I wish to raise the question of the responsibility of the Ministry of Food for the Overseas Food Corporation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is the Minister?"] I am very sorry not to see him in his place. I understand that he is unwell. I hope that he will very soon be well again, because the matter that I am raising is a most important one to which he should direct his attention at an early moment. I am a little surprised not to see on the Government Front Bench at the moment anyone who is in any way responsible for the Ministry of Food. It is most extraordinary that no Minister should come to answer a question of this kind. We live in a time when the sphere of State activity is being very much enlarged at the expense of the taxpayers. I am glad that the Lord President of the Council has now come in, because this is a matter of importance, but I am still sorry that no representative of the Ministry of Food is present. It is strange, that, as the sphere of State activity is enlarged at the expense of the taxpayers, the public seem less and less to be allowed to know what is going on. That is very curious, in view of the fact that their money is involved.

In the case of the nationalised industries there are, it is true, consumers' councils. They may be worth very little, but at least they are something. In the case of the Overseas Food Corporation there is nothing of the kind. It is most extraordinary that the Government have had so little to say to the public about this refusal of information about public enterprises. As far as I know, there was nothing about it in "Let us Face the Future." We have heard very little about it from Ministers when introducing the Nationalisation Bills. It has only cropped up after the various Measures have become law.

We found ourselves able in 1944 to put a Question to the Ministry of Transport about children's fares, for example, on the railways. That was done on 4th December, 1944. There was a very similar Question on 14th June this year, when the Minister refused responsibility for the matter. I submit that there is no mandate for this attempt to cover up what the public corporations are doing The country should have been warned of what was in the minds of hon. Gentlemen of the party opposite who are responsible for the increase in State activity.

I wish this morning to put forward three propositions with regard to the Overseas Food Corporation. The first is that the Minister is taking too narrow a view of his responsibilities to Parliament. The second is that he is guilty of inconsistency in the questions that he answers or refuses to answer. The third is that he should be ready to answer for no less power than he exercises, in fact, over such schemes as the groundnuts scheme, and that it is intolerable and contrary to the public interest that he should exercise very much more power than he will admit in this House. Perhaps I may say a word now about the effects of the refusal of the Minister of Food to answer my two Questions the other day and the Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd), concerning the actual yield per acre in the groundnuts unit and the area cleared. The answers would have been a kind of progress report on the scheme to show how it was getting on. What were the grounds of the Minister's refusal. They were that the Question related to matters of detail. Let me quote what the Minister said:

"A particular question as to the acreage to be cleared in one particuar area is a question of very precise detail."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th November, 1948; Vol. 458, c. 1247–8.]

It was not a Question about the acreage in any one area, but about the areas cleared in the Southern Province and the Kongwa area of Tanganyika. As far as I know—and I may be wrong —there were no substantial areas being cleared in any one of the other units such as Tabora or Northern Rhodesia. Under the Overseas Resources Development Act, the responsibilities of the Minster are laid down quite clearly in Clause 9 (1) and (4). Like the Ministers responsible for nationalised industries, he can give general directions to the Corporation and, in addition, he has power to ask for very wide information with which the Corporation has to supply him. There is no doubt that the Minister is in a position to exercise a wide influence over all matters of policy concerning the groundnuts scheme.

I will now come more specifically to the two Questions which the Minister considers matters of detail. I believe they are both very important matters which have a fundamental effect on the whole financial future, and, indeed, the whole future, of the scheme. First of all, with regard to the acreage cleared, when he was speaking to the Rotary Club at Nairobi on his last visit, the Minister of Food admitted that the present acreage cleared was of no commercial significance. If we seek further evidence about this, we can find it in Command Paper No. 7030, in paragraph 31. I should have thought it would be evident that that was the case. For example, the Kongwa target is 170,000 acres, and they are 120,000 acres behind because only some 50,000 acres have been cleared. I cannot see how it can seriously be argued that this is a matter of detail and not a matter of fundamental importance affecting the whole structure of the scheme. If a farmer came to me and said that whether he farmed l0 acres of his land or 1,000 acres was a matter of detail, I should report him to, the county agricultural executive committee immediately.

I now come to the question of the actual yield of groundnuts per acre. There again the Minister is on extremely unsafe ground in refusing to admit that that is a matter of interest to the Minister or of fundamental importance to the scheme. When speaking to the Rotary Club at Nairobi, he admitted fairly clearly that he was interested in the yield and was prepared to take a hand in the questions concerning the yield per acre. He said:

"By jumping to conclusions before full agricultural experiments have been made, it might be possible to get increased yields…So long as I and the present chairman and board of the Overseas Food Corporation have control"—

"control" was the word he used—

"of the scheme, none of this will be done."

In one breath he is admitting that he controls the scheme and can control such important questions as yield, and in the next breath he is saying that that is merely a matter of detail.

I must refer the House to paragraph 22 (a) of Command Paper 7030, in which it is clearly laid down that the scheme is worked out on a basis of the yield per acre. The relevant words are:

"It was considered prudent"—

by the Government—

"to relate the revised estimates to an average yield of 750 lbs. per acre in place of 850 lbs. per acre."

What have been the facts? The facts, which the Minister refused to disclose to me in the House and which I subsequently obtained from the Corporation, are that the actual yield per acre was. 460 lbs. for Valencia, 627 lbs. for Natal Common and 543 lbs. for Spanish Bunch, none of them anywhere near the 750 lbs. set as the target for the scheme, despite the fact that this was virgin land and a great deal of fertiliser had been used upon it.

A further argument about acreage is that the Minister has been inconsistent. I refer the House to a Question which I put to the Minister on 23rd June. The Minister did not decline to answer, but he gave me a reply which said that if he gave the figures, which were not yet complete, it would not be of any great importance, adding that very large numbers of different types of vine were being used. When I put a supplementary question suggesting that only three types of vine were used in the main area, he attempted to squash me by saying that a very considerable number of different types were used. I have just read the figures given by the Overseas Food Corporation itself, and the fact is that only three types were used. It is quite clear that, whatever his responsibilities were, the Minister was not very well informed at that time. It is true that two other types of groundnut are being used but one was used over an area of only 250 acres and the other was used only in the experimental plot.

It is a serious thing with a scheme of this importance when the Minister takes refuge behind these arguments on questions of detail. There is a great deal of public interest in the scheme. Already £12 million have been spent on it, and many millions more will be spent. The figure of £12 million is very large when we compare it with the total Budget of Tanganyika Territory, which is only £5 million a year. These questions therefore assume very much wider significance than might at first be imagined.

One can imagine other matters which might have an important bearing on the future of the scheme. There have been one or two reports in the newspapers in the last few days about very drastic reorganisation of the scheme. Presumably the final decision must rest with the Minister, but no word has come from him. There seems very little likelihood of an early Parliamentary Debate on the question, and it is most unsatisfactory if the Minister will not even answer Parliamentary Questions, especially if it is going to be the case that sunflowers are to be used to a very great extent to replace groundnuts in a way which was recommended by many people when the scheme was begun, and then turned down by the Minister.

I feel that, in this particular case, the refusal of the Minister of Food was quite unjustified. There was no justification for taking refuge behind this argument that it was only a question of detail. Two matters were raised, both of which are of fundamental importance, and might endanger the whole future of the scheme. The Minister of Food has not scrupled to make announcements about this scheme in the most grandiose way, so as to get the maximum amount of publicity for himself, and the only approach to consistency which I can detect from his answers to Parliamentary Questions is that the Minister himself announces the successes and it is left to the Overseas Food Corporation to announce the failures. That is not good enough. Some very good work is being done by the officials of the Food Corporation on the spot, by men like General Harrison, and, if the Minister is to have all the glory, he should be obliged to answer for the difficulties as well.

I feel that the Government have a very serious case to answer on this point of the Minister's refusal to let the public know when things are not going quite right. It is public money that is being spent, and they have no right whatever to quibble and hide behind technical difficulties and what they call questions of detail, but which are fundamental questions affecting the whole future of this very important scheme.

We are indeed grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for finding time on this Adjournment Debate for a discussion of this subject. We realise that the purpose of the Debate is to ask for your consideration of the degree of responsibility which the Minister of Food should accept for giving information at Question time about the operations of the Overseas Food Corporation. I think we have to recognise, whether it is right or wrong, that Ministers do disclaim responsibility for the day-to-day actions, or inaction, of the boards of the nationalised industries.

I wish to submit to you that the Overseas Food Corporation and the Colonial Development Corporation are in a different class. By the Act under which these two Corporations were set up, Parliament took care, under Sections 7 and 8, to insist that the Overseas Food Corporation should have special regard for the interests of local inhabitants and the effect of the Corporations' activities on the circumstances and requirements of the inhabitants. The Corporation is also charged especially with the "safety, health and welfare of persons in their employment." By Section 9 of the Act, the Minister has powers to give the Corporation directions of a general character as to the exercise and performance of their functions in matters that concern the public interest. It is indeed on the Minister that Parliament is relying to see that these provisions are carried out properly. We cannot question the Corporation, but the Minister of Food has declined to answer Questions, not only concerning the day-to-day operations, but also concerning the welfare of the people employed by the Corporations, despite this very special charge placed by the Act on the Overseas Food Corporation.

I would remind you, Sir, that on 1st December the senior Member for Southampton (Mr. Morley) asked the Minister a Question about the wages paid to African workers employed on the groundnuts scheme. The Minister gave no answer, but passed the Question to the Overseas Food Corporation, so that, even if the Corporation have written to the hon. Member for Southampton, nobody but he knows what the answer is. Yet, judging by the rapid turnover of native labour at Kongwa, which is 160 per cent. in six months, there is need for the most searching questioning about the conditions of employment there. Clearly, the Minister of Food was denying the right of Parliament to be assured about the welfare of the men employed by the Overseas Food Corporation.

There is no consistency in the practice, of Ministers, because, on 15th December, I asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies about the terms of service under which Africans are working on the new railway and port in Tanganyika projected for the groundnuts scheme. He gave me an answer, whereas the Minister of Food on an earlier occasion had refused an answer. Indeed, on the Committee stage of the Overseas Resources (Development) Bill, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies gave a most specific assurance that his Department would answer questions about the welfare of the natives. whether employed by the Corporation or by anyone else. I think we must all realise that this divergence of practice between Ministers must be embarrassing to you, Mr. Speaker, in deciding which Questions Ministers will answer and which they will turn down. I submit that, in any matter affecting the safety, health and welfare of persons employed by the Corporation, the Minister should answer Questions publicly and openly in this House.

We have gone into Africa for our own purposes, in an attempt to grow oil crops on a large scale for our consumption here. Obviously, this enterprise must interfere with the lives and interests of the local people, and Parliament must require the fullest information. Parliament is in the position of being a trustee for the peoples of the Colonial Empire, and also the Mandated Territories which we adminster. If we are to exercise this trusteeship, we must have free access to reliable information about what is happening. If, when information on this point is sought, the Question is referred to the Corporation, and individual Members of Parliament instead of Parliament as a whole receive the information, we regard that position as being far from adequate.

I submit that the Minister should be required to answer questions in Parliament on the policy that is being pursued by the Overseas Food Corporation. We have lately seen in the newspapers statements about the cropping programme which show that in the coming season preference is to be given to sunflowers rather than groundnuts. I put a Question to the Minister of Food about this, and he referred me to the Overseas Food Corporation, who now inform me, but not the House of Commons, that it is their intention to grow 45 per cent. of groundnuts and 55 per cent, of sunflowers, and that the total acreage to be cropped at Kongwa will be just under 50,000 acres. This marks a big change from the development programme which the Minister of Food commended to this House. I have refreshed my memory on this point, and, in that plan, the acreage of groundnuts in 1949 was to be 1,230,000. Now, it is to be 24,000. That is surely something much more substantial than day-to-day administration? It is a fundamental change.

My hon. Friend the Member for Western Dorset (Mr. Digby), on the same day, was refused information by the Minister about the crop yields obtained in the last harvest. Now the Corporation have informed him by letter, as he informed the House, what those crop yields were and it seems that, instead of an average yield of 750 lbs. of decorticated groundnuts to the acre, we should be prudent if we reckoned average yields of 500 lbs. per acre. A reduction of one-third in the yield must alter the whole financial assessment of the scheme, and Parliament is entitled to know from the Minister what will be the additional financial commitment due to unforeseen delays in reaching any substantial output and the altered aspect of the balance sheet since the Minister presented the prospectus to Parliament. All we know is that the Minister has called for a report from the Overseas Food Corporation which he expects to receive in the middle of January. Will he be more forthcoming then? Not if we are to judge by his recent performance at Question Time.

Even if we assume that the independence of the Overseas Food Corporation from Ministerial control and responsibility is to be as great as that of the boards under the nationalised industries, I submit that proper information should be given by Ministers about any departure from settled policy—not matters of day-to-day administration, but settled policy. For instance, if the Central Electricity Board, worried about the lack of generating plant, decided they must go into the business of providing carbide lamps for householders, we in Parliament should rightly expect to hear about that from the Minister of Fuel and Power and not have to wait for someone to detect the smell.

It is true that Ministers, such as the Minister of Civil Aviation, who are responsible for corporations which are getting badly into debt, give more full information. We know, in fact, that the Overseas Food Corporation have power to borrow up to £50 million from the Ministry of Food, and can make further borrowings with the consent of the Treasury. But, are we to wait for the Overseas Food Corporation to get as badly "into the red" as the Airways Corporation, before the Minister is prepared to share his knowledge with Parliament? Ultimately, of course, we shall have an annual report of the Overseas Food Corporation showing how they have exercised their functions in the past year and the Minister is required to lay a copy of this report before Parliament; but is the Minister to wait until then to give us an account of their activities?

This annual report is to be made as soon as possible after the end of each financial year. Assuming that means March, knowing the time it takes to present reports to this House, it may possibly be next October, or November, before that report is presented. If the position calls for a Debate on a Supply Day, we may be told that it is too late to complain or to criticise any change in policy 12 months after the event and that it is no use making any alternative suggestions.

I put this point to the Lord President of the Council. It is in the interests of the success of this scheme in Tanganyika, and of the new pig-raising scheme in Queensland, which the Overseas Food Corporation are now undertaking, that the Minister of Food should keep the House fully informed on substantial points of policy, and should do that at Question Time. Opportunities for Debate are necessarily limited, but that is no good reason for drawing a veil of official secrecy over these schemes, which are being conducted many thousands of miles away from Westminster and away from the public eye, but at the public expense.

We all want the schemes to be a success and, if we are fully informed, we may be able to help the Minister and the Corporation to overcome the difficulties which are already apparent. These difficulties, exaggerated by gossip to the point where the spirit of the men on the spot is seriously affected, might cause them to lose heart, which may wreck the best of schemes, and we do not want that to happen. I urge that it is in the public interest that the Minister of Food should undertake the responsibility, at Question Time, of keeping the House fully informed of all points which affect the welfare of those employed by the Overseas Food Corporation and also on all major points affecting the policy which is being adopted to carry out the intentions of Parliament.

After listening to two hon. Members opposite dealing with the details of Questions they have put to Ministers in connection with the Colonial Development Corporation and the Overseas Food Corporation, and after considering the matter apart from those details, we are faced with the problem of the responsibility of the Ministers concerned to Parliament and the right of Members of Parliament to obtain such information as is possible in connection with things done in their name and by their authority. It is with some diffidence that I speak of what I regard as the principle underlying this Debate, it is such a controversial matter and one on which there is so much divergence of opinion, not only in this House and in the trade union movement, but in the minds of public bodies. It is a subject which, I understand, Mr. Speaker, you have been forced to consider, and upon which you will be giving a Ruling in due course. While you are preparing a Ruling, I wish humbly to submit a few words on the subject.

I am hesitant, not so much because I have not my own views on the subject—for I have quite a number of ideas of my own—but because I find great difficulty in reconciling requirements of opposites. On the other hand, I believe firmly that it is the essence of democratic government that the authority of Parliament should be supreme and unchallenged and that no body, whether a public corporation or any other body, should be allowed in any form to usurp that supreme authority of this House and of Parliament. I am also satisfied that it is the right and responsibility of Members of Parliament to exercise the greatest possible degree of vigilance to ensure that that authority is maintained, and that hon. Members are given as much information as is possible.

That is one view. Some people claim that sometimes extreme vigilance or, as they put it, extreme intolerance on the part of Parliament and of hon. Members can be pushed to a point where it becomes a serious handicap to progress and development. I have been connected with the Post Office for many years. On one or two occasions I have found that Questions put in this House have been an embarrassment at a time when we could well do without any embarrassment from the point of view of the development and welfare of a Government Department.

The more I study this problem—and I have tried to study it against the background of negotiation work which I have done in the past—the more I am inclined to the point of view so often expressed by the Lord President of the Council, that there is no easy solution to this problem and that there is no ready made formula which we can apply to all public bodies, irrespective of their purpose, and irrespective of the conditions under which they are called upon to function. I am afraid that I have come to the conclusion that solutions can only emerge from practice and from working experience of these various schemes, and will only be found along the tortuous road of trial and error.

Having said that on the broad principle, I should like to say a word or two on the relationship between Parliament and these two Corporations to which references have already been made in considering that relationship, there are three very important factors which I have to keep in mind. The first is the magnitude of the task which Parliament has imposed upon these two Corporations. This is the first large-scale effort made by any Government in this country to develop our large and varied Colonial territories, not only in the interest of the inhabitants of those large territories but also in the interest of the world and Commonwealth trade.

It seems to me, therefore, that in the way in which we in this House conduct the business of these Corporations we cannot entirely disregard the magnitude of their task and what is expected of them. Secondly, I think it is true to say that this House has impressed upon both these Corporations the need for a measure or speed and enterprise—and I use that much maligned word "enterprise" in its proper sense—having regard to the serious position of the inhabitants of these scattered territories and the seriousness of the requirements of the world and the Commonwealth.

The third point to which we must pay some regard is this: not only have these Corporations to carry out their tasks with speed and urgency, but they have to carry them out in circumstances and conditions of unusual difficulty. There are transport and communication difficulties. They have to deal with the primitive conditions of men and women, and have to try to work out something with very raw, unskilled and untrained materials. When we consider our relationship with these Corporations, those factors have to be kept in mind, and the point that emerges in my mind immediately is that these Corporations deserve, in the first place, considerable good will and sympathy from Parliament and Members of this House.

If I may say so with respect, Mr. Speaker, I think they are also entitled to a measure of restraint and tolerance in the running-in period—that is, in the first two or three years of the scheme. It will be a big blunder on the part of this House if by the action and speeches of hon. Members in Debates we unfortunately convey the impression to the people in charge of the work of the Corporations that out of sheer impatience and sometimes from unhealthy curiosity, every step which they are taking is suspect in the minds of Members of Parliament and that every single incident is magnified out of all proportion to its importance or to its place in the general scheme of things. If they get that impression, it will lead to the officials of the Corporations proceeding clumsily with tantalising caution—caution which I have noticed many times, which often seriously delays progress and cramps initiative and drive in many big schemes.

I have no doubt that these Corporations, like many—in fact, like most—major concerns, will make mistakes from time to time. I have no doubt whatever that there will be some miscalculations similar to those which have been referred to already by hon. Members opposite. I do not doubt for a moment that there may be errors of judgment on the part of officials from time to time. I hope, however, that they will be few and far between, and that they will not be too serious in their consequences. It would be unwise, unreasonable and unfair for us to concentrate on those mistakes without having an opportunity of seeing the development as a whole and examining the broad canvas of progress. Those errors therefore, should not be taken in isolation, but should be related faithfully and reasonably to the picture as a whole.

In particular, we in this House should be guarded in our criticism and craving for more information, particularly in connection with the commercial operations of these Corporations. If they are to have a fair chance to carry out their commercial operations they are entitled to the same measure of privacy and secrecy which is usually enjoyed by private concerns. Often enough hon. Members opposite who are closely connected with industrial concerns in a private way ask that the Corporations overseas should disclose information in a way which is not generally done in industry generally.

I remember when I was in the Post Office many years ago as a secretary of the staff side, I used to complain very bitterly that the head postmaster did not tell us beforehand where the sites of certain post offices were going to be or what buildings they were going to procure. We were only informed after the thing had become an accomplished fact, and I used to complain very bitterly until one day a colleague of mine, who was serving on local government, opened my eyes to one or two very important factors. One was how easy it was for prices to be inflated and for conditions of sale to be hardened when it became known that a Government department was interested in any particular property or premises.

I know that these Corporations will have to buy a lot of land and produce certain commodities, some in large quantities and some in small. They will have to construct engineering works and so on, and develop transport systems. They will have to enter into the field of international finances and they will have to sublet a part of their work to private contractors. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be suicidal for this House to demand in those cases that the intentions and the purposes of the Corporations should be prematurely disclosed to rivals and competitors not only in those countries themselves but in other countries, before the Corporations are in a position to clinch a deal.

I am afraid I have no time to deal with other aspects, because I understand that there is a time limit in this Debate. In conclusion, therefore, I want to say that it is not unreasonable that points of administrative detail should be left with the Corporations. They will be responsible to the Minister for their actions, and these matters can be the subject of discussion and debate when the annual report of the Corporations comes before this House. I feel that all matters of major policy and matters of vital interest to the communities overseas and to this and other nations in the Commonwealth are well safeguarded by the provisions of the Act of 1948. We should, therefore, leave all details of day-to-day administration in the very capable hands of the Corporations now responsible for the work.

As the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. W. R. Williams) said in the course of his remarks, you were good enough to intimate, Sir, a week or two ago, that it might be helpful if we had a short Debate on this subject, and this is the opportunity given to us on the Christmas Recess. I think it is important that we should have contributions to the Debate from all sides of the House, if possible, because, as many hon. Members have said, on the larger aspect of this question, we are in the stage of trial and error.

I believe the Lord President of the Council has an open mind on the progress of these various schemes as they affect the House of Commons and Parliamentary control. On 24th November the Minister of Food referred a Question on acreage, asked by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd), to the Corporation. I thought that was very nearly a Question on policy and I could not see the difference between it and asking the Government to make a statement on the progress of the scheme. I felt some surprise that we were to receive our interim communiques on the scheme which has been called "Operation Groundnuts" from the Corporation and not from the right hon. Gentleman himself. I felt some surprise, because when the Minister of Food introduced this Measure last year he spoke for an hour to whet the appetites of hon. Members about the great schemes which would emanate from this operation and he specially appealed for national unity, for unity from all sides of the House and for continuous, constructive criticism of the schemes flowing from the Act.

Where, as in this case, £50 million of the taxpayers' money might be involved, where the welfare of large overseas territories in which hon. Members are rightly interested are affected, where we have a great scheme which will very seriously and considerably influence the future bulk food supplies for this country, and above all where we have this vital problem in nationalised industries of which authority is to determine the safeguarding of the public interest; where there are considerations of this sort affecting a State initiated and subsidised monopoly scheme, I believe we shall find in the end that the Lord President will come to the view, as will Parliament, after this period of trial and error, that it is absolutely essential, if we are to retain political and industrial democracy as against the tendency towards the type of Fascist industrial corporations or the newer conception of the totalitarian closed shop, that the national interest can only be secured by effective Parliamentary control.

I believe that the Lord President holds very much the same opinion as that which the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth expressed in his speech, and the hon. Member speaks with considerable experience. He feels that it would be difficult to find suitable directors, or whatever they may be termed, to undertake the responsibility of developing these large Corporations if there is to be too close a control and too much questioning from the Floor of the House of Commons in the early stages of the scheme. As I say, we are in a period of trial and error with these Corporations, but I feel the Lord President may be giving too much importance to the aspect I have just described. I believe the chairman of this Corporation, and for that matter the chairman of any of these public corporations, are not just ordinary directors, despite the fact that the hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth drew that comparison in his speech. They are not just ordinary directors in a private enterprise concern. They are the chairmen and directors of public corporations in what has become a hybrid economy in this country, and that is an entirely different conception.

Of course the right hon. Gentleman may have to find entirely different types of directors to carry out these important public duties. But I think he may be placing too much emphasis on the difficulties of finding these men as against the necessity for Parliamentary control and detailed criticism by question and answer in this House. It was very carefully stated that it was the Corporation which was to give the answer to these questions and not the chairman. I cannot see how Parliament can get the proper information and control by dealing with officials of a Corporation. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd) has pointed out the interest of hon. Members in the development of overseas territories and their interest in the production of food, and I cannot see why our proper information on these questions should come from anyone except the Minister concerned.

I think it is a platitude to say that during the first five years in the development of these Corporations there will be times when it will be extremely difficult to differentiate between what is administration and what is principle. For instance, the scheme may suddenly be completely jeopardised from a cause which was not anticipated when the right hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill. I think it is too long for us to wait for an annual report. In a period of experiment, I believe it is essential that Members of Parliament should have a very close continuous interest in the scheme and should not have to wait until the annual report, which, in any case, might provide only a limited Debate in which it might be difficult for hon. Members to speak and to make their points on questions of policy. There will be a great deal of confusion, for instance, if we can put Questions to Ministers on aviation but not to the Minister of Food on bulldozers.

I think the Government will have a great deal of trouble if they attempt to draw a definite line and to tell the Minister he has the right to determine this question and to say, "My Ministry can answer this question," but that another Question has to be ruled out on instructions at the Table. If we are to feel our way, I submit that the determining factor must be where the taxpayer and the Treasury have responsibilities. Where the taxpayers' interests are concerned, then I think in the early years of all these nationalised schemes it is better for the Minister to err on the side of devoting too much of his time, even if it is only in the way of written answers, to Questions of administration which may not be Questions on policy.

It may be that the Parliamentary machine is not fitted to accept its full democratic responsibilities in our hybrid economy on the nationalised concerns. It may even be that after the period of experiment we shall find we are not able to give effective Parliamentary control ministerially or in criticisms of these nationalised industries. It may be that the Public Accounts Committee or some other similar committee will have to undertake wider responsibilities and will have to be given opportunities for examining closely the progress, the administration, the finance and the accounts of these industries. That is all in the future, however, and we have to proceed by stages. You are to give your Ruling upon this at a later stage, Mr. Speaker, but I hope the Lord President will not try to draw too firm a line on this and that certainly, in a scheme of this sort where the taxpayer and the Treasury are concerned, he will make arrangements that the Ministers are to give hon. Members the fullest information possible, both on administration and on policy

This has been a useful and a good-tempered discussion which, I think, will be of value to you, Mr. Speaker, in considering the complex matters of Order which arise for your consideration in connection with the new public Corporations. I hope that the contribution that I am to make will also be of assistance to you, Sir, in that regard. I ought to say straight away that the Minister of Food wished me to express his regrets to the House that he was not able to be here this morning. He has a slight indisposition, which has confined him to his bed. Otherwise he would certainly have been in attendance at the House.

What about the Parliamentary Secretary?

She is engaged in a Cabinet Committee. In any case, I was about to say that I do not propose to go into the more extended references to matters of national policy in the operations of these Corporations. Obviously, that is not my particular business. I understood that this morning we were to discuss the eligibility of Parliamentary Questions and the procedural matters connected therewith. Therefore, any questions about the actual operations of these Corporations can no doubt be covered on some other occasion. The hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Digby), who opened the Debate, said that Ministers should answer for no less power than they exercise. I do not think there is much difference between us on that point. I have always held that Ministers must be answerable for what they do, and for what they have power by law to do, even if they do not do it; and I think that over these two points the House is within its rights in claiming Parliamentary accountability for such matters.

On the acreage point which the hon. Gentleman raised, I think that the issue is that the hon. Gentleman is anxious that there shall be the possibility of fairly frequently repeated Questions on, so to speak, the state of the poll at a given moment; whereas the Minister of Food took the view that, whilst he was prepared to report a comprehensive review to Parliament, he ought not to be questioned about these matters on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, the Minister's view is shown by the answer he gave, on 24th November, to a Question by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd), to which reference has been made. The hon. Gentleman asked the Minister of Food:

"When he intends to publish a further report on the East African Groundnut Scheme; and what acreages of groundnuts and other crops the Overseas Food Corporation expect to grow in Tanganyika for the 1949 harvest."

The Minister replied:

"I intend to make a report on the scheme as soon as convenient after the Overseas Food Corporation have completed the review on which they are at present engaged. As to the second half of the Question, I have passed the hon. Member's inquiry to the Corporation, with whom the responsibility for providing such information rests, and they will, I understand, communicate with him direct."—[OFFICIAL REPORT: 24th November, 1948; Vol. 458, c. 1246.]

I think that that is legitimate. It makes the distinction between a Ministerial statement on a comprehensive review—which the Minister will do, as I understand, soon after we return—and a specific, ad hoc Question of a current character, which he feels should be dealt with by the corporation itself. That has some bearing on the point made by the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) about the relationship between Members of Parliament and the Corporations. It could be the rule, of course, that all inquiries from Members of Parliament, whether by Question or by letter, should be sent to the Minister and to the Minister only. But I think that would be inconvenient, and from the Parliamentary point of view bad. When it comes to broad issues of principle and policy, it may well be that the Minister can deal with such correspondence—that is to say, with such questions as come within the sphere of his Ministerial responsibility. I shall return to this point later in the course of my observations.

On the other hand, I think it would be a pity if Members of Parliament were cut off from all communication with these Corporations. I think hon. Members would feel they were not being treated courteously, if the Corporations said they would not answer hon. Members' letters and that they must be sent through the Minister. I would refer, for example, to the experience that we have had and that I also have had as a Private Member with the London Passenger Transport Board—now the London Transport Executive—a body with the establishment of which I personally had something to do, though it was finished by another Government. I think that hon. Members will agree that they get good attention and considerable courtesy from London Transport in matters of this sort, and I think that it is good that that should be so.

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point, I should like to refer again to the Question asked by the hon. Member for Newbury on 24th November. The second half of the Question was about acreages of groundnuts and other crops that the Corporation expected to grow. As I see it, that was a Question asking for a progress report on crops. Who is to determine which is policy and which is administration in a question of that kind?

I cannot be sure, but I should have thought that a progress report would be made on the publication of the review. That seems to me to be the proper way to make it and the right thing to do.

After the annual report?

It will be either with the annual report or incidental to it. This review is, I understand, to be forthcoming about the middle of January, as the hon. Gentleman said. That will be made in order that the Minister can make the statement. I am referring to the answer the Minister has already given to the hon. Member for Newbury. That seems to me to be the right way to do it, and not by ad hoc Questions every other week, especially at this developing stage. It must be remembered that we are still in an early stage in this matter. The Minister, at any rate has to look after himself, because what he says in the House today may well be flung back at him in three months—perfectly legitimately: I am not complaining about it at all. But if Ministers are a little careful in answering Questions I do not think complaint ought to he made. That is a different matter.

In June of last year I asked the Minister of Food for a progress report and my question was replied to by the Parliamentary Secretary, who gave me, so to speak, a short resumé of progress long before the annual report was received.

Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that there tends to be a tremendous time lag before the reports are published? For instance, the information of acreage referred to the acreage 15 months before. That is not very satisfactory. What we want to know is the up-to-date progress.

This statement on the review will be distinct from the annual report, and I do not know how far it will be up to date.

They never are.

As to the review, possibly it cannot be entirely up to date, but more up to date than the annual report would be at the time of its publication. The annual report can only be published as soon as may be. The House did, in fact, stipulate, when the Act was passed, that the report should be published as soon as may be. I do not see what can be done about that. That must be so. The corporations get it out as soon as they can. In any case, it is quite a new thing in these great industrial enterprises. It is a great advantage that these comprehensive and fairly detailed reports are made annually on these great enterprises—reports which formerly were not made at all. Formerly, there was a statement by the chairman of an undertaking and the balance sheet.

Both Parliament and the country are to know much more about these great undertakings. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are financed out of public money."] The hon. Member is not necessarily right in saying they are financed out of public funds. They are supposed to pay their way over a period, and we hope they will. It is right, of course, that they should make comprehensive reports, but do not let the House under-estimate the great change. If we take, for example, some of the private monopolies which existed, the public has been told little about them. In the annual speech, the chairman told them very little. They are now going to know an awful lot and get comprehensive Debates in Parliament about them—

rose—

—I do not think that we had better proceed by way of examination and cross-examination, beause I have to get on.

The hon. Member for Newbury said that the Minister should answer for changes in settled policy. I will not answer that straight off, because I shall be making a considered statement later on. It is easier to put it in the way in which the hon. Member puts it, than to give a specific answer as to whether that can be complied with or not, because "changes of settled policy" is a phrase which is not easy to interpret in practice. The hon. Member for Heston and Isleworth (Mr. W. R. Williams) made a useful contribution to the discussion. He said, quite frankly, and it was also almost said by the hon. Member for Eye, that there is a conflict here between the understandable desire of the House to have the fullest information when it wants it day by day, and, on the other hand, the need to restrain itself in taking a course which might well upset the efficiency and business enterprise of these great undertakings. That is a dilemma in which all of us are involved, both Government and private Members, and we can only solve it as we go along.

I will say some words on the general issue at the end of my other observations. I do not dissent from my hon. Friend's view that there has to be a period of trial and error in these matters. I cordially agree with him that we particularly need tolerance, especially during this period of running-in, and I should like to utter a word of sympathy with the business men who are running these undertakings. Most of them are unaccustomed to political life and have been accustomed to running private undertakings, where they were sheltered from the blast of Parliamentary statements and the sometimes rather severe and disputable comments hon. Members make across the Floor of the House about each other and about Ministers.

It would be a pity if these gentlemen were to be unnerved.—[Laughter.]—That is perfectly true. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, after all, know these business men as well as we do, and many of them are their political friends. They are not used to that sort of thing, and if we suddenly plunge them into the middle of the Floor of the House and knock them about, we may well retard their business efficiency. It is one of the marvels that civil servants have survived the steady blasts from some Parliamentarians and some ex-Ministers, who have done very well with the advice that civil servants have given them. If hon. Members opposite, who are accustomed to the psychology and characteristics of these business men, cannot understand that, I can only say that I am exceedingly sorry. Some day, of course, these Corporations will perhaps be evolving out of the active political arena.

I would remind the House that, before the war, there were three public Corporations with Conservative Governments, or something like Conservative Governments, in office—the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Central Electricity Board and the London Passenger Transport Board—if not others as well. I do not remember that all this trouble arose then and that all this sharp-shooting took place from either side of the House. There was an understanding that these bodies had a job to do and that, on the whole, it was desirable that they should not be subject to meticulous political interference or sharp-shooting. That was, indeed, accepted by both sides of the House and loudly asserted by hon. Members on the other side of the House.

We have given very careful consideration to the position of the Overseas Food Corporation and the Colonial Development Corporation which were set up under the Act of 1948. The House will forgive me if, from now on, I keep closely to my notes, because this is a considered statement which, I hope, will be of assistance to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House, and which, no doubt, will be referred to on future occasions. If the House will be good enough to let me get through this without interruption, it will he helpful, because we shall then have it on the record.

The provisions of the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948, which bear upon the relationship between the Ministers and the Overseas Food Corporation and the Colonial Development Corporation, are modelled upon those in the other socialisation statutes, and it was contemplated that, like their domestic counterparts, the Corporations should be left free in matters of day-to-day administration. In general, therefore, the same principles apply to Questions about the Corporations as in the case of the other socialised industries. They are not, however, entirely on all fours, because they are operating not in this country but in Colonial territories. This introduces a new element into the situation, if only because there will be matters relevant to the Corporations, for which the Government of the territory will have responsibilities and for which the Colonial Secretary may be answerable to Parliament on the same footing as for other acts of Colonial Governments.

Attention should also be drawn to the provisions of Sections 7 and 8 of the Act. Section 7 requires that, in determining their policy as to the activities to be carried on by them in any territory and the manner in which they are to be carried on, and as to assisting and participating in the carrying on by others of activities in any territory, the Corporations shall have particular regard to the interests of the inhabitants of the territory. They must not establish a new undertaking, until such measures for consultation with the Government of the territory as appear to the responsible Minister to be practicable have been taken. Section 8 provides that the Corporation shall take all practicable steps to secure the safety, health and welfare of persons in their employment, or in the employment of others, in activities carried on with the assistance of the Corporation or in association with them. That places the primary responsibility on the Corporation, but Subsection (2) provides for consultation with the Colonial Government concerned in the performance of this duty and in dealing with matters affecting terms or conditions of employment.

Under Section 7 the Minister of Food has the responsibility of deciding whether there is proper consultation between the Overseas Food Corporation and the Colonial Government in the interests of the inhabitants, before a new undertaking is established. Apart altogether from the precise terms of the Act, however, the Colonial Secretary made it clear, when the Bill was before Parliament, that the Government intended to take a positive interest in this matter. Thus, on the Third Reading on 20th January, 1948, in col. 134 of HANSARD, he said that, so far as Colonial territories were concerned, it would be the duty and responsibility of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to see that, whether it was the Colonial Development Corporation or the Overseas Food Corporation which was functioning in these territories, reasonable and proper standards were maintained, and that their activities fitted in with the general economic plan of development of the territory concerned. It will be his special responsibility to see that reasonable standards are maintained, and, also, that the Corporation functions in consultation with the local government and the people involved.

Now it will be primarily the duty of the Colonial Governments to ensure that the Corporations are providing adequate standards of social welfare, wages and conditions of labour. The Corporation will, of course, be subject to all the normal legislation of the Colony on these matters, as are other economic undertakings in private enterprise. Beyond that, as a public organisation, it will be expected to be a model employer in these respects.

Both the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Food are in close contact with the respective Corporations on these as well as on other matters. Apart from day to day contacts, there are regular meetings between the Departments and the Corporations, at which the Government's point of view can be explained. In fact, however, both the Corporations are fully alive to their responsibilities to their employees and to Colonial peoples. There is every reason, therefore, for thinking that the Corporations will carry out their obligations to their employees and to the inhabitants of the territories in which they are operating. But should the responsible Minister be satisfied that either was not doing so, the matter is one on which he would be prepared to exercise his power of issuing a direction under Section 9 (1) of the Act.

Having stated the general principles as we can see them, I now come more closely to the matter of Parliamentary Questions relating to these two Corporations. As we see the situation, it is that, broadly speaking—subject to the Ruling which you, Mr. Speaker, will give in due course—the Questions in connection with these Corporations which the Ministers concerned would feel it right to answer fall into the following categories—and the House will see that these categories are pretty considerable and pretty wide.

First, Questions relating to the discharge of their specific statutory obligations under the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948. Examples are: the powers relating to the appointment, tenure and vacation of office of members of the Corporations; advances to and borrowings by the Corporations; and provisions as regards the accounts and audit.

Secondly, Questions arising from the provisions of Sections 7 and 8 relating to consultation with Colonial Governments and the consultation of local interests on the safety, health and welfare of employees, and from the general responsibility which the Government assume for seeing that the interests of employees in Colonial territories are safeguarded by the maintenance of reasonable standards. This does not, of course, mean that the Government contemplate interference in the detailed administration of these matters, and that they would, for example, regard it as the responsibility of Ministers to answer Questions about individual complaints, or the detailed arrangements of a particular project. The circumstances will vary so much that no hard and fast rule can be laid down. Ministers and Members alike will have to be guided by experience, until a body of practice has emerged for the guidance of both.

Thirdly, Questions to the Colonial Secretary relating to the discharge by Colonial Governments of their general responsibilities which may bear upon the activities of the Corporations.

Fourthly, subject to the discretion of Ministers to decline to reply, Questions asking for statements on matters of "public importance" allowed by Mr. Speaker under his Ruling.

Now, as with the socialised industries, the Corporations will also be accountable to Parliament and the public through their responsibility to their Minister, and through him to Parliament; and by virtue of the statutory obligation to publish annual accounts and an annual report which must be laid before Parliament, and which will no doubt from time to time be the subject of debates. It is also the view of the Ministers, which is shared by the Corporations, that proper publicity should be given to their work. While the Corporations cannot be expected, as business undertakings, to publish all their commercial negotiations, or to provide information which would lead to speculation on the Stock Exchange and the commodity and other markets, they fully accept the desirability of keeping the Press and the public informed about the broader aspects of their work.

These arrangements should, in our opinion, ensure that Parliament and the public are properly informed about the activities of the two Corporations. Indeed, so far as information, pure and simple, is concerned, they will be supplied with a great deal more information than could possibly be made public through the medium of Parliamentary Questions of an unrestricted character. The Government attach importance to the principle, which the House has endorsed, of leaving the public Corporations free in matters of day to day administration. But they have always taken the view that undue rigidity was to be avoided, especially in a novel area of public administration like this.

In general, the Government are sure that, as regards answers to Parliamentary Questions, the only sensible working rule is that Ministers should answer where they assume responsibility, and not, save in the exceptional circumstances contemplated by Mr. Speaker's Ruling, on matters of "public importance," where the responsibility has been left to the Corporation. If the House thinks that Ministers should assume wider responsibilities, it has other methods of bringing this home to them.

That is the general view of His Majesty's Government on this matter, at any rate at the present time. It may be that, as time goes on, modifications, one way or the other, may be made in all our minds. But I do wish to put this in conclusion to the House on the general issue involved, both of the overseas Corporations and of the great Corporations at home. Hon. Members took it a little humorously, but I want to repeat the point that we had to decide, and Parliament had to decide—as to whether these great undertakings should be run on Civil Service lines, on State Department lines, or not.

Now this temperamental point is a real one. If the people responsible, not only at the top, but also at the lower levels of the boards, get into the frame of mind where they feel that on every action they take—day by day as well as on great issues of policy—they are liable to be shot at by Parliamentary Questions and severely criticised—and, as we all know, we can all make caustic observations in this House from time to time—I beg of the House to consider what the psychological effect on these people will be. I beg of the House to consider what the psychological effect on any private undertaking would be if they were subject to detailed Parliamentary Questions here, and could be subjected to the acidities of Parliamentary Debate, and, if I may say so, from time to time, sheer misrepresentation. I am not making a party point on that, because I dare say all of us are guilty of that from time to time, at any rate at one another's expense—and sometimes at the expense of outside people.

If those people get in that position, then inevitably in the course of a short time they will develop a complete Civil Service mentality. I am not saying that critically of civil servants. The Minister is responsible for everything that happens in his Department; he is responsible for everything his civil servant does; and it does make a difference in the running of State Departments. They are bound to be a bit slower, and the element of red tape comes in. We wanted these Corporations to be businesslike and quick, and the element of red tape reduced to the minimum. But if day by day these gentlemen, not only at the top but in the reaches lower down, are to be looking over their shoulders and thinking, "Will Parliament make a row about this? Will there be a Parliamentary Question about this?"—if I may say so with respect, that would be the worst way in which to run the undertakings.

There is this other point which must be kept in mind. The House did take the view—and I thought the Opposition were particularly keen about it—that these great undertakings ought not to be subject to meticulous political Ministerial interference. I thought that was so. If that was not the view, then the proper course would be to make them straight Departmental administrative bodies, like the General Post Office. There are arguments for that. But if we hand these over to public Corporations on the basis that we want a good balance and a good combination between the principles of public ownership, the principle of public accountability and the principle of efficient, progressive and lively business management, then, if I may say so with respect, the House must take the consequences of that decision, which means that we have to be forbearing in expecting meticulous day to day accountability by Parliamentary Questions in the House.

I hope the House will agree that I have tried to be as forthcoming as I can about these overseas undertakings. I recognise that they are in a somewhat different category, but if the House follows the counsel and advice I have ventured to give, and if Mr. Speaker thinks it is wise, it will be found that there is a wide field over which inquiries can be made. Periodical debates will be welcome—to no one more than to my- self, the Colonial Secretary and the Minister of Food—because debates can range much wider than is possible with Parliamentary Questions. I hope the statement I have made will be of some assistance to the House.

My right hon. Friend has just made a most important, interesting and valuable statement, but does he not agree that the time for this Debate has been all too short? As there are several Members who would like to make contributions on the subject, will he consider giving a further opportunity in the New Year to discuss the matter in view of the statement he has made?

I always find this a very fascinating subject, although I do not know how many more speeches I can make without repeating myself. I know that there are some Members who would like to be heard upon the matter, and perhaps it will be possible, if we can arrange it with the Opposition, to have a debate, but that can be considered through the usual channels.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider having a Debate in the New Year. Owing to the short time available, I cannot possibly answer his very long and interesting statement but can only make one or two comments. We all realise that this is really only a glorified point of Order that we have been discussing for over an hour—that was how the matter first arose. This matter is all the more important as it concerns not only this Parliament. As I see it, if we are to start operations in different parts of the Empire, then the local legislatures will also be faced with a similar question, and the Parliament of Queensland and the Legislative Councils in the Colonies May all be guided by your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. There is also a further complication in operating in Trustee Territories, in regard to which matters have to be submitted to the Trusteeship Council. As far as I can make out, the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations can ask any question it likes and has to be given the answer. We are really in a very awkward position.

A pretty awful outlook.

The outlook is bound to be awful while the present Government are in office, but I do not want to go into that at the moment. We have to bear in mind this aspect, and the fact that the local legislatures may be in a position to get more information than ourselves. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to end up his statement by saying that we are handing these various industries over to public bodies, and that we are handing over this and that; but in this case we are handing over nothing at all. It is a new entity, and the only thing that is being taken over is a lot of bush, and we are trying to make it grow something. Therefore, this argument about nationalisation in this country seems to have no relevance at all.

So long as this Parliament is responsible for some of the subjects which come within the purview of these new Corporations, we cannot relax our authority. We are responsible for the Colonial peoples, which is one of the prime responsibilities of the House, apart from Defence. That is recognised in the Act itself. If the Corporations impinge on the health, happiness, safety and welfare of the Colonial peoples, we cannot be forced to divest ourselves of the right to cross-examine. We are responsible in this House for great sections of the Colonial Civil Service. There may well be questions about remuneration and countless other things concerning the lower grades of the Corporations that may have their effect on the Colonial Civil Service. None of us wants to cross-examine the Corporations or the Minister about tiny topics; de minimis is the rule here as elsewhere in life. There are matters so small although they are of importance to the individual, that they cannot always have the consideration of this House.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke of bodies which existed before the war, but of course the Overseas Airways Corporation functions in this country; one does not have to ask questions because one can go and see for oneself—it is possible to get information, I do not mean deliberate leakages—on the general layout, and all that goes on is well-known. But now we are dealing with affairs thousands of miles away, and in the nature of things only a few Members can go there to see for themselves. I hope, therefore, that it will be possible to be lenient in regard to the questions to be put to Ministers. If Ministers do not choose to answer them, that is another matter, but they should appear on the Order Paper.

This point of Order has arisen out of the two Questions asked on 24th November, the first as to the acreage of groundnuts in 1949, and the second in regard to the yield per acre. I should have thought that if we set out on a development scheme which involves ploughing up and eventually planting great areas, the amount of acreage in the coming year and the yield are the two great questions that really matter, because from them everything flows. The Minister said that he had passed the Question on to the Corporations and they would let the hon. Member know. They did, and the matter was referred to afterwards in the Press. But what an unsatisfactory thing it is that the one vital question that matters should be reserved to a private communication to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd), and that it should be left at that.

This cannot be allowed to go on. It is not as if the information on a great issue like this were not available. If the Corporation had said they had not the vaguest idea what the acreage would be, we should have had mental reservations about them, but they knew the information very well and wrote to my hon. Friend. They might just as well have written to the Minister, and then the Minister could have put the information in an answer to an unstarred Question in HANSARD for all of us to see. I do not know whether every Member is aware of the acreage or not, although most of us should now know, because a letter was afterwards published in the Press. That is not the way to conduct our affairs. The statement we have heard may be useful for your consideration of this problem, Mr. Speaker, but I beg you to bear in mind that there is a world of difference between nationalised Corporations which function in this country and Corporations which function as far away as Australia and Africa.

On a point of Order. May I, with great respect, ask you, Sir, whether you propose to give your Ruling on this matter as soon as the House resumes after the Recess, or would you consider deferring it until after the further Debate which the Lord President of the Council indicated might take place, in which a number of other hon. Members might wish to submit points for your consideration?

I cannot answer that off-hand. I should prefer, first of all, before making up my mind, to read the Debate carefully, to see what both sides have said. I shall take some little time before making up my mind.

I feel fortunate in having been allocated time today to raise a question which is seriously perturbing many people in my constituency and, I would say, all over Scotland. I refer to the burning question of housing. I should like to make it clear at the outset that I am proud of the Government's achievements to date in housing for Scotland. Up to the end of this year, I understand, we shall have completed, in 1948 alone, 28,000 houses, temporary and permanent. In the peak year between the wars we find that 26,000 houses were completed in Scotland; in 1938, 20 years after the first world war, 26,000 houses were completed. At that time there was no shortage of labour and building materials. This year, in spite of serious shortages of materials and certain classes of building operatives, we have been able to complete 2,000 houses more than the Tory Government could build during the peak year between the wars.

I should also like to make it clear that, although I am proud of the achievements of the Government and local authorities in Scotland, that does not make me complacent. How could I be complacent when I have, in my constituency, two hamlets where not one house which is fit for human habitation would be destroyed if a bulldozer knocked down the lot? I should like to touch on matters as I see them in my own constituency and in Lanarkshire, though what applies to Lanark applies to a great extent to the whole of Scotland. My constituents are not suffering because there was little or no housebuilding during the six years of the war; they are suffering because of a tragic neglect by previous Governments. The problem facing us today is very serious indeed, and I raise it because I am beginning to wonder whether its seriousness is also realised by the Government.

What is the present position in Scotland? This year we shall have completed 28,000 houses. The figure given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland for 1949 is 20,000 houses—which is 8,000 less than we shall have had in 1948. I know that our temporary programme is coming to an end, and that these 20,000 houses will, in the main, be permanent, but I feel that if the present policy of the Government is adhered to, we shall not in 1950, and succeeding years, get anywhere near the 20,000 mark. That is a question which is troubling not only those who sit on these Benches to represent Scottish constituencies, but local authorities all over Scotland. On 7th November, my right hon. Friend, in answer to a Question, said that an 18-months to two-years programme is required if there is to be a steady flow of building in any community. That is a point which local authorities in Lanarkshire and elsewhere have been stressing when seeking authority from the Scottish Office for tenders for further housing. Unless we have these tenders, our whole programme will be out of balance.

The Lanarkshire rate of completion of houses between January and October this year exceeds the number of new approvals for houses by 354, and I understand that by the end of this year it will exceed the number of new approvals by 866. If this rate continues in 1949—and from all the information I have I understand that there will be no speeding up—unless new houses are started, which cannot be done unless authority is given by the Department of Health for Scotland, the programme will be wholly out of balance in Lanarkshire and in many other areas. The bulk of the traditional houses in Lanarkshire now under construction are at or beyond roof level. Out of 1,590 houses now in progress, 1,248 are at various stages of construction beyond roof level, and only 342 are between ground-floor level and roof. The large number where outside structure is almost finished shows clearly why the Lanarkshire local authorities are seriously concerned about the future of their housing programme. It is a serious situation for the county, whose needs are so great. Unless there is a further allocation for the building of traditional brick houses, I am certain that no brick houses will be built in Lanarkshire by the end of 1949. If that is the case, then my right hon. Friend's statement that there must be an 18-months to two-years programme is not being given proper attention.

On 23rd November my right hon. Friend said, also in reply to a Question, that the starting of new houses will continue to be authorised for priority cases such as agricultural workers, miners, key-workers and to meet certain other exceptional needs. It is the phrase "certain other exceptional needs" which I would like to draw to the attention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. I do so because I am convinced that in my constituency there are people whose needs are exceptional. Consider one area of North Lanark, which has a population of about 18,000. During the last three years not one permanent house has been built in that area. There is not even the beginning of the preparation of a site in that district. Most of the workers there are miners. It is not the fault of the Government that we have not had a site; there have been difficulties through material shortages, and in finding a place on which to build houses. We have overcome all those difficulties. Two sites have been passed for building houses, but now we come up against the problem that Lanarkshire has been given its quota of houses. These houses are distributed over other parts of the country and this district has no hope at the present time, or even in 1949, of having one house built in it.

I have spoken previously in the House, of this district as a place where there are miners living in houses of the sort that the Tory coalowners thought were fit for miners to live in. The miners come home to a house the whole of which is one single room. It can be understood how those miners are feeling at the present time. They are continually asking the local authority and their M.P. when the houses are going to be built in that village to take them out of those dreadful slum conditions. It is because of this, that I am convinced that there could not be more exceptional need than that all over Scotland, and because of this quota system, these people are now going to be penalised.

Are we today being told that we cannot build more houses in Lanarkshire? I know that previously the answer given was we would have to get our programme into balance. The figures and facts that I have given today show that that programme was in balance, but it is going to be out of balance if something is not done in the way of an allocation. Is this because of a shortage of labour? I have studied carefully the answers to Questions that have been asked in the House during the past month. Is it a shortage of material? I do not think it is either. We are suffering from the cut in capital expenditure. That cut will not affect Scottish housing right up to the end of this year, but—and this is the point I want to stress—it is going to affect seriously Scottish housing in 1949, 1950 and perhaps even 1951.

We in Scotland understood at the beginning of the term of office of this Government that because England had suffered very badly from war damage, there should be special housing concessions for England. We were content that England should be given these concessions for her blitzed areas. From the figures that are given for housing in Scotland and Wales I feel it is time we should now give special consideration to Scotland. Is the Government going to regard our country—I do not speak of Scotland—as a United Kingdom, or, for housing needs, are we going to divide it into England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other? We talk about eleven-eightieths of capital expenditure going to Scotland with the rest for the whole of the United Kingdom. Because housing in Scotland before the war was always much worse than it was in England and Wales, and because England has overcome to a great extent the damage that was done by the blitz, it is time for us to see that something is done for Scotland.

I want to finish on a different note. Not only have we bad housing in Scotland, but, from the figures given in the Debate on the Health Estimates it would appear that the tuberculosis figures for Scotland are the worst in Europe, a fact which shocked the whole of Scotland. The figures given in an answer about infantile mortality show that, although at the present time they are lower than they have ever been, they are much higher than in England or Wales. I am sorry that we have not a representative from the Treasury here, but my plea to the Joint Under-Secretary of State is that the Scottish Office must do something quickly if we in Scotland are to meet in any measurable time the great needs of our people for housing.

I am glad to be given the opportunity of making my maiden speech on housing, a subject of paramount interest to the people whom I have the honour to represent. I feel sure that I shall be given the same courteous and favourable hearing as is usually given to hon. Members when they are making their maiden speeches. I want to confine my arguments to the constituency which I represent. The people of Gorbals are, no doubt, known to hon. Members of this House through the play "The Gorbals Story." The Gorbals people are hard-working, decent citizens, but at the present time they are depressed and disheartened because of the conditions in which they are living. There are many families living in dilapidated, tumble-down, rat-infested buildings.

I should like to give some figures which will demonstrate the appalling lack of proper housing accommodation. The latest statistics show that slightly over 4,500 families live in one-apartment houses. Nearly 10,000 families live in two-apartment houses. For those who have never experienced living in such conditions, it is difficult to imagine the tragedy and the misery of living, eating and sleeping all in the one apartment, especially when the family consists of anything up to eight members, while sometimes in two-apartment houses it is as high as 14 members. I am sorry to say that amongst these families are many young people in their teens suffering from tuberculosis.

There are also in my constituency 2,289 houses of one or two apartments which have been scheduled as unfit for human habitation and are still occupied; yet because of the shocking neglect of the housing needs of the people of my area, they must continue to be occupied. Even if I were a great orator, it would be quite impossible for me adequately to describe the slum conditions of my constituency. Thousands of young men from Gorbals answered the call in the 1914–18 war, and their sons in the 1939–45 war did likewise. They fought for a better way of life, for decent homes in which to rear their families and for a certain amount of home life, of which they are now deprived. They have waited in vain for that result. It is true to say that 900 families from the Gorbals have been housed, but the tragedy of that is that when these families were transferred to new houses, instead of the tumble-down shacks being demolished they were allowed to be reoccupied.

That is how conditions are in my area. I do not blame the Government. Like my hon. Friend who has already spoken, I think the Government have done a great job of work in regard to housing during the last few years, but I feel that many working people in my own constituency have been neglected for nearly 30 years. When materials and labour were both plentiful and cheap, the Government of that day did not think fit to start to remedy the slums and do something for the people living in them, and in particular for the Gorbals constituency, which is, I maintain, the worst in the whole city of Glasgow.

My appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland, from the bottom of my heart, is that he should, in conjunction with the local authorities, make a survey of the Gorbals with a view to finding a site on which a block of flats might be erected. I have no doubt that such a site could be found for this purpose. I ask him to make a start in the Gorbals, which is the greatest slum menace that I have ever known.

I was elected to this House on 13th September and I took my seat on 27th October. During the first fortnight that I was here, the Press made vicious attacks upon me because I had not spoken in this House about the housing conditions of my people, and especially Mr. Cummings of the "News Chronicle," who seemed to think that had I got up in this House and thrown a fit of hysteria, some fairy would have waved a wand and all would have been well in the Gorbals. That does not happen. I appeal to the Joint Under-Secretary of State to do his best to make the survey for which I have asked. We are coming near to Christmas; thousands of my people have still to spend Christmas in their dens. The only way I can express myself is by calling their apartments "dens." I trust that, in this holy season of Christmas, the season of good will towards men, my appeal will be successful and that by next year, quite a large number of my folk will be able to spend Christmas in much brighter and happier homes.

I rise for the one purpose of saying that I should like to have the opportunity from this side of the House to pay my tribute to the very admirable maiden speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Lady the Member for Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen). In the Gorbals she has succeeded an old parliamentarian and a friend of mine, Mr. Buchanan. Although we differed upon almost every subject, I can say that he was a first-rate Member of Parliament. If he were here this afternoon, I am sure he would he very pleased that his successor, the hon. Lady, has taken up straight away the very human problem of the Gorbals.

The hon. Lady has spoken not only with sincerity but with effect, and I hope that we shall have the opportunity of hearing her many times. This House always appreciates the opportunity of listening to any Member who speaks with sincerity, no matter on what side that Member may be. The hon. Lady was wise not to be stampeded by the Press into getting up to speak the first moment she got into the House of Commons. Nobody can speak well in this House until he has had some time to absorb the atmosphere. On this side we appreciated the hon. Lady's speech and we hope to hear her on future occasions.

I thank the hon. Member very much.

I should like to add my few words of congratulation to my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen), to those which have been so eloquently expressed by the hon. Member for Wavertree (Mr. Raikes). Making a maiden speech is always an ordeal, but the hon. Lady has touched the House with the pathetic story of the housing conditions in her constituency.

"The Gorbals story," if I may borrow a somewhat theatrical caption, is unfortunately a description of housing which can be applied not only to the Gorbals but to many other industrial towns in Scotland where the huge, unplanned, hideous, dreary and barrack-like tenements were built 50 years or 100 years ago. They present a terrible problem to the Scottish office, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the local authorities who are responsible for dealing with this tragic problem. The Corporation of Glasgow are fully aware of the problem of the congested areas and of the need for clearing them away and rebuilding with new houses the cleared sites.

Glasgow Corporation have under construction at the present time 4,827 houses. They had completed since the end of the war 7,926 houses, to the end of November this year. It is significant to note that the speed of completion has been remarkable, not only in Glasgow but in other parts of Scotland, during the past year. Out of a total number of 5,376 permanent houses completed in Glasgow since the end of the war no fewer than 2,193 were completed this year. The problem of the Gorbals resolves itself into two distinct measures which should be taken. One is the improvement of houses worth improving in the area and the other is the clearing away of houses which are not fit for human habitation. I should not like to say how many houses fall into each of those classes, but I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals that we have this matter actively under consideration at the present time.

The Government have promised that the new Housing Bill which is to be introduced very shortly, will contain provisions for financial assistance for the improvement of existing houses. The only real remedy for unfit houses is slum clearance procedure, but that would take time. Our problem is accentuated by the shortage of labour, not only for house building but for the clearing of sites. The Secretary of State for Scotland, and I as junior Minister responsible for housing, do not need to be reminded of the serious needs of the Gorbals or of other congested areas in Glasgow. The Corporation have been authorised to make a limited start on slum clearance as soon as they feel that their new housing programme justifies them in doing so. In the meantime, an allocation of 400 permanent aluminium houses to the City for rehousing families with members suffering from tuberculosis will help them to make a small but immediate contribution to the improvement of housing conditions in these congested areas.

Considering the high rate of pulmonary tuberculosis, would it not be as well to extend the scheme for the special allocation of that type of house? One thousand are no use in relation to the high rate of tuberculosis in Scotland.

I said that 1,000 houses have been agreed upon as an immediate measure. Other means may be adopted to deal with the serious problem of tuberculosis in Scotland. I am dealing with the immediate position at present.

Lanarkshire is the largest county housing authority in Scotland, with a population of nearly 300,000 and requiring about 22,000 new houses to be built. At present the county of Lanarkshire have tenders approved for 4,249 houses. Of that total, 1,455 houses have been completed and 2,694 are still under construction. As to the progress made so far with additional houses in the county of Lanarkshire, we feel that they have on hand enough houses to keep them going until at least the middle of 1949. The general policy, apart from certain priority classes, is not to approve new tenders meantime, the aim being to concentrate available resources of material and labour on the completion of houses already under construction.

The county council estimate that by the end of the current year, they will have completed just over 1,000 traditional houses and 800 non-traditional houses, of which—this might be noted—about two-thirds will have been completed in the course of 1948 alone. The county council are satisfied that they have enough non-traditional houses approved and under construction to provide continuity during 1949. Therefore, the question at issue concerning Lanarkshire applies to traditional houses only. The local authority estimate that the balance of 1,224 traditional houses will be completed by the middle of 1949. They have been told that the Department of Health would be prepared to consider early in 1949 the question of further tenders in the light of the progress made to that date.

I mentioned the 18 months to two years programme. The Under-Secretary of State says that Lanarkshire expect to have completed all their traditional housing programme by the middle of the year, and yet only three or four months before its completion are they to be told whether they are to be allowed to accept new tenders. It seems that there will be a very serious time-lag in the building of those houses.

And the labour will run away.

I can only say, in the very short time available to me, that Lanarkshire have 2,694 houses under construction. We shall be very glad if Lanarkshire are able to complete as many as that in the time I have suggested. If that is the case, we will consider the approval of new tenders in the light of the progress made by the middle of next year.

I now come to what has already been done about the preparation of new sites. To enable the county council to take advantage of any possible relaxation of the position with regard to traditional houses in 1949, the Department has indicated that it is prepared to approve additional site servicing for the following sites: Thornhill, Blantyre, 238 houses; Allanton, Shotts, 110; Chapelhall, 462; and Dykehead, Shotts, 250. The lay-out plans for all these schemes are, meantime, the subject of discussion between the Department's architects and the county council's technical advisers. It is expected that these plans will be approved at an early date and site servicing will be commenced as soon as tenders or estimates for the work have been submitted by the county council.

As to the general position, prior to October, 1947, more tenders were approved than could be completed with the labour and material available. Up to December, 1946, no fewer than 60,000 local authority and 3,800 private enterprise houses were approved but only 5,239 and 640 respectively were completed. There was also competition for materials for the temporary housing programme. With the publication of the White Paper on Capital Investment, it was necessary to apply some limitation to the issuing of tenders. The restriction on tenders dates from the capital investment review of 1947. The number of tenders increased rapidly up to the end of 1947 owing to existing commitments, but approvals have been drastically reduced since that time.

I want to say a word about the achievements in 1948. Let the figures speak for themselves, because they are a complete vindication of the policy which the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I as a junior Minister, have had to carry through during the difficult year since we took office. Already more permanent houses have been completed in Scotland in 1948 than in 1945, 1946 and 1947 put together. We expect to finish at least 20,000 permanent houses this year and we hope to maintain and improve that figure in 1949. I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for North Lanark (Miss Herbison) will not take the figure of 20,000 too seriously. We hope to improve on that, but we must depend entirely on the building industry itself to speed up the rate of production. I think that the materials will be coming forward much more smoothly during the next year, and we must ask the building industry to speed up its rate of production.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that, unless he gives to the building industry a reasonable assurance that there will be continuity of work for it, which means starting new houses next year, the psychological effect will be a slowing-up?

I find myself in agreement with my hon. Friend on that, and steps will be taken to acquaint the local authorities of what we expect them to do during next year.

Taking permanent and temporary houses together, this year already we have passed the highest pre-war peacetime record of house building. Therefore, 1948 will constitute an all-time record building year as far as Scotland is concerned. We shall hope to reach at least 28,000 permanent and temporary houses by the end of the year, and, if we do reach this figure, it will mean that, during the past year in Scotland, we shall have re-housed families at the rate of 80 per day, or one family every 20 minutes. I should like to assure the House and all the people waiting for new houses in Scotland that the Secretary of State and all of us who are at St. Andrew's House today grappling with this problem will not rest satisfied until the combined efforts of the Government, the local authorities and the building industry in Scotland have solved this tragic social problem.

May I ask my hon. Friend a question before he sits down? Is he aware that this statement today will cause consternation in Glasgow and in Scotland generally, and is he further aware that the community is in a very bad state of mind on this question and fears that, unless there is a tremendous improvement, 30 or 40 years from now many people will still be demanding houses and will not be able to get them?

The last two weeks have seen the publication of two reports on university policy which are of great importance—the University Grants Committee's Report on University Development and the Report of the Ministry of Education Working Party on University Awards. The issue I want to confine myself to is that of the university scholarship policy for which the Ministry of Education is responsible.

The Ministry's working party was not, and could not be, competent to deal with the general problem of the size of universities and the total number of students, but only with the formulation of its scholarship policy on the basis of existing plans. Nevertheless, the University Grants Committee's Report has some important comments to make on scholarship policy. The figures it produces show that, in the current year, some 68 per cent. of university students are now receiving financial assistance compared with only 41 per cent. of university students in the period prior to the war. But this 68 per cent. includes at least 30,000 awards under the further education and training scheme which applies only to those who entered prior to October, 1947, most of whom will have been absorbed in universities by the session 1949–50.

There is, therefore, some urgency in bringing into operation some permanent scheme which will replace the war-time further education and training scheme. The University Grants Committee, which, of course, is representative almost entirely of senior figures in university life, points out that, in the post-war world, subsidies are needed both for scholars in the accepted sense and also for those who enter universities as commoners, and it poses the very important question

"whether it will be possible to stop short, subject to a means test, of subsidising all students."

It also deals with the problem of selection, and says:

"A pecuniary test of fitness (for university entry) is obviously unsatisfactory, and is offensive to the social conscience of our time."

Some considerable advance has been made in the past 25 years towards equal educational opportunity in university entrance and in this connection the Labour Party has a very proud record to show. State scholarships were first introduced in this country in 1920, but two years later they were scrapped, either by the Coalition Government or the Conservative Government which followed it, as a false measure of economy after the first world war.

Geddes.

Yes, the Geddes axe. After the war, the first minority Labour Government restored 200 State scholarships a year, and, in 1930, the second minority Labour Government raised the number from 200 to 300. In 1936, there was another slight increase, and the next big advance, apart from the special wartime Scheme, came in 1946 and 1947, when the late Ellen Wilkinson introduced important changes in university scholarship policy which led to the present position. The State today spends something over £11 million on scholarships and maintenance allowances, compared with less than £250,000 in 1938. In spite of these figures we are still a considerable way from equality of opportunity among university entrants, and I should like to quote from the Barlow Report on Scientific Manpower in 1946, which stated:

"Only about 1 in 5 of the boys and girls who have intelligence equal to that of the best half of the University students, actually reach the universities …. There is evidence that the great majority of the intelligent persons who do not reach the universities are ex-pupils of the elementary schools. If university education were open to all on the basis of measured intelligence alone, about 80 per cent. would be expected to come from those children who started their education in the public elementary school and only 20 per cent. from those whose education had been in independent schools. In fact, at the present time only about 40 per cent. of university entrants are ex-pupils of elementary schools, whereas 60 per cent. are from independent schools. Thus among university entrants, elementary school pupils are only half those to be expected, and those from independent schools about three times as many as expected.'

It is clear, as the Report remarks, 'that a high proportion of the reserve of potentially able students comes from families that are unable to afford the cost of higher education.'"

That was the position in 1946. Faced with this position, and with the end of the further education and training scheme, the Ministry's working party now proposes, on the basis of an estimated intake of 18,000 students a year for the next four years, that the Ministry should increase the annual number of State scholarships for students of high academic promise from 800 as at present to 2,000, and that they should also encourage the universities to increase their awards to the figure of another 2,000, which will be supplemented automatically by the State. It also proposes that the local education authorities should provide awards for "all eligible candidates" selected by the universities with a minimum educational standard in the new examination which is about to be discussed in the House.

The working party recommend also an extension of the awards which are now being provided by the Ministry for technical students and mature students who have missed the ordinary entry to the university on leaving school, and for National Service men, and also make provision for the special requirements of students of technology, in art colleges, agricultural colleges and so on. Of the 18,000 entry each year, they estimate that some 2,000 students will come from overseas, and this leaves a balance of 5,000 students who, in the words of the working party

"either do not need or do not qualify for awards from public funds."

If those proposals are fully implemented, it means that some 61 per cent. of all the entrants to the universities, or 69 per cent. of all the entrants to the universities from this country, will be receiving substantial assistance from public funds. This 61 per cent. or 69 per cent. is not a striking increase on the position today. With the further education and training scheme, there is 68 per cent. today and the working party proposals stabilise that position.

I agree with the Association of University Teachers, the National Union of Students, the Trades Union Congress and other bodies who have considered this question that every student admitted to a university should, where necessary, be awarded a maintenance grant from public funds. As long as we are short of university places, I can see no justifiable qualification to the principle, "Fit for admission, fit for aid." If a student admitted to a university while places are in short supply is not fit for aid from public funds there is something wrong with the system of admission. But the report of the working party is a step in the direction of equality of opportunity and I wish to congratulate them upon it. It has been widely welcomed by sections of the Press, including the "Manchester Guardian and "The Economist," by the National Union of Teachers, the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes, the National Union of Students, the Association of University Teachers and the Trades Union Congress. But a section of the more conservative Press and one member of the working party have expressed considerable reservations and an attempt is being made in this quarter to encourage the Minister of Education to whittle down the recommendations. "The Times" comment on the scheme was that this is "too ambitious." "The Times Educational Supplement" says:

"There might well be an outcry if it was discovered in a particular year that the universities had refused to recommend candidates to the number of scholarships offered. But for universities to admit dunces in the name of democracy is a sure way of spoiling what they have to give."

"The Times Educational Supplement" has become reactionary.

Certainly, on this issue any way. Similar reservations were expressed by "The Yorkshire Post" and "The Birmingham Post" but this criticism completely misses the point. The recommendations of the working party do not affect the number of university places as a whole or the qualifications of those to be admitted to the universities. The working party propose that the selection of students should be left in the hands of the universities and their proposals only affect the proportion of students who will be eligible for financial assistance from public funds if they require it. The issue is not the admission of dunces in the name of democracy, but how many available university places are to be reserved for dunces in the name of social and financial privilege. The University Grants Committee draws attention to this point when it refers to

"one type of student whom the possession of means once enabled to secure admittance, that is, the riotously-living pass-man, sometimes of athletic prowess on which the University as an agency of culture made small dent."

Those of us who know the older universities of this country realise that this phenomenon has not entirely passed away.

The important question is, will this figure of 61 per cent. or 69 per cent. of publicly-aided students be reached in a reasonable period of time. That will only be so if there is full co-operation in working the recommendations by the Ministry, the universities and local education authorities. The universities are to be given control over admissions and in return, I think we are entitled to expect that they will give full co-operation to the scheme.

Then we come to the local education authorities. One of the great difficulties in the past has been the unequal assistance given by different local education authorities to students coming within their purview. It is quite intolerable that an intelligent boy who happens to come from an area with a backward local education authority should be hampered compared with an equally intelligent boy from a more progressive area of the country. The working party recommend the local education authorities to cater for all eligible students and propose that the Ministry should publish statistics for each local education authority area to stimulate competition in a progressive direction. I hope this will have the required result, but if it does not, that the Minister will take active steps to ginger up the backward authorities.

There is considerable urgency about this issue and I hope the Minister will press on with implementing the report as rapidly as possible. The working party point out that their proposals should be fully in force by 1951, but they also stress the issue of urgency. It is quite clear that some of these recommendations require considerable administrative preparation and reorganisation.

I wish to convey to the Minister a suggestion that he should get on with implementing the report in stages. In 1949–1950 I should like to see the Ministry operating the new proposed basis of assessing the value of awards both for new scholars and for the present holders. The new scale of parental contribution should apply, with the new proposals for vocational allowances and also allowances for home keep. Recent discussions with headmasters, and correspondence in the "Manchester Guardian," have convinced me that students and parents at present are having considerable difficulty in maintaining themselves on the present scales. I hope the Minister will bring in the new scales in the next university year and encourage local education authorities to do the same.

In 1950–51, the end of the further education training scheme will mean a sharp drop in the number of students admitted to the university with public financial assistance unless there is a considerable increase in that year in the number of State and local education authority awards. I hope that as the Minister cannot get the new scheme fully working by 1950, he will introduce an interim scheme to prevent a drop in the proportion of assisted students entering in 1950. It would be grossly unfair to conscripts called up after October, 1947, if there was a hiatus between the further education and training scheme which ended in that month and the proposed arrangements in the working party's report which cater for National Service men. The National Service men called up after October, 1947, should be coming out of the Forces during the 1949–50 academic year, and some arrangement should be made for them to get assistance in the academic year, 1950–51.

In case the Treasury may have some doubts about our ability to meet the cost of the scheme, may I point out that it involves no dollars and no capital expenditure and is, in fact, a replacement of money which has been found in the last few years during the further education and training scheme. As the working party's report indicates:

"Without it there will be a serious shortage of trained graduates in the various professions."

May I conclude on a personal note? I am one of those many prewar scholars the educational value of whose schooling was diminished by the need for intensive concentration on scholarship requirements, and who on reaching the university, dependent solely on public financial assistance, had to deny themselves the delight and value of full participation in all but the most austere amenities of college life. In future it should be the aim of our scholarship policy to provide real equality of opportunity in our educational system. As a nation, faced with the great tasks ahead of us, we cannot afford any longer to warp or frustrate the latent abilities of any of our children.

Perhaps I should commence by declaring my interest in this matter. I also went to a university solely by means of scholarship and public funds. That was a long time ago, and I come in a different category possibly from that of the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. D. H. Hughes). I was forced to scrape together the extras to make up a reasonable standard of living after the first world war.

I should also like to enter my usual protest against Debates in this House. We have had one this morning on the Overseas Food Corporation in which a number of hon. Members could not speak, and this afternoon typical of a Friday, we are going to have two Debates on education which, in fact, bear very closely on each other, and we have got very limited time. It is a complete disgrace to this House, and if it were not for a few hon. Members like the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton who from time to time raise this question, we should have no Debates on this subject at all. I should also like to say that I am not going to debate with the hon. Member, although I should like very much to do so, because he has raised a number of questions which, to my mind, are controversial and which really ought to have been debated in this House a long time ago.

I mention one as an example. I do not necessarily accept the basis of the Barlow Report. It is based on a private inquiry at Manchester University, of rather doubtful authenticity. It may be true and it may not be. The Barlow Report accepted it straightaway in the body of their document. In general terms I very much welcome this report. Not only do I welcome it, but I welcome the sense of urgency which has produced it, because, as the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton said, there must be some continuity between the break-up of the further education scheme and this new situation with which we are faced.

It is quite impossible for large numbers of boys and girls—and I hope it will not be an afterthought to put women on these inquiries, as was the case with this inquiry—to go to a university without very considerable assistance. The important part of this report—indeed, the important part of the new situation—is that it is not a question, as it was in my day, of getting £40, £60, £80 or even £100 by winning a scholarship. It is necessary to have something very much nearer £200. Therefore, this large addition not only in the case of the further education scheme, but to the total funds for maintenance as well as for fees, is a very important point.

I asked a Question yesterday about the capital expenditure on universities, and if I raise some of the implications of this report, I hope the Minister will not assume that I am in any sense opposed to the report. I accept the report with one or two minor amendments. But this is the framework in which we live. First of all, the capital expenditure on universities is going very slowly indeed. One has only to read the letters in the "Manchester Guardian" or to go round universities, including the eight which I represent, to see the problem which is facing them at the present moment. It is sheer improvisation in many cases to keep the universities going, and in some cases I would use the word "dislocation." Therefore, it is no easy task to swell the university population further than the existing number, unless there is very much increased capital expenditure, especially as the increase in the universities which I represent, in the science field is 100 per cent., which means laboratories and equipment. In the arts it is 50 per cent.—

There is provision for increased capital expenditure.

I wish the hon. Gentleman would not interrupt unless he wants to say something.

I do want to say something. I say there is provision for increased capital expenditure—£40 million, and £10 million on sites.

I wish the hon. Gentleman would restrain his impatience for a moment. The expenditure which was promised was £40 million and £10 million on sites. It has now been whittled down to £20 million, and of that £20 million little more than £5 million has been sanctioned. I am talking about actual figures.

Again in the matter of selection of scholars, it is one thing to select scholars; that has been done for many years, and there is a great deal of experience in it. It is not quite the same thing to select 11,000 out of 16,000, or 69 per cent., of the students to go to universities. That is a new technique. I have taken the smaller figure of 11,000; 2,000 come from overseas, and although some of them are assisted by the British Council and by Government funds, I am leaving them out for the moment. In other words, we are going to subsidise from the State 70 per cent. of the students who go to the university. I do not object to that. What I am worried about is the process by which it is done.

Let me give two examples. The open scholarships at present are going to be made up to whatever is the necessary figure and that is admirable. It is suggested in this report that we promote a larger number of open scholarships, especially those open to provincial universities. How is that to be done? I am not clear about that. At present there are roughly 1,400 or 1,500. It is suggested that the figure should go up to 2,000. How is it intended to promote those further open scholarships? Does the money come from benefactors or from funds, which would otherwise come through the University Grants Committee? There is another group of State scholars. I do not know that there is any insuperable difficulty in doubling the number of State scholars, but the machinery for doing that is a little complicated, and I think there is a very real difficulty which the Registrar for Cambridge University raised about the clearing house. I think we can find a way through it, but there is a difficulty.

The next point concerns the 7,000 who are coming from the local educational authorities. I have been round to the universities lately, and I have seen very fine material, not necessarily with high previous scholastic attainments but with quite top ability, at Birmingham and Durham. However, I do not close my eyes to the fact that there is a percentage of local authority scholars who have had to be weeded out in the first year. I can quote the exact universities and the exact places where this has happened. It is just a question, when we are spending public money, of whether we should not go a little carefully at that point.

There is no experience from any other country to guide us. This does not happen in America at all. What happens in America is that the university fees are very small, but the overwhelming number of students pay their way or partially pay their way, and if it is suggested to the universities in America that there should be some subsidy during the vacations it would be roundly opposed, because it goes against the whole of the American way of life. Therefore, do not let us think America is a guide. On this point it is no guide at all. There is no country in Europe which has dared to go as far as we have gone. We are approaching the stage when we shall be subsidising or giving assistance through the State to the whole of the university student population. It is now 70 per cent., and the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton has made a case for making that figure even larger.

The point is that as long as a larger number of people want to go to the universities than there are places, the examination must necessarily be competitive. That seems to me obvious. It looks like being so for many years to come. Therefore, it is a mistake to say that there should be a qualifying examination. What is a qualifying examination? Are we to say that those who get the school certificate should automatically go to the universities? If so, my friends who have examined the problem tell me that there is an increase of 100 per cent., and that the standard has been lowered. At any rate, there is a 100 per cent. increase in higher certificates, which is very considerable. The competitive examination must, by its very nature, also be a qualifying examination. I remember this problem 23 years ago, when I tried to examine it at a lower stage in writing a book on the educational ladder. How was it that there were just about 5,000 scholarships in the London area and just that number of pupils happened to qualify for scholarships. In fact, it was a very rough guess, and those who got the scholarships were those who qualified by a very highly competitive examination. We shall have to face the fact, therefore, that there will be a competitive examination which will also be qualifying.

We say "benefit from a university education." What do we mean by "benefit"? Do we mean personally benefit, or do we mean turn into useful citizens? That is a very important point. It may be both for that matter. In saying "benefit from secondary education," there are certain standards which could be put to the country. After a while the scholarship system became 100 per cent., and now we have secondary education for all, or at any rate we are trying to reach that position. We have never expected that we shall have university education for all—that everybody will go to a university. There is bound to be this difficult problem of selection. I want to see that nobody is barred by poverty alone, who otherwise has the qualities and the capacities for a university education.

I welcome this report. I still have an open mind on one or two questions like that of the means test. I am not sure that I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton; I think there is great worry about this means test, especially in the middle income ranges from £1,000 to £2,000 a year. I am not sure it does not bear hardly on certain professional classes.

May I interrupt to make my position clear? I am not defending a means test. I welcome the more liberal proposals in the scale, particularly in going up to £2,000, and when we can afford it, I shall be delighted to see the scale go even higher.

I was trying to say the same thing. I welcome the increase to £2,000 and I am not sure it should not go to £2,500. In that range there is great hardship on parents with large families. The difficulty is that we may be barring children from going to universities and may be pressing very hardly on those families unless this whole means test is re-examined from the beginning.

The universities have a very wide public duty to perform; they are receiving well over £20 million a year by different methods from different Departments. I hope that, before long, we can have a full-scale examination of the whole university problem in this House, because it is now a question of public policy.

I know that other hon. Members wish to speak in this Debate and I shall limit my speech accordingly. I am afraid that my remarks, as a consequence, may be very spasmodic. I agree with the latter part of the speech made by the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay), and we on this side of the House are, of course, very much in agreement with the general tenor of the remarks made by the hon. Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes).

I also have an interest in this question of university awards because I imagine that at this moment there are some people studying at universities whose award was given on some of the work I did as an examiner. It is true that the three Labour Governments have probably done more of this kind of work than any other kind of Government. I happen to have here the figures for those who passed the higher school certificate in 1937–8 and those who passed it in the years 1946–7. The pupils are taken from the grant-aided schools. In the years before the war, in 1937–8, 7,860 pupils passed the higher school certificate, but by 1946–7 there were 18,701.

That is great progress. The Report we have here is also a sign that the Government are looking into this matter and that we are trying to use the talent which we do waste in this country and which we cannot afford to waste any longer. This talent must be used at least for ourselves, if not from a very high or philsophical motive. We have been discussing this morning the question of Overseas Food Corporations. We need hundreds of qualified people for a scheme like that alone and in the years to come we shall need hundreds more, technological experts, men who have passed through the universities, especially those in the scientific faculties, and we cannot do without them. This report is going some way to meet the problem but I do not think it goes far enough.

We have first to decide that one cannot buy education in this country any longer. That system should go; it should have gone many years ago. We have to look at this as a public duty to see that we give people the opportunity they need, not so much for themselves as to see that we save the world from starvation in the matter of food alone and so we can send experts to Africa, Queensland and other places. We must see there is some award by which these people can have expert university education. That brings in the larger issues. Is it not time we in this country decided to abolish this bar between the residential universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and the rest? In Germany, and in Switzerland where I studied myself, there was no such bar. One went to Geneva, one went to Berne, I went to Basle, my friends went perhaps to Bonn and for another six months to Munchen. There was no question of that "bar sinister."

What existed in this country? If a man applied for the headmastership of one of the publicly-owned secondary schools, the first thing which gave him the idea that he was well in the running for it was the fact that he had an Oxford or Cambridge degree and he was probably accepted for interview out of hundreds of others with degrees from other universities. There was a bias and in my opinion we did not always get the best people for the jobs. I have seen some shockers. They got the job over others who were much better teachers but had degrees from other universities. How can we set about getting rid of that bar? In my view we should look closely into the question of reserving the two older residential universities for postgraduate work. Let us keep the other universities in the country and in Scotland and Ireland for the normal university courses. There would then be no bar at all.

This report does not face the situation. We still have in Oxford and Cambridge special personnel college, open scholarship and exhibition system. We shall have to do something about it. As an examiner I would say we can learn a lot from countries abroad. We can learn a lot from America, but I am afraid I have no time to develop that point this afternoon. We can learn a great deal much nearer home; we can learn a great deal from Germany, where a very high percentage of the people passed through the universities much more cheaply than in this country. The same applies to Switzerland, too.

Would the hon. and gallant Member say where he gets that information? It is completely contrary to the report on German Universities of the Committee of which Lord Lindsay was a member.

That may be. I am talking from my personal experience. In my opinion we can learn from these other countries. In France and Germany, for instance, they make a lot more use of oral work than we do. I believe we could get a much better system if we learned from this kind of thing and if we gave more time to the oral side, especially in languages. After all, languages are made to be spoken, yet the oral side of a languages examination is very small indeed. That would overcome some of the difficulties which we have seen and which have been mentioned today of some people who were examined and had to leave after their first year in the university.

So many people going through the secondary schools have passed the written examinations very well, have gone to university, but have not quite made the grade. We have all known that kind of pupil. The crammer is bound to have more success in the examination than the average, very fine type of pupil we get in the sixth form who is probably not a 100 per cent. academically qualified but who have made good school captains and good senior prefects and have helped to organise all the activities of a modern school. Unfortunately, they are not the qualities which are recognised in these written examinations. I realise that my remarks have been spasmodic but the time for this Debate is short.

There is one point which has been omitted. It arises from the obvious fact that the way to the university for the schoolboy of humble origins was never an easy one, and, even with the advances now being made, is still difficult. He is tested all along the line, when he is 11, 16 and 18, and when he takes the final examination. In addition, he has to suffer the whole time a financial strain, because in most cases, the awards given in the past have not been adequate to cover all his needs. There have been many cases in which people have had to take loans to help them. I do hope my right hon. Friend will get rid of the practice whereby local authorities make a loan to the student instead of making him a grant. I believe great progress has been made in that respect, but we still have some way to go.

To get the benefit of a university ėducation, many boys and girls in the past have tied themselves down to a course of four years in which they have committed themselves to enter the teaching profession as a result of getting a grant. I believe that that has led to many undesirable people entering the universities and entering the teaching profession. I hope that the recommendation in paragraph 37 of the Universities Awards Paper will be carried out as soon as possible.

Local authorities are still asked to give something like 7,000 awards. My hon. Friend the Member for West Wolverhampton (Mr. H. D. Hughes) mentioned the disparities between different authorities. Personally, I should like to see all the available resources lumped together in one pool and allocated either by the State or some examining board among all the applicants for university places. I am not at all in favour of having this wide disparity between one authority and another. I think we must see that any award given must be adequate to cover all the needs of the student, and not merely his academic needs. He should not be debarred from enjoying the full fruits of a university education because he cannot compete on financial grounds. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give us some encouraging information today which will show that equality of opportunity for all to receive a university education is becoming more and more of a reality.

Let me first thank the hon. Members who have raised this question for the valuable reactions they have shown to the publication of this report, which has not yet been accepted but which was sent out in order that we could get the reactions of people definitely interested in it. The short Debate we are having today will give us an opportunity of looking at those sides of the problem that have been ventilated here today. Let me say straight away to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd), in regard to his two points, that I think we have gone already a long way with this report towards the accomplishment of the two things which he thought most needed to be done—the abolition of the loan from the local authority, which has been frowned upon now for quite a long time, and the earmarking, so to speak, of the student for the teaching profession before he goes to the university. The report recommends the abolition of that practice. I think it may be concluded that that is one of the things that will happen.

The working party was set up to report on university awards because of changed and changing circumstances. I think my hon. Friend went wrong, if he went wrong at all, in contrasting this report with the present situation of the further education and training grants. Rather, if one is seeking a contrast, one must contrast it with what took place before the war, for this report is seeking a way to meet the requirements of the universities in the changed circumstances. Everybody realises the fact that we cannot go back to the pre-war position, but that a much larger percentage of grant-aided students will be needed. I think that that is common ground, no matter what differences there may be as to how they have to be chosen.

The further education and training scheme which has given the student whose education was interrupted by war service his chance to complete his studies had to come to an end when war conditions disappeared. Everybody realises that, and it was the knowledge that it would leave a blank that led, not only to questions in this House, but to the setting up of the working party. At this moment, however, I should like to tell the House, because I think it is important, that we are still making several hundred awards a week under that scheme to students who were called up before 30th September, 1947, and we believe that they will run at the rate of some 400 a week for some time to come.

The working party has been criticised in some places for basing its calculations on an entry of 18,000 per annum. This, however, was the forecast of the University Grants Committee, and it was not the business of the working party to recommend a cutting down of the numbers, even if it had wanted to do so. It was not set up for that purpose, and it did not, as a matter of fact, do anything other than simply take the estimated number of places and set about recommending the way in which those places should be filled. There are at present 41,400 students at universities holding awards, and this gives an average of round about 11,800, so that if the two figures—the figure that is suggested in the working party's report and that which is the actual position now—happen to coincide, it is only because they were looking at the problem before them in a realistic way.

One or two questions have been asked which seem to imply that we shall be faced with a situation in which, unless this report is implemented in stages, there will be a gap between the coming to an end of the further education and training scheme and the coming into being of the new set-up, whatever that may be. I should like to point out that practically all the students who will come into this scheme, either through State scholarships or through local scholarships, will have had an opportunity to study for those scholarships, and will have qualified, before they do their National Service, so that, in the main, they will be the people who are in the new scheme; and the only students at whom it will be necessary to look particularly, and whom we would call upon the local authorities to look at particularly, in the enlarged group of scholarships that they will be giving, will be those who will, for some reason or another, between the time of leaving school and the time when they enter training courses in the Army, have missed the boat. It may be necessary to cover that period, that gap.

Therefore, it may be necessary, and I think that it will be necessary, for us to request the local education authorities to adopt some uniform basis of consideration for dealing with these men in the interim period. It seems to me that in our dealing with the local authorities we must, too, at the same time, take up the question, which has been raised again and again in the House, of what I would call the varying standards set by the local authorities and, in many instances, the varying amounts that are paid by them, and see to it that there is something like uniformity of treatment.

For the rest, I shall look at what has been said on this subject, with a view to seeing whether or not it will assist us in the acceptance of the report by the Government, which has not yet taken place. These considerations will be taken into account together with the representations which come to us from the universities, from students and from the local authorities who are all partners in the scheme, and on whose co-operation we are dependent for its successful working, as we shall be for the working of the subject which is now about to be discussed.

I am grateful for this opportunity of raising the question of the age at which external examinations in secondary schools may be taken. It is a very controversial point, but it is not a party political controversial point. Many people have argued from both sides about this question, and I am not going to put any fresh points to the Minister today. I know this subject pretty well, as he himself does, and I am not likely to tell him things which he has not heard before from people far better qualified than I am to talk or write about these matters. In the same way, I believe that I could make his answer for him; so we both know where we are in this matter, and if I skim over the points it is because I want to be quick and give other hon. Members the opportunity of speaking. The right hon. Gentleman will realise the ones I miss out, and will probably take them as read.

I am particularly glad to raise this matter at this time because I know that on the 31st of this month the right hon. Gentleman is to make a speech to the Joint Four Conference on this whole question. This is a very controversial matter and a great deal of interest is taken in it. The right hon. Gentleman is the Minister appointed to put forward this point of view and to explain and amplify his position if necessary. I must say that I think that the right place to do that is in this House and not at conferences, however important it may be.

I propose to deal with this question of the minimum age from the point of view of the school. I hope that the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) may have an opportunity of speaking for a few moments later from the point of view of the universities. In 1947, as the House well knows, the Secondary School Examination Council reported to the Minister and made certain proposals for fundamental changes in the examination system. These proposals were accepted, almost in their entirety, by the Minister in Circular 168, where he proposed to introduce the new system. Here comes the crux of the matter. The Minister laid down that from 1950 onwards the minimum age at which the external examinations can be taken should be 16. That applies in the year 1950 to the present school certificate, and from 1951 onwards to the new general certificate of education, slightly ascending in age and educational value as the years go on.

I believe most sincerely that this age bar is absolutely indefensible educationally. It means that the fitness of the boy or girl to take the examination will be judged by rigid chronological tests, in the operation of which no account can be taken of the individual aptitudes and efficiency of pupils. In this respect, the Minister's proposals go against the expressed views of the report of the Secondary Schools Examination Council. I was very interested to read in that report, in paragraph 30:

"The schools alone are in the position to decide what is best for their pupils, and they need the utmost freedom and flexibility to give effect to their judgment."

Again, in paragraph 18, it says:

" The schools will be the best judges of the suitability of a course, and the examinations should serve and not dictate school courses."

Surely the whole tendency for a long time has been to try to treat boys and girls as individuals, with individual capacities and limitations. I believe that this step must tend to hold back those who could go on on their own. It will inevitably have the effect of levelling down children and forcing them into a mould, which is a highly retrograde step.

Let me turn to another effect which, I think, these proposals will have. Whatever may be the form of these new examinations, they must create considerable difficulties in grammar and independent schools as they will require a reorganised syllabus. In all schools, children have to be divided into forms, and it seems to me that under these proposals it will be necessary for the same syllabus to be operated for at least two years, as it may be expected that in the first year, about half the form may take the examination, and the other half will have to wait till the following year. Thus, many will be penalised and unable to take the examination that their mental development calls for; simply because of the accident of their date of birth.

I do not think I made it clear that one of the proposals which the Minister has made is that the examination shall take place only once in the year. These difficulties in the grammar schools and independent schools will place a heavy burden on the staffs. There are other things in these days which place heavy burdens on the staff who are not, of course, easy to get, such as lack of accommodation and overcrowding. It seems to me that that in itself is a bad thing. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that this pressure on the staff is going to work more hardly against the grammar schools than against the independent schools, because in the independent schools the staffing ratio is more liberal than in the grammar schools.

I now turn to the effect of this examination on the sixth forms. This proposal must have a bad effect on the sixth form boys and girls who may expect to go to the universities. If they are to take the examination at a later stage, they will obviously have to waste time keeping up subjects in which they are required to pass to indicate to the universities that they have had a good general education. That must inevitably detract from the time which can be spent in the development of their special talents. It will mean that the standard of entrance to the universities will be lower and this must affect, in the long run, the whole standard of the universities.

There is a paradox about this because I think it will mean that to keep up these "Pass subjects" there will have to be less time spent on lectures on general subjects which are more suited to the age and mental development of sixth form boys and girls. The right hon. Gentleman knows that in all schools worthy of the name very great care is taken to see that sixth form boys and girls who are specialising have the best possible opportunities for lectures on general subjects, and there will be less time for them if they have to keep in touch, as it were, to try to maintain that present ability, in order to satisfy the universities that they have a general standard of education.

It has often been argued that this measure will tend to avoid early specialisation, and that there will be a tendency to force children to do more than they are able to do. All my own experience shows that headmasters and headmistresses, if they are worthy of the name, are dead against forcing specialisation at too early an age. The answer to that particular vice is: if they do it they should be got rid of, because they are not the right sort of people to be headmasters or headmistresses of our grammar or independent schools. As far as this question of early specialisation is concerned I think the argument is overstated.

We come, therefore, to the view that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the postponing of examinations until after normal school-leaving age, must be connected with the perfectly proper and natural desire of secondary modern schools to avoid the criticism that children cannot take the present school certificate from these schools. Personally, I do not believe that this is the right road to "Parity of Esteem." Parity of esteem in itself is a most estimable object, but it certainly cannot be achieved by lowering the efficiency of one of the partners.

In recent answers and speeches the Minister has laid great emphasis on the fact that this is an entirely new system, and that these are new examinations. He may point out in his reply today that the school certificate dies after 1950. Well, he is perfectly justified in doing that if he likes. But I doubt very much whether that is really so in fact. I would remind him that in paragraphs 14 (a) and 16 (a) of Circular 168, and again in paragraph 35 of the Report, the criterion of the existing school certificate examination is specifically mentioned. If it does not mean that, then the Minister should explain what it does mean.

The fact is that the Minister has placed an impossible task on the universities and examining bodies if they are to conform to his proposals and at the same time conserve the high standards of education which we have reached in this country. The recent report on University Awards foreshadows an ever-increasing number of university students. The vital need for men and women with the highest academic qualifications has never been so acute as it is now. Speaker after speaker mentioned that in the previous Debate. Their abilities may well be the deciding factor on whether we survive as a nation.

I agree that administrative convenience will be achieved by these proposals. They may make it possible to pay lip service to parity of esteem. But I believe that the price which has to be paid to achieve these objects is, in effect, to impose a restraint on talent and I cannot think that that is a proper price to pay. By all manner of means, let the Minister try to make his case on 31st December; let him do his very best to gain acceptance of his views; but if he fails, let him remember that in the past many great men have changed their minds and the world has been a better place for it. Let him follow their example and reconsider this whole question.

I am sure that we are all very grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland) for raising this subject. It is not very often that I disagree with him on educational matters, but on this occasion I disagree with him profoundly. Surely, the age at which a grammar school pupil should sit for an external examination should be decided by the place of the external examination in the grammar school. Now the question of the place of the external examination has been discussed for many years. The Minister very properly referred this matter to the reconstituted Secondary Schools Examination Council in 1946. That is a very appropriate body to discuss it and to decide, being composed of representatives of the Ministry, the universities, the several teachers' associations and the local authorities. On this particular remit it reported unanimously in favour of this proposal. There was no minority report, no dissentient voice of any kind. We all know that any report of that kind must be a compromise, but in this case there was as I say, no minority report or dissent.

Surely, the Minister is entitled to consider very carefully a report by a competent body set up for this particular purpose. He has considered it very carefully over a period of months, and he has paid this body the very great compliment of accepting its report. I should imagine that he has been influenced largely by the fact that the report was unanimous. It is not a scrap of use hon. Members being so naïve as to say that the report was a compromise. That will not do at all. All the interested parties were there, and they could and should have had their say. They had plenty of time before the Minister accepted the report to say what they wanted.

For the first time, we now have the place of the external examination in the educational field. We have always known that it had no place in the nursery school, the infants' school, the junior school and the modern school. At no price would they have it. That battle was won long ago. We also know that it has no place whatever in the universities. Incidentally, I must point out that the universities themselves never allow a student, no matter how brilliant he is, to sit his examination before his less brilliant colleagues. Never, I am perfectly certain therefore, that they would be the last to argue that a brilliant child in a grammar school must, merely because he is brilliant, sit his examination before his less able colleagues. They could not possibly sustain that attitude. So we have this position, that the external examination has one small place in the whole educational field, and that is in the grammar schools, and only for that very small section of grammar school students who are going forward to institutions of further education, or who wish for exemption from university or professional examinations.

We are also told in this authoritative report that these children must sit for that examination towards the close of their school careers. What does the report say?—

"In general we consider that the external examinations should be taken as late as possible in the school career, and therefore as close as possible to the change to further education or entry into a career with which they are associated."

That is categorical. The report goes further and makes clear what is meant by "as late as possible," and says:

"The child must be at least 16 years of age."

So now, for the first time, we know exactly the place of the external examination in the educational field. It is for a very small number of children who must be at least 16.

I think the Minister was quite right to consider that report very carefully and to act upon it. What will be the result of its recommendations? It means surely that teachers in all secondary schools—and in the grammar schools now, for the first time in their lives—will all have the same freedom as teachers in every other type of educational institution. With that freedom, they will naturally have to assume the responsibility that comes with it. Their responsibility will be simple. It will be the responsibility for developing each child according to its individual ability. That will be their only responsibility. The only book of reference to which they need refer is the Minister's "Handbook of Suggestions to Teachers."

I had the privilege of speaking on this matter in the training college at Cologne in July with the former Dutch Minister of Education, and I shall never forget the look of astonishment on the students' faces when I said that here the Ministry merely makes suggestions, and does not give directions. We had won that battle long ago. The authorities, the Ministry and the teachers all agree on this freedom. The German students were very surprised when I said that this freedom was to be extended to grammar schools in the near future, so that they will be freed from any possible domination of external examinations which has so often largely influenced their curriculum and their methods of teaching, and has, on occasions, definitely sheltered bad teaching. They have the same freedom now as all their colleagues, and we hope they will welcome it. It will also be a good thing for the children, and particularly for the able children.

Everyone knows that many able children in grammar schools have suffered through early and excessive specialisation. The universities have sought to blame the grammar schools for this intensive competition, and the grammar schools have sought to blame the universities, but whoever is to blame, the child has suffered. As a result of the working party's report on University Awards, the universities are now given an opportunity to modify their entrance and scholarship examinations, so that there will be no excuse for any excessive specialisation in the grammar schools. All that will be needed is to provide specialisation for perhaps two-thirds of the sixth form time in a narrow field, and the rest of the time can be devoted to giving that general education which all children need.

That should be a grand thing for the able child, and particularly those potentially able children in the smaller grammar schools who will now have a greater chance of receiving recognition. We shall also be saved the experience of university professors telling us of brilliant boys who have not done more than one hour a week outside their mathematics and science in their last school year. This was bad for the successful boy and disastrous for those who failed. I hope the Minister will stick to his guns. He will be in good company with Whitehead, Livingstone, Norwood, Spens and countless others who all advocated this reform. Indeed, had he accepted the recommendations in October, 1947, he might have had the support of "The Times Educational Supplement."

I will not attempt to cover the whole field in the short time that is available for this Debate, and I will deny myself the pleasure of arguing with the hon. Member for York (Mr. Corlett) on the very interesting points he put forward. I will confine myself to the attitude of the universities. It is true that the Secondary Schools Examinations Council unanimously recommended the establishment of this age limit, but the hon. Member neglected to tell the House that also in this report is stated:

"The Council trusts they will not be thought to be going outside their province if they express the hope that the widest possible opportunity will be given for discussion of their recommendations before any detailed decisions are taken. They understand it is your intention to consult the universities to whom these recommendations are obviously of very close concern."

That seems very pertinent and important to the Council's recommendations.

There were months of negotiations.

The right hon. Gentleman will be replying to the Debate, and I am only asking certain questions. I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us a little more about the protests at the headmaster's conference, although I will not deal with that in general, because my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Horn-castle (Commander Maitland) has already referred to it, and about the universities. In Circular 168, we read that

"He"—

that is the right hon. Gentleman—

"is led to believe that the universities will find it possible to relate their entrance requirements to the examination for the proposed general certificate of general education."

The first question I want to ask is: who led the right hon. Gentleman? I have had many dealings with him, both outside and in school, and while he never fails to be courteous, I have found that he has never been a person to be lightly led. Who is it that has led the right hon. Gentleman to believe this? We are then told that the universities will find it "possible"; of course they will, but the question is whether or not they will find it advantageous. We know that the universities will not close down or come to an end, but are they going to find this reform an advantage? What is going to be the effect of their attempt to adjust themselves to this new policy?

Many strong things have been said on this topic. The late headmaster of Rugby, Dr. Lyon, said, in a letter which appeared in "The Times" in September, 1948, that he was perfectly certain that the universities would be the last to argue this. I do not know how he was perfectly certain, but there are certain facts, and history cannot he invented for the convenience—

The universities can hardly maintain that the grammar schools should do what they themselves do not do.

That is very interesting but it would take me another half an hour to deal with that. The headmaster of Rugby said:

"I do not know of any responsible teacher in the field of grammar school education who supports it."

Of the universities, he wrote:

"They can either insist on their present requirements, which will mean that the most able children will have to continue the study of two or three subjects for one or two years after they ought to have abandoned them; or they can limit their demands and so run the risk of encouraging undue specialisation; or—almost worst of all—they can revert to the system of individual differing examinations from which the Certificate Examination set us free."

It is the second thing which, in one form or another, they will do. They will set up some sort of examination that has to be passed in two subjects at a high level and two subjects at the ordinary level. The great danger is that it will encourage people to pseudo-specialise in some bogus subjects like history and English rather than in the classics—[Interruption.]—I have no hesitation in saying that a boy who can do the classics is much better advised to do classics than to do history. A professor was telling me the other day that the present situation in the university world is that the quality of classical scholarship is as high as ever, but that the quantity has diminished. It would be a great calamity if more boys and girls were to move out of the classics and into history as a result of this—[Interruption.] This is not a party point. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to tell us what were these negotiations with the universities.

We have just had an interesting admission from the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis). I do not know whether he represents the views of Members opposite in this respect, but, if he does, we can only conclude that they, like Mr. Ford, think that history is bunk.

I think the best way to teach a person to be a historian is to give him a classical education.

I dare say that a classical education would be most useful to an historian, but there is nothing in these examination proposals to prevent a boy or girl from taking the classics.

I want to answer as rapidly as I can some of the points made by the hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle (Commander Maitland). I think we cannot too much emphasise the fact that the recommendations of the Secondary Schools Examinations Council were unanimous. The hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle said he was concerned with schools. All types of schools were represented on the Council. The joint four had their representatives—the Assistant Masters', the Assistant Mistresses', the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Associations. We know that the representatives of these four organisations are concerned with schools. Did not they wish to make representations in the best interests of schools? All four signed the report of the Examinations Council. The Headmasters' Conference was represented on the Council. The hon. and gallant Member said that difficulties would be put in the way of the universities, but he did not specify exactly what those difficulties would be. I would point out to him that the universities were represented on the Examinations Council, on which sat men and women representing every type of school and educational institution in the country.

I did say that in the past great men have changed their minds.

Yes, but if representative people like that, after having given attention to the matter for weeks, changed their minds with such startling rapidity I do not think we would say that their minds were great. As I say, the recom- mendations were unanimous and after the report of the examinations council was published considerable negotiations took place between those interested in this matter and the Minister of Education. I believe it is correct that the Minister received deputations from practically every body which represents teachers and schools in this country. My right hon. Friend thoroughly and exhaustively discussed all the implications with them, and it was only after he had gathered their opinions and had carefully considered the report of the Council that he decided to implement that report. I believe that most educationalists are glad that he decided to take that action.

The hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle said the clever boy might suffer as a result of this change in the examinations system. I say that the clever boy will not be handicapped at all. Future examinations are to be in three tiers—ordinary, advanced and scholarship. No one is obliged to take the ordinary examination before he takes the advanced stage, or obliged to take the advanced stage before taking the scholarship stage. The clever boy of 14 may reach the stage in which he would be able to take the ordinary stage examination. He will continue his studies, and by the age of 16 he may be able even to take the scholarship stage. He will not be retarded in his studies by the fixing of the age at the minimum of 16.

During the 40 years or more in which I have been connected with educational politics in this country, I have heard strong complaints from secondary and grammar school teachers that the curricula and methods of instruction in our secondary schools have been "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd" by the necessity to prepare for the external examination. The new system will provide freedom to vary curricula, make methods of instruction more flexible and allow the child to develop according to his ability and aptitude. The hon. and gallant Member made a suggestion which, I think, was rather unworthy, especially as I have very considerable respect for him. He said that what had been done had been done to protect the modern secondary school and its staff from invidious comparisons with the grammar school. That is complete nonsense. No one would dream of comparing the results obtained in a modern secondary school with those obtained in a grammar school. The modern secondary school is composed of boys and girls after about 25 to 30 per cent. of those with the best intelligence have been "creamed off" to go to the grammar school. No one should believe that we ought to get as good results, in the academic sense, from the modern school as from the grammar school. So that argument completely falls to the ground.

This report, which has been implemented by the Minister, is a charter of freedom for our grammar schools. It gives grammar school teachers freedom to vary their curricula and methods according to the intelligence and ability of the child. I am sure that teachers in our grammar schools will warmly welcome it, as does the National Union of Teachers, which is the most influential teaching organisation in the country. Our grammar schools will, in future, have the freedom they have lacked in the past.

I speak again with the leave of the House. I do not think it is sound to deal with the minimum age in isolation; it is only one element of the new examination scheme, and needs to be considered in relation to the whole scheme and to the educational policy which underlies it. There is not time to deal with this matter in full now, so I propose to answer a few questions which have been raised, some of which seem to be disturbing some sections of the educational world.

First, the modern school, I have been accused in some quarters of imposing an age limit to protect the modern school. There is no truth in this, and anyone who reads the report of the Secondary Schools Examinations Council will see that in devising the new system of examinations they had all types of secondary schools in mind. The fact that they provided for the examination to be taken after the child has left school indicates its universal application. From one point of view, I admit, the age limit may serve the interests of the modern school in encouraging a tendency which is already showing itself—to remain beyond the statutory leaving age. If it does that I shall be glad to have been the means of encouraging that tendency.

The second question put to me is: why cannot children take an examination when they are ready for it? The answer is simple. We do not have children for examinations, but examinations for children. After all, what is the special virtue of the age of 15. Surely, the real point is, what the examination is for. A question which is complementary to this is: Will not the bright children be held back? That has already been answered, but I shall re-emphasise it. I believe the new examination will make it possible for them to advance as far and as fast as they can in each subject.

The whole idea of the new system is to look at the needs of the individual child and to visualise his secondary school course as a continuing whole. When, for some reason, he needs to obtain a certificate of what he can do in one or more subjects he takes an examination in that subject at the level that he has achieved. My hon. Friend has pointed out that the bright boy who can carry his subject forward need not, because he will not be called upon to be tested in it until he is 16 years of age, begin at the bottom. He can take the subject and the examination at the stage at which he has arrived. Let hon. Members contrast this plan with what takes place at the present time. The student must of necessity attain approximately the same level in a group of subjects. Which of these two systems is the more likely to hold the bright boy back? I suggest that it is the present system rather than the new system now suggested.

Is the Minister suggesting that the curricula of sixth forms will not be affected at all by what he is doing?

I will deal with the sixth form now.

The fourth question with which I wish to deal is whether sixth form work will or will not be wrecked by preventing sufficient concentration on main subjects. The idea behind this is that the scholar should arrive at a given stage—some hon. Members have suggested 15 years of age while others have suggested 14; I have even heard it suggested that some very brilliant individuals could arrive there at 13 years of age and that, having reached that stage they should forget all about three or four subjects and con- centrate upon the remainder. The universities themselves—the hon. Member who interrupted me just now is a representative of the universities—for a long time have questioned whether sixth form specialisation has not gone too far. Time and time again in my short term of office this question has been put to me. For my part I want the schools to turn out complete persons and not just physicists, chemists or historians. In any case, I do not believe that the high standard of work in the special subjects will suffer in the least. The bright boy will not be deterred by the fact that he has to spend a few hours a week keeping up some general studies. If there is anything at all in this idea that the passing of an examination is an incentive, the very fact that he has to pass an examination will encourage that boy in his studies.

Finally, I come to what is perhaps the key to the whole problem. People say that the minimum age will bring the new examination into conflict with the matriculation examination of universities. I should imagine that the universities need to ascertain what the prospective student knows just before he starts his university course and not what he knew four or five years previously. The universities are reviewing their matriculation requirements. I am sure that they appreciate fully the principles of the Education Act and the necessity to ensure a proper general education as a basis for later specialisation. I want to see universities and schools getting together on this problem. They both have the same end in view. Given good will and co-operation I am convinced that the new examination can be made to serve the true interests not only of the schools and their pupils but of the universities also.

There are just two general points with which I should like to deal. The criticism of the minimum age is based upon an assumption that the new examination is the old system under a different name. But in fact it is a new examination and it is designed to serve an entirely different purpose; unless this purpose is understood the age limit cannot be seen in the right light. The second point is that the present examination system was intended to establish standards for the State secondary schools when these were in their infancy and still had to justify themselves. The school certificate and the higher certificate have served their purpose, but they have, as has been often said, cramped and limited the freedom of the schools. Now the schools have established their standards they must have freedom, and the new examination is designed to give them that freedom, the freedom to educate children according to their age, ability and aptitude, as laid down in the Act of 1944.

In view of the fact that the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb) is unfortunately incapacitated, it would be more convenient for him if he were allowed to deliver his speech sitting, and accordingly I give him that permission. Might I also appeal to hon. Members, as we are seriously over running our time, to be as brief as possible.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker and the House for the indulgence you have accorded to me. I do not like to impose on the House, but two nights ago I had rather a nasty fall, and it would be better for the subject to which I want to address myself, if I tried to do it sitting. I hope it will not do any damage to the dignity of the House, and I will let hon. Members, who want to follow me, know when I am likely to be "sitting down."

I do not think anyone would want to apologise for raising the subject which I am about to raise today. All of us whatever side of the House we sit on, including the Government and particularly the Government, must understand that this is a matter of serious concern to all the people we represent. I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, to you for calling the subject and to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury for coming along to reply. We require much more time for probing this subject today than we have got, because it raises wider consideration including the whole consideration of the Government's economic and financial policy. I am afraid also it raises considerations involving legislative action, and as we are on the Adjournment, I would be out of Order in going into those. Therefore, there will be some unbalance in my constructive proposals, but I cannot help that because of the rules of Order.

First, I should like to make it clear, since I raised the question of the cost of living publicly, that I have in no way set out to disrupt the general framework of the Government's policy. I believe it would be quite reckless to destroy the basic principle on which this Government is trying to secure the economic solvency of this nation. By trying to wreck those proposals we would serve no purpose other than that of wrecking any hope of achieving solvency within a measurable period of time, but my concern, accepting the broad purpose of the policy on which the Government are now proceeding, is to find some practical way within that policy for, at least, easing its harsher effects by making it more equitable in its consequence. We have seen its effects since about April last. We have seen our economic system, much more disciplined and much more taut, effectively co-ordinated and organised, and we have been able to measure the impact of that very successful operation upon the lives of our people. I believe it has disclosed some degree of inequity and it is our duty, without trying to disrupt the purpose and the consequences of the plan, to consider that inequity, and, if we can, without damaging what we are trying to do, to put it right.

I recognise that we cannot as a nation consume all that is available to us. We have the needs of our export drive, which are inescapable needs; we have the needs of the capital programme, which are equally inescapable needs; and we can only enjoy as a nation in consumption goods what is available to us out of our collective resources after we have dealt with the export programme and with the capital programme. We must recognise that that means going without and it means hurting our people. I do not need the strictures of the "Economist" or "Investors' Journal" to prove that. But this is my complaint and it is a very important complaint—so long as we are trying to reduce consumption by stiffening the price, as we have been doing, we cause a situation in which some of our people are not going without enough and other people are going without too much. That is the whole point of my complaint, and it is on that that I base what I have to say this afternoon.

The serious thing about it is not so much the inequity of it, though that is serious, but because it threatens the success of the whole Government's programme. I do not believe that the Government disinflationary programme can be carried through to effective and final success, and bring us solvency unless we deal with this problem of the cost of living. The "Economist," a newspaper which has had a lot of harsh things to say about this, and economists as a whole cannot assume that it is enough to draw up some sort of statistical balance sheet and prove that it is impossible to modify the balance. We here have to consider the effects of the plan upon our people from the point of view of the ordinary people, who have to work for the life of this country.

If we are mobilising this nation to secure solvency, we have primarily to consider how far our people can go, how they can fulfil what they undertake and their general morale in this situation. There are laws which we have to consider, just as much as we consider the economic law—laws of human justice, human equity and above all, the physical laws of human ability to sustain undue physical burdens. That is what I am concerned about at this time.

If the Chancellor is to succeed in reaching solvency by 1952—and that is the year he has put himself—he must do two things. First of all, he must get greater output from the workers, and, above all, he must prevent any resumption of wage demands. His plan is threatened on both sides, because of the excessive cost of living. In the first place, the excessive cost of living arouses a sense of inequity and that sense of inequity will lead, before very long, to an inevitable upsurge of fresh wage demands. If that comes, particularly in the textile trade which I know very well, it is bound to have effects on other costs—the costs of clothing and so on. Once again we shall be involved in a rising spiral. Therefore, in facing the danger, we must see where the risk of inflation lies. It does not lie in giving the lower income groups more cash to spend or by easing the burden through cutting prices. There is no real risk of inflation there. The only danger is that the Chancellor's policy, which in every other respect I regarded as admirable, is in danger of an unanswerable outbreak of fresh wage demands in the very near future.

Let us agree that the Government have done much to restrict prices. The Opposition's attempt to raise prejudice on this score will not bear examination. I hear it said that the cost of living today in the country is due to Socialism but it is a very small dose of Socialism which has brought about that increase. There is very little Socialism in America and America is constantly presented to us as a highly successful private enterprise country, but the increase in the cost of living there is immeasurably greater than it is in this country. Any such inflation as there has been in this country has not led to the catastrophic increase in prices which we have seen in other countries, largely because of the effective measures taken by the Government. We must say that because it is a very relevant and important part of the picture we are trying to draw.

While we give all credit to the Government for what they have done, it is clear that they must now do more to secure a drop in prices—not just to hold them and maintain them stable where they are—if they are to get their policy through to success. As I have said, the policy of disinflation must hurt people, but this House must be sure that it hurts the people most able to be hurt and does not hurt the people least able to be hurt. The lower income groups are not all in the working class; there are sections of the working class which, I am bound to say as a result of the enlightened policy of the Government, are much better off than they have ever been. There are sections of the working class in which wage increases have not kept pace with the increased cost of living and sections of the middle class with fixed incomes who have not been able to deal with their excessive costs. However, my inquiries show that the lower income groups, whether they be in the working class or in the middle class, are now having to do without to a greater extent than is the case with those in the higher income classes.

I am glad to say that the Treasury asked me for copies of the family budgets which I secured during this investigation, and they are now being analysed. I hope that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will look at the results of that analysis. They are most revealing. They show the grave human effect of this, and the House would be failing in its duty if it did not consider it. That is the purpose of this Debate. There is a disparity between different sections of the community in carrying the burden of disinflation. Indirect taxation grossly aggravates that disparity. The Beer Duty, the Tobacco Duty, and the Purchase Tax are examples of that. I cannot go into the Beer Duty or the Tobacco Duty because that would involve legislation. The Purchase Tax is different, and I will come to that before I—I was going to say, sit down—shut up.

What do I suggest? First, I want the Government to restrict consumption by rations and quotas instead of prices. That is fundamental. We were successful in our policy so long as we kept to that, but in recent months we have shown a tendency to get away from it, and in so far as we have gone away from it, we are making a mistake. I am quite apprehensive—many hon. Members on this side of the House share my view and the Government would do well to note it because we are very much behind the Government in all their work and we do not speak irresponsibly about these matters—about the recent removal of controls and the promised reduction of quotas which was threatened in a Sunday newspaper last weekend. We shall want to inquire very fully into the effect of such removals when they come along.

Does it mean that by again abandoning quotas and price control, and by stiffening prices, we shall place a greater burden on the lower income groups in the business of restricting consumption? It should be possible to get consumption within the limits of what we can afford as a nation in the light of our very restricted resources simply by seeing that materials and manpower are not used improperly. The whole apparatus of our controls and economic organisation should be effective for that purpose. That is my first point.

I want to see a much more stringent limitation on profit margins. Here is a field which, in my view, urgently needs re-examination, particularly on the distributive side. When we look at the profits of such firms as Woolworths, Marks and Spencer and firms similarly engaged in the distributive side, there is a prima facie case for cutting the final price to the user. Surely, there is room for inquiry and action to at least make some sort of observable reduction of price to the final user. The whole business of getting goods from the maker to the user is wholly uneconomic and indefensibly expensive, not only in terms of money, but in terms of the gross misuse of resources and manpower, and it requires urgent examination. I think also—and the Government recognise this, because they have done so much in this field—that there must be more efficiency in the field of distribution. While it is important to bring about a considerable reduction in final costs, we must make sure that trade rings do not exploit such economies to enhance their profits instead of cutting the prices.

I come back to the immediate situation. So much of what I have said is a long-term business, and I do not want to under-estimate what the Government has already done, but I do want to remind them of the importance of these considerations. What is it that the Government can do now? I want to see something done, as it were, to prime the pump that would draw off excessive prices, and I believe that the only means available to the Government capable of doing the job is the instrument of indirect taxation.

I can only mention the Purchase Tax, because it is the only one that is subject to Order and not to legislative action. I believe it is an inflationary tax. I have never liked it, but I have put up with it because of its advantages in the situation in which we find ourselves. Now that that situation has very considerably changed, and it is to this changed situation that I am drawing attention, let us consider the impact of the Purchase Tax. I believe we should cut it out on all household and personal necessities and should pile it up considerably on all non-necessities and luxuries. The whole thing should be most carefully overhauled and re-applied. I believe that, in the end, the amount of revenue might not be much different, but that the consequences of the change, in its effect on the life and wellbeing of our people would be considerable.

I do not want to go on, because you, Mr. Speaker, have asked us to be brief, and other hon. Members wish to speak. I have tried to sketch the general picture, and I would emphasise, in conclusion, that I do not believe that this proposal in any way involves going back on the Government's plan. That plan must primarily depend upon effective control to keep consumption down to the proper level, but I would warn the Government. I think the House will agree that I do not speak rashly, but that I am seriously concerned about this matter, representing a textile constituency which has to carry a very heavy burden in responding to the demand to meet our desperate needs, and in which the average household income is, for the greater part, below £5 a week. I am deeply conscious of the facts concerning the lives and interests of those people who are working hard to produce the clothes which we need for home and export.

I warn the Government that there are already signs of incipient industrial unrest unless this problem is faced. I believe that the Government's overhaul plan involves a reduction in prices as being just as important as the freezing of wages. On every other side we have done well, but, on this side, not as well as we ought to have done. It is because I want this plan to succeed, and because I believe it will not succeed, but will fizzle out in all kinds of serious situations, that I ask the Government seriously to consider the plea that I make and to apply their minds to the problem of cutting prices.

The hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb), whom I could describe as my hon. Friend in any other place but this, has put forward his case in a skilful and moderate manner. I think he will agree with me that it is only possible to skim the surface of this subject and I hope it will be possible to go over it at much greater length another time. I thought the first portion of the hon. Member's speech consisted of pious platitudes of what he would like to see and the second part of entirely impracticable remedies. Does he not realise that if purchasing power is released on a large scale by reduction of taxation, that money is going to press on other things and force up other prices and thereby undo the very advantage he wishes to get? That is going to raise the cost of living.

The hon. Member suggested that that should be dealt with by controls. Surely our experience of the last three years has shown us clearly that suppression of inflation by controls is disastrous. It distorts men and material; if there is more money to be made out of making things which are not controlled, men and material go there, thereby creating shortage of necessities. In America we have seen inflation take place without these disastrous consequences, because it is not suppressed in this unhappy way. The hon. Member referred to profit margins. I should be pleased to see them cut down, but the only way to cut them down is by competition, and the controls which he is advocating are those which prevent proper competition. I have no doubt that many industrial companies today are making far wider profit margins because they are protected by the fact that other people cannot come into their field.

I mentioned the distribution side. Surely there is effective competition there. There is the widest possible competition between the different firms I have mentioned, but that has not served to bring down prices.

In the short time at my disposal, I cannot go into the whole point, but I say that, generally speaking, the very controls the hon. Member is advocating, cause the prevention of competition, and that must be recognised. Of course, prices have risen a lot in America. Profits have risen rather more and wages have risen a great deal more. Consequently, in that country, in spite of rising prices, all except the very rich are far and away better off than ever before. Our own difficulties about food are not caused because Americans are eating a great deal, but because the poorest sections of Americans are able to buy more expensive food such as meat, eggs and butter than before.

And there is the fact that production in America has almost doubled since before the war.

I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman brought that out. It illustrates my point that where there is no attempt to suppress inflation by controls, production can expand far more. I suggest to the hon. Member for Central Bradford that, whereas I entirely sympathise with his anxiety on this question, as we all do, in order to get it into the right perspective we should remember that at the present time between two and three times as much is spent on alcohol and tobacco as on rent, rates and water. When one remembers that that enormous amount is spent in this manner, it gives a slightly different outlook on the hardship involved. It cannot come entirely out of the rick, because the amount spent on tobacco and drink consumed is about four times the net available income of those who have a gross income of £2,000 and over. That, of course, does not mean that I do not entirely sympathise with the hon. Member's point about the danger of inflation. In the first stages it produces hardship and distorts production, thereby making the situation worse. In the second place, it could lead to general disaster and the least deserving part of the population might make a fortune on the way. There is no easy way out. We only have to look at the net amount left to Super Tax payers to know that there is no short cut. We all have to go without if we are to get rid of inflation.

There are two cures. One is to expand production. We cannot do that unless we have a better supply of stocks, a better distribution of labour and materials and better machinery. All that means going without for a bit. The other alternative, apart from expanding production, is to reduce consumption. That means either higher taxation or higher prices or cutting Government expenditure, and if the hon. Member was talking about the latter, of course I would entirely agree with him, but he omitted to refer to that. What I would emphasise is that higher prices are not the cause of inflation. They are the result of it. They are, as it were, nature's remedy. They are like a man who has measles and has spots on his face. The spots do not cause the measles; they are the inevitable consequence of the disease. Those remedies are the best way out of the difficulty if we do not have higher taxation, to which there is a limit, or a reduced demand through economies in Government expenditure.

The hon. Gentleman has addressed himself very intelligently to this problem, if I might say so, but he left out one point which I mentioned. What are his views on the possibility of getting some reduction in prices by better rationalisation on the distributive side of our economy?

That is another subject altogether. It is an immense field. There is nò question that there is not one solution which could put the matter right by itself. It can only be one of many solutions.

In a way, I am in the slightly uncomfortable position of trying to defend the hon. Gentleman's Government against himself, but let me say how strongly I feel that there is no failure which the Government have made so great or so disastrous to the country as a whole, as their failure to get a balance between supply and demand. The Government often talk a great deal about planning, but to my mind the fundamental plan that all modern governments ought to accept is the necessity to balance demand and supply so that we get neither the evils of inflation nor of deflation. The Government have failed to do it partly because they have not enabled production to increase as much as it could, and partly because they have distorted expenditure by excessive expenditure themselves. But the hon. Member for Central Bradford has given us this degree of consolation: he has shown us that we could indeed have an even worse Chancellor than we have got. Indeed I wonder whether he has not shown—though that may be stretching the imagination of the House too far—that we could have as bad a Chancellor of the Exchequer as even the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was.

The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman) is perfectly right. High prices are not the cause of inflation. They are the symptoms of what is wrong. If His Majesty's Government have not succeeded in dealing with them, that is because the Government have not seen fit to introduce a closed economy in this country such as they have in Russia. My case is quite simply this: No Government has any control over a high cost of living under the existing rules of the financial game. That is all.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb), to whom all of us are indebted for having brought this question to the fore in the way that he has, upon his penetrating intelligence in putting his finger right upon the one administrative action by which the Chancellor could effect an early reduction in prices. My hon. Friend pointed to the Purchase Tax. It is true that by reducing Purchase Tax one could reduce the cost of living. It is true that if one regarded a reduction in the Purchase Tax not merely as a matter of what has been done before by Chancellors of the Exchequer, but of what might be done if Chancellors of the Exchequer were algebraically minded, and instead of contenting themselves with reducing Purchase Tax to nil, brought it down to a minus quantity, so that it was a subsidy reducing the ordinary price, then we should have found the remedy we want.

But the problem which the Economic Secretary—whom I am glad to see here although he has not many of the attributes of the festive season—will be up against is this: how is he to reduce prices in that way, not only by wiping out Purchase Tax but by increasing subsidies? That is the general problem he is up against. The answer is that it cannot be done under the capitalist system—just that, and that is all. We are really beating the air on this, and I want the people of England to know that the Government will not be successful in getting the cost of living down so long as they accept the present financial mechanism of distribution. It cannot be done.

Where was the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby right when he said the high cost of living is merely a symptom and not a cause? Simply in this way: to a great extent we are still a free economy. If the Government controlled everything, we should have so many officials that the thing would be top-heavy. To a great extent we are a free economy, going according to the good old rule that the price of a thing is what it will fetch. That is the rule and apart from controls there is no other rule. Since the price of a thing is what it will fetch, and since we are having an attempt in this country at a tremendous capital formation—I do not know whether we are successful or not; but if we do not improve and extend our capital equipment we shall be much worse off in the years ahead—and since, because we are trying hard at a big capital formation, we have great bodies of workmen busy every day of their lives making goods which never get into the shops because they are capital goods, we face this problem.

The income of these people nevertheless goes into the consumers' market; and since the price of a thing is what it will fetch, it is in the consumers' market where industry recovers all it has paid to the producers of consumer goods and capital goods alike. The public pays high prices to cover the capital extensions which companies finance with money allocated from reserves, which they have built up by charging more to consumers. That is how it is done. Unless the Economic Secretary has some method of dealing with that, he will never get the answer to this question. I should be out of Order were I to start to tell the Economic Secretary the way to do it. I will content myself by saying that there is a way, and that it is quite easy to understand. It is not beyond his capacity, and any time he likes I am willing to explain the way to the Economic Secretary.

We have to bear in mind that this business of prices is a modern substitute for what used to happen years ago when Socialist speakers at street corners talked, as some people still talk, about the working man being robbed at the pay-table. That is complete nonsense now. The system of control over the public is at the retail counter and nowhere else, and it is to the retail counter that the Economic Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have to look in applying the negative Purchase Tax which alone can do the trick. They cannot do it under the existing rules of orthodox finance.

I would comment on the speech made by the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Norman Smith) if I understood what he was driving at. I thought he started by trying to convert the House to Communism and finished up by getting back to 19th century Liberalism.

We are grateful to the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb) for giving us the opportunity of discussing this important question. There is no domestic matter causing greater concern to the whole of the country than the rising cost of living. Where, of course, I do not agree with him is in his belief that this problem can be solved within the ambit of Socialist policy. I will say a word about his remarks about the United States. Whatever may be wrong with the economy of the United States, at any rate they manage to feed themselves and they are feeding us, too. At least they have some turkey to eat this Christmas, which is more than we have.

Some of them have.

I do not blame the Government for having created the situation in which this country finds itself today. They are not responsible for the loss of our overseas investments, the interest on which before the war brought us about 6s. in every £1 worth of imports. I do not blame them for the damage which was done to our capital equipment during the war or for the vast leeway which has to be made up. I do not blame them for the present wave of economic nationalism growing throughout the whole world. I do not blame them for the fact that the terms of trade have gone against us, and as far as food is concerned, are likely to go against us. What I do blame them for is trying all the wrong remedies. That is where I disagree with the hon. Member for Central Bradford. So long as these present policies are continued, not only will the question of the cost of living remain serious, but, in my opinion, it will get worse.

Today, for the first time perhaps, we see the Socialist chickens coming home to roost. We can hear their wings fluttering round this Chamber. Before this Parliament is up there will be many more chickens fluttering round this Chamber. I think that what is happening today is the result of the Socialists' preaching for 40 years the economic nonsense that we can get a quart of wages out of a pint pot of work, that enterprise and initiative do not really matter, that exports and overseas investments do not much matter either. I can quote chapter and verse for all this having been said by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and right hon. Gentlemen, too.

There was the sort of nonsense that suggested that there was a gold mine here in Westminster from which the expenses of the State could be paid, or the sort of nonsense that it is only the rich who pay taxes. The hon. Member for Central Bradford rather gave that one up, but there is still an idea about, that there is some enormous margin to be got out of profits that can make up for deficiencies in other directions, and we have the old Socialist nonsense that output is just a Tory trick from which only the bosses benefit. I do not believe we are going to get anywhere until all that propaganda of 40 years has been put into reverse.

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me? Which one of the points he has just quoted has been made in this Debate from this side of the House today?

The thesis has been made, because the hon. Gentleman has suggested that this situation can be remedied within the ambit of Socialism. My whole point is that it cannot. I do not think we can get anywhere until hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are prepared to confess that they have been talking piffle for 40 years, and until they put all that propaganda into reverse. I know it is not easy. There is nothing so indigestible as swallowing one's own words, and no brand of bicarbonate of soda has been invented to help in the process.

What is to be done? The hon. Gentleman touched on some of the things that have got to be done, but he was cagey about the most important one, and that is a reduction in taxation. Taxation is the largest single factor in rising costs, and the number of individuals who have been dragged out of productive industry and put into snooping and administration, all of whom have to be carried on the backs of the wage earners of this country.

Both the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb) and the hon. Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Norman Smith) declared that they would like to take the Debate wider than the subject allows. The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) knows very well that such matters involve legislation.

I am not suggesting introducing a Bill today. That would be out of Order in this Debate. However, the hon. Gentleman was trying to show the reasons why the cost of living is so high, and he did not touch, except in a very oblique way, on what I contend is the most important one, namely, the high cost of taxation.

It would not have been in Order.

The hon. Member also touched on the question of increased output. I do not think there is any good in pretending that we are going to get increased output from industry while so large a part of industry remains on a five-day week. There is only a limited field in industry in which we can get the same sort of output in a five-day week as in a week of five and a half days. Only in those types of industry which are tied to the conveyor belt, or in which the work is of such an arduous nature as to be subject to the law of diminishing returns, can we get as large an output in a five-day week as in a week of five and a half days.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the factor of supply and demand. Does he not also admit that in this problem of raw materials for output there are factors over which we have no control? Does he not remember that there have been eight million strike days as compared with 150 million strike days under a Conservative Government before the war? Does he not admit that the workers have pulled their weight so far as output is concerned?

All I know is that three and a half years after the end of the 1914–18 war, we did not have rationing of food, nor did we have to admit that in the fourth Christmas in the postwar world, only one family in 10 could get a turkey. I think that the hon. Gentleman must realise that unless he is prepared to get up and say how this greater output can be obtained, not merely, as he suggests, by greater incentives, but by frankly admitting that we cannot get, in the vast majority of industries, the same output in a five-day week as in a five-and-a-half-day week, his remedies will not take us very far.

The last point I want to make is that the only way to get increased output is by incentives. It is no good pretending that there are incentives today in any field of industry. Unless enterprise and initiative get additional reward, we shall not get enterprise, initiative and hard work, and unless laziness and inefficiency at the bench, in the office, in the board room, or anywhere else get their reward, then we shall not get efficiency and increased output. I would also say that if the Government really want to get increased output, they will have to call a halt for the time being to their nationalisation plans, and prove to the country that the industries which have been nationalised already can be made a success, before they start tinkering about with other industries.

I warn the hon. Gentleman that, in my humble opinion, this situation will not automatically get easier; it will get worse. Since wages were supposed to have been frozen in the spring of this year, over five million people have received increased wages without any corresponding increase in output. One thing which I do not want to limit or freeze in this country is earnings; but hon. Members opposite seem never to have realised that there is all the difference in the world between wages and earnings. The situation will get worse. We have had a good run up to now with a sellers' market, and with Germany and Japan, our two greatest competitors, out of the market. Unless the Government realise that fact, instead of prices going down and instead of our position getting better and of our being able to balance our external budget by 1952, we may find the position in three years' time even worse than it is today.

Whenever we try in this House to have an intelligent discussion someone intervenes with a constituency speech. I suppose that has to be endured. I should have liked to answer the intelligent contribution to the Debate made by the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman), but I have only the time to make one short point. I will confine myself to those articles on which physical control operates.

For instance, the amount of beer still brewed is controlled by the barley allo- cation. When we have a commodity of that sort, there seems to be no object at all in fixing a price which does not allow the quantity which is planned for to be absorbed. That is what is happening at the moment. Beer stocks are building up in all the public houses and clubs, and they cannot be sold simply because of prices. That seems to me to be the very nadir of planning. It is perfectly true that the brewers could make a considerable contribution in that respect. Their profits last year were £49 million, which is £1 per head for every man, woman and child of the entire population. Obviously, they can do something to bring down the prices, and pressure ought to be put upon them to make them do so. But the Government will have to do something, too. The taxation of beer is, of course, the largest feature in its price, and something will have to be done to bring down the price of beer to a level where the supplies to which we have a claim because of our barley allocation, will be absorbed.

I noticed that while the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Norman Smith) disagreed with the basic economic policy of the Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb) made it clear that he is in agreement with it. I may say that I disagree with what my hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham said, if I understood him aright. On the other hand, I should like to assure my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford that we are extremely glad to have his eloquent support for the policy of holding down the cost of living, which we have been pursuing for the past year. That has, indeed, been the major aim of our internal economic policy, just because, for the very human and psychological reasons which my hon. Friend gave, it does go to the root of the whole policy of recovery by consent and co-operation, which we have been pursuing. And although my hon. Friend did not mention this, the movement of the retail price index shows that we have already achieved some fair measure of success.

As he knows, we have pursued this policy by three main instruments: first, the co-operative effort to stabilise prices and incomes, as set out in the White Paper of last January; secondly, the Budget surplus; and thirdly, the continuance, and indeed the increase, of the food subsidies. In that White Paper policy we have had most valuable co-operation from the trade union movement, from a great number of industrial companies which have limited their dividends, and also from the Co-operative movement. Without all these we could not possibly have succeeded.

In our Budget policy, since November, 1947, we have also, I think, contributed greatly to the objective of keeping down prices by swinging the national finances right over from a condition of deficit to a condition of real overall surplus. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford suggested a shift of emphasis in Purchase Tax from more to less essential goods, in which I think my hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham backed him up. But that is, of course, precisely what we did last spring when we overhauled the whole of this tax; we did make such a shift; and we did, on balance, relinquish to the public as much as £39 million worth of revenue as a result.

We have also maintained the policy of food subsidies, and actually in the course of last summer increased the total. We are confident that if that general policy of subsidies had not been maintained, and if it is not continued while world prices are at their present extremely high level, the stabilisation policy would have broken down, and the inflationary pressure become overwhelming. We have, of course, been advised from time to time by Opposition spokesmen to cut down these food subsidies to "negligible proportions"—which was the phrase once used. It may interest the House to know that if we followed that sort of advice, and if we abolished those subsidies completely, there would be a rise in the retail price index of as much as 13 points. The price of eggs would go up by 44 per cent., butter by 94 per cent., sugar by 40 per cent., flour by 77 per cent., lard by 121 per cent., and so on. I am sure we shall have my hon. Friend's support in resisting suggestions from the Opposition, or anywhere else, that we should follow that policy.

Would my hon. Friend say a word about the possibility of restoring the subsidies on certain commodities, such as bacon, which were taken off some months ago, with the effect of increasing the prices of very important commodities?

I do not rule out the possibilities of adjustments between individual subsidies. What I am saying is that we have continued the general policy of subsidising the cost of living by that method, because, as he pointed out, if we relaxed, it would cause hardship to fall on those least able to bear it.

Does not the hon. Member think he is giving a distorted figure when he stresses the rise in the cost-of-living figures, because if he were drastically to reduce the figures, he would be able to reduce the very taxation to which he has referred?

I was merely pointing out that if we removed the subsidies on certain foods the prices of those foods would go up by that amount. As a result of this instrument of policy we have succeeded in holding the retail price index more or less stable. Between October, 1947, and April, this year, the index had gone up by 101 to 108. In October, this year, it was still at 108, although it may move a little one way or the other in the coming months. The food index has actually gone down from 109.3 in April to 107.6 in October. I have no doubt that, apart from what might happen if we removed the food subsidies, there would have been a disastrous further rise in the cost of living if the policy of the White Paper and of the Budget surplus—unpopular as they were with some people—had not been resolutely pursued. We are, therefore, determined to continue this resolute struggle against the upward surge of prices, through the instruments of price policy, subsidies, taxation, financial policy, and so forth.

We can, accordingly, regard ourselves as in agreement with the hon. Member for Central Bradford on the main issue, and with his main objective. But there are, I think, one or two weaknesses in his argument, although they did not seem so apparent in his speech today as in his interesting article in the "Tribune" last weekend. The hon. Member seems to argue that it is possible to reduce prices without any measures to damp the flow of purchasing power. It is, of course, possible to hold down prices on selected necessities by the continuation of subsidies and price control. But the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman) made a valid point when he said that releases of purchasing power tend to force up the price of something else. He was perfectly correct, and I am, therefore, convinced that subsidies and control must be supplemented by other Measures to absorb this spending power.

I cannot follow the argument. What does it matter if the price of certain commodities is forced up by this excess of purchasing power, provided that those commodities are not in common demand and are not necessities? What does it matter if they reach the sky?

The hon. Member said, in his "Tribune" article, that he thought the surplus had done its work and that we no longer needed its protection against inflation. That is wholly false. That is like arguing that if one lives within one's income one year, it is not necessary to live within it next year; or that if one sleeps one month, it is not necessary to sleep the month after. It is, in fact, just the policy of holding down prices that makes the absorption of purchasing power in some other way necessary. To over-simplify the point, it is by making tobacco more dear that we have been able to keep bread cheap. My hon. Friend was therefore on weak ground in arguing that if price control is rigidly sustained, it will be perfectly adequate without forcing up the price of other commodities. That is true to some extent, when we consider a few really essential commodities. We have, indeed, had more success in doing that in this country than in any other.

I also agree with my hon. Friend in his very important point that any switch from coupon rationing to price rationing, as I think he calls it, tends to benefit the well-to-do and, incidentally, those without dependants, in all classes, as against those with lower incomes and larger families. I think the family budgets my hon. Friend let us see tended to confirm that. I agree that it is a good argument against going too far in present circumstances away from coupon rationing towards price rationing, mainly for the reasons which my hon. Friend advanced.

But there is also this point which I think he missed: if total spending power remains excessive, then price control will be fighting a losing battle over a large part of the field against black markets and evasions which, in the end, will defeat us. Here, I find myself in a middle position between the view of the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford. If the initial flow is not reduced then, sooner or later, it finds its way through, or over, the dam. One way, as the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby said, is that it will stimulate the production of less important manufactures, on which there is no control.

Surely, if we have labour and raw material controls, my hon. Friend can see that there is no danger.

My hon. Friend forgets that none of these controls is perfect. Some are very effective, some less so, and some, in the end, so ineffective that they have to be abandoned. My hon. Friend also rather over-rates, I think, the opportunity there is left to force down distributive margins by price control. We must go on trying to do that as far as we can, and the effort was intensified last winter, at the time of the White Paper. The fact is that the whole Government machine has been concentrated on this effort for eight years, and I think it would be misleading to raise hopes that any further rapid and dramatic results can be expected from it.

Did not the Chancellor say, in our last Debate on this subject, that the margin for distribution must be sufficient to allow the least efficient to operate? Is not that still the policy?

I am aware of that, and that is one of the difficulties which causes me to deprecate hopes of any further dramatic results.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford also, I think, rather ignored the necessity for increased savings if we are to win the battle of the cost of living. Here, the public will really have to help as well as the Government. If we are to have an ambitious investment programme for housing and industrial re-equipment—which, I think, we all want, including my hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham—then either the public must save enough or the Government must raise money by a Budget surplus.

How can people save if they have to pay excessive prices for household goods and the like? High prices are preventing people from saving today.

The trouble is that if voluntary savings are not there, the problem solves itself by forced saving. The fact is that if savings are not available, either from private people or by way of a Budget surplus, the cost of living inevitably and inexorably increases. We must not blind ourselves to that fact. Unless, in practice, we get enough private or public savings, or both, we shall either jeopardise our re-equipment and housing programmes, or lose the battle against rising prices.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford seemed rather to under-rate—although he did mention it—the inevitable effect on every individual of the movement of the terms of trade against us, and the determined effort which the country has made during the past year to balance our overseas payments. The price of imports actually moved further against us in the last recorded month, October, after a short-lived fall in September. If we are to import less, and have to pay higher prices for these imports, and export more, and keep our investment programme going, it is quite impossible—I think the hon. Member for Central Bradford recognises this—for every individual to feel no effects of that either in limited consumption or, in the case of the less essential commodities, higher prices. One or other of those things is bound to happen.

For instance, if we were to try to consume the amount of tobacco which the public would buy at the prices of two years ago, our chances of dollar solvency would disappear. In fact, if we export more and import less, it is only by increased production that we can possibly consume more. That is an arithmetical fact which no amount of manipulation of price, income and taxation can, I am afraid, possibly get over. The steep rise of import prices and the movement of the terms of trade against us are the root cause of the upward pressure of prices over the last three years.

I agree with that, but will the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government have in no way solved the problem of how to keep costs down in a situation of full employment?

I would say that over this year we have achieved a situation in which we have retained full employment and stopped any further rise in the cost of living; and that is some measure of success. The hon. Member for Central Bradford finally spoke of the possibility of getting an actual reduction in prices. It seems to me that, for the reasons I have given, there are only three ways in which we can, over the whole economy, achieve an actual outright drop in the cost of living such as he asked for. The first is by increased saving on the part of both the public and industrial companies. The second is by more production at home, particularly production of food and other necessities. And the third is a movement of the terms of trade in our favour, which can only come slowly as world production of foodstuffs and raw materials recovers from the war. We shall do all we can to make those things happen as quickly as possible. Until they do, we shall stick to our policy of holding down living costs by all the instruments which we have used in the past year; and I am sure we shall continue to have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford in so doing.

I thank Mr. Speaker for having allowed me to change my subject. For special reasons, I was asked not to take the question of Spain on this Adjournment. I have therefore selected a subject which is meeting with the approval of the whole House. I have consulted a large number of hon. Members on both sides of the House and I have not yet found one who disagrees with the proposal of a time limit to speeches. This time limit would, I suggest, apply not only to back benchers but also to Front Benchers. It will be generally admitted that the Foreign Affairs Debate last week was the most disgraceful performance seen in this House since the General Election. So many people wanted to speak but were unable to speak on account of the selfishness of other speakers who took so long over their speeches, that there was a general feeling of disappointment and frustration throughout the House—

As we are going at present we limit the number of speeches, but I propose to limit the length of speeches so as to have more speeches in the Debates. We are sent here by our boroughs and divisions to represent their ideas. If only a few people are selected to utter the views of the whole of this House, we are not getting truthful Debates but only a reflection of the opinions of a few.

I am going to read out the length of time taken by the various speakers on Thursday, 9th December, which was the first day of the Foreign Affairs Debate. I will not touch upon the two openers. The second Member to speak was the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) who took 22 minutes. That is very little time for him. His speeches are generally longer, but as he is the leader of a party we have to accept that at the moment. Next was the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Zilliacus), who took 36 minutes. The hon. Member for Gateshead always takes a very long time. Not only that, but he always repeats the same speech. The semicolons may be different but the speeches are essentially the same. The curious part about it is that he always gets chosen to speak in foreign affairs Debates. He rarely comes here except in time for his speech and he goes out immediately afterwards.

The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) took 27 minutes. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) took 45 minutes. It is true that he apologised for taking so long, but the apology did not wipe out the fact that his speech cut out two other speakers. The hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. F. Maclean) took 21 minutes and the other speakers between 20 and 24 minutes. Taking these eight speakers they occupied 219 minutes. If that time had been devoted to speeches of 15 minutes in length it would have allowed 14 to join in the Debate instead of eight and 28 Members over the two days, instead of 16, working on that basis.

On the second day the speeches worked out in the same way, except for the curious fact that the hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Piratin) took longer over his speech than did any of the others, excepting the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill). Even the Minister in replying did not take so long as did the hon. Member for Mile End. Mr. Speaker tries to be as fair and impartial as he possibly can, and nobody in this House doubts his fairness, but dividing up the speakers into their various parties we find that the Communist Party get an inordinately bigger share of the speeches than does any other party in the House. On the first day of the foreign affairs Debate, cutting out the last speaker who was only put to stop-gap of eight minutes, there were four Labour speakers, three Conservative speakers and two Independent speakers. On the second day there were four Conservative speakers, four Labour speakers and one Communist speaker.

Taking the House as a whole that does not represent a true proportion of the Members. On the first day, the Independents had far too big a choice and on the second day, as I say, the Communists always get called. If these split parties could all be put together as independents that would divide up the House on a much better proportion.

I understood that the hon. Gentleman's subject was the length of speeches and not Mr. Speaker's selection. I think the hon. Member ought to be careful and he ought not to go too far.

What you say, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, is perfectly true, but I was going to relate this to the amount of time taken by the different speakers. If you object to that, I will not pursue it any further. If we could have this restriction of speeches to 15 minutes, not only shall we get more speakers, but we shall get a better reflection of the true opinion of the country. When we go into our divisions and meet our people they let us know their idea of what we ought to be representing in this House. If we get a very small number of people speaking, that means that only a small part of the country is represented in these Debates.

This limitation in the time of speaking is no new idea. In the South African Parliament they have a time limit, which is so rigid that even if a Member is in the middle of a sentence he has to sit down.

What is the time limit?

I believe about ten minutes, but I am not sure. In one State in Central America they have a system of lights which turn to one particular colour two minutes before a speaker is due to end and another one when he has to stop. In this House we have a limit to our Debates—the Ten o'Clock Rule—so that a Rule limiting times is not new to this House. In our party conferences we have a strict time limit and it works very fairly. If we introduce this idea, it is not going to be anything revolutionary or new and would improve the Debates all round.

Coming to the Front Benches, I have made inquiries from Ministers on this side and from those who were Ministers and who now sit on the Opposition Front Bench, so that I might get some reasonable idea of the amount of time necessary for those who open or close a Debate. Some suggested half an hour and some three-quarters of an hour. No one recommended more than three-quarters of an hour, though some thought half an hour was rather on the limited side. I can recall that when Lord Addison was in the House he said that he could make any of his opening speeches in 15 minutes. If the Front Bench, or, as is customary on the Opposition side, one of the back benchers was winding up and took only half an hour, allowing the same amount of time for the openers of the Debate, in a two-day Debate with speeches limited to 15 minutes there would be considerably more speakers and, therefore, a greater variety of opinion than we would get today. Not only should we get better results but speakers would get to their subjects much more quickly than they do now when there is no time limit. As I am arguing a time limitation for speakers, I have to be very careful not to overstep the mark myself.

The hon. Member is on the South African mark now.

The hon. Member has had 12 minutes already.

On the second day of the Foreign Affairs Debate recently the right hon. Member for Woodford took one hour and 11 minutes for his speech.

He had something to say.

He always uses the most excellent language. To me, it is an intellectual enjoyment to listen to the right hon. Gentleman, but he is such an able speaker that he could do it just as well in half an hour. The greatest words he ever said, or is ever likely to say, did not take more than half a minute, and they are recorded in history. I refer to his speech in the days of the Battle of Britain when he used those memorable words. In winding up what I have to say—because I want to leave other hon. Members the chance to speak—I should like to mention that the greatest speech that has been made in the last 100 years, and which has affected the human race more than any other speech, did not take five minutes. That was Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg.

The time is now eleven minutes past four o'clock, and I have to be careful myself, but I remember a meeting which I attended in a Committee room upstairs on the subject of shorter speeches at which the man who introduced the subject spoke for so long that no other speaker got a chance. I understand that this suggested rule has been introduced already by the Scottish hon. Members as a sort of self-denying ordinance. They add up the number of Scottish hon. Members and divide that figure into the number of minutes, but, of course, no English Member dare interfere, unless he has a skeleton in the cupboard in the shape of a Scottish grandmother, or something else.

I have worked in India in the Legislative Assembly where this rule existed; I think it still exists under the new Constitution. A Front Bench speaker was allowed almost unlimited time, but rarely took more than half an hour. The back bencher had only 10 minutes, except in the Budget Debate. I found that that rule worked very satisfactorily. Speakers were warned about a minute or so before the time limit, and, generally speaking, we limited our speeches to 10 minutes. It is wonderful how quickly one can come to the point when one knows one has only 10 minutes. I suppose it is the most highly civilised nations who produce the longest speeches. We should think of the "Radio Doctor" and all that he gets into five minutes. I think that he has done more in five minutes to take away people's appetites for breakfast than anybody else could do in that short time.

Time is money, and Parliamentary time must cost a great deal of money. I am sure the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick) can say that time is money in fourteen different languages, but I can only say it in one. A dentist in Calcutta was supposed to earn three rupees a minute, and when I attended him it was worth the money. Today, I believe that the highest earners are George Bernard Shaw and Betty Grable, although we approach their earnings from a different point of view, and I believe that they earn three times as much as the dentist in Calcutta.

I suggest that, between the hours of 7 and 8 p.m., when Mr. Speaker is very often away, and you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, may be acting in his place, a time-limit might then be imposed for six speeches of 10 minutes each. That would only be a slight innovation at present, and it would not curtail the time of the "big guns" though it would certainly give a chance for five or six more speakers. I have noticed, sometimes, that Mr. Speaker lifts a finger of his left hand, and, when he gets more impatient, sometimes raises his arm, but nobody has yet seen a full semaphore signal, and, if that happened, I think the hon. Gentleman who was speaking would never be called again by Mr. Speaker. In Gladstone's day, long tail coats and long speeches were the rule; today we believe in short coats and we should make short speeches.

I have so much sympathy with what has been said by hon. Members who have preceded me that as an earnest of my good faith I will apply a rigid time limit to my own speech. I know Parliament is often decried as a "talking shop," but the very etymology of the word indicates that Parliament is a place for talking. It is better for us to talk about our differences than to bash one another on the head, as appears to be the custom in other countries. The purpose of this proposal, however, is not to decrease talking, but to increase the number of talkers, which, I think is all to the good. If a time limit were applied to speeches, two results would follow. There would then be fewer silent Members than at present. After all, there must be many wise colleagues whom we have the opportunity of hearing very seldom, possibly much to the detriment of our counsels.

Another result, I think, would be better speeches. The general level of Debate in this House is not nearly as high as it should be. The grammar, rhetoric and syntax are often appalling. Speeches are too long, prolix and drearily tautological. In the Manchester City council, of which I had the honour to be a member for several years, we had a 10-minute rule, which we found quite sufficient. I believe the period of a quarter of an hour is adequate for an hon. Member to express himself adequately, clearly, simply and, by way of a change, in good English.

I entered the Chamber in the hope of hearing the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick) discourse to us on the subject of Spain. I was not aware that he was going to raise this matter, but it is topical, and I think also important. I do not know whether we are to have a reply from the Government Front Bench, which at present is manned only by a representative of the "usual channels."

I had the privilege of congratulating the hon. Member for Balham and Tooting (Mr. R. Adams) on his maiden speech and I shall be glad to hear him again if he cares to intervene. The hon. Member for Loughborough has raised no new subject. All the time I have been in the House there have been complaints about the length of the speeches of some hon. Members who intervened in Debates, generally raised by frustrated back benchers supporting this or that Government. The trouble from which hon. Members opposite suffer is that they have such overwhelming numbers that they do not get the opportunities they would have if they sat on this side of the House, but probably that will be rectified in a very little time.

I disagree entirely with what the hon. Member for Loughborough told us in regard to Front Bench speeches. A Debate can be wound up in a quarter of an hour on some minor Bill, but if some great international problem or some major Bill is before us, one cannot impose any kind of time limit. When the hon. Member complains of the oratory of the Communist Party, which I enjoy no more than he, I would remind him that it is a fundamental tradition of this House to afford protection to minorities, however much we dislike them, and the protection of the Chair is always given.

I came to the House in circumstances very similar to those of the hon. Member, but I found that I could get called because my speech would not take more than 10 minutes. The Chair loves short speeches. Hon. Members who speak at length do not find the same opportunity as others when the Chair is calling on hon. Members to address the House. The Scottish Members, as my hon. Friend has told us, have applied in their own Debates a self-denying ordinance with very considerable success, and I am bound to say that, without any alteration of rules, these matters are largely in our own hands. A time limit brings great dissatisfaction. I well remember when the late Mr. Lloyd George was nearing the end of his life and he did not attend the House very often. He would come down and speak to us for an hour or an hour and a quarter. For my part, I always delighted to listen for that period of time. Our great figures should be heard, and heard at such length as they like to take.

The remedy is a simple one. What is the House really suffering from today in this matter? It is not the length of the individual speeches which have been made. It is the lack of time which the Government give for debating their important Bills. We had one day on the Licensing Bill—ridiculous. Twenty Members turned out for it. We are suffering, not from excessive oratory, but from a grossly overloaded Parliamentary programme. That is the difficulty. The late Lord Salisbury used to say—I know times were different then, but his remarks still hold good—that six months' legislation and six months' administration is the ideal form of government. We now sit for some nine months in the year, and Bills are rushed through with the Guillotine. I am sure the hon. Member for Loughborough does not complain of what is going on in the Standing Committee on the Iron and Steel Bill. There are no excessive speeches there. The Government have seen to it that there are none at all on most of the Clauses.

If hon. Members would address the House only when they really have something to say, how much better would it be. Who can complain of an hon. Member speaking for 40 minutes if it is the only speech he makes during the Session? Who can complain of an hon. Member addressing the House for half an hour three times in a Session? If we were to add up the total score of some hon. Members who address the House for ten minutes—and I may be one of them—we should find at the end of the Session that the time of the House which they had taken greatly exceeded that, for instance, of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Zilliacus), whose speeches I do not admire, but who does confine himself to foreign affairs. We do not have many foreign affairs Debates, and when he does speak for 40 minutes, he puts a point of view which is held by a minority of people, it is true, but which is none the less held in this country.

The hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy) said that what we wanted were not necessarily shorter speeches but better and more grammatical speeches. The time is approaching when that will be the case. Some new Members of an entirely different complexion will come in, and the quality of the speeches will immediately rise.

I have been asked to reply. In view of the "end of term" atmosphere which prevails, I am sure that most Members will agree that it is not unfitting that a Member of the Whips' Department should break, his monastic silence for a few moments. If in doing so I am able to give a special pleasure to the hon. and gallant Member for Holderness (Lieut. - Commander Braithwaite) I am sure we shall both enjoy our Christmas as a result of it. I am sure we are all grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Follick) for raising this matter today. I thought that he went rather far with his attacks upon those who took part in the last Foreign Affairs Debate, and when he apparently began to question Mr. Speaker's authority in the allocation of time.

I did not question Mr. Speaker's authority. I was going to analyse the whole thing to see how it had taken effect.

I can only say that that proposed analysis seemed to meet with the disapproval of the Deputy-Speaker, I must say, too, that his suggestion of a system of lights, while they might be rather colourful at this time of the year, would not normally be acceptable to the House as a whole. I noted that although the hon. Member claimed, perhaps rightly, that possibly the most famous speech of all time, the Gettysburg speech, occupied only five minutes, he himself took over 13 minutes to develop what was after all a somewhat simple point.

Taking the hon. Member's speech as a whole, developing as he did his attack upon other hon. Members and their speeches, I must say it was somewhat of a "pot and kettle" advocacy because I have listened to the hon. Member himself on many occasions, with some appreciation, but I would not for one moment suggest that he is always brief and to the point. For instance, I can remember on 15th April when I was here as a matter of duty for the Adjournment, I sat and listened for the whole 30 minutes of the Adjournment Debate to the hon. Member dilating upon the pleasures of a Caribbean journey. In fact, he was still proceeding very vigorously and full of fervour when your colleague, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, left the Chair and departed home for bed. I remember other occasions, too, when he has pleased the House with what one might call delightful little cameos interspersed in his speeches on more serious subjects. I remember an excellent little cameo dealing with oral hygiene in which the hon. Member told us of the advantage of using a rotating toothbrush. I recall, too, on another occasion he told us how it was possible to teach a Spaniard to speak English in three lessons.

That is not true.

Finally, I also recall one Foreign Affairs Debate when the hon. Member spoke very delightfully—and the whole House enjoyed him I am sure—and at some length on the fact that he had been able to have breakfast with a Spanish prince in Spain and had been able to nod to the Foreign Secretary at lunch time, before coming here in the afternoon to take part in the Debate.

I do not think the hon. Member was the best advocate for this particular topic, which is one on which I am sure most hon. Members will agree. There are, of course, some practical difficulties if we attempt to solve this problem by an official time limit. For instance, would one suggest that the time limit should be the same for an important Foreign Affairs Debate or a Budget Debate as in some Committee on a matter of no great importance? There would have to be, I think, different times for different occasions. I understand they have this time limit rule in New Zealand but the rule varies from one hour to five minutes according to the importance of the Debate.

Speaking from my own experience on a local authority before the war, where we had the five minute rule in force, I may say that it was applied by means of a sand hour-glass. If a member wanted to speak for more than five minutes on an important subject, he spent the whole of the first five minutes developing a more interesting but perhaps frivolous point in order to attract interest in the council so that when the five minutes were up they automatically gave permission for the member to continue. I hesitate to suggest that we should have an hour-glass of that sort in this House, so that as the sands began to run out, faster and faster would become the speed of the speaker until at last even the HANSARD reporters would be unable to take down what he was saying.

If a time limit were imposed I think too that hon. Members would tend to speak to the limit of the time available and I am not sure that we should save any considerable amount of time on the Debate as a whole. I think, as a matter of fact, the position is best summed up in the Third Report of the Select Committee on Procedure, published in October, 1946. Reporting on this idea of a time limit on page XIX they said:

"The idea found no support among Your Committee's witnesses."

The Committee went on to say:

"While Your Committee consider that speeches should be as short as possible, they concur in the view expressed by Mr. Speaker that the influence of the Chair with the general support of the House is the only effective and practical check.'"

I think all hon. Members will agree that the idea behind the subject raised by the hon. Member for Loughborough is a good one, but that it should be achieved more by voluntary effort on the part of the Members concerned rather than that we should attempt to erect some crazy structure of official time limits.