I am very pleased that this Bill is likely soon to be on the Statute Book, not so much for what it contains, but as an earnest that the Government intend to look after this very depressed industry. The inshore fishing industry has been a real Cinderella for the last 25 or 30 years. Nothing seems to have been done to induce the men employed in it to remain in it, or to encourage their sons to continue in their fathers' trade. Men who are employed in this industry deserve well of the country. They carried on an industry which was important both from the defence and food points of view, but they have not had much help in the past, probably because they are not a very vocal industry—except in the summer season when seated on the bottom of an upturned boat, they tell tales of the sea to gullible visitors. They have no big national organisation and no trade union, and for that reason they have been left to drift on until the industry has come to be in a very serious situation.

I am assured by the Minister of Food that he is in consultation with the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries on a question which lies at the basis of any success which may come to this industry, that of stabilised minimum prices. The people employed in this industry have enough trouble, with instability of weather and of fishing, to put up with without having instability of prices. These men deserve well of the country; they are the men who, at the time of Dunkirk, sailed their little boats to the rescue of our men, and who largely provided the crews for the little ships of the Royal Navy. I do hope, therefore, that the Government will not stop at this Bill in coming to their assistance, but will go further and help them more than ever.

My one criticism of the Bill concerns that part of it which refers, to loans. I would much rather that the whole of this money for the industry should go to it in the form of grants. The purpose of the Bill is to give the industry an opportunity of rehabilitating itself and getting its gear and ships into good condition. Surely it will not help the industry very much if a large proportion of this money is to be given in loans which will hang like millstones round the necks of the fishermen. When they come back into the industry their earnings will be mortgaged for a number of years owing to their having to repay the loans and the interest on them. Still, these loans are better than nothing, and I welcome the Bill on behalf of the industry and on behalf of the men who go out in the little boats along the South and East coasts of England. I ask the Government to consider bringing in some legislation very soon to deal with the question of stabilised prices.

I wish to reinforce the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Dorset (Lieut.-Colonel Wheatley) and to say how warmly I welcome this Bill. The whole question of the inshore fishing industry was very closely studied by a Committee recently in Scotland, and this Bill implements the first and most fundamental recommendation of that Committee. Unless the industry can be modernised and equipped with better boats than it has had in the past, there will not be a very good outlook for it. This Bill carries out practically everything in that respect which the Committee recommended.

I do not know exactly what arrangements will be made under the Measure for the acquisition of naval boats by fishermen. Obviously the assistance to be given under the Bill will be available to fishermen for that purpose, but I ask the Minister what arrangements there are to be. Will the Admiralty sell those boats direct to fishermen? If that is done it will be a great mistake. I consider that these arrangements ought to be made in conjunction with the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland, since otherwise men who may not be at all suited to take charge of boats will get them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Duthie) has pointed out, it is not every man who will make a successful skipper of a fishing boat, and it is important that these boats should go into proper hands. I think the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State for Scotland must enter into the picture. I would like also to call attention to a valuable suggestion that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff, namely, that in the allocation of these boats, or in giving assistance under the Measure, the advice of local people in the industry should be sought. The people in the industry, wherever they may be, know best who are the men worth backing and likely to make good skippers and successful fishermen.

There is one point concerning the Bill which has not yet been mentioned, and that is that it helps men who are engaged in the shell-fishing industry. I am glad they are included, because the shell-fishing industry is of great importance in some parts of Scotland, such as Stornoway, Wick, Barra, and Orkney, where lobster fishing is a considerable industry bringing in between £50,000 and £60,000 a year. The people concerned, for the most part, live on small uneconomic holdings, and the only way in which they can make a living is by engaging in some ancillary industry. Lobster fishing flourishes in those parts and is worthy of encouragement. These men have been working very often with inadequate boats, sometimes sailing boats, and sometimes boats in which they have ingeniously fitted old car engines. This Bill will help to give them better boats and a greatly extended range of operations, and will increase the supply of lobsters on the market. I wish to express my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for having taken over this Bill, which was prepared by the previous Government, and for having implemented the first and most important recommendation of the Scottish White Fish Industry Committee.

As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence) said, the Government inherited this Bill from the Coalition Administration, and the Minister of Agriculture is to be complimented upon his wisdom in reintroducing it so quickly. I wish to emphasise the great need for this Bill and the pressing urgency with which the question is regarded by the fishing industry. I have here a letter typical of several letters and messages which I have received during the last few weeks indicating the state of affairs, at any rate, on the Fife coast. This letter is from a man who was demobilised a month ago. He writes:

"I am likely to be unemployed for a long time, because I am a fisherman. My brother has been unemployed, being a fisherman, too, for three months now, and we are expecting our youngest brother home, demobilised under Group 26."

Before the war the three of them worked co-operatively on one vessel, as is the custom of fishermen. The vessel was requisitioned by the Admiralty at the beginning of the war. These three men are back, each of them has a family of two or three children, each of them has given over five years' service in the Patrol Service of the Royal Navy in home waters and abroad. They are back, they have no boats, they are idle. In one port of East Fife alone, 60 men are hanging about idle because they have no boats for fishing.Meanwhile the people in the great cities are crying out for fish. The Herring Industry Board states that only 50 per cent.of the herrings that the people want are being supplied. It is the same with white fish. I want to impress upon the House the urgency of this matter. I hope that the Minister of Agriculture, when he has got this Measure, will put it into practice with the greatest speed possible.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland raised an important point relating to Admiralty vessels. There is nothing in the Bill to suggest that the boats which are to be provided with the grants and loans are necessarily to be new boats or boats specially designed for this kind of fishing. Although for my part I hope the great bulk of them will be new boats specially designed for the dual purpose of white and herring fishing, the urgency is so great that we shall have to get, in the course of the next few months, a great many boats from other directions. One of the directions from which these vessels might come is undoubtedly the Admiralty. In preparation for this Debate, I addressed a question to the First Lord last Wednesday, and I was told by him that his Department have now a considerable number—I think 978—of vessels of the usual motor fishing vessel type. He said that the bulk of these boats, which every- body agrees are usually admirably suited for fishing, are in the Far East and cannot be brought home, but that a considerable number are in home waters. He said:

"Any which may eventually become surplus at home will be offered to the fishing industry."—[Official Report, 14th November, 1945; Vol. 415, c. 2253.]

He said that in addition there are a good many of these M.F.V's still on the stocks not yet completed, and that some of these will be probably offered to the fishing industry.

The question I want to put is the same as that put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland. What are the Ministry of Agriculture and the Scottish Fisheries Department doing about those Admiralty vessels? Does the Minister know about them? I have some doubt about that. My impression is that the Admiralty have not yet made contact with the right hon. Gentleman about the disposal of those vessels. I see that the Minister shakes his head, which I hope means that he has made a plan. If so, I should be glad to hear what the plan is. Is it to be left to individual fishermen in Fife, for example, to apply to the Admiralty for some of those M.F.Vs., or are they to apply for them through the Fisheries Division of the Scottish Office? If so, are those vessels to carry with them the rights of grants and loans in the same way as new vessels specially built for the purpose? I should like to hear a clear answer from the right hon. Gentleman.

During the Second Reading Debate, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland what was to be the departmental "set-up," to use an unhappy phrase which fits the purpose, as between the Herring Industry Board and the Fisheries Division of the Scottish Office in the way of providing grants and loans for boats provided under the Herring Industry Act and under this Measure. For the benefit of non-fishing Members, I would explain that this Bill is intended to provide boats primarily, but not solely, for use for white fishing. The purpose is really to produce dual purpose vessels that can be used primarily for white fishing, but also substantially for herring fishing. The Herring Industry Act, which was passed last year, provides boats primarily for herring fishing and substantially for white fishing. Therefore, in practice the two types of boats are really the same, but they are to be administered by two different Departments of State—in Scotland by the Herring Industry Board and the Fisheries Division of the Scottish Office. It will be difficult for fishermen sometimes to be able to say, "I am going to use my vessel mainly for herring fishing and only part of the time for white fishing." It may be that the two interests will just about balance. It may be that in one year the fisherman will be more employed in herring fishing and less in white fishing, and the following year it may be the other way round.

I asked the Under-Secretary of State to tell me how decisions were to be made. Is the Herring Industry Board to work in a completely watertight department, paying no attention to the demands and applications made to the Fisheries Division of the Scottish Office, and is the Fisheries Division to hand out grants and loans without the Herring Fishing Board knowing what is being done? I cannot conceive that such a thing will happen but one wants to know what is to be the administrative arrangements to meet these obvious difficulties. When the Under-Secretary of State replied, he rather pooh-poohed the matter. He had obviously not thought about it and clearly did not know the subject to which he was referring and gave a completely unsatisfactory answer, which caused much confusion among local fishermen. The right hon. Gentleman must tell us today that a clear division of responsibilities, or, as I would like to put it, a clear link of administrative action has been forged for providing for these two types of related vessels.

A matter was raised in Committee which I must raise again. We are providing under the Bill, as the Herring Industry Act provided under that Measure, grants and loans for new boats. Without any exaggeration, the prices now charged or estimated to be charged for new fishing vessels are exorbitant and beyond any reasonable capacity of fishermen to meet. The figure I quoted on Second Reading was that the kind of vessel about which we are talking would have cost £3,000 before the war. Fishermen who have tried in the last year to get such a vessel have had estimates up to £8,000. If we put upon the fisherman's shoulders a burden of debt of up to £8,000, we crush him for the next 20 years. The Government must give an assurance that they are taking steps to reduce these excessive prices.

I do not know how these prices arise; I mean that I do not know the complete answer. Part of the high cost is due to shortage of labour, and shortage of supply, but part is undoubtedly due to a tendency in some building circles to create a ring. I say, as a Liberal, that a ring of that kind is anti-social and if it exists it ought to be broken. The difficulty about the Bill is that it gives large grants, and undoubtedly some unscrupulous builders will say, "Here is a large grant; I will put up my price. It will not affect the fishermen because it will come out of the Government's coffers." The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland showed an appalling lack of knowledge of these circumstances on the Committee Stage when the hon. Member for Montrose Burghs (Mr. Maclay) raised the matter.

The Under-Secretary of State said that the prices of boats and gear would not be determined by this Bill; but, surely, they will be determined by it. Here is a Bill offering the fisherman many hundreds of pounds, may be thousands of pounds, for the purpose of obtaining new boats. Unscrupulous men will take advantage of that and put up the prices of boats. Therefore, the Bill may have, unless we take great care, the effect of raising the prices of vessels. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to assureus that under the great powers his Government have taken for the next five years, he will ensure that the fishermen and the Departments are not going to be exploited in this way. I am not, of course, saying that one can reduce boat prices to prewar level, and I do not say that the Minister's action can show results immediately. But I feel certain that if he took energetic steps, by the time the first vessels came off the slips under the provisions of this Bill, we might see a very considerable reduction in prices.

As I said on Second Reading, and I repeat it now, precisely the same principles apply to the cost of gear. A fishing boat is no good without nets and a great many other sets of appliances for catching fish. Gear has trebled in cost. There must be a reason for that. I cannot believe that that vast increase is justified. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to tell us that in that respect also, he will make searching inquiries into the detailed items going to the cost of the manufacturing of the nets. There are many steps in the process of making a net. There is the material and the various stages of manufacture, and all this ought to be examined in complete detail, just as we did in the war with regard to the manufacture of shells and other munitions. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that these steps are being taken.

This is a very important Bill and this is a historic day in the story of, at any rate, the Scottish fishing industry. Great hopes are attached to this Measure. Thousands upon thousands of men are looking to the effects of this Bill for the development of their life and livelihood and that of their children. Hundreds of communities in the case of Scotland may be dependent on the proper administration of the Measure, so a heavy responsibility rests on the right hon. Gentleman. I compliment him on introducing the Bill and he will have earned the gratitude of a great and gallant community if he carries this thing through with the drive and sympathy that ought to be associated witha Measure of this kind.

This Bill will be welcomed not only by the House, but also by the fishermen concerned. The Government have rightly come to the aid of men who incurred considerable hardships during the war in providing people with a very valuable food. These fishermen have earned the gratitude of the nation for the services they rendered during the war. Now that men are being released from the Royal Navy, I hope that there will be a speeding-up not only in the provision of boats, but in the provision of gear. May I express the hope that the Government will do something more to help these inshore fishermen by protecting them against the inroads of trawlers?

I cannot too strongly associate myself with the words which have been spoken by the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart). This Bill represents something that is fundamental to the fishermen of Scotland. In association with the Herring Industry Act, it offers what is virtually a new lease of life to a very depressed community. This great hope could, however, be a two-edged weapon unless we can secure for the fishermen all the assistance which the Government can possibly give in relation to the control of the cost of the vessels and the gear which this Bill sets out to provide.

There is another matter of fundamental importance. No matter how much we can provide for fishermen in the shape of boats and gear, unless we can secure for them markets for the fish and fair prices, the most promising ventures may be doomed to failure.

I must point out to the hon. Member that on the Third Reading he must confine himself to what is in the Bill and not deal with what the House might like to have done.

In relation to the point made by the hon. Member for East Fife and by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence), I cannot too strongly emphasise how necessary it is, with regard to determining those who are to receive assistance under this Bill, that all possible local assistance and advice should be secured. Again, I would like to emphasise that there is no better possible advice that can be obtained in a matter of this kind than that of a local committee on which is a fair representation of the fishermen themselves. I submit that, in any local committee that is set up, the fishermen must be represented. I cannot see how this matter can be adequately dealt with on a local basis, unless the assistance of the fishermen is invoked in devising and carrying on the local arrangements. This Bill is a Godsend to a very deserving community, and in direct ratio to the assistance which the Government will give with regard to the control of prices in the building yards and the scrupulous control of gear prices to ensure that the fisherman is not mulcted of too much for the acquisition of both boat and gear, we shall see this Bill, conjointly with the Herring Industry Act, 1944, attain the great objective for which they have been devised, that is, the salvation of the fishing industry around the coasts of Britain.

I rise to welcome and support the Bill. I trust the Minister fully realises that this is only a beginning and that there is a great deal more to be done. A number of men have already been demobilised and, what is more important, a number of Cornish men have been demobilised and are waiting to take advantage of the provisions of this Bill. I do not know the exact machinery whereby the Bill passes from here to another place. But I ask that its course will be speedy and that despatch will be given to it. I know not the colour of the Minister's docket jacket, whether it be yellow, black or blue, but whichever it is, I hope he will see to it that, as fast as it is delivered into the "In" way it will find its way to the "Out" way and so reach another place with the speed necessary for an important Bill.

As the Minister responsible for this Measure, important, though small, I am very proud of that position this morning, since it happens to be not only a Bill that is welcomed in all quarters of the House, but one that is likely to secure the Third Reading very early. It will, too, be my first real product from the Ministry of Agriculture, apart from yesterday's Statement. One or two questions have been put which are fairly easy to answer. With regard to the acquisition of naval boats from the Admiralty, all I can say isthat we are aware that some of these motor boats may be useful for fishing purposes, but we fear, that most of them may not be. In any case, we are already in consultation with the Admiralty and will necessarily become the intermediaries between the Admiralty and appropriate persons in the purchase of any boat.

Can we take it that those Admiralty boats, if they become available through the right hon. Gentleman's Department, will carry the same concession of grants and loans?

If a boat is found suitable in every particular and is accepted as such by the Secretary of State for Scotland or myself, then, presumably, similar terms and conditions as those which obtain under the Bill will apply to them. On the question of advice raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence), advice from local bodies will obviously be sought. We would not expect to sit in Whitehall and determine whether a person was either more competent or less competent, whether his services were what they should be and whether or not he fulfilled all conditions. Clearly, we must obtain our informtion from local sources, and steps will be taken to that end.

The hon. and gallant Member who spoke first said that, instead of the grant being one-third and the loan 56 and two-thirds per cent. he would have preferred that it had been a total grant. I suppose most fishermen would, but the lines of this Bill follow identically the lines of the Herring Industry Act, and I do not see that there could be any complaint on that account. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) said there was a great need for this Bill. That being so, I think we ought to pass it as quickly as possible. In reply to the hon. Member's observation on the Herring Board and the Fisheries Division of the Scottish Office, or its parallel in this country, obviously, the Herring Industry Board and the Fisheries Division of the Scottish Department will work in close co-operation. Should an application be made to the Herring Industry Board for a boat, which seems on the evidence available to be a case for an inshore fishing boat under the terms of this Bill, the two Departments will work harmoniously together, and that applies to England and Wales, too.

On the question of the prices of the boats, my hon. Friend found himself making two rather contradictory statements. He told us on Second Reading, and he repeated this morning, that the prices being charged for boats such as those we have in mind under the terms of this Bill are perfectly outrageous—£6,000, £7,000 and £8,000, the hon. Member said. I have no means of declaring that that is either the right or the wrong price that is being offered, but the hon. Member went on to say that this Bill will determine the price of boats. I should have thought that, if the prices now being charged and which have been charged for some little time are setting the pace, it cannot be this Bill that is setting the pace. The hon. Member was right to make the point, and I can assure him that, when applications are received, all relevant matters concerning the prices of boats, gear and equipment will be taken into account. I cannot imagine either this Board or the Scottish Fisheries Division deliberately giving Treasury funds away to exploiting shipbuilders merely because the Government has decided to help this deserving section of inshore fishing. I hope the Bill will receive its Third Reading, so that we can take active steps to get into harness quickly and help the fishermen referred to by the hon. Member. Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

During the Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, I asked one or two questions, to which the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs was good enough to reply straight away, but there was one to which I did not receive an answer at the time, though I did not really expect it. The Bill empowers a Secretary of State to pay and to make Regulations for men who are sent overseas on police service, and the point is: If there are several Secretaries of State who might be involved in this, I would like to know who they are, and, if it is the case, what arrangements there are to see that the same set of Regulations apply in each case, because it is important that there are arrangements to see that men are not sent overseas to do the same job under different conditions.

The point is dealt with in Clause 1 (1) of the Bill, which applies to—

"persons engaged under his control in the performance of police duties in any foreign country for the time being in the occupation of His Majesty, or in the performance of police duties on behalf of the Government of any country or territory outside the United Kingdom."

The position is that it is necessary to provide that a Secretary of State shall make the Regulations, because several Secretaries of State may be involved in the Bill. In the matter of the Greek Mission, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is responsible. In respect of police service in Germany and Austria, the Secretary of State for War is responsible. Therefore, it is the appropriate Secretary of State who shall make the Regulations, but it is obvious that the Regulations must follow the same lines. So long as there is no Consolidated Act of any kind, and, as the Secretary of State for Home Affairs is responsible for home police, it is to be assumed that there will be the necessary co-ordination of Regulations through that source.

I am very glad that I have been able upon this occasion to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Before the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) leaves the Chamber, I would like to say that there was a moment when I feared that the Lord President of the Council, in unholy alliance with my Noble Friend, was seeking to deprive me of my precious Parliamentary rights as a Back Bencher; and that they had not even warned me of the hour at which they proposed to carry out their fell design. I am now satisfied that there was no such sinister intention on their part; but I am glad to observe that you are standing up for the rights of Back Benchers on both sides of the House.

I was startled recently, as I expect many hon. Members must have been, to read that we were importing something in the neighbourhood of £20,000,000 worth of American films per annum. I have seen more or less official statements ranging from £22,000,000 per annum to £17,000,000, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave me in answer to a Parliamentary Question last week. I would be obliged if the hon. Gentleman who is to reply to this Debate could give me an accurate figure; because I know that one figure recently quoted with some authority was £20,000,000. In any event I suspect that, taking into account all the ramifications of the film industry, we are spending well over $80,000,000 of our exiguous stock every year upon the purchase of Hollywood films. This is a very large sum. Even if it is only £17,000,000 a year, it is a very large sum. How does it come about?

First of all I would like to tell hon. Members what I did not realise until I started to examine this matter, that there is no ad valorem Customs import duty on films. This duty is charged at the rate of 5d. a foot on the first copy, and one penny a foot on each subsequent copy. Normally, not more than two copies of any film from the United States are brought into this country—one is called a "duping" copy, from which further negatives can be made—so that, on an 8,000 foot film, which is the average length, however much it may have cost to make, the Customs duty would only be about £200. The second point I want to put is this: The Americans pocket no less than 50 per cent. of the total takings on films of theirs shown in this country. That seems to me to be a very large amount. Only a percentage of these revenues are regarded by the Treasury as being revenues of the operating companies in this country, and therefore subject to Income Tax; and these, in turn, are allowed to deduct their own operating expenses. I have been told—and again I should like some information on the matter—that the percentage subject to tax in this way is only about 10 per cent.; but even if it is 15 per cent., the amount that has to be remitted direct to America, which is not subject to Income Tax, is enormous. Take a major American company whose total earnings in this country amount to £2,500,000 a year. It would be assessed for Income Tax on about £250,000 only, from which the operating expenses of its subsidiary company in Great Britain would fall to be deducted. Therefore, well over £2,000,000 would be remitted, tax-free, direct to the American corporation in the United States. This is the explanation of the enormous sums of money that we are sending over every year for the purchase of American films.

What I want to submit to the House is that we cannot afford to go on doing this indefinitely in our present situation. If the Government have decided to borrow a very large sum at a considerable rate of interest from the United States, and to go back to the gold standard and multilateral free trade without discrimination as the price, then I suppose the film industry will have to be included in the general "sell-out" of Great Britain. In this case, however, I think we should be well advised to make an immediate application for entry, as a forty-ninth State, into the United States of America; and move ourselves over to Washington in order to get some of the advantages, instead of only the disadvantages, of complete economic domination by the United States. If, on the other hand, we intend to try to continue for a bit longer under our own economic steam, then we are bound to exercise some degree of selection in our choice of imports from countries within the dollar area.

The dilemma which now confronts the Government of this country is inescap- able. On the one hand they are trying to build up a planned internal economy in this country—on this point I would really be very grateful for the attention of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade. At the same time we know that the Government are under very heavy pressure from the United States of America to revert to an unplanned external economy. You cannot have a planned production and an unplanned trade. The Government can choose to go along one road or the other; but if they try to go down both simultaneously, then in my submission they will only land themselves and this country in irretrievable disaster; because a planned national economy side by side with international economic anarchy will never work—the two things are completely contradictory.

I believe that the prevailing inertia in this country is mainly due to lack of adequate food and of a sufficient variety of diet. There has been a great correspondence recently on this subject in "The Times," and the physiologists have a lot to say on the subject. If the physiologists had their way, we should all be living on pills; no doubt we should survive, but life would be extremely disagreeable. The psychologists also come into this. Julius Caesar said:

"Let me have men about me that are fat;…and such as sleep o' nights."

If hon. Members and you, Sir, will look at the portraits and engravings of their ancestors in this country, they will see that the British Empire was built up, in the main, by fat men; and the founder of that Empire, Henry VIII, was the fattest of the lot. I am persuaded that if we are to get our people to work hard enough to rebuild the strength and greatness of this country, we must give them more to eat, whatever the physiologists may say. Essentially the British are a carnivorous people—they always have been—and they are suffering severely from lack of meat at the present time.

In any conceivable circumstances the available supply of dollars for this country will be extremely limited; and the continuing expenditure of over $80,000,000 a year on American films cannot be justified, in my submission, on any ground. I would like to confess to the House that I have a great admiration for the acting of Mr. Humphrey Bogart; and for the same reason as applies to every film-fan, that I can see in him on the screen the prototype of the man I would have liked to be. Nevertheless, if I am compelled to choose between Bogart and bacon, I am bound to choose bacon at the present time.

I would like to put forward a few constructive suggestions as to what I think the Government should do. Surely, the first and most important thing is that they should "step-up" the production of films in this country as quickly as possible, and not only of super-films costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. We have shown during the war that we can make the best "shorts" in the world; and the public appetite for pictorial information is enormous. They like to learn. They even like those somewhat dreary landscape films in which we are taken round Japan or China or Ceylon, or wherever it may be. If we brighten those up a bit, I believe there would be an enormous demand for "shorts" depicting the life of Great Britain and of the British Empire.

For this purpose it really is necessary that the Government should release more studio space at the earliest moment; and in this connection I would particularly like to mention the Pinewood Studios. I do not know what is happening there, but I am sure that nothing is happening at the Pinewood Studios of comparable importance to what might be happening if they were handed over to those who are making and producing films. Here I know I shall trespass upon slightly delicate ground. I think the Government should, at the same time, do everything in their power to encourage independent producers in this country.

I am not one of those who criticise Mr. Arthur Rank; I think he has done a great job for the film industry of this country—indeed, I do not know where the film industry would be at the present time without him. But he is vulnerable at one point, as any man who controls two out of the three circuits in this country must be; and that is that independent producers can now say with some justification, "Unless we can get the approval of the Rank organisation, it is very difficult either to find the finance to produce, or the cinemas in which to show, our films." Therefore I say to the Government that that is an aspect of this question of British production which they ought to take into very serious consideration, because I think we want all the good producers producing films as quickly as we possibly can in this country. Then, as and when production increases, we can step up the renters' quota of British films; but only as the supply become available.

My second point is that I think we should definitely limit the import of American films into this country. I am not asking that American films should be excluded altogether; but I am suggesting that we should aim as soon as may be, at a figure of, say, 50 per cent. of the annual importation of the eight big American film companies into this country over the last few years, and then bargain for a better distribution of British films in the American market. I would not say, "You are limited absolutely to 50 per cent. of your average imports over the last few years" and leave it at that; I would say, "Over and above that figure you can only export American films into Great Britain if you give us an equivalent distribution of British films in the United States of America, and an equivalent cash return; so that no further strain will be put upon the dollar-sterling exchange." It is interesting that the return in respect of British films shown in the United States of America, except during the two years when American money was "frozen" in this country, has been for a long period absolutely negligible, in relation to the quality of the products that we have made in this country; and I think we have every right—if we are to continue spending this vast sum of money on the importation of American films—to insist that we get, not perhaps a completely corresponding treatment but, at any rate, some reciprocal treatment from the United States. After all, as I have said many times in this House, trade is the mutually advantageous exchange of goods; it is not the export of goods from one country to another in exchange for debt.

Thirdly, I think it would be quite reasonable for us to suggest to the Americans that they should reduce their charges from the present enormous figure of 50 per cent. of the total takings to, say, a figure of 33⅓ per cent. This by itself, at the present level of imports, would save us over £3,000,000 a year. The Americans, of course, will not approve of all the remarks I am making. They are determined to exploit the markets of the world in this industry as in, I think, a good many others, to the best of their ability. I do not make any complaint about that, but I think we should be aware of what they are up to.

May I interrupt my hon. Friend? No doubt he is aware of the fact, on the point which he has just been making about the price of American films, that the industry is already taking certain steps to prevent increases on the present price.

I am very glad to hear that, but I am now suggesting to His Majesty's Government that they should take steps to secure a considerable reduction. I think it is extremely important. As an illustration, I would like to quote from the foreword of the Washington Chamber of Commerce on the subject of American films, as follows:

"Plainly, before all else, we must emphasise to the utmost the contrast in quality between our good American pictures and the typical product of local producing industries abroad. We must make that contrast as vivid, as striking, as impressive, as it can possibly be made. Persistently and adroitly, we must make the foreign movie-goer acutely conscious that the American picture is a product of decidedly superior quality—of rich and varied artistry, of entertainment value unmatchable in the run-of-time output of our competitors abroad. We must make this 'High-Quality' factor so universally recognised that local audiences abroad will have no desire to see inferior films that owe their existence simply to some Government legislation or subsidy."

I quote this in order to show the House what we are up against in this, as well as in other industries, in the United States. They are all out to get markets. We have to show what steps we can take in a spirit of friendliness, to see that they do not get the whole lot. I know that the Americans will not approve of everything I have said, or that may be said in this House before the end of this Debate. They will not approve when we have to cut our imports of tobacco, of oil and of cotton. Nevertheless we shall have to do all these things, in my submission, during the next few anxious and difficult months, and possibly years.The choice which lies before this country so far as the film industry is concerned, is between circuses and bread; and I come down emphatically upon the side of bread.

I, being not altogether unlike the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), welcome his allusion to fat men. A fortnight ago, in a Motion which I raised, I mentioned the menace of Hollywood, in my view, to the youth of this country. That raised a great deal of criticism. At the same time, it also raised a great deal of approval in all parts of the country. I would ask the Government to examine this, with a view to seeing whether the expenditure of £20,000,000 a year is a good investment. They will say that we purchase these films from America for the entertainment of our people. We agree to that. It is impossible to regiment people into the form of entertainment they require. There is a case to be made out for Bach and Brahms as well as for Bing Crosby and George Gershwin, and, if the public like various forms of entertainment, they must be given the entertainment they require. I am not asking for a monopoly of one or the other. But it surely is the case, and it is recognised today, that we have had an excess of a certain shoddy type of entertainment from Hollywood. We are seeing today certain features on the films that really are not wholesome, and do not appeal to the audience in general, the exclusion of which, I am sure, would be an improvement, to a large degree, in the cinemas of our towns.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the advertising men in Wardour Street, in their efforts to find superlatives every week to describe new features. Films when not "colossal" become "terrific," and when not "terrific" become "stupendous," and then they go on repeating themselves. These films have certain entertainment value; it is no good deceiving ourselves. We are not asking for a restriction on films, or on the age of the people going into the cinemas; but we ask for an improvement of the standard of films generally in this country. This is a serious problem, and one with which the Government ought to concern itself. We have learned, with some alarm, of the lack of reciprocity that exists between ourselves and America in regard to film distribution. America has got a stranglehold on the film market in this country, and can do as it likes with regard to the films that are to be shown, except in the case where public opinion is aroused against it, as in the case of "Objective Burma" recently. Conversely, in America our distributors have no show at all; and how often have we read about the merits of a first-class film made in this country of the type of "In Which We Serve," "Henry V," or "The Way Ahead," or other equally good films, of which there has been some restriction of distribution in America?

Therefore, I appeal to the Government that there ought to be greater equity in this matter. If America is obtaining profits from the film industry by virtue of distribution in this country, the Government ought to have its eye on compensating features of distribution and financial profit accruing to this country from our films showing in America. I feel strongly about this matter. Films have come to stay with us and they can be a tremendous weapon for good. Will the Government do all in its power to raise the standard of films to the highest possible level, not restricting itself to any one aspect of films? Let us have jazz, dances, songs, opera, so long as there is a balanced supply of these things to meet the demands of the country. But let us not have this excess of slush and shoddy entertainment, which has been coming forward to us in the form of Hollywood films in such great degree in the past.

In accordance with practice in a Debate of this kind, I must disclose my interest in this matter from a business point of view. As a foundation shareholder in one of the big film companies—Odeon—I did what many did, and, like the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, I invested in what I regarded as being a good enterprise. All of us connected with the film industry will be glad that this Debate has been initiated by the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), who, I think, has gone, to carry out a practice which has become so very much followed in recent days, of having a cup of tea. No doubt, when he has consumed his tea, we shall again have the benefit of his presence in the House.

I am sure that I am speaking on behalf of everyone, whatever view they may take on this question, when I say that I think that my hon. Friend put his case very modestly, and in a way, I think, which will be helpful to the film industry. Perhaps in his absence I may disabuse his mind of one mistake which he has made, and no doubt he will read my remarks in Hansard. I am not, as he seemed to suppose, two days ago, the Leader of the Opposition. It is an interesting historical fact that 38 years ago, one even greater than the hon. Member for East Aberdeen raised a point of Order, on one occasion, with one of your predecessors in the Chair, Sir, and said, "Do I understand that the attention of Mr. Speaker has been called to the fact that the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham for the last three days has been leading the Opposition without the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London—the late Lord Balfour—being informed of the fact that the Noble Lord had attained that position?" So that what the hon. Gentleman said was not original. I see that the hon. Gentleman has now returned.

May I inform the right hon. Gentleman that I was not having a cup of tea.

I assure the hon. Gentleman, from what I know of him, that I supposed that would be the last thing he would drink. To deal seriatim with the points which the hon. Gentleman has made, which I think were most reasonable, in the first place, he referred to the necessity of the release of studios. The cinema industry in general, especially, of course, the producing industry, would be extremely grateful if hon. Members would bring all the legitimate pressure which they can on the Government to release these studios. This is a matter of first-rate importance to the industry. For reasons that I cannot fully disclose, because they concern, to some extent, confidential business negotiations which are still being carried on, it is highly important that the fullest possible studio space should be available for producers of all kinds. I would like, speaking on behalf of my colleagues who take part in the business with which I am concerned, to say that I welcome very strongly what the hon. Member said about independent people, as well as the bigger people, being given the fullest possible opportunity. It is, unquestionably, the lack of studio space—there is no doubt about that—which is the main cause of the inability, at the moment, to produce British pictures. The hon. Member paid a well merited tribute to my friend, Arthur Rank. I think that it is right to say that he would welcome any such suggestion. Mr. Rank, although he has been attacked in some quarters, has done useful work in connection with the British film industry, and he is on the best of terms with a number of other people, who, to some extent, may be described as his business rivals.

The general argument on the need for the importation of films must be based on the impossibility, for the present, of our studios providing adequate films, but great strides have been made, despite the requisitioned studio space, in export. Our pictures are showing at the moment in the Dominions, the United States, and China, and expansion is going on at an increased rate. Certain important steps have been taken in recent months—or perhaps I should say about a year ago—by which British films, for the first time, will be shown in a number of the smaller British Colonies, where, hitherto, there was a monopoly of American films. There is a much greater world-wide distribution of British films, and strenuous efforts are being made now, by men of good will on both sides of the Atlantic, whose business interest though must be predominant in their minds, to produce good feeling between the two countries. Strenuous efforts are also being made to get a more satisfactory entry for British films into the United States. I agree with what the hon. Member said that, in the past, there has not been altogether fair treatment of British films. With regard to what the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway said, I am naturally not looking on the matter from the point of view of the Socialist Party, but it is not for the Government to lay down the type of film to be produced or shown in this country. If they do that we may get into a dangerous position. The next thing will be that we will have the Government deciding what plays should be shown in theatres. All that the Government can do is to encourage the best production of the best type of film in this country.

My words were, "It should be the intention of the Government to try to raise the standard wherever possible."

Yes, but if I may say so—I do not want to quarrel with the hon. and gallant Member—it is a slightly dangerous principle where public entertainment is concerned. I would say that the attitude of the Government in the matter of the provision of entertainment is merely to see that certain laws are not broken, most certainly not to lay down what type of picture or play shall be produced, unless they are of such a grossly offensive character as to go against British opinion. I make that demand because it is necessary it should be made. The British film producing industry will never expand if there is any suggestion that it is to do so merely under the direction of the British Government. [An Hon. Member: "Monopoly."] If it is urged that it should be under the control of the Government, I hope that that is not the Government's policy. I thought it was nothing of the sort. I have already dealt with the question of monopoly. I said that monopoly has largely arisen from certain circumstances. It is, therefore, the view of the industry that, for the moment at any rate, it is better to meet the situation in America by obtaining a credit balance on our films on the other side of the ledger. Any attempt to impose some immediate embargo would destroy the goodwill to which I have referred, which is being built up throughout the world, and would prevent us from penetrating the American market, and throw away the rising assets of this industry.

But, in general, I am in complete agreement with what I understood to be the principle enunciated by my hon. Friend, and if I enunciate it wrongly perhaps he will tell me. I understood it to be that if we, owing to lack of studio space and other circumstances, are not able to show the number of British films we should like to be able to show in this country, and have to import American films, it is only fair that American picture theatres should show a greater proportion of British films, and give them a fairer share than hitherto. I think everyone would be in agreement with that. That is why I think that his initiation of this Debate has done a great deal of good. My hon. Friend referred to United States prices. That is a delicate matter for anyone connected with the showing industry here to deal with, but I find myself in agreement with it. Without very firm action on the part of the British picture showing industry here, the prices might be even higher than they are. As I have already indicated, there are some important negotiations nearing completion —and I think that the Government are giving their benevolent assent in an indirect way—which should give us a very much increased share of the foreign market.

I would like to read a statement which was made by Mr. Rank the other day, not only on behalf of his own business but on behalf of the British cinema industry generally. He said:

"Today, the American industry receives from this country yearly some £20,000,000 sterling from the exhibition of its films, and from this go those extra profits which enable producers to contemplate large costs for their productions. In the stringent financial position after the war it is obvious that we cannot afford to allow that sum of money to continue to be taken out without some corresponding contribution on the other side of the ledger, and what easier way than building some portion of that from the receipts of the proper exhibition of British films? If our product is given the best that we can put into it there is no reason why a solution along these lines cannot be achieved. For there is no rooted objection to British films."

That expresses, from one of the leaders of the industry here, the sentiments put so admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen. It is in that spirit that I sit down, hoping that we shall come to an agreement. It is, of course, open to anybody, and I do not object, indeed, I am not in a position to do so, to make speeches referring to monopolies, etc., in the British industry. I would, however, venture to suggest that the lines the Debate should follow should be those of the speech of my hon. Friend in initiating the Debate. What we are concerned with today, what he and others are concerned with, is to see fair play for British pictures overseas, and to reduce, as far as possible, the very heavy demands upon our currency entailed by the importation of American films into this country. Those are the two big issues, and it is in that spirit that, in general, I support what my hon. Friend said. I believe that the Government's attitude will also be favourable to that point of view.

I rise to join in this Debate because a very important issue is involved in this question of British and American films which, so far, has merely been touched upon. I think the answer to the issue I intend to raise, and the real answer to the question raised by the hon.

Member who opened the Debate, lies in giving every encouragement to the British film industry. I do not think that the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Austin) could logically be followed, namely, that the Government should take some direct interest in laying down the type of film or anything of that kind. At the present time, and certainly in the years before the war, the American film industry has, and had, an unpleasantly large share in the films shown in this country. There are a number of reasons for that. So far as I am concerned, and I may represent the feeling of the average member of the public, I would much rather see a good British film, than a good American film. Unfortunately, the British film industry has produced an unwarrantably large number of inferior films, and if it comes to a question of seeing second-rate British film or a second-rate American film, I must say that I am in favour of seeing the second-rate American film, because the American film industry has such vast sums of money, and such vast resources in production, that even in their second-rate films, they are able to give a measure of polish and are able to employ character actors of sufficient ability, to produce better films than we in England can do.

In Italy, during the war, I suffered, and the troops there have suffered, from the number of inferior British films shown. The remarks of those troops were that although they went into the E.N.S.A. cinema and saw them entirely free, their feeling on coming out was that they ought to have been paid for going in to see them. The answer to that problem is to encourage the British film industry to develop its resources, so as to produce every time a really first-class film. Then, so far as this country is concerned, there will be no doubt about which the public will be prepared to patronise. The answer every time must lie in the box office of the cinema. The owners of cinemas, when deciding to select a British or American film, must be governed by the receipts which they are likely to obtain. That is why it is important that British films should be encouraged to develop so as to compete successfully with their American rivals.

I feel that we are in danger in this country of coming far too much under the influence of American civilisation. When we consider that the cinema is indirectly a form of propaganda, we must appreciate how significant it is that, every week, millions of the public go and sit for several hours in a a cinema, and come tinder the influence of American opinion, and the American way of life. It is much more rarely that they have an opportunity of seeing the British way of life portrayed in a British film. In passing, I would say that they must gain an erroneous impression of the American way of life, because so far as I can make out from the films American life is sharply divided into two distinct types. According to the films, the American either lives in a vast house, much larger than the Savoy or Dorchester, and much more ornately furnished, or else he lives in slums far worse than anything we have in England, and walks about habitually carrying a sub-machine gun. Those of us who know anything about America realise that that is not true, but it is the kind of impression put over in the films. Occasionally, for the sake of variety these two distinct types are transferred into the country, and then they wear big hats, carry two revolvers and ride horses.

It is important that the British film industry should portray the British way of life to the public through the medium of its films. If we can get a greater proportion of showing space for these British films, we shall be doing a great service to the cultural life of this country. It is important that the British film industry should be put on its feet and enabled to compete on level terms with American films. Dangerous effects are at work abroad owing to the fact that the American film industry has the monopoly abroad. They are portraying the American way of life constantly, night after night, to such parts of the world as Italy, South-Eastern Europe, Africa, etc. To the extent that they introduce this insidious propaganda—all the more insidious because it is not direct propaganda—so this country will suffer in comparison with America, not only in the film industry but in every form of industrial development. It is important that the British film industry should get under way and develop its showing in the Commonwealth, the Colonies and throughout the rest of the world.

In some measure I agree with the right hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) in saying that since the film industry is an amusement industry and at the same time a cultural industry, it is important that on that side it should have entirely free development, but that everything the Government can do in order to assist that industry to develop will be to the ultimate good of this country, not only in this country, by helping to produce a better atmosphere in the English cinema, but also in helping to create a better impression abroad of the British way of life.

The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) displayed the warmth and the vivid interest which he normally reserves for fish. On this occasion he has transferred it to films. I am in agreement with a good deal that he said. I must also confess openly my personal interest in the cinema industry. It is that for the last 15 years, with a young and brilliant assistant, a man of the people, we have built up a small chain of individually owned cinemas in country districts, and I wish to speak on behalf of the small man on this occasion. It is rather curious that sitting on the Benches opposite is, I believe, the deputy-chairman of one of the big film chains, whereas on this side is the representative of the small man. After listening to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) and to other Members, there comes into my mind a line from the "Lays of Ancient Rome":

"Even the Ranks of Tuscany, Could scarce forbear to cheer,"

and the "Ranks" of the Odeon seem to be their lineal descendants. The small man in this industry is very much aware of the present position, because, let us make no bones about it, this is an industry which has been trustified and contains large lateral trusts of the type that have done a great deal of harm to the cinema going public and to the cinema industry. The production of a few splendid films has undoubtedly done them credit, but what has been done by some of these large corporations, has resulted in qualifying some of this credit. The small firms and the small cinemas of this country form an integral part of the life of the small town and district. The large "palace" does not really fit in with the life of this country. Consequently the industry has fallen into two categories, the "super" and the "flea pit." I think I have done my best to eliminate the fleas, without quite getting to the super, but that does not mean that efforts should not be made to establish an average between the two. The small independent man is the man who understands local conditions and picks his films with the idea of fitting in with the local likes of the people and that would be very much better and a more democratic form of showing films than this country possesses at the moment.

The one obstacle, and it is a big one, in connection with the big film corporations is "block booking." Cinemas are compelled, when booking films, to take whole blocks. Your power of selection is taken from you. Equality of opportunity, a principle which hon. Members opposite will recognise as a phrase for which they have some attachment, certainly does not exist in the industry so far as the small man is concerned. I think it is extremely necessary that while the Government must be very careful how far they go in this matter, they must, nevertheless, see that this process of trustification with its form of big block bookings is in some way restricted, and encouragement given to the smaller and more independent people in this country to produce British films. In that way, I am sure the cinema industry would be much better, particularly for those in this country.

The women of this country are the real filmgoers. Seventy per cent. of those who go are women. They go because with conditions of life as they are at present it is a sane form of entertainment for them, and they go because of the habit they formed in the old days of buying what is called "three pennyworth of dark." The dark is now more expensive. From the psychological point of view, women when they go to the cinema always place themselves in the position either of the heroine, or if she is sufficiently seductive and successful, of the villainess. The psychological value of films is much more deep rooted than I think is realised, and therefore the quality of the films which are shown must clearly be a matter of the utmost importance. I am going to make certain practical suggestions, whereby we can reduce the number of dollars demanded for the introduction of American films into this country, and also provide means of increasing our British film production, and our own export trade.

The expansion of the export trade is, of course, important. We are always told that we are at the beginning of an export race, but it is interesting to see what does happen. The President of the Board of Trade fires the starting pistol and the Chancellor of the Exchequer hamstrings the runners. Occasionally the rôlesare reversed. But here I would say that film export has a vast importance. I wonder if it is realised how much the manufacture of films in America is linked with the subsidies which American industry itself pays for the films, to display their own products. It is done discreetly in the films, but it is clearly visible. This form of export propaganda makes itself felt in the export markets in India, China and throughout the world. That enables the manufacturers to use a good and cheap way of showing American goods to the world and the American way of life. This is a thing which we must bear in mind when we come to make more films ourselves. The thing that must be realised is that when the small man comes up against the three or four big film trusts, however often the Board of Trade talks about the quota, what really happens is that when he does book a British or American film, time and time again he is told that he cannot have his copy because it has been damaged, or because it has been destroyed and so they cannot deliver it. In actual fact he has a very poor chance of getting his fair amount of the quota.

I think one of the biggest contributions we can make to help the British film industry is to reduce the film hire. At present this country pays a proportion of film hire for American films more than any other country in the world outside the United States. The charge is quite outrageous, and one of the first things that I suggest this Government should do is to see that the film hire rate is reduced from something between 40 to 50 per cent. of the gross takings to an absolute maximum of 33⅓ per cent. That would not only save something like 16⅔ per cent.of the dollars that are expended at present, but would mean that the quality of the films shown by American renters would have to be much better, and in consequence, it would mean that when American films are booked we should be perfectly sure that they were the best that they could send over to us.

The next suggestion is that the Government should assist on a long-term basis in the building up in this country of the film-making industry. It has had a not so good history, and it is very difficult to get people interested on a long-term basis. The film industry pays very high taxation. There is a perfectly good case that it should do so, for it can afford to do it without putting anything on the price of seats for those who pay for their entertainment in the cinemas. I suggest that a proportion of this taxation should be set aside by the Government and divided into two halves. One half should be paid to the exhibitors of the films in order to assist in a direct encouragement to show British films; the other half should be used to assist those, not necessarily the highest or the smallest, but those who have a genuine desire to go in and make British films. I have no doubt that that would encourage a large number of people to go in for making the type of film for which this country has become famous, such as those the Ministry of Information made during the war.

It is not necessary for them to attempt to rival the films of Hollywood. We cannot out-Hollywood Hollywood, but films which have some historical or some cultural interest and which exhibit the British way of life would, I am sure, soon be produced. I believe that that is one of the best ways to interest people on a long term basis of film production, with a view to establishing an industry which could take its full part, not only in home production, but in export. You cannot suddenly wrench the whole of this industry out of its setting at present by cutting off, at one stroke, the free flow of films from America. It is all very well to argue that by cutting 50 per cent. of the imports you are going to free x number of dollars, because instead all that you would be doing would be to throw the whole film industry out of gear and at the same time ruin the chance of building up an export industry.

The film industry can well be proud of its record during the war. I think it is sometimes forgotten what a good job they have done. We have heard during recent discussions of the great contribution the dock workers and others made during the war. That was heard from a great many sides, but I think it is no exaggeration to say that, in all the very difficult times of the war, when some mental relief was needed, not only from the dangers of air attack and so on but from the mental cares of the people who were suffering so much, the cinema industry was easily the most economical and cheapest way of relief that the people could find. During the coming winter, conditions in this country will certainly not be very much better than they have been during the war, and I suggest that if you do anything to stop or hinder the film industry now, you will be doing the man in the street a great disservice.

I think the Minister of Fuel and Power will back me when I say that keeping the cinemas open in cold weather in the winter, is one of the greatest economies of fuel and light that there is. I feel certain that a careful study of the figures would be very interesting. A vast number of the people of this country go to the pictures two or three times a week, not only to look at the films, but because that is the best way they can keep warm. They even go to sleep—and I cannot say that I blame them knowing some of the films that are shown. I am sure that some of the scientific gentlemen who sit in this House will confirm that one of the best and most natural forms of heat is that which arises from the congregation of many human beings in an enclosed space.

I feel that the film industry is too easy an Aunt Sally for everybody, and I put forward to those who are the advocates of more violent forms of action, that better results will be attained on the lines that I have suggested, a long-term policy. This would not only result in an increase in the quality of the films that America could export, but would also encourage our own people in the production of the most democratic form of entertainment there is; it would also be an encouragement to other countries, who wish to work with us in fostering international trade.

I am sure the House as a whole will wish to congratulate the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) on bringing forward today, with his customary eloquence and address, this important subject. It raises the relationship between two very important matters, dollars and films—dollars which this country greatly needs, and of which it has all too few, and films which this country greatly likes, and of which it has a tolerably sufficient supply of extraneous origin. The basic facts would be in my submission sufficiently startling if it were not for the fact that we have already become habituated to them. Eighty-five per cent. of the screen time in this country is given to the showing of American films. A sum stated to be in the neighbourhood of £20,000,000 goes to the United States each year in respect of these films, the greater proportion of which, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend, is free of taxation.

Taking the period of the war years, there flowed from the box offices of this beleagured country to the United States £100,000,000 in respect of films; and the question is whether we can afford to let this continue. Can this financially anaemic country afford this riot of continuous blood-letting? In my view, the answer is clearly "No," and that for two reasons. The first is economic. We are in a position in which we must restrict ourselves to selective purchasing from the United States, and I echo the view of my hon. Friend that we must put bread before circuses. If we are to be able to buy what we need we must restrict our purchasing of what we want. The second reason is cultural. In the 20th century a country without a healthy, indigenous film industry is almost as incomplete as a country without literature, and I echo the views already expressed by hon. Members that we need a film industry which will show our British way of life.

That is why I was so surprised that the substantial answer given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to my hon. Friend when he raised this matter at Question Time, was that we must cater for the desire for entertainment. I agree with that; I think that the people of this country after their six years of efforts and sacrifices in war deserve all the entertainment they can get. But must it be American entertainment? Is it not at least strange that, by implication, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should appear to equate entertainment with American entertainment? Surely this is only right if it can be shown that the film industry of this country, if given a fair chance, is unable to produce films of a quality and attraction equal to that of the films provided by the United States of America. This contention is surely non-proven, because so far the British film industry has hardly had a chance; neither have the British film public had a chance of exercising a real option as to which type of film they prefer. They have not been able to follow Hamlet's injunction:

"Look here, upon this picture, and on this"—

and then express their view as to which is preferable. There are, I well know, some very good American films, but not all American films are of so high a standard as should dismay the British film industry in its efforts to compete.

I would quote a very short extract from a film criticism which caught my eye last Sunday when I was considering this matter. It said:

"Within 15 minutes of the beginning of this whimsical romance in a luxury hotel, I felt that I would willingly mow down the entire personnel with a hatchet."

If that is the effect of that particular film upon a refined young lady writing for one of the more genteel Sunday newspapers, I hesitate to think what would be the effect on more robust males. I do not want to labour this point, but surely it is unthinkable, however, good some American films may be, that the total resources of the technical ingenuity and of the literary inspiration of this country should not be able, at least, to overhaul and outdistance such stuff as that. The fact, of course, is that it is not for want of the ability to do so. It is for want of the opportunity. Under the quota legislation now existing, exhibitors are under a statutory obligation to show 15 per cent. of British films; but last year there were in the neighbourhood of 1,000 defaults, in which cases the exhibitors attributed the impossibility of carrying out their obligations to the shortage of British films.

That shortage is, no doubt, substantially due to the difficulties of studio space and manpower. It does not appear that much progress has so far been made in the release of studio space or of manpower to assist the film industry. I think the Parliamentary Secretary would bring considerable encouragement and comfort if, when he replies, he could say that more is being done in regard to the release of studio space and manpower, and that these two things will be synchronised together so that what is given with one hand is not withheld by the other. This matter of studio space and manpower is also relevant when we come to consider the possibility of the American film corporations producing a certain number of their films in this country. If they did that, they would at least bring dollars here to be expended on British labour and material in exchange for a reasonable retractation of profit into the United States; but, at the moment, they cannot do it because of the lack of studio space and manpower. Even if the American corporations do that it does not meet the point that we must have in this country a thriving film industry.

I leave to others who are connected with the film industry the difficult question of the relationship of the independent producers to the combines. I would make only these two points on that. First, I hope that the independent producer will be able to produce films suitable to country and provincial taste, even if they do not meet the perhaps more sophisticated taste of what I believe is known in the trade as the London Release Area. Secondly, I want the independent producer to be given at least as good a chance of starting or resuming production as the combines have. But I do not want it to be at the expense of the combines. I want to see a simultaneous advance along the whole film front, taking as its objective the highest possible standard of film entertainment in this country. I use the word "entertainment" because films are primarily that, of course; but the implication of this matter is wider than that. The films are the biggest potential vehicle for the carriage of ideas that the world has ever seen, and we, in this country, must get our vehicle out of the rut. Films should be the bagmen not only of our commerce but of our ideas, to show abroad our way of life; and also, no less important, to interpret our own culture and our own way of life to our own young cinema-going public here at home.

In my view, the Government should need no stimulus to urge them on in this matter. Rarely has there been so large and impressive an array of arguments marshalling itself without requiring any effort of assembly or deployment. I urge on the Parliamentary Secretary to bear in mind the great importance, not only from the financial point of view, but from the cultural point of view, of having a thriving film industry in this country. Unlike other hon. Members who have spoken I have no connection with the film industry. I have no interest to declare other than one, which I declare freely and frankly; it is the interest of the British people—economic and cultural—which I believe is closely bound up in this matter. To sit still and take a back seat in the matter of film production would be an unwarrantable act of defeatism. Interminably to wait and feed on the crumbs which fall from the rich American table would be an act not in keeping with the position of a country which is the custodian of a great and ancient culture such as ours. I therefore invite the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, to say what the Government will do to help the film industry of this country to play its part in maintaining and interpreting that British culture of which this generation is the trustee for those who are to come.

I had not really intended to take part in this Debate, but there has been such an oppressive atmosphere of good will between those on all sides that I thought it necessary to introduce a certain degree of controversy. Hon. Members on one side have applauded the sentiments expressed by those on the other side of the House; the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) startled the House by supporting the temporary Leader of the Opposition, and we have had an alliance of fat men and lean men. I do not believe that all is so well in the film industry that we can agree in that manner. We have been told by the Noble Lord the right hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) of the great contributions of Mr. Rank to the British film industry. Certainly he has made great contributions, but we should also recognise that some of the difficulties which the Government will have to face in meeting the request made by those who have raised this matter are due precisely to the policy which Mr. Rank has pursued in the past.

Three, four or five years ago there was great controversy in the film industry as to whether the British film industry should copy the policy of the industry in America, or whether it would be wiser to have a policy of producing many more films costing less which would be able to supply the British market. In those days Mr. Rank, having won the argument, believed it was possible by producing these expensive films to batter his way into the American market. As a result, we saw Mr. Rank swallowing up most of the independent producers in this country. It is interesting to learn, from those who speak on behalf of Mr. Rank and his friends, that now, very late in the day, Mr. Rank has come to the conclusion that it is not so easy to get into the American market. It is a pity for the British film industry that he did not make up his mind about that and take the advice of those who knew, three or four years ago. If he had, the independent producers in this country might be in a better position than they are today. Therefore, we should recognise the real reasons why it is difficult to get into the American market. It is not because the American film industry in some degree is in the same position as the British film industry, which is under some monopoly; it is not because the American monopoly are deliberately excluding British films. It is because of the whole film atmosphere which has been built up in the United States. The United States film industry is largely based on the star system. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen referred to his favourite. I was not sure whether it was Fatty Arbuckle or Humphrey Bogart whom he wanted to see.

:I do not see how the hon. Gentleman can say that the American film industry is a monopoly. It consists of eight important companies which are in desperate competition with each other.

On the question of excluding British films, those eight companies in desperate competition manage to get together and reach agreements very well. They reach agreements to exclude British films. They not only exclude them because they want to make more money; they exclude them because they know that, in the atmosphere which they have built up in America, British films will not go down in America. The reason is that British films have not got the stars which are known and publicised throughout America. As a result, even if the eight American companies got together, and agreed that they would be of assistance to the British film industry by showing British films in America, they would find they would not get the returns until a great amount of publicity had been carried out in America. We should, therefore, recognise that it is not easy to get our way in the American market, and the real problem for the British industry is to build up an industry which can supply the British markets. It is good to learn that Mr. Rank has at last come round to that view, but I do not think we ought to be led astray into thinking that we should pay such tributes to him when, in fact, he is responsible very largely for the situation which makes it difficult for the Government to carry out the policy of excluding American films.

There is one further point I should like to make. The Noble Lord the Member for Horsham referred to the dangers of allowing the Government to control the films that were to, be produced. In this matter of the dissemination of ideas, whether by films, newspapers or by any other methods of expressing and publicising opinion, it is of course dangerous that the Government should intervene and have power, but it is equally dangerous that there should be this progress towards monopoly. No one can deny that there has been progress towards monopoly in the film industry or that the process of concentration is going on in the newspaper industry, and this is a highly dangerous state of affairs. Hon. Members opposite sometimes betray that they are interested in the cause of freedom, but when it comes to a question of the film industry apparently they are prepared to see this trend towards monopoly go on without protesting.

I believe that a Labour Government that really believes in freedom should take a different view. It should examine the report made by the Films Council on this situation and realise that there are enormous dangers in having this great new industry, with all its potentialities for affecting the minds of the people, concentrated in the hands of a very few men. We have seen that danger in America and I believe there is danger in this country. There can be no possible defence on any ground of freedom for allowing the same man who produces the films to own the theatres in which they are exhibited. That brings about a situation where the pro- ducer is able to foist upon the public anything he desires. I hope the Government will realise that in dealing with this film industry situation they are dealing with a situation which does affect the whole issue of freedom in this country. We have had many speeches and Debates in this House about freedom to print. The freedom to show films is just as important, and the whole question needs to be examined from that aspect. This may appear a difficult and disagreeable thing to say but I agree with my hon. Friends on that side of the House that it is most important that we should make it clear to the people on the other side of the Atlantic that we are not prepared to take this situation lying down, but that we intend to build up a British film industry which shall represent the ideals of the British people and not the ideals of a few Moguls on the other side of the Atlantic.

It is late, and I desire to make only two of the points I would have wished to make, but I think they are important. I should like to draw the attention of the House and of the Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade to the issue of censorship. I hope that the lesson, which I believe the Board of Trade has learned very well about literature, will apply equally to films, and that there will not be any censorship, whatever arrangement may be come to of any limiting character. The second point I should like to make, and it is in a large degree in answer to a point made by the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), is to congratulate the hon. Member for South Leeds (Mr. Gaitskell) on his recent appointment as Vice-Chairman and Economic Adviser of the British Films Producers' Organisation, which has been widely acclaimed in the trade Press, and to ask him to go to the hon. Member for Devonport and get from him those points—after all, they are on the same side of the House—so that he may give economic advice to the Combine in the desired direction.

The hon. Member for South Leeds was, I believe, the Principal Assistant Secretary in charge of the Industry and Trade Sections at the Board of trade which were responsible for the film industry. I am not saying that there is anything in any way wrong in the assumption from a Government post of that post of Economic Adviser and Vice-chairman of the film producers' organisation in this country. If there is any moral it is that Members on the other side of the House should not throw bricks at Members of this House of any party if they take gainful employment outside. I think, however, that the present Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade should be aware of that duality as between the hon. Member's present position with the Film Producers' Organisation and his past responsibility in a Government Department and that he should bear that relationship in mind in the future and in considering the points that have been put to him during this Debate by various Members on all sides of the House.

I do not want to go into the question of the origin or build-up of the American film industry, which was an entirely different process from the build-up of the film industry in this country. If anyone studies the build-up of the American film industry it will be seen that they did not start that build-up with people with a long and distinguished experience in the theatre. That is one important fact, though I have not time to go into it now, but in our films we see time and time again those artists who are taking part in the film coming on and deliberately acting before our eyes instead of naturally coming on to the pictures. Another thing is that in this country we have, in developing the films, developed an accent, the public school accent. I do not know how it works out in England but in 99 cases out of 100 when a British film is shown in Scotland scarcely any of the audience can understand a word that is being said. They do not speak "basic" English. You hear the most peculiar sounds.

I wish to refer once again, as I did in connection with another subject, to the unspeakable twaddle that we hear about showing the British way of life. There is no such thing as the British way of life. Shortly after the war started, or possibly just before, we had a film called "The Englishman's Home." Was it a home in a slum area; was it a council house? The Englishman's home was a lovely country mansion. Is that the British way of life? Another film was called "Demi-Paradise." It was a picture of a young Russian engineer who had come over to this country in connection with some shipbuilding business and his hosts were going to show him the British way of life. He went to the shipbuilding firm and there he met the owner, who was sitting in a big office and occupied with a jigsaw puzzle. He was so clever that he did not have to bother about the shipbuilding. The visitor meets the shipbuilder's family and the friends of the family in the country, and they are all nice people. The one person he did not meet throughout the whole of the film was a worker. That is their conception of the British way of life. It is a very stupid class presentation. It is one of the evils of this country. No country in the world has, from the point of view of its history and traditions, greater opportunities for making magnificent films embodying everything needed for entertainment, for education and for culture than our own country, but that has never been done. The Minister, if he is to assist the film industry, must see to it that the whole build-up of the industry, the character of the material that is brought in and the presentation of it, is altered from top to bottom. I am certain that we could build up a magnificent film industry if the masses of the people were brought into it, and the Labour Government ought to be capable of bringing them in.

Like other hon. Members, I must ask for the indulgence of the House when addressing it for the first time. It is true that I have opened my mouth on two previous occasions. The first time I answered one Question and the second time I answered two; but that experience gave me the uneasy feeling of a bather entering the sea by inches, and I was envious of those hon. Members who had been able to take the plunge on the first occasion. I am glad to be able to assure the hon. Member who initiated this Debate that the Government intend to be as cautious in spending foreign exchange upon the import of non-essentials as any citizen of Aberdeen could desire them to be. During the period of reconversion we have to receive some financial assistance from our Allies, but we do not intend to use that help for prodigal expenditure. I am not sure that I would be prepared to adopt completely the attractive alliterative formula which the hon. Member suggested might be used, but I would gladly substitute for it the phrase, "Food before films." By every means in our power, restriction of imports as well as expansion of exports, we intend to hasten the coming of the day when our balance of payments will once more be in equilibrium and the need for special assistance disappear.

Our dollar expenditure upon American films is undoubtedly larger than the nation can prudently afford, though it is not as much as some hon. Members seem to suppose. Remittances on this account before the war were estimated at about £7,000,000 annually. During the war they have been as follow: To October, 1940, £4·8 million; October, 1941, £5·7 million; October, 1942, £8·5 million; October, 1943, £26·5 million; October, 1944, £15·6 million; and for the nine months to July, 1945, £13·3 million. The reason for the sudden jump in 1943 is that before America entered the war part of the total royalties only was allowed to be transferred in dollars and the remainder was credited to blocked accounts. Those blocked accounts, less any amount spent in this country, were released for transfer after America entered the war. I can say at once that the blocked account method is one to which we should be sorry to have to revert. It means the piling up of debt which remains a burden even though payment be postponed. We much prefer to meet current liabilities as they arise. The increase in the figures, in spite of the sharp increase in Entertainment Duty over the same period, is conclusive proof that the great mass of the people derive real enjoyment from going to the pictures. A great industry employing many thousands of people caters for them. We should all regret if over-hasty steps were to produce chaos and distress, and deprive our people of the relaxation which is the counterpart of the great efforts, in the Forces, in the factories, in the transport services or in the mines, which it is still vitally necessary that they should make.

For the moment it seems that the Government must always be advocating plain living and high thinking, but perhaps I might remind the House that the book which did most to build up the Labour Party in its younger days was called "Merrie England." We are not a Gov- ernment of kill-joys. We have no wish to prevent people from going to the cinema, but we want them to receive good entertainment there. The obvious remedy for our difficulties, as all hon. Members who have taken part in the Debate have said, is to foster and develop in this country the production of high quality films which will not only give pleasure to our own people but will find a ready sale abroad, and be a worthy reflection of British life and culture—British life and culture, I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) of all classes in this country. I welcome the general recognition which most hon. Members have expressed—

Excuse me, but when the hon. Gentleman talks about British life and culture, will he see that there are films of the Peasants' Revolt, the Chartist Movement, the Co-operative Movement and the Trade Union Movement, so as to satisfy a fuller demand for education and entertainment?

And the rise of the British Communist Party.

We shall get the Communist Party into it all right, do not fear.

I think it will be agreed that such films as we have produced during the war have covered a wide range of activities in this country and have certainly not left untouched the life of the working classes. There has been general recognition that an improvement in the quality of British films generally has taken place over recent years. Suggestions for continually improving their quality, such as were made during the Debate will, I am sure, be taken into consideration by the film producers as well as by the Government. We shall study with great care the detailed suggestions that were put forward by the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher).

Progress towards this aim of producing more, and producing better, British films is not likely to be helped if we start by ruthlessly disregarding the interests of the American film producers. We must contemplate discussions with them. I must therefore be careful what I say, in advance of such discussions. Indeed, I hope hon. Members will not press me too far, but I can properly say that while a very considerable reduction in the total of remittances must be regarded as essential, I should be glad to see the maximum contribution thereto made by increased receipts from the showing of British films in the United States. The more we can achieve in this way the easier will be the remainder of the task. It is obvious that the task before us is complicated, and I can only say that much care and attention is being devoted to consideration of the possibilities. I hope that we shall proceed to further action as quickly as circumstances permit.

It would not be wise to hasten the production of British films so fast as to impair their quality, but we are helping British film producers to increase their output. We are in constant touch with the representatives of the industry, both employers and employed. The Noble Lord the right hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) drew special attention to the problems of studio space. I am glad to be able to tell the House that, since V.E. Day, about 40 per cent.of the requisitioned studio space has been cleared and restored to its owners. I hope that, by Easter, more than 90 per cent. will have been restored to the industry. I am advised that, included in that percentage, is Pinewood, which has been specially referred to, as well as a great part of the studios.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. He is making a most admirable statement. May we take what he has just said as a definite promise as to the derequisitioning of studio space, or is that expectation?

The Noble Lord, who is much more experienced in these matters than I, knows that it is very difficult to make categorical promises; but this is the aim. I cannot say more than that it is hoped to achieve it. It is a target which I am sure he will realise is satisfactory.

Not all of this space will become immediately available for production. Several studios have suffered blitz damage, or have been damaged by the occupying Department, or will need extensive modernisation. Much of the damage has already been made good, and building licences have already been agreed to for the greater part of the remainder. Like many other industries, the film industry is suffering, during this period of restriction, not only from a shortage of space but from shortage of manpower. The Minister of Works and the Minister of Labour are co-operating closely with us in the solution of this problem of manpower in the industry. Special arrangements have been made for the supply of manpower, andeven of building labour, for the quick reconstitution of the productive capacity of the industry and for the release of men from the Forces. The House will be interested to know that up to date we have asked for a total of 50 Class B releases and have already secured 30 of them—that is to say, 30 releases have been approved, but I will not say that the 30 men have all come back.

One hon. Member asked that we should synchronise the provision of manpower with the release of studio space. That is what we are attempting to do. Then again, we cannot expect a rapid increase in the output of good quality films without good equipment. Equipment is to the film industry what machine tools are to the engineering industry. It is now our aim to produce all types of equipment here which will be the equal of the Americans', and so eventually become independent of importation. So we have been encouraging British equipment manufacturers to proceed with experimental work and the development of prototypes, and we have been doing our best to find them more labour. It is recognised, however, that during the interim period, while British manufacturers turn over from war to peace production, the film industry must not be allowed to suffer from lack of tools. Accordingly, importation has been authorised during the last nine months for more than £70,000 worth of equipment. Probably another £100,000 will be required over the next two years.

The hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) and the hon. Member for Devonport(Mr. Foot) have touched upon the question of monopoly. That matter also has not been forgotten, and if I do not expatiate upon it this afternoon I hope that will be well understood—and I am sure that the right hon. Member for Oxford University (SirA. Salter) will be only too glad that I do not. This is another large question, and I do not think it would be desirable at this late hour to attempt to discuss it. The Report of the Film Council on monopoly in the industry has been carefully studied. I will say no more about it than that I hope it will not be very long before my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will be able to say more on the subject.

Hon. Members have also asked that we should increase the quota of British films exhibited. We want to do that. That was what the original Act contemplated, and as and when a flow of British films comes forward it is 'the intention of the Government that the quantity should gradually be raised; but we must not expect a great deal before the present Act expires, in 1948. I hope I have said sufficient to indicate that the Government are greatly interested in this question, that we are alive to all the difficulties which confront the industry, and that we are anxious to deal with them. The question will remain under our constant and active consideration.

I want now to bring an entirely different question to the notice of the House. I would like to ask the Government a number of questions about U.N.R.R.A., and what the Government are doing to improve and to help it. A few weeks ago we had an interesting Debate on the general conditions in Europe. I do not wish to traverse the same ground, but very little was then said about U.N.R.R.A., although a considerable part, though only a part, of Europe is within the ambit of U.N.R.R.A.'s authority. I would like to raise these questions now for this reason. In August, the Council of U.N.R.R.A. met and decided upon a considerable extension of U.N.R.R.A.'s responsibility. At the same time they decided by resolution that a considerable extra financial contribution would be required from the contributing countries, in order to enable those responsibilities to be undertaken. Speaking in this House three weeks ago, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said that the situation would be disastrous unless those new resources—which, according to my information are not yet forthcoming—were rapidly provided.

During the last two years there have been many crticisms of U.N.R.R.A. Many of those criticisms have been well founded. There have been grave defects, some of which have been the fault of U.N.R.R.A. itself and some have been due to causes partly or largely outside the control of U.N.R.R.A. In March this year, I ventured to say that the Governments who had set up U.N.R.R.A. in 1943 had started it too early, organised it too cumbrously, circumscribed it too narrowly and advertised it too enthusiastically.

I also remarked that at that time, 15 months after U.N.R.R.A. had been set up, U.N.R.R.A. was not operating on its own responsibility, apart from a few odd jobs, in any country in Europe. It was inevitable in those circumstances that many mistakes and defects should occur, and they did occur, and that there should be a sense of frustration in the staff of U.N.R.R.A. and in the public generally.

A great deal, however, has happened since then. The responsibility and the work of U.N.R.R.A. have greatly increased. I understand that at this moment U.N.R.R.A. is operating on a great scale in Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland. It has limited responsibilities in Italy which will soon be greatly increased, and it has worked, although under the overriding responsibility and authority of the military, in regard to displaced persons in Germany. Not only has its actual work at this moment greatly increased but, as I said just now, decisions of the Council contemplate an early and great further extension of its responsibilities. We were all glad in these circumstances to hear the Foreign Secretary say three weeks ago that he had been struck by the remarkable improvement in U.N.R.R.A.'s efficiency during the last two or three months. I hope that generalisation was fully justified, and that the Minister who is to reply to this Debate will be able to amplify that rather general statement.

The point I now wish to make is that, over the very considerable area of responsibility which is and is to be U.N.R.R.A.'s, there is no alternative administration or instrument of action in the winter which is ahead of us. U.N.R.R.A. in that sphere of responsibility, is indispensable. If there are difficulties they must be removed as far as possible, the one thing we must not do is to allow U.N.R.R.A.'s resources to be in any degree restricted. We must do our best both to help and to improve where improvement is necessary. With that preamble, I wish to ask a number of specific questions of the Government and I apologiseto the House if I seem to be rather producing a questionnaire than a speech, because I think that this form will perhaps economise the time of the House.

In the first place, I would like to ask the Minister of State whether he is able to give us anything in the way of global facts and figures which will indicate the magnitude and scale of U.N.R.R.A's achievements up to date. In the second place, I would like him to say something about the new or increased responsibility of U.N.R.R.A. I will take two which have long been within the ambit of its terms of reference, but on which work is only beginning—and first ask about the Far East. It was liberated much later than Europe. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us anything about the policy and plans of U.N.R.R.A. with regard to relief and rehabilitation in the Far East? How does the policy differ from what is being done in Europe? What does he contemplate will be the proportion of expenditure which will be involved in the Far East as compared with Europe?

Next, I would like to refer to U.N.R.R.A's. work in regard to displaced persons. U.N.R.R.A. is doing a good deal of work for them, but under the overriding authority of the military authorities. I think the military authorities have done a very remarkable piece of work in returning to their own countries the vast bulk of those allied displaced persons in respect of whom there was no serious political obstacle to their immediate repatriation. That has been the work of the military authorities; U.N.R.R.A. has-been helping to a certain extent under military direction and control and I understand that U.N.R.R.A. is running under military control a certain number of camps. It is, I imagine, contemplated that U.N.R.R.A. will soon take over direct responsibility for dealing with the remaining hundreds of thousands or, it may be more than hundreds of thousands, of these displaced persons. I would like the Minister to make some statement as to when it will assume direct responsibility and how it will discharge it.

Those who remain among the Allied displaced persons are worthy of very special attention and consideration by the Government. They are, predominantly, the victims of Nazi terror over five or six years. They are the starved and emaciated survivors of a much greater number who have been killed or have died in the course of occupation. They are, and have been for those years of torment, looking forward to allied victory as their one hope, and to many hundreds of thousands of them the fruits of victory must have been as bitter in the mouth as Dead Sea fruit. I do not know how many Members have read the account by Mr. Earl Harrison, published in September, in which he painted a terrible picture of the conditions of the camps in which these victims of Nazi aggression were still being maintained. I believe that since then some improvements have been made. I hope the Minister will be able to give us some information about those improvements. But it remains the case that some hundreds of thousands, and possibly over a million, displaced persons are still left under conditions of restraint in camps, with all the unnatural conditions and restriction of liberty that that implies, and with all the frustration of idleness and disappointed hopes. I do not know whether any wider policy is now being contemplated for the considerable proportion of this million or so who will probably not be capable of repatriation for a long period of two or three years. Is there any plan, for example, for establishing the different racial units in separate island areas where they can develop a free communal life, instead of being left in concentration camps? I will not detain the House by developing the details of a possible scheme of this kind. I have been in communication with the Minister on this and I hope he will now, or a little later, have something to say on the matter.

I turn from the present responsibility, recently enlarged and expanded, of U.N.R.R.A. to the new tasks entrusted to it in August. First, in regard to Italy, where hitherto U.N.R.R.A. had a very limited task—but where it is now to be given the general responsibility for civilian relief. Can the Minister tell us whether that extended work has yet begun? If not, when is it likely to be begun? Is it waiting on the provision of extra financial resources or what is it waiting for? Can he say anything as to the scale on which action is contemplated? Next, as regards Austria, which in some respects is even more urgent. All the reports indicate that there is already something like mass starvation in Austria. The Council decided that U.N.R.R.A. should take over responsibility for civilians in Austria. Has that work begun? Is U.N.R.A.A. operating? If it is not operating, has it constructed a policy? Finally, it was, I think, decided that U.N.R.R.A. should take on work possibly in Russia, particularly in the Ukraine. There have certainly been proposals that U.N.R.R.A. should extend its relief to some parts of Russia—

The Minister of State (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker): There were applications from the Ukrainian and Byelo-Russian Republics, which were examined and recommended by the Committee which deals with the ability of countries to pay for their relief.

The Foreign Secretary, a few weeks ago did refer to the prospect that U.N.R.R.A. would be operating in the Ukraine at an early date. Those are all the questions I wish to ask about U.N.R.R.A.'s recently increased work and new responsibilities.

I would now like to ask something about the character of U.N.R.R.A.'s work. U.N.R.R.A. covers not only relief, but rehabilitation. One of the favourable factors at the conclusion of hostilities was that there had been a great deal less destruction of industrial plant than had previously been feared. That means that there is the possibility of an earlier return to self-supporting production in Europe, when the special soup kitchen or first-aid methods can be replaced by real reconstruction. Can the Minister say to what extent raw materials and spare parts and industrial plant and so on are forming part of U.N.R.R.A.'s programme? Can he say whether, when we get beyond the scope of U.N.R.R.A.'s responsibility for rehabilitation and get to the real task of reconstruction, the Allied Governments are contemplating any further machinery to co-ordinate their aid in this reconstruction?

Many important questions arise as to U.N.R.R.A.'s present work. Can the Minister say anything about the efficiency, honesty and equity of the distribution of U.N.R.R.A.'s supplies in the countries they are now serving? We have heard a great many tales about U.N.R.R.A.'s supplies getting into the "Black market" or being distributed as political rewards. Can he say anything, distinguishing perhaps between different countries—for example Greece, where we have heard a great deal about U.N.R.R.A. supplies getting into the "black market" and the countries which have something like a totalitarian regime? To take, for example, Yugoslavia, which I will not call exactly a totalitarian country, but perhaps a Titotalitarian country. Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication of U.N.R.R.A.'s permitted methods of inspection and control which ensures that U.N.R.R.A.'s supplies are going where they should?

That is all I want to ask about U.N.R.R.A. itself. I would now like to ask a series of questions as to His Majesty's Government's contribution. In January, 1944, I think, this Parliament agreed to an allocation of £80,000,000 sterling for U.N.R.R.A., or 1 per cent of our national income. In August of this year the Council indicated that a further 1 per cent. of the national income would be required from each contributing country. I do not know whether an arrangement has been made for the supply of the additional £80,000,000 and how far the first £80,000,000 has been effectively spent.

That brings me to what is in some respects more important than the financial contribution, the releasing of supplies. The £80,000,000 national contribution is only expendable, except for a small fraction, in the contributing country's currency, so that what is in some respects more important to U.N.R.R.A. is that the actual goods should be available. Is the Minister confident that everything has been done and is being done to draw upon military reserves which can be made available? I do not wish to say anything more now about the question of lorries because I realise that a great deal has been done recently to increase their delivery. I do not know whether more can and should be done, but I would put greater emphasis on other forms of supplies. As regards food, the Minister of Food after the Debate in this House a few weeks ago did make a considerable contribution from military reserves of food. Has he got all that can be got from that source? The House will have seen a restrained notice in the Press as to these releases. I think the Minister of Food was rather unnecessarily coy in his announcement and that, if the right hon. Gentleman had been more explicit, he would have found that there are considerable sections of the public which would not only have supported him in his action, but have encouraged him to further action.

I think that probably the right hon. Gentleman might find further supplies where he has already found some. I am not thinking only of food. There are many other military supplies. I ask the Minister to inquire of the U.N.R.R.A. authorities and of the authorities responsible for other countries, the national Governments or the occupying forces, as to what things they want of a kind which are now in military reserves, and then to satisfy himself personally that everything is being done to make those goods available. I am pretty sure that not everything is being done at present, and that a good deal more could be done in this direction.

I come now to the question of anything that may be available from civilian resources. As I have said before, I am not asking, and I never have asked, that supplies should be sent elsewhere at the cost of reducing the standard rations in this country or at the cost of reducing our stocks here below the point at which the compulsory rations would be endangered. But of course, our stocks here are considerably higher, even though they have been reduced, than they were before the war. I should have been pressing earlier for a considerable withdrawal from these stocks, but for the well known fact that, owing to strikes on both sides of the Atlantic, and owing to the dislocation of the whole of our importation arrangements which has resulted from the sudden cancellation of Lend-Lease, the regularity of our imports, which alone made possible stocks as low as they were in 1937 and 1938, cannot for the time being be relied upon. I quite realise that while there are temporary disturbances to regular imports, the stocks cannot be brought down to the minimum peacetime level. But what I asked the Minister of Food the other day, and now ask the Minister of State, is whether he will now give an undertaking that the Government will make a farther contribution from the excess of our stocks over peacetime standards as and when importation becomes regular and the temporary disturbances of regular importation disappear. This would involve no reduction of our rations and no danger to them.

That is practically all the long list of questions that I wish to put to the Minister, but there is one last request that I want to repeat. In the last Debate on this subject, I asked the Minister of Food whether he would arrange for the Government to publish a White Paper in which they would summarise, not in voluminous, but in graphic and convenient form, the illuminating information which the Government have in their possession about conditions in different parts of Europe and about the resources in this country and in other countries with which the necessities of Europe could be met. The Minister of Food at first said, "No." Later in the Debate, he said he would consider the matter again, and a little later still the Under-Secretary went a step further. I ask the Minister of State whether he will take a further step now and definitely promise that White Paper. I am sure the Government and the country have everything to gain and nothing to lose in doing so.

I have suggested certain directions in which I think the Government might very well do rather more, but, due regard being had to our relative resources, this country need not fear comparison with any other country. It has nothing but credit to gain by giving an account of this kind. More than that, the action of this Government and of other Governments depends, and must depend, upon the support of their respective publics. The public here and elsewhere has no chance at present of realising what the position really is, what the resources are, and what they may be justly and fairly asked to do. Of course, I do not think for one moment that millions of the public on this side of the Atlantic or on the other would rush to buy a White Paper. But there are other people, writers and correspondents on this side of the Atlantic and on the other side, who would write what the public in their millions would buy and read, if only there were available to them a convenient mine of information which does not at present exist.

I know that certain parts of such a White Paper would be less complete than others. I am sure that difficulties of that sort could be easily met, and I am sure that a document of the utmost possible value could be produced without any great trouble. I am sure the Government would find themselves supported in what they have done, and supported in the further measures that they will doubtless wish to take. I am sure, too, that the effect would be that across the Atlantic, where there are ampler resources, we should find the writers there, and writers from here for the newspapers there, making a real effort to arouse the latent forces of benevolent good will which are there as amply as the material resources. I appeal to the Minister to consider the publication of such a White Paper.

I do not propose to dilate once more upon the gravity of this problem. The House has shown that it realises the gravity of the situation and the consequences that may arise, and that it is profoundly concerned; and in justice I must add that Members of the Government who have spoken have also shown that they are profoundly anxious. The most tragic feature of this great tragedy that hangs over Europe is that, as history looks back, it will be clearly seen that tragedy, on the scale on which it is likely to occur, was not the inevitable consequence of either material destruction, or of a world shortage of necessities. Much that could have been prevented cannot now be prevented, but even at this moment I am sure it is possible both to alleviate the tragedy and abbreviate it.

I wish to support the plea which my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) has made to the Government to publish as much data as they can, because I am sure, as he said, that this country will stand well in the revelations that are made. It is of vital importance that public opinion should be made to support the policy which the Government would wish to follow, and the only way in which public opinion can be properly created is by ensuring that the facts are at the disposal of those people who write in the Press, make speeches and carry out other duties for the purpose of informing the public.

I do not propose to follow my right hon. Friend in asking more questions. I feel that he has almost turned this afternoon into Question time for the Minister of State, and that the Minister will find himself hard put to it to answer all the questions before the appointed hour; but there are one or two suggestions I would like to make to the Minister of State. I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food is present, because part of what I wish to say has reference to her Department; I was, indeed, told that the Minister of Food would be here, but I understand I was misinformed. Generally speaking, I want to support what was said by my right hon. Friend about the urgency of giving 100 per cent. support to U.N.R.R.A., and extending its scope. I am told that to carry out these intended obligations is a pretty severe problem, and I realise that, but I would like to see the scope extended to cover all distressed persons, whether enemy or neutral. That, however, may not be practicable. I was particularly struck by the right hon. Gentleman's appeal regarding Austria. Austria, I remember, was one of those places whose freedom and independence was particularly guaranteed in the early stages of the war—at any rate, at one of the conferences which took place while hostilities were still in full swing—and the reports we are receiving from Austria are deplorable.

I propose to confine my remarks to a few suggestions on how we might help further than we are doing already, and here I touch upon the work of the Ministry of Food. I know it is not the fault of this Government that the percentage extraction of flour was reduced from 85 per cent. to 80 per cent. That was done by the previous Government, but the fact remains that that reduction meant the importation of 325,000 tons more wheat for milling. Whatever may be said by the disputants on whether the loaf is better white or better brown, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the result of the 85 per cent. extraction rate was that the health of the nation was higher than it had ever been. I know that the Nutrition Committee are supposed to have supported this reduction, but I, frankly, do not believe that they did so. However, as that is to be the subject of another Debate and has nothing to do with the Minister of State, I leave it at that. I am pretty confident that, at the time, the reduction was made for no better reason than to suit the millers' combine, and I shall endeavour to prove that on another occasion. It seems to me that since, as I have said, that reduction meant the loss of 325,000 tons of shipping space and an extra cost of about £1,500,000 a year, some further contribution could be made by going back to the 85 per cent. loaf. I would like to argue that on another occasion.

The second appeal I make to the Government is that they should do all they possibly can to help voluntary efforts that may be made in this country to support U.N.R.R.A. I, with others in this House, have been engaged in trying to arrange for certain credits to be made available in Denmark, in order that surplus food in that country can be given to the starving people of Europe, wherever they may be. The astonishing thing is that, having been spending something of the order of £4,000,000,000 a year in blowing peoples' heads off, we now find the greatest difficulty in getting the Treasury to agree to a paltry £250,000 being sent to Denmark for the purpose of buying food. In Denmark, food is so plentiful that it is literally rotting. They reckon that they have 20,000 head of cattle a week surplus, and have nowhere to send it; they have a proportionate amount of other animals and other kinds of foodstuffs. I appeal to the Government to support the work that U.N.R.R.A. is doing, by stopping this nonsense about the "dead hand" of the Treasury, which at present tries to stop this humane effort. A sum of £250,000 is absolutely nothing, and it is rubbish that any Department should be allowed to stand in the way of any humane contribution which can be made from this country. The whole thing is organised there is no difficulty about it; the Trans-Continental Relief Committee of Denmark are willing to organise and administer it. They are already shipping 100 tons a week, and they want to ship 3,000 tons. Put into tons, to what does this scheme we are trying to arrange amount? It amounts to about 600 tons, or less than one-fifth of what could be sent as relief every week if proper support were forthcoming. I hope the Government will do all they can to encourage this scheme.

I now come to a very serious criticism of Government policy, and that is that, at this stage in our affairs, they should see fit to increase our own rations. It can of course be said that I, like many other hon. Members of this House, am one of those fortunate people who manage, because the circumstances of our lives enable us to have more food off the ration than most people. That is perfectly true, but that is not what I am getting at. The facts of the matter are these. At this very moment, responsible British people in the occupied territories and elsewhere are reporting that millions of people will die of starvation in Europe this year. At the same moment, it is decided by the Ministry of Food that our rations shall be increased for Christmas. I am not suggesting for a moment that it is a bad thing to give the kids more chocolates—I am all for it—but I do not believe that it is really necessary, in the interests of the health of the population, to increase rations at this time, and it is a thoroughly bad example to the rest of the world. It is suggested that we are to have an extra pound of sugar for the period. That means 45,000,000 pounds of sugar. I know it is not very much—2,000 tons—and I am sure a very large number of the people of this country would be willing to go without it, if it could be sent to support the good work that U.N.R.R.A. is doing. It would be all to the good, and I think it would be better used.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University talked about our reserves, and the disclosure thereof. I can never understand the timidity of the Government in dealing with this matter. Why should they not tell us what the reserves are? I hope our Government will not persist in this attitude. I understand why the Tories did so; it was perfectly obvious, and nobody on this side needs to be told. But why we should do it, I cannot understand. The Americans know about this. I was talking to a very responsible American the other day, and he told me what our reserves are. Of course, his figures may be wrong, but this is what is going round America. It is said that our reserves at the present time are, at least, three times as great as they were at the outbreak of war. He put our reserves at no less than 4,000,000 tons of food, and he told me at the same time, that something like 960,000 tons more food are coming from America to this country between that date—it was about 1st October—and Christmas. I do not know whether it is true or not, but they say it is. They are certainly telling the American public so. Why should we not know? If the amount is lower, all right; if it is higher, it does not do any harm to tell us.

Not only have the stock figures been given to the American Government but there was a publication—I think the Minister would confirm this—in the "New York Times" some time ago; I forget the exact date. I think the Minister of Food said the other day that since that time there has been a reduction of our stocks of something like 1,500,000 tons. If that is so, even from the point of view of public opinion in other countries, would it not be better to publish at any rate global figures of our stocks, rather than leave the American public with the impression that our stocks are as high as they were before that reduction?

I am most obliged to my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I leave it at that. I hope the Minister will give us some sort of reply leading us to expect that the British public will be allowed to know the truth. I remember that, all through the war, my complaint against the Tory Ministers and the Government was that the only people they would not tell were the British. The Government would always tell everybody else, but they did not take the British public into their confidence. I want to support my claim that this increase of rations is not necessary by a few figures, and then I shall have finished. I recollect one of those tremendous speeches made by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), about the beginning of the fourth year of the war, in which he was rightly, extolling the magnificent effort made, by the Ministry of Food and the Administration generally to maintain the health of the public and satisfy their appetites. Two of the things he said struck me particularly. He said:

"At the commencement of this, the fourth year of the world war, more people in Scotland are getting three square meals than ever did in peace time."

He went on to say, talking of the children in Glasgow—the particular age group I do not recall, but I think it was the 13-year-olds:

"They are on the average three pounds heavier than they were before the war."

I remember pointing out this, in this House, shortly afterwards, and adding, "fattening them for the slaughter, I suppose." It did not go down very well with the Opposition, but it was typical of their philosophy—and I say that with the greatest offence possible. Now, what have we? We are at the end of the sixth year of war. I have some figures here which are most interesting. Some people say that weare badly fed, that we are starving. I agree that there is not variety, and that everybody would like more; there is no argument about that. But these are the figures. Infant mortality, in 1939, was 51 per 1,000, and in 1944 it had fallen to 46 per 1,000.One can argue that there were fewer births, but I do not think that that comes into it. In 1939 maternal mortality was 3·1 per thousand, and in 1944 it had fallen to 1·95; still births were 38 per 1,000, and in 1944 they were down to 28 per1,000. I know that that is not conclusive evidence, but the figures were brought forward in order to show the additional advantages the people, as a whole, had enjoyed as a result of the administration of the Ministry of Food. It had greatly improved the health of the country and the figures were used to emphasise the fact, which we all know, that the antenatal effect on the child is very great indeed.

There is no excuse whatever for this increase at the present time. What do we find across the Atlantic? At this moment, when literally thousands of people are starving in Europe, the Americans are sending empty boats over here to fetch back their own troops, and yet committees are sitting in the United States to restrict production of food. The whole world has gone crazy, and I believe that if the public here and in America knew the facts they would not stand for it. I am not speaking about starving Germans, as certain sections of the Press said yesterday, but of the people in Europe of whatever nationality. It is a disgrace to the Press that they should quote Members of this House wrongly. If they had had my postbag this morning they would feel as hot about it as I do, and would not make it appear as if one were appealing only for one section. I am upset because of the terrible suffering that humanity is enduring all over the world, and in Europe particularly. I do not mind whether the women and children who suffer are in Germany, Italy or France, or in Timbuctoo; I want to see this, country do all it possibly can to alleviate that suffering. The more widely the position is known, I hope the greater the response will be.

I want very briefly to urge the extension of the U.N.R.R.A. medical relief to Germany. At the beginning of the week I was in Berlin. I was there not as a peripatetic Parliamentarian but as a war correspondent, an occupation which I have followed for several years and a capacity in which I have been able to see some of the devastation of war in many parts of the world. I have seen it in Africa and in Western Europe. In Berlin, the aftermath of war is more horrible in this aspect, than in any part of Europe or of Africa. Berlin is a corpse of a city—a corpse which is still liable to breed infection, which, unless, we control it, will spread throughout Europe and possibly throughout the world. We know that our own military authorities, in conjunction with the Control Commission, are doing miracles in order to help the civil population in the cause of humanity, and also in the cause of our troops who are occupying the country. I was able to see the tail end of the Operation Stork. Those operations consist of the evacuation of children from Berlin into the countryside so that in the coming winter—a winter which, incidentally, has already begun—they will have the opportunity of being fed and of having some of the warmth they would be denied in Berlin. These children, for the most part orphans, all of them otherwise destitute, have been cared for by our military authorities, and the large part of the 25,000 who were to be evacuated have now been sent out into the Hanover region and into other rural parts of Germany, where they will be kept. That has been carried out under the supervision of the military authorities.

But we know that the Army is not organised to look after a civilian population. The Army has certain services, such as its sanitary and medical services, which, under certain conditions, can care for the civilian population; but faced with the enormous problem of caring for the health of literally millions of Germans, our Army is not able to do so. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that there should be some kind of civil administration, seconding the efforts of the Army in order to see that in this coming winter Germany does not become a centre from which those diseases which have already appeared—typhoid, diphtheria and influenza—may spread into the rest of Europe. Already we know that in Berlin the ordinary water from the taps cannot be drunk in its natural condition because typhoid is raging. Diphtheria is common; and influenza, particularly owing to the fact that there is almost no form of heating in Berlin, is something which is liable to spread on a massive scale, similar to the way it spread after the last war.

I went to one of the refugee centres—a refugee transit camp in the Kruppstrasse, Spandau, where I saw some of the refugees who had come from the East and were in transit to the West. I would like to say, in parenthesis, that of these refugees, about 80 per cent. were evacuees who had originally gone from Western Germany and taken refuge in Eastern Germany, and were now trying to return to their homes and were passing through Berlin in transit. The remaining 20 per cent. were people who came from East Prussia and Silesia because they did not like, or, for various reasons, feared, the Russians. That was approximately the proportion which I found by personal conversation with the refugees; but it was confirmed by the military authorities who have charge of refugees and displaced persons. In the refugee transit camp in the Kruppstrasse there were 3,000 people herded together under conditions, which, I am sure, have not existed outside concentration camps—certainly not as bad as concentration camps but almost as bad. I was standing in a very dark corridor where all sorts of shadowy shapes lay crowded together on the floor, and I asked the camp commandant to show me a dormitory or a living room. He looked around him and said, "This is a living room."

That is the condition in which these refugees are living today. I went to the sick room, and there, also, I saw these Germans, who were lying about, very close to each other, covered, if they were lucky, with blankets, or, otherwise, with any kind of material which they were able to find. Most of them were suffering from respiratory affections, which require, in normal conditions, the most careful nursing, and above all warmth, if they are to becured. I asked the sister in charge what she was short of, and she said that she was short of everything. That is literally the condition of these people who are today sick in Germany from infectious diseases which will not be confined to Germany unless they are controlled.

I therefore suggest that the Government should invite U.N.R.R.A. either to alter its constitution so that medical teams can go into Germany in order to look after these sick people, or, alternatively, if it is impossible to alter the constitution of U.N.R.R.A. in that way, U.N.R.R.A. should be invited to release part of the £1,000,000 worth of blankets now lying in America waiting to be sent to this country for use in Europe when conditions may require them. I submit that conditions require them immediately—not tomorrow, not next month, but immediately. These blankets are available, and if part of this £1,000,000 worth of blankets was released so that these people sick in Germany today, could be properly nursed under proper conditions, it might mean that the balance of that £1,000,000 worth of blankets would not be necessary for Europe, because the infections would not have spread from Germany. It is equally clear that, if these people suffering from infectious diseases are not given proper attention, so that these diseases can be controlled, £1,000,000 worth of blankets will not be adequate to get the sick restored to health, because the infection will have spread through Europe.

Therefore, I hope that we will recognise that Germany cannot be isolated from Europe, and that every child that dies in Germany through infectious disease may be duplicated in other parts of Europe to which these infectious diseases may spread. I believe that there will be very few people who will not be responsive to the call of humanity, but, if there are some who are not responsive to that call, then I am sure that even they may be responsive to the call of self-protection. Therefore, because of the motive of self-protection against what may come out of Germany—which, at the present time, is a breeding ground of contagion and infection—and, above all, because the German people are human beings like ourselves, I would urge that we invite U.N.R.R.A. to do everything possible immediately—at least, to send medical teams to Germany, to release medical supplies, and to release blankets, so that disease in Germany this winter may be controlled.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelmann) has been discussing a country for which U.N.R.R.A. has not assumed responsibility. I want to turn to a country where U.N.R.R.A. has assumed responsibility, but in which almost nothing has been done, and to which reference has been made by the Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter). I feel that, before U.N.R.R.A. assumes further responsibilities, we must take into account this particular country. I remember that, during the war, I used to broadcast to Austria, and we used to drop leaflets over the country, promising the Austrians independence and that they would be cared for if they did their part as part of the United Nations, and I cannot help thinking that this House ought to look at the condition of Vienna and the Austrian countryside today. What has Austria got, instead of the independence we promised? She finds herself divided into four absolutely separated zones, making any sort of economic life totally impossible. She has had imposed on her something up to1,000,000 foreign soldiers to defend her from Heaven knows what, and this instead of the independence which we, day after day over the B.B.C. and night after night through British leaflets, promised that desperate and pitiable country.

I ask that the Minister of State should give the House an assurance today that U.N.R.R.A. will not only assume responsibility for Austria but will do something about it now, in the next few weeks, before this winter is fully upon us. I have had some connection with the Socialists of Vienna. After the last war and the incredible suffering which Vienna went through, a beautiful and great town was created in Central Europe—a town in a unique position, because it bound together the West and the East, a town which was a meeting place between the currents of thought from Communist Russia and from us over here. The resurrection of Vienna is not something we plead for only in the name of humanity. We plead for it because of its importance for promoting a peaceful and united Europe and because of the contribution which Vienna can make in helping to keep the peace of Europe. We permitted Vienna to rebuild herself, but we also permitted her once again to be betrayed through the Nazis. I feel that the Western nations have a special responsibility, through U.N.R.R.A., for looking after the Austrian people.

May I turn now to a country adjacent to Austria—Yugoslavia—and here there is a different point to make to the Minister of State. After the last war, one of the disasters was the suspicion—I am afraid very often confirmed—that food was supplied as a political lever to countries which were "good" from the point of view of the nation which supplied the food. If one wanted to suppress a Left-Wing rising in a country, one did not supply them with rations that would enable them to survive. For good or ill, and here I plead guilty in a small way, as a journalist, for an article which I wrote some weeks ago, the impression has gone abroad that, whereas the Western Powers have poured food into Greece, very little went into Yugoslavia. I did go into the matter, and I think there are good and convincing reasons which were given to us indicating that it was partly the Yugoslav suspicions of the conditions under which U.N.R.R.A. officials came into their country which slowed up supplies of food. Unfortunately, the suspicion is very widespread indeed in Eastern Europe that U.N.R.R.A. is supplying much more food, proportionately, to Greece than to Yugoslavia, and conclusions are drawn from that which are wholly disadvantageous to collaboration between the West and the East in Europe. I very much hope that the Minister of State can officially and categorically give the lie to the suggestion that we are in any way denying supplies to Yugoslavia on account of political reasons or dislike of the regime.

May I say one word on another subject which has not been mentioned this afternoon? When we were going forward in Germany and releasing the people in the concentration camps, we found that not only were they needing physical food and clothing but, as the Foreign Secretary said the other day, the blackout of the soul was almost as important as physical starvation, and the complete deprivation of books, of reading materials, of wireless, was almost as fatal to the people in these camps as the shortage of food which they had suffered—indeed, in certain ways it was more fatal, because it had strengthened by 100 per cent. the Nazi propaganda which was being put into the camps to divide the people from each other. Has the Minister of State anything to tell us about the work which is being done, on however small a scale, to help these unfortunate people, who are perforce cooped-up still in Germany in semi-concentration camp conditions, from the point of view of the supply of books, of wireless sets, of the possibilities of camp newspapers— things which are so enormously important to people who have been in prison spiritually all those years? Right at the beginning, when we were opening up in Germany, we had 24 Flying Fortresses at our disposal and we were able to distribute 2,000,000 copies of a four-language newspaper every day by air in bundles to these camps. It is a strange comment that, when one gets back to peacetime, such services are dispensed with or called impossible. But it should be done by land if it is not possible to use Flying Fortresses. The last time I was travelling in Europe I had a suspicion that that side of the work tended to be neglected because of the overwhelming pressure of food and clothing. I believe, however, that a certain amount of that is as important as food and clothing to these people. Particularly because of their inability to work, they need mental activity and the means for mental activity in those camps.

Finally, may I speak on the subject of food and rations raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes)? I rather wish the subject had not been raised this afternoon because I think it is really irrelevant, but, since it has been raised, I think that those of us who differ from him have a duty to say why we differ. The other day a very wise man reminded me of a saying of an elder Socialist, that one of the most common and tragic mistakes of Socialists is to legislate as though the rest of the country were Socialists; that the greatest danger of all is to believe that one's own ideals are always automatically shared by everybody else. I believe that in this particular matter of the small extra grant of rations for Christmas, the Minister of Food has probably done a wise thing in terms of the production of this country. I think it was a wise thing to recognise the fact in a small way at Christmas time that the people in this country, after six years of war, are at peace.

May I interrupt my hon. Friend? I do not object in the slightest to his disagreeing with me. I was not trying to say that people would not like to have more; I said that if the country really knew the facts, a very large majority of the people would be only too willing to give up the extra ration.

It was that view of the hon. Member for Ipswich which I was begging leave to doubt, and whether the Government would be wise to legislate from that point of view. I do not think we fully realise the lack of variety in our food, and the effect on production in this country—at least in the constituency I represent—of the deadly monotony of the food which the people are receiving. The value of this small extra ration is not so much the extra quantity of calories. Rather it is the effect of a little extra for Christmas on production.

The second thing I want to say is this—and it follows on something which the right hon. Member for Oxford University raised. Some hon. Members talk as though no sacrifice has been made by this country, but, compared with countries like the United States—indeed, compared with any country in the world—what has been given by this country already in the cause of Europe is unbelievable.

I do not differ from him. One of the main reasons why I wish to have a really accurate and comprehensive White Paper is that it would incidentally bring out the extent of what we have done.

I was just coming to that point. I think we can afford to give this little extra at Christmas, when we bear in mind what has been given already, and will be given in the future by this country and by the Minister of Food. I was privileged to be a member of a deputation which visited him the other day, and as I sat there I began to wonder whether in any other country in the world there could be a Debate in which, in a friendly way, a Minister of Food was pressed, and had to defend himself, on the subject of whether he should keep this food for the British people. It is a thing of which we can be proud, that in this country the Minister of Food is under constant pressure to cut down what he has in reserve. He was asked, "Have you really scraped the bottom of the barrel?" and he said, "Yes, I really have scraped it." It would be very misleading if any hon. Member gave any other impression than that.

I would like to ask also whether in telling this great story of what we as a country have done already in cutting down our stocks to the minimum, we will remember the fact that next year we shall not get all the wheat we want, and that for this reason we have to maintain stocks for next year. Could not we have this story told to make us proud this Christmas of what we have given away? As members of that deputation know, there would have been a considerably greater special ration this Christmas if we had not given food away, and that fact everyone of us, and everybody in the country, has the right to know this Christmas. Everybody in America and in Europe has the right to know that we are in fact scraping the bottom of the barrel, and that our rations are only the bare minimum to maintain production, if, indeed, it is the bare minimum for that purpose. Those facts must be known in the world if weare to get our contribution to U.N.R.R.A., and to our vast problem of feeding Europe, in the right perspective.

Five minutes ago I had not intended to intervene in this Debate, and I want to do so now only for the purpose of disputing with the hon.. Member for East Coventry (Mr, Crossman) about certain points of fact. He gave an account of a deputation which went recently to the Minister of Food. I also was on that deputation, and I would remind him that the deputation was not for the purpose of arguing with the Minister to cut our rations, or even not to give extra food at Christmas; it was to put in our plea that those of the British public who wished to do so, and who felt they could afford to do so, should be allowed to make some voluntary sacrifice for the starving people of Europe. He did not give that impression—

I think the hon. Lady is thinking of a different deputation. The one at which I was present was solely concerned to see whether any food could be spared for Europe.

I beg the hon. Member's pardon. I had forgotten there were two deputations. Nevertheless, I still quarrel with him because I think he completely underrates the strength of the wish, and the right of the people who express it, that they should be allowed to show either generally to the community of which they are members, or through voluntary sacrifices by individuals, their deep sense of responsibility for what is happening in Europe. The hon. Member talked a good deal about how we need more cheer, and the Minister of Food several times described our present diet as a "semi-diet." There has also been the discussion in the columns of "The Times" as to whether our nutrition was adequate, in which it seemed to me that those who said it was at present inadequate got the worst of it.

The point I want to make is this: For God's sake do not let us forget that we are a democratic people with a long training in the whole technique and morale of democracy. That is what gives us, to an extent to which I do not think any other country has—not even the United States—that deep sense of responsibility for what our Government does and what happens in the world. I think this is one of the most precious traditions that we have. There is all this talk about saving of diet, and about how people want a little extra at Christmas. I think that the children may want a few extra sweets, but are we such a nation of greedy beasts that we want to be reminded of the significance of Christmas by getting a few extra ounces of sweets? It is a very important thing to have a well-nourished nation; it is still more important to have a nation whose imagination and conscience are so sensitive that they cannot bear to rejoice in Christmas so long as they feel that not only tens of thousands but millions of people are to suffer. Some of these people are ex-enemies, if you like, but they include people who had to fight as we never fought—the anti-Nazi Germans who fought, long before we did.

I get letters every day from my constituents—and I am proud of my constituents—and hardly ever is there a letter which does not say, "Do tell us what we can do; do tell us that we can do something to help these people of starving Europe." I had a letter only this morning, which said, "How can I sleep in my warm bed at night, when I think what the mothers, children and old people in Germany are suffering just now?" I think it is a precious thing that they have this sense of responsibility, because I think that is what has helped to make our nation great. I should despair of our nation if I thought that its people were thinking more of what little extra luxuries they could scrounge, than they were of their responsibilities for their fellow Christians, for the people of the liberated areas, for their ex-enemies, because we are a Christian nation after all, or are supposed to be. Let us keep that tradition, because it is a very precious one.

I want to add my voice to those of hon. Members who have appealed to the Minister of State to extend the ramifications of U.N.R.R.A. There is a danger in the House, I think, for us to regard only the distress we find near us. I would like to turn to those parts of Europe of which we know little. I have heard hon. Members in this House ask, "What is happening beyond the iron curtain of Europe?" I would like to tell them that there are distress and starvation, cold and suffering happening there, as in the rest of Europe. I personally find it difficult to draw frontiers in Europe, and to say that U.N.R.R.A. shall help here, and not there. I find it extremely difficult to draw distinctions between nationalities where it is a question of starvation and suffering which is at stake.

We have been told by many Members that starvation and famine are threatening Europe this winter, and that millions will die. I have come back from South-East Europe, and I am convinced that many people there will suffer death this winter, as many as will die in Berlin and elsewhere. I wish to appeal to the Minister to consider whether it is not possible, taking into account the limited resources we have at our disposal, and the limited food supplies and transport, to look upon the problem of starvation in Europe as a whole, and not as so many isolated areas where he can give help.

I would like to refer to the case of Hungary. In the capital city, there is complete destruction, and with it a breakdown in the distribution of food. There are bread queues to be seen in all the streets, and lack of food in the cafes and restaurants. In the factories and other organisations which have their own food supplies, managers and others organise parties to go into the country to try to get food, and they bring it back and distribute it among the workers. There is a complete lack of glass, with the result that a great many of the houses and flats are entirely without windows, and this winter a great many people must die of cold. This is a consideration which no one has mentioned before today. I would like to put it forward when we realise that in Hungary the war was fought over the whole of that area, and the country, once called "the breadbasket of Europe," is now so completely devoid of wheat resources that the Minister of Food of Hungary told me that he could not see how starvation could be prevented by December. In the large towns of that country starvation is likely to come in December. Equally, when one thinks of this great area, which once used to be crowded with livestock, and realises that the war has reduced its capital of cattle from 2,250,000 head to less than 500,000, and that the war destroyed something like 85 per cent. in toto of its horses, sheep, and pigs, one realises that here is a country that has been hit very hard by the war.

Let us not take an isolationist view of Europe at the present time, but let us see the whole picture; and I appeal to the Minister to attempt to spread the efforts of U.N.R.R.A. in this direction. Hon. Members have mentioned Italy. In Southern Italy I saw distress, the like of which I have never seen elsewhere. I appeal to the Minister, as U.N.R.R.A. is developing its attention in that direction, greatly to speed up the help which is being given.

In connection with rations, I do not want to raise the question of rations in this country, but I have the feeling that we might reconsider the rations given to the Armed Forces of the United Nations in Europe. In Vienna, when I was there, I was of the opinion that some of the Armed Forces were receiving rations fax in excess of their needs. I think we should appeal to the American forces to reconsider, whether in fact they have not got rations—very much higher than ours as most hon. Members know—very much in excess of what they themselves require. It was agonizing to me to eat some of these rations, when I knew that outside, in the streets of Vienna, there were people obviously starving. When I was having a meal there I was feeling hungry, because I had had no lunch that day, but I could not do justice to the dinner put in front of me by the people giving me hospitality in an American transit hotel. Will our Transport Command officials reconsider whether they are not giving too much in the way of rations to people who are passing through? There are many staging posts en route to South-East Europe, and each of these give you a ticket for another meal. Is it realised that I could in the course of one day have had probably 10 meals? No one questioned whether I had had lunch or not. Tickets were given out freely to all who came for them. I ask hon. Members to realise that because obviously there must be a leakage of food there, and every little is going to count this winter.

I appeal to the Minister to draw the attention of the authorities to that, to see if we cannot build up some sort of supply. Every little will help. Transport is one of the difficulties. If we can increase the transport services of South-East Europe that will also help. Only one aeroplane goes from Italy to Hungary, and the only entrance into Hungary is by air. Our supplies can go there by only one aeroplane a week. In the case of Bulgaria, it is one aeroplane a week; in the case of Rumania two aeroplanes a week. How can we get supplies to these countries in South-East Europe, if it is not by an increase of transport facilities? Therefore, I would suggest that we take up with the Russian authorities, who, as the occupying authorities in South-East Europe, have the main responsibility, the question of the extension of U.N.R.R.A. I know that the people living in South-East Europe would greatly welcome it. I believe that hon. Members, with that display of humanitarianism and democracy in its best sense, would welcome the development of U.N.R.R.A. over the whole of Europe, so that it can survive the difficult and dreadful winter which is ahead of it.

Everyone who has listened to a large part of this Debate, as I have, must have been deeply impressed by speeches, such as the one just made by the hon. and gallant Member for Wycombe (Flight-Lieutenant Haire), and by hon. Members who have been able to go out and see these things for themselves, and to come back and help us with the fruits of their knowledge. The speech of the hon. Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman) showed a great balance of judgment of what is possible and what is needed at the present time. It struck me that, after all, we have to deal with this matter from the practical angle as to how much help we can give. I believe that in this country today there is a great realisation of the facts in Europe as a whole. The men coming back from the Forces have spread the knowledge to a considerable extent. There are also large numbers of people in this country—a large number in my division to give an example—who have considerable knowledge and considerable information from friends and relatives out there. The position, so far as this country is concerned, is that we want to help to the fullest possible extent. That is common ground which has emerged from the Debate so far.

There are two suggestions I wish to make. Both have already been made to a limited extent. In the first place, I think it is right that there should be a great deal more publicity, not only in this country but abroad, as to what we have sent and given up from this country. It has been very large. I get letters complaining that some of us look as though we were well fed and others look less well fed, but the fact remains that we cannot cut indefinitely. There is also that section of the community which has suffered most in relation to food throughout the war, the small household, where there is a spinster or two old people, or two young people for that matter, living in a house by themselves. Very often they fare worse than anyone else. Nothing can be done to reduce the general ration at the present time. In our interests, and the interests of Europe and of other nations, we should make clear to the world over and over again how much we are giving to Europe. If we do that it will be a help in more ways than one.

Something further needs to be done. I want to ask the Government whether it is possible—I have constituents who put this point of view to me—to organise in this country voluntary gifts to help U.N.R.R.A. and Europe, where necessary. It may not be possible, it may well not be practicable, but the idea has run through several speeches already, and it is for the Government to give a definite lead, and say whether it is possible or practicable. If it is possible it might help. I do not intend to throw cold water on or to praise the idea. I do not know, only the Government can say, if it is possible. There is transport and there are various bodies such as friendly societies and religious bodies, who would be glad to know whether they can do something to help an organisation of that kind. There is also the question of whether some of the ability and organising capacity which we have seen displayed today and on other occasions might not be used for the purpose of collecting food for Europe. The country should be told whether that is a practical way of doing it or not. If it is, let us get on with it. If not, the sooner the kindly people who think it is possible are told, the better for the country. Do not let us have the secrecy that we seem to be having about so many of these things. I thought that was confined to the wicked Tories. Do let us know if it is possible to do more in a voluntary way.

I rise to reinforce the appeal already made on behalf of the people of Europe. I have also been to many countries referred to today—Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other countries—and I can speak with a certain amount of experience of what is happening. I wish particularly to appeal on behalf of Austria, because that country stands somehow in a rather peculiar and unusual position in this matter. It was made clear at the Potsdam Conference that there should be no discrimination, either of nationality or race, between those who would receive help and rehabilitation, but it happens the Council of U.N.R.R.A., before they can take effective action, must apparently secure an invitation from the country concerned. Where a country like Austria has not yet been recognised as a country, by the authorities concerned, it is unable to make such an appeal. As a result, no appeal has yet been made that Austria should receive the help of U.N.R.R.A. That is partly because the Allied Council working in Austria have not given an invitation, or have not seen fit to find it necessary to give one.

No one who has gone there can fail to realise the urgent necessity for Austria to receive some help from the U.N.R.R.A. organisation. If the Minister can make representations to the Allied Council in Vienna that they themselves shall give an invitation, that might be the first step. No one in Austria, except certain displaced persons, has received any help from U.N.R.R.A. When one sees the help Austria needs, and the incredible conditions there, and remembers the fact that she was one of the first of Hitler's victims and has suffered almost as much as any other country—one realises she is a country that needs the greatest and most effective help. If, therefore, the Minister could bring whatever pressure he could on the Allied Council in Vienna to meet and make an official application, this would set things going so that it would not be long before effective help could be given to Austria. There has been too long a delay and this red tape does not seem to be necessary. It is essential that the Minister should, if he can, bring effective pressure to bear in this direction.

I would not have intervened in this Debate if it had not taken a line which I feel I must strengthen if possible, because of my own experiences in Western Europe, because of reports which I have just received from field workers in U.N.R.R.A. itself, and because I was talking to a field worker straight back from a displaced persons' camp in Germany last week. He was describing the frustration that so many U.N.R.R.A. workers are feeling. This frustration seems to arise from the fact that U.N.R.R.A. appears to them, at any rate, to be very low down on the list of priorities, and they feel all the time that whatever U.N.R.R.A. wants, whether it be transport or whether it be even a screw-driver, they are battering their heads against a brick wall. The military authorities seem to be far better off than they are, and the U.N.R.R.A. workers find great difficulty in getting what supplies they have. She described to me the conditions in this displaced persons' camp, the peoples of which camp were, of course, our Allies.

There is an appalling shortage of clothing. One of the first things that the Second Army noticed when it went into Germany was the amazingly high standard of clothing in Germany, compared with the conditions that they had seen in Holland, in Belgium and in this country. It looked to most of us who have seen these Allied countries that the German population were out in their national garb, in their best Sunday clothes, to welcome the British Army coming in but, of course, the German population had pretty well looted the rest of Europe for clothing.

I know that there have been a certain number of levies on the German population since that time, but in view of the standard of clothing of the people in these displaced persons' camps, I wonder why it is not possible to make further levies on the people of Germany, particularly in the countryside; not in the big cities where they have suffered so much from bombing. I was told that in this displaced persons' camp there were two to three families, men, women and children, living in one room, and I ask if something cannot be done to billet these people on the German countryside. She described how the men and women were using rows of open latrines, and all the difficulties that that was causing; how the schools that they had got running were having to be closed down because of the lack of fuel; how these people were demonstrating and asking to go back to their own countries. There was no hope of their getting back to their own countries because of the lack of transport. She also told me how the only hospital facilities obtainable fell well below the level of the old-fashioned and worst type of casual ward in this country. That is about our Allies.

I think one of the most important things that has been said during this Debate is that we should get away from discriminating between nationalities in this problem of Europe, that the administration of this problem was being held up and crippled all the time by authorities asking, before they would give any help, whether this was an ex-enemy or whether the other was an ex-Ally. The situation in Europe today is too desperate for that kind of red tape to hold up our administration any longer. This is a problem of humanity and we have to deal with it as that sort of problem. I saw the refugees coming into Berlin from the East, and I saw what was happening in one of the reception stations. The conditions there are absolutely deplorable. They reminded me of the London tube shelters in the very early days of the blitz before our Civil Defence organisation had got the situation in hand properly. The only difference, of course, was that our people were just going down for the night while they had been living under these conditions for weeks at an end. All these families had nowhere to go and they did not know when they would have to move on. The only food supplies during the day consisted of one bowl of weak soup in the middle of the day and a cup of coffee and perhaps a biscuit at night. These people were German refugees and consequently U.N.R.R.A. had not tackled the problem at all. The German Red Cross organisation was doing what it could, faced as it was with enormous shortages of supplies and so on. But this is not a problem only of refugees. In Berlin it is a problem of the whole of the child population. I saw something of what they were trying to do to get the children to school and to keep them off the streets. But you cannot give children education in schools without windows and when they have not had enough to eat. That is an impossible problem.

My constituency is what one might almost describe as being in the Middle West of this country, and you would hardly expect them to be particularly interested in what is happening in Central Europe. However, I have had a voluntary petition signed by hundreds of people asking if it is not possible for them voluntarily to surrender a certain amount of their points or of their surplus food to help starving Europe. I wish to join my voice to those of the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken before me. We appre- ciate very much what the Minister of Food has done. No one wants the rations of our people to be reduced, but if people voluntarily wish to contribute their little mite to help this enormous problem of Europe, by surrendering things of which they feel they have a surplus, I ask whether the Government cannot help them by giving facilities to get the clothing or the food or whatever it may be across to Europe. By what we do in this we shall be judged in the years to come.

:I wish to begin by expressing my gratitude to the Senior Burgess of Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) for raising this Debate this afternoon. It has been plain from what has been said by Members in all parts of the House that this is in no way a party issue. I know the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), if he had not spoken on an earlier subject, would have spoken on this, and would have given his support to the work on which U.N.R.R.A. is engaged.

The right hon. Gentleman the Senior Burgess for Oxford University has asked me many questions. Of some of them I have made an intelligent anticipation, but of others I had less knowledge and had to obtain such information as I could. In any case, he set me a formidable task, but I will try to give him, and other hon. Members, the best answers I can. I hope the House will bear with me for what may be a far longer reply than I had intended to make and if it turns out to be extremely dull. In any case I could not deal today with many of the points raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) and Wycombe (Flight-Lieutenant Haire), and I think the same is true of what has been said by the hon. Gentleman theMember for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) about voluntary gifts. It is a very important but very complicated matter. Voluntary gifts must, of course, affect the rationing system of the country. Whatever is said for the Government should, I think, be said by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, or by others with a different authority from mine.

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, may I ask him if he would use his good influ- ence to urge the Government to allow a voluntary system or organisation of that sort? Would he view that proposal sympathetically?

:What I should have said, and what in fact I had in my notes, was that I will secure the fullest consideration of all these proposals—indeed, they are already under consideration—by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, and by any other Minister who may be concerned. Equally, I would make a mistake if I attempted to deal with the question of a possible White Paper. I am not prejudging that issue one way or the other, I am only saying that a White Paper, if published, would have to go far beyond the work done by U.N.R.R.A., and as U.N.R.R.A. will occupy my attention quite enough this afternoon, I do not propose to touch upon that subject.

It is just three weeks since the House had a very valuable Debate, again on the initiative of the Senior Burgess for Oxford University, on the nightmare conditions with which Europe will be faced this coming winter. Today we are debating the agency by which we hoped that this suffering might be prevented. That does not mean that U.N.R.R.A. has failed. It means, I think, that the war went on too long, that the destruction of transport was too complete, that the pillage of the countries by the Nazis was too systematic, that the government and administration of those countries was too thoroughly undermined; in other words, that the problem was greater in scale than was foreseen two years ago. But I think I shall be able to show that U.N.R.R.A. is playing a great part in places where the situation has been, and is, at its very worst, and that, without it, with its large-scale and carefully planned assistance and its expert helpers, the chances of Europe coming through this winter without grave disaster would be slight. It is only two years since U.N.R.R.A. came to life with the support of more than 40 of the United nations. At Atlantic City it was decided that those countries which had not been occupied should be invited to contribute to the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of aggression—and I emphasise victims of aggression—the sum of 1 per cent. of their national income in the year which ended in June, 1943; and that an international organisation should be created to collect the money, plan the programmes, procure the supplies and help and supervise their distribution. Ninety per cent. of the resources was to be made over in goods and services, and not more than 10 per cent. in foreign exchange.

I would ask the House to reflect on the nature, the magnitude and the difficulty of the task that was imposed on U.N.R.R.A. It was not, in fact, the first executive task ever undertaken by an international institution. We all know about the Universal Postal Union which worked for many years before the last war. Some people will remember the organisation for the repatriation of prisoners of war created by Dr. Nansen for the League of Nations, his High Commission for Refugees and his scheme for the settlement of refugees in Greece, in which an International Committee administered a loan of £14,000,000. Without that experience, U.N.R.R.A. would probably never have been created. But U.N.R.R.A.'s task was incomparably more difficult and greater in scale than anything proposed or even discussed before. One per cent. of the income of the uninvaded countries came to a little less than £500,000,000. The money, supplies and services were to be obtained from over 40 countries. It was to be administered—that is to say, U.N.R.R.A. would be operating and would have its personnel—in almost 20 countries. U.N.R.R.A. was to be responsible for the planning, the procurement of supplies, supervising, and, if need be, organising the distribution. Its duty was not merely to relieve distress but, in accordance with the second "R" in its name, to rehabilitate as far it might, and to help to put these countries on their feet. Nowadays, £500,000,000 seems almost a trifling sum—only about what it cost to produce the first atomic bomb—but to administer £500,000,000 in 20 countries is a vast undertaking. U.N.R.R.A.'s staff had to be international.

Surely, U.N.R.R.A. is not operating in anything like that number of countries.

It has had smaller missions doing smaller jobs in something like 20 countries, including North Africa, France and Belgium. Those are small-scale jobs, of course, and not the large-scale ones.

There has been no expenditure of money.

But there has been administration in all these cases. It is a very complicated problem keeping control in a large number of places. That is the only point I am trying to make. It had to be an international administration, in every phase of the work and in every section of the personnel, and for all the countries it had to build up an international team. And U.N.R.R.A. was working under very stringent limitations. The governments, in their wisdom, decided in their Agreement, that the resources placed at the disposal of U.N.R.R.A. should only be drawn on through the governmental agencies of the different Member States; and all its operations must be agreed with the governments concerned, or with the military authorities in occupation of the particular countries. In other words, every proposal had to be clear with one or more governments before U.N.R.R.A. could go ahead. It has been said that U.N.R.R.A. accumulated the red tape of more than 40 nations. I think it would be truer to say that 40 nations tied U.N.R.R.A.in their red tape.

There was a second limitation, and here I touch upon the point of discrimination between countries, which was raised by so many hon. Members this afternoon. It was decided at Atlantic City that U.N.R.R.A. would operate in countries which had been under enemy occupation, and that in ex-enemy countries it could only operate by a specific decision of the Council. Some such decision had to be made. Third, it operated under limitations of finance. One per cent. is a large sum of money, and we are hoping for more; but, even so it was far less than was required for the immense task in view. Most serious of all, U.N.R.R.A. had to make its plans and build up its staff while the war was in its most intense and fiercest phase. There are great difficulties in creating any international staff. The Senior Burgess for Oxford University and I know them very well, because we lived through them after the last war. The people have to work outside their own countries, and they have to work with people of other nationalities; a balance has to be kept between different nations, without getting loaded up with "duds." The task of the Director-General of U.N.R.R.A. in making a start to administer this great sum of money required a large staff, and a staff with specialised knowledge of every sort—administration, supply, shipping, doctors, transport, engineers, bacteriologists, and anything you will. He had to get people who would be able to work in the field, who would know how to get on in strange countries with the Governments, the local authorities, the military and the people. I have had to do that, and it is not an easy job. He had no idea how soon the war would end. He had to get his people ready in case the war collapsed. He did not know if the organisation would have to go into action in six, 12 or 18 months. He did not know how long he would have to keep his people waiting doing nothing, and with all the demoralisation that that would involve.

Above all almost no Government—and the Senior Burgess for Oxford University knows a lot about this because he was on the job—would give to U.N.R.R.A. any able men or women at all, because every able man and woman was already engaged in a job of national importance for the prosecution of the war. When ever you asked for X, Y or Z the Government said, "Well, perhaps when the war is over, but now it is really impossible." Every man had to be gouged out from the national administration by a process that was long and painful. It is a miracle that any staff was got together. Of course it was not perfect; of course in staffing and in planning there were, in the words of the Senior Burgess, "grave defects"; but as the most distinguished Director-General, Governor Lehman, said in August, the only way to have avoided mistakes was to have made the greater mistake of doing nothing and, thank God, he did not do that. Mistakes have led to criticisms—

There was one other matter. There was, at one time, great difficulty in defining what the boundaries of U.N.R.R.A.'s work exactly were.

There was also the great difficulty of deciding how and when they could take over from the military, who occupied the liberated countries. There were great difficulties of every kind. The critics were sometimes very active. May I deal with some of their criticisms and, very briefly, with some also that were not mentioned this afternoon. It is said that the salary scales were excessive. You have to pay money if you want good men for international work. U.N.R.R.A.'s scales were not higher than those in any other international organisation, and I am certain it was right to pay the money. Secondly, it was said the staff was unsuitable, inefficient, Communistic and generally objectionable in every way. If you consider the circumstances of recruitment, of course there may have been some people on the staff who were not of the first class, but I could not admit any general indictment of that kind against the staff of U.N.R.R.A. On the contrary I submit that a surprisingly large proportion of the staff of U.N.R.R.A. have proved to be extremely good, and, as the Senior Burgess said, there has been a marked improvement in recent months. Some of the misfits have been weeded out, and perhaps it is some of the misfits who have been spreading some of the stories about U.N.R.R.A. That also happens. We have done our best to give good men to U.N.R.R.A. We gave Commander Jackson, who did such a splendid job in the Middle East Supply Centre for the Ministry of War Transport, Sir Humfrey Gale for the European Office, Sir Frederick Morgan for Displaced Persons, and Major General Lewis for financial control in Europe. I assert that U.N.R.R.A. has now a fine team at work. Immense credit goes to the Senior Burgess for Oxford University, who had a large share in it in the early stages, when the work was hardest and most thankless.

In the third place it has been said, and has been repeated this afternoon, that U.N.R.R.A. goods are not properly distributed, that they reach the wrong people, that there is discrimination on political, racial and other grounds. All kinds of accusations are made. How well I know it! They were made against Dr. Nansen in 1921 when he was collecting money for the famine in the Soviet Union. There were accusations, which were without a shadow of foundation, that his goods were going to the Red Army, and those accusations had the effect of drying up the sources of charity and caused many, many people in the Soviet Union to die. It has also been a general rule in the past that you can say anything about an international organisation. Why not? It cannot defend itself. I would say that some of these accusations have been too readily believed. Every accusation brought up about the administration of U.N.R.R.A. is thoroughly investigated. A few minor cases of discrimination in distribution have been found both in Greece and in Yugoslavia, never by the policy of the Government, but by somebody very low down in the scale in the system of distribution. They have been put right. U.N.R.R.A. was heavily criticised for allowing the Yugoslav Army to use U.N.R.R.A. tractors to make airfields. But it was proved on investigation that, when this accusation was made, U.N.R.R.A. had not supplied a single tractor to Yugoslavia. Perhaps I may add, in answer to a specific Question put to me by the Senior Burgess, that there has never been a single case of obstruction of the supervising personnel of U.N.R.R.A. in Yugoslavia from first to last, and it is my belief that the administration there, under a member of the staff who comes from the Soviet Union, have done a splendid piece of work.

Of course there have been complaints of waste, extravagance and inefficiency. They are all examined. Most of them prove to have no foundation of any kind. Nearly all are grossly exaggerated or capable of some other explanation. I was asked about the black market in Greece. The question was raised the other day by my hon. Friend the Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman), who made so admirable a speech this afternoon. I would not accept the figure he then gave of 25 per cent. of U.N.R.R.A. goods reaching what is called the black market. I should like more evidence. But let him consider what actually happens in a place like Athens. I know the facts. The poor working man is entitled to buy bread and other U.N.R.R.A. goods, let us say tinned fish, at U.N.R.R.A. prices. When he gets the fish he thinks he cannot afford to eat it, because he can sell it for a much higher price and buy more bread. It is the old economic phenomenon: if poverty increases more bread is eaten and not less, because it is the cheapest form of food and other items of diet are left out.

Let me take two examples of accusations of waste and extravagance on the part of U.N.R.R.A. A member of a United States Government agency, F.E.A., wrote a very critical letter to U.N.R.R.A., saying that the goods were being so badly handled in a certain European country that a very large proportion were being spoiled before they could reach the consumers. He was bold enough to give the actual quantities of the goods which had been lost. The charges were investigated by U.N.R.R.A. and by high officials of the United States Army and the Allies. They found that the charges were almost totally without foundation. In regard to milk, for example, the amount which was alleged to have been spoiled was four times greater than the total amount of milk which U.N.R.R.A. had taken into the country. The same man alleged that U.N.R.R.A.'s supplies of cod fish and flour were stored in the same warehouse, and were so badly disposed that the cod fish was dripping on the flour and ruining it. It was found that flour and cod fish were in the same warehouse and that the cod fish was above the flour—but there were three concrete floors between them; and in any case neither the flour nor the cod fish belonged to U.N.R.R.A.

Of course there were mistakes, grave defects, if you will some waste of money, some inefficiency of method and personnel, but British experts who have examined the whole thing tell me that U.N.R.R.A. would stand up very well to a comparison with our own Supply Departments in the early stages of the war, and, as I have said, recently a great improvement has been made. I venture to say of U.N.R.R.A.'s administration that since it began to work, not long ago, it has come through the test of action with remarkable success.

What is the work it has done? I begin with what is often believed to be the most important part of its work, though, in fact, it is not, and that is the care and repatriation of displaced persons. In the Middle East U.N.R.R.A. has—it was its first duty in the field—taken over 46,000 Greeks and Yugoslavs who were refugees, and a few others.

U.N.R.R.A. have looked after them in camps and they have repatriated 33,000 already. In Germany at present, they are helping the military authorities to administer and look after about 1,000,000 displaced persons. They are in 400 camps; in 200, under military direction, the administration is in the hands of U.N.R.R.A. In about 100 more, U.N.R.R.A. personnel are working under military chiefs. It is hoped that in a short time, a month or two, when the agreements have been made and the transition worked out, U.N.R.R.A. will take over full responsibility. The money to be spent on these displaced persons up to the end of this year will be about £28,000,000, that is to say, about 10 per cent. of the total that will have been expended.

I was asked some questions about the life of the displaced persons in Germany. Camp life is never very cheerful, but we hope that improvements may be made. U.N.R.R.A. are making plans for this, plans to bring books and wireless sets, and to do anything else that can be done, as soon as they have the responsibility. At the present time they must work to the direction of the military authorities. I was asked whether any of the displaced persons were given jobs to do, whether any attempt was made to organise work. Some work is being given to displaced persons in these camps; but there is this great difficulty about it. Everybody hopes that those persons will return to their homes. It is the policy of U.N.R.R.A. and of our Government to encourage those who are willing to do so to return as soon as may be. As a consequence, there is always a chance of immediate departure from day to day. In fact, repatriation is still going on very fast. Therefore, it is not so easy to organise work as it appears to be at first sight. What can be done is being done, and I hope that improvements may be made.

:May I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman? Is it a fact that what he says does not apply to people who declare that they are not going back?

That is quite true, but before it becomes definite that they are not going back, and before they are sorted out into separate camps, a great deal of organisation has to be done. It is not at all an easy matter. As to displaced persons in Italy, U.N.R.R.A. is giving a great deal of help to people who are not in camps.

In the second place, U.N.R.R.A. have given medical relief to certain paying countries, those who have foreign ex- change, such as France, Belgium, Holland, and so on. They have sent medical missions, welfare centres and hospitals, and they have sent in urgent medical supplies. At one time, S.H.A.E.F. was giving 50 tons of shipping space per week, and each ton was not an ordinary ton of commercial goods, it was key stuff of the highest value to the countries who received it. U.N.R.R.A. health services at the end of September, taking the countries they were working in as a whole, included more than 1,000 hospitals with more than 1,000 doctors, a great army of nurses, sanitary engineers, and other experts.

I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for West Coventry whether U.N.R.R.A.'s health services could be extended to Germany. I have asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to look especially into that question and into all that my hon. Friend has said this afternoon. I can only say that in the camps for which they are responsible U.N.R.R.A. will certainly organise adequate health services when they take over, if those services are not adequate already, as I hope they are. I was told by the Generals in Germany, not many weeks ago, that, so far as the German people are concerned, after very careful examination, they hoped that the medical services were already strong enough to deal with any epidemics that might arise. But, as I have said, the Chancellor of the Duchy will look into this matter again.

Incomparably the most important part of U.N.R.R.A.'s work is its over-all relief to countries which have been so smashed by the war that they simply cannot rehabilitate themselves. Unless U.N.R.R.A. can help them they will certainly go into chaos. U.N.R.R.A. brings them foreign exchange which they could not otherwise obtain. In a world of Combined Boards, it helps them to procure and to ship the goods It helps them often, when their national administration is in chaos, to plan the distribution of the goods. That work of over-all relief and rehabilitation is now going on upon a considerable scale, as I shall show, in Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Albania. It began with material which was made available by the military authorities. Last April, U.N.R.R.A. began to ship for themselves—25,000 tons. By the end of September they had shipped nearly 2,000,000 tons; by the end of October 2,660,000 tons, and by the end of this year the total will be 4,000,000 tons.

The value is about £250,000,000. I divide it up, in order to answer one other question. By the end of 1945, Greece will have received £61,500,000, Yugoslavia £62,000,000, in spite of the fact that it began much later, that the port capacity is much less and that there was the difficulty which was mentioned at the beginning of this Debate; Poland, if the port capacity will allow it, £68,500,000, Czechoslovakia £50,500,000, Albania £4,50,000, and Italy £34,250,000, under the restricted scheme of help given so far.

I was asked also what proportion U.N.R.R.A. were spending on the different kinds of help. Broadly, 33 per cent. is spent on food, 30 per cent. on clothing, textiles and footwear—footwear being of vital importance for the re-starting of work in the fields and factories—24 per cent. on industrial items, 13 per cent. on medical items and medical supplies. Roughly, 65 per cent. is on relief and 35 per cent. is on rehabilitation. That isfor 1945. I have the figures for 1946 if any hon. Member would like to see them; they show that rehabilitation will account for rather more than half of the whole resources which U.N.R.R.A. will make available in the coming year.

In this work, U.N.R.R.A. has shown great ingenuity and resource in dealing with difficult situations. They flew from Egypt 50,000 grey mullet to restock the lakes in Greece; they provided equipment for divers to work on sunken relief cargoes in Trieste; following a radio appeal, they flew six iron lungs to Czechoslovakia to deal with an epidemic of meningitis; they supplied 24 portable flour mills in Italy and have flown serum for typhus control to different countries. They have not been stereotyped or bureaucratic in what they have done.

I must say a special word about transport, because it is vital to rehabilitation, as the right hon. Member for Oxford University has so often emphasised. Up to the present time, U.N.R.R.A. have procured 53,303 road vehicles for those U.N.R.R.A. countries, the receiving, non-paying countries, of which 24,800, or 25,000 in fact, have actually been shipped. That is on top of the vehicles sent to France, Belgium and the North-West of Europe, which are very considerably more than 20,000 in number. It is not the 100,000 or more for which my right hon. Friend has asked, but he has always recognised that his programme would have to be spaced out over the winter. It is very nearly up to the figure which the receiving countries could take. I hope it can be accelerated, and I never cease from pressing the matter myself.

I agree that 50,000 would have been quite a reasonable figure, had they been got into the countries concerned more quickly. But as the right hon. Gentleman says, only half has been shipped. Considerably more has actually arrived and been in operation in the recipient countries.

But if you count in North-West Europe it is nearly 50,000 now. Greece, altogether, has had about 7,000 lorries; Poland 10,000—that is to the end of last month—and in Czechoslovakia, 4,600 and so on. The rate of supply is pretty fast. We ship from this country 75 a day for five days a week for Poland, and we are sending to Czechoslovakia 125 a week.

I agree that the recent rate of shipment has been very satisfactory—but only recently.

Yes. I like to think we have put a special drive into this matter since August last.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman what I think is a very important question? It is well known that, in Germany, the difficulty to be faced this winter is that of moving coal because of the lack of transport. That is a desperate situation. In any of the countries in which U.N.R.R.A. does operate, there should be public authority to authorise the use of these trucks to move coal.

Of course the military and other authorities in Germany have their own transport. Whether it is enough or not is another matter. They could ask for more. They are also rehabilitating railways. I have played a small part in getting E.C.I.T.O. to send a mission to help to open up the Rhine to ensure better transport from the Ruhr. U.N.R.R.A. also has done something about railways and also about water transport on the Continent of Europe.

I have been asked about how we make up the British contribution. The general answer is that we have not had difficulty in fulfilling our demands from U.N.R.R.A., as they put them forward. At first most came from civil sources; now we are releasing more from military stocks. I could give details if I had the time. But what many hon. Members want to know about is the additional supplies for Europe. I answer thus: those supplies will not fall into our U.N.R.R.A. contributions at all, either in what we have done so far or what we may do in the future. It is more than true that our contribution to U.N.R.R.A. is only a part of the great effort for the relief of Europe which we have already made.

I must mention also that this business of supply is not only supervised for racial discrimination; it is also controlled by U.N.R.R.A. to ascertain that it is meeting a real need which cannot be dealt with from local sources. I give one very striking illustration. Last April there was in Athens only food enough to provide a diet of 250 calories a day. To make it up to 2,000—not a very high standard—it was agreed that U.N.R.R.A. should provide 1,750 calories. In October local resources rose from 250 to 450 and U.N.R.R.A. reduced its supply to1,550 to keep the calories at 2,000. That shows how minute and how effective is the control to ensure that what is done is really needed. The Governments have expressed the greatest appreciation of this work. On November 9, the second anniversary of the establishment of U.N.R.R.A. there was a real chorus of tributes from heads of States, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers. I am even more impressed by the impressions brought to me by colleagues and personal friends about the work. There is one whom I have known well, whom I trust and whose politics I do not distrust, who has come from Poland. A colleague in a United Nations Committee came from Slovakia and told me that the name of U.N.R.R.A. stood extremely high there. A colleague of mine who was in Italy the other day said the work done for the mothers and children—a million mothers are being fed by U.N.R.R.A.—had evoked the warmest gratitude from the whole Italian people.

What about the future work which U.N.R.R.A. must undertake? In Austria, the Allied Control Commission has not been able to make a request for an U.N.R.R.A. mission because so far, I understand, the Soviet Member has not been able to say what is required, for the Soviet zone; but they have asked for a technical mission to study the whole problem, and that mission is going, if it has not actually left. Sir Humfrey Gale has been to Italy, and planning is going forward. The U.N.R.R.A. authorities in Washington are actually planning loadings for Italy for January and February, 1946. I cannot say what exact sums will be programmed, but it is on a large scale, and I hope my hon. Friends will believe that the thing is being taken very seriously indeed. That is a result of decisions made by the Council in August last. With regard to the Far East, studies are being made and U.N.R.R.A. agents are already in the Philippines. A mission is going to China. It is planned that China will have roughly something in the order of £150,000,000 of help from U.N.R.R.A., which would be about 30 per cent. of one per cent. of the national income.

It is evident now that more money will be needed, if U.N.R.R.A. is not to collapse in the early future. Last August, as the Senior Burgess for Oxford University said, the Council decided to recommend the Governments to give a second one per cent. of their national income. I was authorised to say to the Council of U.N.R.R.A. last August that His Majesty's Government would ask Parliament to grant that further contribution. The first contribution was £80,000,000, a trifle over one per cent. We propose to give another £75,000,000; £155,000,000 in all, approximately two per cent. His Majesty's Government would be very glad if we could ask the House to vote that money now. I am confident that, if we did, the House would agree. It is not possible for me to do so for a technical reason. Under our wartime procedure we act by Votes of Credit and in the last Vote of Credit the Chancellor of the Exchequer took authority to make a further contribution to U.N.R.R.A. from the £2,000,000,000 for which he then asked. That will cover us to the end of the present financial year. Perhaps we may call on £15,000,000 or £20,000,000 of that money before the end of the financial year. That is estimated at £5,000,000 a month for three months, at our present rate of expenditure with a little over. Certainly before the financial year is over, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will come here and move an Estimate for what further money is needed to make up the second one per cent. Of course it will have to be carefully examined by the House in accordance with the statutory peacetime procedure for control of all expenditure to which we are now reverting. But I am now solemnly declaring that it is the firm intention of the Government to ask Parliament for an extra one per cent.and I have little doubt, that the House, in the light of this Debate, will agree to vote it.

There are other things I should like to say, but I will say only this in conclusion. U.N.R.R.A. is not charity—though it might be, in view of the sufferings of Europe and the world today. It is not a reward for services in the war, thought it might be in view of what Greece, Poland, Holland and other countries did to help us. It is not the equalisation of sacrifice, though that would be just if it could be obtained. It is, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) once said, enlightened self-interest. If we can reconstructthese countries, if we can get international trade going three months sooner than it would otherwise start, we make a handsome dividend on the money we pay in. If we can stop epidemics—and, let us remember, there were 30,000,000 cases of typhus in the Soviet Union after the last war, and 13,000,000 people died of influenza—it is good business. But it has also a moral purpose, and so far as His Majesty's Government are concerned, by their actions and by their example, we are resolved that U.N.R.R.A. must not and shall not fail.

In making my maiden speech to this House I rely on its traditional reputation for being, on these occasions, what Mrs. Malaprop might have called the "very pineapple of politeness." I daresay I shall perpetrate a few malapropisms myself before this speech has run its course. But more particularly I rely on the importance of this question of Class B releases to the great work of national reconstruction on which we are now engaged. This is a matter on which we have all had a good deal of correspondence. It is a matter, too, on which we all need a good deal more enlightenment than we have yet had. It is a matter of vital interest to our constituencies. My own constituency of Blackburn has a big housing programme on which it wants to embark. It has educational reforms it wants to undertake. It has a cotton industry which needs textile workers. In attempting to tackle these problems, it is vitally interested in the progress of this Class B scheme, which has been specifically designed to enable the local authorities of this country to overcome shortages in those particular fields. They want to see that the scheme really is working, because, without it, they cannot get ahead with their reconstruction plans.

I am concerned this afternoon with the fact that all the evidence which I can obtain, both from the figures put forward by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and from the letters I am receiving from my constituents, goes to show that in fact the scheme is not working at the tempo we want to see. Judging by my own correspondence and by my conversations with my hon. Friends in this House, there are numbers of men in the category of essential workers who are anxious to get out under Class B and who have been anxious for a good deal of time, but who for some mysterious reason cannot get out. I am referring particularly to the block release section, in regard to which principles of action have been quite clearly put forward. We all understand those principles, but what we do not understand is why, somehow, they do not seem to work out in the cases of our own constituents.

I have in mind one outstanding example—a miner in my constituency who is a private in the Army, and who has been trying to get out of the Army to go back into the pit ever since last July, and as far as I can ascertain has not yet succeeded. I thought that we were facing a desperate coal famine this winter, but the man himself has written to me, his colliery which wants him back has written to me, I have written to the Minister of Fuel and Power, and the man, as far as I am aware, is still not out of the Forces. The Minister of Fuel and Power replied to me as far back as the beginning of September that collieries were being asked to draw up lists of the men who were formerly in their employment as underground miners and whom they wanted back for that type of work. I was told that it might be a little time before the collieries could complete their lists, but this man's employer wrote to me on 4th September and said he had put the man's name on the list and was there anything else he should do about it? In my innocence, I replied, "No, you have done all you can, and very shortly the man will be out." But on 20th October the man wrote to me to the effect that he had been put on draft for overseas service, and had only got himself taken off with some difficulty after interviewing his commanding officer and saying that he was under consideration for Class B release. I, therefore, took the matter up with the Minister again and a few days ago he replied informing me that this man's name had been passed to the Ministry of Labour for release under Class B and no doubt he would be coming out soon. Surely, in a vital section of our national life such as coalmining, it is a little absurd that a man should have to struggle from July to November in order to get back into this essential national work.

What we want to know is, where the fault for this delay lies. It is not only in underground mining that this sort of case has arisen. I want to refer also to those two important sections of block releases, the building workers and the teachers. The men cannot understand why they are not getting out. We cannot understand why they are not getting out, and when we write to the Minister of Labour we sometimes suspect from his letters that he does not understand either why they are not getting out. I want to put two questions to the Minister this afternoon, and ask him very earnestly if he will give a factual reply.

In the first place, to which release groups have facilities for release under Class B so far been extended? I want him to tell us to which release groups in the Army facilities for Class B release have been offered to men in the trades concerned? How far has he got? Is it Group 27, 28, 29 or what is it? Similarly, for the Air Force and the Navy. Secondly, I want to ask him whether any particular trades or units inside the Armed Services are, without our knowledge, being excluded from the scope of the Class B scheme, because we have reason to suspect that that may be the case. I had a letter from one of my constituents which I think ventilated very accurately the sort of feeling the men have about this scheme. This man writes:

"So far as the Services are concerned, Class B seems to be reserved for men who, it is fairly sure, will refuse it. I am one of the thousands of building workers in the Services who have not been invited to take this method of release. In fact, I am informed that as I have only three years' service I am not eligible. At the age of 35, with over 20 years' experience of the trade, five as foreman, I think I would be more useful building houses than acting as grease-monkey to worn-out Army lorries for a few hours each week."

That is one aspect of the problem, but my second question arises from another case which came to my attention during my last visit to my constituency. I was visited by a constituent now serving in S.E.A.C. who was home on leave. He said to me, "Are Royal Engineers excluded from the application of the Class B scheme?" He said he was a skilled building worker, and was in a release group in the early thirties, and he had friends in groups 24 and 27 who were also skilled building workers and to whom the opportunity of Class B. release had not been offered They wonder whether it was because they were Royal Engineers.

I want to plead with the Minister to give us, very specifically, the range of his Class B policy this afternoon, because there is suspicion growing up in the Armed Forces that discrimination is taking place or may be taking place. I urge this point. We have said in regard to Class A releases, that it is vitally important the men should know where they stand, so that they can be quite sure no sort of a wangle is being done. But if nobody knows to which groups Class B release is being applied, or to which men, if we do not know the Minister's policy, then the men have every right to suspect that wangles may be going on under the Class B scheme. If they do not know and even their Members of Parliament do not know whether essential workers in Groups 24, 25 or 26 should have been offered Class B release or not, how can they be sure that someone within the Forces, someone in command, is not discriminating as between one man and another in this Class B policy? I also suggest to the Minister that he has not yet cast his net wide enough in this Class B scheme. He is being rather too cautious and, therefore, he is defeating his own ends.

I know very well the great necessity in my constituency for rapid educational reform. Our schools need greatly increased supplies of teachers if we are to press ahead with the application of the new Education Act. Yet I received this letter only a few days ago, from one of my constituents who was a teacher before he joined the Forces:

"There seems to be some muddle as to the Class B release of teachers. There are many of release group 26 still in the Forces and likely to be, as it is impossible to make inquiries regarding their position as they have to wait until their names are forwarded to their stations. Today I visited the Blackburn Education Offices to make inquiries, only to be informed that there was a great shortage of teachers, although the local authority has done all in its power to obtain the services of its teachers in the Forces. Apparently before V.E. Day a list was submitted to the necessary Authority but the only result has been the release of five men, one of whom went straight from college into the Forces and is of a higher release group than many still serving. I understand that Class B release would be offered to men in accordance with their release group. This is apparently not the case."

That sort of confusion and suspicion is, very naturally, causing bitter feeling among the men themselves. Now the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education stated in the House the other day that considerable progress has been made with the speeding-up of the Class B release of teachers. The total which it is hoped to reach by the end of Decemberis 10,000. By the end of October just over 3,000 had been released, leaving 7,000 to be caught up with in the next two months. She told us with pride that the rate of release has now been speeded up to 1,000 a fortnight, but unless my calculations are very wrong, we have not much more than four fortnights left between now and the end of the year, and at that rate of release we shall still be 3,000 short by the end of December. The Class B scheme is narrow enough in its scope already without our failing to achieve the limited objective which has so far been set. I believe that the trouble arises from the fact that the possibility of Class B release is not being offered to a wide enough range of men.

Indeed, it is quite clear that if a man is coming out shortly under Class A, he is not going to accept Class B with all its disadvantages. That means that you have got to go into a wider field—into the groups of the 30's and even further—with your offer of release if you are to have a rapid response and are to obtain rapidly the numbers you require. I would point out to the Minister that, in the Army, it is hoped that Class A release by the end of the year will have covered Group 24; yet, as my letters show, there are men in Group 27 in the Army who cannot get Class B release, although they want it. Is that not rather unadventurous in scope, with the building situation as it is? Or take the case of the Royal Air Force. We understand that Group 25 will be covered under Class A by the end of the year, yet here is a Blackburn ex-teacher in the R.A.F. in Group 26, who wants his Class B release as a teacher, and cannot get it.

In view of these facts, it is hardly surprising that, by the end of September, only 18,000 men and women had been released under Class B. That is 5 per cent. of the Class A releases to that date, and not the 10 per cent. that we had been promised. It is quite true and the argument will probably be brought forward by my right hon. Friend that the rate of release has been speeded up. The rate of release during September rose to 9,600, but, if we are to reach the target figure of 148,000 men and women released under Class B by the end of the year, we shall have to average a rate of Class B release during October, November and December of 43,000 a month, which is a big jump from the 9,600 of September. Does the right hon. Gentleman think he is going to pull it off?

Surely, this is a field in which the usual arguments about military commitments, transport difficulties and so on, do not apply? Here is a percentage figure of the over-all figure, for which transport pro- vision has already been made, and if that percentage cannot be achieved, it is obvious that there is some administrative breakdown which holds the matter up. What alarms me is that if we fail in this Class B release scheme, our chances of achieving the Class A target figure, which is the greatest task, are very poor. In my opinion the figure of 148,000 is already inadequate if we are to do, particularly, the building jobs at present facing us.

I believe the men in the Forces are more concerned to see the houses built and to get on with the reconstruction job, than they are with any fine principle as to whether the man next door is getting out ahead of them or not. They will criticise us far more vigorously on this reconstruction job than they will grumble about whether one or two men are getting out ahead of the others under Class B. I would like to see the figure of 148,000, which is too low, increased by an increase in the overall rate of demobilisation, but, even if the overall rate is increased, we have no guarantee that we shall get the essential workers out, if we are already failing to reach our percentage figure under our present limit target.

I know the Minister has a difficult job, but I ask him to give us some clear explanation of the policy on which he is working, and not just to quote to us "age and length of service" again. I ask the Minister to tell us specifically the groups already covered and prove to us that he is tackling this policy boldly, because, without boldness here, the whole of our reconstruction programme will be seriously held up in the next few vital months.

It is not merely a perfunctory tradition that I follow in complimenting the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) on her maiden speech. Those of us who have heard her elsewhere knew very well that she would acquit herself with credit in this House. In saying that to the hon. Lady it is not an invitation to her to come after the Minister of Labour another time. The hon. Lady has asked questions of very great importance, and I am sure that she and the House, as well as myself, regret that there is not adequate time to go fully into all the points she has raised. However, I will try to deal with the points of importance.

One of the main points was that Scheme B is not wide enough in scope to cover other industries. On that point I must say that the scheme must be balanced, otherwise we shall get completely out of step. Now I will obey her admonition, if I may call it such, not to quote again age and length of service, but I would like to say something about the way in which the scheme is working, although I cannot go into the detail that I had hoped, because I am sure it will be of information to the House. The hon. Lady mentioned the question of teachers, and that she had been told that out of the 10,000 asked for, only some 3,083 had got out up to the date of the last return. What is important to notice, however, is that Scheme B did not start working until after Scheme A had started and, in the first six weeks of its running, we got out 296 teachers; in the next four weeks of its running, we got out 744 teachers, but—and this is the important point—in the last four weeks we got out 2,043, so it has rapidly jumped up.

If I may turn to the figures and show the House how it is working, during the full period we got out, over all trades and all classes under B in that first six weeks, 8,295; in the September four weeks, 9,651; in the four weeks of October, 20,846—a total of 38,792. However, in the second half of October—the last two weeks of the period under review—we got out 12,700, which is nearly one-third of the total over the whole period. I want to say at once that we are not satisfied and that we want to see it speeded up. Speaking as Minister of Labour, responsible on the industrial side, I am desperately anxious to see it speeded up. Industry is standing still, and it must be speeded up, but I must, in fairness to my colleagues in the Service Departments, say that I believe they are helping and that we are getting it speeded up now.

Let me explain how the B scheme of block releases works. It is not the right of the individual to claim to be brought out under the B scheme; it is for the Services to make the arrangements. In saying that a man has not the right to claim, that does not mean he is deprived of the opportunity, it means that he himself has not to go and ask for the opportunity. Sometimes when I refer to the B scheme I think some hon. Members believe it is an adjective and not a designation.

Let me quote the case of the Army and building releases as an example to show how it works. For instance, 60,000 building workers are required out by the end of the year—that is the target. The Minister of Works then says "We want so many bricklayers, so many carpenters, so many plumbers, etc." Having decided what proportion of the total number is to be allocated to the separate trades, we then give the quota to the separate Services. The quota given to the Army was 40,000. To show the hon. Lady and other hon. Members that there is an attempt being made to ensure that wastages are dealt with—and when I say wastage I mean those who do not want to come and those who cannot be released quickly—the Army has informed us that they have put forward a list of 80,000 names from which they hope to get 40,000. First of all the Army has to go through its lists.

There is no complaint anywhere, from anybody who knows the facts, as to delay at the Ministry. Every name that goes to the Ministry of Labour is out within 48 hours. The Army has to pick out names, find out in which command and in which unit they are, and then send them to the particular command or unit. The Army has submitted 80,000 names from which they hope to get 40,000 men. Some men do not want to come out, some are so far away that it takes a long time to bring them back, but there is no restriction in the scheme by which you cannot bring anybody out of the Army in this class if selected.

We are also promised that there will be no making use of the term "military necessity," except in exceptional cases. Exceptional cases, as we see them are, for example, those people in the Pay Corps who are needed for handling demobilisation and who it may not be possible to release. It is not the Ministry of Labour which lays down which group shall be released. We have said "We want 1,500,000 out by the end of the year." Having got the promise of that number, we say "We want 10 per cent. as quickly as we can get them, under the B scheme." The Service authorities go ahead, and call out under the B Scheme the number wanted. It is true that at the beginning they limited the call under the B scheme to the A groups coming out under the age and service scheme, but it was found that it was not attractive enough to induce men to come out. They are now pushing it up, but I have no specific information in my Ministry as to what groups are being reached. I say "Give me 60,000. I do not care how I get them, so long as I get them." That is the principle on which I am working.

Is the actual selection made by the War Office or by the local commanding officer?

:Not quite that. So far as the B scheme is concerned, the War Office picks out 80,000 names of building workers in connection with the B scheme, finds out where they are, and notifies the commanding officer, "This man must be offered release under the B scheme." Any criticism as to how that operates must go to the Service Departments, but that is, in effect, how the matter is being worked.

The hon. Lady mentioned collieries. I will not try to cover the whole of the ground now, but I will try to deal with that. The position in regard to collieries is that to avoid delay every colliery that wanted men back and had vacancies had to give us names. Every name thus given was immediately passed on, and action was taken with a view to getting the men out. It has not worked as quickly as it should have done, but it has been building up. I am not quite sure if I have the latest figures. We want 30,000 out. Up to the last return in October there had been 1,044 out, not by any means enough. I am asked for the programme. Perhaps it will suffice if I say that I will publish the programme in the Official Report. I have not time to read it out except at such a speed that hon. Members would not be able to understand it. I can tell hon. Members that the rate of release is speeding up. There is considerable improvement over the last fortnight, and it is still improving. I have a sufficiently clear understanding of the position to say that it will speed up sufficiently to ensure that by the end of the year we will get out the number that has been promised.

Will the Minister consider, during the first six months period of 1946, when a great increase in the overall figures is to be expected, because we shall be continuing to release at the rate of 80,000, 90,000 or 100,000 a week, including in Class B not only workers in the building trade but also workers in the building materials trade, which are also important for housing?

We have put industries ancillary to building or civil engineering at 15,000.

The Minister did say that some men were too far away to be brought home in time for Class B release. Does that not modify the assurance he gave me the other day that distance would not prejudice a man's release? Is there any discrimination against those who are far away?

What I intended to convey was that it takes a long time to get them back. There is no discrimination.