With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I desire to present a Petition which has been addressed to this House and signed by over 100,000 ramblers, youth-hostellers, cyclists, and lovers of the countryside. The Petitioners view with alarm the extensive demands of the Service Departments for training areas, and the threatened acquisition of much of the wildest and unspoiled parts of the country. The signatories of this Petition have, I know, the support of a great number of other people throughout this country, and their prayer, which I now present, is as follows:

(1) That there shall be appointed a Select Committee to review the claims of the Service Departments and to reconcile them with other claims on land use.

(2) That no Service Department shall be allowed to acquire land in a National Park, or Conservation Area, recommended by the Hobhouse Report.

(3) That the demands of the Service Departments shall be reduced to a minimum and that they shall be co-ordinated so that where possible two or more Departments may use the same area for their respective purposes.

(4) That the Defence Acts of 1842 and 1854 shall be repealed as out of date and not conforming with the modern machinery of government.

(5) In any case where it is proposed to requisition land or retain land requisitioned or otherwise acquired during the war emergency there shall be a local inquiry by an impartial tribunal at which all interests shall be heard.

I very much hope that the House, and in particular my right hon. Friends the Minister of Defence and the Secretaries of State in charge of the Service Departments, will give this Petition their most sympathetic consideration.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman finished up in the correct way, which is: