Lieutenant-Commander Hutchison, asked the Secretary of State for Scotland, whether he can indicate his plans for the control of civil defence operations in Scotland.
§ Mr. J. StuartAt the centre, control will be exercised by a Scottish central control under the continuous direction of a Scottish Minister. The central control will have two outposts, each in charge of a zone controller, one for a Western zone comprising Lanark, Renfrew, Dunbarton, Stirling and Clackmannan, and the other for an Eastern zone comprising Midlothian, West Lothian, East Lothian and Fife, inclusive in each case of the cities and burghs therein.
The duties of the zone controller will include co-ordination of the Civil Defence planning and operations of the local authorities and other bodies in his 170W zone, and the provision of reinforcements for attacked areas to supplement local mutual aid schemes. In order that the necessary plans may be developed, I have appointed Sir Victor D. Warren, M.B.E., T.D., and Air Marshal Sir Thomas W. Elmhirst, K.B.E., C.B., A.F.C., as zone controllers of the Western and Eastern Zones, respectively. The appointments are meanwhile on a part-time and unpaid basis, and I am grateful to these gentlemen for undertaking this public service.
In other parts of Scotland, the provision of assistance to an attacked area to supplement what is available by way of mutual aid schemes will normally be arranged by the central control, but the officers in charge of mobile columns wilt have power to send contingents to any area whose local controller has been unable, because of disrupted communications, to apply direct to the central control.