I should like some explanation of this Clause, which amends the new Clause added last year. I am sure the Committee will want some idea of the effect of this Clause, and why it is necessary.

As the hon. Member says, this Clause amends a Clause added last year, making effective maintenance orders made against officers and, in effect, bringing the procedure in the case of officers into line with that for other ranks. However, we are now advised that the Amendment made last year would not apply to any maintenance order made before 30th April, 1947, and it was felt that in some cases that limitation might cause hardship. The effect of this Clause is to remedy that defect. The Committee will notice that in paragraph (b) there is the proviso:

"with the substitution for the words 'a copy of such order or decree shall be sent' of the words 'a copy of such order or decree may be sent'."

That is to say, there will be power to bring this retrospective action into effect, but that power would not necessarily or automatically be used. It is the intention to use that power only where neglect to observe the conditions of a maintenance order is resulting in real hardship to the party concerned. That again is in line with the procedure followed in the case of other ranks.

I am obliged to the Under-Secretary for that explanation, but arising out of it there is one small matter on which I should like an assurance. Paragraph (c) provides that arrears may be ordered to be paid. Arrears relating to an order made a long time ago might be very heavy indeed, and an order to pay a large sum in arrears might cause an officer to be virtually out of his pay—subject to the limitation provided in the main Subsection—for a very long time. Could we have an assurance that the Army Council will, in exercising their discretion, see that arrears are dealt with in a reasonably lenient way, so as not to place an intolerable burden on an officer who may be in arrears through no fault of his own?

Certainly, I give that assurance.

I wish to raise only one point: I doubt whether it is in Order, but I hope, Major Milner, that you will allow me to put it. I did raise this question in connection with a civilian matter. Have there been any conversations with the defence Ministers or the Governments of the Dominions in order that this provision shall apply to Dominion officers formerly domiciled in this country? If not, I suggest that negotiations should be entered into, in order that the requisite provision may be inserted in the Army Act next year.

I was not aware that the noble Lord the hon. Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) was going to raise this matter today. To the best of my recollection there have been conversations about this and cognate matters, but no clear decision has yet been reached. I will take note of what the noble Lord has said.

My hon. Friends and I feel disturbed about this matter. There was a good deal of cross-posting before and during the war, and I think that it is likely to increase. It would seem that in future the temptation to cross-post will be greater owing to the considerable stretch on the Regular Army in carrying out its duties. I think that the danger of cross-posting is that outwardly it appears a logical and sensible thing to do. I have no doubt that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were here he would, with his very logical, incisive mind, convince us by overwhelming argument in its favour; but that does not alter the fact that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many of those who have had regimental experience, he would be wrong. The reason he would be wrong is that he would have left out of account those small imponderables in human nature which mean so much in a unit and an Army.

I think that from its very logicality, the temptation to crosspost is a danger which might do a great deal to undermine and damage the regimental spirit. In future it may be that large-scale cross-posting will destroy a good deal of that regimental spirit. Those who have had experience of the spirit which is brought about in a good unit will, I am, sure, be on my side in this matter. After all, the soldier is being trained and prepared eventually for battle—although we hope that it may never come—and during his time in the Army he gets woven round him a kind of cocoon, based on the unit, and spun through his loyal attachment and pride in it. I believe that this pride and attachment which he feels towards his unit is of more importance than any other factor in the stress of war and battle. If we destroy that spirit by cross-posting people from one unit to another, we shall be losing an imponderable but very valuable asset. It is for that reason that we are now raising this matter.

It may be that the Secretary of State for War will give us a good deal of reassurance on this point. I would ask him to give some assurance that cross-posting will only be done as an exception. At present, the temptation of the Adjutant-General's branch to engage in large cross-postings will be overwhelming. I had some experience of how impersonal and forgetful of human nature one can become in the higher grades of the Staff. When one stays for a long time in the War Office and has an enormous list of thousands of men to be posted, the temptation to post them in bunches is almost irresistible, irrespective of a man's personal preference for or allegiance to a particular unit or command. Men will be posted in that way unless there is a strong direction given from the top to say that it is to be an exception and never the rule. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that in the War Office—and I dare say that he knows this already—it is very easy to get this attitude of mind towards posting.

In the Army, by and large, a very large percentage of the best brains and most able staff officers are drawn from the sappers and gunners. These officers, who are first-class, belong to two corps who have the very greatest responsibility, but regimental loyalty is to the corps and not the unit. I would say that on the staff in the past they have suffered from the temptation to go right against the Infantry and Cavalry regimental spirit. I believe that some of those who suggested the abolition of the regimental system were sappers and gunners. I am not saying anything against them, but we have a high proportion of them in the War Office, and I would advise the right hon. Gentleman to watch them like a lynx on this particular point.

I hope that the Secretary of State will give it his attention. He will get franker advice in this House from people like myself on this matter than he would if we were employed in the War Office. We are putting this matter forward not to try to score any party point, but for the good of the Army. I believe that this view will be echoed on both sides of the House, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will reassure us that large-scale cross-posting will not be encouraged, because if it is it will do considerable damage to something very precious to the British Army, namely, the regimental spirit.

As an ex-gunner, I resent very much the remarks made by the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head). I have not come to speak for my ex-regiment, but I think that everyone will admit that the regimental feeling in the gunners is higher than anywhere else. I got up to support, to a certain extent, much that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said. I think that a very bad disservice was done, to the Army when county regiments were practically eliminated.

We can argue that there should not be armies at all. I agree with that. We can also argue that they should be made as unpopular as possible, so that any Government trying to get them going would have a bad time in doing so. But if we are going to have an Army, the important thing is to have as much esprit de corps as possible, in that respect I think that what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said is true, and that officials in the War Office and Government Ministers are inclined to treat armies or armed forces as so many bodies The more totalitarian a country becomes, the more it treats its Army as so many bodies. We know of one large armed force where no one has any record as to where anyone in it is, and it is impossible for relatives to get into touch. I do not think that even the Secretary of State for War would go to that extent, but it seems to me that if we must have an Army, it is essential that esprit de corps should be upheld at the highest level, and that one of the best ways of doing that is to make men realise their attachment to their own units and particular regiments and give them confidence in their associations, so that their friends at home may realise that they are dealing with an entity when they talk about any particular regiment to which a member of their family is attached.

I would like to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the effect that this Clause will have upon recruiting has been fully taken into account. We want recruits to volunteer for a particular branch of the army, and we are now saying to them, "If you join up to be a good Infantry signaller, without your consent, we will transfer you from the Infantry to the Royal Corps of Signals." We shall also be saying to a man called up in the Signals, "If you turn out to be a particular form of signaller, you may be transferred to the Infantry."

Let me give another example. A man volunteers for the Army because he is keen on cars or tanks. We are saying to him, "If you turn out to be a good motor mechanic, and as we are short of motor mechanics in R.E.M.E., whether you like it or not, we have power to transfer you to R.E.M.E." That seems to undermine one of the strongest things on which recruiting is conducted. I hope the Secretary of State will explain to us how he expects to get over what seems to be a new disincentive to recruiting. We saw something during the war, of the regimental spirit which may very well be destroyed if the War Office keep on attacking it by drafting men to the wrong regiments. Such was often found by forward headquarters to be the case during the war, but by a little juggling it was possible to get the men back into the right regiments, and the evil that had been done by General Sir Roland Adams was undone by forward headquarters. It was a good thing indeed that such action was taken, as has been proved by the fact that many of the steps taken by General Sir Roland Adams during the time he was Adjutant-General are quite unnecessary.

The administrative desirability of cross-posting has very often been grossly exaggerated. In the infantry corps we have already seen the whittling down of the regimental spirit by this new posting system. That has gone far enough and we do not want the discouragement of the regimental spirit which this Clause seems to give. I should like to support my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head), and I hope we shall get a reasonable reply to our requests.

I should like to support the pleas that have been made by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) as regards this matter of cross-posting. The value of the regimental spirit and of esprit de corps has not been sufficiently realised of late years in the War Office. I can remember, at the beginning of the 1914–18 war, when there was a school in the Army and in the War Office who used to say—I am sure this would interest the hon. Member for Ipswich—that they did not want to see "R.A." stand for Royal Artillery but for Royal Army and that there should be one corps in the Army at the direction of the War Office. That school existed until the end of the last war, but it got smaller and smaller with the experience of the war.

There was a great deal of unnecessary cross-posting, and in support of what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for North Blackpool (Mr. Low) I can remember in the former war when a good deal of unposting, so to speak, was done by units at the front, because in many cases most ridiculous things were done in sending men forward as reinforcements. I can remember in my own Division after a series of heavy actions that reinforcements were sent to us. There was in that division a battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment and also a battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. A complete draft of men from the Warwickshires was sent to the Gloucestershires and a complete draft of the Gloucestershires was sent to the Warwickshires. That occurred in the same brigade, but by a certain amount of juggling I was able to get that undone. That was the type of system of posting men which was practised quite regardless of where they went so long as they went into the same branch of the Service.

Within the last few months I have learned of cases of men of the Royal Artillery—not merely conscripts but warrant officers—being compulsorily transferred to the Pioneer Corps. Important as are the services rendered by the Pioneer Corps, such a move is not appreciated by men of the Royal Artillery. The same applies to every kind of cross-posting. There may be a case to be made out more or less for the cross-posting of compulsorily enlisted men who did not volunteer for a certain unit, but I can see no case whatever for compulsory cross-posting of men who have definitely volunteered for a certain regiment and whose whole heart and soul in most cases is bound up in the regiment. If we had an entirely new Army there might be something to be said for this system. However, our Army is an old army and its system is based on the regimental system. The whole of its esprit de corps rests on that system.

There is the case in wartime—it does not apply in peace but this enactment is going to apply in war—of the Territorial Army. It has not only a regimental loyalty and affinity, but the greater part of its loyalties and its esprit de corps are bound up with its own county or locality whose name it uses in its regimental title. There could not be a better way of destroying the spirit of the Territorial Army than by the cross-posting of the men, and the posting to a unit of men from the opposite ends of the Kingdom to that from which a particular regiment is drawn, who have not the same feelings or loyalties for the county or the locality. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will make some concession in this matter. It may be said with truth that this proposal will be universally unpopular in the Army and in every branch of the Service, except possibly the Adjutant-General's branch in the War Office.

The grouping system which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for North Blackpool has quite definitely been a blow at the county regiments., There have always been some regiments in the Army which have been able to maintain themselves from their own counties or localities and in those regiments there has been a very strong esprit de corps. There are others who have not been able to maintain themselves in that way, but if we are going to milk the regiments which have a strong county or local esprit de corps for the benefit of those who have not been able to maintain themselves out of their own district, we are going to strike a definite blow at the spirit of such Forces. I venture to think that such a blow has already been dealt by the way in which this grouping has been worked out, and by the way in which it has been extended since it was first proposed and the conditions that were then contemplated explained to colonels of regiments at a certain conference held some two years ago. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will think again over this matter, and will realise how unpopular this will be as well as being a great blow to the esprit de corps of all units. I trust that he will propose some better system than is outlined in the Clause.

Although nobody expects anything controversial to be discussed on a Friday, there has suddenly emerged what I regard as a first-class issue in this matter which goes to the whole foundation of the British Army. I want to say nothing which could be in the least degree provocative because I am sincerely anxious that the Secretary of State should meet us in this matter. I think the consensus of opinion is against this Clause. I personally, and I think my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee, are grateful to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) for the way in which he also put the case. What he said was absolutely true. It is an interesting fact that the phrase which we so often use, which has become almost a cliché in the English language—"esprit de corps"—and which is used in a civilian sense as well as in a military sense, means the spirit of a particular corps or unit in which a person is. That spirit is intensely strong.

I would like to relate a short story on the subject, which I hope will not offend those of my hon. and gallant Friends who are Guardsmen. I know a certain young man, now an officer, who went through the system by which officers are now selected, and who was at Caterham. He is now in another unit. I saw this young man when he had been there some six weeks. He enjoyed being at Cater-ham, although he wore that despised emblem in civilian life, the old school tie—incidentally, the old Etonian tie. I noticed that he was in the Coldstreams. He said to me, "Thank heavens, I am in the Coldstreams. They might have sent me to the Grenadiers or the Scots Guards." That is esprit de corps, and it applies throughout the Army. We cannot expect to have recruits willingly join the Army, and we may even injure the individual soldier or officer as a soldier or officer, if the Government carry out what they are empowered to do under this Clause.

I would like also to say a word in strong commendation and support of what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Petersfield (Sir G. Jeffreys) said about the harm already done to the county regiments by the breach in the Territorial system. The county regiments are the solid concrete on which the British Infantry has been founded for over 200 years. I would like from my own personal experience to support what my hon. and gallant Friend has said about the grave injury done to the Territorials by what was, in fact, the abolition of the Territorial system during the two wars. I was a member of the Territorial Association in my county after the 1918 war, and we had even more difficulty in recruiting than we have today. We tried to ascertain what were the root causes of it. One of the principal causes was that the men said, "We will not go back to the Territorials. We were told before the war that the Territorials would be kept as a body; instead of that, they cross-posted us during the whole of the war."

I agree with my hon. Friends who are Regular soldiers—and I thank them for their support of the Territorial point— that the fons et origo mali was to be found in certain people at the War Office in both wars. In fact, I protested strongly, and I regret to have to inform the Committee that I had rather a scene with a right hon. Friend of mine when he was Secretary of State for War. I think that was early in 1940. I protested strongly against that system in those days, along with other hon. Members who went on that deputation. I therefore appeal to the Government to reconsider this Clause. No party question arises. None of us is actuated by anything other than a desire to see the British Army recruit the best type of officers and men, and that when those officers and men have been recruited they should be given a fair chance to rise in their profession. If we retain this Clause they will not be given that fair chance.

I hope my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will consider the arguments which have been submitted on this point, although I think there is another danger, and that is excessive parochialism in particular units. Hon. Members opposite may remember the story of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) of the colonel who was so depressed by being moved from one unit to another that the only way in which he referred to his unit was by saying that they had green facings and that you got at them from Waterloo.

But units should have a sense of fellowship even when the original Territorial basis is lost. During the war I had the good fortune to serve with a Territorial unit which was extremely efficient, and yet it had lost such a degree of its sense of Territorialism that on the national day when the national emblem was issued, in one officers' mess it was served as a vegetable. That did not detract from the efficiency of the unit, nor the pleasure which we all felt when we received a message in Welsh from hon. Members in this House. Therefore, I think it is possible to over-emphasise this Territorial feeling. There is always a danger that individual men who have only had experience of one unit might have undue pressure put on them to stay in that unit, when, if they were transferred, even against their will, they might find themselves much happier in the unit to which they were transferred. I hope the Committee will take a reasonable view of this matter.

I am glad this matter has been raised, because it has enabled my right hon. Friend and myself to be made aware of how widespread is the feeling that in the organisation of the Army we must give weight to what have been described as these imponderable factors which are of enormous importance. I hope, however, that if my right hon. Friend and I give very close attention to the remarks that have been made by several hon. Members, as we shall do, in turn they will give some weight to the considerations that have been advanced so ably and eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church (Mr. Bing). His speech brought out the fact that there are many conflicting factors that have to be weighed one against another.

It is true that in putting this Clause into the Bill we were actuated in part by what may be called, if it is the opposite of imponderable, the ponderable and measurable factors that we find. On the matter of recruiting there are certain arms where it is difficult at present to meet all our requirements. One of the factors of a well organised Army is that there shall be a proper balance between the arms, and for that reason we have had to consider that it will be necessary to take, and in certain circumstances it may be necessary to use this power of compulsory transfer, although the Committee will, no doubt, have noticed that it is only to apply to Regular volunteer soldiers who enlist after 30th April of this year. There is, of course, power for compulsory transfer of National Service men, but that is secured in other ways, and they are not really in issue in this discussion. Then, in view of the increasingly scientific nature of modern warfare, it becomes increasingly difficult to foretell the requirements of different arms, and for that reason we cannot bind ourselves too closely and must enjoy the greater flexibility which this Clause gives.

The hon. Member for North Blackpool (Mr. Low) particularly stressed the danger to recruiting. We did not add the Clause to the Bill without very careful consideration of that point. Two things must he borne in mind. One is the extreme circumspection with which we shall use this power. The effect on recruiting is determined not so much by the provisions of the Act as by what practical use is made of them—what a man may reasonably expect to happen to him if he joins the Army. Hon. Members will find that the actual use we shall make of the power is restricted to the very barest minimum —what the weighable and measurable factors make unavoidable. We have also to consider this. Even if—and I would not accept the position—this were to have some adverse effect on recruiting, what we get in return is that we are able to make a more effective use of the services of the men who are available to us.— [Interruption.]—Hon. Members indicate dissent, but that is something which cannot be disputed in view of the factors I have already mentioned.

Many references were made, to which I listened with great sympathy, to exasperation, disappointment and distress caused by cross-postings during the war, but when hon. Members spoke as if we were ruining the whole basis on which the Army has been built and strengthened that contention by examples of what happened during the last year, they had perhaps omitted to observe that the last war and the previous one resulted in success for the Armed Forces of this country. Some moderate measure of credit might be given to its organisation for that.

I do not stress too much the precise and measurable reasons for this Clause because I know that hon. Members are chiefly concerned about the possible danger arising from the excess use of this power, an imponderable but real factor. I can give the assurance asked for, that these powers will be used to the very barest minimum which necessity compels. We have in mind that where it is proposed that any man or a group of men shall be transferred, the position and the reasons for the proposed transfer shall be explained to them. We hope that in the majority of cases we shall be able to solve our problem by means of transfer by consent.

We realise as fully as any of the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken the importance of not treating soldiers as if they are chessmen or "bodies." It was Charles Dickens' Mr. Mantalini who in moments of distress expressed himself in the words, "I will be a body." Fortunately for the British Army, he is not a person whose character and conduct are taken as a model by soldiers. In addition to the safeguards I have already mentioned, the actual process of transfer will have to be carried out on the responsibility and by the decision of a member of the Army Council. That will be stipulated in the Rules of Procedure which are laid before the House.

The hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Brigadier' Head) assured us that we should get far more frank and independent judgment from him and his hon. Friends while they occupied their present position than if they were on the staff at the War Office. It is the function of this House to provide independent and frank criticism, but I ask the House to believe that every word which has been said in the course of this Debate will be most carefully considered by my right hon. Friend and myself. We shall also make clear to the member of the Army Council who has to operate anything arising under this Clause what the views of the House are and what the views are which are widely held by everyone with any knowledge or experience of the composition and the nature of the British Army. In view of that assurance and the fact that we did not propose to add this Clause to the Bill casually but with good reasons in mind, I hope the Committee will agree to its inclusion.

I have seldom heard such a lamentable justification for a great change of this character. From what the hon. Gentleman has said, it is quite obvious that every possible argument, good and bad, has been collected with a view to justifying this change. I ask the Committee to examine what really lies behind it and what emerges from the hon. Gentleman's statement. He says that the power of compulsion will be retained with a view to getting a properly balanced Army. Surely, the effect of that must be that those regiments for which recruits come forward readily will suffer in their recruiting in the future? That is bound to happen once it is realised that this power of compulsory transfer has been taken by the War Office. It is all very well to say that only after 1st April of a particular year will it be effective, but that is no consolation to members of military families whose menfolk have served in a certain regiment for generation after generation. Those people want to join the regiment in which their fathers served, and they will now be liable to the threat of being compulsorily transferred to an entirely separate regiment or a quite distinct arm. Far better than taking this compulsory power to divert recruits from the regiments to which they want to belong, would be an examination into the reasons why recruiting for the other units is not so good. The Adjutant-General should devote his attention to finding out why particular regiments are more attractive than others instead of seeking to divert recruits from those regiments to the ones which are at the moment less attractive. That would be much more effective.

The hon. Gentleman's speech bore a remarkable similarity to speeches made by the Minister of Labour in regard to the direction of labour. There we have been told that what is wanted is the moral persuasive effect of compulsion. Now the hon. Gentleman says, "Oh, no. So far as direction in the Army is concerned, it is not the moral effect of having this power but the use which is made of it." That is not right. Once it is realised in the country that no matter for what regiment one volunteers one may be directed to something quite different and serve one's enlistment away from the regiment of one's choice, voluntary recruiting for those regiments is bound to diminish. We have not been told that there will be an offer here of four alternative employments before the compulsion takes effect. All we are told is that the men concerned will have it explained to them why it is considered necessary that they should be transferred to another and perhaps more unpopular arm of the Service. Behind all that explanation lies the threat that the men will be sent there whether they want to go or not. I imagine that members of His Majesty's Forces, when they appreciate the effect of this Clause, will use a time honoured expression which it would be un-Parliamentary and out of Order for me to repeat to you, Major Milner, but which I am sure will be in your memory.

The assurance we have been given is worth absolutely nothing. I have no doubt that the War Office have considered this, and that it will facilitate administration to a great degree, but it will be accompanied by the destruction of something which has tended remarkably to the magnificent record of His Majesty's Army. The price for this change will be found not worth paying, and I invite the right hon. Gentleman to consider the remarks made from all sides of this Committee. Indeed, the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing), behind whom the hon. Gentleman sought to shelter himself, spoke largely in support of the principle that those regular soldiers who have volunteered for service in a particular arm could not be transferred from that arm without their consent. There is no ground for the retention of this power of compulsion over volunteers that I can see. The effort is being misdirected. It should be directed to see why recruiting is not so good for other units, and in view of the lamentable explanation we have heard, my hon. Friends and myself will have no hesitation in voting against this Clause.

I thought the reply of the Under-Secretary of State was extraordinarily inadequate. He made out no case why this Clause should be accepted, but simply said in effect that the Clause is needed in order to achieve greater flexibility. I for one, and I think my hon. and right hon. Friends, are tired of that word, which seems to be dragged into every argument by the Government to support what they wish to do. There is another argument of which I am getting tired, that the Government want this power but will only use it a very little. I 'think the words of the Under-Secretary were "the barest minimum." I cannot believe that we can go on working everlastingly on this basis. It was not necessary between the wars to have these powers of cross-posting, and I do not see why there is any necessity for them today. I was not surprised to hear the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), who is no longer in his place—

He is coming back.

I am glad to hear that, and I hope he will be in the Lobby with me quite soon—I was not surprised to hear him supporting what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head). It so happens that the hon. Gentleman who sits opposite had a particularly fine military record in the 1914–1918 war, and one of which the Secretary of State has every reason to be envious. [An HON. MEMBER: "Cheap."] The use of the word "corps" in this Clause seems to me rather odd and it is open to misinterpretation. I suppose it means the Pioneer Corps, the Signals Corps, the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers and the other corps, but it can also mean a corps composed of three divisions of troops.

The regimental system has been under a variety of forms of attack. Reference has been made already to this grouping system. As we all know, for about one year in every five a regiment practically ceases to exist as such; it becomes a holding unit for the other four regiments in the group. That is a serious attack on the regimental spirit. Quite apart from that, however, the actual grouping was not done sufficiently on a territorial basis, for one would find a Yorkshireman grouped with a man from Northumberland, and so on. Those are two definite attacks on the regimental spirit. Another was the recent refusal of the Secretary of State for War to allow full dress to be worn on historic regimental occasions. That was a clear failure on the part of the War Office to realise the value of the regimental spirit and tradition, and no case was made out why full dress should not be worn on these occasions.

Quite apart from the attack which this Clause makes on the regimental spirit, it offends against something much more fundamental, against one of the fundamentals of man management. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) made a brief comparison with the direction of labour, which we have now in peacetime for the first time in the history of this country. All of us on this side of the Committee believe that unless a man is happy in his work, that unless efforts are made to ensure that he is as happy as he possibly can be, that unless efforts are made to ensure that he is doing work for which he is best suited and most wants to do, he will work less well than he would in other circumstances. Now, men will have practically to learn new languages. A man who is a Geordie who is sent to a Pioneer Corps full of men from Somerset will hardly be able to make himself understood for a long time. This boils down to nothing more nor less than direction of labour within the Army, in exactly the same way as we have it now in civilian life.

I am not at all impressed by the argument that a little gentle and mild persuasion will be used in cases where men may have to be cross-posted from corps to corps; that some officer will say to, for instance, Private Snooks of the Coldstream Guards, "You are to be posted to the Guardsman Corps because there are too many men in the Coldstream Guards. If you like to go voluntarily, that is fine, but if you will not, I am sorry but you will have to be posted whether you like it or not." That is the kind of argument which will be used. Even during the war, the regimental spirit was kept going in spite of the activities of a Royal Artillery officer who was the Adjutant-General, and in spite of every effort on the part of "A" Branch of the War Office who, naturally, continuously put forward the argument of administrative convenience which it so often allows to outweigh the practical experience of those who actually do the fighting.

I do not like this Clause at all. It is bound to have a most serious effect on voluntary recruiting, and I hope that when the Secretary of State for War replies, he will bear in mind that not one of the hon. or right hon. or hon. and gallant Members who have spoken have spoken in favour of this Clause. If support is forthcoming from his own side why this Clause should be retained, maybe he will take note of the arguments, but, apart from his own Under-Secretary who could hardly be expected to speak against this Clause, no hon. Member who has spoken has supported it. Therefore, I look forward to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, and unless he can produce an entirely new and extremely weighty argu- ment why this Clause should be retained, cutting out all the piffle and poppycock about flexibility and so on, I shall have great pleasure in voting against it, and I expect to see the hon. Member for Ipswich and the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) voting in the same Lobby, together with others who have real experience of being in the fighting line.

I would like to say a word or two against this Clause although I am a non-military man. When I was transferred compulsorily to a retreat in the South-East of London on one occasion, most of those with whom I was associated were ex-soldiers. Many had been in the Artillery, many had been in the Guards, and instead of these military men looking after me, I had to look after them and stand between them because they were always ready to go to war with one another as to which was the outstanding regiment in the Army, the Artillery or the Guards. They were very proud of their particular associations.

12 noon.

But I am not so much concerned about that, as about the fact that it is highly probable that a man who is quite happy and desirous of carrying out his duties and being in every way an exemplary soldier will, as a result of the compulsory transfer, become a sullen, frustrated, type of individual, who is not prepared to fit in with the discipline at all. There have been cases of that kind in which, instead of settling down and carrying out his duties in a new regiment, a man has gone through a period of continued desertion and become a complete loss to the Army. That is very undesirable, and in my opinion there is no reason why it should be necessary. It is obviously quite possible to get necessary recruits if conditions are made suitable. We are continually told that new incentives must be given to get workers into the cotton industry. A new incentive can be given to get recruits into regiments of the Army. I am quite against the proposal for compulsory transfer.

The Secretary of State for War is a very old friend of mine and, no matter how far he diverges from the path of freedom, and no matter how much he should fall short in his Socialist rectitude, I will not join the Tories in voting against him—[Laughter.] No, however much I object to particular details, in general I am with the Minister against the other side of the Committee. But I am very sorry to see him in a position in which the enemies we have contested together for so many years have become the apostles of freedom against his attempt to become a tyrant.

I had hoped that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) might for once be persuaded to vote according to his conscience.

What conscience?

For many years past it has been possible to arrange for transfers, especially in such cases as a regiment coming home from India, where a good many men, not going on to the Reserve, were able to be transferred voluntarily by means of a small bounty. That has been done in the case of large numbers of men, very often 200 or 300 men transferring from one regiment to another. If the Secretary of State for War would consider offering a bounty when he wishes to make a transfer, he might get over his difficulty, instead of setting the whole of the Army against him, as I am sure he will by this proposed method.

No man who volunteers for a particular corps will want to be transferred against his will. Many men go into their fathers' regiment, or it may be, into their brothers' regiment. At present, a man may be transferred, with his consent, to join his brother in another regiment, but if they are separated again, willy nilly, against their will, it will lead to great difficulties. By doing this, the right hon. Gentleman will lose the popularity he has gained as Secretary of State for War. I hope he will see reason, and will listen to the arguments which have been advanced.

I wish to refer to the statement made by the Financial Secretary that the increase in scientific methods and mechanisation made it important that we should have greater flexibility. May I remind him that with the increase in mechanisation and scientific methods there is a far greater danger to the discipline of an Army when it comes to fighting. The faster war goes, the quicker morale deteriorates if things go wrong, unless discipline is on a very firm basis. I shall always believe that the best discipline which an army can have is self-discipline. A unit should have good self-discipline, and the better the self-discipline the less need there is for a dictatorial attitude. We want that sort of discipline in our Army, and, I maintain, we have always had it. If, while paying lip-service to the regimental system, we undermine the confidence each member of the regiment has in feeling that he is one of the family, that self-discipline will be weakened. Each should feel that he is a member of the regiment and that, so long as he behaves himself and remains a fit man, he should be entitled to stay in that regiment, arid no compulsion should be put upon him to move him.

I expected the Under-Secretary to use the argument that he wanted to get round pegs into round holes. A good deal was said about that during the war and a good many said that not sufficient attention was paid to getting the right men in the right jobs. He has not used that argument in defence of this Clause. Therefore, I could only suppose that what he has in mind is what I think he may have let slip inadvertently when he said it was the intention of the War Office as far as possible to limit movement to single men and groups of men. I hope, if the War Office get this power, it will be limited to single individuals, but apparently they visualise the movement of groups as well. Because of that, our reasons for opposing the Clause are even stronger than they were. If groups of tradesmen are to be moved from one unit to another not only will that disunite the regiment from which they go, but it will have a similar effect on the regiment to which they go.

I believe the argument used by the Under-Secretary that some credit for the fact that the Army achieved so much during the war must be given to the fact that there was a certain amount of cross-posting, can only be a frivolous argument. I hope it was not intended to be serious, for I cannot imagine a greater misconception in the War Office than to assume that because there was some cross-posting during the war, against the will of those concerned, it in any way contributed to the success of the Army. I am absolutely certain that the only reason why success was still obtainable after those cross-postings took place was because the regimental spirit was good already. If it had not been, I do not believe that the Army would have stood the strain of such cross-posting as actually happened. I hope that we shall get the matter clarified, and receive an assurance from the Secretary of State for War that the Army certainly does not look upon cross-posting as desirable. Where it did take place it created difficulties which only very fine discipline managed to overcome.

The temptation to sentimentalise is very great indeed, because I have been a regimental soldier practically all my life. I deplore very much any interference with the regimental spirit. It has been proved over and over again, by examples in the last war, and the war before that, that the regimental spirit is fundamental to the achievement of success. I am quite certain that if we pay only lip service to the regimental system, and have a sort of shadow of its former shape, we are denying the right of a man, whatever reasons he may originally have had for joining a regiment, to continue to serve in the regiment which he chose.

We shall undermine the whole discipline of the British Army, and upon that good discipline depends the morale of the Army. Anyone who tinkers about with the morale of the Army is asking for trouble, because in war there are quite enough things which interfere with moral anyway. To have something going on inside this country, or inside the War Office itself, which will in any way affect morale, will endanger, not only the Army itself, but the security of the nation, and also the peace of the world. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that this matter is not one which can be treated as an academic problem. It is very real problem indeed.

I have listened with a certain amount of cynical amusement to speeches made by hon. Members on the opposite side of the Committee defending the alleged voluntary system. Some of us know quite a number of cases where this has occurred on parade: "So many volunteers are wanted —you, you, you and you," and there is no further argument. This is a pseudo-voluntary system. At the same time, I would say that I am not too enamoured of this Clause, although I cannot help thinking that some of the hon. Members on the opposite Benches have been talking with their tongues in their cheeks.

Who?

If the administration of the Clause depended upon the Secretary of State for War, or the Under-Secretary, it would be fairly administered, but, in spite of the assurance given by the Under-Secretary, I have no confidence at all in the administration of the War Office.

Whose tongue is in his cheek now?

The two Parliamentary chiefs of the War Office are excellent people, but as regards their subordinates, the less said of them the better. At times they seem to act upon the principle, or lack of principle, enunciated centuries ago by a certain King of Syria, who sent a message to his opposite number in Israel, saying, "If there is anything pleasant in your eyes, I am going to take it away from you." That seems to be the spirit animating quite a large number of people in the War Office. If the Secretary of State says that instructions will be given by the members of the Army Council to carry out his views, I only hope that he has been given that promise by the members of the Army Council and that he will call upon the Ministry of Supply for an ounce of thistledown to add a bit of weight to the word. I have no confidence in any promise given in that direction.

I am impressed by the argument that it is well to allow sons and grandsons to follow in the footsteps of fathers and grandfathers. There is a very real value in that in industry, and I know, from living in a garrison town, that there is a real value in it from the point of view of the Army. I happen to have lived all my life in a town closely associated with the Royal Artillery, and I know man after man who has followed in the footsteps of the dear old dad in that respect. I am convinced that, properly handled, the voluntary system could be managed, although I fully comprehend the argument of the Under-Secretary of State of the need for being able to transfer people, because they might come across quite a number who would be awkward.

My own son was transferred, with his entire consent, and he was very happy over it. As a matter of fact, I think the result of the transfer was that he was far better placed than he was in the regiment of his first choice. If it could be used for that purpose I think it would be quite good. If the pledge given by the Under-Secretary of State can be carried out—what one knows of the War Office inclines one to doubt that—I think there is some value in it. I would deprecate anything that would deteriorate the spirit of the British Army, for that would be fatal, both in war and in peace, and I hope that we may have an assurance that this can be reconsidered. Like the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) I have no intention of voting against this Clause, but I would welcome an assurance that the matter will be reconsidered.

This Debate has been conducted in admirable temper, and I am grateful to hon. Members in all quarters of the House for the representations that they have sincerely made. There was, however, an exception. The hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) appeared to me to trespass on the side of the offensive. All I wish to say to him is this. I refuse to be provoked. I would beg of him to take a leaf out of the book of the hon. and gallant Member who represented his constituency in the last House—his gallant father—and who endeared himself to all sections of the House, and did not find it necessary to indulge in provocative observations. Perhaps I may forgive the hon. and gallant Member, because he informed the House, I think on at least three occasions, that he was very tired, and in view of his obvious hangover perhaps we can pass on to more important business—

Since the Secretary of State for War has seen fit to make this quite unprovoked attack upon me—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, certainly, perhaps I may ask what it was that I said to which he takes exception?

I should advise the hon. and gallant Member to do what I hope he does for his own advantage, and that is to read the columns of HANSARD.

What, was it?

I am a little surprised at hon. Members opposite. After all, they are in favour of conscription. They have consistently advocated conscription without asking any questions of the persons who are about to be conscripted, and who were subsequently conscripted; without regard to the interruption of careers, without regard to the effect on the morale of the persons concerned, and completely ignoring all the imponderable factors to which reference has been made in the course of this Debate. Clearly, if hon. Members are in the mood to impose compulsion as regards a very large section of the British Army, they must not be mealy mouthed or squeamish when it comes to imposing a measure of compulsion which has been rendered essential because of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) interjects that we are dealing with the volunteer. The hon. and learned Member is well aware of the fact that in this Committee we use the arguments which are most suitable. That is precisely what he has done. I am venturing to do the same.

I repeat that it does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to complain of compulsory posting or transfer when already the Committee and the country have accepted implicitly the principle of compulsion. The position of those who are opposed to the principle of compulsion is another matter. One of my hon. Friends said that he disliked the conception of an Army altogether. That is a point of view of which we must take note, but it is not agreeable to us and there we must leave it.

Why has this been rendered necessary? Many hon. and gallant Members participated in the Debate on the Estimates, and I am bound to say that they offered very valuable observations of which note has been taken for future reference, and for future action if that be possible. In the course of that Debate, it was made abundantly clear to the Committee and the country that the Army is in the process of drastic reorganisation. That situation has been brought about because of the rapid run-down in numbers in the Army. Over and above that—and this is a point with which all hon. Members are familiar—it has been brought about because of our very severe commitments overseas. In those circumstances, whether or not hon. Members like the term—and I regret that I cannot find a more suitable one on this occasion—we must proceed with the utmost flexibility. It is impossible to build up a balanced Force either in the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, without regard to the need for the desirable poise that is essential if these Forces are to operate effectively.

Therefore, it has become necessary, because of the paucity of numbers, the harsh commitments which are unavoidable in existing circumstances, and in particular—this I must emphasise—the change that has come about in the Army, the obvious and inevitable change due to mechanisation and the use of modern weapons, to exercise certain discrimination in the transfer of men from one arm to another. It is suggested, and indeed it appeared to me the most substantial point, that one method of avoiding this point would be to provide more suitable conditions for the particular technical or other arm. I assure hon. Members that I am fully conscious of the need for some readjustment.

A readjustment of this character, however desirable it may appear to be, possesses certain superficial aspects which must be considered if it is to be operated with due regard to its repercussions. It would be easy enough, and a child could suggest this, to say that in order to recruit more men for the technical arms of the Army we should offer higher pay and better conditions. But how far would that affect morale and discipline in the other arms? We must consider that possibility. Indeed, it is more than a possibility. Any readjustment of this character would have to be considered most carefully.

It is suggested that this will have a deleterious effect on recruitment. I doubt it. It is true that some men who join the Army voluntarily are disposed to join a certain regiment or arm of the Service. On the other hand, a great many of them join the Army as an army without regard to any particular branch. That must be taken into account. It is suggested also that there should be no indiscriminate posting. All I can do is to give an assurance on behalf of the Army Council—and my hon. Friend must accept it for what it is worth: I accept it from my colleagues —that posting will be operated with the utmost discretion.

How?

We must leave that to those who are in charge of the administration. That is the only way in which it can be operated.

It is assumed by some of my hon. Friends, or at any rate it appears to be an assumption underlying the arguments which have been adduced, that when a man joins the Army there is no question of compulsion or posting to a particular task. I have just returned from a visit to a garrison overseas. There I saw men engaged on tasks which I am sure they never expected to undertake when they joined the Army. Yet, they are retained in the same branch of the Service though they are undertaking tasks of the most arduous and technical character, so arduous indeed that I questioned what was being done and I am taking the matter into consideration. However, it was pointed out that this was essential for certain purposes which we have in view. That being so, if, when a man joins the Forces, we have the power to transfer him to tasks which he never anticipated on enlistment, then clearly we are not proceeding too far in the wrong direction if we retain for ourselves in this Clause the right to post men from one arm to another.

The only other argument to which it appears to me to be necessary to reply is that about the territorial aspects of the British Army. I have been sufficiently long at the War Office, and I had a previous dispensation there, to know that everybody at the War Office attaches considerable importance to the territorial aspects. Indeed, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) said, and as I pointed out during the Debate on the Estimates, we are seeking to attach territorial units as closely as possible to their home towns and thus retain features which have always been regarded as desirable.

If a man refuses to be compulsorily transferred, does he come under all the rigours of a court-martial, or will he have some opportunity of appeal?

That is a point of substance, to which I will certainly give my attention. I shall not willingly permit harsh measures to be adopted in the case of a man—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh.] Let me finish my point. Within the bounds of the necessary discipline that must be invoked—and without discipline we cannot carry on the British Army, or any other Force—I would not willingly allow harsh measures to be operated against a person who had a legitimate case for not being transferred. I cannot believe that those responsible in the various Commands would post men, or a group of men, who were very unwilling to accept the transfer. However, this is a matter which requires a certain amount of consideration, and I am prepared to look at it and advise the House accordingly about it.

As for the rest, all I shall say is this: We have to use our men to the best advantage. Does the Committee take exception to that? Surely not. With small numbers that is the obvious thing to do, and that is all we are proposing to do. It may not be necessary to adopt this method to more than a limited degree, and I shall do my best to confine it to the narrowest possible limits. In view of what has been said, and of which I and the Army authorities will take note, I shall see that Members' wishes, so far as practicable, are carried out. I must say, however, that objectionable though this proposal may appear to be, we have found it to be essential. We should not have advanced it unless it had been regarded as absolutely necessary in the existing unfavourable circumstances. That being so, I must ask the Committee to accept it.

In view of the extraordinary reply of the Minister, I must advise my hon. Friends to take this matter to a Division. The right hon. Gentleman has not accepted one of the propositions or arguments that were put forward from all sides of the Committee. He did not mention the question of morale at all, which is of fundamental importance. The right hon. Gentleman said, "We have accepted the principle of conscription and, therefore, we should accept it in this case. We must accept that because certain men are being compelled to go into the Army, they must, and those who join voluntarily, having got there, have put on their backs this further element of internal conscription." It seems to be the right hon. Gentleman's argument that because we have accepted the one the other inevitably follows. It does not. The whole burden of the argument is that in the Army today there are two elements—the conscripted element and the voluntary element. It is the voluntary element which will be in danger if this proposal is carried.

Reference has been made today to the importance of esprit de corps and the regimental spirit. Even the Communist Party have joined in that, and I suppose that in this House that is about all the Communist Party have got. They have neither influence nor numbers, but they certainly have a considerable amount of esprit de corps. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not conceded anything to the arguments which have been advanced. All he said was that a certain amount of discretion would be applied. I do not understand how that can be applied. Either a man will be given an order and transferred, or he will not. It does not make sense at all. The Minister says, "Many men are forced to undertake tasks of great difficulty which they never expected to undertake when they joined the Army." He said that he had seen men doing such tasks during his recent tour—and I am glad that he is back, because I saw from the Press that there had been some difficulty and that he found himself, oddly enough, in Portugal.

I gathered that during his tour he saw men doing work which they had not expected to do when they joined the Army. What has that got to do with the argument? The argument here is not the work which the men will have to do; it is the men with whom they will have to do the work. It is the unit. I do not suppose that the doing of unpleasant tasks occurred for only the first time during the right hon. Gentleman's visit overseas. I hope that those unpleasant tasks were not in connection with his visit. The Army, all through its long history, has had to do many unexpected and nasty jobs. The very fact that men have done these jobs with their comrades, men with whom they have voluntarily joined and been trained, has enabled them to do the tasks with much greater success and a much better spirit than otherwise would have been the case.

The Under-Secretary put up the argument that in spite of cross-posting during the war, about which some of my hon. Friends complained, we won the war so that there was, therefore, nothing much wrong with cross-posting. That is the most rubbishly argument I have ever heard advanced in this House. We won the war in spite of a lot of things. It was not only a question of cross-posting. Are we to say that all the troubles and difficulties we overcame to win the war are in themselves meritorious? Unfortunately, we suffered defeats. Is it a good thing that that happened? We suffered losses of equipment. Is that a good thing, in spite of the fact that at the end of it all we won the war? A powerful case has been made from both sides of the Committee, and I can only think that if there had been more hon. and gallant Members on the opposite Benches today, men with military experience in the war, they would have taken the same line as has been taken by every speaker in this Debate.

Surely, the Minister should sometimes bow to the argument which, in this case, is very strong. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he did not bother to answer the argument. He did not bother to say anything about morale.

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

The purpose of the proposed new Clause is to ensure that an officer or soldier who commits a civil offence while serving outside the United Kingdom can be brought to trial beyond the three months' period specified in the present Act. As regards mutiny and desertion or fraudulent enlistment we already have these powers. There was a recent judgment of the divisional court in a case where an offence committed by an officer who was tried by court-martial for fraudulent conversion led to his conviction; but the conviction was subsequently quashed, but only on the ground that the divisional court found that the time within which the officer could be tried by court-martial had expired, and that there was no jurisdiction to try him. If this situation were permitted to continue it would enable certain crimes to go unpunished, and, therefore, would fail to safeguard the public interest. It is not my intention to use the powers contained in Subsection (2) to bring into the net a large number of old cases. Only where a serious crime is involved would these powers be invoked. It will be noted that there are two condition's: the offence must have been committed outside the United Kingdom, and have been of a character which, had it been committed in the United Kingdom, would have been punishable by ordinary law; and, moreover, the consent of the Attorney-General must be obtained before the accused person is brought to trial. Criminal offences committed in the United Kingdom could, of course, be tried in the civil courts here, but we have not been able to adopt the same measures where an offence is committed overseas.

It is not my intention to amend Section 161 of the Army Act, so that, as in the past, a trial must in all cases begin within the three years provided for. As regards purely military offences, there appears to be no reason why the present law should be altered. Such offences are usually of a character where the offence is speedily detected, and the accused person can be brought to trial very soon after the commission of the offence. I regret that the proposed Clause should be necessary, but its passage is unavoidable if we are to bring to trial persons who have committed offences which have not been detected while the officers or soldiers were in the Service. In view of the need for bringing the law up to date, and for bringing to justice offenders who, in order to safeguard the public interest, must be brought to justice, and having regard to the safeguarding conditions provided for, I feel that this is a Clause which, in all the circumstances, should be accepted.

The Secretary of State has sought to justify this new Clause in order to provide for the trial and punishment upon conviction of persons who have ceased, under the existing law, to be subject to military law. This new Clause clearly arises out of the judgment of the Divisional Court on 27th February of this year, but the problem with which it is intended to deal must surely have come up for consideration as long ago as 1945. The question of bringing to trial before courts martial persons who were demobilised must have been considered then, because, as the right hon. Gentleman may know, at the top of every charge-sheet containing the charges before the court martial are stated the grounds upon which it is supposed that the person is at that time subject to military law. Therefore, I suggest that at the very outset that question must have fallen for consideration by the military authorities.

I should be interested to know whether the learned Attorney-General expressed any view upon that matter, because it is obviously—as, indeed, the Lord Chief Justice said—a question of the highest constitutional importance. I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not appear in the case before the Divisional Court. In saying that I am not seeking to draw any inference that he did not find it possible to support the views at that time put forward on behalf of the Crown. This is a most astonishing position, where a person is arrested, taken out of this country, tried on the basis that he is subject to military law, sentenced, the sentence confirmed—with all the advice available on that issue from legally qualified gentlemen, and had any doubt been felt at that time about jurisdiction those sentences could not have been confirmed—and then, in 1948, the decision of the Divisional Court that the whole machinery was wrong, and that the court martial had no jurisdiction to pass sentence. We must have some explanation from the right hon. Gentleman why this situation was allowed to develop.

Secondly, we must have a much more detailed explanation as to the operation of this new Clause, because as I understand it—the learned Attorney-General will correct me if I am wrong—the man in question, whose conviction was quashed by the divisional court on the ground that the court-martial had no jurisdiction, is liable, if this Clause be passed, to be re-arrested and brought again before a court martial.

I understand that that is not the case.

I should be obliged to hear what the learned Attorney- General has to say about that. I should have thought it was absolutely clear in law that that man is liable to re-arrest and trial.

On the same charges?

Yes, on the same charges, because the first trial was a nullity, as the court had no jurisdiction. I have before me the judgment of the divisional court, and that was the basis of their decision. The court had no jurisdiction; it was a nullity; and, as far as I am aware, where a court martial is, for instance, improperly convened and the proceedings are subsequently quashed on that account, that is no bar to a retrial before a properly constituted court martial. We want and ought to be told, without any shadow of doubt, first, what is the legal position with regard to such persons?

Persons who have been tried?

Persons who have been tried. There is only one case of that sort. Secondly, what is the legal position of persons who have been arrested and taken overseas for trial, and whose trials have been abandoned in the light of this decision of the Divisional Court? They, too, so far as I am aware, may now, if this Clause be passed, be rearrested as soon as the Bill becomes law, and brought before a court martial either in this country or overseas. If I am right in the view that I put forward as to the effect of this Clause, then it is very unsatisfactory in this form.

In moving the Motion the Secretary of State said that it was not his intention to operate the Clause in a large number of old cases. Surely, the administration of the criminal law does not rest upon the right hon. Gentleman's intention? What he is seeking to provide here is that, people who commit offences, not of a military character but such as would have been offences against the criminal law if committed in England, could be brought to justice. That must rest upon the whim of the Attorney-General. If provision is made for retrospective trial in respect of offences committed a long time ago, we must be informed, and there ought to be a statutory provision declaring the principles on which this wide power will be exercised. He has said that this new Clause would only be invoked in serious cases. What does he mean by that? Who will decide what are serious cases? Does it mean that if a man is charged with fraudulent conversion of£1,000, he will be taken away from his civilian employment? May be, under this new Clause, he has been in that employment for the best part of three years before he is taken away and brought before a court martial. Does it mean that a man charged with the fraudulent conversion of £1,000 will suffer that, and that a man charged with taking £900 will not? What does the Attorney-General mean by serious cases? Who is to determine them?

It must not be forgotten that we should not assume for one moment that persons arrested on these charges are guilty of the offences alleged against them. The consequence of this Clause will be that, within three years after the alleged commission of the offence, when the officer or man has been demobilised almost that entire period, when he is employed again in a suitable civilian capacity, he is suddenly taken off to face a civil charge of this character. The consequences for that individual are bound to be serious. Even if he is acquitted, it is going to cause some interruption of his civilian occupation and may prejudice his advancement in the civilian sphere.

Why is it that the right hon. Gentleman wants to maintain this power for so long a period as three years? Surely it is possible for the military authorities to discover what has gone on, and to know what is going on, in less than that period. After all, when a man is demobilised he first has his demobilisation leave. Then he is free after three months, as the law now stands, from liability under military law. Surely it would be sufficient to say that the time should be much shorter; say, within six months of his demobilisation he can be brought back. But three years—a man may have forgotten all about the circumstances and may be further handicapped when he comes to put forward his defence or to secure witnesses in support of his case. Three years would seem to be an unnecessarily long period. I am not saying anything to seek to justify the evasion of justice by persons who have committed criminal offences, but I am putting forward the plea that the period in which they can be brought for trial before a court martial should be much shorter than three years after the commission of the offence. There is something to be said for three years if they were still serving, but when a man has been demobilised, it is a very hard thing to seize him suddenly, two and a half years, it may be, after the alleged commission of the offence. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look into that question of time very seriously indeed to see if he cannot reduce it.

I think that we ought also to be told a little about the position of persons employed by the Control Commission. Do they come within the sphere of this or not? If they do not, is there not some means of dealing with them in cases of fraudulent conversion, embezzlement, or something of that sort? I do not know whether they can be brought before a court martial or not, but the right hon. Gentleman must know. If they cannot be brought before a court martial—I should have thought that the probable answer was "No"—is there not some machinery for dealing with them, if they have committed offences which, if committed in England, would be contrary to the law of England? If there is machinery for dealing with these individuals machinery created in 1945—it would seem to destroy the argument for providing for trial by military courts of officers and men after their demobilisation for offences which, if committed here, would be offences against the law of England. If there is machinery for dealing with employees of the Control Commission in Germany for fraudulent conversion, embezzlement and things of that sort, would it not be possible to use that machinery in relation to any man who was in the Army, but who is no longer, who is charged with an offence of that character?

If that machinery does exist, this Clause becomes unnecessary, and that is why I am asking if there is machinery. If there is no machinery, then perhaps this Clause does not completely fill the gap which the divisional court has shown to exist. Therefore, I suggest that we ought to have an explanation upon that. No one, I feel sure, in this Committee likes retrospective legislation, and no one likes the idea of providing for the trial of persons in relation to offences committed a long time ago. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to say that, in view of the observations I have made, the period of three years will in these cases be reduced.

I have one final observation to make. Of course, it is true to say that no prosecution can be brought, as shown by Subsection (I), without the consent of the Attorney-General. The right hon. Gentleman may have a heavy burden placed upon his shoulders. I think that he ought to tell us on what principles he will act in determining whether or not his consent will be given. The Secretary of State rather indicated that he thought that it was for him to decide whether a case was sufficiently serious for a prosecution, but, as I understand the Clause, it rests upon the Attorney-General to determine that. We ought to be told on what principles the right hon. Gentleman relies. For instance, supposing he is satisfied that the charge, although a serious one, is one which really ought to have been made months ago, that the whole circumstances ought to have come to light months ago had there been proper diligence on the part of the military authorities, and supposing it is brought to his knowledge that the individual concerned is well established in some civilian occupation, will he say that, in view of the delay that has occurred, although the charge is of a serious character, he is not prepared to give his consent? What weight will he give to the element of delay in bringing the matter before him? I think that we must ask for further explanation on this particular point. I hope we shall get a more satisfactory assurance from the right hon. Gentleman than we have received up-to-date and that he will be able to allay some of the fears about the actual operation of this new Clause.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), who had put down a new Clause which appears on the Order Paper, is unavoidably absent today and asked me to apologise to the Minister and the Committee that he is unable to be present. He feels that the point which he had in mind has been covered by the Government's new Clause. I would only put two other short points. First, everyone will agree with the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) that we in this House do not like introducing retrospective legislation, which may have the effect of making something criminal today which was not criminal two or three years ago, and we also agree it would be most unsatisfactory for any individual case to be reopened. I feel quite certain that the Secretary of State for War, in view of his opening remarks, has not the slightest intention of reopening the Boydell case, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred. I feel absolutely certain that he has no intention whatsoever of taking advantage of this retrospective provision in order to upset decisions which have already been taken by the Courts.

I should like in the second place to say something about the Attorney-General's consent to the trial. I would respectfully suggest to the Attorney-General that in principle it is not a very good thing to have a provision of this kind. I personally consider that the whole business of bringing the Attorney-General into appeals in criminal cases to the House of Lords is wrong. It is an anomalous situation, and I should like to refer to Montesquieu's doctrine of "separation of powers," which appears to be broadly correct. Something which one should keep at the back of one's mind is that the legislature and the judiciary should always be kept separate. In principle the kind of thing we ought to try to avoid is to have a man of the political importance of the Attorney-General taking semi-judicial decisions as to whether or not an individual should be prosecuted in certain circumstances. That is brought out by the particular case we have in mind, where I understand the gentleman concerned, about whom I know nothing, has made certain threats to the Secretary of State for War. It is undesirable that a political function of any kind should enter into this matter.

It would be far better if the decision rested with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Perhaps the Atorney-General will deal with the point, but I understand that, in general, the Director of Public Prosecutions, in fact, operates under the broad supervision of the Attorney-General. Therefore, perhaps there is not a great deal of substance in my point. I hope the Attorney-General will not think I am per- sonal when I say that in any event he is far too busy a man to be wasting his time considering individual cases of this kind. The Attorney-General advises the Cabinet on all points of law in regard to the Measures which come before this House, and it is ridiculous to suggest that he personally should be spending his time dealing with cases of this kind. The whole idea of the Attorney-General being responsible for going personally into these cases is fantastic. If he does go into them he is wasting his time. He is responsible for seeing that all legislation brought before this House of Commons is in accordance with the great legal traditions of this country.

indicated dissent—

Yes, he does. I hope the hon. and learned Member for Daventry is not going to contradict me when I say that the Attorney-General is responsible for advising the Cabinet on points of law, and, therefore, in relation to legislation which comes before this House he has to advise whether or not it is in accordance with the legal traditions of this country. That being so, it is wrong that he should have to concern himself with individual cases. While entirely approving, if I may respectfully say so, of the new Clause and being willing to vote for it if the hon. and learned Member for Daventry divides the Committee, I hope that this kind of provision will not appear in future. I trust, too, that the Attorney-General will say a few words on the subject.

Perhaps I might just pick up amongst the points that have been raised in this short discussion the last point made by my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn). I must be careful not to allow the various functions that I have to discharge to be added to by the constitutional theories of my hon. Friend. It is not part of the duty of the Attorney-General to see that legislation accords with any kind of tradition. The duty of the Attorney-General is to advise the Government as to the law and as to the effect on the law which any changes in legislation may bring about. It is for others to decide whether those changes are consistent with the traditions of the law or with political or other traditions to which the country may adhere, but that is not the Attorney-General's responsibility. It is, however, his responsibility under a number of existing Statutes to give his consent or fiat before particular prosecutions are launched.

I am not trying to quarrel with what the Attorney-General has said, but he must bear in mind that he remains a member of the Government both as a politician and as a lawyer, and in that capacity surely he takes a broader view than merely being, as it were, a hired attorney.

Obviously, as a Member of the Government I accept with all other members of the Government collective responsibility for any decision which the Government take. I advise the Government on legal matters and I accept responsibility with other Ministers on questions of policy. I was simply taking up the suggestion made by my hon. Friend that the Attorney-General, by virtue of his office, is under some special obligation to the House to see that legislation accords with some particular kind of tradition. That is not the position of the Law Officer at all.

In regard to this question of giving my fiat to the launching of a prosecution under a particular statute, it is, as I have said to the Committee already, the practice in a number of statutes that the fiat of the Attorney-General should be obtained. Where there is a statutory provision to that effect I can assure the Committee that in every case I personally consider whether the fiat should be given. Nobody else does it for me. It is not an easy task, and it is a task which sometimes takes time but it is one which the Law Officers of the day have to discharge personally, and invariably I discharge it personally. If the Committee decides under this Bill to cast this duty on me, it can rest assured that it will be discharged personally by me or my successors and by nobody else, nor will it be discharged, as my hon. Friend seemed to suggest, as a political function. There is nothing political about it. It may be that it is a function which contains an element of an executive as well as a judicial nature, but it is one in the discharge of which no political considerations are allowed to apply at all. Nor during the course of the time I have held my present office has anybody ever sought to bring any political influence to bear.

It is true that in some cases the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions rather than that of the Attorney-General is required, but, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, the Director of Public Prosecutions does work under my supervision and no great constitutional point is involved there. I find it a little difficult to say what reason there had been for choosing the Director of Public Prosecutions in one case and the Attorney-General in another. The practice in the past, I believe, has been that the more important cases, where it has been thought that prosecutions ought not to be brought without the most careful consideration at a high level being given to them, should be assigned personally to the Attorney-General. That is the reason why that course has been taken in this case. When the hon. Member referred to separation of powers, it might have been better if, instead of quoting Montesquieu, he had quoted our own great authority, Maitland, who pointed out that in no country in the world did that doctrine apply less than it has applied in the English Constitution. It is rather fortunate for the development of our Constitution that that has been the case.

I now come to the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). He asked me whether that matter had been considered in 1945 or prior to the recent decision of the Divisional Court. I must tell the hon. and learned Member that the matter had not been considered before.

Not by His Majesty's legal advisers?

Not by His Majesty's Law Officers. I do not know that in recent years it had ever occurred to anybody, until the matter was raised, not by counsel but by one of the judges of the Divisional Court, that officers who, without being discharged, without being placed on the reserve list had been placed on the unemployed list with liability to recall at any time, thereby ceased to be subject to military law. I doubt whether that had occurred to anybody until the Divisional Court decided it. The Divisional Court did decide it. They said that it was a matter of very great legal difficulty as well as of importance. But they did decide it and from that decision in the circumstances of that case there is no appeal. I must be absolutely loyal to that decision and not express, even if I were so minded, which I am not, any view about it save, perhaps, that we shall seek an opportunity—and we hope that one may present itself in the not too distant future—of testing this matter which is of very great importance, constitutionally and legally, before the highest tribunal, so that the law may be finally settled in a way beyond all possibility of dispute or argument.

In this connection the right hon. and learned Gentleman will perhaps remember that in the course of the discussion on another Bill, I referred to the question of providing some right of appeal against the judgment of a divisional court.

My memory was brought sharply to that matter when I saw the decision in that case—a decision of which I knew nothing at all until I saw it reported. I do not wish it to be thought for a moment that the reason why no Law Officer appeared in the case was that no Law Officer thought it was capable of argument. Law Officers cannot appear in every case.

I will now pass to some of the other points which the hon. and learned Member raised. He asked me, in particular, in what cases the enlarged power would be exercised, and what my right hon. Friend meant by "serious." In regard to a quasi-judicial duty, which has not yet been cast upon me by statute, and which, if it is, I shall have to discharge in relation to the merits of particular cases, it would not be right for me to tie myself down by indicating too precisely the particular principles which would weigh with me, or the extent to which they would weigh, but I think that without impropriety I may go so far as to say that the question of delay would certainly be one of the factors to which I should have regard. In the criminal law of this country it is not yet a defence to say that the prosecutor was guilty of contributory negligence, but if there has been long delay, and if in the meantime the person against whom it is sought to bring a charge has established himself in honest, civilian life, those are obviously considerations which one would not ignore in deciding whether or not the matter should be reopened and whether it was necessary in the public interest that a prosecution should be brought.

Nor do I think I ought to tie myself down—because I have not yet considered it in a judicial way as I should have to do in regard to any particular case, and one case has been mentioned here. But I am certainly entitled to say that I should think it exceedingly unlikely either that my right hon. Friend would ask for leave to prosecute, or that if he did I should give leave to prosecute in a case which had already been the subject of proceedings made abortive under the decision of the Divisional Court. I do not think I ought to have to go any further than that, for the obvious reason that I have no function yet, and when I do get it it will be a judicial function which I shall have to discharge on the merits of the case.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman has explained how he will exercise his function if the Clause is passed. He has said that he thinks it unlikely that any further proceedings will be brought against the gentleman in a case which was the subject of a judgment in the Divisional Court. I apprehend from that that he agrees that under this new Clause such proceedings could be brought. Will he go further and say what the position would be, and what would be the Government's attitude towards those who had not in fact been brought to trial but—and there have been cases of this character—who have been arrested, taken overseas, and then the proceedings dropped because of the decision of the Divisional Court? Will such people be re-arrested?

I do not think I ought to commit myself any further than I have done on that kind of case. I think that would certainly be a consideration which would have to be borne in mind by the Attorney-General and, I have no doubt, by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State because my right hon. Friend would have to consider the matter first. He or his Department would have to decide whether the case was one in which, in their view, a prosecution ought to be brought. Only if they so decided would the matter come before the Attorney-General at all. I have no doubt that both my right hon. Friend and his Department and the Attorney-General would certainly give weight to that consideration, but how much weight is a matter which must depend upon the merits of each particular case.

In some cases it would obviously be a grave miscarriage of justice—and when I say "justice" one must remember that it is not only the wrongdoer but society as well who are entitled to justice—if a man who had committed a serious offence for which punishment ought to be meted out were to escape that punishment because he had been arrested and detained for a day or two by mistake. He has his remedy for that. He can bring an action if he thinks it is right, and can possibly get damages for it. I would not be prepared to tie myself down here and say that no man who has been mistakenly arrested should thereafter be rearrested and tried for an offence. All that I feel able to say is that that is one of the factors that one would certainly take into account in deciding whether or not there should be a trial.

The next matter which the hon. and learned Gentleman raised concerned the position of officers of the Control Commission. Officers of the Control Commission may, of course, be civilian officers or military officers. If they are military officers and are subject to military law, as they would be if they were on the active list, they would be liable to be tried by court martial. If they are civilian officers their liability is to be tried by the courts which have been established by the Control Commission in Germany—what are, in effect, civilian courts operating in Germany now, and presided over in many cases by British judicial officers. The difficulty about those courts—and those courts might have been available to try certain military officers—is that their jurisdiction is a territorial one, and the wrongdoer may succeed in leaving Germany before his offence is discovered. There does not now exist between this country and Germany the machinery which normally exists between two countries—the machinery of extradition between one country and the other—and once a Control Commission officer gets back to this country he cannot be compelled to go back to Germany for his trial.

In 1802 a Statute was passed, as I thought, to deal with that very type of problem, which gave jurisdiction to the then existing courts to try persons who, while in the service of His Majesty, military or civil, had committed offences abroad. Unfortunately, it has been construed, whether rightly or not, as applying only to misdemeanours, and, another unfortunate thing, it seems still to be subject to the rule that there must be a grand jury presentment for trial to take place. There are also other procedural difficulties. After examination of the possibility of using that statute, it did not seem to me right to use it because it had fallen into desuetude. We shall have to consider whether it is necessary to provide other machinery to deal with that kind of case.

1.30 p.m.

I was asked why we should take three years. Clearly, consideration was given to that before we decided to have three years. What happens in some of these cases is that discovery of the offence only occurs when an attempt is made to remove money from Germany. I do not want to be thought to be referring to any particular cases for it would be improper that I should say anything that might even indirectly refer to a particular case. However, there may be cases in which, as a result of some criminal process, a person in the service of His Majesty has succeeded in obtaining money in Germany and has put it, in an anonymous account in a bank, perhaps in the name of a German, and left it there until he has been discharged from the Army for three months. Having been discharged for three months, and knowing that under the existing law he is immune from prosecution, he then says, "I have got some money in Germany. Kindly arrange for it to be sent over to me."

While we felt that it was necessary to have some time limit, we thought that as quite considerable sums might occasionally be involved, a year or even two years might not be enough. People might be prepared to let the money lie in Germany for two years in order to avoid the risk of prosecution. We had to draw the line somewhere and we thought that the right line was the line already laid down in Section 161 of the Statute, that is, three years. Hon. Members will remember that there is no time limit to prosecution in the ordinary criminal law, except in particular cases.

Let me now say a word about retrospective legislation. The real objection to retrospective legislation is, as was said, that it may make something criminal which was not criminal at the time it was done; but that is not the effect of this Bill. There is authority for the view that the whole principle against retrospective legislation has no application at all to cases where the legislation is simply jurisdictional or procedural. It is one thing to say to a man that we shall prosecute him and punish him now for something which he did at a time when there was no law forbidding it and it was done innocently and properly as far as he knew. That is very objectionable. It is different to say that we shall prosecute a man now for something which he did, knowing when he did it that it was criminal to do it and that he could be tried and punished for it. We are asking the Committee to say that we may have the right to do that, subject to the very considerable safeguards which do not protect ordinary civilian wrongdoers, in the special circumstances of this case.

I am rather disturbed about what the Attorney-General has said with regard to the Control Commission. Obviously, that is highly relevant here because, as I understand from him, there is already a distinction between those under military law and those who are not under military law. That distinction is in favour of those who are not under military law. The effect of this Clause will be greatly to aggravate that distinction. No steps have yet been taken to deal with the Control Commission offender who gets away before he is caught and yet, with regard to the man under military service, this extra period of two years and nine months is to be applied, and it is to be made retrospective.

I should have thought that this increase in the distinction between those under military law and those not under military law was entirely unjustifiable unless it is proposed to follow this Bill with another Bill introducing some new law with regard to civilian offenders in Germany. If it is proposed to do that and to have still more retrospective legislation coming along shortly, we must examine this Clause pretty narrowly. We may have to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give us a little more detail than he has yet done as to what he will do about the other class of cases. If he is going to leave the other class alone, why should there be this distinction against those under military law whereas the others, who are already better off, are left where they are? It is an entirely unjustifiable Clause unless it is to be followed by a further Bill to deal with the civilian employees of the Control Commission who reach this country before their offences are discovered.

Surely a proposal to deal with the civilian officers in Germany, and not this Clause, would have been a better way to deal with the demobilised man, because he is now a civilian and these are civilian offences. The Government have attacked this problem from the wrong end. They should not have had this Clause but should have realised that these people are now civilians and that civilian employees of the Control Commission are apparently "getting away with it."

indicated dissent.

The Secretary of State for War shakes his head, but I understand from the Attorney-General that if a civilian employee of the Control Commission reaches this country before he is found out, nothing can be done about it. The Attorney-General was perfectly clear on that point. If we are to accept this Clause, it is necessary, and plain justice, that there should be another Bill to clear up the position in regard to the civilian officer of the Control Commission against whom an offence is alleged but who cannot now be tried because of the technicality that he cannot be extradited to Germany.

Are we to have another Bill or not? If not, this Clause is entirely unjust to the men under military law. If we are to have another Bill, why does it not deal with all cases in the same way? I would rather see a man who had committed an offence in Germany and is now demobilised, tried in England, or Scotland if he is a Scotsman, under the ordinary law of his country. I would rather have these people regarded for this purpose as having committed the offence within the jurisdiction of their home courts. After all, we are occupying Germany, and these people are under our direct orders, even more than in the case of a Crown Colony. I see no legal objection to our saying that people who commit offences in Ger- many against the law there and the law here might be tried here as if the offence had been committed in this country. They would have a jury of their own country to try them, and it seems perfectly fair. If that is the proper way to do it, why bring the man back into uniform if he has been demobilised for two or three years?

I cannot help feeling that the War Office have landed this Clause on the Attorney-General. There has been no consultation between the civilian and military sides of the Government, and the problem is being dealt with piecemeal and in the wrong way, whereas if it had been brought to the Attorney-Generals' notice before it was prepared, he would have produced a very much better scheme. It is most astonishing that the War Office should have allowed this to go as far as the Divisional Court without taking proper legal advice about the position. I was astonished to hear the Attorney-General say that a case of this constitutional importance had come up in the Divisional Court without his or the Solicitor-General's knowing anything about it.

There is something very far wrong with War Office organisation if that can happen. If it had happened in Edinburgh when I was Lord Advocate, I would not have let the thing rest there. I do not think it could have happened. It may be, that because they are on a bigger scale, things can happen in London which could not happen in Edinburgh. In any case, it ought to be stopped, and I hope this case will have induced the War Office to realise that though they may be good at their own job, law is not their strong point and that on a case of this great importance they ought to take proper advice before they get into this kind of a mess.

I agree with the Attorney-General that if there is to be a discretion here, it ought to be his discretion. Our system in Scotland is a good system under which the Lord Advocate exercises an entirely nonpolitical discretion in the matter of prosecutions. I see no objection whatever, theoretically or practically, to the exercising of this discretion. If the period is to be three years, I hope the Attorney-General will look carefully at delay in bringing these cases. If the delay occurs in the circumstances he envisaged, where the War Office could not possibly have discovered it, I would not object, but if there has been slackness either in Get- many or in the War Office here, I hope he will mark his displeasure at once and without hesitation by saying that this case ought to have been before him six months or a year ago, and on that ground alone it cannot proceed. Only in that way will the War Office be brought to a proper sense of responsibility in this matter, and I hope he will make it known to them that, unless these cases are produced promptly and within a reasonable time after they should have been discovered, he will not permit the case to go forward. I think that is the best way out, but I hope he will tell us how many cases are involved.

Retrospective legislation of this character is a bad precedent which no one likes. It may be necessary, but we ought to be told approximately what is involved. If it is only a handful of people against whom allegations are known, and those are left to the learned Attorney to sift out, that may be the best way out of a bad job; but if there are a large number, or if the War Office cannot say that there are not a whole host still to be discovered, then it becomes different. In other words, is the War Office administration reasonably up to date, leaving aside the case the Attorney-General has told us about? Can we be assured that ordinarily all the cases have been discovered and action taken within the three months which is allowed, or are there any cases hanging over where the War Office ought to have been able to proceed within the right time? If there are, that makes us suspicious that there may be a good many more to come. To my mind, much the most important point emerging from this discussion is the disparity between the man under military law and the civilian employee of the Control Commission, and I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will clear up that matter before we go further.

Although I am not a lawyer, and my only law experience has been in military law, I would like to ask the Attorney-General a question arising out of what he said when he referred to those on the unemployed list. Supposing a man on the unemployed list goes out to Germany and commits an offence, is he then to be tried by court martial or by a civil court? As I understand it, the matter is one of extreme conjecture as a result of this new Clause. We all agree that the most desirable thing is that those who commit the same offence should all be treated equally, regardless of whether or not they happen to have been in the Armed Forces or employed in a civilian capacity with the Control Commission in Germany. My own feeling is that military law largely covers offences which are also offences under civilian law, and I should have thought it more desirable to try these people for their offence after release within three months by the same court rather than quibble about the period during which they are subject to trial by court martial.

The situation regarding the Control Commission might be solved by the Government moving an Amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill. For instance, could it not be arranged that members of the Control Commission staff, regardless of whether they had been employed in a military or civil capacity, after having been discharged from the Control Commission for a period exceeding three months, would be liable to be charged by a civil court rather than by court martial? That would be much more satisfactory, and I cannot believe there is not some way by which that could be arranged. I cannot imagine anything more inconvenient for a man than, having been released into civilian employment, he suddenly has to come back into the Army for the period of his trial and for the period under which he was awaiting trial, either under arrest or on probation. I hope that the Attorney-General will look into the suggestion I have made. Both military and civilian courts have a high reputation for fairness, but difficulties confront a civilian who is being tried by court martial which would not confront a soldier or anyone subject to military law. I hope the Attorney-General will tell us how that difficulty can be avoided.

I will refer later to the substance of the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), but first may I tell him that if I had to make the choice, having committed an offence, of whether I should be tried by a civilian court or a court martial, I should choose the court martial, and get some good advocate to defend me. I should then feel more optimistic about my prospects than in a civilian court. The hon. and gallant Member has asked for advice on that matter, but I must not attempt to give advice on a hypothetical case. If he will write to me about the matter, and tell me exactly what he contemplates doing, I will, without any fee or charge, advise him of the offence I thought that constituted, and what prospect there was of his being tried for it, and of getting off if he were tried, but I do not think I should go further into that.

In regard to the point raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Hill-head (Mr. J. S. C. Reid) about consultation with the Law Officers in this particular case, I think it is a fact that the Scottish Law Officers have a somewhat smaller—although I do not for a moment say less important—department. In this country it is quite impossible for the English Law Officers to be consulted about every case. We seek to keep ourselves informed of all pending litigation, but it would be quite impossible to be informed about the details of every case. In this case, counsel—very competent counsel in whom we all have complete confidence—were, of course, consulted. It would not be unfair to anyone to say that the point of difficulty which arose occurred to no one at all until it was raised by one of the judges in the divisional court. It was not taken by counsel.

I was not suggesting that it was taken by counsel, but, before charging anyone with an offence triable by court martial, those who supply the charge sheet have first to consider in each case whether the man is subject to military law.

Oh, certainly. The point whether officers who under Army Order 83 of 1945 were placed on something which is not the retired list, but apparently is not now to be called the active list, although it was so called in the Army Order, would be subject to military law, was no doubt considered at the time when the hon. and learned Member for Daventry was engaged in the office of the Judge Advocate-General.

I left there in 1943.

Perhaps a different view might have been taken if he had not left so prematurely. It was considered at that time no doubt and there was not any great doubt about it. That was a long time ago, when I do not believe I was available to be consulted, and certainly I was not consulted about it. It was not then realised to give rise to the very great legal difficulties to which it undoubtedly does. I do not want it to be thought that there was any negligence on the part of anyone in not consulting the Law Officers. Particularly is that the position in regard to Habeas Corpus cases, which arise at short notice, and sometimes with no notice at all, and have to be dealt with. This was tried at the time when I was engaged at the Court at the Hague.

I come now to the question of civilian employees of the Control Commission. Even if it were a fact that some wrongdoers were going to escape punishment because of the absence of an appropriate jurisdiction to deal with them, that would hardly be a reason why all wrongdoers should escape, and we are here trying to deal with what appears to be the main class of case. As far as I know—and I am speaking only of matters brought to my notice—no case has yet arisen in regard to an official of the Control Commission who has left the service before the commission of an offence has been discovered. Of course we have not lost sight of the theoretical position, which may be more than a theoretical position, it such cases arise in the future.

I will take note of the suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member for Ely. It may be best to deal with those cases by legislative provision, enabling them to be tried here, or by machinery enabling them to be extradited, as would be the normal course between two foreign countries. In general, I do not think I should quarrel with the view expressed that it would be better to try them here, but for the practical difficulty that there may be great difficulty in regard to the evidence, and in regard to the witnesses. The provision that such persons could only be tried in this country might result in some cases that they could not be tried at all.

Finally, I was asked how many cases there are. I do not want to lie myself down to any figures. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of a shoal of cases. As far as we know there are certainly not a great many cases. It is a comparatively small number and, as far as I know, there are none in which it is clear that the offence ought to have been discovered before the three months had gone by. The cases are those in which there has been a deliberate attempt to cover up what has been done for more than three months, either by "salting" the money away, or arranging that the witnesses should be transferred to another part of Germany. That kind of problem has arisen. I am prepared to repeat the undertaking I gave, that while I could not bind myself, one of the factors to which I would pay proper account would be if the case ought to have been considered and whether there was grave negligence. I should weigh that against the importance of bringing the offender to justice.

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

This proposed new Clause raises a comparatively small, but none the less important point. No doubt the Attorney-General will be familiar with the fact that under Section 124 any person tried by court martial, if it is a general court martial, may, within seven years, and if any other court martial—a district or field general court martial—within three years, apply for a copy of the proceedings. The statutory provision only provides for the application for one copy, and there is no statutory provision for getting two copies. This is not a point of which I have any personal experience, but it has been brought to my notice that two copies are often very useful, particularly if the convicted person is undergoing arrest and his solicitors are in this country. While the question of an appeal is being considered it is very awk- ward if the solicitors have the whole of the proceedings and the accused has not, and if the copy gets delayed in transit from one to the other. There ought to be a statutory provision to enable convicted persons to obtain not just one copy, but copies of the proceedings. The new Clause seeks to omit the words

"in the case of a general court martial within seven years, and in the case of any other court martial."

We feel it reasonable that any person convicted should have the right to apply within a much narrower period. In the past there have been complaints about the number of petitions put in long after a conviction. Seven years in which to apply would not facilitate that: we feel that three years for application for copies is ample in any case. There is really no harm in saying that the accused should be able to obtain two or three copies, provided also that provision is made for payment of the additional cost. I think I have made the point clear. It is merely a point of procedure, and I hope that the Government will be able to accept it.

I think we may be able to meet the intention behind this new Clause. When a copy of the proceedings is asked for there would be no difficulty. It would be asked for from the office of the Judge Advocate-General, and there would be no difficulty in providing, on request, one or two extra carbon copies. I believe that has been the general practice.

We are up against a difficulty, in view of the wording of the Clause. I think I am right in saying that if we accepted this Clause it would make it possible for application to be made at one time for a certain number of copies, and at some subsequent period, within the statutory time limit, for further copies, possibly beyond what the Judge Advocate-General's Department could reasonably be asked to supply. All for which it is reasonable to ask can now be met. Although we are not obliged by statute to provide more than one copy, no difficulty has, in practice, been made about any reasonable request for carbon copies.

In view of that, I take it that the hon. and learned Member does not press the question of the amended time-limit. The provision of the period of seven years for the more important proceedings is made in the interest of the accused, and we should be reluctant to see his rights curtailed in this manner. I hope, therefore, that the hon. and learned Member will feel that it is not necessary to press this new Clause.

I am grateful for the explanation that has been given. Of course, the case may arise where the first application is for two copies, one for the accused and one for his solicitor. Then it may be that there is the question of getting the matter before the Divisional Court in some form or other, in which case three or more copies might be wanted. Therefore there might well be a perfectly reasonable case for two applications for different numbers of copies. I understand, from what the hon. Gentleman has said, that in every case where there is an appearance of reason behind the request for more than one copy, that request will be acceded to, upon the terms set out in the section of the Army Act—2d. a folio, or whatever it may be, to cover the cost of the shorthand notes. If that be so, I would beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

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

This Clause has been put down by my hon. Friends and myself for the purpose of raising a question which is of very considerable importance, though I hope it will be dealt with satisfactorily in the report of the Lewis Committee. Unfortunately, we have not seen that report before discussing the details of this Bill, with the result that no amendment recommended by that committee can possibly be incorporated in the Army Act until another year has elapsed.

One hears continually complaints and criticisms about the delay occurring between trial by court martial, and confirmation and promulgation of sentence. Very often a man is placed under arrest for a considerable time while awaiting trial, while a thorough investigation is being made into the charges against him, and while efforts are being made to secure evidence. In addition, there very often occurs a delay of a long period after trial and conviction. I would admit and agree that in some cases such delay is difficult to avoid; where, for instance, the court martial has taken place overseas and the papers have to be sent home for advice before confirmation. But that delay ought to be cut down to the narrowest possible limit. The other day I received a letter in which complaint was made of a delay of four months between conviction and confirmation.

We have put down this new Clause because only by tabling a new Clause could we raise this matter. It is not with a view to pressing for its inclusion in the Measure, because that might conflict with what one wishes to do after reading the committee's report. It is to emphasise the importance which we attach to speed in this matter and in the hope of obtaining, for once, a really satisfactory assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that every effort will be made to speed up every case.

The hon. and learned Member may be assured that we are entirely in favour of reducing the gap in time between sentence and confirmation to the narrowest possible limit, that we are taking administrative steps to that end and that it is unusual for delay to be of the nature described by him. I believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman said that he had had brought to his notice quite recently a case where a period of delay of four months had occurred. We should be very glad to look into the details of that particular case, because my advice is that it must be almost unique for a case to occur where there is a period of delay of more than three months. In the very great majority of cases the period is only about a week.

One reason why we should hesitate to accept this Clause is that, if it were put in the statute, a limit of three months—

The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I am not asking that this Clause shall be put into the Bill.

I will not press that point. I would say again that the usual period is a week, and the case such as that mentioned by the hon. and learned Member must be unique and we shall be glad to look into it. Where delay does occur it is very often to safeguard the interests of the convicted person. It may be that the trial took place in an overseas command and it is desirable to refer the matter home for the elucidation of some point of law. I think it would be unwise, therefore, to impose a more rigid time-limit, particularly when, as the hon. and learned Member himself pointed out, we are awaiting the report of the Lewis Committee, and it would not be appropriate to make alterations of this kind now. The hon. and learned Member may be assured that, by putting down this Clause, he and his hon. Friends have served their purpose of reminding us once again of the desirability of avoiding any undue delay in these cases.

In view of that assurance, which, remarkable though it may be, I regard as entirely satisfactory, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

I rise only for the purpose of calling attention to the tolerant, fair-minded and reasonable Opposition which we have in this House. That is shown by the fact that we have let this Bill go through in such a short time. I recall that on one occasion the Opposition of which I was a Member kept the Committee from four in the afternoon until six the next day. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will realise how reasonable we are.

I am too taken aback by this sudden assault to be ready with a completely appropriate reply. It was suggested earlier that the martial spirit of soldiers could perhaps be kept up in time of peace partly by their waging a continual campaign against the War Office. Possibly, also, they may derive some example of martial and combative vigour from the behaviour of hon. Members when considering this Bill. It would be ungracious of me not to say in reply to the noble Lord that, while we have not accepted all the strictures that have been passed on us in the course of this Debate, we are fully aware of the desire of hon. Members on both sides of the House to see that the Debate on this Bill is used for the improvement of all matters with which the welfare of the Army is concerned.

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

This Clause has been put down by agreement with the societies and companies affected. It is intended to meet criticisms of the lack of uniformity in the existing provisions and to complete the powers required by the registrar to obtain all the statistics that he may need from time to time. I should say that the Commissioner has no intention of calling immediately for a host of figures or of putting a great deal of additional work on the collecting societies and companies.

I wish to congratulate the Government upon this new Clause. It was, I think, an omission from the Bill as originally drafted. It was one of the recommendations of the Cohen Committee that more detailed information should be available dealing with this im- portant matter of industrial assurance. The Treasury has a responsibility to Parliament for supervising this activity. It is common ground that since the Act of 1909 that supervision has not always been very effective. I hope and believe that, after this Bill, it will be more effective. It has been a curious anomoly that the two different kinds of bodies which were concerned with this form of insurance were dealt with under two different statutes.

The friendly societies operated under the Friendly Societies Act of 1896, and the only particulars for which the Industrial Assurance Commissioner could call were those which were authorised under that Act. In the case of industrial life offices, the matter of industrial assurance is dealt with under the general insurance Act of 1909. There the returns which have to be sent in to the Industrial Assurance Commissioner are contained in a Schedule to the Act. Therefore, in the past it was impossible legally to obtain from both kinds of bodies the full information which really was necessary in order that industrial assurance should be surveyed as a whole.

It is a good feature of the new Clause that there is a certain flexibility. The figures in the returns which have to be sent in are to be in a form prescribed by the Industrial Assurance Commissioner. I am sure that the Government will give an assurance that this elasticity will not be used in any unreasonable way, and that the information which is required will be called for in a form which will fit in reasonably with the mechanical apparatus of the industrial offices concerned. Therefore, I feel that a most important Amendment has been made to the Bill. It goes a long way to rectify one of the omissions of the past. I thank the Government for what they have done in the matter. I would not like to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I do not think that this is a particularly gracefully drafted Clause. There seem to be an Extraordinary number of verbal repetitions. I wish that it might have been a better example of elegance in Parliamentary draftsmanship. However, I will overlook any deficiencies that there may be.

I would like to say that I do not propose to move the Amendments in my name in lines 39, 41 and 45. The question of "knowingly" is dealt with in another Clause which we shall reach later. In regard to the other provisions, as the right hon. Gentleman is now leaving the Bill in its present state, the Amendments become unnecessary.

Does that apply also to the Amendment in page 3, line 12?

If you will allow the slight informality, Sir, I would like to ask whether the Financial Secretary will be given an opportunity to explain the position in connection with death certificates, which is a matter which is very much in the minds of all those who are interested in the Bill?

On a point of Order. There is no great difference between the two sides of the House. There were some Amendments put down by the Government which were withdrawn at the last moment, and that is why some of our Amendments, which were Amendments to those Amendments have fallen. If no Amendments are moved to this Clause I take it that on Report we can have no discussion, because I understand that on this stage of the Bill the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" is not put. If it appeared to you, Sir, that by not moving any of our Amendments the Government would be precluded from giving any explanation as to why their Amendments were withdrawn at the last moment, I would ask you whether we might formally move one of our Amendments, so as to give the Government an opportunity of giving an explanation to the House?

It would be more in Order if an Amendment were formally moved, so that an explanation could be given by the Government.

Further to that point of Order. As certain Government Amendments were withdrawn we withdrew our Amendments, which were Amendments to their Amendments—in page 2, line 39, line 41, and line 45, and in page 3, line 12.

I am anxious to make a short statement on what has happened, as the House is entitled to know. I think that the suggestion made by the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr Molson), that an Amendment should be moved formally, is a good one.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 41, after "sum," to insert:

"under any insurance taken out by him."

The only reason why we did not move an Amendment earlier was that we thought it would be more convenient to deal with the matter later, but I think it is better to do it now. This will give the Financial Secretary an opportunity to deal with the question of inherited and assigned policies, and the question of death certificates, which arises under the First Schedule.

Those who were members of the Standing Committee will remember that we there decided that an individual, in insuring those who came within the permitted classes, should be limited to the sum of £20. We visualised this case: each of two brothers, quite legitimately and legally, in his own right, insures his father for£20. One of the brothers dies, and the question arises of what should happen to the policy of that brother. It was generally felt that it would be only fair that the surviving brother should be allowed to take over the policy of his dead brother if he so liked. But under the Bill as it stands this would mean that he would be over-insuring, because the upper limit for one person is£20. We wanted to provide for a case of that kind, and we have been trying to find a form of words which would put that intention into the Bill. The difficulty of the Government and of the Parliamentary draftsmen has been to find a watertight form of words. "To insure to be paid" is a phrase which might mean instantaneous insurance once and for all, or might mean continuing insurance. We must find words which are clear, and which will not lead to any ambiguity once they become part of the Act. We are still searching but, in association with those who are experts in these matters, I am sure we shall find a form of words which will be adequate for what we want to do. We propose to insert those words in the Bill when it reaches another place.

I am sure everyone will welcome the fact that the Government have had the closest consultation with the industry on this matter, and have withdrawn their Amendments with the object of continuing those discussions and moving Amendments in another place. One of the most satisfactory aspects of this Bill has been not only the co-operation between both sides of the House, but the co-operation between the Government and the industry. All those who are interested in this matter will welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and I am sure that everyone will cooperate in trying to reach a satisfactory solution.

In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 20, to leave out "commencement," and to insert, "passing."

This is a drafting Amendment. Generally, there is in an Act of Parliament little or no difference between the words "passing" and "commencement," but occasionally, in Acts of Parliament that are not to come into operation before a given date, there is a real difference between the two words. In this Bill we use both words, but the correct word in this case is, quite definitely, "passing."

Further Amendments made: In page 3, line 27, after "order," insert "or the award of sequestration of his estate."

In line 28, leave out "commencement," and insert "passing."

I beg to move, in page 3, line 32, to leave out "effected," and to insert "granted."

As the Clause speaks of friendly societies and industrial assurance companies, and speaks of an insurance "effected" by them, we suggest that the word "granted" would be a better word to use than "effected." It is a purely drafting Amendment, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to accept it.

The original Amendment governing this was withdrawn after we had discussed it. Surely, this should not be inserted here. If we are to make Amendments in another place this ought not to be necessary.

I have no desire to make difficulties, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 5, to leave out Subsection (2).

When we inserted this Clause in the Bill and approved it upstairs, I think the Committee generally were under the impression that that form of insurance which covered "nominees of members" under the 1896 Act had ceased to be used at all. Therefore, as the reference appeared to be of little or no use, we decided to delete it from the original Act, and to repeal that provision. We have now discovered that there are cases in which members or nominees of members are covered. For that reason we think that the Subsection in the original Act should remain.

Certainly, I do not wish to oppose this if it is desirable that these words should be preserved, but I am at some pains to find out exactly what those words meant in the Act of 1896, and I should be grateful if the Financial Secretary could tell us exactly what it is that has been discovered since the earlier stages of this Bill. I was under the impression that "nominees of members" was a matter of complete obscurity to everybody, and that it was not known why it had been used. Since now it has been found, at this rather late stage, that this provision of the earlier Act has some effect and is, in fact, in operation, I think it would be useful if we could be told what was the meaning of it.

I think that, generally, we were all under the same impression as the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson). We were not quite sure who these nominees were, or whether, in the original Act, nominees were ever covered by insurance of the kind that the Act itself covered. Even now, so far as I know, the nominee, in the ordinary sense, is not insured. But I am told that a certain class of case has come to light which might be considered under the general phrase of "nominees." For that reason, it is thought that, perhaps, we had better leave the words as they were there in the earlier Act.

I beg to move, in page 8, line 18, to leave out "Provided," and to insert:

"and shall have effect both as regards those provisions and as regards the relevant provisions of the Act of 1923, subject to the modification."

This is a drafting Amendment. This Clause adds certain provisions to those which a collecting society is required to set out in its rules by the Act of 1923. This Clause gives them an option to set out a statement of the provisions in question instead of the provisions themselves. As the Clause stands, the option applies only to the added provisions. This Amendment will extend that option to all the provisions that are required to be set out.

I beg to move, in page 9, line 19, after "Treasury," to insert "made by statutory instrument."

There is a group of Amendments here of which the point is to delay for one year Clause 13, which requires the audit of the account of registered friendly societies.

I do not want to delay the passing of these Amendments or to make a great point of this, but although I understand most of these Amendments are purely drafting, this one is not exactly drafting. Would the right hon. Gentleman help us by making a comment on it?

There is an Amendment a little later on concerning this matter. The House will remember that an Act dealing with statutory instruments has recently come into force. When this Bill was originally drafted that Act had not begun to operate. This provision brings this Bill into line with the law as it now is. We should make particular reference to the phrase, "statutory instrument."

I should like to welcome this Amendment. It raises the whole question of Parliamentary control over the Executive. This is a matter which has been discussed at considerable length in the House. I do very much welcome the fact that the Government have, of their own accord, inserted these words which ensure Parliamentary control over the making of orders by the Treasury.

I beg to move, in page line 3, to leave out, "shall be made by statutory instrument," and to insert "signified by statutory instrument which."

This is the Amendment I mentioned earlier, when we were discussing the Amendment in page 9, line 19.

I beg to move, in page 11, line 44, at the end, to insert:

"Provided that such a society shall not be guilty of an offence under the Act of 1896 by reason of its insuring in contravention of Subsection (2) of Section two of this Act if it is proved that, owing to any false representation on the part of the proposer, the society did not know that the insurance was in contravention of that Subsection."

This Amendment gives a registered society which is not a collecting society a good defence against a charge of insuring a parent, or other person coming within the permitted categories, for more than £20, if it can be shown that, owing to a false representation of the proposer, it did not know that it was over-insuring.

To what society did the right hon. Member refer in his opening sentence?

A registered society not being a collecting society. This and the following Amendment—in page 12, line 2—are proposed in response to representations made in Committee, in order to protect innocent persons against contravening the insurance limit of £20 set forth in Clause 2.

We on this side of the House—and I think hon. Members opposite—are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having gone so far as he has to meet the point which we raised in Committee. We have examined his form of words and believe that it will meet the case where a good defence can be made out by the society charged. As the Financial Secretary knows, we felt disturbed in Committee, and suggested a form of words which, in turn, gave him some qualms. We are glad to think that he has given the matter the consideration which has resulted in this Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 12, line 2, at the end, to insert:

"Provided that such a society or company shall not be guilty of an offence under the Act of 1923 by reason of its insuring in contravention of Subsection (2) of Section two of this Act if it is proved that, owing to any false representation on the part of the proposer, the society or company did not know that the insurance was in contravention of that Subsection."

This Amendment does for collecting societies and industrial insurance companies what the previous Amendment does for non-collecting registered societies.

I beg to move, in page 12, line 7, at the end, to insert:

"Provided that no collector of any collecting society or industrial assurance company shall be regarded as being guilty of an offence under the Act of 1923 where such offence is due to any misrepresentation or non-disclosure of material and relevant facts by any assured person or member or anyone acting on behalf of or claiming through such member."

Here we seek to ensure that the same defence as was made available to the different kinds of societies tinder Subsections (I) and (2) is made available to the collector under Subsection (3), which says:

"Any collector of a collecting society or industrial assurance company, or any other person, who contravenes or fails to comply with any of the provisions of this Act, or of regulations made for the purposes of Section eight thereof, affecting such collector or other person shall be guilty of an offence under the Act of 1923."

Obviously, any collector who is deceived by misrepresentation or non-disclosure of material and relevant facts should be able to put up that defence. Unless the right hon. Gentleman can show us, by tracing through some of the provisions of other Statutes—which our researches have not been able to discover—that the defence does exist, then we think that it ought to be put into the Bill. This Amendment is moved in the alternative hope, either that this matter is so well covered that nothing is necessary, or that the right hon. Gentleman will accede to what I am sure is a widely held view, that the collector's position should be put beyond doubt.

I must ask the House to resist this Amendment, because I think that it is misconceived. As the Bill is drafted—particularly Clause 2—we are not dealing with agents at all, but with offences by companies and societies. Obviously, it would be grossly unfair if, whenever an offence was committed, the onus of proof was on the prosecution. As the House knows, in this Bill, we have, by Amendments which have been made, set up certain safeguards for societies against unwittingly and innocently accepting certain types of insurance. We think that those Amendments sufficiently cover societies and companies, and that we should let it go at that.

As I understand the right hon. and learned Gentleman, his object here is to protect agents and not societies. If an agent contravenes the law wittingly and knowingly, the existing provisions of the law are sufficient, either to protect him when it comes to putting forward a defence, or to give the prosecution sufficient powers if needed. If it becomes necessary to prosecute an agent for his part in overinsuring a life, there seem to be two possible alternatives. Proceedings could be taken under Section 5 (2) of the 1923 Act, which makes it an offence knowingly to assist in effecting an illegal policy, in which case provision already exists. If, on the other hand, he has aided and abbetted, and the prosecution is levelled against the society or company, then, under the present law, it would be possible to prosecute the agent for aiding and abetting someone to insure with his society or company without the knowledge of his employers. In either case we think that the law is strong enough as it stands, and I must ask the House to resist the Amendment.

I do not think that the Financial Secretary has quite followed the point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), because he has answered the argument by saying that this particular part of the Bill deals only with societies and various institutions, and not with individuals. That is not really so. Subsection (3) refers to a collector, and says that the collector shall be guilty of the offence. Subsection (3), although it includes the societies, makes it an offence for either the collector of the collecting society or industrial insurance company, or any other person to be guilty of the offence. The offence is thrown specifically on to the individual. The right hon. Gentleman has accepted the principle that so far as the societies are concerned there shall be inserted the proviso with which he dealt. I find it difficult to follow why, if that defence is admissible in the case of a society, it should not be equally admissible in the case of the individual.

Our object surely is to ensure full and adequate safeguards for collectors and other individuals who may be unwittingly deceived into contravening the law and who may otherwise have to bear penalties imposed upon them to the extent of £50 for each offence. It is clear to me that the society or company should have in the normal order of things a better knowledge of the law than the individual agent who may be careless without being criminally careless. I think that the powers taken are too drastic, and I shall feel obliged to resist my right hon. Friend unless he can satisfy me that he is giving adequate safeguards to the agents as well as to the companies and societies. To leave out an agent, who may conceivably be deceived into breaking one of the provisions of the Act, particularly in view of the many pitfalls contained therein, may cause him grave financial hurt and personal discredit. The agent who does not wittingly and knowingly commit an offence must not be punished. My right hon. Friend will require to be much more specific to safeguard me, and I must therefore insist upon a clear assurance from him on this point.

By leave of the House, I will reply. I think that the House is under a misapprehension. Clause 2, to which reference has been made, deals with offences by way of misrepresentation or where an agent may innocently find himself engaged in an illegal act because of lack of knowledge. I pointed out in Committee upstairs, as I point out again, that Clause 2 does not deal with the agent at all. Under the Bill, it is not possible for the agent himself to suffer so far as misrepresentation is concerned. The offence, if it is committed, must be committed by the society or company. At the same time, it is necessary to keep these words in the Clause because there are other offences under the Act, apart from misrepresentation, of which the agent may be guilty. There are all sorts of requirements about premium receipt books and other things, and we must somewhere within the Bill make an agent liable for his own acts for which he must be considered to be completely responsible, and which can be in no sense interpreted as confined to the kind of offences on which he is acting on something said to him by a person who comes to be insured.

I appreciate the point made by the right hon. Gentleman. If it should prove to be the case that in seeking to protect the collector where it seems to us he is likely to be the victim of misrepresentation or fraud, our Amendment is too widely drawn, we would not press it. The point of substance that the Financial Secretary has made is that Clause 2 of the Bill only makes it an offence for a society or industrial assurance company to insure in contravention of the limit of the amount. Clause 15 (3), which must be read with Clause 2 of the Bill, states:

"Any collector of a collecting society or industrial assurance company, or any other person, who contravenes or fails to comply with any of the provisions of this Act … shall be guilty of an offence under the Act of 1023."

Surely, the effect of this Subsection is to widen Clause 2 of the Bill, and to provide, not only that the society in such a case shall be guilty of an offence, but that the collector shall also be guilty of an offence. It is the advantage of our Constitution that a Bill has to go to another place. I am sure we shall not wish to press this point unduly now, but I do not think that the Financial Secretary has fully appreciated the wide scope of this Subsection, and perhaps he would give us an assurance that the Government have no desire to cause the collector who is innocently misled, to become a victim of a prosecution, if our interpretation is correct. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will ensure that before the Bill becomes an Act an Amendment will be made to protect the innocent agent.

So far as any assurance is necessary, I will certainly give it. We have no intention, as I made clear upstairs, to penalise an agent for any act into which he enters quite innocently without any intention of conniving at a wrong doing or something that is illegal. We desire to protect agents, and indeed all other people, acting innocently. We have looked at this matter with the utmost desire to meet the wishes of the Opposition and of my hon. Friends on this side of the House. We are quite certain that the fears that have been expressed are groundless. If in another place it is possible at this late hour to insert words which will make quite clear what is intended, we shall certainly be willing to insert them.

I do not know whether the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made will stand up to what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) has said, and whether he will withdraw the Amendment. The Government have covered to some extent the various societies and others, but there are a large number of collectors. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this point again, and to realise that it does affect a very large number of people, the vast majority of whom are making a serious endeavour to conduct their businesses on the highest possible plane.

I was under the impression that the right hon. Gentleman at this stage would have met us on this point and inserted a form of words to cover it. I was surprised to find the Amendment in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) instead of in the name of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and I was very disappointed. The Government should realise that the Bill is bound to widen considerably the opportunity for offences being committed, by the limitation on the type of insurance commonly presented. In the first few years of change there is bound to be far greater temptation for offences to be committed. It has been pointed out that the position is adequately safeguarded. That is conceding very little because this practice would be safeguarded under the society's own rules by transferring the liability to the agent to transact the business. What we are pleading for is protection for the agent himself. I beg my right hon. Friend not to say merely that we have had no difficulties in the past, but to safeguard the agents concerned in a reasonable way by the insertion of some form of words when the Bill reaches another place.

May I ask that the Minister if he is considering this matter should look at the word "non-disclosure" in the Amendment now proposed. I would suggest that that is drawing the matter rather tightly. I can quite conceive of certain cases where non-disclosure of relevant facts may be entirely due to the fact that the agent has not carried out his job properly. I suggest a better form of words would be "knowingly withholding."

In view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has said that he will meet the generally expressed anxiety in all quarters of the House on this point and consider the matter before it goes to another place, I would like to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. I hope I am properly interpreting what the right hon. Gentleman said, because it is on that basis that I am meeting the view of everyone in the House in asking for leave to withdraw.

I do not want to mislead the House, but it is my considered view that there is nothing more that we can do to tighten up this phrasing. We have tightened it up as much as we can. The House has just deleted the words on which the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) replied in his last speech. As a result of the Amendment we have just passed, the offences concerned are only those under Clause 8 of the Bill, which deals with receipt books. We have gone as far as we can to meet the general feeling, but to show that we were not being stubborn in this matter I gave an assurance that if any other form of words could clarify the matter, we would, in another place, certainly be willing to insert them. I do not for a moment imagine that we will find any other form of words, and I should not like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to think that we will be hunting round for definite words.

What we want the right hon. Gentleman to look into is the possibility of an agent committing a breach of these regulations by being misled by the misrepresentations of the proposer for insurance. There could be a case where the agent could commit a breach owing to such misrepresentation, and if the right hon. Gentleman will assure us that he will look into it from that point of view it would meet with the approval of the House.

I thought we had passed away from that, because the agent has a good defence if he has been misled. He has only to say that the proposer came to him and said, "I was not insured previously with any company or society and I want to to take out an insurance up to the limit of £20." That is a perfectly good defence for the agent if any misrepresentations should come to light afterwards. Actually the Clause which deals with that type of offence is Clause 2 which does not refer to agents at all. It is the society or the company which technically and in law commits the offence.

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman still wish to withdraw his Amendment?

With some doubts, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move in page 12, line 30, to leave out "meaning," and to insert "including."

In consequence of the passing of the Army and Air Force (Womens Services) Act, women now will be capable of serving in the Army or Air Force as an integral part of those Forces. That being so, it is necessary that we should make this Amendment in order that they can rank definitely as members of the Forces under this Clause.

I beg to move in page 13, line 20, at the end, to insert:

"(3) The receipt, or letter or certificate, from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue as to payment of death duties or freedom there-from required by the following enactments in cases of payments under nominations by members of societies, and in cases of payments on intestacies of members of societies entitled to sums not exceeding one hundred pounds, shall be required in cases of payments under nominations only where the member's total property in the society exceeds two hundred pounds, and shall cease to be required in cases of payments on such intestacies, and accordingly the following amendments shall be made in those enactments respectively.

"The said enactments and the amendments to be made therein are—

(a) Subsection (3) of Section fifty-seven of the Act of 1896 (relating to nominations), in which the words 'two hundred pounds' shall be substituted for the words 'eighty pounds;'

(b) Subsection (1) of Section fifty-eight of the Act of 1896 (relating to intestacies), in which the words from 'subject' to the end of the Subsection are hereby repealed;

(c) Subsection (1) of Section ten of the Provident Nominations and Small Intestacies Act, 1883 (relating to nominations and to intestacies), in which the words 'two hundred pounds' shall be substituted for the words 'eighty pounds,' and the words 'or standing to the credit of any person in any society at his death,' and the words 'or otherwise,' where they occur for the second time are hereby repealed;

(d) Subsection (2) of the Section substituted by Section six of the Industrial and Provident Societies (Amendment) Act, 1913, for Section twenty-eight of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893 (relating to nominations and to intestacies), in which there shall be inserted, after the words 'If the principal value of the property or money to be so transferred or paid exceeds eighty pounds,' the words 'and the transfer or payment is made under the said Section twenty-six and the total property of the nominator in the society at his death exceeds two hundred pounds.'"

Those who served on the Committee will know that although this is rather a long Amendment, its meaning is quite clear. It is to do what was promised on the Committee stage; namely, to bring the existing state of this branch of the law in line with the present practice so far as Estate Duty is concerned. When the original Acts were passed, Estate Duty was payable on any estate above the value of £100. Now, of course, as the House knows full well, the amount has been changed to £2,000 under a recent Finance Bill. Therefore, amendment of the law regarding friendly societies is necessary.

I put down the original Amendment in the Committee for a sum of £100, and, to my utter amazement, the Government not only agreed to the £100, but have now proposed £200. Really, there never was such a Government as this. Usually if one asks a Government for £100 one gets a bit less. In this case they have doubled the figures proposed by a modest back bencher.

An Amendment similar to the next Amendment in page 14, line 29 was discussed in Committee. I do not know, but perhaps there is some slightly different point in this Amendment.

Perhaps I may say a word on the point that you have raised, Mr. Speaker. The Amendment which was discussed at some length in Committee had regard to investments with the National Debt Commissioners. The Amendment dealing with the Post Office Savings Bank was not called. It is the slightly different aspect of the matter dealing with savings banks that we wish to discuss today.

I beg to move, in page 14, line 29, at the end to insert:

"Provided always that any such sums so invested by any such society or body at the date of the passing of this Act in either the Post Office Savings Bank or any bank certified under the Trustees Savings Bank Act, 1863, may throughout remain so invested in any such bank or banks at the option of the said society or body at the rate of interest normally allowed by any such bank."

Under the law as it exists at present, friendly societies are in a privileged position as regards the investment of their funds both with the National Debt Commissioners and with the trustee savings banks. It was decided by the Committee upstairs that the specially privileged position of the friendly societies must be brought to an end, but it seems to us that when these societies have enjoyed this privilege for a long period of time, and when there is no real reason for ending it completely, some licence should be granted to them. We are, therefore, moving this Amendment in order that friendly societies may continue to leave with the Post Office Savings Bank or any bank certified under the Trustee Savings Bank Act, 1863, such funds as they have there at the present time or any lesser amount, provided that they pay the rate of interest normally allowed by any such bank.

All we are asking is that these bodies, which in the past have been specially encouraged by the legislation of this House, shall continue for the future to be entitled to use the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustee Savings Banks as though they were ordinary customers, and that, provided that they do not expect to receive a rate of interest exceeding that normally allowed by any such bank, they shall continue to enjoy that privilege. We do not think there is any reason why these societies should suddenly be required to withdraw their balances from these banks provided that they do not expect to receive a higher rate of interest than that which is normally paid to customers.

I support this Amendment. All of us realised, after the argument on the general provisions with regard to these investments made by the Attorney-General on Second Reading, that the Government had an overwhelmingly strong case for terminating, the privileges of the friendly societies in the form in which they have hitherto existed, but what we are now proposing is a very modest concession and one which I should have thought every Member of this House would have realised was no more than justice, having regard to the past history of this business. We are not asking that the friendly societies should continue to have the privilege of investing new money as in the past under what would now be preferential conditions, nor that they should be able to run in and out, using these investments as investments on call and able to withdraw them and re-invest. This proposal is a modest one, and I very much hope that the Government will make this small concession.

I must ask the House to resist this Amendment because it is possible that the hon. Member who moved it is not fully conversant with what has actually happened in regard to money deposited in the Post Office, principally in the Trustee Savings Bank. Under the statutory rule and order dealing with this matter, one can deposit £500 a year up to an aggregate limit of £2,000. In administering this order, the National Debt Commissioners have waived these limits in the case of deposits by friendly societies in savings banks to the extent of allowing such deposits up to an aggregate of £20,000 by each society in a bank. Many societies have, however, more than £20,000 on deposit, and it is not the intention of this Bill, or of the National Debt Commissioners, to request any friendly society which has money deposited up to or above the limit, to withdraw it if that amount was deposited before the statutory rule and order came into operation.

What we do say, and what I think the House on reflection will think is fair, is that those who obeyed the law and did not put in any more after the statutory rule and order came into operation, should not be penalised as against those who disregarded the order and went on putting money into the Trustee Savings Bank afterwards. So the situation is this, that those who have deposited money, even if the amount is above the limit of £20,000, will be allowed to leave it there if they are so minded, provided that the money was put there before this order took effect. Those, however, who have put in money in excess of the permitted amount after the order came into operation, have been asked to withdraw it. Some have done so already, others have not, and we do not want to allow the delinquent to get away with it if we can help it. I hope, therefore, that the House will reject this Amendment.

We want to get this position clear and, as the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the statutory rule and order I presume that he is referring to No. 1790 of 1946?

indicated assent.

The difficulty I find in the argument there is that, under that statutory rule and order, it was provided that the limitation should not apply to deposits made with the approval of the National Debt Commissioners, and that in turn the National Debt Commissioners could look at deposits made by friendly societies or societies registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893. The effect of that is that the National Debt Commissioners could make a limitation and have, in fact, made a limitation with regard to the friendly societies, but they have not made any similar limitation on societies registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1893, such as the Co-operative societies.

Therefore one is in the difficulty which, I suggest, it is easy to get into when these alterations are made by subsidiary legislation of this kind. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the limit that has been suggested, and to see whether he could not strike a limit which would be acceptable generally. I suggest £50,000 for an overall figure for a friendly society and £20,000 for any branch of that society. Here, as my right hon. Friend the Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) has pointed out, we have a right that has existed for 55 years. We are not asking that that right should continue, but merely that moneys invested in pursuance of that right should be allowed to continue.

The right hon. Gentleman's point simply comes to this, that, having inserted in the statutory rule and order the necessity for the approval of the National Debt Commissioners, he desires to make that the deadline of the permitted investments. I ask him once again to consider this on the broader line that these societies have not only been recognised, but encouraged by Parliament in the past, because they were voluntary associations which existed to encourage the people to save. We have tried, and failed, on the major point of the National Debt Commissioners. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the matter, which affects savings banks only, and, as far as I can see, has not any resultant difficulty for His Majesty's Government or their financial policy such as he indicated in Committee. I ask him, in view of what I hope is the very reasonable line the Opposition have taken, whether he could not give this matter some further consideration to see whether a more liberal limit might be fixed.

Could the right hon. Gentleman enlighten me on a very important point which he raised in his speech? It was entirely new to me that some societies had actually deposited money in contravention of the statutory rule and order. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how it was possible for that to be done? How was it possible that these payments could be made, if in fact it was illegal under this statutory rule and order? The right hon. Gentleman used the word "delinquents." No one on this side of the House would wish to encourage any society, or anyone else, to get away with something which was illegal. When he uses language as strong as that, it would be helpful if he would explain the transaction which occurred.

That is exactly what occurred. I have a high regard for the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) and I am astonished that he should want to give legal sanction to what was in fact a contravention of a statutory rule and order. In reply, I can only repeat what I have said. The National Debt Commissioners laid down rules that societies of this kind should be able to deposit sums up to an aggregate of £20,000. Some exceeded that amount and no one said anything about it.

rose—

May I finish this point? In the past some deposited more than £20,000. It was not a very serious offence, and these people are to be allowed to leave what they have deposited up to a given date. In November, 1946, a new statutory rule and order was passed, and came into force, and the National Debt Commissioners are strictly enforcing it. Where more than £20,000 was deposited before November, 1946, it will be allowed to remain, but where more than £20,000 has been deposited since that date, we are asking for the excess to be withdrawn. In some cases it already has been done, in others we are asking those concerned that it should be done.

May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman? He will appreciate that I must interrupt him, otherwise I shall have to ask leave to speak again. He said that nothing was said about it at the time. Surely that means that it was in fact accepted, and therefore it is not right for the right hon. Gentleman to say that these people are delinquents.

I did not call them delinquents. The delinquents are those who have contrived to put money in after the statutory rule and order came into force. It is that money we are asking them to take out.

I would ask leave of the House to ask the Financial Secretary about something which I understood him to say in his last speech. We on this side of the House had no intention when we moved this Amendment to seek ex post facto to authorise and legalise the de- positing of sums in excess of what was legally permitted to be deposited at that time. What the Financial Secretary said this afternoon was the first I knew of the point. Our purpose was merely to allow these friendly societies to continue to deposit at the normal rate of interest what they had legally deposited with the Trustee Savings Banks. Under this Bill as I understand it, when it becomes law, it will be possible for them to be called upon to withdraw what is at present legally deposited. I understood the Financial Secretary to give an assurance that they will not be required to withdraw anything which they are at present legally depositing with the Trustee Savings Banks, and that the withdrawals which they are being required to make apply only to what was in excess of the legal deposits at the present time?

In excess of the £20,000, or such sum as they may have there, even though it was in excess of £20,000, on the date of the coming into force of Statutory Rule and Order 1790.

They are not to be required to withdraw that?

They will not be required to withdraw anything at all if it has been legally deposited? Is that the present intention or is it the effect of the provision of that Act?

We are using the word "legally" rather loosely because some may consider the limit was £20,000, and anything desposited in excess of that was illegal. I prefer to put it this way. Up to November, 1946, friendly societies were allowed to deposit in excess of the £20,000 limit which was laid down. In November, 1946, it was decided strictly to enforce the limit. Those who had more than £20,000 are to be allowed to leave it there, if they wish, but those who, after November, 1946, in spite of the fact that they knew that the limit was to be strictly enforced, put extra sums in, should, we think, be asked to withdraw them.

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has dealt quite fairly with the point. As I understand it, he is now insisting on resisting the Amendment, because of the persons he referred to as "delinquents." I gather he means those who have deposited excessive sums since the statutory rule and order came into force in November, 1946. They are what he refers to as delinquents, and merely because there have been these delinquents he is going to penalise those who are not delinquents, and who deposited cash before 1946.

Only the delinquents.

I do not think so. I think it requires the acceptance of this Amendment in order to protect what I would describe as non-delinquents. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the statutory rule and order of 1946. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us under what authority that statutory rule and order was made? I am not at all sure that there was proper authority for it. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could satisfy us on that point. My final word is that there is an unfair discrimination against the friendly societies as compared with the Co-operative societies. We are not unaccustomed to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite breaking their pledges with regard to friendly societies. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Civil Aviation has done that—

On a point of Order. Hon. Members opposite are indulging, with irritating insistence, in the reiteration of trivialities. To stop this tautology, in view of the fact that we hope to get the Third Reading of this Bill before four o'clock, would it be possible for you to call them to Order?

The hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) was in Order.

I am trying to get some genuine information. This is only the second occasion today on which I have intervened in this Debate, and I cannot really understand why my remarks should be described at tautological. The position is that there is an unfair discrimination, as I see it, between friendly societies and Co-operative societies. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to say that the limitation which has been placed on friendly societies will be placed on Co-operative societies? If not, I am bound to reiterate that this amounts to unfair discrimination.

I should have thought that it was evident that the Co-operative societies get no advantage whatever over any friendly society. Not only do they not get that, but I should imagine that they have very little reason to use the Post Office or Trustee Savings Bank at all They have their own bank. Apart from that, if they do use them, they get no advantage whatever. I can give a categorical denial to the assertion, if it is made, that they do.

Will the right lion Gentleman answer my point about the statutory rule and order?

Since I understand that the Financial Secretary has given an assurance that, broadly speaking, what was the purpose of my Amendment will be applied administratively, and that the power to compel these friendly societies to withdraw their deposits will apply only to what ought not to have been deposited, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 15, line 35, at the end, to insert:

"and by subsection (6) of section five of the Adoption of Children (Scotland) Act, 1930."

Of course, Scotland should be included, and this and the next Amendment are designed to bring in Scotland.

I beg to move, in page 17, line 6—

On a point of Order. There is no Amendment on the Order Paper in page 17, line 6. Surely, the next Amendment is that in page 18, line 32?

I beg to move, in page 18, line 32, at the end, to insert:

"7. The fee payable on the issue of a certificate of a death for the purposes of this Schedule shall be one shilling.

8. The Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, shall apply to a statutory instrument containing regulations made for the purposes of this Schedule in like manner as if it had been made by a Minister of the Crown."

This new paragraph provides for a reduced fee of 1s. for certificates of death issued for the purposes of the Schedule. The normal charge for the death certificate is 25. 7d. This paragraph extends to policies taken out under the Bill a concession in the charge for certificates which has been enjoyed by insurers with friendly societies for many years.

The point which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned is quite acceptable but, in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman himself has had difficulty in following the order of the Amendments because of the speed with which we have been carrying out our discussions, I would like to call attention to the gross discourtesy of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack) in interrupting my hon. and learned Friend the Member for. Brighton (Mr. Marlowe) when he was making his second intervention in this Debate. We on this side of the House greatly resent it, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not be encouraged.

I beg to move, in page 19, line 25, column 1, to leave out from the beginning, to "money," in line 28, and to insert:

"Section eight, Subsection (1), After paragraph (d) insert the following paragraph—'(dd) insuring."

This and the next Amendment are consequential on the deletion of an earlier Subsection dealing with nominees.