schools and hospitals which have been built round this semi-dormant RAF base, which has been earmarked for the United States Air Forces as a standby deployment base, suddenly find themselves faced with something that may create for them a nuisance that is bound to affect the value of their properties and, far worse, is bound to damage the quality of life that they now enjoy. For several thousands, they will be experiencing noise levels of between 100 and 125 pndB. The latter figure apparently causes pain.
  I raise this point because in my closing remarks I want to ask the Minister a question. My constituents, like myself, have no wish not to pay our tribute to the United States Air Force for the role that it is performing in NATO and in terms of the defence of Western Europe. What is more, we have had Americans stationed at Greenham from time to time, and the relationship between the town of Newbury and those American Service men has been very good. But the fact of the matter is that this base has lain semi-dormant for 14 years. None of us at this moment can say that there is an emergency or that there is a war-time situation. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Ministry of Defence to devise an inquiry procedure that allows all those people who have moved into the area, who have moved into houses for which they know that the Department of the Environment has given planning permission, to be able to express their concern through a statutory public inquiry procedure and to make known to the Ministers in the Ministry of Defence that another base without that environmental problem should be sought as a matter of urgency.
  By the same token, if that base is to be reopened, is it unreasonable to ask for the same sort of compensation as would be given to those householders living near an airport? Why cannot we have noise insulation? Why cannot there he compensation for loss of amenity? Indeed, as we are providing these stations for the United States Air Force, why should not the Americans chip in a bit to make the lives of these people more bearable?
  If I say that I hope that RAF Greenham Common will not turn out to be the

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  choice of the Ministry for this base, I say no more than what I feel and what 50,000 of my constituents feel with me. If it has to come, so be it—but at least let us feel that in this decision justice has been done.
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey Pattie: We understand that the Procedure Committee, in another part of the House, is looking at new ways of organising the affairs of the House of Commons. We can deduce from that that reform and change are obviously in the air. I hope that one of the changes, which that Committee will not be looking at but which we should have, will be a different way of running these defence debates. It may well be that we shall have to wait for the arrival of the new Conservative Government to see such a change. However, in defence debates we always hear comments about the dearth of information. Those comments are made with increasing frequency. We also hear comparisons with the depth of information that is provided in the United States.
  I think that it would be very helpful, when we have the major two-day set-piece debate, which we had before the Easter Recess, if the first day were restricted to strategic matters and the second to more specific matters, such as pay and equipment. As it is, we move from discussion about the Horn of Africa immediately on to the high cost of married quarters heating and on to the in-service ADV version of Tornado. All these are important matters, but they make for an untidy debate. What happens in the present situation is that, ill armed with information, hon. Members hurl accusations and counter-accusations against each other about levels of expenditure, cuts, pay, equipment delays, and so on.
  While the so-called debate proceeds here in the House, another debate—I submit that it is the real debate—is going on more quietly but probably more viciously behind the scenes. I speak not of inter-Service rivalries, because these are as traditional as they are healthy. I am speaking of the moves towards collaboration on future NATO projects, when all logic says that we must collaborate but when the temptation urges
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  self-interest when the rewards are very considerable.
  AST403 has been mentioned by the Minister, and it was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) in his excellent speech, when he spoke of the three options that face the Royal Air Force. I think that my hon. Friend, probably very kindly bearing in mind the limitations on time, did not go into the difficulties caused in this particular project by the fact that France and Germany, our most obvious collaborative partners, require their new aircraft much later than we need our replacement for Jaguar and Harrier. This project is a classic of the problems that beset collaboration, the main problem in this particular case being the out-of-phase, whereby Britain is going to require a replacement for Harrier and Jaguar some time in the mid-1980s and the two countries that I have mentioned, France and Germany, in the mid-1990s.
  The real significance of this project, AST403, is that it will almost certainly be the last major new development for the Royal Air Force this century. If that sounds a rather dramatic statement, it is not meant to be such. I think that one must remember, first, the length of time that it takes to develop a new aircraft and then the in-service life. When we consider that the Tornado will take over five roles, we can see that the trend all the time is towards not only fewer aircraft but concentration on one particular type and, therefore, changes being made rather less frequently.
  We have some other Air Staff targets which are already the subject of some fairly frantic wheeling and dealing behind the scenes. I refer particularly to AST1227, where a decision is overdue. I think that it would be a good idea if the RAF declared itself in favour of Sabre, the air-launched version of Rapier, because an early decision here would put us in a rather good position vis-à-vis the United States. We have the defence suppression weapon, AST1228. We have the surface-to-air guided weapon, which I refer to as Sam3, where really, without exaggerating, one could say that the future of the European missile industry is at stake, because if we have to go in with the Americans on that one it will be in a very subordinate role indeed.

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  Lest anyone thinks that I am breaching any confidence in mentioning these ASTs, let me say that one has only to read Aviation Week fairly assiduously to be able to get all the information required—or to go along to the Soviet Embassy, which I do not make a habit of doing.
  Various points have been raised by my hon. Friends. As one or two of my hon. Friends still wish to speak in the debate, I shall just go over a very brief check list of points that ought to be borne in mind in any debate about the RAF. I do not mention these in any particular order of importance.
  On any visit that is made to the so-called clutch airfields in BAOR—some of my hon. Friends are very grateful to the Government for arranging the visit that we shall be starting tomorrow—one is aware of the vulnerability of the clutch airfields to chemical attack. Bearing in mind the concentration of the Warsaw Pact forces on chemical capability, this must be a cause for concern.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester referred to the ADV version of the Tornado having slipped back. He also expressed his surprise that the Minister of State seemed to think that it would not be possible to accelerate the programme now that it had been slid back. I think that once a thing has been slid back it can always be accelerated again, and we are going to be in grave danger if we cannot get that version of the Tornado into service more quickly than is now being suggested.
  The point has been well made about weapon stocks—that these are unlikely to be adequate. The Chinook helicopter order, which we are being told is about to happen, is being deplorably delayed. It should have been ordered some time ago, and that is not a matter that calls for congratulation on the part of the Government.
  On the question of SAM protection, we have been told that Lossiemouth is to be protected by another Rapier squadron, but there are many more bases and more sensitive targets in this country that need protection of this sort. We also need hardening of the radar sites, and the point made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) and one or two others of
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  my hon. Friends about the number of hours of flying training is vital, because 20 hours a month must be considered to be the absolute minimum to keep pilots in first-class training. This is essential.
  I think that if we take all these factors together we see that the Royal Air Force is in amazingly good shape. None the less, is high time that the Government faced up further to their responsibilities and did even more to bring the Royal Air Force right up to date, to give the air crews the training and the equipment that they need, and of course—I have not mentioned this because the matter has been dealt with by some of my hon. Friends and by some hon. Gentlemen on the Government Benches—to deal with the question of pay. We are all awaiting eagerly to see what the Armed Forces Pay Review Body report says and, after that, what the Government do with that report. We hope that they will do the right thing by the personnel of the Royal Air Force, because those personnel are doing the right thing by the people of this country.
  8.31 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Scott: It is late in the debate, and in adding my voice to the congratulations to the Royal Air Force on its Diamond Jubilee it will not be surprising if I cover, albeit briefly, some of the points that have been made by others during the debate.
  In particular, I want to reinforce the plea that has been made from both sides of the House that we should have established a Select Committee on Defence. I am an unrepentant believer in the development of the Select Committee system in this House. There are two arguments which are normally used against it. One, which is not respectable, is that it causes difficulties for Ministers and those who advise them if there is a properly informed and advised Select Committee system of Back Benchers studying the topic and making themselves well informed about it and able to confront Ministers and others with the benefit of that study and research. I do not think that that argument stands up for a moment.
  The other argument which the Lord President of the Council is always advocating is that if there is a powerful system of Select Committees it detracts from the powerful clashes that take place on the Floor of the House. If one looks around

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  this Chamber this evening, I do not think one can say that that argument carries very much weight at all.
  How much better use it would be of the resources of our parliamentary assembly if those who were particularly interested in special subjects were able to get together in Select Committees and devote their time and efforts to pursuing their arguments there. I hope that we can go on arguing for a Select Committee on Defence.
  I want to take issue, albeit briefly, with my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson). I suspect that there is not a great deal between us, but I think that in some of his remarks about our commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation he may have somewhat over-egged the pudding. Let us remember that the security of this country above all has been guaranteed since 1945 because we have been members of NATO and because of the American nuclear umbrella. I think that we in this country owe an immense debt to NATO and to our American allies for that security and that effort.
  I think it is inconceivable that we could look to defend these islands against the sort of threats that might be mounted against us unless we had the collective security which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation offers us.
  Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Does he think that the independence of France hinges upon its doubtful membership of NATO?
  Mr. Scott: It pains me to say this, but I believe that what the French have been doing is sheltering under the NATO umbrella without accepting their duties, or what ought to be their duties, under the NATO umbrella. They have been bad members of the Alliance, in so far as they have been members of it. I would not want to see us emulating that example.
  It is interesting that but for a very tangential comment by the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Williams), there has been no mention of joint services or the elimination or reduction of the independence of the Royal Air Force as a Service. I do not claim to be an expert in these
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  matters, but those who are seem to say that those countries which have experimented with unified services or with army air forces have always been dissatisfied with the outcome. Had we not had in 1940 a totally independent Air Force, we might well have been tempted to commit more fighter squadrons to the land battle on the Continent of Europe and thus have been unable effectively to defend this island when the real crunch came in the air. Therefore, I certainly hope that we shall continue to have a totally independent Royal Air Force, although, of course, co-operating with the other Armed Forces.
  Mention has been made in the debate of the withdrawal of Nimrod from the Mediterranean and the blow that that is to NATO's strength in that area. I was lucky fairly recently to be able to go on an Atlantic patrol in a Nimrod aircraft. It is an immensely sophisticated piece of machinery, yet we are using it—and it may be that we have withdrawn it from the Mediterranean because we want to increase this use—as a maritime surveillance and fishery protection aircraft.
  I wonder whether it is right to use a piece of machinery as sophisticated and expensive as the Nimrod for that sort of role when we are producing in the Isle of Wight the Britten-Norman Defender and when Hawker-Siddeley is also producing aircraft that it is selling to other countries for maritime surveillance and fishery protection, aircraft which can do those limited jobs much more cheaply and more cost-effectively than Nimrod can. I wonder whether we are using that aircraft in its best role, whether it would not be better to use those alternatives for such roles and to keep Nimrod for its proper job of surveillance and be able to commit it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) and other hon. Members mentioned low flying. One idea put to me by a serving officer might be worthy of consideration. It fits in with the Minister's mention today of airborne refuelling and the new tanker aircraft that are being purchased. The suggestion is that it might be possible to send squadrons of aircraft across the Atlantic to Eastern Canada, refuelling them in the air on the way and then giving the pilots three months' intensive low-level flying in Eastern Canada, over areas of

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  virtually nil population. If that were possible it might well reduce the burden on the inhabitants of this country, while giving our pilots the sort of low-level training that they need.
  I turn to the two points perhaps raised most often in the debate—the pay and the hours of the pilots who fly the aircraft that are our defence. Neither of the two main protagonists who talked about pay policy are in the Chamber, but I say to those Labour Members who are present that they missed the following point. I realise that our society could be destroyed as easily by inflation as by attack from outside. Certainly, I want to hold the line against inflation, but when Service men see a Government saying that we have had a pay policy now for a number of years, and the line must be held here, they reply "Yes, but what you are imposing on us is a pretence of what pay policy has actually achieved so far. We have had the reality of it, and we have fallen steadily behind." Other people have had settlements, but wages drift and other arrangements have meant that earnings have gone up over that period progressively, whereas the Service men, the firemen and the police have been left behind up to now.
  I believe that when the arrangements are made the Service men should have settlements no less favourable than those announced for the firemen, who struck, as compared with the Service men, who have patiently put up with the position for so long, and who did the job.
  As regards hours, I am sure that the 20 hours' flying a month for a front-line pilot are too few. I understood that the original limitation was imposed because of the fuel crisis in 1973–74 and that was when the number of training hours was cut to 20. If that is so, surely the restrictions could by now have been relaxed so that pilots could have rather more training that they are at present.
  There is an even more frustrating aspect to the lack of flying for pilots. if I am right in saying that it is now the practice for general duties branch officers to have only one flying tour at each rank level, this means that an officer may spend five or six years in a rank and, if he has his flying tour early on, it may be four or five years before he gets back to a flying post again.
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  I suspect, although I do not know, that that is the period at which there are most applications for premature voluntary retirement. Men have joined the Royal Air Force to fly, they enjoy flying and see it as their job to fly, but they face several years stuck behind a desk and unable to look forward to any early prospect of getting in the air again. I know some serving RAF officers who go off at the weekend or when they have some leave and train private pilots, just for the chance of getting behind the controls of an aircraft and also, perhaps, earning themselves a bit of money at the same time.
  There has been a good deal of talk about the shortage of pilots, but no one has mentioned an interesting fact in this connection. I almost hesitate to mention it in this entirely male company, but an interesting event occurred only two weeks ago, when the United States Air Force graduated its first class of women pilots. They will be used on transport flying in the United States Air Force, for instructing and for other roles. It may well be that we have a potential here in the Royal Air Force for women pilots in the future, perhaps not for combat roles but for other flying roles.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) made special reference to the cuts in Transport Command and the need for Transport Command to be expanded again. I understand—I think that the figures are right—that the Soviet Union transports in and out of central Europe every six months about 100,000 ground troops. Part of the reason may be that the Soviet Union does not want its ground troops in central Europe to become over-familiar with the local population, but I believe that it is doing it also as a training exercise in order to maintain air transport capability so that it may engage, if necessary, in such operations as those which we have witnessed in Africa. I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester said in urging the need for a better transport capability in the Royal Air Force.
  I join in the congratulations to the Royal Air Force on its 60 years. What I hope, perhaps above all, is that we can keep this nation an air-minded nation. Too many people tend to think of aircraft as rather noisy and inconvenient things, failing to remember the role which they

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  and their aircrews have played both in defending these islands and in developing the world as we see it today.
  We should not ignore the importance of inspiration in all this, and two names in particular come to my mind. When he flies at Farnborough this year, Neville Duke will have completed 25 years as test pilot for Hawker Siddeley. He has been a great inspiration for many young men and women. Then one remembers Neil Williams, tragically killed recently in Spain, who both as a serving RAF officer and then as a great aerobatics pilot, inspired thousands of our youngsters to take to the air. I hope that that sort of inspiration will continue and will continue to be encouraged by the Royal Air Force.
  During the debate there has been reference not just to the main arm of the Royal Air Force but to the other branches—the nursing service, the auxiliary force and the volunteer reserve. I wish to pay tribute, in particular, to the RAF air traffic control service, whose members are unfailingly helpful and courteous to pilots, both private and business, who fly about these islands. When they ask for the help of air traffic control, the service never resents giving of its help and expertise.
  I mention also those in the volunteer reserve training branch who train the air cadets and prepare them for a career in the Royal Air Force in the future, upon which the whole strength of the Service depends.
  We can all say that the first 60 years of the Royal Air Force have been a thoroughly good show, but perhaps we can add the hope that the next may be better yet.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. Ronald Brown: I follow the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) by echoing the sentiments which he has just uttered. I also agree with him that we ought to have a Select Committee for discussing defence matters. I believe that it is the only way that we shall be able to examine representatives of the Ministry of Defence and get proper replies from them. It seems absolutely hopeless to get anywhere near the information that we want, either by way of traditional Questions or through debates in this House.
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  During the last defence debate I put three specific questions to the Secretary of State, during a very short and pithy intervention which could not be described as rambling. I am still waiting for a reply to those questions. When I get them, I know what the answers will be. There will be a whole lot of gobblede-gook and it will take another series of Questions to eliminate the rubbish from the important parts. I am firmly convinced that to discuss defence in the House in the traditional way is merely to give everyone the chance of an emotional orgasm. It is a hopeless exercise when it comes to discovering information about defence contracts.
  I hope that we shall continue to press for the establishment of a Select Committee through which we can not only discuss the political aspects of many military matters but also examine many of the manufacturers. I would love to have representatives of Marconi Avionics before me in a Select Committee. I would like to have before me some of the retired Ministry of Defence personnel to find out how they translated from their previous work into working for industry. I would like to know what is the relationship between themselves, their company and the Ministry. We must continue to press for a Select Committee so that the House will have the opportunity to probe much more deeply certain aspects of Government defence policy.
  The debate seems to have been characterised by a paradox. I listened to Tory Members arguing that the Royal Air Force was not big enough. They wanted more sophisticated aircraft and more pilots. Having got more pilots, it would be necessary for them to have plenty of hours of flying and training to reach peak performance. Then we heard the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) coming down to the political reality with the 16,000 signatures about which we talked. "We want all of that—but not over my area", he seemed to be saying. Pilots could fly low everywhere except over Newbury. I have never heard a more extraordinary speech. I was beginning to be persuaded that perhaps we did need more than 740 aircraft and the permitted number of pilots. Then the hon. Member got to his crunch point about the American base. Whether they are

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  American pilots or United Kingdom pilots, the noise will be the same. I can understand the hon. Gentleman's point politically, but I do not see how, in the context of the argument on defence, he can put that case.
  The hon. Member for Newbury spoke about the peace and quiet which he wanted for his constituents. To judge from the arguments of his hon. Friends, who said that we did not have enough aircraft and had very few pilots, it would seem that we have got all the peace and quiet his constituents need. I am not sure what he is complaining about.
  I turn now to pay policy. I understand Service men and many other public servants feeling that they have not had a fair share of the national cake. I do not accept it. Nevertheless, I understand it. But I do not believe that the House and Conservative Members can take the view that we can play fast and loose with this issue. As my hon. Friends have said, if we have a pay policy and are attempting to get hold of inflation, as this Government have attempted to do, we have to suffer certain things in the process. If we identify special cases—we had experience of this in the 1960s—we are on a collision course immediately with any concept of pay policy.
  It is marginal and subjective whether we think it more important to spend more money on defence or more money on the police. If hon. Members talked to the elderly people in my constituency they would find that they were not concerned with defence. They would talk about the police and mugging and hooliganism. They will make their subjective judgment that the police are more important. They cannot understand why we do not pay the police fantastic sums of money because we need more police and we ought to be attracting them by paying them more.
  During the firemen's strike people argued how disgraceful it was. We were all afraid that we might suffer from a fire and there would be no firemen to deal with it. Many people, including Conservative Members, said that we ought to pay them more and that they deserve it. What are the Government doing to protect a society in which there are not sufficient firemen available?
  It is said that we want vast numbers of ambulance drivers ready and available
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  with all the skills that they need to have. There is an endless list of groups of people whom one could argue subjectively should be of first priority depending upon one's own propensity for choosing which one. Therefore, I do not believe that we can do what hon. Gentlemen have been suggesting—that we should forget everything else in the country and select a particular group. So I urge the House to understand that for as long as the Government are grappling with the problem and, in my view, successfully doing so, I believe that the Services, as well as others, understand the difficulty.
  I do not think that Conservative Members who spend a great deal of time visiting all our military establishments do well to re-tell anonymous stories about what an officer said to them and what an officer did. We all have these private discussions. In my experience, the officers attempt to give one a broad backcloth to defence matters. None of them has ever thought that what he was saying in a general briefing would be quoted here in a very selective fashion under the heading of "An officer said to me". Therefore, I do not believe that it does the case any good to pretend that there is that great disaffection in the Services which is being argued today.
  I come to deal with the Tornado for the umpteenth time. I have been dealing with it for four years. I hope that in the not-too-distant future my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will reply to the questions that I put to him on the weapons system of the Tornado. After my last intervention on this issue in March I received a number of anonymous telephone calls from people wanting to see me to tell me how right I was and asking whether I would keep sticking at it because I was being lied to. I said that I could not do that and that I did not take people's numbers, but asked for their names. I said that I wanted their names and addresses and that I would talk to them. From the replies that I have received from a wide range of people I am not sure that I am so far from the truth in the submission that I have made to my hon. Friend. I therefore look forward to hearing from him urgently on the matter.
  At the same time, he might remember the previous debate last year when I asked

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  whether the Tornado, with the stores management system, was to be inter-operational. It could be said that I used the wrong terminology, but I am an ordinary guy and words mean what they say to me. "Inter-operational" to me meant that a squadron of Tornado aircraft employed in an operational sortie could land on a German airfield or an Italian airfield—our allies—and something having gone wrong with the stores management system, could be repaired there and the aircraft sent back into action. That seemed to be a simple understanding of the word "inter-operational". My hon. Friend then replied that that was perfectly true and that they were, I thought he said, inter-operational.
  But my hon. Friend was shrewd and cunning. He did not actually say that. He said that it was inter-operative, which does not mean the same thing. As I now understand it, "inter-operative" is distinctly different from "inter-operational". It means that if the aircraft lands without damage it can be rearmed, but that if there is anything wrong with it they cannot repair it on these foreign fields. I hope that my hon. Friend will tell me which of these two situations applies to the Tornado, which is due to come into service at the end of the year. I put the question again. If a Tornado lands on an allied field, will it be possible to rearm it, if all is well with it, and also repair it, if all is not well with it?
  Whatever the terminology that the Ministry of Defence is using, I am merely asking whether this aircraft will be able to be operated integrally from any allied airfield—German, Italian or British, say—and can thus be truly said to be inter-operative or inter-operational.
  Hon. Members have been talking about the importance of enthusiasm and of ensuring that we have a good quality of people coming forward to serve in the RAF. But no one has mentioned the Air Training Corps. As my hon. Friend knows, I have a particular interest in the ATC and it staggers me that it should be so neglected when it is a source from which we can recruit young men and gain their interest and enthusiasm—and often they are young men with primary flying training. The ATC squadron in which I am particularly interested is outstanding. It has a high record of attain-
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  ment among its young men right through the RAF's requirements. It has won several Duke of Edinburgh's Awards and has a wide range of activities.
  I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give an assurance that the ATC will receive more funds than at present in order to encourage young men of the country to take part in its activities. Not only will it be a source from which the RAF will be able to choose its personnel—already partly trained—but, in the light of the present youth unemployment problem, it will be of great value in giving young men the opportunity of self-discipline and in gaining their interest in taking part in society as a whole. I am anxious to ensure that, in any cutting that my hon. Friend may be contemplating for the RAF, the ATC, while it may not have all the glamour that hon. Members have been talking about, will be recognised as an important part of the Service and one which he should be supporting.
  In all the exchanges and the arguments that go on in the House about the RAF, Members usually finish by saying how marvellous the RAF is and what good shape it is in. I hope that that is the message that will go out from the House tonight—the message that the RAF is a first-class and efficient organisation and that we are proud to be defended by it. The Government are to be congratulated. It does not matter if one has 740 aircraft only—what matters is what those 740 are capable of doing.
  The argument that we now have to have massive numbers of aircraft reaches back 40 years in our history to an old concept of RAF requirement. What counts is the quality of the aircraft, the opportunities that the RAF has and the role it plays. It does not do the House, the RAF or the defence of the country any good to keep running down, as so many hon. Members have done, a first-class Service.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Victor Goodhew: At this late hour I do not wish to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) in everything that he said, but at a time when the threat is constantly increasing and we are faced by more and more advanced and sophisticated weapons and aircraft on the other side, we have to

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  look to numbers and to the advances in our own Air Force as well.
  I should like to join in congratulating the Royal Air Force on its 60th anniversary and to mention one part of it, the Royal Air Force Regiment, which does a very fine job in defending Air Force installations. It has also proved itself to be as smart in its drill and marching as any regiment that I saw at the Queen's Silver Jubilee last year.
  I should like to have an assurance from the Minister on the subject of flying hours. He began by saying that with the Tornado it was vital that there should be flying training; otherwise the pilots would be like sailors who did not go to sea. The pilots have to do enough flying to be able to fly safely and efficiently. There have been many warnings about the 20-hours limit. I hope that the Minister will be able to say, as the situation is supposed to be improving, that there will be a possibility of at least allocating more fuel to those who have to fly very sophisticated aircraft.
  I really cannot allow Government Members to keep on saying that because there is a pay policy, nothing can be done for members of the Armed Forces. Theirs is quite clearly a very special case. To start with, they are not free, as others are, to move from one firm to another in order to secure a higher paid job. They cannot move at all. In fact, there is a queue of those who are waiting to get out. Many are queuing in order to have the chance to pay a few hundred pounds in order to get out of the RAF and into a higher-paid job.
  What do we mean by comparability? How can it be said that these Service people are comparable to those who do similar jobs in other organisations? The Royal Air Force pilot may be called upon to risk his life in some operation at any time. His position is quite different from that of the pilot who is flying a British Airways aircraft to and fro on an ordinary route. How can the two be compared?
  How can the home situation be compared? The RAF officer is not able to live where he likes. He has to live on his station. He does not even have the choice of deciding how much he can afford to spend on his house. There is a much-
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  quoted argument which mentions a squadron commander who is paying £90 a month for a house which is larger than he really needs, but because he is a squadron commander he has this house. He spends £250 a year on central heating because it is a larger house than he needs. If he were a civilian, with the ordinary freedom of civilian life, he could move into a smaller and cheaper house and thus save money, but he is forced to stay where he is. I cannot see, therefore, how he, as a squadron commander, can be compared with somebody in a similar job outside.
  The same can be said about the other ranks. The smallest two-roomed married quarter costs £40 a month. That is an enormous amount to deduct from a Service man's pay. If his pay is not being advanced in the same way as that of people in civilian life, obviously he will get worse and worse off. As we have heard, the pay of the Armed Forces today is 30 per cent. below that of civilians. There have been pay policies for several years now, and the Government have been content to let the Armed Forces drop back during that period. This is what is wrong.
  I ask myself what the Government will do on this occasion about the report of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. We know from the review body's last report that the Government leaned on it. The Government in one breath say that the review body is independent, but once it makes its recommendations it is not regarded as independent. It was clear from the last report that the review body was told by the Government that there were certain parameters within which it could work. In other words, it was leaned upon and told that it must consider the economic situation and the Government's pay policy.
  I wish that on this occasion the review body would say clearly "This is the figure the Armed Forces should receive". Then, if the Government were prepared to say that the Forces did not deserve such a figure, the Government rather than the review body should carry the responsibility for denying the Armed Forces what that body believed the Services were entitled to.
  The Government said in the other place on 7th December last that the Armed

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  Forces would have to wait until the economic climate permitted and until the Government's economic policy allowed, but on the following day, to the shame of the Government, the Home Secretary announced in this House the firemen's settlement, which guaranteed that they would be brought up to comparability in 1978 and 1979 regardless of economic policy. Surely what is good enough for the firemen is good enough for the Armed Forces.
  The Services must not be treated as though they do not deserve as much as the firemen receive, just because Service personnel do not have a trade union to fight for them and because they cannot strike. It is the Ministers in the Department who must undertake the job of shop stewards for the Services. They must fight for the Service men whom they represent in the House. I hope that when the time comes we shall be told clearly that they will do for the Armed Forces what they did for the firemen—that they will give them a guarantee for the future rather than leave the situation to chance.
  9.7 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Banks: The timing of this debate is wholly appropriate because on 1st April 60 years ago the Royal Air Force was formed. In opening the debate the Under-Secretary spoke glowingly of the record of the RAF. To those who have served and who are now serving to protect the nation we offer our deepest appreciation of the job which they have carried out over the past 60 years. We wish the RAF well in the years ahead. We are confident that its officers and men will always live up to the sacrifice and the daring which is the hallmark of The Few.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) spoke with regret of the fact that Parliament has not marked the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee anniversary of the Royal Air Force. I wish to reiterate what he said, because I believe that it is a pity that Parliament has not in some way marked this important occasion.
  It was in every way predictable that the issue of pay would be in the forefront of this debate. The bitterness that followed publication of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body report in April last
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  year arose from what was a double deal. The pay recommendation was in line with the Government's pay policy and within those terms of reference. On the other hand, rents for single and married quarters were increased, garage charges rose, and food charges also were raised.
  Since then inflation has bitten deeper and deeper into the standard of living of our Service men, and as the months have passed the protests have been louder and louder, and justifiably so. Service men have no productivity deals, no bonus payments, no overtime rates, no profit-sharing schemes and no company perks that can be applied. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) gave a graphic illustration of how some Service men were overstretched in the hours they work.
  More than three out of five Service wives are forced to go out to work, and many men are taking jobs in their spare time when they deserve to be at home with their families.
  Service men had a raw deal not only on pay and charges but on allowances in respect of expenses incurred. As the Minister confirmed in a written reply, these do not come within pay policy, but even so some allowances have not been reviewed since 1976, and this during a period of swingeing increases. The Minister's neglect over this is a scandal.
  Another injustice is that which is deliberately engineered. The excess baggage charges come into this category. A family man who is transferred to Germany will, in most cases, arrange for his furniture and household equipment to be sent out to his new quarter. A specified proportion of this is, quite rightly, transported free of cost, but the cost of moving the excess weight or volume is charged to the airman concerned. In 1976 these rates were reviewed and increased by an unprecedented 174 per cent. and 189 per cent. respectively. They have been increased again since then. In these days of washing machines and refrigerators it is inevitable that excess charges are levied. Even so, the amount of free weight and volume which has been unaltered since 1948, was considered in the Government's review and left unchanged.

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  The Minister is free to put up these costs by staggering amounts under the pay policy, but now he says that he is unable to rectify the injustice of these increases until the pay policy permits. The basic disturbance allowance for airmen was increased by a miserable £13 on 1st January this year, so that the total allowed is £114. But if the Civil Service transfers a man who is married without children and who is in the lower salary band he is allowed £610. The Civil Service is getting generous treatment, but the Government are pound-pinching on our Service men.
  This Socialist Government are clinging like a leech to power, and draining the airman of his patience and forbearance in the co-operation that they demand of him in their battle against inflation. Their performance reveals that they do not understand the meaning of fair play.
  The Government cheated to get into office in October 1974 by telling the people that inflation was running at 8·4 per cent. when they knew it was not. They cheated in the Division Lobbies to save their Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill from defeat, and now they have cheated our Service men by holding back on pay and allowances and walloping on charges. I would not buy a second-hand trailer from the company of brothers opposite.
  We have always been proud of the men and women in the RAF who, despite the stresses and strains placed upon them, are superbly keen to give of their best when called upon to do so.
  An internal report by the RAF's own personnel liaison teams for the Air Force Board has received some publicity in The Guardian. In an article on 11th January reference was made to low morale among RAF personnel and airmen's money problems, which constituted a hazard to flight security and safety. In the recent defence debate the Minister at last recognised that morale is not all that he would like it to be. We want to know exactly what he intends to do about it.
  My advice is to prevail on his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to put an end to this dying duck of a Government and call an election in the national interest. The return of a Conservative Government would do more to bolster the morale of the RAF than anything that he could con-
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  ceivably do. Morale is vitally important to our defence ability. The state of it should never be neglected and the fact that it is as high as it is is a tribute to the spirit of the Service and the leadership of officers and NCOs.
  The report, which is now overdue from the Armed Forces Pay Review Board is crucial to the Board's future as a body which is able to make reasonable and unbiased judgments, and to the acceptance by officers and airmen, as fulfilling the trust they put in it to understand and air their grievances on pay and charges, allowances and comparibility with civilian jobs. The Minister explained that the report is with the Prime Minister, but he must give the House an assurance of a date for the report's publication and the Government's response. Nothing could be more important.
  The report must clearly show the increases in pay scales that are right to bring levels up to a reasonable comparability and the Government must say when and how they will do this. Let us be quite clear about accommodation and food charges. They must in no circumstances be increased if the pay increase ceiling of 10 per cent. has to be the limit. Allowances must be brought up to date immediately, and the X factor must be improved. We put the case for airmen getting a fair deal quickly and those are our terms of reference.
  The House should know that an airman mechanic with two children, after paying rent for his Service house of £9·59 a week, is left with take-home pay of only £30·51 a week for heating, food, clothing and the support of himself and his family. Is it any wonder that our Service men are fed up with the way that they are being treated?
  Surely it cannot be right for a chief technician who lives in my constituency and who has served the RAF for 22 years to be on such a low earnings scale that his third child qualifies for free school milk.
  The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Watkinson) argued for the pay policy. I am sorry that I was not here for the whole of his speech, but he should reflect on the conclusions of the pay review body's report in April last year. The concluding paragraph said:
  "we have again focused attention on the shortfall in relation to the pay levels justified

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  on the basis of outside evidence that has arisen, in part at least, because of the accident of the timing of the introduction of the pay restraint measures on 1 August 1975."
  It went on:
  "We attach particular importance to the need for a measure of flexibility in the period after 1 August 1977 in a form that is directly relevant to the armed forces pay system, having regard to the plain fact that measures which provide flexibility in an industrial environment may very well be impossible to reflect directly in an armed forces environment."
  The argument is that the Government have failed to take heed of what that report asked them to do, namely to respect the particular position of the Armed Forces.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), speaking on behalf of the Liberal Party, said that the Government should not allow this situation to continue any longer. This is somewhat belated support from the Liberals, and I regret that the hon. and learned Gentleman was not more specific.
  Mr. Hooson: If the hon. Gentleman reads my contribution to the debate in December, when we discussed Service pay, he will find that I said exactly that.
  Mr. Banks: We look forward to Liberal support in the Lobbies when we discuss these matters.
  This year's defence White Paper says what the White Papers said last year and the year before. As before, there is less equipment and fewer men to go round the same area. Pay gets only a brief mention in the last White Paper.
  Once more, the startling increases in Soviet forces bear out the frightening horror of what is happening in the world today, and that is something that no one wants to believe. The haunting symptoms of the 1930s are there in black and white.
  The reality of the Soviet intentions to dominate the African continent is unmistakable. The peril for Europe and the West is a gradual and increasing suffocation through the denial of essential supplies. It will surely come about unless the will and military strength of this country and our allies is sufficient to deter that from happening. The Chief of the Defence Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Neil Cameron, speaking to the Air League on 1st December last year, said:
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  "The Soviet Union now has a military capability which is already quantitively superior to the West in many of the key weapons systems—ICBMs, fighter and fighter bomber aircraft, submarines, tanks, personnel—and which will be further enhanced by the dramatic qualitative improvements they are making to their equipments. Having directed so much effort into improving the Soviet military machine, they now have a production base which is turning out seven submarines for every one that the United States produces and they could re-equip the front line tactical aircraft of the RAF and the German Air Force together every 12 months."
  The plain fact is that doctrinaire Socialism is hell-bent on reducing our Armed Forces regardless of the consequences. The growth and improvement in Soviet arms is completely disregarded. The fact that they have the new swing-wing aircraft Fencer and Fitter C, and the formidable Backfire supersonic bomber in service, and are daily making technological improvements in their striking competence, is apparently not sufficient evidence to cause a reduction in the cuts that have already been made from the planned programme of expenditure since 1974.
  The Soviet Union is undertaking the most massive military expansion ever undertaken in peacetime by any nation. This Government are embarking on a massive reduction in defence expenditure of £10,000 million over 10 years, and yet they are still curious to know why multilateral balanced force reductions are getting nowhere.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson), in a most impressive, eloquent and well-informed speech, gave an illustration of the last airfield which has been closed in his constituency. That is indicative of the way in which cuts have worsened our defence position.
  My hon. Friend also referred to Transport Command. He was right to do so, because this force has been cut by 50 per cent. It is an area that deserves the closest scrutiny.
  In this context it is important that a review should be speedily undertaken of the way in which civilian aircraft can be brought into service in a period of tension and how they should be equipped beforehand to deal with the transportation of equipment and personnel that would be necessary in a war or close to war situation.

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  The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) made a stand for defence expenditure. That was indeed a breath of fresh air from the Labour Benches. It is not often that we hear a speech from a Labour Member in which we get a firm commitment to defence expenditure.
  The areas of the NATO Alliance are recognised by definition as the northern flank, the central front and the southern flank. There is art immense Soviet fleet at Murmansk, in the north, substantial Warsaw Pact forces facing the central front, and a fleet of between 40 and 90 Soviet ships operating in the Mediterranean.
  I cannot find any argument that justifies any one sector being carried at a weaker state of deterrent than another in the light of Soviet strengths in each area. Such weaknesses as may exist directly result from the failure of Governments in NATO to raise their contributions, and this Government have set an example in reverse by the severity of their cuts.
  The danger in current thinking is that NATO is preoccupied with holding the equilibrium on the central front and accepting weaknesses on the flanks as a bearable risk.
  The greatest single danger is the philosophy of the Secretary of State, who believes that defence depends, first, on a sound economic base. As things stand at present, we shall be waiting until Doomsday for that to happen. The Soviet Union spends twice what we do on defence, in gross domestic product terms, on a very rocky economic base. Defence expenditure depends on sound judgment of the assessment of the military power of a potential aggressor. The same mistake was made in the 1930s. That led to appeasement, and in effect that is the policy of this Government now.
  If we allowed NATO to be weakened by our reduction in expenditure when the Soviet Union's forces or effectiveness were being weakened by age or a policy of equalisation and disarmament with the West, it might be acceptable. But for us to weaken NATO when the Soviet Union is spending well in excess of the rate of NATO's expenditure on arms and is rapidly building up its forces to a point of universal supremacy is not only to weaken the political will of the allies but to disarm the logicality of NATO.
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  The Government's decision to pull out of the Mediterranean is just one such example of a weakness that they have imposed on the southern flank of NATO. If any country now lost faith in the NATO concept and bowed to Soviet pressure, if applied, the West would enter the Dark Ages. Our minds should therefore be set on strengthening the NATO commitment and the integration of the Alliance.
  In this context, I stress the importance of equipment interoperability and the planning and manufacture of aircraft. The Minister made a statement about the AST403 this afternoon and the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) made a valuable point about the interoperability of the Tornado, and we look forward to the Minister's answer.
  Our task is to rethink the NATO boundaries. I look to the day when Spain enters the Alliance and contributes to European security in return for her own security. The boundaries of NATO's operation need to be reconsidered in the light of the events in the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean. In this respect we need to approach the subject with flexible minds.
  I am concerned about the future position of Malta now that we no longer have an air base on that island. Its key position in the Mediterranean, and the facilities of Malta's dockyards and airfields are well understood. It would be sensible to begin early discussions with our NATO partners and the Prime Minister of Malta on any future arrangements for sustaining the NATO connection when the British lease arrangement expires next year.
  The withdrawal of the Nimrod reconnaissance squadron from Malta has had a profound effect. That should not be underestimated. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Winchester made a good point about that.
  On 16th March, I visited the Naples headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe, with members of the Defence Questions and Armaments Committee of the Western European Union, of which I am a member. In the words of the Chief of Staff, Vice-Admiral Roderick Macdonald, the withdrawal was a very heavy blow. The holes left in the reconnaissance of the

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  Mediterranean have not been filled. That is one example of the way in which Britain's defence cuts have directly weakened the Alliance.
  Reconnaissance for the early warning of military movements is of the topmost importance. The RAF is now short of pilots and aircraft. My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) referred to the greatly reduced number of front-line aircraft that we have in service. In particular, we are far below the numbers of Nimrod aircraft that are imperative to our defensive role and that of NATO.
  I welcome the decision to develop the early warning Nimrod. Many people whose jobs depend on it will also rejoice. Britain and our NATO partners must not delay in reaching conclusions on the surveillance of the Mediterranean. There is a vital necessity for building in inter-operability among whatever systems are chosen in the different NATO sectors. Major-General Leiser, Italian Chief of Staff of the Allied Air Forces, Southern Europe, told us in Naples that provision of an early warning system was essential to the survival of NATO as we understand it—and I believe that he is right.
  The most startling fact in the White Paper relates to the drop in the numbers of personnel in the RAF. The defence cuts have bitten more deeply into this Service than into the other two. From 1974 to 1978, the Royal Navy lost 600 officers, the Army 800 and the RAP 3,500. In the case of Service men, the Navy is down by 2,600, the Army by 7,700 and the Royal Air Force by 10,700. That drastic reduction has led to a cumulative desire for exodus.
  Not only is the Service unable to attract men of the required qualifications; it is about 300 pilots below strength. The figure that I have is that 537 officers in the last nine months of 1977 took advantage of the early release programme. But if we are to make up this shortfall of 300 pilots, how are they to be trained? How are they to be produced in the period required? My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) spoke about training women pilots. That is an interesting point.
  At the moment, recruits are harder to get with the qualifications needed. This
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  comes down to the fact that people are not attracted to joining the RAF any longer because of the low scale of pay and the general dissatisfaction with the recognition that they get.
  In the defence debate my hon and gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) spoke of the need to increase the strength of the reserves. He speaks with experience and authority, from his valuable work as Chairman of the Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee. That is the Committee which offers us about the only way we have of getting information of any substance.
  This is an important point. The role of the Air Force reserves is becoming increasingly important when the Service is already stretched to meet its commitments. The Minister would be right, therefore, to follow this line of thought. particularly in terms of those who are leaving, who have many years of experience but who, possibly have years of service in the reserves ahead of them if they could be persuaded to continue. In general terms, they could act as an invaluable backup to the fine RAF Regiment. My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth referred to this and to the reserves having an important role to play in the defence of airfields. He is right.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries spoke of the record of the RAF in its mountain and sea rescue work. agree entirely about that, and I add to it fishery protection and the work it does on oil rig surveillance.
  The work of the Royal Observer Corps is hardly mentioned these days. but its activities in maintaining its high state of readiness to report nuclear bursts and to forecast fallout levels all over the county are commendable. The Corps is made up of volunteers whose dedication deserves our praise. It is amazing how they spend generally one night a week sitting in a concrete bunker undergoing their training. They do it for virtually no money, but out of love of the Service and because they are doing something useful.
  The hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Williams) referred to his previous thoughts on his proposal for merging the RAF and the Army. I got the impression that he had dropped that idea, perhaps

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  because he was intrigued by his new proposal for merging the Service Chiefs. I detected a hint of criticism, by implication, in what he said, but I do not believe that he necessarily meant to criticise the Service Chiefs. To merge them, however, would solve no problems and would more likely create new ones.
  The RAF is our front-line force and is guaranteed to be in action first. I wonder at the skill of the pilots and crews, who master what to me is a bewildering technology in the planes that they fly. Theirs is a life of considerable daring and expertise, which only a few can accomplish. Their training is unavoidably expensive, and we cannot afford to lose them. They seek a way of life, not just financial reward. Life in the RAF has to be something special, or it is not worth the candle. It is a responsible life, because the lives of those working together depend on each other's efficiency.
  The Service must never be taken for granted, because morale is a kind animal that does not bite. It just goes away, and we are determined to prevent that from happening.
  9.33 p.m.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: With the leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply to some of the points made in the debate.
  First I should like to thank the hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) for his kind and fulsome tribute to the Royal Air Force. I turn directly to the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) and my right hon, Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison) to express my appreciation and that of the RAF on their initiative on this the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the RAF in having formed a parliamentary all-party group for the Royal Air Force. They are now about to have their inaugural meeting and I hope that they will move forward from success to success in arranging meetings and inviting informed speakers to address them. Perhaps they will even invite me to fulfil that role. I can assure both the hon. Members that we shall do all that we can in the Air Force Department to facilitate any reasonable requests that that group puts to us for visits to the Royal Air Force and for any other facilities which it wishes to have and which are within our power to arrange.
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  The hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) raised a great number of questions. I shall attempt to answer some of them—to his satisfaction, I hope, but I shall be surprised if I succeed in achieving that hope. The hon. Member raised the question of giving Jaguar a self-defence missile capability. I can assure him that this question has been looked at very closely. Indeed, I have no doubt that his right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour), during his period of office, considered this matter. We are certainly again giving consideration to the possibility of a self-defence missile capability, but the issues are not simple and straightforward. It is not a case of just bolting missiles on to the aircraft. All the implications need to be studied very carefully, and this is currently being done by the Air Staffs.
  Mr. Churchill: And Harrier.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: And Harrier.
  The hon. Member asked about Hawk and its war-time role. This again is being examined to see whether we can give the Hawk trainer a cost-effective war role, and we hope to come to a decision within the next six months. As soon as a decision is reached, I shall ensure that the hon. Member and the House are informed.
  The hon. Member also referred to the strategic role of the Vulcan. He spoke about losing that role when the Vulcan is replaced by the Tornado in 1980. I think that I had better make it clear again to the House and the hon. Member that the United Kingdom's nuclear strategic role is carried out entirely by our Polaris submarines. All the current tactical strike and attack roles on which Vulcan is at present employed will be fully covered by the Tornado aircraft when Vulcan is replaced by that aircraft. The Vulcan in the maritime reconnaissance role will not be replaced and will continue in service, and it will continue with its responsibilities in that area.
  The hon. Member also raised the question of heating costs in RAF married quarters. I think that in one of his more rash and perhaps unkind moments he accused me of indifference to the financial problems caused to those who live in quarters which are heated solely by off-peak electric central heating because of the cost of this form of heating.

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  I wish that the hon. Member had done his homework a little more thoroughly, because he would then have found that we are undertaking an extensive programme of improving the insulation in married quarters, which should be of considerable help in this respect. The hon. Member might also like to know that as a direct consequence of a series of visits that I have made to RAF stations, in consultation with the Air Staff I directed that a pilot scheme should be carried out at two RAF stations of unblocking fireplaces in married quarters that have night storage heating to see whether this could be done in a cost-effective way and whether it would meet the requirements of serving men and their families to have an alternative to the off-peak electric central heating.
  This trial scheme has gone forward with considerable success, so much so that we are now seeking to see whether we can extend the scheme to quarters throughout the three Services. Discussions are taking place between the quartering departments of the three Services to see whether this can be done. I do not claim this as a major achievement, but I think that I can claim that it refutes the hon. Gentleman's allegation that my colleagues and I are indifferent to the personal problems of Service men.
  The hon. Member also referred to the criticism in the DEASC report about the cuts in defence expenditure and about the RAF's capabilities. He referred specifically to the cancellation of a Jaguar squadron and the slow-down in the delivery rate of Tornado. I thought that I had laid this Jaguar "ghost" squadron to rest when I said in the RAF debate last year, on 4th May, as reported at column 491 of Hansard, that this squadron was only a "planning assumption" and that there has never been any commitment to that extra Jaguar squadron. As regards the Tornado programme, the reductions in planned delivery rate made at the time of the defence review will have no significant effect at all on the time needed to build up the operational squadrons.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar) referred to articles by Mr. Albright in the Atlanta Constitution and Journal about security in the United States special storage sites. My hon.
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  Friend will, I am sure, understand that I am not prepared to comment on newspaper reports on matters of technical nucclear safety, but I assure him that we keep the whole subject of security of nuclear weapons under continuing review. I thank him for kindly passing on to me the correspondence and the documents to which he referred, and I give him the undertaking that I shall cause a review to take place to ensure that all is well in every respect from our point of view.
  Mr. MacFarquhar: I thank my hon. Friend for his undertaking, but he cannot, in my opinion, lightly say that he will disregard things simply because they appear in newspapers. These are serious allegations. The American Government have taken them up, and I hope that my hon. Friend can take them up in public as well as privately.
  Mr. Wellbeloved: I never lightly disregard things that appear in newspapers. I do not always believe them, but I have said to my hon. Friend that I shall consider the reports that he has passed on to me, and I can go no further. It would not be right at this stage to go into details of nuclear security.
  The hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) talked about a deficiency in the provision of what he called Smart bombs in the RAF. I am happy to be able to tell him that if he had read this year's defence White Paper carefully he would have seen that the United States laser guidance kits for our bombs and laser designators for fitment to certain of our offensive support aircraft will be delivered during the course of this year.
  The hon. Gentleman also said that there is no greater duty—I think I have his words right—than the air defence of the United Kingdom. I do not for a moment dissent from that comment and that is why I am delighted in this debate—as I was in the debate on the statement on defence estimates—to make clear to the House that it is this Government—and I make no apology for repeating this—who have restored the air defence capability of the United Kingdom, a capability that was discarded by a previous Conservative Administration. I think that we should have more praise from hon. Members on both sides of the House for that great contribution.
  Mr. Trotter rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: No. I shall not give way because I have a lot to get through in a very short time.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), in an excellent speech, said that he agreed with Andrew Wilson in his superb article in last weekend's The Observer and claimed that that was a fairer and more accurate assessment of the facts about the Royal Air Force than are many of the scenarios put forward by Conservative Members. I wholly agree with that splendid judgment of my hon. Friend and of Mr. Andrew Wilson.
  Mr. Churchill rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: If the hon. Gentleman will excuse me, I shall not give way. I do not want to be discourteous, but I have a lot to get through.
  Mr. Andrew Wilson, in that superb article, said that the attempts by Conservative Members to frighten the public into an awareness is complete rubbish. I shall not go through all the quotations because I am pressed for time, but I commend that article to all hon. Members. Hon. Gentlemen opposite would have done themselves, their cause and the Royal Air Force more good if they had quoted from the article in The Observer rather than from the Sunday Telegraph which falls below the standard of accurate reporting of the affairs of the Royal Air Force of The Observer.
  The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson), who made a thoughtful speech, raised the subject of AST403, and in particular wanted to know whether we intend to go for a short take-off and vertical landing aircraft. As I have said already, we are actively exploring the possibilities for collaboration with Europe. Until these negotiations have reached fruition it is not possible for me to say how the requirement might be met—for example, whether it would be a vector thrust aircraft with a short take-off-and-landing run. That would meet our requirements, but we must take into consideration the requirements of our possible collaborative partners. However, I hope that we shall be able to make real progress in defining the specifications during the course of 1978.
  Mr. Nelson rose—
  Mr. Wellbeloved: If I have time when I have covered all the points raised, I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman.
  In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) gave glowing support to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friends in the Department. I thought it remarkable. He said clearly that the most appalling blow struck at the Royal Air Force since the Second World War was without doubt the Duncan Sandys policy of 1957, when the RAF was virtually decimated in all its roles. I do not dissent. We have begun to restore the position.
  My hon. Friend asked me about missiles. We meet NATO's requirements on missile stocks. We are well aware of the lessons of the recent Middle East conflicts, but it is not right to bandy across the Floor of the House details of missile stocks. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that the matter is receiving attention at the highest possible level in this country.
  I very much appreciated the comments of the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles), when he almost took to task his hon. Friend the Member for Stretford. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said clearly and categorically that he, too, did not consider missile stocks a matter that could be dealt with across the Floor. That is absolutely correct. I hope that his hon. Friend has taken note of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's more responsible approach to these matters.
  The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) raised questions about the timescale of the Tornado programme. Full production of the GR1 version began in July 1976. It is fair to say that the build-up of production has been slower than was earlier expected, but we do not expect that the slippage that has been identified so far will have a significant effect on the build-up of the operational squadrons.
  Speeding up the production of the Tornado has been mentioned, but it is important to remember that we cannot make a unilateral decision on this matter. No change in the programme can be made without the collaboration of our German and Italian partners, to whose needs the current schedules are carefully

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  geared. There is not much room for manoeuvre. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will be reasonably satisfied with those comments.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman also raised some doubts, which the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) echoed, about the Tornado's ability to carry out all its operational roles. The hon. Member for Newbury need not rely upon any assurances from me as the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force. I shall be happy to do far better than that and see that he is sent copies of the excellent comments by the Chief of the Air Staff and the Chief of the Defence Staff, both of whom have said quite clearly that the Tornado fully meets the operational requirements of the RAF and that they are delighted that it will shortly be coming into service with the RAF. I shall arrange for those comments to be sent to the hon. Gentleman, so that he may be reassured.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church (Mr. Williams), in a most profound speech, said that he was aware of the great debate, as he put it, that is going on between the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force on tactics that should be used—whether we should, as he said, take the American view about high altitude attack or whether the Royal Air Force tactic of very low penetration and strike should be regarded as best.
  It is wholly healthy that there should be such debates, whether between our two air forces or between civilians engaged in the aircraft industry or defence research in our two countries. It is good that that sort of general debate should go on, and I can tell my hon. Friend that we are delighted with the co-operation which we receive from the United States.
  In particular, we were extremely pleased with the co-operation recently afforded to the Royal Air Force to participate in the use of the magnificent facilities which the United States Air Force has in the Nevada desert. We sent a number of Vulcan and Buccaneer aircraft out to Nellis airfield to participate in an exercise designated "Red Flag". I am delighted to be able to tell the House that those two detachments of aircraft, both from the United Kingdom and from
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  RAF Germany, achieved quite outstanding results in the exercise. I believe that our tactic of low-level penetration displayed during the exercise was of great benefit to the debate to which my hon. Friend referred, which seems to be going on in some circles in the United Kingdom and in the United States.
  I very much hope that we shall have further opportunities to co-operate with the United States Air Force in exercises of that nature, because it is highly beneficial to both our air forces that we should be able to get together in that way to test our tactics and see whether they are successful in conditions as near as one can get to operational circumstances.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Watkinson), in a very interesting speech, raised two matters of constituency importance. The first was low flying, and I assure him at once that I fully appreciate the concern which is felt. No one could occupy the office of Minister for the Royal Air Force for more than a few hours, let alone for a couple of years, without becoming well aware of the difficulties and the disturbance and the concern of the general public about low flying.
  However, as I said in my earlier speech, low-flying training is a vital requirement for the Royal Air Force and it must go on. However, I hope that the review of low-flying systems which is now taking place will lead to some reductions in the intensity of noise and disturbance in some areas. We shall do our best to ensure that flight paths are varied wherever this is possible.
  My hon. Friend then raised the question of RAF Innsworth and referred to the consideration now being given to plans for the dispersal to Scotland of the Ministry of Defence establishment there. My hon. Friend fully understands that no final decision has been taken on the possible involvement of RAF Innsworth in those plans, and I give him the assurance which he seeks, that the points which he has made will be taken into consideration with all the other factors before a final decision is made. I am sorry that I cannot go further than that at this stage.
  The hon. Member for Newbury asked about Greenham Common and its reactivation. I must be brief about this because we have gone over the issue several times

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  with the hon. Gentleman. No final decisions have been made in respect of the reactivation of Greenham Common. I must stress, however, that Greenham Common is a Royal Air Force station, it remains an RAF station, and it is, of course, subject to use should the Royal Air Force decide that that is a defence requirement of the United Kingdom.
  As regards the United States Government's application for its reactivation, Greenham Common is no more than one of a number of possible alternatives which are being considered. The hon. Gentleman has brought a delegation of constituents to meet my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and tomorrow he will be leading a further delegation of local government officers to see me regarding the Royal Air Force side of the matter. I hope then to answer the many points which, no doubt, members of the delegation will wish to air, and I shall do my best to set their minds at rest.
  I do not want to be unkind, but I noticed that the hon. Gentleman stressed in his speech the point that the defence we need is that which is necessary to meet the threat posed. I have to say to him and to any other hon. Member who has the same genuine problems concerning reactivation and noise that these are the criteria. If it means that we have to reactivate stations because it is in our defence interests, we shall do so. We are not doing it for fun or because we want to impose problems upon people. We do so only when it is essential for the defence of the United Kingdom.
  I apologise to the hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) in that I was out of the Chamber when he made his speech. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has conveyed the contents of the speech to me and has told me that it was in line with the hon. Gentleman's usual high standard. I only wish that the fine example set by the hon. Gentleman in his thoughtful, courteous and meaningful contributions were emulated by some of his hon. Friends on the Front and Back Benches. I shall read at first hand, when Hansard is published, the comments made by the hon. Gentleman and if any of them requires an answer I will ensure that he receives it.
  The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) spoke of the role of women in
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  the Armed Forces, in particular in the RAF. I agree with a good deal of his comments and I shall certainly look again to ensure that we are doing all that we can to encourage equality between the sexes in the Royal Air Force, as far as that is possible. I hope that as things develop it will be possible for women to play a greater role in our Services.
  I thank the hon. Member for his kind words about the RAF and particularly his comments upon the vital importance of air power. There ought to be more debate, not only in Parliament but throughout the country, on this vital question of air power and the irreplaceable, essential, part that it plays in defence and will continue to play for as far ahead as it is possible to see.
  I turn now to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown). I can assure him that his comments today and in the debate on 14th March have been noted. I am sorry that he has not yet received a reply. I will draw my hon. Friend's anxiety to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. If he continues to show this persistence about Tornado I have to warn him that he is exposing himself to the serious risk of receiving a reply in due course.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch also spoke of the Air Training Corps. I join him in the tributes which he paid to the work of officers and civilian helpers in maintaining the ATC. We have recently been able to approve a modest increase in the expenditure available for the maintenance of the corps. I very much appreciate the interest of my hon. Friend takes in the 444 Squadron in his area.
  This has been a useful and timely debate—
  Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: What about pay?
  Mr. Wellbeloved: It is of great importance, on the sixtieth anniversary of the RAF, that we should have had this opportunity to pay tribute to the superb service given to the country by the RAF.
  My final words are that I believe from the depth of my heart that it is the

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  courage, skill and dedication of all ranks of the Royal Air Force that has ensured that the freedom of this country and the liberty of its citizens are maintained in a free Parliament and in a free country.
  Mr. Peter Snape (Lord Commissioner of the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  GUN BARREL PROOF BILL [Lords]
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  Motion made, and Question, that the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

  HEALTH REGULATIONS (AIRCRAFT AND SHIPS)
  10.1 p.m.
  Dr. Gerard Vaughan: I beg to move,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Public Health (Aircraft) (Amendment) Regulations 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 286), dated 28th February 1978, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th March, be annulled.
  Mr. Speaker: I understand that it will be convenient to take at the same time the second Opposition Prayer,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Public Health (Ships) (Amendment) Regulations 1978 (S.I., 1978, No. 287), dated 28th February 1978, a copy of which was laid before this House on 10th March, be annulled.
  Dr. Vaughan: If that would meet the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Does that give us three hours rather than one and a half hours?
  Mr. Speaker: It is 11.30 p.m. in any case.
  Dr. Vaughan: We have asked that these two regulations should come before the House because we regard them as extremely important for the health safety of this country. I am not at all sure that the significance of these regulations has been fully and generally understood by people. I hope that the Government will take our view very seriously.
  Today everybody has heard about rabies and has heard about lassa fever and has even heard about marburg disease, because we have had a series of crises in recent years when it was feared that cases were wandering about at large. There have been alarms of various kinds. One does not need to be a doctor to know that these are extremely serious diseases. They are difficult to diagnose—sometimes very difficult. They are certainly extremely difficult to prevent spreading once they are in the country and they are very difficult to treat. Therefore, some of the cases under these categories are fatal.
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  Up to now in this country we have been relatively safe, I would suggest, because we have had quite efficient and fairly thorough—by international standards—checks on people coming into the country. Even so, the situation is changing. With increasing ease of travel, particularly air travel, it is now quite a major problem to control the various kinds of disease coming into the country, so that many tropical diseases which we thought had gone from our shores for ever are now seen relatively frequently. The whole pattern of preventive medicine has had to be changed in order to take these diseases into consideration. From that point of view alone—the ease and the greater numbers of people involved in travelling—the risk is increasing.
  There is also a strong case for a full medical physical examination of new entrants to the country. There is a view, to which I subscribe, that all people wishing to come here as immigrants should be fully examined. There are now quite large numbers of cases of tuberculosis, for example, and malaria in this country, but particularly tuberculosis, when we thought that tuberculosis generally was dying out. So there is another kind of risk.
  It is well known that rabies is spreading steadily, if slowly, across France and we are expecting it shortly to reach the other side of the Channel. Quite rightly, there are great anxieties. We are anxious to prevent rabies from entering the country, let alone on a large scale. That is another health hazard against which it is important to be alerted.
  Logically, on all those counts we should not only continue our present standards of care and supervision but, if anything, we should increase them. There is a very strong case for having more careful checks rather than less careful checks than we are having today.
  But that is not what the Government are proposing. In these regulations, both at our airports and at our shipping ports, just at a time when these risks are increasing generally throughout the country, the Government are deciding to do exactly the opposite. They have quietly decided to relax the controls at the point of entry. We—and I assure the House that this is not on a party political basis at all—consider that that is not only irresponsible but, frankly, when one looks

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  into it, totally incomprehensible. Why should it be done now and in this way?
  We have recently had a whole series of regulations of one kind and another. The most extreme recent example was the regulations on the Medicines Act concerning prescriptions by chemists. It then turned out that the Government had not conducted full consultations with the people involved and had not understood the full implications of the changes they were making. In the end, the Government, wisely—though it was a disaster from their point of view—put in a transitional period before the implementation of the measure. But now we have another case, and one can only think that here again the Government have not consulted adequately and properly with those concerned.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, may I ask whether he is aware that the Government have not even consulted their own Departments? In answer to a Question on 23rd March about the enforcement of the animal health regulations, the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said:
  "It is not intended that representatives of my Department should undertake this task, which will continue to be carried out as an agency function by HM Customs."—[Official Report, 23rd March 1978; Vol. 940, c. 645.]
  But the chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise, Mr. Lovelock, has written to me:
  "We have no statutory obligation in this area and there will be no change in our practice. The enforcement of livestock controls is the responsibility of the police, who act on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Customs involvement is limited to notifying the appropriate police authorities …"
  and so on. In other words, it is not just that the Government have not consulted the public. Clearly, there is no correlation of consultation among HM Customs, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
  Dr. Vaughan: That is a very helpful intervention, and it goes further on exactly the kind of anxiety that we feel, because the more we look into this matter the more uncertainty and confusion and lack of consultation we find.
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  The position is that, up to 1973, every ship that came to this shore that was thought to be a particular risk—for example, if it came from Africa, Asia or South America—was automatically boarded by a doctor. Ships which came from other parts of the world where the risk was thought to be less were inspected by HM Customs.
  Then, in 1973, the situation was changed. I am dealing particularly with ships, but all this applies also to aircraft. Ships that came from countries at risk were still inspected by a doctor, but other ships, instead of having HM Customs on board, were put into radio contact and had to make a report before they arrived.
  All that has again been changed under these regulations. No inspections are now to take place and, what is more, the whole of the responsibility for making a declaration is to be put on the ship's captain. He does not have to say "My ship is clear from infection". All he has to decide is whether he has someone—or an animal—on board who is a danger.
  It has been put to me very strongly that a busy captain, perhaps in a difficult situation, such as fog, is certainly not going to give first priority to making a health announcement about those on board. We think that this is a very serious and, frankly, a stupid step to take. All the captain has to do is to make a report if he thinks that there is a dangerously ill person on board.
  I know that the Minister had a deputation today from the Port of London Authority. He should tell us frankly what the deputation told him. I will tell the Minister what I believe the members of the deputation told him. I believe that they said that it was ridiculous to expect a ship's captain, who has had no medical training, to take a query list of medical signs and symptoms and then decide whether someone has a serious disease. As a doctor, that certainly seems to me to be medically ridiculous. Some of these diseases are very difficult to detect in the early stages.
  I believe that the deputation would also have made the point that the captain is very busy and would not bother about this, and that the fines proposed are so ridiculous that in some cases it would be to the captain's advantage, from the company's point of view, to overlook a possibly serious condition.

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  The Minister may argue that by making these changes we are merely following what is being done currently in some other countries—for example, in the United States of America. He is quite right. But in America there are very high penalties indeed—even imprisonment—for failure to carry out health regulations of this sort. There has been a change of responsibility but this has been accompanied by a very high penalty if the captain does not exercise his responsibility properly.
  The Minister may tell us that by including animals under the rabies section he is introducing an extra precaution. I would not disagree with that, but to suggest that we can allow a rabid animal to come into this country provided that afterwards we take action against the captain of the ship seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility.
  Lastly, the Minister may tell us that some trial studies have been done at different ports in this country. Will he tell us how they were carried out and what is in the reports? He may not know that one of the ports that is quoted did not even make a report, and yet its experience is put forward as evidence in favour of these changes. Another port nominated some special ships which were using the port regularly and were well known. These were special cases and provided anything but a fair trial of a change of this kind. Another port limited the trial to tankers going to controlled jetties. They were not ordinary ships but special tankers going to special jetties. Yet as a result of these trial studies, we are told that everything will be safe and that this provision can be extended to the rest of the country.
  The trials were also restricted to begin with, I understand, to ships from Common Market countries, so that there was no risk of lassa fever or of marburg disease, although, understandably, there was a slight risk of rabies. What happened? It was decided to extend it to other ships, but because of a misunderstanding between the port health authority and the pilots, the whole thing became a shambles. That is the kind of study on which the Minister is placing his weight as evidence that this could be made a general provision for this country.
  I suggest to the House that when we look into it we can only find that it is
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  farcical. The Government are once again being persuaded to rush into something which they have not thought through properly, and of which they do not understand the full implications. It needs only one very serious case to get into this country to produce a serious outbreak. If that happens, there will be much hand-wringing and many apologies, no doubt.
  I put it to the House, not on party political lines at all, that the Government are ma king a serious mistake here. They are reducing the safety of this country's health cover, and they are doing it for administrative reasons which do not stand up to examination. The Government should be increasing the cover at points of entry, not decreasing it in this way.
  My advice to the Government is to leave the situation as it is. If they cannot do that, or are unwilling to admit that they have made a mistake, I suggest that there are four things they should do. First, they should not ask the captain to try to be a lay doctor. It should be frankly understood that the captain is not in a position to ascertain medical signs or symptoms, because that is what he is being asked to do.
  Dr. M. S. Miller: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that on many ships that do not carry doctors the captain bears the exact responsibility of which the hon. Gentleman speaks.
  Dr. Vaughan: I am very well aware of that fact, but in these regulations we are asking the ship's captain to decide whether the ship's passengers can come into this country and whether they are free from infection. The captain must make that medical decision and the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) as a medical Member will know that. In other words, we are asking the captain to make a medical judgment in our ports when we know that there are medical officers of health who are capable of carrying out that task far more efficiently.
  My second suggestion is that the captain should report by radio before he comes into port whether he has anybody on board who has been ill within the previous month. Thirdly—and this is very important—I would ask the ship's captain to sign a document to say that his ship is free from infection because by these regulations he has to take action

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  only if he thinks that he has infection on board. If he has a difficult seamanship problem on his hands, I suggest that there is nothing to remind him that he must take this further step when he comes into one of our ports.
  Fourthly, I believe that there should be major penalties for breach of this responsibility so that they will act as a real deterrent if the captain does not carry out the duties laid upon him. We ask the Government to admit once again that they have made an error, to look to the safety of the nation, to abandon their personal worries about how this matter came up in the Department, and to admit that a mistake was made. We believe that the Government should take back both sets of regulations and return them to the House in a better, safer form in future.
  10.18 p.m.
  Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: These two orders are part of the tip of the iceberg. They are allied to the non-statutory action by an organisation that is subservient to the Treasury—namely, the Board of Customs and Excise. Treasury Ministers are constitutionally responsible to this House for the actions of that board. The board has decided among other things, that whereas in past years every incoming ship has been boarded, that will no longer happen in the future.
  Together with my hon. Friends the Members for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) and Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), I visited on 16th March the chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise, who received us very graciously, and we had a most useful discussion. Following that visit, the chairman wrote me two letters. I am particularly concerned with the animal health side of the matter. The animal health regulations are very extensive—to such an extent that the master of a tramp steamer must radio ahead to say that he has on board a mouse suffering from diarrhoea. [HON MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, that is specifically provided for.
  Of course, the more germane matter in this debate concerns rabies, of which this country is free and it is my fervent hope that it will stay so. The House will
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  note that no Member from the Liberal Party, the SNP or Plaid Cymru is present. Presumably, they have no interest in this subject. We in the Conservative Party are most concerned that rabies should not be admitted to this country.
  The chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise, following our meeting of 16th March, wrote to me saying:
  "We have no statutory obligations in this area and there will be no change in our practice. The enforcement of livestock control is the responsibility of the police who act on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Customs involvement is limited to notifying the appropriate police authority and the MAFF when the presence of livestock on board vessels is brought to our attention. We shall continue to perform this function. Masters will continue to declare details of livestock on their arrival documents, which under the new arrangements, will either be presented to the Customs officer on boarding, or if the vessels are not boarded, lodged at a dockside point designated for this purpose."
  That incidentally is up to 12 hours after arrival.
  However, the Ministry of Agriculture said something totally different. Whereas every merchant ship to date has been boarded by a Customs officer, henceforth only in those small ports where the Customs officer is also the immigration officer will every one be boarded. The chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise said that it is nothing to do with it. Customs officers will still board vessels which they have boarded before and they will continue to do so.
  What I want to ask the Minister is what about the vessels that they do not board at present but which they used to board. Where there is an immigration officer they will not in future board every vessel, only a few selectively. Who does what the Customs officer used to do? The Minister might say that it will be the immigration officer. But that is not what the Ministry of Agriculture said.
  In a priority Written Question on 23rd March I asked the Minister of Agriculture
  "what action he is taking to ensure that a representative of his Department boards all incoming merchant ships which prior to 1st April would have been boarded, but which will not as a matter of routine be boarded after that date, to ensure that the master is aware of and has complied with all the animal health regulations, particularly those prohibiting the landing of pets which might carry rabies."

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  The Minister of State said:
  "It is not intended that representatives of my Department should undertake this task, which will continue to be carried out as an agency function by H.M. Customs."—[Official Report, 23rd March 1978; Vol. 946, c. 645.]
  But it will not, and it is not. That arrangement is now cancelled. The Customs says that it will be the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture says that it will be the Customs, and the Customs says that it will not be boarding vessels where there is an immigration officer, except selectively.
  The Ministry of Agriculture is denying what the chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise has said. The Treasury Minister here is responsible to the House for what Customs and Excise says, and since, astonishingly, there is no Minister on the Government Front Bench from the Ministry of Agriculture or the Scottish Office, the Minister who is here must explain to the House why the chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise is saying the opposite to that said by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
  Where does that leave the Minister who is to reply to the debate, except with the task of saying that he will withdraw the regulations? He is shaking his head. Can he then explain why the Ministry of Agriculture says that this task will be carried out by the Customs, while the Customs say that it will be carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture? Who will do it?
  I am not talking about the small ports where Customs officers will still board ships, under the agency arrangement, as immigration officers. I am talking about the ports where there is an immigration officer who, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, will not perform this task because the Customs will perform it. But the Customs say that they will not perform it because they will not board every vessel. I shall willingly give way to allow the Minister to reply to this point because it would save a lot of debate.
  Can he tell us who is wrong? Is the chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise wrong in saying that the Ministry of Agriculture will do it, or is the Ministry wrong in saying that the Customs will do it? There is no other possibility.
  The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Roland Moyle): I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's case with great interest, but the regulations before the House do not deal with animal health regulations. I shall make sure that the hon. Gentleman's remarks are drawn to the attention of my right hon. Friend who can answer his points.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: It seems that the Minister has not read Statutory Instrument No. 287 which we are debating. That refers to the insertion after Part IV of Schedule 4 to the principal regulations of:
  "PART V—LASSA FEVER, RABIES, VIRAL HAEMORRHAGIC FEVER OR MARBURG DISEASE
  Infected ships and suspected ships
  (1) The medical officer may—

  (a) place any suspect on board under surveillance…

  (b) require the disinfection of the baggage…

  (2) If there is any rodent on board, the authorised officer may require the ship to be deratted in a manner to be determined by him" …
  How does an authorised officer know whether there is a rodent on board if he does not go on board?
  Mr. Moyle: The hon. Gentleman had better wait for me to make my speech on the whole of the two sets of regulations. Perhaps the correct relationship between rabies, rodents and the regulations will become clear to him.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I hope that it will become clear why Customs officers are not to do this job, although the Ministry of Agriculture says that they will, and why Ministry officers are not to do the job, under the orders of their Minister, although the chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise say that they will.
  Unless the Minister is disclaiming responsibility for the Board of Customs and Excise, he is impaled on the horns of a dilemma which will not go away unless he withdraws the regulations and unless the arrangements for the Customs are restored to the status quo of yesterday until the matter is satisfactorily resolved.
  10.29 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Viggers: My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) has dealt with this subject with the care we expect of him and I congratulate him on the research he has conducted into this matter. I am facing a Minister who has not yet explained the way the regulations are shaped and we await his comments with interest because it is difficult to defend the Government's proposals.
  The commercial pressures on the master of a large commercial vessel are so great that the temptation must be upon him to ignore the regulations that the Minister is seeking to impose. The turn round times for enormous vessels—oil tankers and roll-on roll-off container ships—are all about one day. The pressure upon a master not to bother the medical authorities with a marginal case must be almost overwhelming in commercial terms.
  The definitions which a master is expected to fulfil are very strict. He is expected to know, for instance, whether one of the people on board his ship has been suffering from a temperature in excess of 38 degrees Centigrade for more than 48 hours. As one who is married to a doctor, I know for certain that my wife does not know whether I am suffering from a temperature in excess of 38 degrees Centigrade for more than 48 hours. We do not even have a thermometer in the house. It is not reasonable to expect the master of a ship to know these things or to put that pressure upon him.
  The cost which may be saved by the Government in bringing forward these regulations may be miniscule and completely without relevance to the cost in both financial and human terms should there be a spread of disease within this country. Anyone visiting a marina or shipping centre knows of the strain that is already imposed on the authorities to ensure that rabies and other fevers do not spread within this country. The cost, not in financial terms, because that is miniscule, but in human terms should rabies ever reach these shores in recent years is so great that any Government who are responsible for a diminution of regulations would have a heavy strain to bear in this respect.
  Anyone who deals with safety regulations knows that it is necessary to have a fail-safe regulation. Earlier today we
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  debated the Royal Air Force. I was a pilot. Therefore, I know that when landing an aeroplane one has three or four separate mechanisms to ensure that a mistake is not made. The pilot has a buzzer in his ear, a light coming on and the tower telling him when to put his wheels down and a few other things. We are legislating for the opposite to fail-safe. We are legislating for the master to decide whether there is a risk and whether it is necessary for further checks to be made. I regard that as unsatisfactory.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton talked about merchant vessels. I notice from the definition in the Act that a ship is included as "any vessel", not necessarily a larger or merchant vessel. To what extent do these regulations apply to yacht marinas and other areas which increasingly bring in people from the Continent who may have a lax attitude towards regulations or those who, because they are weekend sailors—good luck to them—pop across to Cherbourg or Le Havre and have no real reason to study the regulations? What pressure is there upon such people to ensure that they do not fall in breach of the regulations?
  Finally, a minor, but significant point. Proposed Regulation 2(i) provides that
  "after paragraph (5) of regulation 2 there shall be inserted the following paragraph—
  '(6) For the purposes of these regulations a ship shall not be regarded as having met another ship or offshore installation unless in the course of the encounter a person has boarded one ship or installation from the other.'."
  It may sound a facetious point, but I ask that the Minister and his advisers note that if an animal should have boarded one ship or installation from the other it would not be regarded as a meeting. If, for example, animals were transported from one ship to another, that would not be regarded as having been a meeting for the purpose of the master taking decisions on certain matters. That appears to be a slip, and—without making a major point of it—I wonder whether the Minister will consider whether an amendment is necessary.
  10.35 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Brooke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport

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  (Mr. Viggers) for pointing out the turn-rounds that ships' masters face in present economic conditions. It is a happy coincidence that this debate should be following the debate on the RAF. One of the splendid sights at the Spithead Review last year was the moored tanker around which the review circulated. That showed vividly how important is timing in these medical decisions by ships' masters.
  I am grateful to the Minister who will be replying for the generous way in which he received a deputation, about the regulations, from the Port of London. I think that I speak on behalf of the delegation, which I was lucky enough to accompany, when I say that everyone was impressed with the care and thoughtfulness that he devoted to the points made by the City Corporation on behalf of the largest port in the country.
  The Port of London is unique in this respect. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) paid it an unwitting compliment, when he ascribed to the whole nation things which have happened in the last five years primarily in the Port of London alone. It was only in the Port of London that five years ago the Customs and Excise withdrew these health services. But the rest of the country now faces the same problems. The Department has chosen to answer this problem differently from the way in which my constituents responded.
  Local authorities which administer these regulations are bound to pay attention to Circular 78/5, which accompanies the regulations and which, although having no legislative effect, seems to me as a junior Member to serve the same function as the explanatory memorandum of a Bill. The circular says that the regulations, prompted by the coincidence of the withdrawal of Customs and Excise services, relate to changes in the incidence and control of infectious disease and in the means of transfer, together with the level of hygiene and sanitation in the United Kingdom.
  Regarding infectious disease, only two significant things have happened in the period just ended. The first is that smallpox, which seemed to have been eradicated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but which then re-erupted, now seems really to have been eradicated. But equally during that period we have seen
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  the arrival of such virus diseases as lassa fever which we were not contemplating in the late 1950s and 1960s. In that sense in terns of the phrase of the local authority circular
  "changes in the incidence and control of infectious disease"
  we have a stand-off in terms of certain diseases increasing and other decreasing.
  The means of travel are referred to in the local authority circular. But they have scarcely changed. Sea and air travel—Concorde apart—are exactly the same as they were in 1974 when these regulations were last changed.
  The high level of hygiene and sanitation in the United Kingdom is irrelevant to these regulations; unless the Government are basing the regulations on the theory that our high standards here mean that it does not matter if we allow infectious disease in because we shall be able to control it once it is here. That is a hazardous and dangerous philosophy.
  Dr. Vaughan: Does my hon. Friend agree that the truth is quite the opposite These diseases are very difficult to manage once they are in this country. They present a very serious risk, however high our standards of sanitation and hygiene and however effective our general control of infection may be.
  Mr. Brooke: I am grateful for that comment. We are particularly conscious of this point in the Port of London. We have 180 miles of coastline within the port and it is difficult to effect control once sailors come ashore. With the rapid turn-round that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport referred to, the sailors come ashore immediately a ship berths. The feeding back into the hinterland is difficult to control.
  The argument of the Department—and I seek to be charitable and generous—is, I assume, that the new regulations, which seem to me to be prompted by the coincidence of an attitude towards Customs and Excise, will be more economical to operate and more cost-effective in terms of the sort of quality control that exists in other walks of life. I am in no position to say, because I do not have the knowledge possessed by other hon. Members who have spoken this evening, whether that kind of quality control sampling is as appropriate in health matters as it is in an industrial context.

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  I intervene in this debate purely as a layman. I am apprehensive that we should have adopted regulations which would seek to give a result on the basis of a series of experiments which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South said, seemed to be somewhat inadequate as a scientific basis on which to proceed.
  I should like to amplify what my hon. Friend said, not least in order to give the Minister of State the opportunity to correct me if I am wrong. As I understand it, the experiments which led to these regulations were, as the local authority circular says, conducted at three ports. At the first port they were limited to vessels which had been previously nominated by the port health authority. The ships which were chosen had regular runs into the port and were well known to the port health authority. They were all required to submite a maritime declaration of health and a pro forma.
  Under the regulations that we shall now have, that presentation of a maritime declaration of health will no longer apply, in the manner in which my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, South described. Therefore, speaking again as a layman, the first case does not seem to me to have proved anything in terms of how well these arrangements might work in the future.
  The second case did not apply to ordinary ships using the port casually. I am slightly hesitant about this, given the number of ships that come into the Port of London annually. The Port of London was not used as one of the experimental ports. The experiment was limited to ships that were all tankers that were going on what I would describe as preordained voyages, about which everyone knew in advance, and they were going to places that were agreed, understood and expected in advance.
  As a consequence of that, the people who were supervising the jetties concerned were able to supervise those particular journeys and to be able to be satisfied that the formalities were being adhered to. But as my hon. Friend said, in the first instance they used only Common Market ships or ships that belonged to the partial agreement area. Later, they managed to extend it to other ships from non-endemic areas, but due, apparently,
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  to a foul-up in communications between the port health authority and the pilots, they were not able to extend it to ships from endemic areas and, of course, it is ships from endemic areas that constitute the principal anxiety that is being expressed from the Opposition Benches tonight.
  The third scheme was conducted at a port where most of the trade was continental and was not from endemic areas. As part of the experiment, three firms that were running ships into container berths were asked to provide the port health authority with the names of the ships coming in during the next 12 months, and the firms were asked to agree to the experiment. At the end of the day, I agree, the ships nominated were from endemic areas.
  The port health authority wrote to each master, set out the scheme and asked for his co-operation. Co-operation was given. There was not any trouble, but there was not any sickness, so at the end of the day we are still left wondering what is the result that flowed from those experiments.
  I speak in a sense of all fairness to the Government. If there are more cost-effective ways of conducting these arrangements, I am in favour of reaching them. But unless the evidence has been misrepresented to me, I must feel the gravest uneasiness about how these experiments were conducted. It seems that we are proceeding to what the Government may seek to justify on scientific grounds as being a good way of managing affairs in the future from a basis which was fundamentally unscientific in terms of the build-up of evidence.
  Dr. Vaughan: I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend again, but will he also confirm that it was our understanding that it was one of these three—Milford Haven—where no written report at all was made on this great scientific study on which all these observations are based?
  Mr. Brooke: As I understand it, no written evidence emerged in the Milford Haven case.
  I comprehend that the Government may choose to defend what they are proposing to do through these regulations on the basis that it has been tried in the United States and it has worked. I can only say

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  that I hope that the Government have taken care to ensure that the controlled circumstances of American experience are directly comparable to our own, because, as my hon. Friend said, one has the impression that: the powers that the American port authorities and American health authorities can use are considerably more strenuous than those that we enjoy here. I understand why the penalties that can be imposed are limited. It is because they have to apply to so many other offences as well.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my hon. Friend correct what I think was possibly a slip of the tongue? Surely his first priority is not that the measures should be cost-effective, but that they should be effective; not that the cost per lassa fever detected should be lower, but that the people with lassa fever should be detected before they enter this country even if the cost is somewhat greater.
  Mr. Brooke: I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, because he is correct. He detected an error in what I said, and which I hope I should have corrected before I sat down. My hon. Friend is correct to have made the point that he has made.
  I appreciate that I am speaking from particular experience of the Port of London which has had a different experience over the last five years from that of the rest of the country, but I want to come to the situation in which my constituents in the Port of London find themselves, in that they are being asked to take a much more relaxed view, given the circumstances of 1978, than they have been taking over the last five years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton has been quick to point out, over the last five years my constituents have taken a strenuous attitude towards lassa fever.
  The disadvantage of the local authority circular, which the Minister is free to point out does not have legislative power, is that it imposes on the local authority certain standards and criteria with which it would have to deal in coping with, apart from anyone else, the district auditor if it was felt to be incurring expenditure which was not laid upon it by the Government.
  In my concluding remarks I come back to my constituents in the Port of London because I am endeavouring to respond
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  to the Minister in the cost-effective coin which I understand to have underlain the recommendations of the regulations. At the present time, with the 180 miles of coastline that we have in the Port of London, with regulations that existed before 1973, and which, with admirable adaptability, the Port of London has used from 1973 onwards when the method of implementing them passed from Customs and Excise to itself, it has relied on a single boarding point for doctors within the port. That will no longer be justifiable under the arrangements which the Department is bringing in.
  That system has been possible in the past because the number of ships being boarded justified having that single boarding point. We are now to move to a situation in which, as it is no longer justifiable for the Port of London to have that single point, it will rely upon doctors up and down this 90 miles of coastline on either side of the river. I say with all sincerity that I hope it has been verified that the medical resources will be available to respond to that need under the new regulations.
  The second consideration that flows from that is that historically, particularly during the last five years, the port health authority in London has taken responsibility, through its cadre of doctors, for handling non-infectious acute illness throughout the port, for individual accidents on ships, and for major accidents causing casualties on the river. The authority has no statutory obligation to provide these services, and if its cadre of medical service is to be dispelled as a consequence of these regulations, as at present it will be, that obligation will immediately be transferred back on to the NHS off the health authority.
  The most serious matter of all—I hope that I am summing up the Opposition's views—is that if a serious case occurs, as a consequence of these new regulations the responsibility will be thrown back—whether the Department likes it or not—on the port health authority. The port where that case occurs will be held responsible for that case having occurred. Yet it is being asked to do it when it has no power, other than the good will of the ship's master, to prevent its happening. That is a serious obligation that the House would be imposing.
  Dr. Vaughan: My hon. Friend referred exclusively to local authority Circular 1978/5, paragraph 4(a) of which contains a definite instruction:
  "Routine clearance of all ships should therefore cease."
  As I understand it, there is no legal support for that instruction.
  Mr. Brooke: We are moving into areas where the Minister may be able to help my hon. Friend more than I can. But my hon. Friend is correct in the quotation that he has just given.
  What worries me is that under the new regulations, if a serious accident and a serious infectious disease occur, all the obloquy will go to the local port health authority, yet it will have been powerless to prevent it, unless the ship's master drew its attention to it in the first place.
  10.57 p.m.
  Dr. M. S. Miller: I did not want to intervene until I realised that what we were talking about referred entirely to ships.
  Dr. Vaughan: And aircraft.
  Dr. Miller: I understand that both orders are being taken together, but everyone has been talking about ships. As far as I can gather, nothing has been said about aircraft. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to confirm that the number of people at risk who land from ships nowadays is infinitesimal compared with the number of passengers who arrive at airports. I have not heard one word about how the regulations put forward by Opposition Members will apply to aeroplanes.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: How often has the hon. and medical Gentleman seen an aircraft's dog or cat pop ashore, or rats and mice pop down from aircraft? This is a frequent occurrence from ships. Is not that the whole point?
  Dr. Miller: I think that my hon. Friend answered that point when he indicated that that is not what we are dealing with, but that he will pass that matter on to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to deal with.
  Dr. Vaughan: We are discussing, in the Port of London Authority alone,
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  about 6,000 vessels and last year nearly 60 patients. That is quite a large number of cases for one port alone.
  Dr. Miller: The hon. Gentleman must know that ships carrying a certain number of people—I think that it is now 100—have a doctor on board in any case. I was not saying that this was not important from a shipping point of view. What I was saying was that if hon. Members want regulations to be extended. I do not see how they could be extended in an area in which that is absolutely impracticable—in the air. What must be done is to ensure that regulations in respect of the possibility of bringing disease into this country will act where they are much more likely to bring about the result that we want.
  Dr. Vaughan: May I try to help the hon. Gentleman again? Other countries have very careful screening tests. In Canada, for example, there is a full medical screening of immigrants coming into the country by air—far greater than we have here.
  Dr. Miller: That is another point. I am not suggesting that that should not be done; I am dealing with the regulations before us. I am not saying that there should not be some kind of screening of people who enter the country—not just immigrants, because other individuals may be involved, too.
  I am pointing out that it is much more likely that a disease will be detected on board a ship before the person lands than will be the case in air travel. As the hon. Gentleman knows, people flying from one area to another will finish their journey long before the incubation period of the disease is over. Generally speaking, that does not happen in travel by sea.
  The hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) knows that at present on board ships which do not have a doctor responsibility is placed on the captain or chief officer to deal with minor ailments which develop and sometimes even responsibility for the detection—not necessarily the diagnosis—of more serious illness.
  I return to the point which I made earlier. As far as I can see, hon. Members opposite are directing their attention

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  to regulations which they see as not entirely satisfactory but which apply to a much smaller field, namely, maritime travel, whereas I think that everyone regards as much more important—
  Mr. Brooke: Unless I am greatly mistaken as regards current convention, if an aircraft is coming from an area where a disease is endemic and there has been a recent outbreak, every passenger on the aircraft will be identified as he goes through the airport control. Under the arrangements now proposed for ships, if a ship comes from an area where a disease is naturally endemic, he will not even have to report to the port health authority that he has arrived in the port.
  Dr. Miller: As I said, the chances are that any condition which a person may have picked up will have become evident during the voyage. That is much more likely than it is in the case of air travel. Hon. Members have been making a case directed to one specific instance, the Port of London Authority, and I think that they are in all probability trying to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
  11.3 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Roland Moyle): As my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) has said, most hon. Members who have spoken in the debate have directed their attention primarily to the situation as it affects entry into this country by sea, although we are dealing with both sets of regulations, and in reply I shall adopt the same general line, except that I shall refer from time to time to entry by aircraft as it illustrates the general position. This has been a useful debate because there is obviously a great deal of misconception to be corrected.
  The regulations provide for the public health control of ships arriving at of leaving ports in England and Wales, and they reflect provisions of the International Health Regulations 1969. They also maintain a balance providing the maximum security against international spread of diseases with minimum interference with world traffic.
  I ought first to clear up one misapprehension—that these changes are being made in consequence of changes in boarding procedures by Customs and Excise officers. This is not so. Though at most
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  ports Customs and Excise officers have in the past carried out the routine work of collecting maritime declarations of health and of giving clearance to heathly ships, these officers may not always be available to do so from 1st April 1978.
  It is administratively convenient for the amending regulations to come into force on that date. But the simplification procedures are something which we have had in mind for some time and the principle of the amendment regulations stands on its own. Customs and Excise officers will continue, when boarding, to remind masters of ships of the public health requirements.
  In doing all this we are following what has become accepted international practice. For example, Canada and the United States of America adopted some time ago the system we are adopting in these regulations and so far they have reported no operational difficulties in following them through.
  Dr. Vaughan: Both those countries have very much higher penalties for failure to carry out instructions.
  Mr. Moyle: I shall come to that point later. The hon. Gentleman asked me to deal with the points raised by the Port of London Authority when its representatives came to see me, and I will deal with that point in that context.
  What will the amendment regulations do? What is the present position? At present the master of a ship arriving from a foreign port is required to notify the presence on board of, in the wording of the regulations,
  "a person who is suffering from an infectious disease or who has symptoms which may indicate the presence of infectious disease"
  or
  "when there are on board a ship before arrival any other similar circumstances requiring the attention of the port medical officer".
  Where the ship has a radio transmitter, the notice must be given before arrival. Otherwise the notice must be given immediately on arrival. Even when he has nothing to report the master must complete a maritime declaration of health and maintain restrictions on boarding or leaving the ship until he has received health clearance, although ships coming from most ports in Europe are excepted from the arrangements. Thus, in almost

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  all cases port health control rests on the master of the ship giving notice.
  All that the amendment regulations do is to dispense with this routine completion of the maritime declaration of health and to lift the requirement to maintain boarding and leaving restrictions where the master has nothing to report. That is the major change between the new system and the old one. In other words, under the new system, masters are relieved of making nil declarations, although port authorities can still make a sample check to determine that there is nothing to report in circumstances where the medical officer decides that a check should be made.
  A port medical officer or an authorised officer may inspect any ship on arrival or already in the port health district. We have proceeded with great caution. We are satisfied that changes in the incidence and control of infectious diseases and in the means of travel, together with the high level of hygiene and sanitation in the United Kingdom, mean that certain routine procedures are no longer useful. Here I touch on the debate which took place following an interjection by the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan).
  One of the great advances in public health since the system of control of entry into this country was first instituted has been in the control of communicable diseases. It is no longer necessary or economic to maintain the same level of port health measures as when these diseases were rife and frequently imported. The hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke) mentioned smallpox, an example of a disease which has been almost entirely eradicated. The Horn of Africa is the only area where the disease might persist. For example, the spread of cholera in this country would be severely retarded by the vastly higher standards of hygiene here compared with many years ago. I know that the hon. Member is not entirely convinced about this, but it is a fact that he must take into consideration.
  The international health regulations envisaged that a health administration may dispense with the declaration of maritime health altogether, whether positive or negative. We have not gone that
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  far. The other possibility is to impose it on ships coming from certain areas or ships having positive information to report. We have adopted the last-mentioned procedure; in other words, ships which have something positive to report are to be required to do so. A similar simplified system has been in operation at airports for some years. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride said, airports are the main source of entry of people into this country.
  Infectious diseases have incubation periods, usually of several days—here again I am reinforcing the point made by my hon. Friend—and the vast majority of the people arriving in this country from places where dangerous infectious disease is endemic come in through airports within 24 hours of leaving such countries. About 30,000 international travellers arrive each day at Heathrow alone, without counting our other international airports. Commanders of aircraft report any incident of a passenger showing signs that might be those of infectious disease, but there is no written declaration at all; nor, where there is nothing to report, are their boarding or leaving restrictions.
  In the case of ships—and we must remember that continental ferries are already exempt—the numbers are relative to those I have been talking about, very small—that was another point made by my hon. Friend—and the disease is more likely to become apparent during passage and the need of the individual for treatment more obvious. It is also a fact that larger ships, with over 100 persons on board, carry a ship's doctor. Aircraft, however large their passenger-carrying capacity, do not.
  However, application to the ports was preceded by some tests over an extensive period and by extensive consultation, contrary to what the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said. We did pilot studies at Southampton, Immingham and Milford Haven. They were pilot studies, and were not totally comprehensive. All three ports reported on them, although Milford Haven reported orally rather than in writing. As the hon. Members for Reading, South and the City of London and Westminster, South raised the point, I should explain that initially the studies were based on ships of reputable lines, but they were

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  subsequently extended to other ships. One of the ports predominantly used tankers—I presume that that was Milford Haven.
  The tests were carried over a period exceeding two years, which is a fairly extensive period for testing, and later they were extended to ships which were regularly arriving from ports in endemic areas, as the hon. Member for City of London and Westminster, South eventually agreed. That was the extent of the tests. There were no operational problems and the simplified procedures were welcomed by all concerned at these ports. But, in the light of this experience, proposals for changing the system of health clearance were then put to interested organisations, including the Association of Sea and Air Port Health Authorities, the Environmental Health Officers' Association, the General Council of British Shipping, and interested Government Departments.
  In December 1976, we circulated draft regulations, and again in August 1977, on the same basis. A final version was sent round in January this year. So a very considerable period has been spent, first in testing the concept of these new regulations, and then, whatever anyone says, in very extensive consultation. I cannot assume that everyone understood what they were being consulted about, but I am confident, on the basis of what I have said, that if there was misunderstanding it was, broadly speaking, not the fault of the Department. No effort was spared to conduct extensive consulations before promulgating the regulations.
  The consultations resulted in amendments in detail but no changes in substance, and the principle of the amending regulations was generally welcomed as unnecessary work for ships and port health authorities.
  Mr. Brooke: I totally acknowledge the dialogue which took place on consultation, but inevitably, when the regulations eventually emerged, they were read with a fine toothcomb by those who would have the responsibility for implementing them. There was a belief, on the basis of the regulations which existed before the local authority circular, that it would still be possible for local authorities to implement and execute them in a way which was consonant with the local traditions which had been maintained.
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  That belief was shattered by the local authority circular, which gave the impression that they would not be allowed to do so.
  Mr. Moyle: I will come to that shortly, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me The only objections which have been made to the regulations were by the port health authorities of London and Newhaven.
  London has a very thorough inspection procedure and I appreciate its concern to maintain its excellent record of health surveillance. I am sympathetic to that point of view. I am very conscious that the changes may involve some difficulty for the Port of London Authority. First of all, therefore—this was the point raised about medical manpower—I am asking the City and East London Area Health Authority, in the discussions it is having with the Port of London Health Authority, to ensure that the latter is provided with the necessary medical manpower. I understand that there is now agreement between the port health authority and the area health authority on the procedures to be followed and the way forward, by which it is hoped that that problem can be solved.
  As was mentioned by the hon. Members for Reading, South and for City of London and Westminster, South, I met a deputation from the Port of London Health Authority—including also the executive of the City of London, I believe—and four points were put to me by the members of that deputation. They said that the ship's master should not attempt a diagnosis. I entirely agree with this. Diagnosis is a process of deducing symptoms from the presence of a particular disease or condition, and that is a matter for doctors and not laymen.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: The Minister surely means deducing disease from the symptoms, not deducing symptoms from the disease. It is the symptoms which are observable, surely.
  Mr. Moyle: That is right. Deducing from symptoms the presence of a disease was what I intended to say, if I did not say it. This is a matter for doctors and not for laymen. I have every confidence, therefore, that I can give the assurance that the City of London wants on this point.

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  What has to be accepted is that the master of a ship has always had to make a judgment whether there is a disease. In times past, when he has made a judgment that there is not a disease, he has filled in a nil return. We do not now want him to make that particular return, but he still has to exercise the same sort of judgment. What we are doing, in order to strengthen his position, is to give the master some specific guidance. We are saying, quite simply, that if someone on board a ship has a temperture of 38°C, and it is accompanied by a rash or a glandular swelling or jaundice, or has persisted for more than 48 hours, the captain should make a report. He should also make a report if anyone on the ship has had diarrhoea severely enough to interfere with work or normal activities, and, if he has any cases of doubt, the captain should make a report.
  What we are saying is not that the master should report infectious diseases—he is not capable of doing that—but that he should make the same sort of judgment that he has always made, and we are now giving him guidance which will help him by making clear what are the sorts of matters that he ought to report.
  Mr. Brooke: I am sure that the Minister is aware, in terms of the gap between what is being proposed and what is current practice, that all those ships which are coming into the Port of London from endemic areas—from Africa, Asia, and Central and South America—are currently being boarded by a doctor, so that the questions which are being asked, and the inspection of the symptoms which is taking place, are medically derived. It is only in the cases where the ships are from non-endemic areas that, by a system of radio clearance, the ship's master is being asked to make a declaration such as the Minister is describing.
  Mr. Moyle: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself, I am coming to that point.
  The second point is that masters should be required to report any illness on board during the four weeks prior to arrival. I am advised that there is nothing positive in the new regulations to prevent the Port of London Health
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  Authority from making such requests in the future as it has done in the past.
  Mr. Brooke: I am sorry to intervene yet again, but how will the Port of London Health Authority make that request under the present regulations?
  Mr. Moyle: That will be a matter for the authority to arrange, it has the power so to do.
  The third point is that a nil declaration should be required when the ship is berthed. I have already explained our attitude on that matter, and I am afraid that I cannot meet the port health authority on that. The port medical officer has a wide power in the regulations to direct, if he so wishes, that masters of ships should complete declarations. Therefore, that again will be helpful to the Port of London Health Authority.
  The authority also mentioned the matter of penalties, which, in its view, were inadequate. The penalties, given the capital value of ships and their running costs, do not appear to me to be large, but the point I made—a point which I think the Port of London Health Authority now accepts—is that these penalties are part of a pattern of penalties that extend right across the English legal system and that these regulations are not an appropriate vehicle in which to alter the penalties. They are not high, they are part of a general pattern, and these are no appropriate regulations by which to change the penalties, but if the Port of London Health Authority makes representations to me about the adequacy or inadequacy of the penalties I am prepared to receive those representations and to consult about them. I cannot give a guarantee that new penalties will be promulgated because there will be a large number of people with interests in these matters who will want to let me know what they think about them. I am prepared to give that undertaking.
  Mr. Brooke: The four points put to the hon. Gentleman were a summary which was produced in response to the regulations, but we are still left with the essential difficulty that there is no way under the new regulations by which the Port of London Health Authority can communicate with incoming ships to ask the kind of questions which the Minister has just said they are free to continue to ask.
  Mr. Moyle: I shall take note of that point and look into it, but we are not removing means of communication in the PLA. It is up to that authority how best to judge how to use the powers in the regulations.
  Apart from the question of penalties there is another aspect of the matter namely, that ships are very expensive vehicles, with very high running costs. Although there is a pressure on masters for a quick turnround, there is also pressure on masters to return to a particular port. If masters have defaulted on regulations and if they are discovered and return to this country, they would be subjected to some extensive delays as a result. The sampling inspections which could be applied to ships will be applied to the ship which has committed that sort of offence. Masters will be well aware of the situation and therefore they will exercise their duties under these regulations very responsibly indeed.
  Dr. Vaughan: We accept what the Minister has just said about the implications for masters of ships. He has made an important statement about penalties. It is his responsibility to ensure that the penalties are adequate for the purposes that he wishes to be carried out. Will he give an undertaking to make representations on this point to the Home Office?
  Mr. Moyle: No. I shall await representations from the Port of London Authority. If it wants to see me, I shall undertake to give the matter consideration. I will not go any further than that.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is the Minister seriously saying that the penalties that he has written into the regulations for which he is responsible to the House are amendable only if the PLA asks for it? What about the rest of the United Kingdom, and what about his duty to the House of Commons as the responsible Minister? Will he defend the penalties that he puts in here, or undertake to alter them, instead of simply saying that he is just a bit of blotting paper, waiting for the PLA? It is his responsibility, not the PLA's.
  Mr. Moyle: I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman is as obtuse as he makes out. I have given an undertaking to the House, and I stand by it. I have not given an undertaking that, even if the PLA makes any representations about the
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  penalties, they will be altered. I have given an undertaking in the terms that will appear in Hansard and that is the one that I shall follow.
  I do not think that there is anything in the regulations to prevent the Port of London Health Authority from boarding the same proportion of ships as hitherto. There is, however, the local authority circular which indicates that only in exceptional circumstances will ships be boarded. I accept that, because of the case put forward by the PLA, a substantially higher percentage of checks will be necessary in the case of London than is suggested by the circular which the Department has issued giving guidance about how the regulations should be applied. That undertaking will be sufficient to enable London to escape the full rigours of the circular, and will remove, from London any worries about questions by the district auditor if it substantially exceeds the number of spot checks recommended in the circular.
  I turn to the question of rabies. I take second place to nobody in this House in trying to ensure that this country remains protected from rabies. I was the Minister who took the Rabies Bill through the House and placed the Rabies Act on the statute book. The principle regulations are primarily concerned with communicable diseases in human beings, and not with animal health. That is not their main purpose. The principal regulations at present provide for controls of rodents on ships since these can carry plague. At the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, we have in the amendment regulations extended these provisions to require that the masters of ships, report the presence of animals and captive birds of any species on board, or illness or mortality among such species.
  If this has any bearing at all on rabies, it is to strengthen our defences. We may not be going as far as the hon. Member for Tiverton wants, but we are certainly going further to protect the country against rabies than we have up to now. It is a modest but additional strengthening of our defences, and I hope that this reassures the hon. Member.
  There are other provisions relating to offshore installations. Ships arriving from such installations are brought under control. There are also provisions for

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  sampling food and water and new post-notification control measures for lassa fever, viral haemorrhagic fever, and mar-burg disease.
  The regulations do not deal with immigrant health, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride has pointed out. They make a sensible and useful change in public health control of ships.
  In praying against the regulations Opposition Members are trying to prevent an improvement in the turnround of ships—
  It being half-past Eleven o'clock, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question pursuant to Standing Order No. 4 (Statutory Instruments etc. (Procedure)).
  Question negatived.

  UNEMPLOYMENT (DARLINGTON)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Marshall.]
  11.33 p.m.
  Mr. Ted Fletcher: I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to a number of matters that are likely to affect the employment situation in Darlington. I say at the outset that I realise that employment prospects are much worse in other part of the North-East, particularly in Sunderland and Hartlepool, but recent developments in my constituency seem to confirm that the unemployment position in the town will deteriorate dramatically in the next two or three months.
  At the moment there are 3,703 people unemployed in the Darlington travel-to-work area—a rate of 6.2 per cent. In recent weeks, we have had the announcement that the Darlington Wire Works intends to close its factory. A total of 85 workers have already accepted payments for voluntary redundancy and another 150 will become unemployed in the next few weeks. This is an old established firm which began operations in the town as long ago as 1895 and many generations of Darlington people have worked in the factory.
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  Another old established firm, the Darlington Railway Plant and Foundry Company, has also recently announced that it intends to close its works with the loss of up to a further 200 jobs.
  Both firms claim that difficult trading conditions and lack of orders are responsible for the closures. Although this is regrettable, I appreciate that there is little that the Government can do in this situation.
  However, a third firm, Abex of Newton Aycliffe, has recently announced that it is to close its factory and dismiss its 160 workers. I believe that this is a case in which the Government could and should intervene. This firm manufactures tyre moulds, and it is the only firm to do so in the whole of the country. These moulds are sold to every tyre-making firm in this country—Dunlop, Pirelli, North British and others. It is a profitable company with a full order book for the next two years. The workers are naturally puzzled about why it is necessary for a profitable firm to close its doors and deprive 160 highly skilled men of their employment.
  I have made inquiries. I understand that the board of the American parent company, IC Industries Incorporated, which is controlled by Illinois Central Railways, has sold a similar factory which manufactures tyre moulds in Belgium and that a condition of the sale was that the British factory would be closed in order to eliminate competition. Presumably, all the British tyre manufacturers would have to rely on a Belgian firm in a monopolist position to supply tyre moulds.
  I can only presume that the firm has received grants from the Government in the past, because it is in a development area. I think that it is disgraceful that that profitable company should now walk away. That shows the ethics of many multinational companies. They present the ugly face of capitalism to the world. If such companies, which can make a profit, can make an even bigger profit by manipulating contracts and doing business abroad, they will do so by depriving people of jobs.
  I hope that it will be possible for the Government to intervene, to bring the

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  utmost pressure to bear upon this company and to keep the factory open. If these efforts are abortive, I hope that the Government will accept that the National Enterprise Board should be asked to explore the possibility of taking over this profitable firm which is doing a vital job in supplying tyre moulds to the whole of the tyre manufacturing industry in this country.
  The factory is situated in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), although in the main the work force comes from Darlington. I know that my hon. Friend would wish to join me in expressing the hope that the Government will take speedy, effective and energetic action to resolve this matter and to keep the works operating.
  I want to turn briefly to the possibility of attracting new firms into the locality. It has been the policy of the Government in the vast to steer new industries to areas of high employment in the region, and I have no complaint about that. This has meant that there are no advance factories, but there is a number of vacant premises formerly occupied by firms like Alexandre Ltd., with 80,000 sq. ft., Lockheed with 58,000 sq. ft. and Minories, with 30,000 sq. ft. Also, the local council has trading estates at Yarm Road and Faverdale, where land is available for new industrial development. The multi-storey office block in the centre of the town, built two years ago, is still waiting for its first tenant. That could provide commercial or clerical employment. The local authority and its officers have been and are doing a first-class job in trying to attract industry, but the accommodation is mostly large factories.
  I appeal to the Department to consider creating small flatted factories so that we can attract the small employer, employing perhaps half a dozen to 20 people. These experiments have been tried in Birmingham, for example, and could also be done in Darlington. This cannot be left to the local authority, because these firms are in private hands, but the Government could consider giving companies a financial inducement to fit out their premises in small units. It is not too late to suggest that that could be done in the Budget.
  It is outside the scope of the debate to refer to the long-term unemployment
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  which affects the whole nation. I have previously suggested a number of matters, such as early retirement, a shorter working week, import controls, and especially an increase in public expenditure, to help alleviate unemployment. But we must deal with the existing situation.
  I hope that the examples which I have given will induce the Minister to consider the problems involved in a town like Darlington. It has by no means the worst unemployment record, but there is concern about whether unemployment will rise over the next few months.
  Something else which has a big impact on employment prospects in the North-East and in Darlington and Teesside in particular is the White Paper proposal to make Teesside Airport a category C airport. That will make the attraction of employers—particularly internationally minded employers—very difficult. This first class airport will now be demoted and be able to handle only aircraft with up to 25 seats, catering primarily for local needs. Many multinational companies have been attracted to the area. The oil companies have established headquarters in Darlington and Teesside, many of the products of the oil industry are manufactured in the locality, and a tremendous trade is carried on between Europe and Teesside.
  I know that this is not the responsibility of my hon. Friend's Department, but I should give him early warning that there will be a tremendous outcry against categorising Teesside Airport as a C airport, and he can expect opposition not only from the local authorities in the region but from the chambers of commerce, from the organised trade union movement, and, within the next few weeks, from a campaign that is to be mounted to get the Government to change their mind. This will make a significant contribution to the efforts of local authorities and others to attract industry to the region.
  I hope that consideration will be given to my points, particularly between new and the end of June. Many of the firms that I have listed as having given notice that they will close their works will finally, having served the statutory notice period, close their doors in June. It is not too late for the Government to do everything possible to attract other industries to Darlington, which is a catchment area

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  for many of the small towns and villages from 20 to 30 miles around. We must avoid drifting into the position where unemployment is not slightly above the national average but, like Sunderland and Hartlepool, double the national average.
  It is because we want to safeguard the position of Darlington and increase its employment prospects that I ask the Minister to consider the points that I have made.
  11.48 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Golding): My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Fletcher) has done his constituency a good service in drawing the attention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison), whom I am delighted to see here, and myself to the level of unemployment there. My hon. Friend is concerned, as the Government are, with the number of redundancies that have been announced recently.
  On the particular case of Abex Engineering Products, I am told by the Department of Industry that the NEB is about to enter into discussions with the management of the company concerning any possible NEB involvement. We shall certainly draw attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Industry to my hon. Friend's plea for flatted factories, and we shall certainly draw the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Trade to his request in respect of Teesside Airport.
  The problems of Darlington are those facing the country as a whole. Unemployment in the Darlington travel-to-work area in March was 6·2 per cent. compared with the national average of 6 per cent., although male unemployment is less in Darlington and female unemployment correspondingly worse than for the country as a whole. In Darlington nearly half the people registered as unemployed are under 30 years of age, and that is a very serious problem.
  In March there were 112 unemployed school leavers in the Darlington travel-to-work area, which includes Newton Aycliffe, and 95 in Darlington itself. On youth unemployment, I should tell my hon. Friend that next year we have placed
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  upon the Manpower Services Commission the responsibility to ensure that no Easter or summer school leavers who remain unemployed the following Easter should remain without the offer of a place in the youth opportunities programme.
  Already within the Darlington travel-to-work area much advantage has been taken of the Government's special measures. There have been 789 places in the job creation scheme, 257 in work experience, 719 through the youth employment subsidy, and 351 through the recruitment subsidy for school leavers. We hope that similar support will be given to the new area board which will be running the new youth opportunities programme and the special temporary employment programme. We certainly urge upon unions and employers the need to support the programme, particularly in respect of work experience.
  Of course, I realise that these are only an alternative, although, I would argue strongly, a very useful alternative, to regular employment. I understand the need to retain jobs, and to increase the number of jobs, particularly in manufacturing. Between June 1966 and June 1976, the total employment in the Darlington employment office area rose by some 2,500 jobs. Service sector employment rose by 3,100 and construction rose by 1,500, whilst manufacturing fell by 1,800 and the primary sector fell by 300.
  But the number of extra jobs has not kept pace with the numbers wanting work. This has increased markedly over the last few years—and will continue to do so at the national level by about 170,000 a year. The improvement in the job release scheme will, of course, help to reduce the numbers. Under the present scheme, 208 people in the Darlington travel-to-work area have taken the opportunity which it gives to retire a year early. From this month the scheme is being extended to cover the whole country, and from July the allowance for a married person with a dependent husband or wife will be increased to £35, with the present rate of £26·50 continuing for a single person and for a married person whose spouse has an income of more than £8·50 a week.
  But we still need to retain and create jobs. Again the Government's special

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  measures have helped. In the Darlington travel-to-work area 1,235, and in Darlington itself, 1,096, jobs have been maintained by the temporary employment subsidy. Our regret is when firms decide—as they have every right to do—that jobs cannot be saved by this subsidy.
  But we have not only to protect but to create manufacturing jobs. Darlington is, of course, already a development area, having the substantial advantages that this brings. Our Northern Region in the middle of last year estimated that between mid-1977 and mid-1979 800 new jobs would be created in Darlington itself.
  The extension of the small firms employment subsidy to Darlington on 1st July could help create many more new jobs. Under this scheme a subsidy of £20 a week can be paid for up to 26 weeks where new jobs are created in small manufacturing firms. At present this scheme is confined to special development areas, but from July it will be available in all the assisted areas as well as inner city partnership areas, and for firms with fewer than 200 employees, compared with the present size limit of less than 50 employees.
  I certainly think that the small firms employment subsidy will help the expansion of existing industry and so is in line with the Darlington economic study on the industrial structure and employment prospects in Darlington, published a year ago now. I shall not now deal with all of that study but I shall say a word or two about industrial training because I am particularly concerned with the conclusion that there is a need to improve the labour situation in Darlington by more closely relating the output from training facilities to employers' present and future needs. I was disturbed to learn of the difficulty that Carreras Rothman was having in recruiting mechanical fitters.
  Although I think a "borough" manpower plan would be too narrowly-based, I must say I was pleased to learn that the MSC's training services division will consider any realistic proposal put for-
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  ward for a local study of training needs commissioned, say, from Durham University. At the same time, I noted from the report that about half the firms in the town have no formal training. To quote from the report,
  "it appears that some employers could themselves be expected to do more than they currently do. Of the 200 or so apprenticeships offered each year by the manufacturers surveyed, half were provided by only three companies. Twelve of the manufacturers apparently took on no apprentices, and nine others took on only one or two. There appears to be no shortage of candidates, since one company alone had 200 applications for 12 vacancies"
  May I add that the Government themselves have committed £41 million to the support of training in industry nationally in the coming year, that is 1978–79. This programme, like those of previous years, should enable employers to maintain their recruitment of apprentices and other longterm trainees despite the recession.
  But the report is also critical of the skillcentre, and I do not wish to brush aside the real concern about this. The Manpower Services Commission is undertaking a comprehensive review of its TOPS programme. The Government certainly want to see a fuller use of skill centre facilities.
  I have spoken about training because I, too, think it of crucial importance for the future of Darlington. Whilst I recognise the real problems facing the town at the present time, I am not pessimistic about Darlington's future. As the British economy recovers, so, too, will the prosperity of Darlington and our ability to offer everyone there a regular job. That has to be our objective.
  I conclude, as I began, by saying that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield and I express our appreciation for the way in which the case for Darlington has been put tonight and that the Government will consider the points that have been made.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at five minutes to Twelve o'clock.

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