( by Private Notice ) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has any statement to make on the murder in Malaya of Mr. John Ramsden.

The House will have learnt with regret of the death of Mr. John Ramsden, a plantation manager in Province Wellesley, Federation of Malaya, who, according to Press reports, was shot dead on the night of 8th June in his home by an unknown assailant. My right hon. Friend is waiting for a full report from the High Commissioner. Although Press reports suggest that this outrage was unconnected with recent outbreaks of violence in Malaya, the House will expect me to say something on that also.

The recrudescence of crime and lawlessness mentioned in the Commissioner-General's broadcast last Sunday and widely reported here, has brought to Malaya violence and disturbances, murder and intimidation. In recent weeks there have been at least 13 serious incidents, including 10 murders and three attacks on European managers on estates. These crimes of violence have their origin in agitation by extremist elements, who challenge the authority of Government and are attempting to upset the economy of the country by fomenting labour disputes, intimidation and the repudiation of conciliation and the orderly processes of industrial relations.

The Governments of the Federation and Singapore have given much attention to the problem of order in their respective territories and are again tackling the recent developments most urgently.

With the full support of my right hon. Friend and that of the people in the territories, further energetic steps have been taken to intensify existing police mobile patrols and road blocks in the affected districts, and further to strengthen police reserves in strategic areas. Amendments have been made to the trade union laws which certain elements are exploiting, and my right hon. Friend is considering further measures for dealing with those responsible for criminal intimidation. The House can be assured that everything possible is being done to prevent lawlessness and violence and to bring to justice those guilty of these outrageous crimes.

While I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reply, I would like to ask him two questions arising from it. First, whether the carrying out of sentences swiftly after they have been given can be the order of the day—because it has not always taken place in the past—so that there can be an immediate example of what happens in a crime of this sort? Secondly, whether time for debating this matter will be given in view of the fact that last year we did not debate Malaya on the Colonial Office Vote on the special request of the Secretary of State for the Colonies? The situation in this great dollar-earning area is becoming serious and the Government should give time to debating it separately, as these are not only political crimes, but a general disregard of the law.

I do not quite follow the hon. Gentleman's first point. The due processes of law take place. I am not aware that there is any delay in the process of law between the time the sentence of the court is given and the time the sentence of the court is put into execution. As regards the other question, that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council and not for me.

I, with everyone else, would make the strongest condemnation of murder and all crimes of violence but I should like to ask the Under-Secretary, when he is getting his report, if he will see that it contains information on the conditions under which the workers there are being employed, and about the wages they are receiving, because it is quite possible that working conditions may contribute towards bad relations.

We are having constant reports on all these matters, and, in fact, the labour adviser to the Secretary of State has just returned from Malaya, where he went into all these matters very carefully. As the House knows, one hon. Member of this House and a very experienced trade union representative went recently to Singapore to investigate conditions there.

Would it not be possible that all this trouble is due to the lack of police? As the hon. Gentleman has said that everything is now being done to settle it, can he assure us that an effort is being made to get more police into that country?

I think it is probable that the police force has run down. I myself this morning am going into the question with the authorities in London to see what we can do.

Will the hon. Gentleman say what is being done in Malaya to combat Communism?

That is another question, which does not arise out of this particular question.

Does my hon. Friend endorse the statement made by the Governor-General, Mr. Malcolm Macdonald, that this wave of terror is largely Communist inspired? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Is that true?

I have only had the Governor-General's broadcast given to me in manuscript form as it was taken down. I cannot say whether what the hon. Member says is true or not.

Will the hon. Gentleman, when he receives a reply to the cable he has sent out, make a further statement?

Yes, certainly.

Will the report from the experienced trade union official who has just returned from Malaya be made available to Members of this House?

The reports of my right hon. Friend's advisers are not usually presented in a formal shape, but usually are verbal reports given to the Secretary of State. I will consult with my right hon. Friend to see whether it is possible for that to be done.

In accordance with the undertaking given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the recent stage of the Finance Bill, he has considered what further concessions on Purchase Tax he can propose. Hon. Members will, I am sure, wish to have the earliest possible information of his intentions, and they will be glad to know that he will be tabling Amendments to the Bill on Report, the effect of which will be as follows:

First, to reduce from 100 per cent. to 66⅔ per cent. the rate of tax on gas operated space heating and water heating appliances.

Second, to reduce from 66⅔ per cent. to 33⅓ per cent. the rate of tax on utility garments made wholly or mainly of fur skin; on non-utility soft-filled mattresses and upholstered spring-interior mattresses and on non-utility pillows and bolsters; on cupboards and dressers designed for use in kitchens; on clocks and watches of non-precious metals; and on wireless receiving sets of the domestic, portable or road vehicle types, together with kits of such sets and valves suitable for use in them.

Third, to extend the range of baskets charged at the rate of 33⅓ per cent. as being made wholly of cane or wicker, apart from external fitments, to include similar baskets having a bottom made of wood or other vegetable material, e.g., pulp board.

Fourth, completely to exempt from tax paper handkerchiefs and paper towels; parallel sided or taper baths of galvanised iron of 3 feet 6 inches size and upwards; and paraffin and other oil-burning lamps, e.g., petrol vapour lamps, together with accessories for such lamps, including incandescent mantles specially designed for oil-burning lamps, but not including shades, bowls and similar accessories.

All these alterations will apply to goods which are delivered on sale or appropriated to retail trade or similar purposes on or after Wednesday, 16th June, 1948.

I should like to say how glad we are that the hon. Gentleman and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have fallen in with the request we made to them to make this statement in the House of Commons, which certainly is the only proper place for announcements to be made, especially on financial matters. While we are very glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has seen his way to modify some of the proposals made originally, and to meet suggestions made in the course of our very long discussions, I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman whether the Government will give careful consideration before next year to the possibility of restoring the Report stage of the Budget Resolutions, because it seems to us clear, as a result of the way business has been transacted on this occasion, that it would be very convenient if that stage was restored?

No, Sir, I could not possibly hold out any hopes that we shall restore the Report stage of the Budget Resolutions.

Would not the hon. Gentleman admit that a great deal of discussion during the Committee stage of the Bill could have been avoided if there had been a proper discussion on the Report stage?

No, Sir.

Has any consideration been given to a reduction of Purchase Tax on home-made, hand-woven tweeds?

A great deal of consideration was given to the point before the Committee stage, and we discussed it at considerable length during the Committee stage.

Is there to be any reduction of tax on television sets? The hon. Gentleman referred to wireless sets but made no reference to television sets. He will recollect that during the discussion that took place on wireless sets, television sets were also mentioned.

Television sets are included in the concession, but radio gramophones are excluded.

Would the hon. Gentleman give us an idea of the cost to the Exchequer of these concessions?

The cost of the concessions I have announced today will be £6 million this year and £11 million in a full year.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that there was to be a reduction in certain types of kitchen furniture, but did not specify draining boards, about which many representations were put forward. I mean metal draining boards. Is there to be a reduction in that case?

No, the concession on kitchen furniture applies to movable cupboards and movable dressers of a kind designed by form or equipment for installation in working kitchens and larders.

Can the hon. Gentleman say anything of the possibility that hand-woven tweeds will bear a reduced rate?

That question has already been asked, and I said that we have already given a great deal of consideration to that. As at present advised we do not see how it could be done. With regard to draining boards, I would remind the hon and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison) that draining boards are operated at 33⅓ per cent.

No, not metal ones, which bear tax at 66⅔ per cent. Will the hon. Gentleman give that consideration?

Can the hon. Gentleman say whether wireless batteries are included in the concessions on wireless sets, in view of the fact that people living in remote country districts away from electric mains are put to a great deal of expense in purchasing batteries, which are a necessity in so many districts?

Batteries were at the lower rate of tax just for that reason.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware, in respect of radio sets, that the retailers will lose £2 million because of the fluctuation of Purchase Tax? They are about to go on strike, and refuse to pay the manufacturers. Will he give this matter serious consideration, because the industry is in great difficulties?

I am afraid that that difficulty arises when any reduction in Purchase Tax is made, whether in the Budget or subsequently. A very great deal of consideration has been given to it, together with the retail trade, but it has not been found possible to find a solution.

Is the hon. Gentleman still adamant against giving a concession with regard to beds? Although it may appear that this House is not interested in them, certainly the ordinary citizen is.

Does the Economic Secretary, having looked at this problem, realise that Purchase Tax is a most undesirable means of raising revenue, and that it causes dislocation to trade wholly out of proportion to the revenue raised?

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

The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that a full and proper use is made of British inventions, especially those which have been made in Government research establishments or in organisations such as the universities, which are partly financed by Government grants. I think it is well recognised, and a matter of no controversy at all, that if we are to maintain our competitive power in world markets, and also to provide a continually improving standard of living at home, it is vital to keep up a continuous flow of new ideas into industry, of new products, of new processes for making old products, and of new ideas generally, leading to increased production.

I think the whole world will agree that as a nation this country has been second to none in the production of new ideas and of new inventions. But in the past we have sometimes been slow to put these ideas to full use, or even, occasionally, neglectful of them altogether, often with very grave results. The historic case of that, of course, was the result of Faraday's investigations in the early part of the last century, producing new and valuable varieties of glass—investigations which were not followed up commercially, with the result that in the first world war we found how great was our dependence on the German optical glass industry, which had made full use of Faraday's investigations. That deficiency had to be made good, and was made good only in the war itself by the concerted effort and the skill of British science and British industry—indeed, in not one but in two world wars.

In the last 30 years there has been a very great increase in the amount of scientific research work done in Government sponsored organisations, and also, as I have said, in the universities.

What about industry?

Well, this Bill is dealing almost entirely with other development. Naturally, one has got to accept—and I think we could have taken it for granted—that the greater part of the inventions and developments have come in industry. But it is because industry has its own facilities and is, on the whole, extremely successful in developing those inventions, that we have not found it necessary to make very much provision on that side. In the field of the inventions in Government Departments, it is a fact that many of the scientists and research workers in Government Departments and Government research organisations are not the kind of people who would themselves be interested in developing the results of their inventions. That is even more true, I think, in the case of discoveries and inventions made in the process of more fundamental research at the universities.

This question has been with us now for some time. It was much considered before the war, and it was considered during the war itself by the Scientific Advisory Council, who concluded at that time that an organisation should be created, independent of Government Departments, which could take over inventions and discoveries arising from Government research and see that British industry was given the opportunity of making full use of them. As the House knows the problem was considered, again independently, by the Swan Committee on patent law, which made recommendations of a very similar kind.

The problem arises chiefly because inventions or ideas coming from the laboratories or research stations are not necessarily, or even usually, in a form in which they can be used industrially, or in which they can be sold as marketable products. Very often much further experimental work is necessary; very often it is necessary to have a full scale working model, or pilot plant, which it would not be appropriate to set up, and which the particular scientists in question would not wish to set up, and would have no technique for setting up, in their own research unit, or in Government Departments or the universities.

Of course, the development of inventions is, in fact, a very long and costly process, and, whether it is undertaken in the research and development department of some firm or in some other organisation it does require very great technical and commercial knowledge. As industry has found over a period of 50, or perhaps 100 years, the process of developing an original invention and bringing it to the stage where it can become commercially practicable is a highly skilled job and requires a technique very often not to be found in those who made the original discovery. It is a fact that many of the inventions to which I have referred will need, if they are to be fully used, to be developed, and will require not only, in some cases, expenditure, but also services of those skilled developmental specialists to whom I have referred, who do exist to a considerable extent, and I think to an adequate extent, in private enterprise.

There is, of course, the problem of the private inventors or small firms who have worth-while inventions but are themselves without resources and without experience to undertake the development and exploitation of them. Although the main reason and justification for this Bill relates to inventions brought out in Government establishments and universities, the Bill does provide for dealing with problems connected with Government and private inventions.

It provides for the establishment of a National Research Development Corporation, which will be an independent body, subject only to general directions from the Board of Trade and to control on a number of specific issues, to which I will come in a moment. Its directors will be chosen from men with expert knowledge and experience of bringing inventions to fruition, because, as I have said, this is a skilled and specialist job. The Corporation will be charged with the job of dealing in this way with the inventions handed over to them, in the best interests of the nation as a whole. The Corporation will, of course, be financed initially from Government funds, but our intention is that in course of time, and in not too long a time, it will be self-supporting.

Let me now turn to the more detailed provisions of the Bill itself. Passing over the Title, which I think is probably the best title to cover the work of the Corporation, Clause 1 (1 a ) sets out the broad functions of the Corporation, which are briefly to secure the development and exploitation of inventions in the public interest. However, in the drafting of these paragraphs distinction is drawn between those inventions coming from public research and those coming from private sources; and inventions coming from private sources are to be taken up by the Corporation only if the Corporation is satisfied that they are not otherwise being sufficiently developed or exploited. I think that this distinction is necessary in order to avoid the suspicion in certain quarters that the Corporation will use public money to compete on unfair terms with private enterprise, of which there is no intention whatsoever.

The principle as regards inventions coming from public research is that these inventions have been derived one way or another from the expenditure of public money, and that in so far as the Government have rights in them they are entitled, through this Corporation, to exploit such rights to the benefit of the public as a whole.

The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the Corporation developing inventions which they were satisfied are not being properly developed by private enterprise. Can he tell us a little more about how this will work out, and how they will satisfy themselves that a particular invention is or is not being properly developed? Will it be merely a matter of opinion?

I am coming to that in a moment, and perhaps the hon. Member may find that what I am going to say will satisfy him on that point. It is not merely a question of the extent to which they will obtain this information, but a question of the safeguards we shall have in the Bill to see that they do not do the wrong things if they have come to a wrong decision, and I am sure that Members will watch these safeguards very carefully during the passage of this Bill. The Corporation, as a matter of ordinary commercial prudence, would naturally inquire about other uses of an invention before developing it, but we feel that in the case of inventions coming from public research it would be unnecessarily burdensome for the Corporation to be put under a statutory obligation to inquire about prior use before proceeding. Another thing is that no powers are given in this Bill for the compulsory acquisition of public inventions.

The expression "public interest, which I have used and which the Bill uses, was a matter of some discussion on the Second Reading of another Measure now before the House. In judging the value of an invention, the Corporation will take into account mainly economic considerations, but there are other matters, such as matters of public health and safety, which the Corporation might wish to have in mind. The Corporation might judge the development of a valuable medicine to be in the public interest even if it were not possible to make a profit in its production. The Corporation might think that inventions calculated to reduce crime, improve the detection of crime, or to assist in the production of pure foods might well be in the public interest even though they might not be primarily of an economic character. Public interest governs the whole of this Subsection, and not merely that part resulting from public research. If the Corporation took up an invention, they would expect to show some advantage to the nation as a whole.

The powers given under Clause 1 (3) will enable the Corporation to develop facilities of their own, but they will normally look to Government organisations to undertake development work on an agency basis where practicable and they will place development contracts with private firms where practicable. Subsection (1, b ) sets out the machinery under which the Corporation will acquire inventions and exploit them, with or without special measures of development. It is not intended that the Corporation shall engage in buying and selling inventions as a business in itself; we do not regard it as the duty of the Corporation to indulge in peddling operations of that kind. The Corporation will normally get their inventions from Government Departments in the form of patents, and they will exploit them by granting exclusive or nonexclusive licences to manufacturers under such patents, although in certain cases, especially in the case of overseas patents, they may wish to dispose of the rights outright. Government patent rights will probably be assigned to it gratis, and this may apply also to patents coming from universities.

In other cases, they will have to purchase the patent rights. When the originator of an invention wishes to share in its exploitation, the Corporation may acquire a licence with the power to sublicense to manufacturers. The Corporation will have a free hand as to the terms on which they acquire or dispose of rights, but I have made it clear that the Corporation will have no right of compulsory acquisition from private inventors. The Corporation will be able, within the powers given, to provide funds to a private inventor to enable him to proceed to apply for a patent or maintain a patent already granted, but before they can do that special approval of the Board of Trade would be required under a later Clause.

Is this merely a general power?

I think that we should require specific agreement in the case of each invention.

Is it proposed to give money to a firm for the development of an invention?

Subject to certain safeguards, we should have power to help development. The main expenditure involved would be the actual expenditure on development, but they would of course have to take some account of the expenditure in the terms of the licence which might be granted for the final invention. The policy of the Corporation will be determined by the fact that they will have to act in the public interest, and that will mean that in most cases manufacturers will receive licences on the most favourable terms possible.

There is one field in which the House will be particularly interested, which has been very much in our mind in the preparation of this Bill, and that is the field of medical inventions. We hope that the Corporation will have a very special responsibility and interest in this particular field. The medical profession to their great honour have always regarded with suspicion the patenting of medical inventions and discoveries. Those who have been responsible for the greatest development in medical research have always been very much opposed to the use of these developments for their own profit. It has been in accordance with the ethics of the medical profession that inventions and discoveries have been made freely available to those who wish to make use of them.

A new situation has arisen in the last few years, and this has been illustrated specially well in connection with the production of synthetic drugs and medicines. The question of medical patents has been brought up in a very acute form recently, and it is becoming plain that the patenting of these inventions and discoveries is very often not merely useful but necessary in order to get the proper development of such an invention or to protect it against improper exploitation. In many cases these inventions can only be brought to the productive stage after a very long and costly development by the firm, and unless they can be certain that they will be able to proceed with the work, without the results of their researches and development being poached on elsewhere, they will very often be unwilling to embark on the process. On the other hand, when a medical process is patented, manufacture can very often be restricted to those manufacturers who really will produce the product and adhere to defined standards of quality, which is absolutely vital. That is a desirable development. On the other hand, it is contrary to many of the traditions of the medical profession.

Another point is that the free publication of medical discoveries—our medical profession has had a very fine record in the result of its researches—has left the field of development open to people abroad who often have very different and rather more cynical views about the development of researches made in this country, with the result that, at times, we have been called upon to pay very heavy royalties overseas to those who have developed inventions and discoveries made first of all in this country. This has, of course, been notably true in the case of penicillin, although in this case our own inability to develop penicillin was not due to slowness on the part of the industry but to wartime scarcities and difficulties of manpower, plant, and so on, which did not apply on the other side of the Atlantic.

In the absence of recriprocal arrangements with overseas countries for the free use of medical inventions, it does not seem right that this country should sacrifice the very valuable returns which may be obtained from overseas exploitation, and the Bill offers some solution to these difficulties. The Medical Research Council are not only willing but most anxious to co-operate and to see established a body of suitable trustees prepared to accept patents dedicated to them and administer them in the best interests of the public as a whole. This is the part which the Corporation in co-operation with them will be playing.

Clause 1 (2) is simply a definition Subsection, defining the terms "invention" and "public research," as used in the Bill. It is not necessary to go into it in any detail now. Probably we shall want to go into this during the Committee stage.

Clause 1 (3) is mainly necessary to empower the Corporation to negotiate development and other contracts or to buy or sell or rent premises or plant, but it also covers the possibility that the Corporation might have to create new companies or take an interest in other businesses for a specific purpose. A succession of inventions might come along in a particular field and it might be necessary or desirable to have a new company set up to handle a particularly large block of business resulting from all those inventions. Alternatively, the Corporation might take an interest in some existing business to manufacture a product or, as I said before, it might operate through the placing of development contracts with private firms. Obviously the right of this Corporation to establish a new company is one which needs to be very closely watched, and I am quite sure that hon. Members opposite, if not hon. Members in all parts of the House, will wish to watch the safeguards on this matter.

We have said that the setting up of a new company by the Corporation must be subject to the specific approval of the Board of Trade under Clause 4 because the intention here is that our approval shall be given only when it is clear that the industry concerned is unwilling to exploit an invention on the Corporation's terms and also that the Corporation are being reasonable in the terms which they are proposing in relation to an invention. The unwillingness of the industry may be because of established vested interests in other inventions or processes in the same field, and it may well be that the Corporation is right to push on with the desirability of getting fresh work done, but in such cases the approval of the Board of Trade would be necessary, and could reasonably be given, for the Corporation to set up a new company to manufacture and, if necessary, to distribute the product.

Clause 2 sets out the constitution of the Corporation. The chairman will probably be part time, as will be all the other directors except the managing director. We are very anxious, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) would be the first to agree with us, that the Corporation should not consist of an excessive number of full-time people out of touch with the day to day operation of industry. It is most desirable that they should be in close touch. It will obviously be very important to get the right men as directors, men with business experience, men as far as possible with experience of the development of inventions and of the products of research, and it will be our intention to pick the very best men for the job. It is not only a question of men with experience or knowledge of industry; we shall of course require men with very fine technical and commercial judgment. Sometimes they will have to back their judgment against the judgment of an industry which has decided against the development of an invention.

Clause 4 deals with the extent to which the Corporation acts under general directions of the Board of Trade. These directions will refer only to matters of general policy, such as the policy to be followed in the granting of licences under overseas patents, the terms on which they should be granted, and so on. Clause 4 (2) lays downs the activities of the Corporation for which the prior consent of the Board of Trade is needed, particularly the manufacture or practical application of a development by the Corporation itself. These are types of activity which come very close to the legitimate field of private enterprise. It is right in our view that they should be subject to a departmental control.

Clause 4 (4) requires the Corporation to make a general report to the Board of Trade annually, and it is also provided that this general report shall be laid before Parliament, subject always to the withholding from publication of certain particular directions. What we have in mind are matters of strategic significance or matters which are at the time under confidential negotiation by the Corporation and premature disclosure of which would act adversely not only on the Corporation's activities but also on the activities of any firm with whom they were in negotiation.

I turn finally to the financial provisions of the Bill with which the House will very naturally be very closely concerned. They are laid down first of all in Clause 3, and then in Clause 5 and subsequent Clauses.

Clause 3 is an instruction to the Corporation that, although it will not be expected to aim at making high profits, it should conduct its activities in such a way as to pay its way and, in due course, it should repay the Government loan of £5 million provided for in Clause 7; and that apart from this advance of £5 million it should not have any further call on Government funds for the ordinary development of its work.

We feel, and I am sure the House will feel, that by a proper selection of the inventions coming to it, and by the right exploitation of the inventions, the Corporation should be able while complying with the requirement to act in the public interest, to balance its expenditure and its income in the long term. Obviously a balance year by year is not expected or considered desirable because there will be heavy development expenditure in the first year or two which may take a little while to come to fruition. To cover the period of development the Board of Trade has power, under Clause 8, with Treasury consent, to waive payment of interest due to the Government in the first five years. With this amount of flexibility, the Corporation has available for capital expenditure the £5 million which the Board may advance to it under Clause 7, and power to raise up to a further £250,000 by temporary borrowing under Clause 6.

There is one further financial point toy which I would draw the attention of the House, and that is that there will be certain cases where there can be no hope of covering the costs; certain cases where it would be desirable to develop an invention or process and perhaps to market it below cost in the public interest. This may be true particularly in the medical field. It is provided that the inevitable cost which would fall on the Corporation, and which it is right would be involved, should not come out of the Corporation's general revenues, but out of the Vote of the Department responsible for asking the Board deliberately to incur a loss of this kind.

It may be that some Government Department may wish the Corporation to undertake a large-scale piece of development and expenditure which would be nationally valuable and which the Corporation would be fitted to undertake, but which the Corporation considered, and might well show, would involve a loss. In that case the Department should make an outright grant or should be responsible for financing that out of its Vote. Clause 5, therefore, provides that in these circumstances the Department concerned may reimburse the Corporation for any loss suffered in carrying out the project. We are thinking here particularly of new developments in the scientific field, in certain cases in the defence field, or we may think of the development of a new drug important to the public health but to be distributed at a price which could not normally cover the full cost of development.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about new developments in the scientific field which is a very vague expression. Could he say what is the difference between a new development in the scientific field and a new development outside the scientific field?

I agree that I used an extremely vague phrase. I was really meaning a new development in the work of the scientific departments dealing with defence in the scientific field.

I am so sorry.

I used the phrase carelessly.

The Schedule to the Bill provides for the machinery of administration of the Corporation. It includes powers to the Board of Trade to make regulations, subject to annulment by Resolution of either House as to the appointment, tenure, and vacation of office of members of the Corporation, and so on.

The Corporation will work at all times in close co-operation, not only with the Board of Trade, which will be responsible for its general policy, but also with the Government production Departments generally, and bodies such as the Medical Research Council and other scientific bodies in connection with individual projects.

And with existing experimental stations such as Farnham?

Yes, it will have a close relationship with existing experimental stations because it will be mainly from them that it will be receiving the inventions which it is desirable should be developed further by the Corporation. The production Departments will be responsible for helping the Corporation to maintain the most co-operative and friendly relations with industries and individual firms, and will be responsible for seeing that the fullest consultation with industry, with industrial associations and firms is carried out.

I do not pretend that this is a major Bill. I do not pretend that it will do anything spectacular to improve the position of inventions and discoveries and research in this country, but I claim that it fills an important gap in our scientific and economic life. It protects for the benefit not only of the inventor but of the public of Great Britain the results of inventions and discoveries in this country in which we have normally led the world but of which we have not always had the fullest results for the benefit of the inventors and for our own people. And although this Bill must be considered and set against the general background of the vast amount of research undertaken by private industry and the development of inventions in private industries, in public boards, in Government Departments and elsewhere it fulfils a necessary function.

It will help us certainly to speed up the development and implementation of the vast amount of fundamental research which is now being undertaken in Government Departments, in universities and, to some extent, by small private inventors not themselves working for the larger industrial concerns and, because of that, I hope this House will agree to give it an unopposed Second Reading and a welcome which I think it has received in most parts of the country.

11.58 a.m.

I do not propose to detain the House for long, but I must say that I had some hesitation in advising my hon. Friends not to divide against the Bill. However I would like to add that that only relates to certain parts of it. Let me begin by referring to that part of the Bill which will excite no controversy in any quarter of the House, that provision of Clause 1 which defines the object of the National Research Development Corporation as being the

I would say that from my experience as a Minister and during the war it could be contended that sufficient means were not at the disposal of the Government to exploit and develop inventions for which they had been responsible, and that the two subjects of reseach and invention on the one side, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and exploitation and sales on the other, are much more widely divided than the layman is inclined to realise. I can remember in the course of my business life several inventions which could be described as great feats of the human brain but which had little or no commercial application, and other quite simple ones, the result of quite pedestrian day-to-day researches, which had great commercial advantages, but only if they were properly presented and exploited.

It can easily be imagined, for instance, that in the field of children's welfare a fortune could be made by a man who could make castor oil taste like orange juice. That would be a great scientific achievement. It would be equally a great scientific achievement to make orange juice taste like castor oil, yet the commercial possibilities of the second invention would, by the most sanguine of us, hardly be expected to be as great as those which would attend the first. However that may be, I think we are on common ground in wishing to see the State exploit any inventions or processes which have been discovered by the use of State money, and to see them exploited to the best advantage.

I thought the right hon. Gentleman's speech laid a little too much emphasis upon the public aspect of the Bill and insufficient emphasis on its weaknesses in other fields. I do not think it was intentional but, like all skilful controversialists, he devoted himself chiefly to the parts of the Bill to which he thought we should all agree and said very little about the rest.

Clause 1 says that the Corporation shall have the function of:

Why does the right hon. Gentleman say "medical"?

I said "American." I should not adopt the same attitude to the medical profession as the Minister of Health, especially with the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest) in the House. I should go out of my way to pay a tribute to them, which is all the more heartfelt in my case because I have never come seriously under their care—touch wood—which probably accounts for the excellent state of health in which I find myself this morning.

I would like to remind the House that there is no commercial, financial, industrial, medical or other activity where one is more likely to get one's fingers burnt, and, what is even worse in this connection, to get a hole burnt in one's pocket, than by dabbling in inventions. I say most seriously that the road to Carey Street is paved with good inventions. This Corporation is not only starting off in this most dangerous field and in this most dangerous exercise, but it is starting off with the admission that it is mainly going to buy things outside the public field which other people have already rejected.

Clause 3 gives me great cause for amusement. To read it, one might think that it added something to the strength of the Corporation. If that is so, I shall recommend everybody in the City of London to incorporate this Clause in the articles of association of their company. This will secure that no corporation in any field will ever make a loss. That will be equally satisfactory to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who will always be able to collect Income Tax on profits. Of course, it adds absolutely nothing to the strength of the Corporation, and detracts nothing from the risks which it has to run.

I think I might, without offence, recommend to hon. Members in general, and to hon. Members opposite in particular, the salutary exercise of imagining over many of these measures that the money involved was not public money but their own, and represented their own private savings. I admit that it will soon be a flight of imagination to talk about private savings, but they do still exist, and I would like hon. Members to imagine that this proposition related to their own money.

If this test is applied to this part of the Bill, it will have a rather sobering result. This is how it will work out: A friend comes along and says, "I am about to form a corporation with a capital of £5 million, which is to be managed by a board of directors whose names I cannot tell you but who are to be in the nomination of the President of the Board of Trade, if he finds time to select them amidst his other multifarious duties between the Russians, the American film industry and one thing and another. At present I cannot tell you the names of the directors, either the chairman or his colleagues. You must take it for granted that they will be a pretty good lot. They will all be people you like and trust, and you can confidently expect some friends of the Government. Perhaps even somebody from the Co-operative Wholesale Society may find his way on to the board. If you are in the greatest luck, there may even be a former Minister or a V.I.P. who has been shot down or suffered some political crash."

That ought completely to reassure one about the board of directors. The friend continues: "Now you ask me what are the objects of the corporation. The objects are to buy those inventions which other people will not buy. You know how naughty private enterprise is about losing money. They do not believe in it, as a nationalised industry does. Look at Clause 3. That ought to reassure you. We fully expect the corporation to be highly successful, and you will have the satisfaction of seeing not only your money fructify in your pocket, but also perform a useful national service." I think the investor who invested his money in such a corporation would be bold to the extent of being reckless.

In my business life I have seen so many attempts of a similar kind. I can remember the American banks attempting to capture South American banking business after the first world war. After a short time they found themselves with all the advances which the established banks in South America were unwilling to make. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that making advances to traders is a much easier and more straightforward business than financing and exploiting inventions.

I have had a large experience of this. I remember once writing to a particularly insistent inventor, whom I could not keep away from the office door, a letter which began:

I thought the part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech where he emphasised the difference between research, and invention and exploitation was very valuable, but I should say that with the specialisation which this century has brought with it, most of the new inventions and processes will come either from the research departments—research chemists, physicists, metallurgists or engineers—which large corporations employ, or from the great scientific schools of the various universities. That is not to say that there is not a field for private invention. It is in dealing with inventions outside the product of these institutions that the great dangers lie.

I sum up this part of my argument by saying that it is certain that some of the dangers which the Corporation will face are some of the most serious in the field of business, but that is not quite all. Not only is the field of invention the most hazardous, but, from the very nature of this kind of institution, it is the most dispersed and most diverse. Let me take the first instance that occurs to me, the electrical engineering industry. It employs a great number of very highly skilled research engineers and development engineers to vet not only the inventions of their own research departments but those which are brought to them from outside. They make a great many mistakes as well as successes in the course of this business.

Now we are to have a Corporation which is to go over the whole field. It is absolutely vast. There is no invention in any field which would be excluded from the purview of this Corporation. It is going to cover such subjects as the harnessing of atomic energy, the contribution which nuclear physics can make to the peacetime life of the people, the whole of the medical field, the metallurgical field, developments in heavy engineering, textiles, aircraft, and so forth. A board of directors with its hand in the public pocket to the tune of £5 million has indeed to be skilfully managed to form a judgment on so diverse, complicated and dangerous a subject as that before the House. As a general rule it is the unfettered scope, criticism, competition and fear of making monetary losses of private enterprise which will always be the principal factor in exploiting inventions.

I emphasise this aspect of the matter because I regard it as the most important in connection with this Bill. I was particularly glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman had to say on this subject, as we had decided not to divide against the Bill. The most important part is the selection of the chairman and board of directors of the Corporation. The right hon. Gentleman said that it would be much the best to go for men with wide experience on a part-time engagement rather than for wholetime men who necessarily must be more or less new to this very hazardous type of business. It will prove, in spite of Clause 3, that very large sums of money will be lost by this Corporation. It has to start trading in this very difficult and very wide field. Therefore the more dangerous the subject the more strict should be the supervision over every penny spent, and the greater success the Corporation will have if this Board is very carefully chosen.

In relation to large scale industries such as Imperial Chemical Industries, who are responsible for vast schemes of research and development, is it suggested that they are parsimonious in launching on these experiments although they have more varied scope?

The hon. Gentleman must not mistake my point. Very large sums of money have to be spent on research, but I assure him that, unless the closest possible control is kept over the spending of all the money there will be a vast expenditure without any result. It is in the nature of inventors and scientists to like to explore things which perhaps are better left unexplored. One has constantly to exercise supervision to keep that type of work in relation to the ordinary life the rest of us have to lead. We must keep the closest control over expenditure, and in no field is that more necessary than in research and development. A corporation which can lean back on the comfortable assurance that it has £5 million to play with is no exception to this world. On the same terms I would be quite willing to go into the business of backing horses on the certain knowledge that if I lost I could have the backing of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if I won I would be held up as a monument of efficiency.

These are the anxieties—and, I would assure the right hon. Gentleman, only in the field outside public research and invention—that made us think that we should perhaps divide against the Bill. Some of the anxieties have been allayed by the right hon. Gentleman, and more can be put right on the Committee stage. The set-up of the Corporation in its present form has some of the marks of an amateurish essay into this field. All the same, I find it difficult to escape the feeling that there may be an invention or process which this Corporation may be able to finance, particularly in the fields mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman not particularly related to profit, such as in the medical field, or in the precipitation of some of the bad elements in smoke. They have no economic contribution to make to our life, but perhaps can be valuable in another and even more important field.

There may be inventions or processes in that field which might escape private enterprise and which this Corporation might be able to finance and to exploit. If in the course of the Committee stage we can introduce greater safeguards into that part of the Bill which deals with the field outside public research and development, my hon. Friends and I feel that this may be a useful Measure without making any startling contributions to the subject. For that reason we do not intend to divide the House against it.

12.16 p.m.

The right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) rather caricatured many of the provisions of this Bill and damned it with faint praise. I gather from the beginning of his remarks that he himself was anxious to divide against the Bill. I cannot help feeling that many Members of the Opposition would hardly agree to that and that while all hon. Members feel that it may be necessary to scrutinise the Bill very carefully on detail, all seem in favour of its provisions.

It is impossible to expect too much of a Bill of this kind, but I hazard the statement that it ought to be an important contribution towards safeguarding the interests of British science in its application to industry and, as the President of the Board of Trade said, filling in the gaps where hitherto there has been serious waste of important inventions, which have gone to other countries. The Bill will help us in the difficult task of earning our daily bread as a nation, and that is what we are struggling for today. The House can do no better work than to pass a Measure which even in a small way increases our industrial efficiency and aims at closing the gap in our balance of payments. We can only hold our own in the world today if our methods of production are on the very highest level of efficiency, and for this we need all the best technical improvements that science can give to industry and agriculture.

We ought therefore to use all improvements in production industrially and agriculturally without having to pay tribute to foreign countries, particularly in scarce dollars. As the President of the Board of Trade pointed out, we have lost many important inventions, thought out and worked out here, and owing to the failure to have the necessary mechanism to fill in the gap we are now paying dollars for these important improvements. It is, of course, possible to be too patent-conscious, if I may use that term. I understand that in America many progressive firms who have got hold of important inventions do not even bother to take out patents but rely upon their being first in the field and understanding how to produce efficiently. One must not therefore become too patent-conscious. Nevertheless, the protection of inventions by patents will encourage research workers, scientists and technicians, and will help us in that way to get what we are now losing.

This Bill, as I see it, is an enabling Bill setting up the machinery of a public corporation to take up and exploit inventions which appear to be in the public interest. I am satisfied that it will not interfere with the private exploitation of patents that is going on today. There are sufficient safeguards to enable the industrialist who is making a speciality in this sphere to carry on as hitherto. It will also enable the inventor of the process to continue as before with a private concern if he so desires, but it will give him an opportunity to approach the public corporation, and that is not a bad thing. He may be able to operate at a better advantage, for the position is often difficult for an inventor who is not in a strong financial position. He may be able to get terms from the corporation which he will not get elsewhere.

Moreover, and this is perhaps the most important side of the provisions of this Bill, it will enable the workers at universities and research stations to have their inventions or processes which may lead to inventions carried on into the field in which they are applied to industry. These scientists who are working in universities are mainly concerned with knowledge as such and not so much with the practical application of their work. That is as it should be and it is to the honour of scientists that it is so. Particularly is it also the case in the medical profession, and many useful inventions might be lost because the profession, to its honour, says that it will not allow its members to engage in the commercial work of exploiting inventions. Therefore, some kind of corporation such as is to be set up under this Bill is needed to take over the work that has been done by scientific and medical research stations and to try to apply it to industry.

I know—and here I am inclined to agree with the right hon. Member for Aldershot—that there is a strong probability that most of the best inventions will already have been taken up by private industry. I am inclined to agree that the danger is that the corporation might only have the more mediocre inventions with which to work. That, of course, will not apply to the work of the universities or medical research stations but in the field of industrial inventions it may be more difficult to discriminate between the mediocre and the very good inventions than between the good and the bad. It is the mediocre invention which may turn out to be good but possibly will not against which it will be so difficult to discriminate. That part of the work of this new corporation will be one of its biggest difficulties.

For that reason I also agree that it is largely a question of the, personality of the persons who are appointed to run this Corporation. I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will succeed in getting the best brains that can be obtained for this work. They are not easy to get and it will no doubt be difficult, but much will depend upon that. Moreover, in spite of the fact that Clause 3 lays down quite rightly that the Corporation must balance its accounts, we have no right to expect that it will do so in the first year or two. We must survey a longer period before we can really offer full judgment as to the work of this Corporation. There is bound to be capital outlay at first before any results can be obtained. Nevertheless, I hope that this Bill, small but very important in its way, will have a speedy and successful passage through this House.

12.26 p.m.

I was rather alarmed by some of the gaps in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade when he moved the Second Reading of this Bill. Like everyone who has so far spoken, I welcome the purpose for which this Corporation is to be set up as regards one side of its proposed activities—the development and encouragement of the exploitation of inventions where those inventions emanate from public corporations and Government research departments. We all know that that side of exploitation of research and experiment is weak. Where the birthplace has been in a Government Department it has, as we all admit, and I think it is probably the fault of all of us, taken far too long for valuable knowledge to filter into industry and find practical application.

One of the reasons for that delay, that time lag and that weakness in our system, has obviously been the lack of contact between research and practical industrial application. That is why this Bill is weak. If it is right to say—and I think there is general agreement that it is —that the gap and therefore the delay in translation between research and practical industrial application is due to some missing link in our industrial research structure, this Bill does practically nothing to provide that missing link. That is the whole trouble. The President of the Board of Trade used an extraordinary expression, "development specialists." These could surely only be men with practical knowledge of industry from the development angle and with up-to-date practical knowledge of industry. I gather that the President of the Board of Trade agrees with me in that statement.

How are such men to be extracted from industry and put into this Corporation, which is in fact a form of Government department, and yet be practical development specialists? The whole point is the practical side of their experience, and the moment one removes them from the practical side where they and those with whom they work earn their living, that practical side of their value is greatly whittled down until they become in a sense themselves a form of research worker, instead of practical translators from the research stage to the application stage.

From that point of view—the tilling of the gap which has caused our weakness in rapid development—this Bill is extremely weak. I cannot help saying also that I am alarmed at the idea of the Corporation having to make up its mind on the value of patents. Without any sort of explanation from the President of the Board of Trade of how they shall decide, I cannot help feeling that an enormous amount of pressure will be put on by those responsible for developing something or other in the research department of some Government Department to try and push forward something on which they have worked in order to establish their own name and reputation. It will be extraordinarily difficult for the Corporation to resist the temptation for they are to work in such close collaboration, and allow themselves to yield to that pressure. I am certain that sort of pressure will arise. One has only to look at the Vote of the Ministry of Works and see the enormous expenditure involved in that type of research.

When we get that kind of expenditure and when a Department becomes very powerful and can put pressure on such a corporation, the personnel of that corporation is of the greatest importance. They will have to be very strong-minded men in charge of this set-up if they are to resist that sort of pressure. The personnel must not only comprise a body of men who have a very wide field of knowledge —I do not know where we shall find such men with such a wide field of knowledge in all sorts of spheres—but they will have to be very strong-minded men who can look at the thing completely dispassionately and not be afraid of turning down the claims of Government Departments or workers in Government Departments, which may cause some breach between the Corporation and the Government Department, or which will lead to trouble and questions in this House. That is a real danger, and I hope that we can devise some sort of means, possibly at a later stage, to try and protect the Corporation and the public purse against that sort of thing.

I asked the President of the Board of Trade how the Corporation would decide whether an invention has been properly developed or not by industry? I do not think we got a fair answer or a description of the method to be used. Is there to be a survey of the sort of industries which may be exploiting and translating an invention into a practical form? Will they be asked about any particular invention whether they would or would not be interested? How are they to be offered an invention at all? What happens supposing a private firm or a group of private firms wish to exploit an invention and the Corporation also wish to exploit the invention? What is going to happen supposing they ever come into competition? What is the channel or bridge or filter by which the Corporation will decide whether something is being properly used or developed? I think we are entitled to some sort of description, some sort of picture, of what the President had in mind when he was explaining to the House the main purposes of the Bill.

The Corporation have the right to set up undertakings in order to develop and exploit inventions, and they have, and will have made available to them, monies from various concerns in order to assist them to that end But at no stage, as the Bill appears today, has this House any control as regards the setting up of such enterprises. It is all very well to say that the Board of Trade and the right hon. Gentleman must be consulted, and must give approval to such undertakings, but I wonder why this House has not been brought into the picture? Surely the setting up of enterprises of that sort with the assistance of public money, which from no malice might very easily become a competitor with firms carrying on similar works, is a matter which should be debated in this House or be subject to the affirmative Resolution of this House.

Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that Clause 4, Subsection (5), where we have the words:

"The Board of Trade shall lay a copy of every report of the Corporation before Parliament "

gives that opportunity to this House for which the hon. Gentleman is now asking?

No, Sir. I look on that much more as a coroner's inquest; and not as coming to the House for advice as we would go to a doctor for advice before it is too late. In fact, we would be getting the advice too late under Clause 4. The report would merely show what had happened. If an undertaking of this sort is to be set up, and public money invested in it, we should be consulted at an earlier stage. We should insist that the Board of Trade should produce some form in which proposals of this nature could be discussed so that this House should feel sure that it would have an opportunity to stop the type of development which was unsound in the public interest. I think it much better to have this sort of consultation at an earlier stage rather than at a later stage, with a row in this House on the inquest.

Much that this Bill aims at doing cannot possibly be done under it. I wish it had taken an entirely different form. I personally think there should have been two Bills. We would have been much happier about it had there been two Bills. But here it is. We have a Government who themselves were responsible for a great many inventions three years ago. They may have had that in mind when they produced this Measure. They have invented so many things that they have been unable to exploit. If they intend to adopt inventions in the physical form in the same way as they have adopted them in the theoretical form in the last three years, and attempt to exploit them as they attempted to exploit their theories, then there is very little hope for the success of this Corporation. Possibly with the warning given by my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade may be prepared at a later stage to produce some safeguard at least which will protect the public purse from unwise exploitation in a way which would lead to great suffering and great hardship.

12.36 p.m.

(Islington, North): I welcome the introduction of this Bill, because my knowledge of the importance of this kind of research goes back over a good many years. I feel that the House can be reassured as to what the Government will do if they realise the tremendous amount of knowledge at the disposal of the Government in connection with the direction of work of this character especially for medical purposes in the Medical Research Council. There is the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and also research carried out in the field of agriculture. Apart from that altogether, we have in the Government service at the present time such very eminent scientists as Sir Henry Tizard the chief scientific adviser of the Defence Ministry, one of the ablest brains in the country.

With regard to medical research there certainly is a field in which great help should be given. That is not a field in which great profits can be made, at any rate legitimately. Of course it would he possible for some discovery to be made by a commercial firm who boosted it and gave it a registered name, and then, by advertising, sold it for a great deal more than it was worth. The House knows that the best known firms in industry connected with this kind of research in the production of pharmaceutical preparations do not follow that course. They take a reasonable course. I will not mention the names of any well-known firms. It might be invidious to do that; it might cast reflections upon those I did not mention. There are many firms who, if they chose merely to make profits, could make very much larger amounts of money than they do at present. I am sure that those firms will be willing to give advice, and that their co-operation will be available.

The right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) mentioned the problem of dealing with smoke combustion. He said that that had not an economic value. I venture to think that it has a very great economic value indeed. It would lead to the elimination of a large amount of wastage of fuel and would, therefore, be of first-class industrial importance. Except by the sale of some special form of apparatus, that is not a matter out of which anybody could make a profit. That appears to be a field in which a serious contribution might well be made not only to an improvement in the health of the community but to an improvement in our economy. A poster depicting a chimney belching smoke was mentioned in the House recently as being highly undesirable. I fully agree with what the hon Member said about it, because that represents a great loss of fuel. When one looks over London on any winter day one can see any number of chimneys belching smoke. That represents the loss of an enormous amount of fuel. Research in that connection is one of the things which would be extremely valuable.

Another point which is of importance is that it is necessary to keep the door open to the purely private inventor. I speak now from actual experience in scientific research much of which may be done by men who have no academic qualifications. I recall particularly some valuable research done in an organisation with which I am connected by a miner whose occupation was that of supervisor of a coal washery. At the time he was earning £3 a week. He did a most valuable piece of research on the geology of coalfields. He made himself a master of the subject while engaged at his job and watching the geological specimens flow past him on the washer. He was recognised as a great authority and was in correspondence with the leading authorities on the subject, in Germany, France, America and other countries. His collections are represented in museums in London, Wales and other places. In the scientific field one sometimes finds an exceptional man of that kind, and one certainly finds that type of man in the field of invention. I have known a number of men of that type, and I suggest that it is of the utmost importance that they should not be prevented from carrying on their work.

Like the right hon. Member for Aldershot, I have a correspondent who, during the last few weeks, has sent me an average of two letters a week about inventions. I regret that I have been unable to give him any particular encouragement. I directed him to the authorities concerned with transport and the loading and unloading of vehicles. I have tried to convince him that the authorities are more concerned with that than a private Member of Parliament, but he writes to me in the hope that I may be able to produce some miraculous result. I wish that I could but that is not in my power. My point is that in cases of that kind, and if there is anything in inventions like that, it would be possible for this organisation to take an interest in their exploitation.

Inventions sometimes are made for very odd reasons. This morning I received a letter from the chairman of the London Transport Executive, Lord Latham. Sometime ago I had a curious experience when mounting a bus in Victoria Street to come down to the House. I got a shock from the rail and that startled me. It occurred to me to inquire of the Executive what was the reason for it. It is obvious that if some weak or ailing person was to get hold of that rail when the bus was in motion he might fall off and receive injuries. No doubt other people have noticed the same reaction and have made representations. It now appears that this has led to a large amount of research work as a result of which a new kind of tyre has been invented. It is now in production and is actually being used on London buses. The rubber of the tyre is made electrically conductive so that the difficulty is obviated. That shows that inventions may arise from what may appear to be trivialities.

The authorities must keep an open mind in order to ensure that they do not refuse to examine an invention merely because it is over-emphasised or badly written, or not very intelligently expressed. Any suggestion may embody a principle which is of value. Years ago I knew an old gentleman who invented artificial ivory in a back bedroom off Highgate Hill. It was a good invention. I do not know how he achieved it, but he managed to make a commercial success of it. I am confident that the Government will exercise the greatest care in the use of these powers I am very glad that they will have the powers, because it is an essential of our economy to be able to make use of all the inventive faculty available.

This Bill will be of the greatest possible help in the medical sphere and all other fields, and I am sure that it will lead to good results. The sum of £5million is not very large, though it might be that even a less sum would have been sufficient. Much research is done with the aid of very small grants. I have known some of the best research in the world which has been done on about £500 a year over a couple of years. This is not a question merely of spending a large amount of money, but of seeing that it is spent in the right direction. I very warmly welcome this Bill and hope it will have a speedy passage into law.

12.48 p.m.

About six years ago some scientists and Members of Parliament of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee prepared a memorandum drawing up proposals similar to those contained in this Bill. They got together because at that time, in the middle of the war, they felt that it was necessary to give help in the development of inventions and to provide assistance to ensure a more speedy application of new scientific processes. There is no doubt that this Bill will be of great use, especially as it applies to Government Departments. An enormous amount of research is conducted in Government Departments. It is not always the case, however, that there is close contact with industry for its commercial development.

When inventions have reached a certain stage, it appears to me that there is required a body such as is envisaged in this Bill which will bridge the gap and allow development of the prototype. That will enable industry to go ahead with mass production of an invention which, otherwise, might be long delayed or never put to commercial use. Other hon. Members have referred to the importance of furthering medical work. I do not wish to say anything more than that in that respect this Bill will be most useful.

There is a third field, that of the private inventor who has an invention and puts it into industry. I think it is true to say that between the two wars we tended to lag behind in applying inventions. In our country there has been a greater number of inventions than in any other country in the world, but between the wars America and certain other countries were rather quicker in applying inventions than we were in this country and some of us felt that that deficiency ought to be put right, if possible. I do not know whether this Bill will put it right or not, but if it is to be put right it is absolutely vital that the greatest possible care should be taken in choosing the men for management. I think the Government are quite right in having a Board which is only part-time.

We want people from the various sections of industry with wide experience, who can give attention to particular problems, and the managing director and his staff will have to be extremely competent men. There will be a mass of inventions passing through here and it will be very difficult to decide what is likely to be of commercial value—because that is the job of this Corporation, to try and distinguish between inventions which may be interesting scientifically but no good commercially and other inventions which may have a commercial application. I believe that that is the prime purpose of this Corporation and, if it is to be successful, management is of the utmost importance, otherwise, we shall have this sort of thing happening.

An inventor will perhaps go to industry with an invention about which industry is somewhat doubtful, and industry will say to him, "The Corporation has been set up; you go to the Corporation." The inventor goes there, perhaps, and puts his invention to the Corporation. Let us say they turn it down. What happens then? He goes back to industry and once more industry says, "Go to the Corporation." He replies, "I have been there and they have turned it down." I feel there is a danger here that inventions might not be taken up which would have been taken up if this Corporation had not been in existence. I merely point that out as the kind of danger which has to be watched, because it would be a real tragedy if setting up the Corporation had an effect exactly the reverse to that which we want. I do not think it will happen in the Government Departments and in medical research, but I am thinking of the third field where, if we can possibly achieve results, we need to achieve them.

There is a further point to which I would like to draw attention, and that is the treatment of inventors. Clause 4 (2 b ) refers to: ment Departments in the past have often behaved towards inventors. I have in mind the case of Air-Commodore Helmore, who has been responsible for many inventions, including the carburation system and flame trap used in the Merlin engine. He has not received a penny for this vital invention and he is very sick about it. We must not make our inventors browned off but must treat them fairly and generously and encourage them, otherwise the Corporation will do more harm than good. For that reason it is important that we should have the right people managing the show. They must have the human interest. As hon. Members in all parts of the House will know, inventors are very difficult people to deal with and most inventors think their inventions are worth far more than really they are. They need most tactful handling.

Another point I should like to raise is dealt with in Clause 4 (2 a ) where power is given to the Corporation to carry out "any project for the making of goods." I think it should be made very clear that it is not the intention of the Corporation to make goods for sale. That is the job of industry—to go into production and to make the goods for sale. Obviously, it is important that the Corporation should have power to make a prototype; it has to take the product from the laboratory stage and develop it to the production stage and, therefore, it should itself have the power, or should be able to make the necessary arrangements, to make a prototype. It should not go beyond that and the rest, from then onwards, should be the job of industry. It is important that that should be made absolutely clear, because unless this Corporation carries the trust and confidence of industry it will fail and the purpose which we desire to achieve in this Bill will also fail. It is, therefore, most important from the outset that the Corporation should carry industry with it in this Bill.

I should like to know who is to answer Questions and to be responsible for the activities of this Corporation in this House. Will it be the President of the Board of Trade or the Lord President of the Council? The Lord President of the Council answers in this House for some scientific matters and this Corporation deals entirely with inventions and scientific matters. It would be helpful if the House could know the exact definition of the responsibility for this Corporation as between the Lord President of the Council and the President of the Board of Trade.

Further, when this Corporation takes up the inventions of various Government Departments is it proposed that the Government Department which has been responsible for initiating an invention will get financial credit for what is done? As I understand it, this Corporation will take an invention which has been discovered by a Government Department and, having developed it, will then make the necessary arrangements for its commercial exploitation by industry on some form of cash payment basis. Obviously, the Corporation will take financial reward for what it has done, but I suggest arrangements should be made for the Government Departments concerned also to have some reward for what they have done, so that those who work in those Departments may feel their work is recognised—and financially recognised.

It is worth considering whether satisfactory arrangements can be made for those managing the Corporation to have some financial participation in the results —some form of incentives and some form of payment by results. It is essential in the exploitation of scientific invention. If some form of payment by result for those doing the managing part of the work of the Corporation were considered it might be helpful in making the work more successful.

Would my hon. Friend amplify his suggestion? Would he recommend remuneration on a commission basis like that for managing directors?

I am suggesting that there should be some form of financial reward of that kind, depending on the success of the Corporation. I should like to have that point examined. There are, of course, arguments both for and against it which I have not time to develop here, but I am putting it forward as an important matter which is worthy of consideration. After all, a very well-known inventor, Air-Commodore Whittle, has, I know, strong views on this point and he feels that where people are concerned in this kind of work there should be some kind of financial incentive and reward according to the results.

Is it not a fact that Air-Commodore Whittle resisted payment?

That may be so, but, nevertheless, I can assure the hon. Member that those are his views.

I am glad his resistance was overcome.

Those are his views. I think they are sound views. We all of us, on all sides of the House, hope that this Corporation will achieve success, but it will have a great deal of difficulty to overcome. It will have a very difficult path in achieving its objects but, nevertheless, if it can achieve them, it will make a great step forward in carrying on work which has been done by so many inventors with such great success. After all, our future depends on our inventive genius. If this Bill helps on its cause a good morning's work will have been done here.

1.1 p.m.

I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield)—if he will not think me offensive for doing so—on the speech he has just made. It is an absolute repudiation of the utterances of the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton). I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman is not here. Where the right hon. Gentleman sneered, the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone was good enough to be constructive and to speak encouragement. I have often found it difficult to understand the mentality of the average industrialist prior to the war who permitted, in conjunction with his fellows, the whole capital equipment of this country to fall into a state of partial obsolescence, as it undoubtedly did. I did not understand it until today, when I heard the speech of the right hon. Member for Aldershot, who displayed a timidity towards this whole problem of industrial research and development which, undoubtedly, was the principal cause of industry's being "capital shy" before the war. And in case my remarks should be considered to be somewhat of a party nature and controversial, I should like to quote from the review, "The Economist," which has recently passed some observations on prewar capital development in this country. This is what it said: b ), which provides for the acquisition of inventions and the encouragement of inventions from other than public sources, was that in the years before the war, when it was vital that we should be using every bit of technological process on which we could lay our hands, there was but a tepid encouragement to industrial and scientific research, because industry then was afraid that the introduction of new inventions on to the market, the introduction of new technological developments, would mean that existing plant would become obsolete too quickly and so would not pay. Industry before the war took a gamble—there were honourable exceptions, of course on exploiting to the full its existing capital equipment, and it refrained, except in certain conspicuous instances, from giving development the real encouragement which was its due.

For instance, let me quote in that connection what I think will be regarded generally as a non-party source. It can be found in the presidential address of Sir Alexander Gibb to the Engineering Section of the British Association at Nottingham in 1937. He said:

I am sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman does not want to mislead the House in any way. In actual fact the position was nothing like so bad as the figures suggest. It is true that America was spending more on research than we were, but the sums the hon. and gallant Gentleman has read out did not cover a lot of development work which was done in this country. The figures are not truly comparable. In America they included a lot of other things which we would not consider to be research and development.

I do not think the hon. Member would dissent from the broad view that, if a comparison were made with America on the amount of money and endeavour in this country, expressed in financial terms as a proportion of the national income, actually in proportion we spent very much less. It may well be that on margin the American figures themselves contain a good deal of what could not be properly attributable under the head of scientific research; but I think it is beyond doubt that before the war the Americans spent much more in terms of a percentage of their national income.

Today the United States of America is in the fortunate—and extremely fortunate —position of not having sustained very much physical damage to her industrial plant as a consequence of the war; also, she was able to stimulate industrial research, even more during the war. We in this little island, although we have been able, as a direct adjunct to war operations, to encourage a certain amount of research, find ourselves with the crippling necessity, not only of making good the £3,000 million which we incurred in sheer capital physical losses during the war, but also of having to make up for the ravages which were deliberately allowed to occur in industry prior to the war.

This is an almost insuperable task, which takes place within a wider context, because I believe that when the figures are published to show the position of our current gold and dollar reserves in this country, we are likely to be in for something of an unpleasant shock. It seems to me that as at the moment the adverse terms of trade show little, if any, sign of improving, we may be out of our gold and dollar reserves in a short time. If that position materialises and necessitates trade on a "cash and carry" basis, with all its implications in terms of import restrictions, not only will the very great personal endeavour of our people, possibly with reduced standards of living, be required, but, above all, it will mean that in this island we shall have to develop our scientific and inventive capacities to the maximum, because in terms of technical inventiveness, and in terms of the ingenuity of its individual scientists, inventors, and research operators, this island has not been surpassed in the world. In the past these abilities, which are part of the precious heritage of our country, have not been encouraged as much as they might have been.

We may find in the years that lie ahead that we, as a nation, are vitally dependent on the way in which our research activities are sustained, and I regard this Bill, when taken in conjunction with other measures the Government have taken, as of vital aid in this regard. I hope, therefore, that the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend will not of necessity consider themselves constricted within the £5 million figure, which was so sneeringly referred to by the right hon. Member for Aldershot, but that they may feel disposed even to enlarge that figure. They must spend it prudently, as the hon. Member for St. Marylebone said; but if they want more money for this purpose, it is one of the most vital forms of capital expenditure in which this country can indulge during the next three years. I wish the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend well in this Bill, and I sincerely hope that they carry it through without any trouble. If during its passage they feel that the financial Clauses operate, or are likely to operate, constrictively, then I hope they will have no hesitation at all in enlarging its scope. I sincerely trust therefore that the House will give this Bill a Second Reading.

1.15 p.m.

We have listened to another bitter tirade from the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Major Bruce). Very often he has something to say, which is of interest and of value, but it is obscured, and certainly not helped, by the political bias which he brings to bear so strongly on almost every occasion upon which he speaks. He does no value to the cause of this country when he seeks to write off what we have done between the wars. True, during the years before the war we spent very little upon research and development compared with the United States of America; but our achievements were remarkable, in view of what we spent. We as a nation, having much less natural wealth than the United States, have, of necessity, to spend our money on research more wisely and more carefully than the United States.

When the war broke out we had in production the Spitfire—a plane much more capable of doing its job than any of the United States' planes. We had the Lancaster bomber almost on the way—a bomber which, for the greater part of the war, was the most effective bombing instrument of its time. During those years which the hon. and gallant Member so much decries, we had developed radio-location, so that we were the leaders of that field in those years. In the field of penicillin, which was perhaps the most distinctive medical invention of the war, we again led in its development. Therefore, it is quite improper to suggest that we in this country have not played a great part.

I am quite sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent me. I was not endeavouring to indict in any way the efforts of those who had been engaged on these products, and who undoubtedly displayed the traditional British skill in these matters. My indictment was not of them, but of the industrialist class generally who failed to take advantage of the skill that had been shown.

I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that with the Spitfire and the Lancaster it was private industry which urged development, against the wishes, or with very little assistance from, the Government. It was private industry which gave us the lead which otherwise we would not have had. When it comes to the question of money spent on research we have to ask ourselves whether we can afford to continue spending the money which we are now spending. I look with very great concern upon the multiplication and development of research in almost every industry at the present time; and if we erred, as we undoubtedly did, on the side of too little expenditure in the interwar years, we may well be going too far in relation to our resources at the present time.

The hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth said that the industries of this country had become antiquated and ill-equipped because of the failure of private enterprise to recognise the value of new equipment. This is really a bogy which intelligent Members of this House ought not to bring up, because if industry were badly equipped it was as a consequence of continuing far too long a policy of free imports and taxed exports. We cannot have a well-equipped industry if it is to be subjected in its home market to the ruthless competition of sweated labour in other countries, and if, when the products are sent out into the markets of the world, they find themselves damned by great barriers of tariffs. No industry could have succeeded under those conditions. If proof is wanted of that, look at the McKenna Duties immediately after the last war, and how the motor industry and others were developed because they were given a reasonable measure of protection.

The party opposite have a very grave responsibility in this connection. Those of the Liberal Party, who are not represented here this morning, believed in a policy of free enterprise. Hon. Members opposite never believed in it; but because tariffs were a policy started by the Conservative Party hon. Members opposite opposed it. I say that every hon. Member in this House, and anyone in this country, who in the years between the wars tried to persist in a policy of free imports and taxed exports bears a responsibility for the state of our industry being, in many cases, less well equipped than it ought to be.

Does not the hon. Member realise that the steel industry was protected by a tariff introduced on the advice of the Import Duties Advisory Committee in 1932, but that nevertheless technical developments in the industry were postponed year after year?

The hon. and gallant Member is proving my argument once more. It is true that in 1932 the steel industry had some assistance.

It is still getting it.

It is a very technical industry, and it takes a great many years to provide new plant. I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that new plant cannot be stuck up in a few weeks. The reason why the steel industry is in its present state is simply because of the failure of the country to realise that it could not have taxed exports and free imports.

I must say that the President of the Board of Trade is a most fortunate man, because he always comes down to the House with a non-controversial Measure. One of these days we shall have the good fortune to be able to knock him about severely, but hitherto we have had to be extremely kind to him. There is no sensible person who would deny the value of this Measure. Government research organisations obviously have to have some means of developing their inventions, and this is a very suitable medium for that purpose. But, like my right hon. Friend, I have the gravest doubts about the application of this Bill to private inventions. I should much prefer that the reference to private inventions be left out entirely. It does not improve the Bill in any way that this Corporation should help private inventors. Private inventors sin as much as they are sinned against, and probably they sin more than they are sinned against.

It was said in another place that in the main private inventors got the sort of treatment they deserved. There are very few inventions which remain to be discovered and brought to the light of day but for the manipulations of some wicked people. Millions of pounds have been frittered away on useless inventions, and there will be millions of pounds frittered away in future. I am afraid that millions of pounds of this Corporation's money will also be frittered away on useless invention. It was said that under this Bill inventors would now have a real run for their money, but I do not think that the taxpayer will get much of a run for his money.

Is the hon. Member expressing the spirit of the new Tory revival of enterprise?

If the hon. Member will contain himself for a moment I will give him some idea of my views on this subject. The idea many Members opposite have that there are wicked capitalists seeking to suppress inventions is very exaggerated. By and large, inventors are a body of people who have a very exaggerated idea of what their inventions are worth. The President of the Board of Trade has said that he hopes to appoint a good corporation. I only hope that he will get a good corporation; and that he will allow for a lot of reserves as well, because I am certain that they will have a very trying time as soon as they establish their office somewhere in London in meeting all the inventors with inventions going back 30 or 40 years. All the old non-working models will be dug out of the dustbins and brought to this office, and it will mean exceptional strength to stand up to the strain in the first few months.

It is quite appropriate that Members opposite are the people who should give assistance to old ideas, because they have been peddling old ideas for a very long time. I have no doubt that some ideas as old and impracticably, as nationalisation will come the way of the Corporation. We are very concerned that public money should not be frittered away in assisting private inventions. I believe that if a man has an inventive capacity and has something worth while the selective processes within private industry are sufficient to see that the invention is developed. A Government-established corporation is not a suitable body to determine whether or not an invention is of value. The chances of an invention finding a market depends on so many critical factors, and a Government corporation will not be sufficiently selective.

I look with very great regret on the provision in this Bill in regard to the manufacture of inventions. There is no justification for this Corporation having the right to manufacture goods as a result of inventions. All the necessary facilities for manufacturing exists outside, and there is no reason why the Government should insist on this provision. The President of the Board of Trade said that we are naturally an inventive race. That is perfectly true. We had more patents in the years between the wars than countries like France and Germany, and the extent to which we intensified our activities is shown by the fact that we had 8,000 patents registered in 1905 and 17,000 in 1937. It is true that during the war years the number of applications and patents granted went down, but that is true also of 1914–18.

We are naturally an inventive race, and nothing the Government can do can stimulate that inventiveness. It is rather like affection; if it is not there you cannot create it, and if it is there you cannot suppress it. It is wrong from the point of view of the inventor that because a Corporation is established it should be thought he can be given a new world. The life of the inventor will still be very hard. Hundreds of thousands of people invent things which are not of the slightest consequence to anyone, and they all believe that what they have invented is the best thing the world has ever seen. It is said that all inventors are mad, but I do not agree with that, although certainly they include an extraordinary proportion of very queer people.

Instead of offering this sop to inventors, which in the end will mean very little, it would be much better if the Government reduced the fees charged on patents. They would give much more satisfaction to the inventor who has to pay a high fee to the Patent Office and thinks he is being unreasonably withheld in developing his patent. The fact that he can go to this Corporation for assistance is not of much help, whereas it would be of great assistance if he could get his patent covered by a small fee.

Has the hon. Member the support of his right hon. Friend in what he is saying?

The hon. Member may be assured that my right hon. Friend and I always work in close accord. Obviously the development of a Government research station and the provisions in regard to the medical field meet with our approval. We know that it fills a gap which has existed and which ought to be filled, but we want to make quite clear in this House that much of the talk which there has been about what will be done for the private inventor cannot possibly be realised. We must make it clear that the private inventor will still have a very hard time, that only about one invention in a thousand will be of any consequence and that nothing we can do will make a heaven for the private inventor.

1.30 p.m.

I regret that we are carrying on this important Debate at the end of a four days' marathon when this House has been sitting almost night and day, but the Minister has introduced a very important contribution to the economy of Britain. I was astonished, tired as I am, to hear the hon. Member for Bucklow (Mr. W. Shepherd) accuse my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Major Bruce) of being irrelevant. I was surprised to hear him say that because he made what I consider a most misleading remark. He asked: "Can we afford to spend money on research?" Here we have the acme of modern Conservatism. Their Industrial Charter—

The hon. Gentleman should not be as tired as he appears to be. If he is going to stay here he should be sufficiently awake to listen to what is said. I said that while we have perhaps previously spent too little on research, there is now the question whether we can maintain the enormous amount of money which is being spent on research by private organisations, semi-government organisations and actual Government organisations.

If the hon. Gentleman takes the trouble to look at HANSARD he will find: "Can we afford to spend so much money on research?" The young Tories who wrote the Industrial Charter, and who appeal for the modernisation of industry when a very valuable Bill like this is introduced—although we have had a most excellent speech from the hon. Memer for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Wake up."]—I hear some hon. Gentlemen opposite saying, Wake up." I would like them to know that there were over 200 hon. Members on this side of the House last night while 24 Conservatives were defending their Amendments to the Gas Bill. One hon. Gentleman opposite says, "Can we afford to spend money on research?" We find the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) saying that money spent in research on smoke would have very little value.

The hon. Gentleman, as he has done before, misquoted me. I said that that was an invention which was not profitable from the economic point of view but had the widest possible value from the social point of view.

I beg to differ. I think I can prove that it has value not only from the social but from the economic point of view. Not many years age we undertook some research in Lancashire upon which we spent a small sum of money, £100, to find out—[ Laughter ] this is no laughing matter —how much it cost the women in working-class houses in Manchester to wash their clothes compared with women in comparable houses in Harrogate. We found that it cost 7½d. more per week per house in soap alone in Manchester. We worked out the cost of washing curtains. It was some £47,000 more in Manchester than in Harrogate. The social and economic cost of smoke and grime in the atmosphere was one-third of a million pounds a year. We estimated that £3 million spent on inventions and devices for smoke consumption in Manchester would save hours of labour for women at the wash tubs, and wear and tear on curtains and clothes, and would have made a healthier set of human beings. The economic argument is overwhelming.

Take the industrial axis of Britain, stretching from Liverpool to London. In that industrial coffin, where some 57 per cent. of the British people live on one-sixth of the area of Britain, we lose l00 million working days per year through ill-health. It has been estimated by medical research that 25 million of them are lost through throat, ear and nose diseases caused by pollution in the atmosphere. Yet we are told by the Opposition that money spent on that type of research may have only a social value and very little economic value. I ask those who wrote the Industrial Charter to work out the value not in terms of gold and pound notes, but in economic goods of 80 million days lost in ill health per year.

I regret that the hon. Member for Buck-low introduced this rather controversial note at the beginning of his speech. He seems to think that this Bill might be entitled the "Search for Fanatics in Attics Bill," because he tried to give the impression that all we are doing is looking for cranky inventors like the individuals who wrote the Industrial Charter—and offering them a bag of money because they have a spinning wheel and a few balls of string. That is a ridiculous argument to be introduced by people who will be claiming to represent this country, economically, socially and internationally at the next General Election. It has been pointed out that new inventions have frequently been shelved in the past either because their development was detrimental to the interests of some monopoly, in which case the latter would often buy them up, or because no one was prepared to take the risk of financing them. I believe that whichever Government is in office, this Corporation will now be prepared to take some risk in financing inventions.

An appeal was made to help inventors but not the type who are cranks in attics. I believe we have lost money on inventions because of the lack of financial assistance. Surely a national corporation can be trusted to see that people are of the right type before grants are made. We must link this up with our scientific education. By 1965 this country will need 90,000 scientists. At the rate scientists are going through our universities and technical schools, I believe that we shall not get more than about 60,000. It is therefore important for the Ministry of Education to link up with the Board of Trade on this fundamental matter.

An hon. Member opposite regretted that a Clause was introduced to give the Government, whichever Government it may be, the power of manufacturing. I want to put a question to hon. Members opposite. If a firm is making electric light bulbs—and I do not want to take advantage of the Privilege of this House by naming anybody—which could last for 20-odd years, but they file some of the filaments to make them last for five years, is that bulb being exploited correctly or is it not? Have the Government power here to take over inventions which could be 50 per cent. or l00 per cent. more efficient if the eye was not so much on profit as on the social value to society of the invention? I believe Clauses 1 and 4 (2, c ) give powers like that, and I hope that the Government will take advantage of them by taking over such inventions and running them for the benefit of society at large.

1.41 p.m.

I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies); it would be a little difficult—

I agree.

—and I am not good at following sleep walkers. I should like to get back to one or two questions arising from this Bill but, first, let me say that I have great sympathy with the target aimed at here, and I do not object to the private invention being included, but I fear that the Bill, as it stands, will not achieve its purpose.

Probably all of us have been watching the proceedings of the Commission which is sitting under Lord Justice Cohen, dealing with inventions which have arisen during the war. If one understands What is going on there, one realises the necessity of being able to ask questions in this House on behalf of inventors, whether in Government service or not, of the Minister responsible. My first point, therefore, is this. The right hon. Gentleman has told us clearly this morning that his Department takes full responsibilty for actions of various sorts. Here we have the formation of a Corporation rather similar to that of a nationalised industry. Will the President of the Board of Trade be willing to answer questions put to him in this House about the functioning of this new Corporation? Or shall we again meet that rather misty barrage which is interposed between the Member doing his duty by asking questions on behalf of his constituents, and the Minister? In other words, does the Minister retain full responsibility for the actions of the Corporation, or will he say that it is a routine matter and that he cannot answer the question? That is vital if we want to get confidence in the inventors to go to the Corporation, and calls for a clear statement.

My next question relates to foreign inventions. As the President knows, there is a good deal of activity by people who have patent rights of foreign inventions and, to the great benefit of this country in the past, in spite of what has been said opposite, have had them manufactured and exploited in this country. What is the position of the Corporation regarding those who go to it, not with a British invention, but with a foreign invention of which the patent rights may be held here, and other foreign inventions of a similar character? If a foreign inventor wants to come here because he believes this is the best place for his invention to be brought into production, can it be covered by the Corporation.

Next we come to the financial set-up of the Bill. I thought that the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Major Bruce) had lost his sense of proportion in what he said on finance. He talked as if the £5 million could be expanded enormously to the point of the American system, where machinery is scrapped every four or five years, and as if he thought it was a scandal that it had not happened in the past. This sum of £5 million standing behind the Bill I would not describe as "chicken feed" as compared with what private enterprise has put in, but if one looks at the records of half a dozen of the leading private enterprises in this country before the war, it will be found that they spent much more than £5 million a year—not altogether, but a year—in bringing into production the various inventions brought to them.

The financial set-up here is thoroughly unsound. We have again produced in this Bill a financial hybrid whose breeding is not very encouraging for the public to place their money on, because it is one of those Corporations which pretends to have the outward semblance of private enterprise but has not the inward guts. That is dangerous, because it will give the public the idea that it is running on a commercial basis when it is not. The whole show is given away by Clauses 3 and 5. Clause 3, which is the invention of some super-Canute in a Government Department, calls for an exquisite equilibrium of finance which private enterprise could never hope to achieve. The idea that one can run anything which is really a Corporation and not a Government Department on the basis of arriving at a point, even over a number of years, where there will be no profit and no loss, is absolute nonsense. It simply cannot be done. Is this new body of directors to meet three months before the end of the year and is the chairman to say, '"Gentlemen, we are in a precarious position. Up to date we have £76,000 profit. How are we to dissipate this before the end of the year?"

The idea that this can be run in the rough and ready way of making the maximum profit possible in view of world demand for the article when one has struck a winner, in order to set it off against the losses which will undoubtedly be made when the Corporation starts to exploit inventions, simply will not bear inspection. The right method must be to run this with the open winds of competition blowing against it. It may be the right thing for private inventions to go to the Corporation as a competitor with private enterprise if there is to be a fair basis between the two, but not if there is to be a protective Clause, a form of protection favouring the Government Corporation. If that is so, the invention will not be exploited as rapidly as it should be. That must be clear to anybody who has put money into the work of new inventions.

Clause 5 shows the falseness of the setup of the Corporation. The right hon. Gentleman said that when other Government Departments go to the Corporation and ask it to do a job, they will pay the whole cost. He is protecting himself there in a way that no private enterprise could ever do. He is contracting out of a possible loss. I urge him to look at this a little differently. If he is afraid of showing big profits because of the political ideology on the other side of the House, because big profits are being attacked for other reasons; if, in running this Corporation to exploit inventions, he does not take full advantage of the winners, when he gets down to setting the losers against them at the end of the year he will be financially as well as politically in the red.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but could he tell me from what part of the Bill he gets the idea that three months from the end of the year the Corporation will find itself in difficulties if it has accumulated some profits? Clause 3 simply says that the revenue shall be sufficient to cover their cost; it does not say it shall not be more than sufficient.

Then I misunderstood the President of the Board of Trade in his speech. Can we have it quite clear that he is going to contract out?

Read the Clause.

I have read the Clause most carefully, with a wakeful eye. Is this the position: that the Corporation will contract out of losses as far as possible, where it is working for other Departments, but will make every possible profit?

Certainly we have no objection to the Corporation making profits. If it does back some winners, it may consider it prudent to get a revenue from those and hold it over against possible losses in a subsequent year. The point I made was, however, that we would not expect it to make excessive profits by charging excessive sums to the people who might benefit from the activities of the Corporation.

"Excessive profits" is a somewhat dangerous phrase. Surely the profit will be limited by the market in the invention? I urge the President of the Board of Trade to be quite certain that he creates the maximum reserves out of the profits. Clause 3 contains a most untenable thesis. To say you shall not make a loss does not mean that you will not make a loss.

Taking it by and large, I support this Bill very strongly, but I wish to issue this note of warning, that to believe that when new inventions are proved successful, this Corporation with a capital of £5 million will be able to do what the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Major Bruce) says it should do, is quite wrong. It would be quite wrong to get the idea that when an invention is proved correct—an invention which may call for the scrapping of a whole industry and putting in its place a completely new set of machinery—the Government will be able to do very much more than private enterprise has done. We may have the best invention and prove that it is right, but it may take 10, 15 or 20 years' work and an enormous sum of money running into thousands of millions before it can be put into practice. This Bill is a good experiment, but it should be regarded only as such.

Did the hon. Gentleman say it might cost thousands of millions of pounds?

Yes.

1.52 p.m.

I do not think any reasonable Member would differ from the last remarks of the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher). It would be quite wrong if the Government attempted to create the sort of panic mentality that we had during the war, when many people believed that some sort of mysterious device would get us out of all our problems. However, it is very interesting to study the Opposition's reaction to this type of legislation, and it is worthy of one or two comments. First, it stands out quite clearly in the economic and financial legislation that we have had, that the one occasion when we get an efficient Opposition and the one occasion when they put forward their united and best efforts is when the rights of property are endangered. Then they come fully to the attack.

I have had the privilege of making my contribution upstairs on the Bill which is akin to this, dealing with the question of monopoly inquiry. I cannot comment yet on what we have done, but it I s significant that again this morning we have one Member of the Opposition saying that this legislation is too bold, another Member saying that it can effect nothing, and the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) with quite different approach, one which rightly commanded considerable support from this side of the House. It seems, therefore, that I am entitled to deduce that the real fact is that the Opposition do not like this Bill any more than they like the Monopoly (Inquiry and Control) Bill, and that when we have the Patents Bill at a later stage they will like it even less.

I do not think it is worth while commenting unduly on the speech of the hon. Member for Bucklow (Mr. Shepherd). I am sorry that he has left the Chamber. I understand that he has gone for his lunch, and perhaps I would have been wiser if I had gone for mine. His views are those of a political Rip Van Winkle who would have been much happier in the Junior Imperial League after the 1918 period, but who is quite lost in the big bad world of today. The sort of problem I would like my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to answer is that which arises and which was rightly focused, perhaps with overemphasis, by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth (Major Bruce). Perhaps I might say that I was glad to notice that this morning he had lost his stutter and was speaking with much greater fluency.

Part of that problem is emphasised in the following quotation:

I am greatly encouraged, because I am assured by firms outside the ring that already, before the Bill has seen the light of day, a considerable improvement has taken place in their relationships with the Electrical Lamp Manufacturers' Association. The sort of economic difficulties from which they suffered a year or two ago are rapidly passing. Therefore, I think I am entitled to draw the conclusion that if the threat of legislation will effect such a far-reaching change, then the actual legislation will take us a long way on this road. I am very disappointed that I have not been asked from whom I have quoted. I was quoting from "Monopoly," a book written by the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), a very excellent book which many of us have studied. I want to make another brief reference—

I hope the hon. Member's next reference will be to this Bill.

Oh, yes. I thought the right hon. Gentleman was going to make some pertinent comment on the subject matter of my speech. It would have been much more interesting if he had done so. I want to deal with the remarks of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Philips Price). In passing, may I say, in common with other hon. Members who have spoken this morning, that the idea that tucked away in a little back room somebody is going to have a wonderful brain wave and produce an invention which will save the world, may have had some significance a century ago, but that sort of romanticism can have no significance today. Inventions which are really worth while and which effect a fundamental change are mainly the result of collective research.

One remark which the hon. Member made—and I do not want seriously to quarrel with it, but to make one or two additional comments—is that the person who produces some invention that has far-reaching economic and social significance is entitled to substantial monetary reward. I do not deny that it is perfectly true that many inventions of that sort have fetched monetary reward, but it is equally true that many of the great changes which have come about in medical science and economics have come from men and women who have loyally spent their lives in search of an idea in abstract science and in real science; and who, when at last their lifework has reached its culminating point, have turned their great discovery over for the benefit of all mankind.

I am very conscious of the great contribution to human life and development that was made by Monsieur and Madame Curie. I remember so vividly those wonderful passages in the book written by their daughter Eve in which she said that as they approached what they knew in their hearts was at last the glimmerings of success, both M. and Madame Curie vowed that they would never profit by the discovery they were about to make. I agree that in one's association with Parliament environment and upbringing are very important factors in the shaping of mentality, but I have felt here, sometimes in a blind sort of way, and sometimes I have seen it on the other side, that our real difference in all these problems is rather one of emphasis. I think it is inevitable, and again I do not complain, that hon. Members opposite approach this matter from the angle of individualism and private enterprise.

When the right hon. Member for Aldershot saw me come in this morning he felt provoked to say something about the Co-op. Perhaps the emphasis of myself and many hon. Friends is that we approach these problems from the standpoint of co-operation and, I like to think, from the point of view of the whole community, freed from the restrictive approach of private enterprise. I believe, then, that this Bill, in its limited scope, is a good Bill, but I look forward with eager anticipation to the Bill which will really cover the job and which the President of the Board of Trade is about to introduce.

2.2 p.m.

It is an extraordinary coincidence that my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Daines) referred to the Curies and the fact that they did not desire to benefit from their work. I do not think I am giving anything of a secret away because the proceedings of a Parliamentary Committee are not secret, but it happened that about a month go, when discussing this Bill, we had a special meeting for the purpose and invited Air-Commodore Frank Whittle, as he then was, to attend the meeting. He had been offered a large sum of money for his work, and had rejected that sum. As we know, since then not only has he received £100,000, but in yesterday's papers it was announced that he had received the honour of knighthood. He had suggested in relation to development that people who picked out winners and succeeded with them should not merely be rewarded by a flat salary but should receive a lump sum payment as well. By an odd coincidence he advocated that, not knowing that he was about to receive £100,000 for such work.

This National Research Development Corporation will only succeed if it is unorthodox and if enterprise, imagination and enthusiasm are its watchwords. That certainly was the judgment passed by Sir Frank Whittle, who would certainly have disagreed with the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton). The right hon. Gentleman made a most brilliant speech, which I think all of us enjoyed, and I suggest there was a great deal of substance in it. I would not for a moment dare to challenge him on his expert knowledge of many of these matters, but I cannot believe that his view of this Bill is correct. I congratulate the President of the Board of Trade on having brought forward this Bill, and I believe there should be some organisation responsible over the whole field of private enterprise for ensuring the maximum use of the scientific resources of our country. That is the basic principle.

The right hon. Member for Aldershot is so sceptical about planning of any sort —and perhaps he has some right to be after the way in which we have been dealt with this week in regard to the planning of Government time—that he say he does not really believe we ought to have this overall examination into all these problems. When he said that the road to Carey Street is paved with good inventions I was aware that he said something which is substantially true. Most of the good inventions are picked up by somebody who thinks he can make a profit out of them. I am not altogether sure that that accords with some other arguments he puts forward to the effect that it is not worth anyone's while, in view of Profits Tax, Surtax and Income Tax, to show any enterprise at all. I am not sure that he is not trying to have it both ways there.

I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that time and time again one finds that the stone the builders rejected will become the headstone of the corner. The one thing which everyone rejects eventually becomes a colossal success. My father is a retired doctor, and is a very strong supporter of the Conservative Party. I remember going walks with him when we lived in Bournemouth. In those days in Bournemouth one gentleman meeting another gentleman would take off his hat and everyone was very polite. I particularly noticed a gentleman we met in the street who took off his hat to my father, but whom my father never acknowledged. One day I asked, "Father, why is it that you never take. notice of that gentleman when he takes off his hat?" My father replied, "The reason is that I told him five years ago that he would die within three years and he ought to be dead." I suggest to the right hon. Member for Aldershot that if my father could make mistakes as a good Tory, so can he.

It is a very good thing that we should have a National Research Development Fund in existence for ensuring that any inventions not properly developed are duly developed. There are certainly examples, although I think it very difficult to substantiate them in many respects, of inventions which have been inadequately developed in this country. I admit that it is very difficult when we come down to analysing the reasons. The obvious example one would have thought was penicillin, which is one of the greatest British inventions of this century, yet we pay a large lump sum to America to develop it.

(Cardiff, Central): Shame.

No.

The right hon. Gentleman says "No."

The hon. Member for Central Cardiff (Mr. G. Thomas) said "Shame," but the reasons for that arose out of the war, and that makes the reasons not shameful, but honourable.

I understand that, but is it not shameful that a profit is being made out of a discovery which ought to be a public benefaction, and not a source of private profit?

I was going to agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and indeed the point was made in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, that war conditions had a great deal to do with this. But the right hon. Gentleman had immense experience during the war and an immense task to discharge. I cannot believe that when the future of this country was at stake he adopted quite the attitude which he adopted today. At that time we had to plan the whole of our scientific manpower and resources. Yet the burden of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman today has been that we must not try to plan because human beings are incapable of planning. We have certainly discovered on these benches that planning is a far more difficult task than some of us thought when we came into the House of Commons.

I submit that the need to try to achieve some overall plan in respect of the development of scientific research over the whole of industry is immense. Therefore, with great respect to the President of the Board of Trade, I disagree with him when he says that this is not a major Bill. I believe that it could be a simply colossal Bill. Let me give an illustration in the realm of practical politics. Suppose that I go to my constituency and say that the nationalisation of the mines has been a success and the right hon. Gentleman goes to his constituency and says that it is not a success. That is a matter of opinion. We read today figures which were not very satisfactory. Here we are not dealing with matters of opinion. If this Bill had been introduced two years ago I should have hoped that we in the Labour Party could have gone to the electorate in 1950 and said, "Here is this invention and that invention which private enterprise neglected and which we are beyond doubt responsible for having put on the market." Then there would have been no matter of opinion involved.

Let my right hon. Friend operate this Bill with enterprise, genius, vigour and imagination, and I believe that he will be able to astonish everybody; he may be able to come forward with some great things which have been produced and which would otherwise not have been produced. Air-Commodore Whittle certainly accepts that point of view and believes in it himself. I agree that he is an enthusiast, but it is as well that we in Britain have had enthusiasts like him in the past.

I wish to say a word about the composition of this National Research Development Corporation. The President of the Board of Trade said today that he thought that the whole of the Board should consist of part-time members.

Except the managing director.

Yes. I gather that so far that has been accepted by the House, but I am by no means sure that it is the correct solution and that the chairman at least ought not to be engaged on a full-time and permanent basis. The essential point, which I wish to emphasise, is that we must have very high-powered people indeed responsible for doing this job. The right hon. Member for Aldershot, who has shown enterprise in many fields, including the field of battle in the 1914–18 war, and including any number of enterprises between the two wars, says that this is a bad bet in any event. I believe he is wrong. I believe that my right hon. Friend has to find some one very enterprising indeed to deal with this matter, and that given a good chairman, a good board and a good managing director, the board can do something which will surprise the right hon. Gentleman. They may show up inefficiencies in private enterprise which the right hon. Gentleman does not believe to exist.

That however is not the main burden of my case. I do not believe the main case to be that British enterprise has been inefficient. On the whole it has been amazingly efficient and relatively more efficient than has any other form of enterprise in the world. But that is not the trouble. The difficulty is that our big companies in this country simply have not got large sums of money at their disposal to enable them to embark upon large schemes of research and development in the way that American concerns can. The right hon. Gentleman may be associated with enterprises which are an exception to that, and I pay tribute to them. I.C.I. have done a wonderful job but one has to consider that General Motors, for example, may undertake in a single year two separate projects each costing one million dollars. They do not require to see their money back in two or three years. That is not the way great successes are achieved.

It is essential to have a Government organisation over a broad field of private industry which will supplement private enterprise in particular campaigns of research and development. Such an organisation will only do so if it is served by men of great vigour and imagination. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have agreed with that. I do not want to see them as salaried officials who regard themselves as civil servants. I do not want to see that kind of set-up in this field. It seems that Sir Frank Whittle was right in saying that they ought to have an interest in the products of their own research, and that if they succeed in developing something which is phenomenally successful they should have a financial reward. I agree, as has been stated, that some of them might say that they did not want such a reward, but I believe that if they did not want it, their wives certainly would. It seems to me that a financial reward is a very important one. I believe that I should have been a little more likely to participate in every Division this week if I had known that I was to get a 10s. note for each time I walked through a Division Lobby.

An original, enterprising, imaginative approach to this problem is needed if we are to succeed. I entirely disagree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that we ought to have strict particular accounting in relation to this matter. His implication was that we ought to be very careful to keep a tight rein on the money and find out how much has been spent, to have the whole matter investigated from time to time, from month to month. That was his implication in relation to the Board. My view is that the position should be the reverse of that. We should say to this board, "We trust you; we would not have appointed you if we had not trusted you. As we trust you, you can have as much money as you wish." When I say "As much as you wish," I mean, of course, within reasonable limits, but I certainly mean much more than £5,000,000 in five years. That is my case and I propose to put down an Amendment to increase the amount of money. I hope that some of my hon. Friends will support that proposition and that it will be considered.

If I support the hon. Member he will be in an awful predicament.

I understand the hon. Member intends to put down an Amendment to ask for three times as much as the sum for which I intend to ask, which will be a great help.

We must, in a matter like this, have people who are prepared to make a big loss. No one is able to achieve great successes for the country unless at the same time they are willing to make a big loss. I should be quite satisfied if after a period of ten years of working of this corporation we discovered that certain enterprises had been impracticable and had been utter failures, because I feel sure that if the Board had been operating properly during that time they would also be able to show even more impressive successes. The President of the Board of Trade stated that if he succeeded in developing some invention, thereby getting a monopoly of that invention, he would make profits provided that they were not excessive.

The President of the Board of Trade said that he would make profits but that he would not try to make excessive profits at the cost of pushing up prices.

I quite agree. My right hon. Friend was apparently attacked from the other side of the House on this point. Those who try to establish a monopoly in private enterprise are under a duty, under the Companies Act, of making as much money out of it as they can. I would say that they are guilty of misfeasance under the Companies Act if they fail to make excessive profits, that is, if they are in a position to make them. I would put the case as high as that. The right hon. Gentleman has never failed to live up to the highest standards of competence required of directors under the Companies Act. Of course, it is quite different where we have a Government responsible for the National Research Development Corporation. If we get a monopoly on an invention, and I hope that we shall succeed in doing that, we shall not charge excessive profits, but shall have regard to the wider interests of the community.

I may be entirely wrong about it, and I admit the cogency of many of the arguments produced today but I believe that this can be not a minor, but a major Bill, and that we may today be encouraging the National Research Development Corporation which, within five years from now, will have developed inventions which would not otherwise have been developed, and thereby have eased the burdens of people in this country.

2.22 p.m.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) that there are great potentialities in this Bill, but I think he may have somewhat misunderstood my right hon. Friend's reference to it as a minor Bill. It may be "minor" in the sense that it is a short Bill, or in the sense that it is not the subject of considerable controversy. But I think its implications are quite large. Although I personally have not indulged in a consideration of industrial research to the extent that I know my right hon. Friend has, I can see that there are very considerable possibilities arising out of the establishment of this Corporation.

We have had a placid Debate, apart from one or two little brushes. The reason why the Debate has been placid is not so much that some hon. Members have been up all night, and are feeling too tired to quarrel, but because, after all, the subject matter of the Bill is one upon which there must be broad agreement between all men who desire the well-being of this country in the future. The hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) referred to the memorandum of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee, which did set out very similar recommendations to the provisions contained in this Bill. I was interested to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for North Islington (Dr. Guest) about the inventor who writes to him twice a week, or twice a day. I have had the same experience myself with an inventor who invented an extraordinary number of things. Nobody, apart from himself, seems to think that there was any value attaching to his inventions, but he could be a considerable nuisance to me, and was. However, I succeeded in having him sent to South Africa where, no doubt, he will be worrying somebody else. If we do not do anything else by the establishment of this Development Corporation, I have learned, from what I have heard today, that we may ease the burden of Members of Parliament, because, instead of writing their letters to Members of Parliament, inventors will be writing them to the chairman of the Development Corporation, which will be quite a good thing.

I was asked a number of detailed questions which I will do my best to answer. The hon. Member for St. Marylebone asked me to make it quite clear that Clause 4 (2) does not mean that the Corporation, when established, will enter into production on a commercial scale. It was suggested by subsequent speakers that we ought to confine the manufacturing operations of the Corporation to the manufacture of prototypes. The intention is that the Corporation shall always try to get somebody in industry to undertake the manufacturing work, the development of the invention. But it might be the case that the Corporation, having found an invention which it is quite sure is a good one, and which ought to be produced, then discovers that it cannot find anyone in industry willing to undertake the manufacture. Therefore we feel that it must have the power itself to go into production. But I would have it clearly understood that we envisage that happening only in exceptional cases. In the vast majority of cases the manufacture would be undertaken by someone inside the industry.

Then there was the question of who is going to answer in this House for the Corporation. The answer is the President of the Board of Trade. I know there has been some suggestion that the President of the Board of Trade may not be the right Minister to take responsibility for this Corporation, since the Lord President of the Council, as is well known, is generally responsible for scientific matters, and he may be regarded as being the more appropriate Minister. Our view is that the Corporation will be concerned with inventions, not so much from their scientific aspect as from their commercial value, in the main, and, in all its judgments and activities, commercial and industrial considerations will be paramount. The Board of Trade has a general responsibility for industrial policy and for home and overseas trade. We endeavour to incorporate or work closely with all the Departments in direct contact with the various industries, and it appears to us that the right Minister to answer for the proposed corporation should be that Minister most directly concerned with industrial and economic matters in this country, which is the President of the Board of Trade.

I listened, as always, with interest to what the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) had to say. I must confess to some feeling of disappointment with the speech that he made. The disappointment which I am expressing has also been expressed, possibly somewhat more strongly, by hon. Members on this side of the House. Quite frankly, I do not like the rather jeering attitude which he took towards this Measure. I entirely agree with the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Major Bruce) that the speech of the hon. Member for St. Marylebone was a direct and very welcome contrast. The suggestion that the road to Carey Street is paved with good inventions, while it might raise a laugh, and might appear to the right hon. Gentleman to be quite humorous, was, I thought, a little out of place.

Why he should want to pour cold water or scorn on a Measure of this nature, which was recommended by the Parliamentary Scientific Committee, composed of Members of all Parties, and a Measure which this morning received the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House, I really do not know. My answer to his crack about the road to Carey Street being paved with good inventions is that it is extremely unlikely. The road to Carey Street may be paved with bad inventions, but certainly not with good inventions. It is also the case that the road to Carey Street may be paved by people who failed to apply and develop good inventions, for reasons best known to themselves. One of the objects of this Bill is to ensure that, so far as is possible, good inventions are exploited and developed for the well-being of the nation as a whole.

The right hon. Gentleman welcomed that part of the Bill which dealt with the acquisition of inventions emanating from Government Departments and public organisations, but he doubted that part of the Bill which gives the Corporation power to acquire private inventions. He pointed out the danger of what, he said, was a risky field. I quite agree that it is a risky field and that there are very great difficulties involved. When he suggests that the great danger is that the Corporation will be offered only the mediocre private invention—obviously good private inventions already having been snapped up by private enterprise—I would suggest that one of our troubles in the past has not been so much that the best inventions have been snapped up by private enterprise and developed for their own purposes, but that some good inventions have not been developed because it has not suited those who possess the patent rights over those inventions.

Has the hon. Gentleman read the Swan Report on this matter? From his general remarks I gather that he does not agree with it. Will he be more specific?

I am merely saying that in my view it is not the case that the Corporation will be offered only the mediocre invention which is not desired by private industry, but that it may well find itself being offered the kind of invention which has been offered to private industry in the past and which has not been developed for reasons best known to the people who have acquired the rights over those inventions.

I asked the hon. Gentleman if he had read the Swan Report on this subject. Is he aware that that report says that this allegation that patents and inventions are suppressed is without foundation.

I have read the Swan Report. I agree with what that report says. Incidentally, the Swan Report says that there is no evidence on these matters. It points out that evidence about these things is extremely difficult to obtain.

Why make the allegation?

agree that most of the allegations about the suppression of inventions may be without foundation. I have no doubt at all that there is a good deal of exaggeration about them

Then why make the allegation?

I do not think that there is a Member of this House who is not quite certain that there have been some suppressions of inventions for reasons which may be perfectly justifiable in the mind of the person concerned. It may be that to exploit a certain invention would seriously damage his business, but from the point of view of the public it may well be that that invention ought to have been developed. That is one of the jobs which will be undertaken by this Corporation.

I would point out to my hon. Friend that the words he used originally have been twisted against him. What he said originally was that there were many inventions which were being inadequately developed by private enterprise. The fact that they are inadequately developed or deliberately suppressed could be for the very obvious reason that those concerned have not got enough money.

Can the hon. Gentleman give one example of an invention which has been suppressed?

No. I do not think that I should be called upon to do that at a moment's notice by an hon. Member who, since this Debate began, has made his first appearance in the House in the last few minutes.

Surely the Parliamentary Secretary has been considering this point for a long time before today?

The right hon. Gentleman referred to the tendency of scientists and investors to spend a lot of money exploring things which may be left unexplored. He preferred the checks which private industry is able to sustain against these extravagant people—checks which result from private industry's preoccupation with making a profit. There is nothing wicked about making a profit. Private industry is right to check expenditure in its endeavour to secure that profit is made. This Corporation has a job which transcends profit making. Profitability is not the only guide in this case, although the Corporation naturally will have to take care not to encourage extravagance with public money. We have had quoted today cases of possible fields in which research, while not yielding an actual profit directly, may yield to the nation a considerable profit either socially in the better health of the nation, or in the greater efficiency of the nation. It may well be that there is an actual economic profit at the same time arising out of savings such as the right hon. Gentleman instanced in the course of his speech.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Orr-Ewing) asked one or two questions directly related to the operation of the Corporation, and I will do my best to answer them. In an interjection during the speech of my right hon. Friend, he wanted to know how the Corporation will know whether an invention is or is not already being developed effectively. The Corporation will have to be in day to day informal and friendly touch with industry and should be able very quickly to find out whether anything is being done in a particular line. When a private inventor brings an invention to the Corporation normally he will be asked whether he has tried to have it developed elsewhere. However, these matters must be left to the discretion of the Corporation. In a Bill like this we cannot define exactly how a Corporation, to be set up when the Bill becomes law, should carry out its day to day operations. We will have to ensure that the kind of people who are on the board of the Corporation are the kind of people who are able to do this job.

I think that possibly the Parliamentary Secretary has misunderstood the point of my interjection and the point I tried to make in my speech. Is it possible in fact, for any corporation or any body to have such an intimate knowledge of the whole field of industry as to entitle them to say that they are right in the decision that something has or has not been fully developed and exploited already?

I realise the enormous task which will confront this Corporation. I know quite well that it is almost certain that no one person will have sufficient knowledge of the whole of British industry to be able to say himself that something has not been done which should be done. After all, the board is to consist of a number of people, and it will have a staff. I do not think that it is beyond the bounds of probability that there will be, either on the board or on the staff, some person who has intimate knowledge of the industry concerned who is able to apply that knowledge to find out whether or not an invention is being sufficiently developed.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare also wanted to know how the board would decide the merits of an invention. Again, this is one of those questions which it is not really possible to answer specifically at this stage. There are engineering and other consultants whose job it is to give an opinion on exactly such matters as this. With a technical report by such people, backed by advice from Departments on technical aspects, market prospects and commercial chances, the Corporation will have to use its own judgment. Later, I shall come to the point of the Corporation's judgment.

In the case of the suggested possibility of competition between the board which would want to develop an invention, and either an individual or a group of private people who would want to exploit the same invention, I would say that the board would not generally be anxious to enter into competition with any individual or group of individuals. The board would be only too pleased if it could find an individual or group of individuals prepared to exploit an invention for the benefit of the nation. It would only take over the exploitation itself it it were convinced that no private individual was prepared to do the job.

I do not envisage any possibility of a clash between the board and a group of private individuals, but if the board thought that the group of private individuals—and it would have to be very careful about this—were not really trying to exploit the invention to the fullest of its possibilities, then there might be a case for the board saying, "No, we want this invention efficiently developed to the full. Therefore, we will do the job ourselves."

May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he reaffirms what I understood to be the Government undertaking that there would be no compulsory acquisition of patents? Is not the whole of his argument based on the fact that in certain circumstances there would be compulsory acquisition?

Not necessarily. An inventor might put up the invention for somebody to take up. The inventor might be approached both by the board and by a group of private individuals. If the board were satisfied that the group of private individuals were prepared to do their job properly, then the board would not take any further action in the matter. If the board thought that private individuals were not bona fide about this matter they might go to the inventor and say, "We will take this from you." It is not a question of whether the board would enter into competition with other people. They would not do so if they felt that other people were going to do the job.

I find it very difficult to distinguish that from competition. The board are to decide whether the intentions of other people are good or bad. I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he is making very great draughts on our good will and imagination in this connection and that nothing he has said in the last five minutes makes any sense at all in relation to this subject.

When the right hon. Gentleman has no argument of his own he always says that nothing which has been said makes any sense at all. I think it makes sense. I said the board would not enter into competition with private individuals for the acquisition of inventions if they felt that a group of private individuals were going to do their job. That makes perfectly good sense to me and I cannot see why it should not make sense to the right hon. Gentleman.

May we know that no priorities would be allocated to the National Development Corporation which would not be available to private enterprise? I think my hon. Friend should give an assurance that if the Government go ahead with an invention while private enterprise is going ahead with a similar invention at the same time, there will be equal priority both for private enterprise and the National Development Corporation.

I give that assurance with no hesitation at all. It has already been intimated in my right hon. Friend's speech.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare said we require practical men on the board, but that while one may get practical men from industry at the beginning, after a time they would gradually lose their practical efficiency and become imbued with the Civil Service mind and lose their day-to-day touch with industry. The aim is to have on the board a majority of part-time members who would be able both to do service to the board and to maintain their day-to-day touch with industry. I was interested to hear one hon. Member suggest that there might be a case for some other members of the board, other than the managing director to be full-time. That is a matter of detail about which he and I could have discussions at a later stage. On the whole, I regard it as a good idea that the board should have a number of part-time people who would be able to bring to the deliberations of the board the practical day-to-day knowledge of industry.

Does that include the "developmental specialists"?

The suggestion was made that Government Departments from which inventions might be taken by the board and developed profitably should be reimbursed, and that there should be some reward. That, of course, would be quite out of keeping with the normal historical practice in this country. It is not usual for Government Departments to receive rewards of that kind, and I do not really feel that there can be very much to it. Of the other suggestion, that the people in the employ of the Corporation might have a bonus in respect of profitable work which they had undertaken, that was discussed at some considerable length, as I think the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) knows, and there have been considerable discussions about it. On the whole, the majority opinion of people who are closely connected with inventions, scientific people, was that it was not a particularly desirable project.

The hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) asked two specific questions. One was, will the President of the Board of Trade be willing to answer questions on the operation of the Corporation? Does he accept the responsibility for it, or will he say this is a routine matter, a matter for the Corporation, and he could not answer? This is a very difficult and thorny subject, as we all know, but I should say, on general principle, and on matters of major importance, the answer is "Yes;" the President of the Board of Trade would accept responsibility and would answer in this House.

On the other hand, we simply must leave to the directors discretion in individual cases, or else we shall have a board which is hampered in its work because the directors will not be able to take decisions, will not be able to decide whether an invention is a good one or a bad one, without all the time looking over their shoulders for the Member of Parliament in whose constituency the inventor lives. I am sure that those who have had experience of the Lobbying and the letter writing in which some people engage who regard themselves as great inventors, would not want to burden the directors of the board with undue Parliamentary interference in matters of minor importance. In matters of general principle and of major importance I certainly agree that the President of the Board of Trade would have that responsibility and would answer.

It appeared to me that the point which emerged most clearly from the discussion this morning, and upon which all hon. Members who spoke were unanimous, was this question of the manning of the board and the staffing of the Corporation. I entirely agree. I think the success or failure of this Measure will rest very largely upon our ability to attract into the service of the country, either as directors on the board or as members of the staff of the Corporation, the kind of men who have an intimate knowledge of British industry, who have the skill in the various crafts which together make up British industry, and who have drive and enthusiasm and initiative. I would assure the House that we shall do everything in our power to see that the people who come into the service of this body, when it is set up, will be that kind of people.

Finally, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Portsmouth emphasised the vital necessity of improving the efficiency of British industry. I am not one of those who joins in the dismal chorus of continually condemning British industry for its inefficiency, because very many of those stories we hear about the comparative inefficiency of British industry, as compared with that of some other countries, are quite untrue. I know that particularly in the area which I represent. It is still possible to turn out from this country goods which cannot be surpassed anywhere in the world. Nevertheless, our conditions in this world have changed, very largely as a result of two world wars but partly as a result of the inevitable development of other countries and their catching us up, following the start we had 100 years ago, and as a result of that we cannot be satisfied with our present state of efficiency.

We must do everything in our power to improve our efficiency, improve our quality and reduce our costs, and this Government has been responsible during its existence for some measures designed to assist in this job of improving the efficiency of British industry. This is one more of those measures which we hope will assist, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for King's Norton that, it can be of very considerable potential assistance to British industry. Therefore I welcome the attitude of the House in giving a Second Reading to the Bill without a Division.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

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

As the House knows this is a consolidation Bill. In spite of its length of some 462 Clauses and 18 Schedules it does not involve anything at all which is new, but embodies an undertaking given by my right hon. and learned Friend last year during the passage of the Companies Act, 1947, that we would as quickly as possible consolidate that Act with the Companies Act, 1929, for the greater convenience of all in industry and commerce who had to deal with the various provisions of the Companies Acts. I can assure the House that there are no new points of principle, no new Amendments, apart from the omissions set out in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. I trust the House will give it a formal and quick passage, because it is essential that it should come into operation on 1st July, the date set for many of the provisions of the Companies Act of last year.

I propose to offer no remarks upon this Bill, other than to say that consolidation will be a convenience to those who have to find their way through the very long provisions of these statutes. We should certainly be out of Order in discussing any details other than the very small alterations in the general operation of these Acts, which are set out in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. I confine myself to saying that I welcome consolidation.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—[ Mr. R. Adams. ]

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

The object of the Bill is to make a number of miscellaneous amendments to the Factories Act, 1937. That Act was a very comprehensive amending and consolidating Measure. A great deal of time was spent on it in the House, and that has been shown to have been justified, by the fact that in the years that have passed it has served its purpose excellently. There have been one or two small matters that have arisen, minor points, in which, in the light of experience, it has been found to be defective, and in the meantime, also, there have been developments in industry, and in the public Acts relating to industry, which have led us to make suggestions for alterations. In the short time between now and the hour for the rising of the House I hardly dare hope I can obtain the Second Reading, but in any case I shall be very brief in the explanation of the Clauses. We shall, I hope, have plenty of time for discussion of those in Committee. However, a brief explanation is necessary.

Clauses 1 and 2 are inter-connected. They amend the existing provisions of Section 99 of the Act of 1937. The main purpose of these two Clauses is to extend the medical examination for all young persons entering factory employment, not merely those under 16 as at present, and to provide for re-examination at least once a year. Since those days quite a number of years ago, when I first entered a factory there has been a great change in the methods of medical examination of young persons entering into factory life. I remember quite distinctly when I was called from the department in which I had been working for a few days to see the factory doctor. I remember the examination I underwent. The doctor caught my hands, opened my fingers, found no diseases between my fingers, and so passed me as fit for industry. I do not think the examination was altogether unsatisfactory because I did prove fit.

We now have a new outlook altogether upon the question of safeguarding the children who go into our industries. We have gone a long way from the days when little children of tender years were sent into industry, and it is a long tradition in this House—indeed, in this Parliament—that, irrespective of party, in the years that have intervened there have always been high-minded men in the House who have fought for the care of the children, to raise the age at which they could be sent into industry, and to extend the care taken of them. The factory department —now under the Ministry of Labour, although it was a department of the Home Office—with a history extending over many years, has proved two things: first, the interest taken by Parliament in those conditions, in entrusting a Minister of State with the care of these children; and secondly, the very great efficiency with which it has carried out its work, and how it has not only followed public opinion but has often led public opinion in bringing more healthy conditions into workshops, and greater care of children.

We ask now for power, not only to cover employment in factories in the ordinary sense, but other related occupations within the scope of the Factory Act. Further, these Clauses are intended to bring our law into line with the International Labour Convention of 1946, which dealt with the medical examination of young persons entering industry. It has already been indicated that we are not yet in a position to confirm and adopt that convention; but it is intended gradually to introduce legislation and to improve our conditions here as a step towards implementing that Convention which was set out in a White Paper (Command 7296), which was presented to Parliament last January. Those, very briefly, are the purposes of Clauses 1 and 2.

I next refer to Clause 4, which is intended to give wider powers for dealing with unsatisfactory premises—what are sometimes called "backyard" factories, or "slum" factories. Now, there are many of these types of workshops in this country, and some of the working parties that have been examining industries in some of our great industrial cities—I will not name any of them—cities which are famous throughout the world for their products, have found that many of those occupations are carried on in conditions which are unhygienic, unhealthy from every point of view, and a disgrace to those occupying the premises. I do not say this merely as an indication of contempt towards those employers, because in the days when they were taken over possibly the premises were suitable to the industry. But methods of production have developed; demands have developed, and what was, at one time, satisfactory for a small room industry, is no longer satisfactory.

The courts already have power to stop the use of any of these premises if satisfied, on the application of a factory inspector, that they cause a definite injury to health. There is also power to stop the use of underground rooms for factory purposes, if found unsuitable. But we feel a need for wider powers. There are many premises which might not in themselves be unsuitable, but which are situated in such a way as to be unsuitable, where there is not good access to light, or where there are outside conditions associated with the work, which wake the premises unpleasant and unreasonable for use. It is not the intention of this Clause to try at once to sweep away all those factories. What we hope to do is to make use of our factory inspectors so that they can give guidance to employers.

As I had to say once before in this House on another topic—which created a little more controversy than I hope this Bill will cause—We believe in guidance rather than force. We have found that there is in this country a growing desire among modern employers to do the right thing for their employees, and to make the conditions as good as it is reasonable and possible for them to do. Therefore, we shall not attempt to sweep away all these factories, but we shall proceed in such a way that we can get improvements, working towards the day when we can see erected a kind of tenement factory building; a building which would be erected with all the conveniences and conditions suitable for modern times, although let out in separate departments or sections for various employers to occupy. We need this power, because should we find that some employers insist on continuing to operate in unreasonable conditions we may have to take steps to deal with it. However, the steps are not taken by the factory inspector; the factory inspector merely reports to the Courts of Justice and it is for them to say whether the thing should or should not be permitted to go on.

Clause 6 deals with another question which has had a great deal of attention in years gone by. It deals with seating facilities and seating arrangements. I remember that many years ago an Act was passed in which Parliament decided that seating accommodation must be provided for women shop assistants. Well, the seats were provided, but in such a position that they could not be used, and in such a situation that the shop assistants dare not use them. The law said that the seats must be provided; but it did not say that opportunities must be provided for people to use them, and they were not used. We want to go a little further than that.

In Clause 6 we are moving on the recommendation of a joint committee appointed by the Ministry of Labour, drawn from the Trades Union Congress and the British Employers' Confederation. Perhaps I had better disclose my interest in this matter, because I was a member of that committee, so I am really pressing the case which I took some part in discussing in the inter-war period. It is interesting to recall that although this country was engaged in a great war struggle, Parliament found time to request the various Departments to look into conditions at home and to prepare for improvements. This is one of the minor improvements. There are a number of jobs where it is possible for people to sit down at their work; there are others where people can sit down part of the time, and there are others which require standing nearly the whole of the time, but where there is an occasional opportunity for a sit down.

This Committee recommended that opportunities to sit down should be provided, and that proper seats capable of adjustment should be used. For example, in the case of the textile industry, which we are encouraging women to enter, the women are at present allowed to sit down, but the seats are at the wrong end of the mill, which means that the workers cannot see what is happening on the loom. It means not only spacing out the seats, but also the machinery, and it is for that reason that we are not asking for any great rush or seeking to get things done in an unreasonable time.

Another problem is that the seats which have been provided, are often quite unsuitable, and it is for that reason that the Department have produced, through the medium of this Committee, a booklet showing the type of seats that can be used for different occupations. Finally, there is the man who can sit down only occasionally. It is felt it would be a great advantage to the man and to production if he could get some relaxation, and that it is much better that he should have a seat provided for him than that he should have to use an old sugar box or an old stool which may prove dangerous in certain circumstances. We ask the House, therefore, to give us this Clause in order to develop some of these changes which have already been made.

Clause 7 deals with a point about which there have been some doubts. It changes the name of the examining surgeon, and in some degree the method of appointment. Firms use what is known as an "examining surgeon," and we propose to change the name to "factory doctor." Although these people do some examining, they have other duties, and in any case they are by no means surgeons. We think it is better to refer to them as doctors, because the word "surgeon" conveys to the minds of many people a different meaning from that of "doctor." Many of these firms, desiring to develop healthy activities in their factories in all sorts of ways, often call upon a factory doctor to advise them in a purely private capacity on such questions as ingredients or materials which may be dangerous to health.

We have found that the factory doctor or examining surgeon is chosen because of his knowledge of industrial medicine, but in many cases factories have fully employed doctors for duties which are not covered by the Act. Quite obviously these full-time doctors are the best men to understand what is right and what is wrong for their factories, but because they are in the employment of the firm they cannot be appointed under the old Act. Many of our examining surgeons are anxious to extend their knowledge and practice of industrial medicine. The medical profession has taken up these services very keenly, and has arranged post-graduate courses and diplomas for those who study industrial medicine. We want to see these factory doctors more widely used, but it is doubtful whether we can legally appoint them as examining doctors. We are aware of the doubts about this.

One doubt is, for example, that if there should be a case of dermatitis it is thought that the firm's doctor would be less likely to give a certificate that it is an industrial disease arising out of the man's employment, whereas an outside doctor might give a certificate to that effect. There is that doubt, and we are anxious to discuss all the possibilities in this direction. I give a complete undertaking to examine with the most meticulous care any Amendments which may be brought forward on this subject. One is almost tired of using the old phrase that not only must justice be done, but it must manifestly appear to to be done. We want to have the complete confidence of the workers and of the employers in regard to the appointment and decisions of factory doctors, because if we cannot get that, half their value is lost.

The remaining Clauses are rather scrappy, being mainly amending in character. Clause 8 gives power to prescribe standards of heating, and we wish to make it clear that although we prescribe a minimum of, say, 60 degrees, it does not mean that that standard is necessarily always high enough. It may be that in a certain factory or industry or in a certain condition, while the firm is expected to put the temperature up to x degrees or to keep it at that, there may be some circumstances in which the workers may say it is not warm enough and that they cannot get on with their job. Therefore, we do not want to compel the firm to say that the temperature is 60 and that they will not make it more than 60. No sensible firm would take up that attitude, but there are some firms which are not sensible.

Clause 9 deals with an inspector's power of entry under Section 123 of the Act, and extends it to certain warehouses in connection with Section 98 of the Act, which regulates the hours of young persons, but which are not otherwise within the scope of the Act. If there is a regulation about working hours, although the factory does not come under the Act, it is felt that there should be the power of inspection to see that the working hours are observed. Parliament has laid them down, and we must see that the regulations are obeyed.

Clause 10 deals with the liability of an occupier or owner under the main Section of the Act in the event of a contravention by some person other than the owner, and the owner's power under Section 137 to exempt himself from liability. There are owners of factories and tenants of factories, and we are very anxious to see that in any cases of a breach of the conditions, the proper person is brought to accountability for the breach. Clause II makes several minor Amendments to the safety provisions of the Act on certain points of detail with which I will not weary the House at the moment.

Clause 12 is a little more important because it is intended to make clear that the Minister has power to make health or safety regulations in relation to not only, as at present, manufacturing processes or plant used in them, but to dangerous equipment in the factory which may not actually be in use in the process. An example is fire extinguishers which may give off fumes and be dangerous but are not actually part of the processes or plant. It also widens the power of the inspector to take samples for analysis of substances likely to prove dangerous.

This is a very important Clause because many new substances are being introduced into industry today and often there is no indication of their danger to health and—from my knowledge as a member of a congress council dealing with the matter—danger to life. Very often we have not been able to prove the danger of these substances until we have been able to produce somebody, even at death's door. If we have the power to take samples of the substances which are suspect, it will be easy to get the objection removed. I am perfectly satisfied that employers will willingly give up using any material which is likely to prove injurious to the health of their people.

There is a minor Amendment in Clause 13 which deals with the employment of women and young persons of over 16 on Sundays. We ask power to permit this employment of women and young persons of that age if it is in connection with the preservation of fish, fruit or vegetables, so that perishable produce—for example, fish coming in on the Saturday which would perish by the Monday—may be dealt with by so organising the hours of work, without extending the total number over the week, that those people may be used on the Sunday. The Section already provides a dispensation for that purpose from the ordinary provisions of the Act relating to hours of employment on statutory holidays, and we think we ought to cover it for a Sunday in the interests of conserving food, and also to extend it to factories where milk powder, condensed milk or any milk product is made.

Clause 14 relates to buildings partly let off for factory purposes. We get some buildings which are used partly as shops, partly as residences, and partly as factories. This applies some of the provisions regarding lifts, steamboilers, con- struction and maintenance of floors, passages and stairs, and lighting to parts of the buildings used for the purposes of a factory or factories, but outside them. It is very difficult always to discover whether we have sufficient power. Therefore, we ask that we shall have the power to protect the workers in that building which is not a complete factory, even if some of the equipment, lifting machines and so on, are actually outside the premises where they are employed, but a part of the building, and it gives us an opportunity to come in on that.

My final point relates to shipping. Strangely enough there is some part of the shipping world which comes within the scope of the factory department of the Ministry of Labour. Section 106 of the Act relates to the repairing, refitting, painting or other work on ships in harbour or wet dock. This includes boilers and oil fuel tanks. It has been found that there is risk of injury to health of men in boilers and tanks, other than oil fuel tanks, which have carried dangerous, injurious or offensive materials of some sort, and we ask that we shall have the opportunity of extending that cover.

I am fully conscious of the fact that many in this House want to see further legislation for the protection of the workers, and the improvement of regulations for the protection of health. Many are looking forward to a complete, comprehensive, industrial medical service. That cannot be at the moment. We want a great number of suitably qualified doctors available before we can undertake that work, and it is to the credit of the medical profession that they have taken this up widely. The training of doctors is being given a new slant in this direction, diplomas of industrial health have been established, and there is now a large and powerful association of medical men who have banded together to encourage and develop this work. Without being too sure, I have it in mind that the international convention of this association is being held in this country this year.

Much has been done in the past, and it would be proper if I said one or two words about the great lead given to this work by the Industrial Welfare Society which for many years acted under the presidency of the then Duke of York, now His Majesty the King, who created such an awakening of interest in the need for welfare in factories and health and guidance. This great international organisation of medical men has grown out of that lead given by His Majesty in those early days on this matter. We want to see it developed. I should be the happiest man in the world if I were able to introduce a Bill of that kind. However, we cannot have everything we want at once. I ventured to hope that I should get the Second Reading of this Bill before four o'clock: at any rate, I have taken the risk of moving its Second Reading, and I resume my seat, still with that hope.

3.17 p.m.

We welcome this further Factories Bill, and I am glad to endorse the remarks made about it in another place from the Conservative side. It is the first Factories Bill to be introduced by a Minister of Labour, and I would like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on that fact. I hope that under the purview of the Minister of Labour the Factories Department—a very able set of men, as I know myself—will long continue to operate successfully. I am sure it is right for the Factories Department to be under the Ministry of Labour rather than under the Home Office.

I am one of those who spent long and instructive hours on the Committee stage of the Factories Act, 1937. Indeed, I often think that was the most interesting experience in the years I have been in Parliament. I believe we laboured well at that time and, the proof of the pudding is that, 11 or 12 years afterwards, only quite a few and relatively minor amendments are needed to the work done then. We ought to pay tribute to Lord Simon for the work he did, backed up by hon. Members of all parties, when that Bill went through the House. I should like to take this opportunity—and we get so few of them—of paying a tribute to His Majesty's factory inspectors who carry out their duties under the Factories Acts. I believe we have no finer body of men in this country. They act as friends and helpers to industry, and are equally available to either side or to anybody who wishes to consult them. I know from my experience that we have had nothing but courtesy and help at all times when we have interviewed His Majesty's factory inspectors.

I believe this Bill has been agreed by the representatives of the employer's organisations and the trade unions. It seems to me that a tradition is growing up, which this Bill follows, that factory legislation in general, so far as possible, should be by consent, agreement and joint co-operation all round, and certainly should not be regarded as a controversial party Measure. I am sure that this tradition is valuable for all concerned, and I hope that it will long continue. Factory legislation should be a matter not of controversy but of all putting the best they can into the common pool.

The Minister has been very careful, and we are grateful to him, to explain the Bill in detail. I shall not follow him through all the Clauses. We welcome very much the medical provision; I am sure that is very valuable. The medical inspections of those under 16 have proved highly desirable, and I welcome the extension of this inspection to those over the age of 16. The provision in Clause 6 for seating facilities is also welcome. I am glad that men are to be considered in this connection, as well as women and young persons. It has been proved in my own business that people will produce more if they are not tired and if they do not have to stand where it is possible for them to sit down. I am interested to see that this Clause provides not only for seats but for foot rests. We in this House know how valuable a foot rest this Table is for hon. Members on either side of the House, especially during all night sittings which take place so frequently, and we ought not to deprive people in industry of aids of that sort. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about back benchers? "] Possibly it would be a good thing if something of this sort were provided for other Members as well.

Clause 8 (1, b ) does not seem to be very necessary. To prescribe a standard and then to say it is not an adequate standard would appear to be rather an odd state of affairs. I am not very well versed in legal phraseology, and I believe the point will be enlarged by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), who so seldom gets an opportunity to address the House, as may be known by those who were here all last night. I will leave it to him to deal with this point. We shall be looking into this matter more closely on the Committee stage.

As to Clause 12, relating to the amendments which are printed with great helpfulness in the First Schedule, where the amendments are set out so that laymen may understand them, I am not sure that it does not go a little bit wide. It brings in all persons employed, and in cases where there is danger of fumes or anything of that sort which might spread through a factory, it is a good thing that all persons employed should be covered. However, this provision might be a little too wide in cases where the danger is mechanical or is restricted to certain processes or in certain departments. We should like to consider this point on the Committee stage.

On Clause 13, I do not know whether the Minister has had the same experience as I, but I have often heard women in employment grumbling because they are not allowed to work on Sundays and thus earn double time; they wonder why, when there is any Sunday work going, men should be employed and allowed to get a higher rate of wages. I shall not express any views about that today, but I would remind the Minister that it is not all women who wish to be protected to this extent, and possibly the Minister knows that from his contacts with some in the trade union movement.

I seem always to be praising the Minister of Labour and his Department in this House. I said on the Supply Day that I thought as far as possible the work of the Ministry of Labour—and there is no more important work in this country—should be kept out of party controversy. It should be an advisory and helpful service to everyone in the country and not the subject of party controversy of the more vigorous type. I am glad that the Minister of Labour is continuing to follow that advice in Bills of this sort. So long as he continues to do so he will have our co-operation and support, and only when he plunges into murky waters such as direction of labour in peacetime shall we do otherwise.

3.26 p.m.

May I say at the outset how much I welcome this Bill? I say that very clearly because I must follow at once with a somewhat dissentient note, although I hope that the criticism I make will be regarded as entirely constructive.

The point which I now raise is related to the growing importance and status of the whole idea of safety, health and welfare. Up to the present there has been a large body of opinion concerned with treating these matters with sympathy, consideration and support, but as essentially ancillary matters relating only indirectly to the questions of productivity. Today there is a growing body of opinion which considers that matters concerned with the safety, health and welfare of the workers are the very foundations of the technique of production. It is impossible to think of maximum production or efficient management without at the same time thinking of safety, health and welfare. Once that is conceded, it inevitably follows that there is today greater reason than ever for considering the question of the participation of workers and their representatives in the supervision of safety, health and welfare matters. In this Bill these matters are left to the factory inspectorate.

I join most heartily with the right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) in saying how much we appreciate the magnificent work done by factory inspectors, but it in no way detracts from my admiration of their work to advocate participation of the friendliest type on the part of the workers—in other words that the workers should be given a status in relation to participation in this vitally important work and, through their representatives, be enabled to make inspections which are now made by the factory inspectorate; not duplicating those inspections nor superseding them, but carrying out the functions which are so adequately carried out in the mining industry under Section 16 of the Coal Mines Act, 1911.

I ask my right hon. Friend to consider the advisability of introducing into this field of legislation a similar provision to that which obtains under the Coal Mines Act. We have here the advantage of a long period of experience as to the practicability of this type of arrangement, and from my experience in the coalmining industry I say that it is of great advantage, because the worker feels that he is part and parcel of these safety, health and welfare arrangements, that they are not something which are arranged for him on the basis of some benevolent paternalism, however well-intentioned.

I feel that from that point onwards the matters to which I should like to refer would be better raised in detail on the Committee stage. Unless my right hon. Friend is too ferocious in his reply, I will certainly consider, even at this early stage of my Parliamentary activity, putting down a new Clause dealing with this vitally important matter for the consideration of the Committee. But with great respect I impress upon my right hon. Friend that here is a new field which should be attractive to Members in all parts of the House who, I am sure, share with me the feeling that this matter of safety, health and welfare should enter upon an entirely new status in connection with factories generally.

3.32 p.m.

The hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. R. Williams) has raised an important and interesting question, but I hope that he will forgive me if I do not pursue his argument as I am anxious to raise, in the short time which remains, one particular point. It arises under Clause 8 of this Bill, and I wish to commence my remarks—this is a rather technical legal point—by referring to the principal Act, the Factories Act, 1937, and its provisions as to the fencing of dangerous machinery. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that by Section 14 of that Act

The Court of Appeal has considered the point. I imagine that it would be said that that case I have in mind was decided upon its own facts, but the decision was that where the factory occupiers have carried out the requirements of the Woodworking Regulations, they have discharged their full obligation and have no further obligation under Section 14. The Court of Appeal pointed out that in some cases—this was a case of an accident with a circular saw—it was impossible to use the machine if it was so securely fenced that no edge was available for cutting. Therefore they said that if the Secretary of State laid down express requirements by regulation and those were carried out, that was all the occupier of a factory could be expected to do. That was considered by the Court of Appeal and it has not, I think, been dissented from although the House of Lords have not expressly decided the point.

The suggestion I am making is that it should now be made plain in the statute that in such circumstances, regulations are in substitution for rather than in addition to the general obligation. Under Section 8 of this Bill the matter is dealt with from the angle of welfare requirements. The regulations there envisaged are regulations relating to matters set out in the Second Schedule. That is to say the temperature in workrooms, the ventilation of workrooms, sanitary conveniences, washing facilities or accommodation for clothing. On the welfare side Clause 8 lays down that the regulations may either take the place of the general obligations or in addition to them. I suggest that consideration should be given to the safety requirements as well as the welfare requirements in this connection and that the decision of the Court of Appeal, based on what is practicable in industry where machines must be capable of use if the work is to go on, should be given effect to in this amending enactment. I apologise for the rather technical nature of the point I have raised but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will think it is worth consideration.

3.37 p.m.

I, with other hon. Members, welcome this Bill. The hon. and learned Member for Chester (Mr. Nield) has rather stressed safety as well as welfare. So far as I am able to read this Bill, in conjunction with the original Bill, I believe that there have been obvious improvements in safety measures. I cannot enter into the legal argument which he has expressed. I believe far more stress has been put on the question of accidents than on welfare, I rather differ from the right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) when he says there is need only for minor amendments. I believe there is a great need for many Amendments to this Bill on the welfare side as distinct from the safety side.

I enter this discussion because I represent the very important industrial city of Birmingham. The trades unions of that city have been giving very careful consideration to the whole question of safety and welfare in factories. The Birmingham Trades Council recently had a long discussion, and asked the factory trades unions to submit their views with regard to the question of conditions in factories, and there is, on the welfare side and on the health side, need for considerable improvement.

I would make reference to one matter referred to in Birmingham. I have a letter from the Amalgamated Society of Woodcutting Machinists in which they advise the trades council that they have had considerable complaints regarding the difficulty of getting dust extractors installed in many of the woodworking mills, particularly in the Birmingham area. The letter states: of this Bill, particularly those mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Chester, which deal with washing and cloakroom facilities. In Section 43 of the Act of 1937, which requires the provision of adequate and suitable accommodation, the words "adequate" and "suitable" do not appear together.

Clause 8 of this Bill makes an Amendment so that the provision will read: commented upon in the working party report of the Board of Trade. The words they used in reference to the jewellery quarter of Birmingham were these:

I should like to mention one or two sections which are excluded from this Act altogether. I am told, for instance, that the Factories Act does not include draftsmen, whereas in many factories there are as many draftsmen as there are people minding machines. Nevertheless, they do not come within the scope of the Act. I am associated with the Clerical and Administrative Workers Union and for 30 years the union has been agitating to try to include offices under the Factories Act. We are very disappointed that the Government have not seen fit, up to the moment, to include offices. There are hundreds of offices in the country where conditions are absolutely deplorable. In the City of London itself there are offices in basements and beneath ground where conditions are absolutely unhealthy, and that ought to be taken into serious consideration by the Government.

I am sorry this Bill is not more comprehensive and does not include other sections. Turning to health, the Act specifies that only where there are numbers in excess of 500 ought one to provide an ambulance room. It seems to me that there is some need for the co-ordination of groups of factories to enable them to have proper medical and nursing services. I may say I was very interested in reading a report of a speech made by a gentleman who lectured at the National Institute of Industrial Psychology in April last. He made this statement: This is a man who, I suppose, should know something about this business.

The trade unions of Birmingham are very concerned and alarmed at the conditions in some of the factories. The Birmingham Labour Members of Parliament gave consideration to this on a resolution received from the trades council and they brought forward a point which is somewhat similar to the point mentioned by the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. R. Williams)—the necessity for bringing the representatives of the workers into consultation when factories are being visited. I do not know whether that is the same kind of point which they make, which is that they believe that under the Factories Act there should be some provision—or, at least, it should be by regulation—whereby the factory inspector should consult the shop stewards or representatives of the workpeople at some point during his visit to a factory. They make that point to us.

I understand that there are many factories which have never seen a factory inspector, and there are a good many other factories where the representatives of the workpeople have never been consulted or asked for their advice regarding their working conditions. They say in their resolution:

we have not more time for the House to devote itself to these vital matters that affect the welfare and health of the industrial population, not only for the sake of production generally, but because it is the proper and humane thing to do.

3.53 p.m.

I cannot expect to finish my contribution to the Debate before Four o'Clock, but I shall try to get some points in which may help the Minister in his subsequent consideration of the Bill. I, like other hon. Members, welcome this amending Bill, but, equally with other hon. Members on this side who have spoken, I feel that it does not go far enough, and I hope that in the course of its passage through the House there will be included in it one or two other provisions that will improve the position still further. I think that most of us have had experience of the Act of 1937. Certainly, the Minister of Labour has had experience of it. It is both inadequate in itself and inadequate in its operation. What I propose to deal with first is the shortage of the number of factory inspectors. Speaking from memory, I think that the last figure we were given was 300 inspectors in the country for some 300,000 factories. It is not, therefore, really possible to say that the 1937 Act is adequate. I want to deal with some aspects of the Bill and other things in addition.

In general, I welcome the Bill for what it contains, but I want to propose one or two constructive additions to it, and then to deal with the 1937 Act. I am very pleased to see that in Clause 2 there is extension of the powers regarding the care of the health of young people to places other than factories, such as docks. This is of importance to Stepney. I should like to see this provision extended further. I must be perfectly frank. I did not think of the point raised by the hon. Member for Ladywood (Mr. Yates), who spoke of offices. I would certainly support him on that. What I had in mind was the railways. It is an outstanding and deplorable fact in this country that the railways do not come within the provisions of the Factories Act, and many a time railwaymen have laboured under conditions which would not have been tolerated in works or factories because they were protected by that Act. I wonder whether it is pos- sible to include some provision there, although I know that opens up a very wide question which will have to be dealt, with in another way.

Clause 3 is also to be welcomed greatly, but in spite of what the Minister said—and I listened carefully to his outline which, although brief, was very useful—I ask him is he satisfied that in these days of rapid advances in scientific development, and its industrial application, his factory inspection department is able to keep sufficiently in touch and up-to-date with any substance or material brought into the factory, and any change in the conditions of work? Today, new gases are thrown off from the new chemicals which are used, and, as the Minister and members of the medical profession know, in recent years there have been many disputes about whether a certain illness derives from industrial disease, simply because the illness has not been specified in the various regulations, it being an entirely new industrial disease which our medical people have not yet thoroughly investigated. I agree with the Minister about the efforts of the industrial research section, and I know that great advances have been made, particularly in the last year or two, and that is to the Minister's credit. On the other hand, can we be satisfied that Clause 3, when it does come into operation, as it is expected to at the end of this year, will be able to be operated adequately; and are we keeping in touch with the rapid development of productivity?

My last point concerns Clause 6, which was referred to by the Minister, and by the right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale). I think we are all agreed on this. However, I notice that Clause 16 says that Clause 6 shall come into operation on 1st October, 1950, whereas all the other Clauses shall come into operation on 1st October of this year. I can see the wisdom of that, but I would ask the Minister what steps he is taking in the matter. All of us who have some knowledge of the situation know what it is like in many factories, and in other places of work, so far as seating facilities are concerned. I am not here speaking of the man whose job keeps him standing, and wants to find merely an occasional place in which to sit down. I agree with the Minister, that the seat should be, not some case or box, but a chair.

I welcome very much the provisions contained in Subsection (3, a and b ). Paragraph ( a ) reads:

With all our ambition and optimism, I do not think these things are likely. Can the Minister say whether he will introduce, say, a Subsection (5) in order to achieve his object on 1st October, 1950, or as soon as possible thereafter? Otherwise there is no responsibility on anyone to take any steps at all before October, 1950, when we shall be in just the same position as we are in now.

It being Four o'Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

I want to draw the attention of the House to the very serious state of affairs which has arisen in regard to claims for war damage in blitzed areas. The War Damage Commission have adopted a policy in recent weeks of refusing late notification claims. The Commission have discretion to extend the period when claims can be made, and they have quite properly, until recent times, exercised that discretion, and there has been no difficulty in assessing the claims that have been the subject of acceptance under late notification. Therefore, it seems logical to say that it is equally easy to deal with claims that are being lodged at the present time.

The Commission base their refusal to accept these claims on two main grounds. The first is the difficulty of assessment, which I have already dealt with. It is no more difficult to deal with these late claims than to deal with the claims put in under the ordinary regulations. In notifying the Commission as to damage only very sparse details are given, and the real checking of the claims does not take place until the work is actually done. Moreover, the Commission have an experienced and skilled staff who have shown themselves to be perfectly competent to deal with these matters and to satisfy both the claimants and the Commission. The second main objection is that notification has not been sent in; but the Commission have already accepted late notifications and have been able to assess the claims.

The great majority of these people are small owner-occupiers, who in many cases are carrying a serious financial responsibility in regard to their homes and have no one upon whom to rely. That is why I and other Members are raising this question. We feel that these people should receive the support of Members of this House in what I contend to be their just claims. For perfectly obvious reasons these people have been led to believe that war damage was being dealt with in their localities by the local authorities. We know that that was the case, and we agree that it was the proper thing to do. I ask Members whether it is not a fact that the average person knows a great deal more about the local town hall than the regional office of the War Damage Commission. Over a long period of years people have come to trust their town hall, and it is right that that should be so. It seems to me that if these people thought that the town hall had this matter in hand, they would naturally think that everything had been done as far as notification was concerned.

Many other hon. Members want to speak, and I will merely draw attention to two claims out of the many hundreds which exist, so that there can be no doubt of the position of these people. There is one from the Mitcham end of my constituency. I have a document issued by the Town Clerk of the borough certifying that the home of a certain lady at a certain address was damaged by enemy action on 8th July, 1944. This document has been seen by the War Damage Commission and bears their stamp, and they have refused to consider it because this lady did not send in notification for the obvious reason that she thought the matter was fully looked after by the town hall.

The second case is from the other end of my constituency, the Wallington end. Here is a claimant who applied for a building licence. He received a licence for £182, and that building licence definitely states that £162 11s. of it was for war damage and the rest for maintenance. This document has also been seen by the War Damage Commission and apparently they are not satisfied even to examine a document issued by a qualified borough engineer on behalf of the Ministry of Works.

These are only two cases of the many hundreds which exist. They vary in circumstances but they have one thing in common, that it is perfectly evident and is proved beyond doubt that war damage has existed. These people are appealing to this House, and if democracy means anything at all, it means that this House must be prepared to give consideration to rights of small people and small numbers of people. Powerful organisations like employers' organisations and trade unions are able to discipline us when they think fit. There is no merit in looking after powerful organisations, but it is the essence and kernel of democracy that a House like this should be prepared to give consideration to the rights of small people and small numbers of people.

This matter has been the subject of negotiation with the War Damage Commission. We have done all we can to get reasoned consideration. We are appealing to the Minister and we are appealing to the House, and, with all respect, I want to make it quite clear that we cannot possibly take "No" for an answer. The War Damage Commission and the Minister had better make up their minds on that because we shall not give way.

4.9 p.m.

This matter is pretty general and it certainly arises in my constituency. I, as a lawyer, feel a little sympathy with an organisation like this which wants to clear things up, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock) said, it is very often the little man or the little woman who is being hit most because they know the least about what they should do to protect their claim. Many genuine cases are being rejected simply because they are out of time. One of the worst features is that the decision whether or not they are to be rejected is made by the War Damage Commission, which says, "We have decided, and that is the end of it." I know a case in which a woman said, "Let me come and see you and talk to you about it," and the Commission replied, "No. You shall not come and talk about it." The Commission act as judge and they pass the sentence and they will not be a court of appeal, and there is no other court of appeal. That enrages people. I subscribe to what has been said by my hon. Friend.

4.10 p.m.

I should like to add my word to what the two hon. Gentlemen opposite have said. I have a number of cases in my con-constituency exactly similar to those which they have put forward, and I have had some strong letters from surveyors and architects who have been endeavouring to handle the claims of these small men and have got nothing. I have written to Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve and his people at the War Damage Commission, they have answered my letters with the utmost courtesy, and I am sure that is the general experience. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I have no complaints to make about them, but there is now an accepted rule that where claims are out of date, they will no longer be considered, although they were considered up to a comparatively short time ago. I do not believe any insurance company would act in the way the War Damage Commission are acting, and I do not believe that the Commission of their own volition would act as they are, because I am sure they do not want to incur the general odium which they are incurring. Therefore, they must have had some hint or instruction from somewhere else. I do not know whether to suspect the Treasury, but I do not know from where else it could come.

It has been brought to my notice that the Commission are endeavouring to close down a great deal of their activities, for I am informed that the addresses of many of the offices of the new Central Land Board are identical with those of the War Damage Commission. Whether this new Central Land Board is pushing out the War Damage Commission, and the latter are trying to clear up matters so as to go, I do not know, but it would be extremely unfortunate if it were the case, and there was a hurried clearing up of this business before justice was done to the poor little people who have been paying their contributions all this time and, therefore, expected that they would get some satisfaction when they suffered war damage.

4.12 p.m.

Some hard things have been said, and from the correspondence on this matter that has reached me, I expected that they would be said. The phrase "war damage" covers a wide variety of destruction. It may be just a fallen ceiling, cracked walls with the plaster off, or a broken window or two, or it may be substantial damage, which amounts to total destruction. Also, the damage done during the war covered a wide area and a wide period of time. I am told that the first bomb fell in March, 1940, in the Orkneys, and that the first bomb fell on the mainland in the following month. The last missile fell in March, 1945. That is over three years ago. Therefore, it is obvious that, in some areas, the last bomb fell at least eight years ago, and that, in no area, has any missile fallen during the last three years.

The work of accepting, sifting and satisfying the claims connected with damaged property, apart from chattels, rests with the War Damage Commission. I would remind the House that the Commission is an independent body set up under an Act of Parliament. It has to comply with what is laid down in that Measure.

Surely that Act can be amended?

Indeed it can. Perhaps that is a matter which can be dealt with on some other occasion. I cannot deal with legislation on an Adjournment.

There is nothing in the Act that prevents the War Damage Commission from dealing with these claims.

I was coming to that. Under the Act, regulations were made which provided that the claimant should notify the Commission of any damage within 30 days of the event. In spite of that, both the Act and the Regulation made under it also provided that the Commission should have discretionary power to extend the time and to waive any requirement so far as the regulations were concerned in particular cases, if the evidence showed that that course was desirable. It is no use laying down regulations—and much of the criticism that has been levelled flows from this unless they are made widely known. I am satisfied that, so far as publicity is concerned, throughout the life of the War Damage Commission, every effort has been made to let people know of their rights under the legislation.

is my right hon. Friend losing sight of the fact that until 1946 this question of repair, as distinct from reconstruction, was dealt with by the local authorities, and therefore claimants went to the local authorities to get their repairs done? It is because of the change-over from the local authorities to the War Damage Commission that this difficulty and misunderstanding has arisen in the minds of so many of the claimants.

I had hoped, and still hope, to deal with that point if my hon. Friend will allow me. Steps were taken to make the regulations and the procedure widely known. Leaflets and Press notices were issued, broadcasts were given, the Citizens' Advice Bureau in every town and village was told of the facts and invited to let their inquirers know what their rights were. Local authorities were drawn in, and they too, through their information offices, were asked to let those who had suffered damage or who might suffer damage know what they should do about it.

The criticisms are three, as I understand them. The first is that, in spite of this publicity, very many people were ignorant of the procedure and failed to notify the Commission, and that being so, something should now be done to allow late notifications to be accepted. The second criticism is that where it can be shown that the people concerned did not know what their rights were, the Commission is now refusing to accept notifications, solely on the ground that they are out of time. The third criticism—my hon. Friend has just made the point afresh—is that, as many people notified the local authorities believing that that in itself was enough, their claims should be admitted on that score alone but that, although evidence is brought forward to show that damage was done, the War Damage Commission has nevertheless stood on red tape and refused to accept notification.

The answer to those criticisms is as follows. As to the suggestion that the Commission has followed too rigidly the time limit laid down for notification, I think that I can say that it has exercised its powers in a very generous spirit. I have some figures which bear this out, and I would like to give them to the House. Up to the end of 1943, 2,198,318 notifications were accepted. In the following year another 982,150 were accepted and in 1945, 240,829.

Were those notifications made direct?

I will come to that point. I was pointing out that the notifications up to the end of 1943 number over two million, and that in the next year nearly one million came in and were accepted. The year after that 240,000 came in and were accepted, and in 1946—a year after the war had ended and after the last bomb had fallen—94,537 were accepted. Last year 39,489 were accepted, and up to 4th June this year, a period of roughly five months, a further 3,181 notifications have been accepted. That disposes of the criticism that the War Damage Commission have rigidly applied the 30 days limit.

Will my right hon. Friend recognise that much of this has only come to light owing to the fact that there have been late applications and local authorities have not be able to complete repairs? I am speaking of areas where 40,000 out of 45,000 houses were damaged.

It is no use talking about 3,000 claims accepted, how many have been refused?

I shall come to that if I have time, and I am also coming to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford (Mrs. Ridealgh). Notifications are still coming in at the rate of about 500 a week, three years after the last bomb has fallen. It cannot be said that the War Damage Commission are shutting them all out, from wherever they come, and whatever their calibre may be.

About 3,400,000 notifications have been received up to date, and it is curious that nearly 3,200,000 of these relate to houses such as those which have been referred to today, and about which there was so much complaint. I think I can fairly say that the vast majority of people knew what the procedure was and that they put in their notifications to the War Damage Commission. As I said, out of 3,400,000 notifications, 3,200,000 related to houses, and to the kind of house to which my hon. Friends are referring—

Were those all owner-occupied houses?

I should imagine not. The point is that they are houses which have been damaged either to a smaller or greater degree.

That escapes the whole point. There may be a very large percentage of them owned by landlords who own a considerable amount of small property. They put in claims through solicitors, architects and surveyors, but the great mass of these people who we are talking about, who have been badly treated, live in their own small houses, and have no one to do the job for them, but have relied on the local authority to act as agent for the War Damage Commission.

The houses are their life savings.

The question whether the house belongs to them or to someone else is immaterial to this argument—

It is not; our whole case rests on this.

If I owned a house I should find out what my rights were and what could be done—

But you are an educated, literate man.

—and, where property is occupied by other people, I think the same applies.

I hope my right hon. Friend has not forgotten that in many cases these people in the London area have suffered for six years and they were at their wits end when bombs ceased to fall.

May I point out that these constant interruptions may prevent the right hon. Gentleman from completing his speech.

Although the critics, or some of them, will admit that what I have said up to now is true, that it was generally known that notice had to be given to the War Damage Commission, nevertheless—

It was not generally known.

—some people notified the local authority and thought that that was all that was necessary—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and that thereafter they would be safeguarded. It is not disputed, and the War Damage Commission have never disputed the fact that there may be a certain number of people in that position. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt) said, there are poor people who do not read the papers much and feel muddled when they are faced with regulations. The War Damage Commission, for whom I am speaking, have the facts before them and they assure me that the great majority of these 3,200,000 houses which have been notified to them have been repaired—I would ask my hon. Friends to note this—in whole or part by local authorities.

They also give me one further piece of information of which I think hon. Members should take note. They tell me that, in most areas, local authorities have now finished repairing houses, but that it has been their policy, where the local authority is still doing so, to allow late notification on the grounds which have been put forward in this Debate by more than one speaker. Those grounds are that the individuals concerned might have been under the impression that at some time the local authority would still deal with their house, and that therefore there was no need for them to take any further action, and that they had only to wait until the local authority came along. Where that has been the case, and it has only happened, I am informed, in a minority of areas, the War Damage Commission have been more than prepared to look at claims to see—

I have in my hand the case of a constituent of mine whose house was undergoing repair at the time when the change over was made, and work was suspended just before the change over owing to the shortage of cement. The constituent was informed that the workmen would be coming back to complete the repairs. The change over took place, a late notification was made to the War Damage Commission and all the facts were put before them. That case has been turned down by the War Damage Commission.

There must be some good reason for turning down that claim. Local authorities, when they went around repairing war damage, did not stop at war damage. They did a great deal of repair work which was not due to war damage. That is one of the difficulties of the War Damage Commission.

That is not the fault of these people.

The War Damage Commission are there to carry out their duty under an Act of Parliament. They have to watch, not only the interests of the individual concerned, but also those of the taxpayer.

Is the War Damage Commission suggesting that these people are putting in fraudulent claims? Is that the reason why they are refusing to consider these matters?

When my hon. Friend says "these people" I do not know who they are.

The people upon whose behalf we have been speaking.

There again. I do not know who the individuals are. I have not the slightest doubt that my hon. Friend is speaking for people who have a legitimate claim. The difficulty is that all sorts of people are now putting in claims to the War Damage Commission in the hope that they may get something.

We are not asking the War Damage Commission to accept fraudulent claims.

It is difficult to discuss general principles when hon. Members are thinking in terms of individual cases about which I can know nothing. The difficulty of accepting the records of local authorities is that they were often compiled at high speed. There was then a great shortage of staff and the records were often quite nebulous. The local authority had not the staff to visit all houses which have been reported damaged. Therefore, it is quite impossible for the War Damage Commission now to accept at their face value the records of local authorities about the damage which was done.

Finally, the War Damage Commission are still willing to accept claims which can be shown quite genuinely to have been due to substantial war damage. They cannot accept claims of damage about which there is no record, and about which they have been told nothing for four or five years, and which cannot now in any shape or form be shown to have been war damage.

Question, put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Half-past Four o'Clock.