I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The object of this Clause is to put into the Bill a statutory right for apprentices and students to be permitted to conclude their apprenticeship or period of education before doing their military service, if they so desire. The House will recollect that a number of Members on this side pressed this point so long ago as the Second Reading, and that on the Committee stage there was considerable discussion on an Amendment to the then Clause 16, which now stands in the Bill as Clause 17. I would remind hon. Members that the attempt made in the Opposition Amendment on the Committee stage to put this statutory provision into the Bill was not resisted on its merits, but solely upon certain technical aspects of the matter. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, who bore the major part of that particular battle, will recollect that, on a number of occasions, he attempted to convince hon. Members on this side of the House that, from the machinery point of view, the Amendment would not work.

I do not think that I shall be challenged when I say that the merits of the proposal were not seriously challenged from any quarter of the Committee. It would have been surprising had they been, since, as long ago as the Second Reading, the Minister of Labour—reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 31st March, col. 1684—made it abundantly clear that it was the intention of the Government that such persons should be entitled to apply for a delay in the doing of their service. The Debate on the Amendment on the Committee stage concluded with an undertaking from the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour—who will find that undertaking in col. 860—to look at the Clause in question to see whether something could be done. No Amendment has been tabled by the Government to deal with this point, and, as my right hon. Friends and hon. Members feel very strongly on this matter, we have now tabled the present new Clause which, in our submission, not only does what most hon. Members want to do—to put this provision into the Bill—but does so in a manner to which no objection could be taken, on the grounds of machinery.

The new Clause will contain a provision relating to deferment, subject to one important qualification. This was done to meet the Parliamentary Secretary's objection that the previous proposal for postponement could not work because it involved bringing in the hardship committees. Deferment involves administrative action by his Department and no more. Accepting the advice which the Parliamentary Secretary was good enough to tender to the Committee on the previous stage of the Bill, we have now put this proposal forward on the basis of deferment; but we have made one qualification. The Parliamentary Secretary made it clear that cases of deferment might involve not merely a delay in the doing of military service by the person deferred, but might involve a situation in which that person did not do his service at all, or, alternatively, did a shorter period than other people. It seems to us objectionable that persons who are to obtain the advantage of completing their education or apprenticeship without interruption should also gain the advantage—if it is an advantage—of doing less service than other people. Therefore, we have inserted in this new Clause a provision that, although these people will obtain deferment, it will be deferment shorn of that harmful aspect, and we have made it clear that the people so deferred will not, by reason of that deferment, do any less service than anyone else.

The House will recollect that the objection was made—I think under misapprehension—by hon. Members opposite to our proposals on the grounds that they would tend to establish a privileged class. It is very far from our intention to establish a privileged class, and that is why we have gone to the trouble of inserting the concluding three or four lines in the Clause, which will prevent any possibility of any person benefiting by being absolved from liability to any part of his service. So much for the technicalities. The new Clause surmounts the technical difficulties, and I would urge on the House the broad merits of the proposals

There is no dispute in any quarter of the House that it is desirable that the military service which we are asked to impose under this Bill shall cause as little interruption as possible to apprenticeship and education. If that is so, it is surely proper not to rely upon the discretion, however well exercised, of the Minister of Labour; it is surely essential to put it in the Bill It is essential for two reasons—one a practical reason and the other a psychological reason. The practical reason is that Ministerial discretion could be exercised in a variety of ways, and with perfectly genuine intentions, but could, nevertheless, be nibbled away by Ministerial action. By putting this in the Bill, there will be rights under Act of Parliament, which can be vindicated if necessary in the courts.

Then there is the psychological aspect. We are imposing a very serious sacrifice on an entire generation, and it is desirable that that burden should be as light as is consistent with the interests of national security. It would convince a great many of these young people that we were attempting to do that, if we put into the Bill this provision for their benefit. It would help also those who have to plan the careers and education of the young, in that they would know that, in planning those careers, they could rely on statutory provisions to whose benefit they were en-titled as a matter of absolute right. I therefore urge on the House that it is extremely desirable that some statutory provision should be made. If hon. Members accept that proposition, as I think a good many hon. Members do, then, in the absence of any other statutory provision being put forward on behalf of the Government, as in my opinion it should have been, ours is the only one for the consideration of the House.

I do not know what attitude the Government intend to take to this Clause. I do not know whether they will object to it on technicalities or on its merits, but if the objection is on technicalities then hon. Members have something of a grievance against the Government. The view of the majority of the hon. Members in Committee as to the desirability of some such provision was made abundantly clear. The Government obviously have technical resources of draftsmanship not available to hon. Members generally, and if the Government's only objection to the previous proposal was a purely technical one, they should not have opposed the obviously clear views of the House that they themselves should put forward an administratively workable proposal at this stage. The fact that they have not done so has compelled us to put this Clause on the Order Paper.

I ask the Government to face up to this matter as one which concerns the serious principle that education and apprenticeship are valuable things which people are entitled to have safeguarded by Parliament. I hope that if the Government are not prepared to accept this Clause or offer any explanation of their own failure to put forward a similar one, they will at least face the issue and attempt to put before the House their views as to why these vital interests of apprenticeship and education should be neglected.

I beg to second the Motion.

In so doing, I feel that we should recall the Debate which we had on this matter during the Committee stage. The Parliamentary Secretary spoke at considerable length on the question of deferment and postponement as they affected the age limit of 26, and I regret to say that there were some of us who, even at the end of that lucid explanation, were still confused in our minds as to what was the real intention of the Government. I can assure the Minister that there are also many people outside this House—the very students who are affected—who are equally still confused. As my hon. Friend has said, this affects the future of a very large number of the young people, and we feel strongly that a matter of this sort should not be left to Ministerial assurances because, after all, Ministers come and go and they are apt to change. It would be grossly unfair that with a change of Ministry in a year or two's time those regulations or assurances might be altered.

The Minister said that he would look into this matter again, and we rather hoped that there would be a new Clause introduced by the Government to cover the point. That has not been done and we have therefore tabled this new Clause. As my hon. Friend said, we do not set ourselves up as expert Parliamentary draftsmen, but I think that hon. Members will find that the Clause covers all the points which were discussed in the Debate and is a reasonable provision which will lay a statutory obligation on whatever Minister is in office.

I have been wondering what possible objections the Minister could have to this new Clause, although I know that the Parliamentary Secretary is very prolific in his objections, whether they are valid or not. One of the objections he made on the last occasion was that such a provision would give an advantage to the bad student who, if I may so put it euphemistically, deferred passing his examinations for a number of years and would therefore be over the age of liability by the time he had finished his scholastic career. The last lines of this new Clause deal with that point and make it quite impossible for such a person to take advantage of the fact that he is a dull student. I am afraid I do not know whether there is such a thing as a bad apprentice; I know there is in literature, of course.

I hope the Minister will view this Clause not only with sympathy, but with acquiescence, because it is necessary that students, in particular, should have something very definite to look forward to. University Members have had the experience of receiving many letters from their constituents stating that one kind of student was treated in a different way from another under exactly the same circumstances. The way in which they were treated differed from college to college and from university to university. One of the very worst things that could happen is that a feeling should arise among students that some have received favours which others have been denied. For that reason I hope the Minister will adopt, if not this Clause, something which will have the same object in view.

I think it might be convenient if I intervened at this point, not with the intention of curtailing discussion, but in order to explain the Ministerial point of view. This matter has been discussed at very great length on two occasions when I think the ground was covered very fully and, I had hoped, to the general satisfaction of hon. Members. I think we were then all agreed as to the desirability of deferment for students and apprentices to enable them to complete either their studentship or their apprenticeship. The point is whether or not a person liable to National Service should have conferred upon him a statutory right of deferment. That is the question that is really involved in the argument that has been put forward.

I do not think that I should be doing justice to my case if I did not indicate to the House that the arrangement under which this has been done since 1939 has been on an administrative basis and nut a statutory basis. It has been done by the machinery of the Ministry of Labour and, by and large, there has been very little complaint. Paragraph 9 of the White Paper on the call-up of Forces for 1947–8 contained a complete statement et the arrangements for the deferment of apprentices and students. There has been no pressure at all to suggest that that should have been embodied in legislation. The House has been quite content with the White Paper statement covering the position for the next two years without any demand that it should be embodied in terms of legislation.

Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that there is a distinction between the kind of system which we have to operate in wartime and during the immediate aftermath of war, and one which is justifiable in a full-scale system of peacetime conscription?

There is some force in that argument, but I should have thought that in 1947–48 we were in a period where things were fairly well defined, and though I would agree immediately that the university position is extremely difficult, nevertheless it may well have eased considerably by 1949 as compared with today. I would ask the House to consider what the new Clause is intended to do. In the first place, the Minister must be satisfied that the person concerned is serving an apprenticeship or receiving full-time education in a university, school or other institution, or that he will within one year from the said date be so receiving education. It makes two definitions. One, with regard to the apprentice, is that the man must be serving an apprenticeship, but with regard to the student it says that he shall be a student or that he may be a student in 12 months' time. The same argument in connection with the student applies to the apprentice, and I was rather surprised that in a new Clause drafted with so much care there should have been this distinction.

Surely there is a difference, for, as far as I know, there is no rigid limit to the possible number of apprentices in any given year as there is to the possible number of entrants to the universities, crammed as they are now. Therefore, we did not wish to give a definite number when we were not sure that there would be room for the number which we would have specified. That is the difference.

I can quite appreciate the position of the hon. Member, and I can assure him that though it was not his intention to do that, that is, in fact, what he has done. I know that it is probably done against his will and probably he is quite unconscious of it. It should be remembered that persons undertaking an apprenticeship do not find a completely open field. There are firm limits to the numbers of apprentices taken into a particular industry. The proportion of apprentices to skilled workmen is laid down in rigid agreements and rigidly enforced, and it is impossible for any apprentice to anticipate 12 months beforehand that he will get into that particular trade. This new Clause does anticipate that apprentices can go freely into what is a very close corporation. That is the first point I want to make, and I expect the hon. Gentleman would say that he was unaware of that. If that is so and he was not trying to make the distinction, he will appreciate now that he is, in fact, making a distinction between the manual worker and the academic student. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am trying to be fair to the new Clause as drafted.

The second point is with regard to the student who is obliged under the National Service Act to undergo 12 months' routine training. He can say, "I can have a place in the university in 12 months' time, and because of that I want to postpone my whole-time service for the 12 months." Is it really suggested that that statutory right ought to be given? If there is no place for him there is time for him to do his full-time training. We ought not in those circumstances to give the right either administratively or by Statute to postpone his whole-time service when he has enough time in which to do it before starting on an academic career. If he is called up when he is 18—and it is at 18 that we are looking—he has 12 months' service to do. If, however, in 11 months and three weeks he can get a place in the university, is it suggested that he should have a statutory right to postpone his whole-time service? I do not think that that is a position which can be justified.

With regard to the second arm of the new Clause, I think the hon. Gentleman destroyed the argument which was put up originally in connection with the previous Amendment on the Order Paper. I had better indicate to the House what machinery does exist in order that hon. Members can be satisfied, and in this I am reiterating what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour said in a previous Debate. The intention is that the student of 18, for whom there is a place in the university, shall be able to get deferment provided he has achieved the necessary academic attainments which will entitle him to go to the university. As to advice on that, it is not a matter solely for Ministerial discretion, as hon. Gentlemen know. It is for the vice-chancellors of the universities and for the University Joint Recruiting Board who sit and examine every one of these cases, and who decide whether the educational attainment of the student is high enough to entitle him to a place in the university. In these matters of deferment of students we consult professional bodies that have been set up to give advice on the various forms of educational tuition.

The point that worries me is when it ceases to be a right. I think the Parliamentary Secretary said just now that it is a right, and in the Second Reading Debate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour said we were not considering so much the national interests as the individual interests. Clearly when there are the two together—and I do not think that I am in sympathy with the whole year—there is not this right. If it is a question of three months, six months or nine months, who is to make a decision? Surely it is not the University Joint Recruiting Board but the Manpower Board that has to make the decision.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for making the point, but he should have let me finish. I have dealt with the University Joint Recruiting Board, which consists of the vice chancellors of the universities. They advise us and we accept their advice. When there is different treatment in different universities it is due to the fact that the vice chancellors have approached the exemptions in a different way. In those cases it would appear that the student in one place is having different treatment to the student in another, but in all these cases we accept the advice of the Joint University Recruiting Board. There are certain other departments of education where we have similar professional bodies of equal standing and they, as it were, adjudicate as between the claims of the student and the claims of the Ministry of Labour. In this connection the Manpower Board does not enter into the thing at all.

The Manpower Board deals with the cases of apprenticeships, and it seems to me that that Board is the right institution to deal with them. The Manpower Board will decide whether or not an apprenticeship is a genuine one. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will remember the Debate on this. The Board will examine each individual case to see if the apprentice has got the right technical education and the right opportunity, and is not just cheap labour in a factory or workshop. Also it will have regard to the fact whether there are not too many apprentices in a workshop to get proper tuition for them all. The Manpower Board will be able to grant deferment for the purpose of permitting a boy to conclude his apprenticeship. Thus, there are two different ways of dealing with these men who are called up. There is first the academic machinery to permit the student who is fully qualified to secure deferment if he is entering a university, and there is the Manpower Board which can defer the period of service in order to permit an apprentice to finish his apprenticeship in industry.

There is a second point which arises, and I would ask the House to bear this in mind. If this statutory right is to be conferred on every boy in this country reaching the age of 18 we fear that it would result in a very small intake into the Army in the first year or two, because many of those due for call-up would be undergoing an apprenticeship or would be entering a university. They would get deferment for a time, and if they were genuine apprentices they will get a deferment for a considerable time It is true that they would not eventually dodge their liability, but they would have it deferred and deferred in such a way as to give them a privilege over other boys of 18 who are in precisely the same position as themselves.

I do not want to keep interrupting, but the hon. Gentleman has just made a most important remark. If he will look at the new Clause he will see that this right is given if the Minister is satisfied with the various circumstances set out in the Clause. Surely he will agree with me that in the case of bogus apprenticeships the Minister would not be satisfied? If the Minister would be satisfied, there is something the matter with the machinery of his Department.

I quite agree, but if the volume of applications became so great as to overrun the machinery, there could not be that examination of each case which this House would expect us to make and we should have so many people going through the mesh as to cause criticism in this House and perhaps throw an undue burden upon the machine in trying to solve this problem.

There is a final matter. Normally the number of apprenticeships and studentships has a fairly even average. We can budget on that basis. The Forces budget on a basis of accepting 200,000 a year—that is round about the figure. If we create a situation in which 200,000 young men liable for service can make a claim that they are going to be students for 12 months or to be apprentices—that is intended in the Clause—it means that we should have a situation where there were so many claims that we could not examine them quickly and could do nothing with them, because once a claim had been put in, we could not call the young person up until we had sorted the whole thing out. This would cause very great administrative inconvenience and give rights where rights ought not to be given. The granting of a deferment should be on the basis that full advantage would be taken of it by the student or the apprentice, and it is important that we should have someone at the universities to tell us whether or not the student was really using his deferment for the purpose of his education and that the fellow who was playing the fool should not be allowed to have this advantage. The same thing should apply in industry. In those circumstances I regret that I must ask the House to reject the new Clause.

I do not think honestly that the hon. Gentleman has quite done himself justice on this occasion. He has debated this, I think, with great clarity and great fairness throughout all the stages, and we have been very grateful for that. It may be that I am misunderstanding him or not following properly, but I do not think he has quite lived up to his own standard. Perhaps I might, without excessive egotism, begin by saying that I am not personally at all excited over this thing. My belief is that in 99 cases out of 100, if a boy is going to a university he had better do his service first at the age of 18, like anybody else.

Does that mean—

I do not wish to debate with the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) at the moment. As to my feeling, I have no sentiment in favour of making it easy for academic boys, so to speak, to put off this—no sentiment whatever of that kind. What we are asking for here is really the public interest. It was certainly in the public interest during the war, for instance, when trade union leaders were deferred. Under this Bill miners are going to be. Doctors and dentists are going to have the right to have their service as doctors and dentists and not to be called up until fully qualified. There are other things of that sort. Nobody throws it against them and says, "You are trying to shield the manual workers from the bullets," and so on. That is the last thing that would occur to us. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must do us the same justice.

What we are trying to consider is it the postwar world—which we were all promised would be so much better than the chaos before 1939—really is to he got going at all, the most important thing about it is that the boys most likely to he the leading boys of the next generation should be educated to the limit of their educability and should with the least interruption to their normal careers get into their civilian employment. That seems to me to be the overriding principle. We must do each-other the justice of supposing that we are not in pursuing that principle chasing any kind of privilege or minor advantage. If that is the guiding principle, is it a good thing? I speak of university boys because I know most about them technically, but so far as I understand the matter my arguments can in the main be transferred to apprentices.

In pursuit of that general principle, is it a good thing that there should be some class—I do not mean that in any social sense—some section of academic boys who should be able, and should know at the ages of 16 and 18 that they are going to be able, to do the thing in this order—in the order of time provided by this Clause? Is that a desirable thing? I think everybody agrees that it is a desirable thing. It is also a thing difficult to arrange administratively, and that two things have to be weighed against each other. With respect to the Minister, all his arguments really amounted to no more than to say there would be considerable administrative difficulty about this. He said that this was all very well in normal times. He thought that 1946–47 were properly describable as mainly normal times, but in 1946–47 and still to this moment His Majesty's Government are holding boys under the pretence that the emergency—that is, the war against Germany—is still continuing. As long as the Government's military arrangements repose on that legal fiction, they must not use the argument of, "We have already had two years' experience of the way these things work in normal times." They cannot use that argument so long as they are holding boys under emergency provisions of—I will not say fraudulent, but—a fictitious kind.

The hon. Gentleman's only other argument was administrative inconvenience. Very well, I will admit that where the argument of administrative inconvenience is overwhelming, it is decisive, but it is the business not only of the Opposition but of all Private Members to be very slow to be convinced that the administrative inconvenience argument is overwhelming. I do not yet feel convinced by that part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Half his speech nearly seemed to be directed to saying that already under what he describes as normal arrangements and what he describes as these normal two years, all we are asking for, is being got, but it is being got by friendly arrangements between the Ministry and the vice-chancellors instead of a statutory provision. The other half of his argument was that the thing was inconceivably difficult from the administrative point of view and therefore could not be got.

I ask the House to consider that. The two parts of the argument do not fit very well. I am quite prepared to believe that the drafting of this may be wrong. If it is true that the drafting would give a greater advantage to the academy boys than to the apprentice boys, I certainly would be in favour of altering the drafting although I would ask the hon. Gentleman to remember that the ceiling of the possible number of academic boys is very small anyway. The whole number of these boys is much smaller still because it cannot be more than 10 per cent. of an entry at a university—the universities take 90 per cent. from the Services. It has got to be out of the 10 per cent.

The hon. Gentleman said 10 per cent. and 90 per cent. from the Services. Is he envisaging the situation when this Bill comes into operation?

I do not want that to become a permanent fixed level. If I was arguing unfairly, it was inadvertently. If it were the fixed level I do not think there can be the least doubt that the Minister would wish to take those who had done their service. I do not think this ratio of nine to one would vary very much in the four or five years this Bill contemplates. You have to remember that the universities have a time lag in this matter in the fact that boys called up in 1945 and 1946 are held longer than those called up in 1946 and 1947, and they are being held longer than those who will be called up under this Bill. For that reason the universities are now choked, and will be choked for the next few years. This Bill only contemplates five years, and therefore I do not think really there is any risk of making a very high ceiling for boys of this sort.

The second difference is that the university career really must begin in October. During recent years we have quite properly allowed it to start in other months, but, when that is avoidable, I beg hon. Gentlemen to take my word for it as a technician, so to speak, that it is a very great evil, even when it is unavoidable. That makes a difference from the apprentices and that weakens the hon. Gentleman's arguments about the 12 months. It would be 12 months only in the case of boys born in September. If he liked to cut it down to 10 months, I would be willing to accept it. Finally, I say this to him: He admits that in practice there is something almost amounting to a right of this kind, a kind of legitimate acceptance by way of agreement between his Department and the vice-chancellor's for a certain number of boys to get this sort of thing. That which is admitted to be tolerable, admitted to be useful, of which there is now some years of experience, is that something which his draftsmen could put into statutory form? If so, let us have it, and then we should all be contented that the right thing had been done. But I think it would be regrettable if we have to withdraw this Clause simply upon his argument, and I would suggest without disrespect, that there has been no other serious argument of administrative inconvenience.

We have covered a lot of ground in discussing this subject, both this evening and in Committee. I agree with my hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) that in dealing with this Clause, both tonight and in Committee, the Parliamentary Secretary dropped from the high level that he otherwise maintained throughout the Debate. The reason for it is not far to seek because he really is in difficulties in dealing with the substance of this new Clause. On the first occasion he got the Committee into a bog of deferment and subtle differences between the technicalities of deferment and postponement, and we tried to bring him back to deal with the broad issue as to whether the right of deferment should be a matter for the individual to claim in his own interest or whether, as in wartime, what was conceived, by the Ministry to be the national interest could override the interest of the individual. That is the fundamental issue raised by this new Clause.

This afternoon the Parliamentary Secretary has again sought to answer this new Clause by dealing primarily with technicalities. He discovered an unintended distinction between the treatment of apprentices and that of university students. The reason for this has been made quite clear, and I would point out to him that he was incorrect in saying that in the case of the university student who was wanting to go up within a year of the date of his call-up, it would be impossible for him to complete his year's full-time service in order to do that. That point really does not bear examination at all. His second point was as to the possible number of deferments, and the students in 12 months, or people who might become apprentices, would upset the whole planning of the intake for the Forces. I would concede straight away that in the second point there is much more substance, and it seemed to me that ultimately, towards the end of the Debate, we got the real ground for the opposition to this new Clause emerging.

I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that his fears with regard to that are unfounded. If young people know that they have to do their whole-time service some time, and that they cannot avoid the liability under this Clause, I do not believe there will be a mass application for deferment; I think a great many young people will prefer to do their whole-time service before starting on their apprenticeship or their university education. Therefore, I think that the fears of the Parliamentary Secretary as to the effect of adopting the principle of this Clause are completely unfounded. It comes back to this: the Minister of Labour is nervous of giving up some of the power he has held throughout the war, the power of being able to say to a young man, "You must go into the Forces now." I would have liked to see a recognition by the Ministry of Labour now that the young man, on the advice of his parents, might say, "Well, having regard to this, that, and the other cause, it is in the interests of my future career"—whether he be a rich man or a poor man—"that I should defer my service for a year." In those circumstances, and only when the Minister is satisfied—as provided by this Clause at the beginning, which leaves the final decision with the Minister—I suggest that there should be a right to claim deferment.

The Minister of Labour on the Committee stage said that he would look at this again and consider it carefully. We have heard no word from him on it, and I hope he will say something. I hope he will be able to say that, on further reflection, he will accept the principle of allowing deferment where he is satisfied that it will not involve any avoidance of liability on the part of the person affected. If he can say that, I am sure my hon. Friends will be glad to withdraw this Clause and leave it to him to put down words to carry that principle into effect in another place. If he cannot go that far, I fear that we shall have no alternative but to show that we believe this principle should be adopted now that the war is over.

I am not happy about this wording, and, at the same time, I would like to get something a little more definite if possible. I remember clearly that in the previous Debate the Minister said he would look at it again. The reason why I interrupted my hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) was this: I have taken a lot of trouble to find out what the students, as far as the schools are concerned, feel about this. My own feeling was that a boy would prefer to go off and do his service first, and I said so, but I am told from the schools that there is great division. It is all very well to consult vice-chancellors of universities where the boys go at 17½, but the schools look at this in a rather different way. I was told by the headmaster of one big grammar school in the North of England this weekend that he was doubtful whether he would advise his boys to go off to the Services first. I am talking of those with open scholarships to the universities. So it is not quite clear yet, and nobody in this House knows precisely what the position will be. I think it is the right of the boy to know quite clearly when he is 16 or 17 what is his position.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that the whole thing rested with the University Board and they were the people to decide, that they have decided in the past and that, therefore, it is completely outside the scope of the Manpower Board as far as the universities are concerned. This Clause seeks to give a person a right for 11 months hence. Suppose the university says it has a place four months ahead, would the right be conceded to the student to defer? He may have won his scholarship, and be waiting to go up in March, April or May. Would he have the right to defer? At the moment it seems to be left completely vague, and if the Parliamentary Secretary can find a happier form of words to give effect to his own phrase that it is in the interests of the student and not so much the national interest, I shall be completely satisfied.

I think there is sufficient machinery to get deferment for those who are entitled to it. There seems to be a desire in this House, not so much to secure reasonable terms of National Service, but means of deferring, postponing, and getting out of service. At the best there have only been approximately 200,000 liable to be called up each year. What I am concerned about is that for nearly two years this House has been expressing a great deal of dissatisfaction at the length of time men are remaining in the Forces, and there has been growling about demobilisation, but now we have come to a time when we have to do something about it. We have to introduce National Service primarily to keep up the strength of the Services, and to get out those who are in. Yet, here we are trying most of the time to get deferment for one class or the other, so that they can escape National Service.

I hate National Service. I never was a militarist, although I agree that the last war disclosed factors of which we did not know before. But if it is to be National Service, let it be National Service. We have the machinery for the student and apprentice to get deferment But the Opposition want to make it a statutory right; what for? The effect of it will be, as the Minister rightly stated, if not today, certainly a week ago, that the opportunity would be given for a very large number of people to get out of service—

The Minister never said that.

If he did not say it as directly as I said it, he implied it.

No.

I take the responsibility of saying that there are some who will get out of it, if they can. This Clause would give a great deal of encouragement and help to them. I hope the Minister will resist this Clause, because I believe the Bill is good enough as it is

We have heard a lot about the educational side of the question, but I would like to come back to the question of apprentices. I am rather concerned at the feeling of uncertainty which seems to have crept into this matter I make no complaint about what has happened in the past in regard to the Manpower Board, but we are facing this question in cold blood. We have no heat of war, and are not concerned with any rush I was very sorry to hear the Parliamentary Secretary suggest that there was something wrong with the apprentice having a statutory right, and that he must be quite prepared for administrative action to take care of his future. As a boy approaches this period, he and his parents will be considering what his future is to be I would like an assurance that the matter will be clear and certain without any peradventure.

To suggest that this will mean that large numbers will conspire together to avoid service or to postpone it, is quite a mistake. The idea of the youth will be to get on with it, and get it over. He looks forward to it with a certain amount of excitement, and does not want to postpone it. There will be no sort of conspiracy with the object of dodging it altogether. He and his parents would like to be quite certain, so that they can form their plans for the future. I am thinking of the ordinary apprentice, and I would like to hear the Minister say that he can take steps to make the future absolutely clear, without any suggestion that at a later date it will be settled by some administrative action and that the boy will not know until the last minute what is to happen.

It has been mentioned that in the previous Debate I gave an undertaking. I gave an undertaking, and I will read the words:

"We want to see that nobody escapes their military service. That is the first thing. We will certainly look at the Clause, and, if we are satisfied that anything more can be done

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

It is fully realised on all sides of the House that we wish to give the maximum possible inducement to men to volunteer for the Regular Services. During the course of their full-time service, and even during the course of their part-time service, they may suddenly feel that there is an urge to enlist in the Regular Forces. It may be that they will be anxious in regard to pension, pay and so forth, respecting the service which they have already given under this Bill. We feel very strongly that in order to encourage people to enlist in the Regular Army, the service which they have already rendered, especially the whole-time service, should count as part of their Regular engagement and should be reckoned as service for purposes of pension and pay, etc. We make this suggestion purely with the idea of making this abundantly clear so that there will be no doubt in the minds of the men. It is not a very difficult point. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see the force of it and will accept our new Clause.

I beg to second the Motion.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) has made all the necessary points. I hope the Minister will consider our suggestion sympathetically. I am sure that he will agree that the one thing we want to do is to encourage voluntary recruitment to the Regular Forces.

I fully agree with the purpose behind this new Clause, but I do not think it will be necessary for the purpose which the hon. and gallant Members wish to achieve. Actually, the whole-time service will count towards pension, and it is covered under the Royal Warrant. There is only one thing which is not covered, and I do not think the mover and seconder wanted this, and that is that it will not count towards reducing the period of colour service under the regular engagement into which the National Service man might enter. I hope that, with this assurance that the object which the hon. and gallant Members had in mind will be achieved. they will withdraw the new Clause.

:I want to be absolutely clear. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if the service will count for pension?

Yes, Sir

Part of the reason for this new Clause was to encourage volunteering for the Army. It is well known that, if sufficient inducements are offered, there will be an adequate number of volunteers who will be available. In the past, the numbers have sometimes been four and five times more than was necessary, but, in the Navy today, it is regretted that, under the present conditions, it is necessary to bring in conscripts. It is unfortunate, but we accept the position. It will appear that the training the men will undergo will count for pension, but, at the same time, the men will have to do the full period, and I want to ask whether they are going to get added pension for the extra service. I think that is something which ought to be reconsidered.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman why, if the Royal Warrant covers the point which has been mentioned, it is not possible, and even advisable, to put it into the Bill? I am not clear what objection the Minister has to that course being adopted.

If I might answer that question, this new Clause, if accepted, would not only achieve that object—to ensure that colour service under the Bill would count for pension in a Regular engagement—hut would have the effect of reducing, for example, the period of five years' colour service in the Army, which would be uneconomical for the Army.

May I ask one further question? The Minister mentioned whole-time service, but if he looks at the new Clause, he will see that part-time service is included. Does it not include part-time service?

Not for pension.

In view of the assurance given by the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

As the Bill stands, the service of notices is still governed by Section 18 of the old Act. We consider that, in the past, this provision has given rise to opportunities for hardship, and there have been cases of hardship. We had a certain amount of discussion on this matter during the Committee stage in the early hours of the morning, when I do not think any of us were really very clear about it, and we now wish to advance arguments in favour of the inclusion of the new Clause in the Bill so as to give added security to the person on whom notice for service is served.

In the past, all that has been necessary has been proof of posting of the letter or notice of service. We suggest that the non-receipt of that notice, in many cases, has been through no fault whatever of the individual concerned, but it has led to military and civil lapses, and we think that is wrong. We are not asking the Government to do anything out of the way or anything which has not been done before, because, if the right hon. Gentleman will look at the Government's own Bill—the Statistics of Trade Bill—he will see that, in Clause II, these very conditions for the serving of notices, as we have tabled them in this new Clause, are there included.

I beg to second the Motion.

It seems both a rational and a helpful new Clause, and I cannot see that there is any objection to it.

I appreciate the way in which the hon. and gallant Gentlemen have put their case, but we cannot accept this new Clause as it stands, and I will give the reasons. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the new Clause said it would give added security, but we are afraid that it would give added opportunities of evasion. I will give the reasons for that. The Clause provides that

"where notice is served by post otherwise than in a registered letter service shall not be deemed to have been effected if it is proved that the notice was not received by the person to whom it was addressed."

There is a lovely opportunity there for chasing this thing around. Somebody has to prove that it was not received. It is clear that the obligation is not upon the Post Office to prove that it was received. There are lots of ways in which it can be done. It would be possible, and I could give as an example, knowing of similar things that have happened in the past, the case of serving a summons for a breach of the peace. The person concerned might be out in the backyard when he sees the policeman coming and he does not want the notice served upon him. In this case, however, there has to be evidence that it was not received by the person concerned. The person expecting to receive the call-up notice might be one of the small minority that we have in this country and might want to evade being called up. All that he has to do is to keep out of the way.

There are certain alternatives here—by delivering it to that person, or by leaving it at his proper address.

I know. The hon. and gallant Member says "by leaving it at his proper address." We should then have to decide his proper address. Is it a permanent address?

We have an Amendment down.

I know, and that is why I do not want to anticipate the discussion on it. I believe myself that, if we were to accept this proposal, we should run into any amount of trouble. Let us suppose that the man is a lodger, and that he is out when the notice arrives, and that the landlady does not give it to him, but, instead, puts it behind one of the ornaments on the mantelpiece, and forgets. The notice has been delivered, and, therefore, in ordinary circumstances, the evidence of posting is considered as evidence of delivery. There might be another case where the boy's mother wants him to be tied to her apron strings. The notice may arrive, and she may destroy it. I can assure the House that millions of notices have been sent out under the existing Act with very little disagreement at all. Each of those notices goes through the hands of two persons. They are checked twice, first in the checking department and then in the issuing enlistment notice department. In each case there are two officials whose only job is to do that, and to see that everything is properly done. In the very small number of cases where there has been any difficulty, it has been traced, in the main, to the fact that the person has not registered his change of address as required by the Act. We feel that a great deal of trouble might be caused and evasions made possible if this method was adopted. I have no legal knowledge, but I am sure that anybody with such knowledge would agree that a person to whom a notice was addressed could come along and say he had not received it Therefore, we ask the House not to tie us down to such a system.

I have listened with interest to the right hon. Gentleman's arguments, although I am sorry that I did not hear the speeches of those who moved the new Clause. I shall also read the right hon. Gentleman's argument with great interest, because it seems to me that I may be able to use it against his right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade. Indeed, I am a little surprised to find the right hon. Gentleman attacking so vigorously a new Clause which is almost precisely similar to a Clause contained in a Bill which bears his own name. I refer to Clause II of the Statistics of Trade Bill, which provides this excellent code for service of notice upon business men, firms and everyone carrying on undertakings throughout the country. In that Bill, the right hon. Gentleman thinks this the right way of serving notice. He has backed the proposal. I must say that it occurred to me that it was an extremely good way, and it was, therefore, with some interest that I heard his speech attacking and trying to make holes in a similar Clause to that which the Government themselves have put forward. If this particular code with regard to the service of notices is right in the case of business men, firms, undertakings and shops—notices calling upon them to furnish all kinds of information, for failing to do which heavy penalties can be imposed—why is not the same provision right in the case of the enlistment of men who are going to be called up for a period of 12 months' whole-time service? That is a question which has not been answered. I do not believe that there is any substance in the right hon. Gentleman's case against this new Clause. What happens now is that a letter is sent through the ordinary post and the man is deemed to be enlisted when that letter is received. I agree that an ordinary letter might be put anywhere. It might be put behind the ornament on the mantelpiece, but if the right hon. Gentleman and his Ministry send a registered letter, which, surely, they can do quite simply, it is not likely that a landlady will put that behind the ornament on the mantelpiece and forget all about it.

It will not matter if she does.

As the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) says, it will not really matter if she does. Surely, what is right in respect of notices under the Statistics of Trade Bill is also right under this Bill. I agree that, in wartime, there is something to be said for service through the ordinary post, but there is nothing to be said in peacetime against the serving of enlistment notices by registered post, in order to ensure, as far as possible, that the recipient gets it and to avoid, as far as possible, the disputes that have occurred and may occur again when a man says, on being charged with being a deserter, "I never received the notice," and when, on the other side, there is the evidence that the notice was sent by the ordinary post. It is not really very satisfactory, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind the good precedent he has set in the Statistics of Trade Bill, and to look at this matter again.

I hope that we shall have the benefit of the right hon. and learned Attorney-General's opinion on this matter. It seems rather strange that in two Bills, one of them being considered by the House today, and the other to be considered by the House tomorrow, there should be two different codes regarding service, and that the Minister of Labour should back both Bills, and say tomorrow that the thing is sense and today that it is nonsense. I should have thought that on general lines of propriety one would not want, in two different Bills brought before the House in the same week, two quite different codes governing service.

As my hon. and learned Friend has just pointed out, the arguments, such as they were, in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in which he savagely attacked the actual proposal of the Board of Trade in the Statistics of Trade Bill, are all arguments directed to the difficulties which would be caused under this Clause by sending the document by ordinary post, and not in a registered letter. All the difficulties could be avoided by a registered letter. It is really useless for the Government to assert that this new Clause, which is in the very terms of the Clause included in another Bill, is unworkable or nonsense. It is perfectly workable, and perfectly good sense. I think that, unless the right hon. and learned Attorney-General can give some good reasons against it, it should be accepted. In any event, we are, surely, entitled to some further explanation from the Government.

I am at a loss to understand why the Minister is not able to accept this new Clause. If an ordinary letter is posted, which is to carry liability against a person, and that person does not know anything about it, it would appear that he is liable to be brought before the court, but if a letter is sent to a person and he has to attend at court, unless it can be proved that that letter has been delivered to the individual by a policeman, or some accredited person, it will not be considered as having been delivered. To obviate the difficulty, the registered letter should be used, since that, to my mind, carries with it something tantamount to delivery. As we are going to ask the men to go into the Forces, I do not see what is wrong in sending them registered letters. It would obviate a lot of difficulty, and I should have thought that a new Clause of this description would have been acceptable.

I desire to say a few words in the same sense as my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan). I cannot see why this new Clause should not be accepted. It is all very well to say that the old system has worked well, and to talk about the majority of cases, but it is not always the majority of cases that count. Obviously, there are cases where things go wrong. I myself have been professionally concerned more than once during the war in cases where the military police have arrived at a man's house, arrested him in bed, carted him off to the other end of the country, put him in the guardroom and court-martialled him, only to find that the arrest was wrong, because no proper notice had been served on the man. If this kind of service is to be permanent or semi-permanent in peacetime, it would not put a great burden upon the Executive to require them to send notices by registered post instead of by ordinary post. As I understand it, this new Clause requires no more than that. Every one of the dangers and iniquities which my right hon. Friend put forward as reasonable grounds for resisting the new Clause would be obviated completely by the simple device of sending the notices by registered post, and that is what the new Clause provides for. Why the right hon. Gentleman should resist so convenient and sensible a course, I cannot imagine.

I rise because I observe no inclination on the part of the Attorney-General to do so. I hope we may hear again from the Government Front Bench on this matter, and that hon. Members on this side of the House will continue to press this point until the Attorney-General has given a fuller explanation. Attention has already been drawn to the fact that in two Bills, the Government are taking two diametrically opposed courses of action. I would remind the Government that in the Agriculture Bill the same sort of question arose. In fact, in a large number of Bills questions very similar to this have arisen and will arise in the future. The Government should make up their minds on what is the right course to pursue and, having made up their minds, that course should be followed in successive Bills in future. I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will tell us what distinction he draws between this and other Bills.

I must admit that I am very much shaken by the arguments that have been adduced. I know I am on a sticky wicket, and that a fast ball has been bowled at me. I cannot promise to accept this new Clause as it stands, but I do promise that we will look at it, and at the next opportunity bring in something to put that point right. I was very much swayed in my own mind at the beginning by the fact that it would mean 400,000 notices a year in respect of the summonses for medical examination and he enlistment notices alone. It would make a great deal more work; it would not be a question of cost, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer would get nothing out of it as the notices would be sent "On His Majesty's Service." To be quite frank, when speaking earlier, I omitted to mention the point of the extra work, but it is a very important point. On the other hand, we are dealing with the liberty of the individual, and I admit the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). Time and again, as a magistrate, I have had to insist on a policeman going into the witness box to prove that he delivered the summons. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Therefore, if the hon. and gallant Member will withdraw the proposed Clause, I will undertake to do something to cover the point.

In view of that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The course taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service just now encourages me to hope that he will take a similar course in regard to this new Clause. The undertaking which he has just given, and which I am sure he will honour when the time comes, has already been given in the Committee stage in regard to the new Clause the Second Reading of which I am now moving. I would like to call his attention to two statements which he made during the Committee stage. On 8th May he said:

"I want to deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne We are very anxious not to get conscientious objectors into the position of being brought up, dealt with, put in prison, taken out of prison, dealt with, brought up again, and so on. We want to get away from all that. That is the point which will be raised when we reach the proposed new Clause in the name of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne."

That point was not dealt with on the occasion to which my right hon. Friend referred, because I was not called, but there was another opportunity in the Committee stage when reference was again made to the point, and that was in connection with the new Clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing (Mr. J. Hudson). On that occasion, dealing with a similar point, my right hon. Friend said:

"We are very much appalled by the idea that it is possible for a man to be constantly going in and out of prison for the same offence. But, the trouble with this Amendment is that it refers to 'any person…who declares himself to be a conscientious objector.' There must be some satisfaction that he is a conscientious objector. I cannot accept the Amendment for that, and other reasons, which I will not go into now. But I would like to know what the Committee feels about this matter. I am not very skilled in dealing with these matters in Committee, but I would like to know, as we cannot accept this Amendment, whether it would be possible for me"—

I gather he is speaking for himself—

"to have a look at this before the Report stage, and bring forward an Amendment then on which the House could say something."

I hope I am not being unfair about this, but that looks to me like a promise by my right hon. Friend to put something down on the Report stage, and I confess that I am a little disappointed to rind nothing put down by my right hon. Friend or by the Government on this matter. I was not in a hurry, because I hoped that the Government would put something down, and I thought it would be wise for the rest of us to see what form of words they put down, or what opinion they formed, before rushing in with proposals of our own.

But it was intimated then and there in the Committee that it might be well if some of us tried our hands at drafting a suitable Clause, and, in order to give my right hon. Friend as long notice as possible, I did then and there attempt to draft one. Later I suggested this as a possible form of words:

"Where any person who has claimed exemption under this Act, or the principal Act, on conscientious grounds, and who has either had his claim rejected, or granted subject to conditions which he refuses to accept, has served a sentence of — for failing to fulfil any obligation under this Act, he shall be exempted from further penalty, or further liability to serve."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th May 1947; Vol. 437, cc. 835, 867, 868.]

I do not want to bore the House with further quotations. I went on to say that it seemed to me that that form of wards met the difficulty in which my right hon. Friend found himself in regard to the new Clause which my hon. Friend had moved, that difficulty being that under the new Clause a simple declaration by the man that he was a conscientious objector would have been sufficient. My right hon. Friend felt—and I confess I agreed with him—that that would not quite do Therefore, I put forward the proposal where he had, in fact, made his application to a tribunal and the tribunal had considered it.

It then seemed to me that the new Clause which my hon. Friend had moved had another defect, in that it did not say what penalty should be served. It did provide the principle that since this was, in effect, only one offence there should be only one penalty; but it did not define the penalty. That might have meant that, in different cases, there would be different penalties for the same offence, which would be an undesirable thing. The Clause ought to define the penalties as well as defining the beneficences, as it were, and I attempted to do both those things, although I am afraid I shirked the task of saying what the penalty ought to be. However, since my right hon. Friend has himself put nothing down on the Order Paper, I have put down this new Clause which I am now moving. The only difference in principle between the new Clause I am moving and the one I suggested in Committee—I do not think the wording is exactly the same—is that for convenience I have included the point about the medical examination, so covering both points in the one Clause. Under the one law a man who claimed to have a conscientious objection could be fined repeatedly, and imprisoned repeatedly for repeated refusals to attend for medical examination. It is not necessary for me to labour the argument. In the opinion of everybody that would be either absurd or tyrannous, and whether absurd or tyrannous ought to be stopped, and my right hon. Friend said so in Committee. I tried to meet that by putting it in as one of the liabilities under the Bill.

What is the position? Those who are enthusiastic supporters of the principle of compulsion, those who are reluctant supporters of the principle of compulsion, and those who are opponents of the principle of compulsion, are all agreed that when a conscientious objection has been established to be genuine there should be no penalty and no liability, and the man's conviction should be suspended. There is no difference between us on that point, in any quarter of the House. I make no complaint of the machinery set up. I do not think tribunals have always worked perfectly, but then I cannot think of any machine doing such a job as this which could possibly work perfectly. Of course it does not work perfectly but they have done very well, and I think the proportion of errors made is surprisingly small in view of the difficulty of the task involved, especially in view of the temper in which such a task is necessarily performed in wartime. I suppose there might be even fewer mistakes in the judicious and calm temper in which a tribunal would approach such a question in peacetime.

7.45 p.m.

However, there still would be the risk of mistakes, and the question that arises is: what is to happen when subsequent events prove that the tribunal, with the best will in the world and acting with the most perfect fairness, was, nevertheless, mistaken? When a man appeared before the tribunal to answer their questions he may have been shy or awkward, he may have had something for breakfast which disagreed with him; anything might put a man into such a mood that his answers do not satisfy the tribunal; indeed, the members of the tribunal may have had something which disagreed with them. People are human beings and not mere machines. All that this new Clause seeks to do is to provide that where mistakes of that kind have been made, and where the man's devotion to his conscientious belief has been demonstrated by his readiness to bear burdens, to make sacrifices and suffer an element of persecution—because it is that if the objection is really conscientious—then the State must cry a halt at some stage. I know that they do administratively, but under the old procedure after certain sentences had been served a man came before a central tribunal, and the central tribunal considered the matter again. They might examine him or they might not, because even in those circumstances a central tribunal, after all that, might still be obstinate, or might still be mistaken.

Therefore, it seems to many of us—I hope to all of us—that there should be some statutory curtailment of the perpetual in and out of gaol and penalties. I do not want to labour it further. I think the Parliamentary Secretary ought to help me on this. He represents Caerphilly. I know we have our disagreements from time to time, but we have been Members of and colleagues in this House for a long time, and I do not want to do or say anything to imply any kind of disrespect. On the contrary, I have the utmost affection for him. I remember his predecessor, as I am sure he does, in the representation of Caerphilly, the late Mr. Morgan Jones, of whom I was proud to be a colleague in this House for a short time. He was a conscientious objector during the last war, and he was in and out of gaol several times because he failed to satisfy the tribunal that his conscientious objection was a genuine objection. I think I am right in saying, that, am I not?

No. Mr. Morgan Jones absolutely refused to go before a tribunal, which is an entirely different point.

No, my hon. Friend will forgive me, it is not an entirely different point. I know all about the absolutist conscientious objector: I was one myself. I was very young, and I am not ashamed of having taken that view. I do not think that the world today is quite the world it was in 1914, and the view that it was possible to take in 1914 it was not possible to take in 1939—at any rate, I did not think it was. I know it is easier to take a different view when one is older, when one does not have to do it oneself. I appreciate what can be said about that. However, I think I was perfectly sincere on both occasions, and know Mr. Morgan Jones was perfectly sincere. The absolutist conscientious objector merely said: "I am not going to bargain about this thing at all." He used the analogy of the criminal law, and so on. He regarded the thing as wrong. If a person does that he does not bargain; he does nothing except insist that his scruples shall be respected. Nobody doubts now that Mr. Morgan Jones was perfectly sincere and genuine in what he did, or that his attitude represented the man's religious convictions; the man's whole personality was involved in the attitude he took up. He spent a long time in prison for it. I think that my hon. Friend in the constituency of Caerphilly was well known as a loyal lieutenant of Mr. Morgan Jones for many years, and that he owes his position in this House to that. He ought to have sympathy with me in this new Clause.

I see one great difficulty. People will say; "Oh, yes, this is all very well, but under this new Clause a man can buy himself out of his liabilities by serving a sentence of three months' imprisonment. A great many will do so." I do not believe a great many will do it. If there are a few people who dishonestly do it. I would rather take that risk, than take the risk involved in having no limit by statute in peacetime. I think that the risk is a small risk, and that such risk as there is ought to be taken.

I beg to second the Motion.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), I can speak in terms of disappointment that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, who, I thought, dealt with the matter very generously and understandingly when it was first raised, has not found it possible to present a new Clause which I, owing to my technical ignorance of the law, was not able to do. I said at the time that I was not really excusing myself, but that I understood the Minister or his Department would get us out of the difficulty. But here we are, as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne says, without the promised new Clause. I have a further complaint of a more serious character to make unless I can get the Government to agree with me, as I sincerely hope they will. It is that the Parliamentary Secretary himself went all the way, at any rate in theory, to the acceptance of the ideas embodied in the new Clause now before the House. I will read from what the Parliamentary Secretary said with regard to the continuing imprisonments. He said:

"After each imprisonment the man's case is reviewed, and is sent back to the tribunal for the tribunal to review again in the light of the test of the man's sincerity to see what the position is. I am advised that"—

I hope my hon. Friend takes responsibility for the statement—

"very careful rules have been drawn up under which no man is prosecuted after he has served a sentence or sentences amounting to three months or more. I am advised that, furthermore, a man is not prosecuted more than twice even if such prosecutions result in prison sentences of less than three months."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th May, 1947; Vol. 437, c. 1875.]

Well, the terms of this new Clause correspond fairly exactly with that promise. I hope, therefore, that both the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary, on behalf of the Government, will now be able to say that, in view of the uncertainty in the past—and, certainly, the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that it is a very long past where conscientious objectors are concerned—not merely the administrative rules, but the law itself should be put beyond all shadow of doubt, in the terms regarding conscientious objectors. When I first introduced the matter—and I have every excuse for quoting this, because I should like to get not only the support of the Government but the support of the Opposition—when the first and principal Measure in connection with national service was introduced, the Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, said, quite frankly, that he hoped we should drop the whole idea of persecuting men who stood for conscience. He agreed it was a nuisance to attempt to go on trying to make them do things which, conscientiously, they would decline to do, and that it was bad business on the part of the State to try to adopt any other attitude than that of recognising these men's consciences.

We have made some sort of a compromise on the difficulties that this issue has always presented. I referred to these difficulties previously, when I said that a supposed conscientious objector might be masquerading as such, that he might be a lunatic, that he might be a criminal, that he might be a social saboteur doing his best to injure the Act of Parliament under which he was being treated. I admit all that. But they are very exceptional instances. After the long experience we have had of conscientious objectors, it has come to be generally recognised that a man who will face the social ostracism that always accompanies the imprisonment and in some cases is worse than the actual imprisonment and the long period of unpopularity afterwards, must be genuine. A man who will face that for the sake of his convictions begins to earn respect, even from his opponents, for the opinions he holds. Indeed, people think that that man should not be sent to any imprisonment at all. This Clause recognises the difficulties, and the efforts to find out whether a man is genuine. It may be that he will get a month's imprisonment. This Clause lays it down, as the regulations will, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, that when three months have been served in continuous sentences, or in one sentence of three months, that ought to be sufficient for the State. I shall be bitterly grieved—I am quite sure the Parliamentary Secretary will not think I am extravagant in making this statement—and there will be many people in Caerphilly who will be bitterly grieved, if, after all the developments of public opinion that have taken place since the heroic days of Morgan Jones, this Labour Government cannot see its way to put this provision into law, so that there will be no more mistakes by tribunals, and no more mistakes by Government Departments. I beg of the Government not to let this opportunity pass of accepting the new Clause.

We have listened to two speeches the sentiments of which, I am sure, have appealed to hon. Members on both sides of the House. I will deal first with the undertaking which my right hon. Friend gave in Committee. Anybody who knows my right hon. Friend will agree that there is no duplicity in his make-up, and that when he gives an undertaking he gives it in good faith and has the intention to give effect to his promise. We have examined this matter very closely. We have tried to provide in the Bill for the kind of treatment that is now meted out administratively I hope my hon. Friends to whom this undertaking was given will realise that my right hon. Friend is not playing false to them, or doing anything deliberately to mislead them That has not been suggested, and I do not think it would be suggested against my right hon. Friend from any part of the House

I must thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) for the very kind references he made to my predecessor and to me. If my hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing (Mr. J. Hudson) thinks that by this new Clause we would prevent mistakes in the future, he is himself mistaken. What is the procedure? The tribunals are set up with the authority of the House. There is an appellate tribunal. If a man fails at the local tribunal, he can go to the appellate tribunal That is the distinction I was trying to draw. We have all agreed that men who want to claim the rights of conscientious objection should go before a tribunal. Even with the best will in the world, and with the best machinery, the tribunals will sometimes make mistakes. The new Clause seeks to protect a man who has failed to convince the tribunal that he is a bona fide conscientious objector. Whatever we may do, there will always be cases of that kind, and with all due deference to my hon. Friend the Member for West Ealing, whatever may be the feelings of my constituents in Caerphilly, there is nothing I or the House can do to prevent these mistakes from occurring. Therefore, we are concerned about those cases of men who are bona fide conscientious objectors, where, as a result of an error on the part of the tribunal, or a failure on the part of the man in putting his case—which very frequently happens, with the result that frequently the tribunals are blamed, although it is neither their fault nor, indeed, that of the man, but simply the result of his inability to put his case—there are wrong results. In those cases we do not want a man to be running into and out of prison.

The new Clause says that, if the man has served three months' imprisonment, we should let him go. In many cases the punishment that would be provided under the new Clause would be greater than the punishment that is allowed today. We do not want a bona fide conscientious objector who has not been registered to have to serve three months' imprisonment before the case against him is dropped. What we want to do is to maintain the present practice. Undertakings that were given in Committee by my right hon. Friend and by me have been quoted. I would like to repeat them. The position is that this is, in fact, prevented by administrative rules under which no man is prosecuted after he has served a prison sentence or sentences amounting to three months or more, and which provide, furthermore, that a man is not prosecuted more than twice even if these two prosecutions have resulted in prison sentences of less than three months, except where the sentences are derisory, for instance, small fines. The man goes before the tribunal, he fails to convince the tribunal, and his failure to convince it cannot be blamed upon anybody. [Interruption.] I thought I had covered that ground. I am taking a case where there is no fault on the part of the man or the tribunal—

For the sake of argument.

Yes. The man is refused registration, and he is called for medical examination preliminary to his being called up to the Forces. He refuses to appear for medical examination. He is then taken before the local magistrates and is sentenced to, say, one month's imprisonment. As soon as that man is out of prison, we send his case back to the tribunal for re-examination. The House has decided that the tribunal, and not the Minister, must decide, and the Minister cannot usurp the position of the tribunal. The man goes back to the tribunal with a statement from the Ministry of Labour that he has been in prison for one month, and the tribunal is asked to review his case, taking into consideration that he has shown what he is made of, and what his intentions are, by serving the sentence. After having examined the man, the local tribunal may refuse to register him, but in that case he automatically goes to the appellate tribunal. Here is a case in which the Ministry of Labour directs that the man should go from the local tribunal to the appellate tribunal. The appellate tribunal may turn him down again, and he may again be called up for medical examination, and refuse to appear. He then goes before the magistrates again, and is sentenced to another month's imprisonment. At the end of that month, we are satisfied that we ought not to proceed any further against him.

I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he must make up his mind between two positions—either an end is to be put to the cat-and-mouse business by Act of Parliament, or an end must be put to it administratively. Unless he provides a limit in the Statute, then administratively he has no power at all, because while a man remains in defiance of his obligation under the Bill and fails to persuade a tribunal to put it right, no Minister, no civil servant, and not even this House itself has the right to authorise that he shall not be prosecuted. If it is desired to stop the prosecutions and imprisonments when a term has been served, it must be put in the Bill, because otherwise there is no legal power to do it.

That is very interesting, because it means, if it means anything at all, that in the past we ought to have continued to prosecute these men.

By law, certainly.

I do not accept that position. This House does not accept that position and never has accepted it. The situation has been reported repeatedly to this House. The present Foreign Secretary reported during the war on what the procedure was, and it was accepted by this House. To suggest that all that has been done illegally, at this stage, in order to impose a greater penalty than that which is now imposed, is really carrying things too far.

I beg the hon. Gentleman to believe that however stupid we are, we are perfectly serious in what we are saying. In so far as people were exempted by administrative action from obligations under the Act otherwise than in accordance with a decision of a tribunal, we were all deliberately and rightly closing our eyes to an illegal thing and allowing it to be done in order that a moral thing should be done. What we are saying now is that we cannot tolerate that in peace time, and that we must establish the law.

That is a wholly wrong statement of law. The situation is that the right to prosecute or not to prosecute is always—

The hon. and learned Gentleman seems to be about to make a speech; I thought he rose to ask a question.

The Parliamentary Secretary gave way.

The Parliamentary Secretary may have given way, but I cannot allow the hon. and learned Member to make a speech. If he wants to put a question, he may do so.

This is an interesting legal argument, but I am concerned about the facts—about what we have done, and what we undertake to do in these cases. The Amendment goes further than that. It says that the Minister of Labour cannot act until a man has done three months. If this goes into the Statute it is a direct instruction to the Minister. A man may have had two convictions against him, convictions perhaps of less consequence than three months imprisonment but this says that he must allow him to have three months' imprisonment first. That, it seems to me, is making the position worse for the mistaken case of a conscientious objector who is unable to get registered. [An HON. MEMBER: "You can reduce the period if you like."] That is what I cannot understand. First we are told that we have no legal right to do what we are now doing; and after having laid down a period, we are told that we can exercise that right. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I do not want to be unfair, I have given way repeatedly—

The hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting the interjection that was made. No one is suggesting that if three months is put into the Bill he can make it two; what we are suggesting is that if he thinks this proposed period of three months is too long, we will allow him to amend it, either here or in another place, and put in two, or one, or nothing.

Then we shall get into this fine state, that a man will know beforehand—and I say this in the interests of conscientious objectors—that if he does a month in prison he will get off. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is the danger we shall get into, and it will bring discredit upon conscientious objectors. [An HON. MEMBER: "Two months."] If you make it two months or any fixed period, that will happen. Conscientious objection is a purely personal matter, and each case must be considered upon its merits. It is a personal question. You cannot legislate in a very general way about it and, whatever has been said, even the mover of the Amendment admits that the administration in regard to conscientious objectors in the late war has been, especially in the later stages, fair by and large.

There have been mistakes; we willingly admit that. We have tried to mitigate the effect of those mistakes. We have tried to correct every reasonable case. We have sought the assistance of the tribunals time after time where errors have taken place. We have referred cases to appellant tribunals and have got their assistance, and the Minister has the right to do that. We have given a guarantee that there will be no "cat and mouse" business in connection with this, and I think the House would be well advised to leave the matter with the Minister of Labour to carry on with those principles. We have rules for dealing with these cases, and I think my right hon. Friend would agree with me in being prepared to put a copy of those rules in the Library, so that hon. Members can see for themselves how it is being done. Then, if they feel that adequate protection is not given to the case that has slipped through the tribunal, they will be able to make their representations to us. In view of these undertakings, in the interests of the conscientious objectors themselves I hope my hon. Friend will not press this new Clause.

I think the stronger case on this question has been made by the Parliamentary Secretary, but although he desires to aid the conscientious objector, it has been impossible to find, words that could be embodied in the Bill. I submit that there has been a very great change in this country during the last 30 years towards conscientious objectors. Those who were involved during the 1914–18 war are bound to admit that the treatment they received then was very harsh indeed, whereas, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that during the recent war conscientious objectors, in the main, were fairly dealt with. Surely now we are entitled to go a stage further. During a war feeling develops and men hate each other on the least pretext, and as a result of that it is impossible to reason calmly or sanely in dealing with those people who are opposed to war. I speak with some little experience of the tribunals during the first and second world wars.

The Minister has made provision in the new Bill that the tribunals must be impartial, but with the best will in the world the Minister is bound to select people who, in the main, accept the policy laid down by His Majesty's Government, and accept the idea that the young men of the country should engage in compulsory military service. That is the first handicap that a young person meets when he goes to the tribunal, and therefore it is extremely difficult for the tribunal properly to understand the approach of the young man who is opposed to war. Let me put the point about the young man who comes before the tribunal. Only those who have appeared in the courts know how a young person can be completely tongue-tied and unable to express himself. Those of us who have appeared at the tribunals on their behalf have recognised on many occasions that we have lost cases because, in the first place, the tribunal set out to prove to the young man that he was taking a wrong step.

I do not want to be unfair and say that trick questions are put, but questions of an amazing kind are sometimes put to young men who are turned down because they are unable to prove that they have a conscientious objection to war. They appear before the appellate tribunal. If the atmosphere at the local tribunal is difficult for these young men, it is much more so before the appellate tribunal, and they are again turned down. If, after that failure, they refuse to submit themselves for medical examination, they get three months' imprisonment, or more. I have known a young man serve his entire 12 months, subject to the usual remission, which means that he serves nine months. In the latter stages of the war there was a very considerable reduction in that kind of treatment.

It may be said that if we put into the Bill a period of one month, or even three months, a young man will say, "I will do a month, or three months, in prison, and when I come out I will be free"; but I do not think it works in that way at all. When a young man makes up his mind to appeal as a conscientious objector he faces the opposition and hostility of the people in his own area whose sons are going into the Army. He may well jeopardise his prospect of a career in a trade or profession, and no young man does that lightly. He may also have to submit to pressure from his parents. I know it may be argued that parents give their sons liberty to make up their own minds in these cases, but that is not always the whole of the story. Environment counts.

If the young man appears before the court, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent the sheriff sending him to prison for 12 months. It is possible for the young man to serve the entire sentence. He comes out, and again has the right to appear before the local tribunal. The local tribunal turns him down again. I have appeared at tribunals when it has been made quite clear to the young man that because he served nine months in prison was no evidence that he had a conscientious objection to military service. The young man has been rejected again, and then has gone before the appellate tribunal, only to be turned down again. That is the cat-and-mouse procedure.

I plead with the Parliamentary Secretary. What he said would not be accepted by everybody in the House. As a comparatively new Member I hope I may say that I know of no Minister who is more frank and open, and from whom we can more expect that his word is his bond, when he makes a statement. I ask him to look at the proposed new Clause again. Those who have proposed it are not rigid in saying that we should send thee men to prison for three months and then let them go. Surely, with all the talent on the Front Bench, capable of piloting very intricate Measures through the House such as the Town and Country Planning Bill—I would say that people who can formulate a Bill of that kind—

Now the hon. Member is getting slightly out of Order.

I am extremely pleased, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you call me only slightly out of Order after my last experience on this Bill. My only