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

The Bill has two objects, to give to ex-Service men in peace time certain rights which they have not had before and to extend or round off, as it were, certain rights of appeal about pensions which Servicemen already have. I believe that the Bill is generally welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House and particularly by the ex-Service organisations. For example, I have had a letter this morning from the hon. Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) in which he regrets his inability to be here today and says:

"You have my good will and that of the Legion"

in regard to the introduction of the Bill.

I do not wish to detain the House very long but I feel that I must say something about each of the two purposes of the Bill. I announced to the House on 27th July that the Government had decided that disability pensions, or rather claims for disability pensions, arising in peace time would be dealt with in future by the Minister of Pensions. Hitherto, claims of that kind have been dealt with by the Service Departments. The Ministry of Pensions have dealt exclusively with compensation for death, or disability, attributable to or hastened or aggravated by war service. All claims arising between 1921, when the legal end of the first world war was proclaimed for this purpose, and 2nd September, 1939, have been dealt with and appropriate pensions paid by the Service Departments. If the Bill were not passed, then when the end of the second world war comes to be proclaimed, the determination of claims and the payment of pensions would revert to the Service Departments.

Hitherto, in peace time, with our Armed Forces composed entirely of volunteers, there has been no system of appeal about pensions to independent tribunals. Now, with compulsory military service, it is reasonable to continue in peace time the practice of war time, and so a right of appeal from the rejection of a claim to pensions will in future apply to all members of the Forces, naval, military and air, to men and women, and to volunteer and conscript. I must emphasise, in explaining that the right of appeal will in future apply in peace time, that the appeals are made from decisions of the Minister of Pensions to tribunals which are entirely independent of the Minister of Pensions. The tribunals are appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and the expenses of the tribunals are borne on the Vote for the Supreme Court of Judicature. There is also an appeal from those tribunals to the High Court in England or to the Court of Session in Scotland on points of law.

The change in and extension of the right of appeal to the tribunals and from the tribunals to the court in peace time is provided for in Clause 1 (1). That Subsection is so drawn as to cover not only the definition of service which is contained in the present Royal Warrant but also any definition which may be used in the new Royal Warrant which we shall introduce when it is convenient to proclaim for this purpose the end of the war.

Clause 1 (2) excludes from these provisions claims arising before 3rd September, 1939. Thus it excludes all the claims arising in peace time either before 1914 or between 1921 and 1939. As I have already said, those claims were dealt with by the Service Departments. Those claims arose in time of peace and in time of voluntary service in the Armed Forces. They were considered under a pensions code which was different from the wartime code, and they were decided by or under the authority of three separate Service Ministers. For those reasons the Government feel that it is best to leave the responsibility for them where it has lain for at least nine years, and in most cases, of course, very much longer. The Subsection also excludes claims arising from service in the first World War because for those claims there was a right of appeal under the tribunals set up in 1919. The right of appeal to those tribunals has long ago been exercised and the tribunals have long ago finished their work.

I come now to Clause 2. During and after the recent war there were a number of appeals from the tribunals to the High Court of England and to the Court of Session in Scotland, and, as a result, various judgments defining the law made it clear that many previous rejections of claims which had been confirmed by the tribunals could not be upheld. The Government, therefore, decided that men or women whose claims had been rejected before the law had been defined should have the same consideration as those whose claims came up after the new decisions had been made. So the Ministry proceeded to review these cases in order to bring them in line with the latest judgments of the courts. The Government decided that if, after review, the Minister confirmed a rejection of any one of those claims, there should be a right of appeal to a non-statutory special review tribunal. Any awards made under this procedure had to be non-statutory. They were made under the dispensing warrant, since the tribunal itself was non-statutory. It was a temporary administrative expedient designed to secure justice for a number of people who thought their cases might have been otherwise determined had the law been defined at the time their cases originally came up.

Under this special review procedure 15,000 cases of rejection of claims made before August, 1946, have been reviewed. In 3,000 of these cases the claim has been admitted without resort to the special review tribunal. Up to date, 4,200 have been considered by the tribunal. About 1,000 of those have been admitted, about 400 are in adjournment, and some others are awaiting consideration. In a number of these cases where on review the Minister has confirmed the previous rejection and where the special review tribunal has again confirmed the rejection, some of the applicants still feel that they wish to appeal to the courts, but because the tribunals are non-statutory and the awards made are therefore ex gratia, the Courts have ruled that they cannot hear the appeals. This Clause is introduced in order to give the right of appeal to the courts.

I hope I have clearly explained the policy behind the Bill, and I hope the House will approve of it. The Bill concerns legal matters and is drafted by reference to other Acts and warrants, and if there are any legal points which any hon. Member wishes to raise here and not in Committee, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate is present and will deal with them. I commend the Bill to the House.

It is a pleasure to welcome from these benches this useful and necessary Measure. It is a personal pleasure in my case because during the last Parliament, in 1943, I happened to be one of the hon. Members who, working with my noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) pressed upon the Government of that time the necessity for setting up these pensions appeal tribunals. It was a rather long battle, but those of us who took part in it are very glad today to see that system about to be extended.

The Bill gives effect to two reforms for which the British Legion have asked for some time. The first of them was raised in Debate on 29th July of this year by my hon. Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), who has asked me to say how much he regrets that a constituency engagement prevents his attending today to give his blessing to the Bill. As the Minister has told us, the Bill gives rights of appeal to members of the Forces who become casualties through peace-time service similar to the war service which is catered for in the existing Act of 1943.

The Royal Air Force Association has asked me to raise one point with the Minister on a matter on which he touched in his speech. They feel that the right of appeal should cover cases of men invalided prior to 3rd September, 1939. We have been told that there was a tribunal for the 1914–1918 cases covering all those invalided before 31st August, 1921, which was the date on which, by Order in Council, that war officially terminated, but as the right hon. Gentleman has reminded us, from that date until 3rd September, 1939, there was no right of appeal to an independent tribunal against the decision of the Service Departments. Would the Minister, between now and Committee stage, have another look at this to see whether it is possible for the desirable improvement which he announces today to be made retrospective?

Before the hon. and gallant Gentleman leaves the references to those organisations, does he accept that for 40 years Service and ex-Service organisations have appealed for this reform? We do not want it to go on record that only the British Legion and the Royal Air Force Association are interested, because before 1914, the National Association of ex-Naval and ex-Military Men advocated this reform.

I was hoping that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be able to keep his spleen against the British Legion out of this all-party discussion.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned the British Legion.

I hope that I am not out of Order or making a remark undesirable to my colleagues in any part of the House when I say that the British Legion have pressed for these two reforms and remind the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Lonsdale advocated this when he spoke on 29th July. Perhaps when the hon. and gallant Member for East Hull (Commander Pursey) speaks later he will be able to enlarge on his point of view, although he will be too late on this occasion to encourage the public not to buy poppies in connection with Remembrance Day.

What has that to do with it?

As much as the hon. and gallant Member's interruption. If I may continue the remarks I was endeavouring to make in a calm spirit of co-operation until that jarring note was introduced——

About the British Legion?

—the position has subsequently become worse and the Minister has made a fresh award under his special sanction, giving for this purpose his dispensing warrant, as he reminded us. Up to the present there has been no appeal to an independent assessment tribunal, and this Bill now gives it.

While we are engaged in widening the functions of pensions tribunals, I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the manner in which they have worked. Those of us who advocated them in the last Parliament were often told that it was impossible to set up this machinery in such a way that it would work smoothly. I have had the opportunity on more than one occasion of appearing before these tribunals with appellants to assist them in putting their cases, and I should like to say how impressed I have been with the friendly atmosphere which prevailed on those occasions. The appellant really feels that he is in a sympathetic atmosphere, and, even when the advocatus diaboli of the Ministry was putting the case why a pension should not be granted, it was always done in a courteous manner. The fact that the onus of proof has now been shifted from the appellant to the Government has made all the difference in the world to the manner in which these cases are heard.

I said at the outset that this is a necessary and useful machinery Bill. I hope that all hon. Members on all Benches will speed its passage to the Statute Book, but I also hope that the Government will not weary of well-doing, but will go forward from this Measure to a general review of the whole basis of disability pensions, which is already overdue.

We on this side of the House naturally welcome this Bill as a further reform for Service and ex-Service men, and I should not have interrupted the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) if he had not brought in his hon. Friend the Member for Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) in order to try out some British Legion propaganda. He mentioned two organisations, but to my knowledge, this subject is one which the ex-Service and Service men have been asking for during half a century.

Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman allow me? I said that the Royal Air Force Association asked for certain cases falling between 1921 and 1939 to be brought within the scope of this Bill. How could that have been advocated for half a century?

I am talking about what has been advocated for half a century, not the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite. I said, and I repeat, that Service and ex-Service men, to my certain knowledge, have been advocating this reform for half a century. Previous to 1914, the main ex-Service organisation was the National Society of Ex-Naval and Military Men, which along with many other organisations, and by other means of advocacy through Members of Parliament in this House at that time, advocated this tribunal to deal with pensions cases. Admittedly, it was not until 1943, that, as stated by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, the first tribunals were introduced, but it has been left to a Labour Government, irrespective of pressure from the British Legion, but as a result of listening to all ex-Service organisations and to Members of Parliament on this side of the House, to bring in this extension of the 1943 Measure. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman would do me the courtesy of listening to what I am saying, instead of starting a running commentary, I shall not be very long on my feet.

I have no intention of going into the details of the Bill, which were very ably explained by the Minister of Pensions, and for the further discussion of which there will be other opportunities on the succeeding stages of the Bill. The hon. and gallant Gentleman finished up with further British Legion advocacy for an inquiry into the whole basis of disability pensions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Thank you. Perhaps you will thank me for what I am going to say—

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman say to whom he is addressing his remarks? He continues to use the word "you." Is he addressing Mr. Speaker?

I was addressing Mr. Speaker, in regard to the noble Lord and the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite. The noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) is also concerned and mixed up in this running commentary. As he is going to reply for the Opposition, perhaps he will explain why he voted against a Select Committee to inquire into war pensions and allowances, with 307 of his supporters then on the Government side, when the Labour Party in this House had put down a Motion for such a Select Committee?

I was going to observe, at the beginning of this Debate, that it was very pleasing to turn aside from the clang and clamour of party controversy during the week, for the second Friday in succession, to a very excellent Departmental Bill, and I should like to tell the Minister that we on this side of the House agree with everything that he said. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite appealed to me to answer a number of questions which he put. I hope he will not think I am being insincere about this, because I am quite sincere, but I think that the most kindly action we can take is to ignore his references to the British Legion. I think that what the hon. and gallant Gentleman said only served to emphasise his reputation for eccentricity on this subject, and I refuse to be drawn into the controversy about the British Legion, because I do not think that this is the place to discuss it. Indeed, I think it would be out of Order. I rise to make only one suggestion to the Minister which I hope he will consider sympathetically.

Will the noble Lord allow me? I have no intention of making a controversial speech. I came here with only one object, that of supporting the Minister, and the controversy about the British Legion has been introduced from the other side of the House. What I ask the noble Lord to answer is the specific question why he voted against the proposal for a Select Committee to go into the whole question of war pensions and allowances.

I do not propose to answer the hon. and gallant Gentleman's question. For one thing, it would be entirely out of Order to do so on this Bill. I know the point of view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman and how any mention of the British Legion has the same effect on him as waving a red flag a mile in front of a bull. He immedi- ately becomes excited and unable to exercise his normal intellectual ability, and at once plunges into the subject. In his reference to the British Legion, my hon. and gallant Friend on this side said nothing controversial. All he did was to make a single mention of the British Legion, and merely said that they had put forward certain points for consideration.

I know that it is extremely difficult, from the administrative point of view, to include within the scope of this Bill men who would have come under the Bill, if they had served between the 1914 and 1939 wars—that is to say, between 1922 and 1939. I know it is extremely difficult to put these men into the Bill, but I suggest that there may be some cases in which, on the face of it, there would appear to be hardship or in which it might be that some ex-Servicemen would seem to be in an unfair position.

I will give the reasons. It might be thought that between 1922 and 1939 there were no major engagements in which the British Army was concerned. Of course, that is not so. For example, there were the serious casualties imposed on the British Forces during the Irish Rebellion; there were, I know from my own previous official experience, instances where the British Army was engaged, in some cases, in very fierce fighting on the North-West Frontier of India; and there were, of course, the cases of the disturbances in Palestine. So far as the Government and the Opposition are concerned, this is a non-controversial Bill. At the same time, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give further consideration to the point. I understand that this point has been put forward by the British Legion and other ex-Service men's organisations. Apart from that, we on this side of the House welcome the Bill. It brings the law on the subject into proper conformity, and we hope it will result in full justice being done to ex-Service men.

I am not very much concerned about the initiation of this Bill—whether it comes from the British Legion or the Royal Air Force Association. It is rather a pity that the placid waters of the Friday proceedings of this House should be disturbed by such a controversy. What I am concerned about is whether we are doing the right thing in the right way for the men and women who have felt the effects of war. I welcome this Bill and am only sorry that it is so long overdue, but that, of course, may be due to the fact that other business has occupied the time of the Ministry.

There are two questions which I wish to put to the Minister. First, what steps will his Department take to speed up the hearing of cases now on the long waiting list of the tribunals? Those lists are already overloaded, and in some of the cases which have been referred to the tribunals, the ex-Service men concerned have to wait long periods before they receive any information concerning them. I am not unmindful of the care that has to be exercised in discussing and deliberating upon cases referred to the tribunals, but I think it is within the realm of possibility to speed up their hearing in order that the ex-Service men and women can be informed at the earliest possible moment whether their application is going to be successful or not. Nothing creates more anxiety in the minds of these men and women than to have to wait long periods before hearing the result of their cases. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend what steps his Department is going to take to speed up the procedure. He has already told us that there is a tremendous number outstanding, and there will be considerably more when this Bill becomes law.

My next question is what steps will my hon. Friend's Department take to assist applicants under this Bill to secure the medical records essential for any deliberation on their cases? It is well within the knowledge of all hon. Members interested in this aspect of our national life that many such medical records have been destroyed. It will be difficult for an applicant to sustain or substantiate his claim unless some assistance is conceded to him by the Department in securing the medical record.

I welcome this Bill, not only because hon. Members opposite have welcomed it, or because it is welcomed by my hon. Friends on this side; I welcome it because it will assist those men and women who have the idea that they have been unfairly dealt with, not so much by this Government, as by preceding Governments, due to the fact that no provision has been made to enable them to fight for their pensions. Therefore, I hope that whoever replies to this Debate will give us an assurance that some steps will be taken concerning the two questions I have addressed to my hon. Friend.

I share the hope of the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) that the Minister will be able to give us some assurance about expediting the work of the tribunals. I feel that much of the goodwill shown by his Department and the tribunals loses value simply from delay. There are a number of cases in my own constituency in which mere delay has resulted in considerable, though I hope only temporary, injustice. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that steps are being taken to expedite this work.

I rise to put another question to the Minister. As he has told us, relevant service in peacetime will be covered by the machinery of the Bill and brought within the ambit of the system of his Ministry. I should be very grateful if he would tell us whether, when relevant service comes to be defined in the Royal Warrant, it will cover all forms of service with the Territorial Army and with the corresponding organisations attached to the other Services. He will appreciate that nowadays, when we speak of the Territorial Army, we are concerned with three separate categories of men. We are concerned, first, with men of the Regular Forces seconded for duty with the Territorial Army; secondly, with the Volunteer Territorial; and thirdly, at any rate from 1950 onwards, we shall be concerned with the National Service man who, having done whatever period of service this House may decide with the Regular Forces, proceeds to do a period of, under the present law, 5½ years, or, under a Bill now before the House, four years, as a kind of conscript Territorial.

I cannot believe that it is intended to exclude the Territorial Army. If it is intended to include it, as I hope and believe it is, then I think that some considerable public purpose would be served if the Minister could give an assurance that it will be so covered. After all, there are risks, some of them quite serious, involved in Territorial service. The hon. Gentleman's colleagues are appealing at this very moment for volunteers for the Territorial Army, and I am sure it would be of some assistance in that appeal if men, particularly family men with responsibilities, could be assured that if a misfortune befalls them while doing their duty with the Territorial Army, they will be fully covered under the machinery of this Bill. I cannot believe that it is intended to exclude them, but it would be very valuable to have a statement on record from the Minister that it is intended to include them, and to have that statement made at the earliest possible moment, that is to say, this morning, so that nothing shall be allowed to appear which can handicap the appeal which the Service Departments, with the full cooperation of hon. Members in all parts of the House, are making for volunteers for the Territorial Army. I hope that an assurance on that point will be given by the Minister.

Apart from those hon. Members who may have come here this morning to argue the particular merits or demerits of certain organisations, I think that a number have come to argue simply one point—the exclusion from this Bill of Service pensioners for the period 1921–39. I wholeheartedly welcome this Bill, which is another sign of the intelligent and humane consideration given to this matter by the Ministry of Pensions under this Government. At the same time, I feel that this reform could have gone a bit further, and does need to go a bit further in order to be complete.

As I understand it, this Bill is the result of the decision that future peacetime pensions should come under the Ministry of Pensions, and that the Ministry should be transformed from being a Ministry of War Pensions into a real Ministry of Service Pensions. That will give to those who are casualties of peacetime service the right of appeal. In the first place, from the point of view of principle, it seems to me entirely wrong not to make the matter of form complete by putting on an equal basis, those who are pensioners of the period from the time when the powers were retransferred to the Service Departments three or four years after the first World War. The Minister seemed to argue that this had something to do with compulsory service, and that the reason why this decision had been taken to continue peace-time service pensions under his Ministry and give a right of appeal, had something to do with the fact that we decided to continue the system of compulsory service in peacetime. That seems to me to be a wrong argument and one of no substance.

We are dealing with pensions for people who have been disabled as a result of military service. It is the fact of military service in the Defence Forces of the country that is the foundation of the claim for a pension. It does not seem to me to matter whether this is a compulsory service, whether they were in a conscript Force or in the Regular Army. It seems to me that the Service pensioner of the period 1921–39 ought to be on exactly the same basis as the Service pensioner from the war period or from the new national Army of the future. There are some 750 officers and about 11,000 other rank pensioners of this period 1921–39.

1922–39.

I accept the noble Lord's correction. I believe those figures of 750 officers and 11,000 other ranks are correct. They are now the sole section of the Services pensioners who are left, many of them harbouring a very considerable grievance against their treatment, as I know well enough, and having had no opportunity of a right of appeal and not getting the right of appeal under this Bill. I plead very strongly with the Minister of Pensions to press on the Government the claim that his Department should take over all Service disability pensioners from the Service Departments and put all these pensioners, whether they are from the Regular Forces or conscript Forces, whether they are war-time or peace-time pensioners, on the same basis and with the same rights in the future.

I intervene to ask the Minister whether he has in mind the serious position of certain Indian Army pensioners, men who have spent the whole of their lives with the Indian Army. I fully realise that the Government have no control at all over what happens from the point of view of being able to take any executive action, but there are cases, one of which is now in the post to the Minister, of ex-Indian Army officers and other ranks who are suffering from certain anomalies and hardships and who, as a result, are suffering also from a sense of grievance. Therefore, I should like to know whether there is any way in which the Minister can bring pressure to bear on the Indian Government if cases of this nature are presented to him.

I wish to put to my hon. Friend one or two points for clarification on this very significant Bill. When the attention of the country is being focussed more and more upon the possibility of extending the period of National Service and on the desirability of getting more and more recruits for the Regular Forces, it is important that they should have full confidence in the Government and in the Ministry of Pensions so that, if they should suffer from some disability as a result of that service, they will receive generous and humane treatment. It seems to me that this step which is being taken this morning is a step in the right direction.

There are however one or two points of doubt in my mind about this Bill. First, the Minister mentioned the very good work which had been done by the non-statutory special review tribunal. I do not know whether that body has come to an end or whether it is capable of hearing more cases at the moment. It is a fact that on appeal to the High Court various decisions of the Minister may be altered from time to time, and it seems to me that where those decisions are altered in the future, the people concerned should have a right similar to that given to those who were affected before 1946.

There is one group of cases which I have in mind. It concerns one of my constituents very much. He is a man suffering from diabetes, and at present he is in a sanatorium and receiving no pension whatever. A similar case is due to go before the High Court very soon, and should a decision be given in the High Court in favour of the man, the Minister must have some kind of discretionary power to enable him either to have an ex gratia payment or a right of appeal again to the tribunal. I should like some clarification of the position of the non-statutory special review tribunal.

My second point—and here I want to emphasise the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown)—is that the delays that have been occurring up to the present in some cases have caused considerable alarm and distress to many pensioners. Although the matter has been put right in the end, nevertheless the anxiety of the period of waiting has had a serious effect on the recovery of many of these pensioners. Could my hon. Friend tell the House exactly how well these tribunals are functioning at the moment? How many are there in existence? I do not know whether one goes touring round the country on a circuit, or whether there are different tribunals in each region. If the Minister could expand them considerably to get rid of this backlog of cases before they have to deal with persons affected under this Bill, it would have a good effect in the country.

My final point is that my hon. Friend should consider the pre-1939 cases again. There are only a few of them, and it is an anomaly that some of them should be dealt with by Service Departments with no right of appeal, whereas we are making all these special provisions for the future pensioners. If my hon. Friend can include them in this Measure I am sure it will strengthen his hand in dealing with the question of Service pensions. I do hope my hon. Friend will be able to come to an agreement on that point.

While I am not one of those cold-blooded persons who spend their lives delving into musty documents, I must say that I regard this Bill as a stage in evolution. I do not feel that we have reached the final stage. As a humane sort of person, and not wishing to join in any controversy, but as one who is interested in all ex-Service men's associations, I feel that this touches a very human matter indeed. We all remember the words of Kipling:

"It's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?'

But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drum begins to roll."

We have been grateful to those who have preserved our liberties when the wars have been on. In days gone by there has been all too often a tendency to forget the men once the guns have finished rolling. I can remember seeing in the streets of my own town very aged men, veterans of the Crimean and Afghan wars, begging in the streets.

Such a state of affairs was a disgrace to any nation, but we have slowly evolved—I almost said "all too slowly"—until we have reached the present position. I am sure the Minister would be the last person in the world to say that the present position represents perfection. There are cynics who say that we never shall attain perfection in this world. I believe that the best thing is to strive after it, and then we get nearer to perfection than we should have done if we had not striven.

I support those who have urged better treatment for the men of the 1922–39 period. Those men who have been beset by troubles which were described by the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), and other troubles as well, fought for their country and suffered just as badly as, and sometimes worse than those in the two categories which we know as the World Wars. I reinforce the plea that they should be treated generously, or at least justly, and that they should be on the same footing as the others. I feel that, while we have to deal according to the law with the men and women who have been injured in our wars, or through military service or other operations, nevertheless they should be treated with human feeling as well. The time was when some Departments handling these matters seemed to be aspiring, in the days before M. Molotov, to the "No" championship of the world. That is the way I would describe it today, and that is of course, now, an impossible task for anybody.

One of the reasons why I spoke this morning was to welcome this evolution which I hope will continue until, so far as is humanly possible, we reach a satisfactory state of mind, in which we can feel that all ex-Service men and women who have suffered in the service of their country are receiving satisfactory treatment.

I want to add to the appeal which has been made to the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this matter in so far as the injuries and difficulties of the 1922–39 ex-Service men are concerned. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. While I myself regret the necessity for compulsory service, regarding it as a misfortune, albeit possibly an unavoidable one at the present time, the Minister, this morning, has indicated that it is to a large extent on account of the introduction of compulsory service that he considers it desirable to introduce this very good Measure.

It is certainly not to be anticipated that all service in the Forces will be compulsory in the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has already drawn attention to the position of the Territorials. In addition, of course, there is the position of the Regular soldier. He will continue to be a voluntary soldier. If that is so, as we shall have not only compulsory soldiers but also these volunteers, and as the compulsory soldiers are certainly and rightly to be covered by the present Bill in the future, surely that removes the argument which the right hon. Gentleman advanced earlier as a reason why these pensions tribunals have not been applicable to the 1922–39 men. He indicated that the reason was that they were recruited as voluntary soldiers. Now that this Bill in the future will be applicable both to compulsory and voluntary men in the Forces, it seems to me that it should also apply to those who were volunteers in the 1922–39 period. I hope that on the grounds of that argument alone the Minister will be able to reconsider this decision.

Since the scope of pensions is being enlarged by this Bill, could not the Government consider enlarging it a little further so as to include not merely members of the Forces who are injured, but people who have been injured by members of the Forces. In warlike operations and operations of preparation, danger is created to members of the community. If they are injured, then they are injured in the process of defending this country just as much as men who are wearing uniform. For instance, explosive material from the dumps which have been put all over the country, including most dangerous fuses, have, through no fault of anybody, got into circulation. Owing to an explosion at one school a child in my own constituency has recently lost an eye. There seems to be nothing at all one can do about it, yet that injury seems to have been incurred in the process of defending this country. I feel the Government should consider that sort of case and see what remedy they can offer.

I should like to pay a tribute to the Appeal Tribunal and, in particular, to the work of Mr. Justice Denning. The decisions which have come from that Tribunal have had this effect. Whenever you get departmental tribunals, gradually their discretion becomes more and more restricted by departmental precedent, departmental rulings, and departmental interpretations which whittle down what Parliament has intended. Time and time again Mr. Justice Denning's decisions have brought the ruling back to what Parliament really intended—that the onus of proof should be fairly on the Government. I think that precedent of a High Court judge over and above departmental tribunals is one the worth of which has been proved.

I want to reinforce the plea made from all sides of the House this morning that the same consideration should be given to the 1922–39 cases as to the other cases. I have from my own experience knowledge of one or two sad cases where good men, with public spirit, volunteered to work overseas, sometimes on very dangerous work. For example, one friend whom I have in mind was sent out to Palestine, in a very troublesome time. During his service he contracted a serious malady which has incapacitated him and. since he is the father of a considerable family and is in receipt of no pension, it seems particularly hard that we should not do everything we possibly can to give him the maximum consideration.

Surely the aim of our pensions policy is to give equity all round. If it is felt that a special section of men, not being the special responsibility of a Department, are in some way not getting the same generous considerations as that which my hon. Friend's Department would now seek to give. This leaves a rankling sense of grievance and, indeed, it is a case of injustice. I hope the time will come when we can have all these difficulties in relation to the Services and their disabilities, whether associated with peace-time or war-time service, concentrated in the hands of a responsible Minister and a responsible Department so that we shall achieve a universal, or at least a general, similarity of treatment.

I am afraid that the opinion is abroad that the War Office, who are responsible for this section of men who sustained disability during their service between 1922 and 1939, are not giving the same consideration to these men as that which my right hon. Friend's Department is now giving. That is a very difficult position to face when one is confronted with it in the circumstances I have mentioned. It may be, as the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) suggested, that there are technical and administrative difficulties which perhaps make it impracticable to include those men in this Measure, but, having had such generous support from all sections of the House, I hope the Minister and the Government will understand that this is not a party matter but a matter of doing justice all round for men who so willingly and so finely served their country.

With the leave of the House, I should like to say something about the various points which have been put forward. Let me deal first with one or two—I will not say minor—matters that can be dealt with quickly. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) asked whether we were proposing to cover service with the Territorial Army in the provisions we are making in the new Royal Warrant. We are not yet ready to introduce a Royal Warrant. Much work has already been done, and certainly it is our intention to cover the kind of service he has in mind. Precisely how it will be done I am not yet, of course, able to say. The hon. and gallant Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) asked about cases arising in India. That is rather far from the——

I meant men living in this country now who have retired.

I am sorry—men now living in this country who served in the Indian Army. I can only say that I shall be glad to look at any examples the hon. and gallant Gentleman can bring to me. Without having seen those examples I should hesitate to make promises in advance, but if I am able to do anything I shall be glad to do it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) asked what steps could be taken to secure medical records. This is legislation for the future. What we are doing here is to extend to the future a right which has existed and does exist at the moment. Certainly, I think we ought to take care in the future, in the peacetime Army which will be recruited under the National Service Act, to ensure that those records are carefully kept, and I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friends responsible for the Services to what my hon. Friend said. As for finding records in the past, of course we do our best at the present time. It is perfectly true that we sometimes encounter difficulty in obtaining those records.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) asked whether there would be further references in future to the Special Review Tribunal if any new, far-reaching and very significant decisions handed down by the courts appeared to affect cases already decided. I can only say that we have proved up to now our desire to do justice to cases of that type. We have set up the Special Review Tribunal for that purpose, and we certainly would not change our attitude if some new and very significant further decision were made by the court.

Then my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees quoted an example of a case of which he knew which had been waiting for decision until another case could be decided by the High Court. That is, I submit, a typical example of the sort of instance in which delay in hearing by the appeal tribunals does take place. Many of the cases where applicants have complained of delay are cases which have been held in the expectation of a decision on a stated case which would affect the other cases now being held back. That is one example of an instance in which delay does take place.

We all, of course, regret any delay in the procedure. But I must make it clear that if it is required—and it is quite evident from the Debate today that the House does require—that the tribunals shall be constituted independently of the Minister of Pensions, and that they shall consider cases by all the methods that the courts normally adopt to collect and consider evidence—if a procedure is required of that kind, it cannot be a very stream-lined procedure. If we have the sort of system which exists for the cases of the men who did their service between 1921 and 1939, where the final appeal lies only to the Minister concerned, then, indeed, we can have a fairly rapid decision. If, however, we have this procedure of tribunals, and appeal, if possible, from the tribunals to the court, then there must be, I think, inevitably some slowness of action which applicants may find irritating.

Much of the delay arises from the necessary rules laid down by the tribunals for the collection of evidence, for the submission of evidence back to the applicant, so that he may have the opportunity to consider the evidence put forward by the Ministry and state his opinion of it, and all that kind of thing. Some of the delay is, I think, a necessary part of the rather elaborate procedure which we have devised to safeguard the rights of the applicants.

Would the Minister answer this question? Before a tribunal hears a case, has it in every instance the medical report before it? Instances have been brought to notice of tribunals hearing a case and then deferring a decision for the collection of medical evidence, and that seems a waste of time.

The most careful effort is made to provide the tribunal with all the evidence in the possession of the Ministry. Before that evidence is presented to the tribunal it is sent to the applicant for his comments upon it. Then the case goes before the tribunal, and it does happen from time to time that, suddenly, entirely fresh evidence is produced; and the tribunal, naturally, being a legally constituted body, says, "This is entirely fresh evidence, of which we had no knowledge and on vhich the Ministry has had no opportunity to comment, and, therefore, we must adjourn the case." That sort of thing does happen.

I am not attempting to excuse any delay which is avoidable, but I am anxious to explain to applicants that a great deal of delay arises out of the very careful provisions which are made to ensure that no shred of evidence in favour of the applicants is ever neglected by any chance. The Ministry itself, when an applicant puts in an appeal, reviews the whole of his appeal and considers the whole case de novo in a different section of the Ministry from the one which originally rejected the case, in order that it may, if possible, itself give a decision in favour of the applicant before sending the case on to the tribunal.

It would be possible to speed up the work by giving very arbitrary and more rapid rejections so far as the Ministry is concerned, but that would be a most undesirable thing to do. Nobody would like that. I do want applicants to realise that much of the delay—which, I can well understand, seems irritating, and which in many cases may cause some financial difficulty and hardship—is unavoidable if the proceedings are to be fair, and to be conducted in an orderly and sensible way.

The average time taken from the lodging of an appeal to its dispatch to the tribunal office is between four and five months. Every effort is being made to reduce that period; that is, the part of the delay—to use the word without prejudice—for which the Ministry is responsible. Delay which may follow later is not my responsibility in any way, since the tribunals are constituted by the Lord Chancellor and are operated independently of the Ministry. We are trying to reduce the delay. Part of it is due, not only to the difficulty of collecting evidence, but to the large number of cases which arose at the conclusion of the war.

I am glad to say that the number of cases outstanding is now very much less. Consequently, for that reason alone, delays must in future diminish. In March, 1948, there were 3,250 adjourned cases awaiting consideration. Today, there are only 1,950. So the backlog of adjourned cases is being dispersed fairly rapidly, and, therefore, I think I can hold out hope that there will be a quicker decision in future on these cases than there has been in the past. I could make a very long speech on this subject, but, perhaps, the House will be satisfied with my assurance that every possible step to expedite procedure will be taken.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House how many tribunals are at present functioning?

From the telegraphic signal that I have had, it is about ten.

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman has said, that the speeding-up procedure within the tribunals may militate against the applicant himself. In order to overcome that, would it not be possible to institute more tribunals?

There are eight tribunals in England and one in Scotland. I doubt very much, now that the number of cases is considerably smaller than it was, whether it would be to much advantage to set up new tribunals. I will, however, look into that matter. The preparation of this Bill until its presentation to the House has given me an opportunity of reviewing the whole procedure. I have had a good many other things to do in the last four months, as hon. Members are aware, but the preparation of this Bill has given me an opportunity of looking at the whole matter, and so far as I can improve the position, I shall certainly do so.

I must go on, in order not to delay the House, to deal with the arguments that have been put forward by many hon. Members about the exclusion from the Bill of various types of case. Not only was it suggested that I ought to bring under my supervision, in some way or another, the cases and claims arising between 1921 and 1939, but that I should also take over some responsibility for civil claims against members of the Forces. That would need a much longer Bill and a very different Bill from this one. It would require Amendments of other statutes, a change in the Title of the Bill, and so on. I do not think that anything as wide as that could be done at the present time. After all, these men were serving between 1921 and 1939 and no one set up special appeal tribunals for them during that time. Without wishing to be controversial, I think that is a fair point to make. If, having had experience of the appeal tribunals for the men of the 1914–18 war, the Governments of those days thought it unnecessary to set up appeal tribunals, it is a little difficult to understand why it should be necessary to do so now, when such a long time has elapsed since the services then rendered.

The argument, which I put in the most mild way and without controversy, is that we did not in those days make the differentiation which is being made in this Bill. That is not a party argument. The Government are now differentiating between those men and the men who are serving in the Army today. That is the whole point which has been put from both sides of the House.

There is the difference, which I pointed out, that considerable numbers of the men who are in future to serve in the Army in peacetime will be there under compulsion and not as volunteers. That is, I think, a significant change in the situation. The main reason for not now seeking to include these cases is that the claims arising were dealt with under an entirely different code of entitlement—a separate code altogether from those operated by the Ministry of Pensions. To bring those cases under the Ministry of Pensions would presumably mean a separate set of tribunals, or an attempt to apply to them a code which was not applied to them in the first place; and that would be administratively impossible. To go back and collect evidence on claims arising at the minimum nine years ago and, in many cases, far beyond that time is an administrative task which I should not wish to undertake.

It has been suggested by the hon. Member for West Woolwich (Mr. Berry) that better treatment ought to have been given to the men who served in peace time. I am not responsible for what has been done or is being done in regard to cases arising under the authority of the Secretary of State for War, the Secretary of State for Air and the First Lord of the Admiralty. If bad treatment is alleged—and, of course, I do not admit that for a moment—then representation should be made to those Ministers who have it within their power, without the necessity of tribunals or courts, to make decisions. It would not be possible under the Bill as now drawn to include those cases. On the whole, the administrative problems involved are so formidable, and the amount of work now falling on my Department for one reason and another is so great, that I am not at all anxious to take it on.

I think that I have covered the main points which were raised during the discussion this morning. I am happy that the discussion in general indicated such warm approval of the Bill. I would only say, in conclusion, to the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness (Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite) who expressed the hope that in the Ministry of Pensions we would not weary of doing good, that there has been no sign whatsoever during the past three-and-a-half years of any weariness of doing good, and we shall continue along the road on which we set out.

I think it would meet the convenience of the Committee if we discussed all the Amendments on the first four Clauses together.

That, I take it, will not prevent my asking any question arising out of particular Amendments?

No.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 14, to leave out "whether" and to insert "either."

The object of this Amendment is to give barrister judges an unqualified right to retire on proportionate pension, a right which the I.C.S. judges already enjoy. This Amendment has been put down to meet a criticism of the Bill made in the Second Reading Debate, and I hope it may meet with the approval of the House.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting down this Amendment. It represents a very temporary alliance—which I hope will not embarrass either of us—between the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and myself. We were the two Members who pressed this point. I am sure this Amendment improves the Bill and, what is more, removes—and here I am on rather delicate ground—from the minds of some of these distinguished gentlemen certain apprehensions they had because of the manner in which the Clause was originally worded.

I want to ask only one question of the right hon. Gentleman. Though I have made some exploration, I have been unable to discover the meaning of the phrase:

"a judge of a Chartered High Court in British India other than that at Nagpur."

Could the right hon. Gentleman explain that?

This is rather a matter of history. Since its creation the Nagpur Court has always been regarded as of inferior status to the other Chartered High Courts. It was the last to be created; it was the smallest of the Chartered High Courts; and the chief justice and the puisne judges drew lower rates of pay and pension. Consistent with that principle, the I.C.S. judges who serve in the court do not qualify for the additional £200 per annum under the Bill, and in consequence we have excluded them from Subsection (1, b).

I beg to move, in page 5, line 25, at the end, to insert:

"(2) References in this Act to the retiring of a person include references to the coming to an end of his appointment as an acting judge or an additional judge without his receiving any further appointment as a judge."

This Amendment is intended to meet the case of an acting and additional judge. It is necessary because, technically speaking, he is not retired within the meaning of Clause 1 (1, c); he was expecting to be appointed as a judge, but he was not in fact appointed.

I am aware, as is the right hon. Gentleman, that there is a rather difficult and delicate story behind this matter, which I do not want to raise publicly, but I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has moved this Amendment.

In response to your appeal yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I refrained from taking part in the Debate on this subject, because I recognised the gracious conduct of the Chief Whip in moving the Adjournment of the House in order to enable my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) to speak on this question. Naturally, as honorary secretary of the Ulster Party at Westminster I was extremely anxious to have my say, but I refrained yesterday, partly owing to the fact that I knew I should get my innings this afternoon on the Motion for the Adjournment. Let me add, that I am very grateful to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations for being here to reply to the questions I propose to put to him.

My desire is to treat this question absolutely dispassionately, historically, and, I may say, juridically. I have always had the friendliest possible relations with Southern Ireland. I had the great honour of being examiner in French to the National University, and twice every year I had to go round the country, visiting Dublin, Cork, Galway and Maynooth; I was always received with the utmost friendliness, and I shall always be grateful for the amazing hospitality which was extended to me.

On 1st November I asked the Prime Minister

"whether the Law Officers of the Crown will be consulted with regard to the Agreement of December, 1921, registered by the Free State as a Treaty at Geneva and of which the contractual obligations still enjoy full validity, having been specifically reserved by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council?"

The Prime Minister replied:

"I can assure the hon. Gentleman that all these matters will be considered with our legal advisers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st November, 1948; Vol. 457, c. 512.]

I now ask the Secretary of State whether the legal advisers of His Majesty's Government have given these matters their consideration; and if so, whether he is in a position to give us their opinion. Speaking in this House on the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech from the Throne, I pointed out that the contractual obligations of the Treaty of 1921 had in no way been affected by the Statute of Westminster, as the judgment of the Privy Council had so clearly shown. As some hon. Members were not present on that occasion, perhaps I might be allowed to quote what I then said:

"The question of the legality of amendments to the Treaty came before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It was on the attempt to abolish the right of appeal to the Privy Council. Under Clause 2 of the Statute of Westminster, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided that legally, technically, the Irish Free State had the right to make this amendment."

I then called the attention of the House to this most important phrase:

"It is the unanimous verdict of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council"—

given by Lord Sankey—that:

"It would be out of place to criticise the legislation enacted by the Irish Free State Legislature, but the Board desire to add that they are expressing no opinion on any contractual obligation under which, regard being had to the terms of the Treaty, the Irish Free State lay."—[OFICIAL REPORT, 1st November, 1948; Vol. 457, c. 568.]

It is clear, therefore, that the contractual obligation of the Treaty has been reserved. I ask hon. Members once more to make this vital distinction, the distinction between repeal of an Act of Parliament and the repudiation of a Treaty.

I was surprised to see in yesterday's Debates in the Commons and Lords that this matter seems to be the cause of a good deal of misapprehension. When the Statute of Westminster was passing through this House, Mr. Cosgrave, who was then President of the Irish Executive, wrote to the Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, on 21st November, 1931, this letter:

"I have read the Report of last Friday's Debate in the House of Commons on the Statute of Westminster Bill, and I am gravely concerned at Mr. Thomas's concluding statement that the Government will be asked to consider the whole situation in the light of the Debate. I sincerely hope that this does not indicate any possibility that your Government would take the course of accepting an Amendment relating to the Irish Free State. I need scarcely impress upon you that the maintenance of the happy relations which now exist between our two countries is absolutely dependent upon the continued acceptance by each of us of the good faith of the other. This situation has been constantly present to our minds, and we have reiterated time and again that the Treaty is an agreement which can only be altered by consent. I mention this particularly, because there seems to be a mistaken view in some quarters that the solemnity of this instrument in our eyes could derive any additional strength from a Parliamentary law. So far from this being the case, any attempt to erect a Statute of the British Parliament into a safeguard of the Treaty would have quite the opposite effect here, and would rather tend to give rise in the minds of our people to a doubt as to the sanctity of this instrument."

It was on account of this letter, which was read to the House of Commons by the Secretary of State during the Committee stage on the Statute of Westminster Bill, that the Committee refrained from doing what it most certainly otherwise would have done, and that is, it would have adopted the New Clause proposed by Colonel Gretton, the Member for Burton-on-Trent, which would have excluded the Irish Free State Act, 1922, from the Statute of Westminster. In opposition to this celebrated New Clause, the Lord President of the Council used these words, and I would call the serious attention of the House to their supreme importance:

"I am advised by the Law Officers of the Crown that the binding character of the Articles of Agreement will not be altered by one jot or tittle by the passing of the Statute of Westminster. The sanctity of the Treaty, which has been acknowledged over and over again in the fullest and most generous sense by Irishmen—the great sanction of that Treaty is that it is a Treaty. … That Treaty will be just as binding, so I am advised, after the passing of this Statute as before."—[OFFICIAL REPORT: 24th November, 1931; Vol. 260, c. 344–5.]

This opinion of the Lord President was strongly fortified by the amazingly able speech of Sir Donald Somervell. I would remind the House that Sir Donald Somervell was Solicitor-General from 1933 to 1936, Attorney-General from 1936 to 1945 and since 1946 has been and still is a Lord Justice of Appeal. These are the important words he used as a private Member and before he held all these distinguished offices:

"The Irish Free State came into existence as the result of what is called a Treaty. Whatever legislation may be passed by this House, or by the Irish Free State, that Treaty remains a Treaty, and it remains an agreement binding the two parties who entered into it, unless it is modified by agreement or a subsequent Treaty. I submit that this is not a doubtful point, because it is plain that if this Statute is passed it will be wholly wrong to say that the Irish Free State would have power to repeal the Treaty it has entered into with this country. …"

Of course, he is referring all the time to the Treaty of 1921. It was signed by Mr. Lloyd George and others, and representatives of the Free State. He continues:

"The Treaty is the foundation of their own Constitution, that is, a Treaty which they have entered into as a separate State, a Treaty which they have themselves registered as a Treaty at Geneva, rightly or wrongly and containing contractual obligations which they, as a separate State, have undertaken towards this country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT: 20th November, 1931; Vol. 259, c. 1224–6.]

After passing through this House, the Statute of Westminster went to the Lords, and Lord Sankey was at that time Lord Chancellor. Speaking in the House of Lords on 26th November, 1931, he said:

"I have no reason to doubt the honour of the Irish Free State any more than I have reason to doubt the honour of England, and I refuse to believe that the Irish Free State will break or repudiate a Treaty into which they have so solemnly entered."

At the same time there was also in the House of Lords Lord Hailsham who, I would remind the House, was Attorney-General from 1922–23, and again from 1924–28 before he became Lord Chancellor from 1928–29, and again from 1935–38. Speaking in another place on the Second Reading of the Statute of Westminster Bill, he said:

"We all agree in this House that the Treaty should be maintained and we all agree that the Irish Free State—I am not using legal phrases—is as much bound as any sovereign State can be by its pledged word whether this Statute passes or does not pass. We all agree that this Statute cannot alter that position. Not only do we agree, but we have the statement from the responsible head of the Irish Free State Government that they agree … Here is a Statute, which we are asked by the Irish Free State to pass, which, in our deliberate view, cannot possibly alter the obligations of the Treaty as it stands before the Statute is passed.

The Irish Free State, in asking us to pass it, gives us in their very solemn assurance by the head of the State, that it is on that basis that they ask us to pass it. Can you then doubt that the Irish Free State is bound, so far as it is possible to bind any sovereign Power in the world, by the declaration on the face of which we pass that Statute?"

That this was the attitude of His Majesty's Government is shown by the important reply I received four years ago when I raised this question in a Debate on the Motion for the Adjournment, on 11th October, 1944. The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was in another place, but the Under-Secretary, speaking for the Government in the Commons, said, in reply to me:

"My hon. Friend raised the question of the Statute of Westminster, and its relation to the agreements before it became law. In the view of the Government, the passage of the Statute of Westminster did not, and could not, have any effect on contractual obligations resulting from existing agreements. This was the view of the Government at the time and it was accepted by the House in the Debate on the Statute of Westminster Bill."

I want to emphasise these important words which the Under-Secretary then uttered:

"No subsequent Government here has departed from this position in any way, and I think my hon. Friend can be satisfied on the point which he raised."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th Oct., 1944; Vol. 403, c. 1904.]

I am fortified in my argument by this most important fact: the Treaty of 1921 was amended by mutual consent in 1925, when Article 12—which set up the boundary agreement, with which I dealt on 1st November, and do not wish to refer to now—and the most important Article 5, which laid down that the Irish Free State should pay its proportional share of the National Debt and war pensions, were abrogated, with an estimated loss to the Treasury, as was stated by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, of £155 million. That amendment of the Treaty of 1921 was ratified in December, 1925, by the Parliament of Great Britain. It was also ratified, by an overwhelming majority, by both Houses of the Irish Free State and, as it seriously affected Northern Ireland, and as His Majesty's Government desired that it should be brought before both Houses of the Northern Ireland Parliament, Northern Ireland ratified what has since been called the Tripartite Agreement. That was the first essential amendment of the Treaty, ratified not unilaterally but bilaterally by this Parliament as well as by the Parliaments of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

Further, in 1938, another supremely important agreement was made which annulled the provisions of Articles 6 and 7 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and of the Annex thereto. Those Articles provided that the Irish Free State Government should afford to His Majesty's Imperial Forces the harbour and other facilities indicated in the Annex, namely, those existing in the ports of Queenstown, Berehaven and Lough Swilly. These ports, in accordance with the amendment of the Treaty, were handed over to the Irish Free State, but I do not wish to comment on that arrangement, as that is not my purpose today.

There was also this most important Article, which has been so often forgotten—the Article which annulled the power of Great Britain to require for the purposes of defence in time of war or of strained relations such harbour and other facilities as it considered necessary. As Mr. de Valera himself stated, had that Article been in existence at the time war broke out, the neutrality of Ireland would have been impossible. The Agreement of 1938 was also ratified by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 17th May, 1938, and by the Dail, the Parliament of Southern Ireland, on 29th April, after a three-day Debate.

The great importance of the Agreement of 1938 is due to its form, since it provides that certain portions of the Treaty of 1921 shall cease to have effect. Surely—and my legal friends have borne me out—that is an implicit acknowledgement by the signatories to the Treaty, as amended by mutual agreement, that the Treaty still exists as an international instrument of full validity.

These changes were ratified by what is called the Eire (Confirmation of Agreement) Act which provided, among other things, that the territory known as the Irish Free State should hereafter be known as Eire, thus accepting the new Constitution of 1937. His Majesty's Government issued a statement saying that the United Kingdom had considered the position created by the new Constitution, which was approved by the Parliament of the Irish Free State in June, 1937. They accepted this new Constitution, but they stated most specifically that it did not effect—I should like to call the attention of the House to these words—

"any fundamental alteration in the position of the Irish Free State, in future to be described under the new Constitution as Eire, as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations."

His Majesty's Government consulted the other Governments concerned in Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa. They were also prepared to treat the new Constitution as not changing the status of the Irish Free State as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. His Majesty's Government went on to say:

"They cannot recognise that the adoption of the name Eire or Ireland or any other provisions of these Articles involves any right to the territory or jurisdiction over territory forming part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or affects in any way the position of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

It will be seen from all that I have said that all previous amendments of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 were bilateral and were ratified by both Parliaments. As I have already mentioned, as the famous amendment of 1925 vitally affected Northern Ireland it was submitted not merely to this Parliament and to the House of Southern Ireland but to the House of Commons and the Senate of Northern Ireland.

The question I wish to put—and this matter was not referred to by the Prime Minister yesterday in spite of the question I put to him on 1st November—to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations is whether the British Government are going to accept the complete repudiation of the Treaty proposed in the Republic of Ireland Bill now before the Dail. My second question is whether in view of the terms of the Eire Confirmation of Agreements Act of 17th May, 1938, he is prepared to accept on behalf of His Majesty's Government the term "Republic of Ireland."

I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of what he knows perfectly well that the term "Republic of Ireland" would include the whole of the 32 counties and not merely the 26 counties, which were defined as the territory of the Irish Free State by the Agreement of 1938, and which territory is described everywhere as Eire. If one looks through this Eire (Confirmation of Agreements Act), 1938, as I have, one will find that in no Section is the word "Ireland" used but always the word "Eire" in every single Section. It sets forth with the utmost clearness that it refers to Eire, that the word "Eire" is accepted by His Majesty's Government and by the Houses of Parliament as a legal description of the Irish Free State. Therefore, I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that it would require legislation by this House to make any alteration, and that the term "Republic of Ireland" is absolutely illegal and entirely inconsistent with this Act on which rests the recognition of the new Constitution of Eire of 1937.

In conclusion, I should like to quote a statement made by Mr. Lloyd George in the Debate on the Address in this House in 1921. He said:

"My right hon. Friend inquires, if this Treaty be broken, what shall we do to enforce it?"

Mr. Lloyd George was referring to Sir Frederick Banbury, a very learned statesman, who had already foreseen that the Treaty would be broken.

"My right hon. Friend inquires, if this Treaty be broken, what shall we do to enforce it? I am quite willing to face that. It is not a question of one Article. It is a question of the whole of the Articles. If Ireland breaks faith, breaks her Treaty—if such a situation has arisen—the British Empire has been quite capable of dealing with breaches of Treaties with much more formidable Powers than Ireland. But we want to feel perfectly clear that when she does so, the responsibility is not ours, but entirely on other shoulders."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1921; Vol. 149, col. 35–36.]

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he accepts this statement of the father of the Treaty, Mr. Lloyd George, and if so what steps he is prepared to adopt to enforce a Treaty so solemnly registered at Geneva by the Irish Free State and still declared to be valid by a number of the greatest legal authorities, and stated to be in force as short a time ago as four years by the representative of His Majesty's Government in this House.

In my statement I have tried to avoid all bitterness. I have spoken simply from the historical and still more from the juridical point of view, but I must confess that during these last few days two Latin words have come constantly to my mind "Fides punica." These words have been ringing in my head, but as I do not want to introduce any element of bitterness I refrain from introducing them here. However, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether this afternoon he is going to force us to draw the melancholy and cynical conclusion of Seneca, the greatest of all Roman philosophers:

The hon. Member for Queen's University of Belfast (Professor Savory) quotes from a statement made by Mr. Lloyd George some 30 years ago as to the manner in which Britain was accustomed to enforce her treaties. Does the hon. Member agree that that means war? Is he asking that the Government should go to war with Eire? Surely what——

I am sorry. I would not have interrupted the hon. and learned Member if he had not put that question directly to me. I say, of course not; but there are other means, with which His Majesty's Government are familiar, of enforcing a treaty.

I am glad that the hon. Member has at least made that point clear, because the final part of his speech certainly sounded very much like a desire to impose force upon Eire. I should have thought that what we wanted to do now was to be able to live as peacefully, as happily and as conveniently as possible alongside the rather awkward people on the other side of the Irish Channel. They are people with a very strong historical sense and a real historical grievance. I cannot believe that the very tendentious, historical, juridical speech which we have heard from the hon. Member is likely to improve our relations.

The hon. Member based his case upon the sanctity of treaties. Before we do that we have to consider what is a treaty, if we are to look at the matter from a juridical point of view. A treaty is an agreement between two sovereign Powers, who are recognised by other sovereign Powers in the world as exercising both de facto and de jure government within their borders. Did the Irish representatives with whom we made this treaty fulfil that condition? They certainly did not. The difficulty in international relations, where you have a state of flux owing to revolution or other such influences, is always to find a body of people whom you can bind. If we merely select a number of individuals and say: "We will make these people into a Government and contract with them," we do not effectively bind anybody but the authority whom we have created. We cannot take an area which has not a Government and, for our own convenience, create a Government and then say: "Everybody in the area is bound because we have chosen to call these people the Government."

The people with whom we contracted in 1922 were Collins, Griffiths and Cos-grave. They represented a section of the Irish people. I believe that all of us will say that that section of the Irish leaders stood with rigour by their agreement. There was another section of the Irish people, led by Mr. de Valera, who rejected that agreement, and from the very start said: "We who claim to represent Ireland just as the others claim to represent Ireland, are not bound by this agreement."

May I interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman again? I am sorry to interrupt him, but surely he has forgotten that the Treaty was ratified by overwhelming majorities at two general elections in the Irish Free State and again and again, as I have shown, was accepted by Mr. de Valera himself in 1938 when he made the amendment which I have discussed.

There are two points there. Firstly, that the Treaty was ratified by general elections. It was ratified by general elections held by Mr. Cosgrave and Mr. Griffiths, the section whom we bad created. All the time Mr. de Valera rejected this treaty. Even in 1938 Mr. de Valera and, far more, the people who have now succeeded him, claimed to reject that agreement. When we made that agreement with the Irish leaders we surely knew that the reality of the situation was that we were betting upon that section of the Irish leaders being able to maintain their position. It was not a bad bet and it came off for a pretty long time. When various people here were at pains to say, "This is a treaty with Ireland," it strengthened the hands of the people with whom we dealt, but we do not really create treaty obligations such as generally exist between sovereign governments by calling a sovereign government that which is not so, because it suits the particular position which we have taken up.

We shall not improve our relations with Eire—that is what is generally wanted—by going in for this sort of juridical recrimination. Oddly enough, I do not believe that the repeal of the External Relations Act was intended by the Irish as an unfriendly act towards this country. I have read the Debates in the Dail and I have talked about the matter with various Irish leaders at the time. The way they put it, both in the Dail and in private conversation, was that the bitterness between our two peoples is rapidly disappearing, but it is bitterness created by years of subjection and exploitation. "The things that bind us together are," they say, "bonds of servitude of our people. The links are bonds to us. They stand in the way of good feeling between our countries. If we can wipe them right away and get rid of those bonds, then the field will be clear for genuine co-operation and the friendship of our peoples which we all desire."

That may seem a paradoxical way of putting matters, but the Irish are a paradoxical people. I believe that it is sincere. I congratulate the Government upon the big-minded, sensible, unlegalis- tic way in which they have treated the matter. I believe that the big attitude of the big man who is not to be irritated by small things, and is large enough to take a large view and not stand on legalistic niceties, is the one which will lay a foundation on which we can get along with the Irish. I hope that the union which is now being discontinued will very soon be recreated as part of the union of Western Europe in which we may all come together as partners.

There is a point which we should make very clear: in no circumstances whatever shall a union of Ireland be imposed upon Ulster. There is a perfectly simple and practical answer—I am not going into it now—to the question whether a small majority in Ulster would vote for it or against it. Union is utterly repugnant to a very substantial section whether it be a minority or a majority. Union is one of those things which that section would resist by force of arms—

Hear, hear.

—as being against their very faith. Surely we have enough wars in the world. To impose a settlement in the North which would create that sort of bitterness would be utterly wrong. We should make that quite clear to the Government of Eire.

While I agree cordially with the latter part of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), I am afraid that I take a rather different view from that expressed in the first part of his speech. It was clear at once that he abandoned immediately any hope of being able to controvert the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's University (Professor Savory) in regard to the solemn undertakings which have been entered into and which he described in due course. However, the hon. and learned Member presented his argument in a different way. He said, "Yes, the hon. Member may have admitted—" we call it "confession and avoidance"—" that these instruments existed and had been carried out, but he repudiated the authority of those who made them on behalf of what is now Eire." The hon. and learned Member apparently said that the Dail Eireann did not speak for Eire or the people of Eire. That is certainly a new and startling argument, and it is not as strong as one has reason to expect from the hon. and learned Member.

I want to ask a few questions of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. I do not expect him to answer them all now. If I happen to ask him a question which he cannot answer immediately, I would only ask him to ruminate upon it and to answer it whenever he feels himself in a position to do so. The recent development in the introduction of the Bill repealing the External Relations Act is the culmination of a very long and gradual breaking of the strands of the cable which used to unite Ireland to Great Britain. It has been very gradual, and now the last little strand is snapping. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said yesterday that it really did not make very much change.

I should like to qualify that because I think this will mark an epoch. It is the end of an epoch. It is the final severance of political association between Eire and the United Kingdom—I repeat, the United Kingdom. The first thing that must strike everybody is that it raises the barrier between Northern Ireland and Eire sky-high. That barrier was pretty stout before. There was no serious possibility—I do not say probability—of its breaking down. Much could have been overcome had the politicians of Eire had the sense and intelligence to suggest, for instance, a Customs Union with the United Kingdom, but instead of that, it was always a magnificent red herring to speak about partition so that they had not to speak about tie enormously high cost of living, the lack of social services and the frozen wage levels. Partition has, therefore, been emphasised.

The first and most obvious effect of this snapping of the last thread of constitutional attachment is that it makes so absolute and so permanent the barrier between that part of Ireland which is determined to be united with Great Britain and to live under the Union Jack and that part of Ireland which is determined to be a Republic and to live under the Tricolour of Sinn Fein, that it is impossible to imagine it ever coming to an end.

Throughout the period covered in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Queen's University, we have seen a certain irresponsibility and inconsequence in the Government of the Irish Free State, subsequently, Eire. That is one of the things which has very much impressed us in Northern Ireland. One never knows where one is. The decisions and solemn agreements of one Government can be repudiated by their successors, not with any sense of guilt but rather with a certain enthusiasm that they are doing something rather splendid.

The present Prime Minister—I hesitate to use the Irish word as I might get it slightly wrong—Mr. Costello, is a man of the highest character, as everyone agrees, and of very great repute, and yet, in introducing the Bill, he is turning a political somersault which for acrobatic agility has seldom been equalled. A very large number of those who supported him did so on the basis that his deliberate policy was to remain in the British Commonwealth, as it was then permissible to call it, and not to leave it. It is a most astonishing thing that in so short a time such a rapid change of heart should have occurred. We all know that the Bill has much more to do with internal politics in Eire than people over here have appreciated up to the present. That is, perhaps, the major factor. Of course, trying to pinch somebody else's thunder has been a well known device, even in British politics. That is one of the reasons why the Bill is now before the Dail.

The curious and ironic situation is that to deal with the attitude of His Majesty's Government in this House as regards the Bill, the Prime Minister has stated—and stated with an air of benevolence towards Eire—that citizens of Eire will not be aliens in England. The one thing they have been striving to become for generations is aliens in England. They are to remain West Britons. I am called a West Briton as a term of reproach by Mr. de Valera and his friends, and now the citizens of Eire are to suffer the humiliating fate at the hands of the British Government—I will not use some of the adjectives which I have heard applied to it below the border—of remaining West Britons in this country.

Surely the hon. Gentleman does not expect consistency from his country?

No. I am not expecting consistency from the Government, because I do not see it, and it is the action of the Government which I am criticising. At all events, it seems apparent at the present time that the price which they are paying for this humiliation is a certain material gain, though we are not fully informed what this material gain is. To use a colloquial expression, in fact, it seems that they expect to get it both ways—to have the glories of independence, and, at the same time, the material benefits of the hated British Commonwealth of Nations. As long ago as July, Mr. McBride, in a forceful passage in the Dail, repudiated any suggestion that they could be a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, though he did not seem to repudiate the benefits of that constitutional position with anything like the same heartiness, or, in fact, at all.

It appears to me that they wish to retain the advantages of association with the British Commonwealth, although they consider that they are an independent republic. Of course, all British Governments have been considered soft by the representatives of the Irish Free State or Eire when it comes to bargaining. That is because there has always been such an abounding good will on the British side and a complete failure to realise that Eire is very much more dependent on Britain than Britain is on Eire, and I think that that is so at the present time.

I was rather hoping that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton would have dealt with the legal position of non-alien citizens, because that situation has not arisen up to the present time. According to British law, de Valera and Costello are British subjects, and I should like to know what is the real legal position of non-aliens. This is an entirely new conception to the legal mind, and seems to be the civilian equivalent of a non-belligerent—neither an ally nor an enemy—but there is going to be a lot of. I will not say fun, but a lot of discussion in the courts of law before this matter is finally settled on a definite basis. For instance, it is clear that, if a non-alien committed what, in the case of a British subject: would be an act of treason, he could not be properly convicted. I do not make any suggestion that any of these non-aliens would take up that attitude, but it would open a field of endeavour to them on much more advantageous terms than are offered to the British subject.

The point which must not be lost sight of is this. In saying that the citizens of Eire shall have the privileges of British citizenship, without its burdens, as I understand it, and, in saying that we are putting a label on the citizens of Eire and declaring that they are not aliens, we are not making any effect on the spirit of the man on whom the label is placed. In future, the loyalty of that man will not be expected to be to the Government of the United Kingdom; he will be in our midst and owing his loyalty to another country. Eire will claim, and has claimed, that it is another country, an independent Irish Republic, whose people are endeavouring to learn Irish so that they do not even speak the same language as ourselves. I do not think that, by the mere act of putting a label on a man and declaring that he is not an alien, we can change his heart, because what is in the heart of a man is a fact and is not altered by the number or letter which we may pin upon his back. That is a matter with which I do not believe it is possible to deal in the way in which an attempt is now being made to deal with it.

I wonder what obligations the citizens of Eire are going to undertake on our behalf, or on behalf of the community which is giving them certain rights, because they will vastly outnumber the citizens of the United Kingdom who will be in Eire. Are they, for instance, to be liable to military service? If I may have the attention of the Minister for a moment, because this is a most important point, may I ask him if the non-alien is to be liable to military service where the National Service Acts apply? If he is not to do military service, he should not have civic rights, and I do not see why he should be excepted. It has always been the policy of every Government, whether Conservative, Liberal or Coalition, that the National Service Acts should not be applied to Northern Ireland. Up to the present time, we have always opposed that, and have said that, as part of the United Kingdom, we should bear equal burdens with the rest. In fact, I myself have not only voted against my own side but have told against them in that interest. Now that we are to have the non-alien in our midst, enjoying civic rights but not being liable to military service, certainly, Northern Ireland would repudiate any decision as to military service which would make those who are loyal to the United Kingdom liable to serve, while the non-alien in our midst enjoying the same rights had no obligation at all. It would entirely change the whole attitude of the people in Northern Ireland.

There are many other points on which I could speak on this final step which will take Eire out of the circle of the British Commonwealth of Nations, but I want for a moment to refer to finance. At present, I think the Eire currency has the backing of the Bank of England and of the British Exchequer. It stands at par as a sterling currency. The coins are different, but they have the same denominations and the same value. We do not know what is the financial position of Eire. All that we do know is that they have not balanced their Budget, In fact, I doubt if they ever have done in the past, and, certainly recently, the adverse balance has been very heavy. The almost frantic appeals of Mr. McBride to Northern Ireland, which he describes as the only solvent part of the United Kingdom, coming from such a source should be regarded as an indication of Eire's desperate financial position.

I do not know, but I should certainly like to know, what is to be the attitude of this country towards the currency of Eire. As I do not know the facts sufficiently well, I am not suggesting that we ought, at the present time, to dissociate our currency from that of Eire. That is a very technical matter which will require grave reflection before any step is taken. I am not in any way pressing the Minister to give me an answer today. I am only saying that the question of the currency of Eire is a very important one.

Then there is another point of a quasi-financial nature—the question of preferences. At the present time—and it has been reinforced by the recent agreement as regards agricultural produce—Eire enjoys substantial preferences. No other Dominion has any better preferences. Now that Eire is going to cease to be a Dominion, there are British subjects who will cease to be British subjects, and who will become citizens of an independent Republic. That being so, are they to retain the preferences granted to members of the Commonwealth? I do not see how that can be done if we are to keep peace with other countries who export their products to us, and who enjoy what is called the rights of the most-favoured-nation clause. That implies that no other country which does not form part of a political association shall have more advantageous terms as regards their commerce.

It seems to me astonishing that Eire, having repudiated the association with this band of nations which constitute the British Commonwealth, should still continue to enjoy the terms which are appropriate only to members of that Commonwealth. If she does so enjoy those terms, it will lead to immense trouble for the Government in their relations with other Dominions, and certainty with foreign countries. That is another point which I put to the Minister, although I do not press him to answer it now as, obviously, a host of questions, some large, some small, will crop up as the result of this final step which is being taken by the Government of Eire.

My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday that any preferential treatment handed out to Eire must not be taken as a precedent because the position was abnormal. Of course, it is abnormal. But what I fear is that, although it is all very well for us to say to people who might wish to take advantage of the precedent, "This is not a precedent," they may say to us," But it has happened. You may say you have not treated it as a precedent, but it has happened. If it is given to them, why not give it to us? "From that point of view there is considerable danger in the action proposed to be taken by His Majesty's Government. This step, surprising from such a source as Mr. Costello, is not one which has caused me any surprise, because those optimists who thought that some limited measure of Home Rule would prevent this further course of an Irish Republic were obviously wrong. However, I regard it with great regret.

The hon. Member for Queen's University (Professor Savory) has charmed us today, as he al- ways does, with his recollections, and the hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) has put to me a number of questions, to some of which I will reply. I hope that hon. Members opposite and my hon. Friends behind me will not think me guilty of discourtesy if I reply to their speeches with extreme brevity. Apart from his questions, the hon. Member for Londonderry made some broad political reflections.

I will deal, first, with his questions. He suggested that, perhaps, I should do better not to answer his questions, but, instead, to ruminate. Indeed, with regard to some of them, I shall follow his kind advice, and make considered answers later on. However, I would say to him at once that I think the British Nationality Act, 1948 is perfectly clear on the subject of the rights of those who are not aliens in this country. They will have the rights of British subjects under our statute law. Even aliens in the United Kingdom are liable to be punished for treason, in the same way as British subjects.

Eire citizens who are habitually resident in this country will be liable for military service. That, I think, answers plainly and definitely one of the questions he asked. I would remind him that, in return, if things proceed as we expect, it is probable that British subjects in Eire will have wider rights of citizenship than they have ever had before, and that those rights will be more firmly based. The hon. Gentleman said that we have far fewer people there. I would remind him that we have a very considerable traffic from here to there, and I do not think we can neglect it.

On the question of preferences about which he asked, I would say, first, that the preferences with Eire are not based on the Ottawa Agreement, but on the agreement of 1938 between Eire and this country.

As amended.

As amended this year, but the basis of the 1948 Agreement is that of the 1938 Agreement. We have always considered that the Government of 1930–38 were right to make that agreement because the preferences, with what we got in return, were of mutual benefit to us both. I do not want to add to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday about it. I forget his exact phrase, but what he said was to the effect that the long-standing arrangements would not, we hope, be affected. That is our hope. In any case, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the words there used.

On the matter of finance and what the Bank of England will now do, I think that is one of the matters on which I should do well to say that I will give the hon. Gentleman a well-considered answer another time. I do not propose to do much more on the broad political considerations brought forward by the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps the hon. Member for Queen's University will think, when I finish in a moment or two, that I have not done any better for him. He raised the point—which he has often raised before—about the Treaty of 1921. But he raised it on this occasion in rather different language, and if I attempted, at short notice, to reply to him, I might be led into the broadest political aspects of the present situation, and to say things which I should not desire to say at the present moment without more reflection.

Of course, I took part in the Chequers conversations on 17th October, and in the Paris conversations 10 days ago, and there is much which I might say on the general situation. However, I think I should be wiser to refrain. It was only yesterday that the Prime Minister made a statement of Government policy here. The Governments of other members of the Commonwealth are going to make their own statements. I do not know yet quite what they will say; I have not seen the terms of their declarations. I understand that the Prime Minister of Australia has already spoken in his Parliament, but I am not fully aware of what he said. Perhaps we can have a Debate another day; then I shall be able to deal with any wider points which have arisen today, and I shall be able to do so more satisfactorily than I can now.

Therefore, I confine myself to making a narrow and technical answer to the two points which were the main substance of the speech of the hon. Member for the Queen's University of Belfast. In the view of the Government, is the Treaty of 1921 still in force? Is Section 1 of the Eire (Confirmation of Agreements) Act, 1938, in our view, still valid for ourselves? The hon. Gentleman asked whether we had consulted our legal advisers on these important questions. We have been in constant consultation with them, of course, all through the recent negotiations, but I have no information that I could give him on these specific points which he has raised. I think I can answer the hon. Gentleman on these two questions most satisfactorily by using a minimum of words. Indeed, I think I can do it in a single sentence, thereby saving the House a good deal of time and giving the hon. Member complete satisfaction. The hon. Gentleman said on 1st November that he was quite content with what was said by one of my predecessors in the House in March, 1944, and again on 11th October of that year. My single sentence is this: I have no desire to depart in any way from what was then said.

I end by saying that I warmly endorse what was so well said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) just now. We have had an unhappy history in the relations between this country and the people of Eire. However much we may regret some things which have happened in the recent past, I submit it is of supreme importance that we should seek to build up friendship and co-operation between the Governments and the peoples of Eire and of this country, and that is what this Government will seek to do.

I want to raise the problem of the imminent breakdown of the school dental service and of the dental priority classes as laid down in the National Health Act. As most people realise, there has been a substantial drift away from the public dental service into private practice. The reason for this is the disparity in income between the public dental officer and the general practitioner.

Some time ago the Government set up the Spens Committee to inquire into remuneration for dental surgeons, and they reported in favour of an income of roughly £1,750 per year net for a 33-hour chairside-week. That report has been implemented as far as the general practitioner is concerned. However, today the school dental officer is employed at a commencing salary of £650 to £750, and very few of them rise to the £1,000 a year level. Even with the tremendous loyalty which these men have to their own type of work, it is only natural that the result is that they have been forced by economic circumstances to go into the much more remunerative private practice.

I know that it is said in some circles —indeed, I have had mothers coming to me in my capacity as a general practitioner and saying this sort of thing—that the school dental officer is not a proper dentist. I have heard people saying, "I do not want to send my child to the school dentist; I want to send him to a proper dentist." The fact is that the school dental service and the dental service for priority classes is a specialised service. The practitioner in dentistry has not the time, patience, experience or ability to treat young children, whereas the school dental officer who has gone into the job because he likes working with children and has specialised in it and has the knack of treating these children, is much more able to do it than is the general practitioner.

At the same time, I think I should take this opportunity to warn school dentists who are discontented that all is not what it seems in private practice dentistry. Dentists just now are making very large incomes, but they are only making those incomes through working not 33 hours a week as recommended by the Spens Report, but an average of 60 and 65 hours a week, and if this goes on for long their health is bound to break down. Therefore, the remuneration is not as great as sometimes seems to be the case.

I would like also to emphasise—indeed, the Minister has recognised this fact with his priority classes—that this branch of dentistry is most vital to the health of the people. The general dental practitioner carrying on work in his own practice is doing what I would call a breakdown or a patching-up service, whereas the school dental officer and the dental officer treating young children and expectant mother cases, is, to a great extent, carrying out preventive dentistry, which is much more important.

Furthermore, if we have an efficient service for the priority classes and for school children, it will ultimately and most definitely take away some of the burden which at present is placed on the shoulders of the great mass of general practitioners in dentistry, and that is what the Government want. Therefore, we must see to it that we get that efficient service as soon as possible. If the drift away from the dental service goes on at its present rate, there will be no service left at all in the very near future. The drift, which has now been accelerated, has been obvious for a very long time.

I raised this matter on the Second Reading of the National Health Act over two years ago; the Government were warned time and time again by the Public Dental Officers Organisations and yet nothing was done about it until July this year, when for the first time the Minister recognised the need for some national machinery whereby these public dental officers should air their grievances. Doctors in the service of the local authorities have the Asquith Committee and national negotiating machinery, but the public dental officers have no such national machinery at all.

However, in July last the Minister of Health offered them a separate functional council within the Whitley machinery, which is envisaged for dental and medical practitioners within the National Health Act. Unfortunately, that offer was not accepted by the public dental officers. In all honesty, I must admit that from July until today the fault has been not with the Minister but with the public dental officers themselves. Without boring the House with details of the matter, I would point out that we have a caucus of an organisation which speaks for the dental profession called the British Dental Association, and the public dental officers, being tied up with this Association, were forced to take that Association's advice.

This organisation—I believe through lack of political insight and because they have been taking a purely party political attitude—has done more disservice to the dental profession during the last six months than anyone would think possible. For instance, they advised dentists to stay outside the National Health Act, and even today while 80 to 90 per cent. of their members are working under the Health Act, they are still advising them to stay out. It is pure lack of political sense. It was with the same lack of political sense that they advised the public dental officers to turn down the Government's offer in July. However, that chapter is finished and I can state this afternoon, after consultation with the leaders of the public dental officers, that if the Minister's offer of July is still open they will be only too pleased to accept it.

This afternoon I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary one or two questions. First, can he tell me whether the offer of a separate functional council for all public dental officers at health centres, schools or hospitals, within the Whitley machinery, is still open. Secondly, if it is found that the local authorities who are responsible for the service are reluctant to sit on the functional council, will the Minister bring his good offices and any influence he may have to bear on the local authorities to persuade them to come in and set up this national machinery? Thirdly, may I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether it will be possible, when this functional council is set up, for the Spens Committee Report to be the basis of any discussion on salaries which takes place within the functional council?

The reason I ask this last question is because in Statutory Instrument 1507 of 1948, which sets out remuneration for dentists employed in health centres, I find there is a range of remuneration as follows: Grade III, commencing at £650 and rising by annual increments of £25 to £900; Grade 11, rising from £900 to £1,500 by increments of £35; and Grade 1, with a commencing salary of £1,400 rising by £50 to £2,000—that is for administrative officers. So far as I can see, it will take a young dental officer, who enters at £650, nine years to reach £900, and then he is not guaranteed that he will enter Grade II. Why was this second grade necessary at all? Why not step a man up from £900 to, say, £1,500 in the one group and as soon as possible, according to his ability, leaving the higher group for administrative workers? If it is to take a man nine years to go from £650 to £900, that is not implementing the Spens Report and that will not get the dentists into the public service.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary can answer these three questions for me. Of course, the Minister of Health has a very definite responsibility in this matter. It is no good putting a Clause in the Health Act saying that while there is a shortage of dentists we will concentrate on providing dental treatment for the priority classes unless we are going to do something to implement what is in that Act. If the Minister wants his Act carried into effect, he must do something, and do it very quickly. The position is becoming worse, not better. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) is here and I do not want to tread on his toes, because he knows more about what is happening in London, for instance, than I do, but I know that some months ago the L.C.C. closed down 10 children's dental clinics and they had a drift away from the service of something like 35 officers.

Perhaps I might quote to the House an experience of my own. The night before last a mother brought her child to me for orthodontic treatment. The general public do not know what that means. It simply means carrying out treatment to bring the teeth into proper alignment so that they occlude together in a natural manner. That is an explanation of a technical subject in very simple English. Now this is a most important branch of dentistry. It is a type of treatment whereby if we can obtain efficient occlusion in the mouth decay in after life is prevented. It affects the posture of the child and in many instances affects the mental health of the child.

This type of treatment can only be carried out between certain limited ages. I do not wish to quote any definite ages, but there are certain limited ages—certainly not much over 14 years of age. This child is 13½. Her mother brought her to me and said she had been on the school waiting list for over a year and had not even been inspected by a dentist. Therefore, she brought the child to a private practitioner who is no expert on the subject at all. The whole school service is breaking down, especially in respect of this orthodontic treatment.

I would also like to raise the question of the long-term policy. I know that childrens' dentistry must be based on the schools. That is the only way we can really get the great mass of the children for dental treatment. At the same time, is there any need for the control of the public dental officer to be under so many authorities? We have the local authorities responsible for the general administration, the Ministry of Education interested through the Education Act and the Ministry of Health interested because of the priority classes. As a matter of fact, when I suggested raising this matter on the Adjournment it was, at first, difficult to find out whether the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Health would be responsible in this House for the public dental officer.

There is no necessity for these three different authorities each to have a finger in the pie. I know that local authorities have done good work so far as organising school dentists is concerned, but if we are to pay dentists an income in relation to the incomes being earned in private practice, I feel that the local authorities will no longer be able to afford to pay for it. At the moment, they receive a a 50 per cent. grant, but I cannot see them providing an efficient service if they have to meet the costs of higher salaries. We all know that in the past the school dental service has suffered because, to a great extent, it has been a charge on the rates rather than on the national Exchequer. While I realise that the Parliamentary Secretary can do nothing very definite today, I should like him to look at this matter.

I think the school dental service should be taken out of the hands of education committees and placed under the health committees. That would, at least, give the Ministry of Health a little more control than they have at the present time. I should like the Minister to say why this is not possible: that while the school dental service should still be based on the schools, the Ministry of Health itself should take over the organisation of the service. At the present time, every local authority has senior dental officers doing a lot of administrative work, whereas with proper organisation on, say, a regional basis, a tremendous amount of administrative work could be cut out and more time given for children to be treated as they should be treated.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to do something this afternoon to help us over this problem. I can assure him that these school dental officers want to stay where they are, treating the children. They realise the importance of the work they are doing and it is greatly to their credit that more have not left the service during recent months. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to do something this afternoon to set the position right and to encourage these men to go on with the very valuable work which they are doing.

I want, in a few words, to stress the very serious plight in which London finds itself owing to the resignation of so many public dental officers. Thirty-three per cent. of the dental officers doing this wonderful preventive work in London have resigned. In London there are 20 centres either wholly or in part without dental officers. Twenty more centres which London was hoping to open—new centres, or centres that have been reconditioned, and which are ready or almost ready for opening—cannot be opened because we cannot get public dental officers to do the work. The reason for this is very simple. It is a question of money.

As has been stressed by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Baird), most of the officers who do this work realise its importance and are very keen on it. But they can get so much more money outside. In London, the pay for dental officers starts at £640 a year. It goes up by £25 a year to £1,005. Only a fortnight ago one of the dental officers of London said he must leave because he had been offered a job as an assistant to a dentist for three days a week at £1,500 a year. That is a net figure, because there is no question of overheads; he is an assistant, and his principal bears the overheads. For the sake of the children of London and other places it is very important that something drastic should be done.

Let me stress, in a way that the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Baird) perhaps felt a little diffident about doing, the real importance of this public dental service. I have spent my life in dealing with troubles in the mouth and throat. Therefore, I have been in close contact with dental surgeons. I should like to stress the real importance of the preventive service in which they are engaged. Most of us go to the dentist when we have toothache, or if we think we may have decay in a tooth.

These dental officers, however, examine the children regularly, and deal at once with anything amiss they find. Not only are the children treated for any such troubles as soon as they start, but the children learn the importance of having their teeth examined regularly, and acquire the habit of going regularly for dental examination, and follow it through- out their lives. That is not the only thing. The dental officers instruct the children in the care of the teeth, not only in the need for cleaning them, but how to clean them and when. As my hon. Friend will agree, many people do not know how to clean their teeth, although they do their best.

Let me stress the importance of orthodontic treatment. Children may have deformities of the upper jaw which, if left uncured, give rise, not always at once, but in later life, to many different troubles in the nose and throat and in the chest. Many people with chronic bronchitis might not have had it if they had been able to have this treatment. It is a complicated treatment; it is a difficult treatment; it is a specialised treatment; and the ordinary dental surgeon does not get much experience in it, because it is carried out only in the case of children, and it is mainly the public dental officers who get the necessary experience in this specialised treatment. Their work is therefore so valuable in preventing a vast number of troubles affecting other parts of the body which occur, or may occur, in later life.

Therefore, I would stress the point that has already been made, that the Government should improve the terms of these public dental officers, so that they do not leave the service, but continue the beneficent work in which they are engaged.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Baird) has called attention to a very serious matter. He has shown his continuous interest in this field of public dental work. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) has drawn attention to the fact that this matter is, perhaps, more acute in London than anywhere else. Undoubtedly there are problems here which require the careful attention of everyone concerned.

The local authority dental services consist of two parts, first the school dental service which is provided by the local education authority under the Education Act, and then the special arrangements for the dental care of mothers and young children under school age made by the local health authorities under the National Health Service Act, 1946. Altogether, I think, there are between 800 and 900 dentists in local authority employment, and most of them are engaged in school dental work. Unfortunately, the service for mothers and young children has not yet developed to the same extent as the school dental service, and there are still relatively few dentists employed by local health authorities solely for the dental care of mothers and young children.

When the National Health Service Act, 1946, was passed, it provided in Section 22 for local health authorities to make arrangements for the dental care of mothers and young children, and it was hoped to give some guarantee to those classes, those for whose care the local health authorities have a particular interest, and it had been hoped that the classes concerned would have obtained treatment not necessarily available to ordinary patients of ordinary dental services. It was certainly the intention that all children should in time be given systematic examination and treatment from infancy to school leaving age, and that expectant and nursing mothers should be given the necessary treatment at the time when dental care is most important.

Because of the aims intended, at any rate, at that time, the local authorities wanted to expand existing services, and I think that most local authorities have been advertising for additional dental officers. Generally speaking, they have met with very little or no response. On the contrary, a number of the existing officers have given up their posts in order to go over to private practice. I am advised that over 30 per cent. have resigned in London, and in the other counties something like six per cent.—36 or so out of 600. I also know that there are some county boroughs that have suffered loss.

This, of course, is a serious problem. Most local authorities hold the view that the priority dental services ought to remain an integral part of the school health and local health services, and I do not think that there are many authorities who really want to divest themselves of this important function, merely because they are faced with a difficult salary problem. My hon. Friend had something to say about transferring functions, if I understood him aright, from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Health, and, I assume, corresponding transfers from the local education authorities to the local health authorities. That is an attractive proposition, but I must reject it. Clearly, I should soon be out of Order were 1 to embark on this, because to affect either of the changes it would be necessary to have legislation introduced.

While the local authorities might have some objection to such transfers, will the views of the dentists themselves, as well as those of the local authorities, be taken into account, if at any time my hon. Friend does consider bringing in such legislation?

Certainly, but I do not want my hon. Friend to think that I am likely to consider it. However, if it were considered, the point of view of those working in the service undoubtedly will be taken into account. I think that it is agreed—in fact my hon. Friend indicated as much—that it is through the intimate association of these services with the schools and clinics that comprehensive and systematic examinations and treatment have been secured, and continue to be secured, on a scale not practicable in any other way.

We all know how large a part persuasion plays into tempting the unwilling patient into the dentist's chair. It is at the clinic that the expectant mother can be persuaded to have her teeth looked at, and encouraged to have the treatment which she needs. I think that it is by retaining full control of their dental services that local authorities can ensure that mothers and children for whose care they are responsible are given the supervision and treatment which they require. I would say, too, that the school dental service has its proper place in the school health organisation, and for both those services the Exchequer bears a substantial part of the cost.

Now I come to the most important point raised today; that is the question of pay. I understand that at the present time negotiations on pay are continuing, and the matter has, I believe, been referred to the Local Government Whitley Committee which deals with the pay of the higher officers.

I think that the position is a little different. What happened was that the local authorities asked the public dental officers to negotiate through one of their national joint councils, a suggestion which the dentists had to turn down completely. That is my information.

That may be so. I think that it is also true that this matter is to be considered by the joint council. I hope that while these negotiations are going on, the public dental officers will carry on with their local authority work. I should like to pay tribute to the loyalty which they have shown—those who have stayed—and I hope that while these negotiations are pending they will do their best to remain in the service to which they have contributed so much.

On all these questions of remuneration of dentists, I hope I shall have complete agreement in saying that we ought to start from the report of the Spens Committee. They made an impartial and careful inquiry into the whole matter, and, in any event, there is nowhere else where we can start. We must start from the Spens Report in all our discussions on dentists' remuneration. I would point out that when the Spens Report had to be translated into financial terms, there were two quite different jobs to be done. The first was to translate what the Spens Committee said into a scale of items of services. That assessment in terms of service on a fee basis was open to considerable possibility of error because, in such an assessment, the question of time—how long it takes a dentist to do a particular job—is important, and we could not be quite sure that we had given proper weight to the question of timing. That is a matter which we can only learn by experience.

As my right hon. Friend has always made clear, he intends to check the timing of the various operations on which the fees of the outside dentists are based. That is one side of the matter. The factor of timing does not arise when we are trying to put the recommendations of the Spens Committee into terms of a salary scale. It was, therefore, in the light of the Spens Report that the Minister formulated the scale for dentists working in health centres. Reference has been made to these scales. They are: Grade I, £1,400 rising by £50 to £2,000; Grade II, £900 rising by £35 to £1,500; Grade III. £650 rising by £25 to £900.

I do not suggest that the right thing to do is to take these scales and apply them as they stand to the public dentists, that is to say, to those employed by local authorities. The solution to the salary question which my hon. Friend has posed is to be found, I believe, by starting from these scales, based, as they are, on the report of an independent body. I do not want to suggest that the scales are necessarily suitable for application as they stand to local authority dental services. Some modification of details may be required. I would point out, in passing, that it was never our intention that the Grade I scale should be used for what I might call administrative officers. We had the Grade I scale in mind for dentists of quite outstanding clinical experience, of which, I think, the number is likely to be few.

Can my hon. Friend say what percentages were envisaged as regards scales I, II and III, because that is very important in implementing the Spens report?

What we had in mind was to have grades of pay appropriate to the various circumstances. I shall be happy to send my hon. Friend complete details of what was intended.

May I press the point with regard to numbers? Were there to be ten per cent. on the No. I scale, 50 per cent. on the No. II scale, and so on? What are the percentages of these various scales because, as my hon. Friend knows, the Spens Committee envisaged that the dentist in the middle of his career would be receiving at pre-war rates about £1,600 a year net?

What guarantee have we that once a dentist gets the highest figure in Grade III, which is £900, he will ever be promoted to the middle grade? What happens to those dentists who have already had ten years in the public dental service: do they go into the middle grade?

I think that I have been misunderstood. The last thing I want to suggest is that local authority dentists should take these scales over as they stand. I say that these rates of remuneration are based on the Spens Committee Report and that is where, I think, the negotiations should start. Having said that, I do not want to embark on a purely hypothetical argument about what would happen to certain local authority dentists if they were put on these scales of pay. Therefore, I cannot even begin to give the percentage figures for which the hon. Member for Barking asked.

On the question of the negotiating machinery, I have taken a personal and fairly detailed interest in the setting up of the new Whitley machine for the health service. It is a matter of great satisfaction to me that we have now established Whitley machinery covering the whole of the health service for every occupational and trade group, with the exception of doctors and dentists. I understand that the doctors have expressed their willingness to come into such an arrangement. I am sorry that the dentists as a whole have so far not felt able to take part in a separate Whitley Council for all dentists. I take advantage of this opportunity to ask them to reconsider that matter, and whether they would not be prepared to make the Whitley system complete and come into a functional council which could be set up for all dentists. If, however, we cannot have a functional council for all dentists, my own view is that, nevertheless, it would still be desirable to have a functional council for salaried officers; by which I mean not only the local authority dentists, but of course the dentists employed in health centres.

This is not a matter on which my right hon. Friend has the last word; his direct interest in it is confined to relatively few of the number; and, as I have already pointed out, the great majority of these people are employed by local authorities. Local authorities are the employers, and how the negotiating machinery should be built up between them and those they employ is something which, in the end, they will have to settle for themselves. But whether it is done in one way or the other, it ought to he done—and it ought to be done without undue delay. I am satisfied that the discussions should start from the Spens Report as put into a scale for our own dental officers. That, I hope. answers the questions put to me. I am grateful to my hon. Friends for raising this matter, and I have gone as far as I can in indicating the line which I think should now be followed.