Before we begin perhaps I might say that there will be a Royal Commission which will take up part of the time. It would be unfair to take all of that time out of the period allotted to the first subject down for Debate. There are six subjects today. Assuming that the Royal Commission lasts 12 minutes, instead of taking 12 minutes from the first subject, I suggest that it would be better to take two minutes from each subject. That will not interfere with the Debates very much, and it will achieve the same result.

We have arrived at the end of a tiring and exacting series of sittings of Parliament, but I hope that hon. Members do not feel too exhausted to assimilate the simple but sad story of television in Scotland; simply because it does not exist, and sad because it certainly should have existed.

We cannot consider the question of television in Scotland in isolation from the general question of television in Great Britain, because the general plan, so far as a plan can be made out at all, is that it starts in the south and moves gradually north, and Scotland is very low down in the queue. Nobody likes to be in a queue. There are two ways of getting over that difficulty. The first is to try to jump the queue and the other is to get the whole queue moved on, and I propose to advocate the second process. At the present rate of progress it will be five or seven years before Scotland will be able to see impressive but unfamiliar sights such as the Trooping of the Colour or the Minister of Food setting off ventre à terre to buy unwanted Algerian wine. These are things we might be interested to see. James Watt, Murdoch, Lord Kelvin, John Logie Baird—there is an impressive list of Scottish inventors, but never perhaps has a country been so deprived of the fruits of one of its own inventors as Scotland has been in the matter of television.

In 1943 was set up the Hankey Committee which reported in 1944. Its report stated that it would be quite feasible for the Birmingham station, which was the second in the chain, to be in operation by 1947, but it is now 1949 and it is still not operating. Britain had a flying start in television. In 1936 we were the only country in the world with a system of high definition television in operation. By 1939 we had made considerable progress. Those were the days of private enterprise, Marconi, E.M.I. and others. By that time 20,000 receivers were in operation in this country, and, as the Hankey Report said, the demand from the provinces was insistent. Then came the war, and advance in television faded away, but a tremendous advantage in radar and radio location was derived from the very men who had become experts in matters of that kind owing to their training in television. Television formed a nucleus and jumping off point for the great achievements in radar which this country performed during the war, and it would be a bold man who would say that that will never be needed again. The Hankey Committee recommended that after the war there should be a courageous policy, but courage seems to have evaporated with the war, because practically nothing is happening in this country if we compare it with what has been happening in the United States.

In 1946 there were only 6,000 viewers in the United States. Two years later they were producing one million sets, with 66 transmitting stations, and their programme envisages the production of six million sets by 1951. There is a general impression that television is only of entertainment value, but the United States sees a tremendous future for it in a number of other directions. I was told when I was over there a year ago that one of the big chain stores—I think it was Sears Roebuck—each day televises its takings from every branch shop to its headquarters, that being the most efficient and the quickest way of showing the day's happenings. Then they told me that they had a camera which would allow them to televise the interior of a boiler while it was still in flame, without the cost and inconvenience of damping down. Then there is the possibility of being able to televise medical operations where the students cannot gather round in sufficient numbers to be able to see what is going on. So that it is a false impression that the only purpose of television is entertainment.

The Postmaster-General seems to take cover behind what we know as the reduced capital investment programme, but in 1945–48 no such thoughts dominated the minds of the Government and hon. Members opposite. Then money was pouring out like water, but nothing was being poured out on television. I want the House to think what trade we are losing by sacrificing the flying start we once had. Trade follows the transmitter, and export trade follows a thriving home trade. There is no greater fallacy than to think that in industry we can have a thriving export trade without having a basic and thriving home market. The British output of television sets at present is in the nature of 120,000. If that can be stepped up, we shall get reduced prices for the sets, we shall get increased demands, we shall get a thriving home trade and, consequently, we shall get a thriving export trade. The vicious circle has to be reversed and then we shall start to get somewhere. Think of the export of cameras as well as sets and valves and all the other ancillary parts of television sets.

Labour prides itself on getting things done, but all that has happened is that television has been "done in." This is a perfect case of arrested development and the Minister has told us, in answer to recent questions, that the problem resolves itself into one of labour and materials. Let us examine that for a moment. It is difficult to find out a great deal of detail because so little is published in this matter, but I am given to understand that there are only some thousand individuals employed at present in television in Great Britain, but the pool of individuals who could be called up to augment that number as a result of radio location in the war must be great.

As regards materials, the Minister has told us that there is no dollar problem involved, so that facilitates our task considerably. A conservative estimate of the capital cost of providing a full scale transmitting station, of which the Government are considering providing six, is something like £200,000. Let us look at the present running costs—

May I interrupt my hon. and gallant Friend to mention what I have no doubt he is aware of, that there are also methods of doing it through private enterprise—

I agree.

—and that there are in existence already some stations which have been used and should be used.

I agree with the noble Lord and I was coming to that aspect later.

Do I understand the hon. and gallant Gentleman to say that the capital cost of five transmitters would be £200,000?

Each—and that is a conservative estimate. Let us then look at the running costs. The Postmaster-General told us the other day that the present activity in television was costing us £860,000 a year and the Hankey Committee have estimated that to provide all the running costs of five stations would raise that to only £1¾ million a year. So if we can achieve anything approaching the American anticipated figures, even if we reach only a quarter of those figures, we are nearly home and making ends meet.

What is the present financing system as regards television? The B.B.C. get 85 per cent. of the payment for licences both for viewing and for broadcasting. That amount is just under £10 million. Of this they allocate, as they feel inclined, a sum to television which amounted last year to £860,000. That sum is too small. It is not allowing the television we have in operation to keep up the necessary repairs and keep itself in a state of modern equipment.

I suggest that first the B.B.C. should invoke Clause 18 (2) of their agreement and ask that the percentage be not 85 per cent. but 90 per cent. of what the Post Office collects in revenue from licences. That would add another £500,000 a year which, directed to television, would allow us to make tremendous progress. Failing that, what about sponsored programmes? I know that this is a vexed subject but if we allowed private enterprise to get on with this job, we would have stations in the north and in the Midlands almost at once. What is the objection to sponsored programmes? I yield to nobody in desiring to keep bad taste out of public programmes, but surely taste can be controlled? We have a Lord Chamberlain who controls the taste in films. Who would object to an announcement being made before a Beethoven Sonata that the programme which follows is sponsored by Imperial Chemicals?

Did my hon. and gallant Friend say that the Lord Chamberlain controlled the taste in films?

I said so because I have seen the signature of the Lord Chamberlain on the front of every film at which I have looked. In any case it is easy to establish a system of sponsorship of good taste, and that is the objection held in this country to sponsored programmes.

Could I assist my hon. and gallant Friend in case it confuses the mind of the Lord President? The Lord Chamberlain censors the theatre, but the cinema has its own censor who has no relation to the Lord President or the Lord Chamberlain.

I am indebted to my two hon. and expert Friends on either side of me. The only point they have assisted me in making is that there is control, and that control can perfectly well be applied to television also. Newspapers have sponsored ever since we have known them, and I have not heard hon. Members object to the fact that advertising in newspapers occupies too prominent a place in the production of a newspaper. There are, I admit, two schools of thought about sponsoring. I am throwing this in as a second string to my first suggestion that, if finance cannot be obtained in the way I have suggested, there is this other method which at least might be tried and would certainly put television on its feet.

What, then, are the steps we can take immediately? First, that high level policy and research should be taken out of the hands of the Postmaster-General and put into the hands of some high ranking Cabinet Minister such as the Lord President of the Council.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is not suggesting, is he, that the Postmaster-General precludes private television manufacturers from proceeding with research?

No, I am not, I am saying that high level planning, high level research in this matter should become the responsibility of the Lord President of the Council in the same way as he has under him the Medical Research Council, and that alongside him should be the Secretary of State for Scotland as our chief "nagger" for Scotland. I do not believe that the Postmaster-General carries sufficient guns to be able to get on with this in the way it should be dealt with. Furthermore, in a manner of speaking, he is an interested party inasmuch as he is the father, no doubt indirectly, of the B.B.C. activities.

Now a word about the Advisory Committee that has been set up. De mortuis nil nisi bonum—do not let us speak any evil of the dead—but it appears that this Committee has gone right out of existence since Lord Trefgarne gave up the chairmanship. We have no record of any meetings, we never hear anything of what it does, and I suggest that it be immediately reconstructed or swept out of the way. At present all it appears to be doing is to be acting as a useful screen behind which the Postmaster-General may hide himself. It consisted of high officials of the B.B.C., the Post Office, the Treasury and the Board of Trade, and if it is to be reconstructed, as it might be in one of the two alternatives which I advocate, a considerable number of independent members representing television should be appointed thereto.

At some time the final issue as to whether the B.B.C. is to have a monopoly of television or not will have to be faced, and I am only afraid that the Beveridge Committee, now considering the conditions we shall apply to the B.B.C. contract when the present one expires, will be another excuse for getting nothing done. Probably not until 1951, when the present contract expires, will that issue be faced. After considerable debate and discussion some conclusion will be arrived at. Further steps will have to be taken, and at that rate of progress we shall get nothing done until 1952. It is intolerable that we should have to wait all that time for the hatching of this particular egg.

I have tried to show methods whereby the financing of a more active form of television can be provided. Let the Government get on with it. If they cannot produce the money which I have indicated would be necessary—£200,000 for a fully equipped television station—then let them take an intermediate and temporary step so far as Scotland is concerned. Let them fly up canned programmes from Alexandra Palace and erect a temporary transmitter and have mobile broadcasting vans. That at least would allow something to be done and would encourage the sale of sets, and would give some form of satisfaction to the insistent demand in my country that something should be done.

"Labour Believes in Britain," but clearly it does not believe in television. There is a paragraph in the booklet I have just mentioned which commences—

"Encouragement for enterprise"

and contains these words:

"In making use of science in industry Britain still lags behind some of its competitors."

Most assuredly it does. Television should be striding north; but instead, it has creeping paralysis. We are throwing away the heritage which was handed to us by the inventors of this great invention. Let the Government, therefore, infuse new blood. I do not believe we shall get any progress from the Postmaster-General. We have failed to get it from him in improved postal services or in television. He may have very great difficulties to face, I have no doubt, but in getting nothing done he is the Past-master-General. The Hankey Report says that provincial—

Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that since my right hon. Friend has been in office, more telephones have been installed than in any other comparable period?

Is the hon. Gentleman aware just how many more are wanted? Is he aware that we have been pressing for a year to try to get improved postal services and later collections and earlier deliveries? But I should be out of Order if I pursued that matter. Let me just say this in conclusion. The Hankey Report says that provincial, including Scottish, demand is insistent. Then let the Government get a move on, and let that move be northward.

I think that this is the first occasion in this Session and, indeed, in this Parliament that I have been able to agree with anything that has been said by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison). With certain reservations, I certainly endorse his point of view and his argument that a greater measure of progress should be made on the television front, and certainly that Scotland is entitled to far greater consideration and that there should be a television transmitter in Scotland. The hon. and gallant Member said that in Scotland we were entitled to see the Trooping of the Colour and the Minister of Food buying Algerian wine. I would much prefer to see a television programme of the House of Lords; I believe that that would end finally the controversy between this Chamber and the other.

What about the Scottish Grand Committee?

That would just about finish it. The hon. and gallant Member estimated that the capital cost would be £200,000.

For one full station.

For one full station—situated, presumably, in Central Glasgow; but I am not so sure that the hon. and gallant Member would endorse my constructive suggestion for getting the money and material for this capital cost. The hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned radar. There is a close connection with the research into radar and the cost and the number of scientists employed in that sphere. We were told in the Debate this year on the Navy Estimates that the capital cost of equipping one aircraft carrier with radar and radio would amount to £440,000. My suggestion, therefore, is that for half the cost of equipping one aircraft carrier, which would in any case be obsolete in another war, we could get the capital cost for our television transmitter in Scotland. If we were equally prepared to spend money on scientific research for civilian and social purposes, and devoted to that end half the attention we are giving to the purposes of preparation for war, we could solve our problem of television, so far as Scotland is concerned, without any difficulty at all.

I, too, was in America last year. In nearly every public house in New York—I do not say that I visited every public house—there was displayed on the window, "Television Here." If New York can have its television, surely Scotland and Glasgow—near by Helensburgh is the home of the inventor of television—are entitled to press upon the Government the urgency of this enterprise. I hope that the Government will take this problem seriously. If the Government want labour and materials, they can get them. I will not proceed to argue from what source, but I suggest that television should be one of the top priorities.

I say in conclusion that although we differ politically with the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow, public opinion in Scotland is overwhelmingly in favour of pressing the Government to give a fairer measure of treatment to Scotland in this matter. I am not a nationalist—I am a humanitarian and something of a mongrel but there is a nationalist opinion in Scotland which believes that Scotland does not get fair treatment in this House, and if the Government merely proceed to pour cold water on this project they will be creating just another reason for Nationalist Party men to feel that Scotland is not getting a fair share of the revenue and activities of this country. We should not, therefore, be given merely the usual argument that nothing can be done, but should be given at any rate the assurance that, in view of the arguments which have been put forward, the Government will at least look again to see whether Scotland can get the measure of justice which she deserves.

Dr. Johnson used to say that the best road for a Scotsman was the road to London, but, looking round these benches today and seeing that, relatively speaking, there are few Scottish Members here, I believe that at a certain period of the year the road to the isles still has its attractions. Nevertheless, I think that if Dr. Johnson were alive today, he would find that there are stronger reasons than ever to tempt Scottish people from their homeland. The mishandling of the development of television in Scotland is a typical example of what is happening, or, to be more correct, of what is not happening.

Why is there this delay? No doubt the Government will say that the economic crisis is responsible for slowing down the programme, but my criticism is not that the programme has been slowed down, but that the Government, although it is supposed to stand for a planned economy, has so far failed to fix a definite programme which would enable manufacturers to plan ahead and, as a result, bottlenecks occur and expansion does not take place in the industry as it ought, the price of sets still remains too high and the chance of establishing an export market is gradually dwindling. Is it a valid argument to say that we cannot afford this development? Is it not a case of "ruining the ship for a ha'porth of tar"? After all, we are not asking for something costly like a new Forth Bridge, but for a few hundred thousand pounds before it is too late and before we lose to America the chance of creating a co-ordinated system of television for Europe and the Empire based on this country.

I would remind the House that "Britannia rules the waves" and that it is not only necessary to rule the waves of the sea, but also to rule the waves over the sea. Perhaps the Minister will change his line of defence and try to hide behind technical difficulties as well as economic difficulties which have been discussed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison). He will probably say that we cannot have television until a coaxial cable has been laid, or a chain of V.H.F. stations has been established. To the Minister sitting in London with a map of the British Isles in front of him, it may appear perfectly logical to proceed from the south to the north, but to people waiting in Scotland it appears quite illogical.

I am not here only to criticise the slowness in development, but also the order of priority which I believe is based merely on technical expediences. I claim that the correct way to develop television after Alexandra Palace was working properly, would have been to establish an independent transmitter first, in Scotland, secondly, in Ireland, thirdly, in the Principality of Wales and after that to go on to establish provincial stations in England. I do not want the House to think that I am making a narrow, nationalistic plea. Like the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) I support the Union, but the Government must realise that Scotland is not a province, or a region, but an ancient kingdom with traditions, customs, laws and a religion quite different from those which exist in England. For too long it has been the Cinderella of the B.B.C. Even now it is not possible to receive the Third Programme at all satisfactorily in Scotland. Therefore, I do not view the establishment of an independent transmitter necessarily as an evil. It might act as a focus for cultural talent in Scotland which the Edinburgh Festival has shown to be much more lively than was anticipated. If such television shows were recorded by filming, a profitable exchange of programmes could be established between Alexandra Palace and a Scottish station.

The reply of the Government may be that the population of two million is too small, but it is precisely because Scotland is so often regarded solely on a numerical and statistical basis which is doing so much to harm the good relations between the two countries and to make people lose faith in the Act of Union. Surely it is in the outlying districts where population is scattered and there are only a few people that television would have the most social value. Down here in the South of England people have an ample variety of amusement. There is Wimbledon, the Derby, the Boat Race, and, when people have got tired of those, they can come to this House. But all those things are beyond the means of people in Scotland and a transmitter situated in Falkirk would not only benefit the people in the towns, but would reach into the heart of the Highlands, into distant Argyll and the bleak uplands of the Border Country and bring to those remote and desolate areas all the fun of the fair. After housing, I imagine that nothing would be of greater help in overcoming the reluctance which people have to leaving the cities and going to work on the land.

I find it very strange that the Socialist Government, who pride themselves, quite inaccurately, on having created the social services, should ignore the social value of television while lavishing so much money on other services which are infinitely less valuable to the community and family life of the country.

Such as what?

Corsets, for example, and wigs and things like that. In "Labour Believes in Britain" there is a paragraph about stimulating private enterprise, but the failure of the Government to stimulate television is an indication of the stagnation which is bound to occur in all industries controlled by the Government, because where there is monopoly there is no incentive to undertake risks, without which development is impossible. I am informed that the radio industry itself is prepared to undertake those risks and carry out those developments. I ask the Government, if they have no intention of carrying out this development in Scotland now, at least to have the grace to get out of the way and let someone else do the job for them.

We are indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) for raising this subject today. While I am not completely in agreement with all that has been said by hon. Members opposite, I wish to reinforce their argument. There is a strong feeling in Scotland, almost a bitter feeling, against the Government for their slowness in bringing forward this very great modern advantage for Scotland, particularly as the Scots feel that their noted son, who introduced and was responsible for television was a Dumbartonshire man. We feel rather chagrined that England should have the benefit of television and Scotland should still be left in the cold. I can remember seeing our Scottish team vic- torious when I looked into a television set and saw a Wembley match. I saw that match when at Welwyn Garden City long before the war and I had hoped that Scotland would benefit almost immediately by the introduction of television there.

I regret that I cannot follow the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow on the technical aspects of the matter, because I know nothing whatever about them, but I wish to point out to the Front Bench some of our worries in Scotland. These are the rehabilitation of our agricultural areas and some inducement to get people to stay in the mines and in the mining districts. If one scrutinises the figures of the Ministry of Labour one finds that there are a great many vacancies in agriculture and in mining, and that they cannot be filled because there is no inducement. One also finds from a study of the subject that the social environment greatly tends to induce a husband to a particular industry. I understand that the town planners found that an employee was very often induced to select his industry because his wife preferred a certain social environment. There is no social environment in our Highland villages or in our mining villages which would attract young people to stay there.

What do we find, by contrast, with the introduction of television in London? We find complaints that families are gathering round the television sets, that the mother hurries with her household work to get everything done by a certain hour, that the children hurry with their homework, and that they all gather round the television set.

They can afford it.

Yes. They can more easily afford it today in the agricultural areas than they ever could before. They have so much better wages, they have family allowances and the older people have increased pensions, thanks to the Labour Government. It remains for the Labour Government, who have put television within the financial reach of the miner and the agricultural worker, now to introduce it on a large scale in Scotland. When they do so I am certain that they will help greatly to solve the problem of the depopulation of the Highland villages. They will probably also go a great way towards solving the problem of juvenile delinquency and matrimonial disturbances—why wives leave home and why husbands leave home. They will solve a great many social problems in Scotland by the introduction of television. I want to hear a reply from the Front Bench on why they cannot do this or why they are not doing so.

The hon. Lady the Member for Coatbridge (Mrs. Mann) has put to the House a very important aspect of television. The social effects of television are of marked value, and if the Government have been so successful as they claim to have been in the solution of the housing question, the complement to that solution is to keep the people in their homes and allow them to enjoy their homes. The possession of a television set makes for a closer family life.

The presence here this morning of four Members on the Government side of the House who represent Scotland—one on the Front Bench—and six on the Opposition side who come from Scotland, two on the Front Bench, makes it very clear that Scots men and women have denied themselves privileges which the majority of the House have sought elsewhere, in order to come here and discuss this important question. We shall have to suffer the inconveniences of transport planning and pack ourselves into already over-packed trains to get back to our native land. We have faced those difficulties none the less, in order to put in this word for Scotland. The opportunities of speaking for Scotland here are extremely few. Scottish Business is relegated to an anteroom and is rarely discussed on the Floor of the House, so I welcome the opportunity of adding my word to those which we have already heard.

The approach to this problem seems to me to be one which the Lord President of the Council, who is the principal planning authority, might well consider. I know his slight indifference to Scotland, I know that it has often been a thorn in his side, but I beg him to look at the matter from the larger point of view of planning, which is his particular concern. Is it desirable that eight million people in London, crowded together, should have added to their many advantages all the advantages which television can provide? They already have—

I was endeavouring to suggest to the House that there is a comparison between the eight million of population in London and the five million of population in Scotland. I was comparing the contribution which the eight million people of London make and what they receive, with the contribution which the five million of Scotland make and what they receive.

In Scotland we make a substantial contribution to the national economy. We are not asking for some undeserved favour, some unbought right. In Scotland we produce 55 per cent. of the herring of this country, 12 per cent. of its coal, 100 per cent. of its shale oil, 100 per cent. of its whisky, 40 per cent. of its locomotives and 59 per cent. of its linoleum. I cannot believe that the eight million in London produce anything like these substantial quantities. Yet the Lord President, leading the Government in this matter, has decided to take from the taxpayers of the United Kingdom a sum of £3,250,000 for certain developments during the forthcoming Festival of Britain. He has added to that a further impost of £300,000 for a funfair—so it is described: I hope that it will be very much better than that—in Battersea Park.

This morning we ask the Minister to spend £200,000 on the population of Scotland, on the five million people who have certain claims. We urge the adoption of this scheme. I am glad to support the hon. Lady the Member for Coat-bridge in what she said about areas with dense populations having many resources for entertainment and amusement. They have church halls, political organisations, theatres, cinemas and libraries. To use a Scottish phrase, the tendency of modern planning is, "to fill the fat sow"—to give to those who have and to take away from those who have practically nothing. This idea of adding more and more to the areas where there are already large resources is very bad planning.

If I had my way in this matter, I would suggest to the Government, and to the Lord President in particular, that these relatively empty spaces should be the places where development begins. There we want television. There we want the housing disproportion readjusted. There we want the factories. By placing all these inducements in the rural and less populated parts, the undue and unjust balance would be destroyed and the attraction of London and other large areas would be diminished.

The question of television for Scotland is not a trifling or minor matter. It is an index of what is to be the policy of the Government. Do they intend to encourage the development and further development, the expansion and further expansion of the congested areas, or do they intend to do something to change the balance and make the rural places attractive? If they hold the latter view, they will support the plea of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) for television for Scotland, which will cost rather more than half of the sum which the Government propose to spend on the funfair at Battersea Park.

I am sure that the Assistant Postmaster-General must have been impressed by the force of the arguments put forward from both sides of the House and he must realise the extent of the misgivings in Scotland about the very slow progress which is being made by television. We have been told by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) that the likelihood is that by the time the co-axial gets to Birmingham, and Birmingham is transmitting, the scheme will be two and half years behind schedule. It is clear that the provision of television in Scotland will be delayed much more if the Government pursue the matter in the present manner.

In his speech at the recent annual meeting of Pye Radio, the chairman recommended that drastic remedies should be taken and that we should at once put up at least four transmitting stations. A figure has been given of the estimated cost. I have taken the best advice available and I am informed that the cost would be nothing like so great as that mentioned, assuming always that we are trying to get the job done and that we are not just putting up a facade.

I am informed that all that is required is a transmitter which might cost £30,000, two tele-cinemas which might cost £12,000, and a mobile recording unit which would be able to visit Scottish theatres, football matches and other places and which would cost about £30,000. Of course, if one wished to put up a tremendous building, that might cost another £100,000. In fact the only building that is required is little more than an army hut in Falkirk to accommodate the announcer and cameras. That would be good enough to enable the job to be done. The total cost would not greatly exceed £100,000. It is for that sum that television for Scotland is being delayed. That is not good enough.

One must also hear in mind that the future of television in this country will depend largely not only on the technique of transmission, which is already excellent as we have seen during the Olympic Games, but on studio technique. At the moment, there is no means of comparison. Here I enter on much more difficult ground, because it would cost a great deal more money to set up a studio. In order to get the best results from television it is as well to have some means of comparison. Therefore it would be well to consider the provision of a Scottish studio, bearing in mind the differences in taste, language and culture between Scotland and England.

Those are important points, but most important of all is the urgency of the problem. I am told that France has now decided to go on the same line system as is used in this country. That means that it will be possible for us to sell our receiving sets on the continent. No doubt other countries will follow the lead given by France and Great Britain and will also adopt the same line system. That is of tremendous importance. If we are to cut manufacturing costs, we must have a large home market and we must consider the urgency of developing that market not only from the Scottish but from the British point of view.

I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General will tell us that, very shortly, we shall have television in Scotland and that we shall not have to wait for another two and a half years before we get it. I also hope that he will say that there will be much more freedom in the administration of the service and that Scotland will have a large measure of freedom so that there will be a transmitting station there which will not be merely a relay station.

I was interested to hear the speeches about the benefits and joys of television which nave been mentioned by many hon. Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge (Mrs. Mann) saw in it something which would cure all the problems of population and all the troubles of hearth and home. I would point out that of those at present able to install television—the eight million people around London—only about 120,000 have got it. Television cannot have proved so widely beneficial, or there is some other stumbling block—

Has my hon. Friend taken into consideration the counter-attractions provided for those eight million people? There are no counter-attractions on a similar scale for Scottish people. Also, has he taken into consideration the innate Scottish thrift?

I know about the price of the sets. I think that we should shut down the Scottish Tourist Board if we have no attractions in Scotland. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) talked about people in the wide open spaces. There we have something which London will never have, and I am not greatly concerned about that part of his argument. The hon. Gentleman compared the eight million people in London with the five million people in Scotland. Has he taken into consideration any of the practical problems of television? There is a reliable range for a radius of only 30 miles. There is a certain amount of view up to a radius of 40 miles.

We must look at this matter from a canny Scot's point of view. The fact is that it still costs £50 or upwards for a television set, and many of my constituents, especially the older folks, who would like to have a wireless set, grouse about the cost of the licence being £1, whereas the cost of the television licence is £2.

In spite of that, will not my hon. Friend agree that the cost of wireless sets about 20 years ago was £20, which was much more formidable—

I hope my hon. Friend will allow me to continue, because I have only about two minutes in which to complete my speech.

Unlike America, we did not have the opportunity of continuing our research and development during the war, because it was much more important for us to give our whole attention to distracting German bombers. That is part of the cost of war, so far as the development of research in television is concerned. As far as I can see, what is really happening in regard to the new television station at Sutton Coldfield is an extension of an experiment, and I doubt very much whether the best way to proceed is by means of short-wave radio or by cable. While Scotland will probably derive substantial benefits in improvements to television and in cheapening the cost, eventually we may come to the point when we can go ahead with the experiments which are being carried out in Scotland at the moment. Hon. Gentlemen opposite shut their eyes to the fact that experiments in television are going on at Kirk o' Shotts, so that we shall get television in Scotland in time.

I would like to ask whether this is the most important thing which has to be done in this country after a war? Surely, it is more important for Scotland that we should develop the Scottish hydro-electric schemes, and that we should get on with the opening of the new pits in the Fife coalfield and things that really matter? It is all right talking about the Americans squandering money on television, but they are throwing millions away, because it is one of the most unsafe ventures into which people can put their money, and I notice that hon. Gentlemen opposite are making sure that it is Government money which is being spent in this direction.

I am not in favour of squandering money on this racket. It is a most expensive business from the point of view of research and development, and it will be expensive from the point of view of the consumer and the ordinary person who buys a television set. Is there any hon. Gentleman opposite who is prepared to say that the present system is permanent, or that there may not be within 10 years, five years or even less, a complete switch-over and that the British system may not be completely altered?

We shall never get permanence that way.

We shall never get permanence in this way, and we have only to remember what happened with the development of wireless sets.

The other point is this. First things should come first, and that has been the policy of the Government up to now. I want to see television in Scotland, but I do not want it based on a false argument. The best argument is the argument of a national basis, and I hope it will not be delayed, but that we shall continue the policy of "first things first."

I should like to say on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General that we welcome this Debate dealing with the problems of television in Scotland. It is true that the Debate has developed over a rather wide field, but it does give the House an opportunity to discuss television problems. The best thing I can say at the outset is that, as far as my right hon. Friend and the Government are concerned, they are desirous that there should be the quickest practicable extension of television throughout Great Britain, having regard to the essential economic development necessary for the well-being of the country.

I always think that in a discussion which affects the B.B.C. it is always desirable to reiterate the powers of the Postmaster-General in relation to the British Broadcasting Corporation. The powers of the Postmaster-General deal with the hours of broadcasting, organisation of broadcasting stations and wave lengths and the power and heights of aerials. There has been some hint that there has been delay in dealing with television, and there is the insinuation that the heavy hand of Whitehall or the Post Office is preventing development. I want to assure the House that, as far as the third contemplated station for television is concerned, namely, that at Holme Moss, though it cannot start until next year, the Postmaster-General has already agreed, and there is no delay on our part. So far as the actual development of television is concerned, it is the responsibility of the B.B.C. as to whether they develop their stations, and that is very important.

The hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) raised many points, in one of which he implied—I hope I am doing him justice—that one of the causes of the lack of development of television was the shortage of money. He went so far as to say that one of the ways in which it could be expedited would be by means of sponsored programmes. Let us look at the actual position. Far from the B.B.C. being short of money for the development of television or for broadcasting in general, if we look at the last published accounts presented to Parliament, we find that there is a sum of £2,348,172 unexpended balance on capital account, so that there is no question of shortage of money. The B.B.C. are perfectly free at any time they may desire to come to my right hon. Friend and Parliament and ask for more money for the development of their radio services, and they have not done so. It is quite obvious why they have not done so; it is because there was sufficient money available in the amounts that were received from licences.

So far as sponsored programmes are concerned, that point is really too bad. Not only the present Parliament but previous Parliaments, not only the present Government but a Conservative Government, have declared themselves against sponsored broadcasts, and I am sure that it is the overwhelming view of the House that we should not have sponsored broadcasts foisted on us, and I rather regret that the hon. and gallant Gentleman made his remarks about that subject. The hon. and gallant Gentleman made one rather significant admission, which I think was as well made today and not last Thursday, with regard to the Press being sponsored by advertisements. Well, if that is the opinion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman regarding the Press, it is not my opinion, and it is not our intention, in our radio services, to have anything in the nature of sponsored programmes, so far as the Government are concerned.

Then, the hon. and gallant Gentleman poked a little fun quite kindly—I am not complaining—at the Television Advisory Committee. It is not defunct, but quite alive. It is true that Lord Trefgarne has retired from the position of chairman, having taken up other duties, but the present chairman of the Television Advisory Committee is a very prominent person in the business world, Sir William Coates.

Have they met since Lord Trefgarne went?

I cannot say that offhand, but as it is an Advisory Committee associated with the Post Office, it will meet regularly and do its particular job, so that there need be no dubiety about that whatever.

The general question of the development of television is associated with the problem of capital investment. I am not going to argue that shortage of raw materials is preventing the extension of television, though there may be a certain shortage of skilled labour. The whole problem was that pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). It is that of priorities. In which industries shall the capital be invested? Which are the industries most essential to the community and its well being? Are we to have development of power stations, which are essential; or are we to have television? Let us be frank. It is far more important that there should be development of our essential industries, and it is because of that that the Government have been compelled to review the capital investment in the television service. On the other hand, it has not been entirely ignored.

I think it may be just as well to give one or two facts. In 1949 the Government laid down that there should be no extension of television beyond the Birmingham station, which will be completed in the autumn; but so far as the figures for 1950, 1951 and 1952 are concerned, there is no bar on television whatsoever: the B.B.C. is entirely free to expend the capital which is available on television, should it so desire. As far as the actual cuts are concerned, I take the year 1950. The amount allowed was £1,903,000, which was reduced to £1,750,000, a reduction of £153,000. Hon. Members are not going to tell me that a vast organisation like the B.B.C. will say now that a £153,000 cut is to fall solely on television. Of course not. A Corporation of that sort would spread it over many services. There is no question whatever of singling out television for a cut.

It is unfortunate that we cannot go ahead with all the stations. That is perfectly true. However, it is quite unfair to compare Britain with the United States of America—quite unfair. This country of ours has fought two world wars from the first day of each to the last, and it is having to pay for them, and it is having to pay for them by concentrating industry on the export trade. As a result, capital development has to be in those industries engaged in the export trade. I think it is a little unfair to attack the Government, or to criticise the Government, on the ground that they are neglecting television.

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me? The comparison is not with the United States—

I would remind hon. Members that the Debate on this subject is running very late.

So far as the programme is concerned, Birmingham will be working in the Autumn. Next there will be the Yorkshire station, and when that station is completed 28 million people in Britain will be able to have television. There is no question of being hard on Scotland or unjust to Scotland. None whatever. I think one thing we can say in the Post Office is that the needs of Scotland are consistently being attended to. Consider, for instance, the provision of rural telephones, or the provision of cables to the Western Isles. All that work is being developed, and as a result very good services are being given by the Post Office. I am not in a position to say when Scotland's television station will be available, but I want to make it clear that we do appreciate the feelings and the national ideals of Scotsmen. I have not the slightest doubt that after the completion of the Yorkshire station the claims of Scotland will receive the due attention which so great a country deserves.

Had it not been for the concluding words of the hon. Gentleman we might have been more satisfied; but when he says that he is envisaging a picture in which 28 million south of the Border will have television while nobody north of the Border will have it, and when he says that he cannot say when anybody north of the Border will receive television—because certainly the effective range is only on a radius of 30 miles—we must say that that is an entirely unsatisfactory answer to the case put up by both sides of the House today. I do not think that this can possibly be the Government's last word on the matter.

The Assistant Postmaster-General did not, I think, deal with the particular point that, as this had been a Scottish invention, it was only reasonable that a little priority should be accorded to Scotland—a priority, at any rate, somewhere before the twenty-sixth million or the twenty-seventh million. I think we might have been considered at that stage, at least. We in Scotland did not come in on the first few millions. Ten million, 15 million, 20 million received facilities for this service before the Scots people. The Government said, "You do not come in yet." So now 22 million, 23 million, 24 million, 25 million are to receive the service before any of the Scots people. The Assistant Postmaster-General says, "You do not come in yet." Up to 28 million people south of the Border are to receive television facilities before the people in Scotland. Well, I must say that that is a very unsatisfactory answer indeed, and I do not think that even the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) will take that as an answer, or will commend it to his constituents as a satisfactory outcome of his intervention today.

The Assistant Postmaster-General said quite truly that we have to concentrate on the export trade, but the point put by hon. Members on both sides of the House was that only on a flourishing home market could a flourishing export trade be built up. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock, in arguing that it might be 10 years or more before a satisfactory system was developed, was arguing for a standstill which would make it impossible for us ever to envisage our entering this trade at all.

My last word would be that I think it should be possible for commercial interests—if it is still to be an indefinite date after 28 million people south of the Border receive television before anybody receives it north of the Border—to be licensed to provide a service. It should be possible, the circumstances being as the Assistant Postmaster-General has said, for him to license commercial interests. The Rank interests, for instance, have already a transmitting station, and have recently demonstrated a programme, as against the B.B.C. programme, which was certainly quite comparable with the programme of the B.B.C. If the hon. Gentleman says there is no possibility of Scotland's having B.B.C. television services in any period he can foresee today, then it should be possible for commercial interests under licence to show what can be done. I say again that postponing this matter to the Greek Kalends, to an absolutely indefinite date, is really not what was asked for by Scots Members this morning. Nor is it an answer that they can accept.

The question I wish to raise keeps us in the ethereal atmosphere of our previous discussion but shifts the location from Scotland to Russia. I wish to draw the attention of the House to the continued jamming of B.B.C. broadcasts by the Soviet. The British public appear not to know, or else to have forgotten, that for three months now a radio war has been going on between the East and the West. If there has been something of a rapprochement in international relations between the Western Allies and Russia, recently, that is not evident in the ether. The cold war has, indeed, been "hotted up" in the air, and for 90 minutes every day war is declared by Russia on the air. This radio jamming during the war was taken for granted, for it was one of the weapons of war, but its introduction in peace time between nations alleged to be in friendly relations should not be allowed to pass without comment in this House and without notice by our Government.

What are the facts? The first is that the B.B.C. Overseas Service broadcasts three half-hour programmes a day to Russia in Russian, at 6.15 a.m., 5.15 in the afternoon, and at a quarter past midnight, all Moscow times. These programmes consist of news, comments, factual talks about world events, "Britain Today," surveys of the British Press, and so on. All points of view on current opinion are covered. This programme began in 1946, when the B.B.C. took the decision to retain and expand the European service. The next fact is that on 25th April last the B.B.C. found its Russian broadcasts being jammed, entirely without warning. Clearly that was no sudden decision. Clearly it was not connected with the negotiations then going on for the ending of the Berlin blockade, and clearly it was not connected with the suggestion put forward in many quarters that the Russians did not desire their people to know the reasons for their failure in the Berlin blockade. There is plenty of evidence, technical and otherwise, to show that for many months before some 300 jamming transmitters were being prepared to fight this war against the B.B.C. These transmitters could not have been set up overnight. It certainly was not a sudden decision—clearly preparations must have been going on for many months before.

The next fact is that the U.S.S.R. are also jamming the American broadcasts being beamed to Russia under the title of "Voice of America." The Yugoslays are also claiming that their broadcasts are being jammed. Those are the facts of the situation, and we in this House are bound to ask why this jamming is taking place. I believe that the first and most obvious reason is that the B.B.C. have been too successful with their broadcasts to Russia. They have been penetrating the Iron Curtain, and the Russian workers have been hearing something of the truth first hand from the West.

We know that there are some 5½ million radio sets in the U.S.S.R., which is the official figure given out a year or so ago by the Russians. We also know that under their present five-year plan they are about to add another three million sets—most of these sets are short wave. That means that in Russia proper, Russian-speaking U.S.S.R., there is one set per 13 of the population, and in the Ukraine, which is the next best radio-using State, it is one set in 78 of the population. These figures compare with our own of 1 in 3. The owners of these sets have been committing the grave sin in Russian eyes of listening to the B.B.C. Indeed, Russian people even wrote to the B.B.C. up to 1948, mainly in regard to the English by Radio programmes, but in 1948 the censor presumably stepped in and the letters fell in number; this year there have been none at all. The Russians know it is no use trying to ban listening to the B.B.C. programmes by legislation. Hitler tried to do it and was never successful; it only made the B.B.C. programmes more popular. They knew that jamming was the most effective weapon they had.

I believe that this is a major battle in the war of ideas. The last thing Russia wants is accurate news to penetrate to her people. They might even find out the truth about what is happening in Russia. According to the Kremlin, they must only be fed on the right radio diet in keeping with the Iron Curtain policy. They must be cut off from the West. There must be frontiers of the mind as well as of the body. Freedom of information in Russia means only freedom for the Russian view. Every story in the newspapers or on the radio must conform to the approved line of the greatness of Soviet Russia and the decadence of the capitalist and imperialist West. Only the other day I noticed in one of their reports that they considered our latest autumn fashions as being evidence of our decadence at the present time. They say that they are reeking of bourgeois democracy—I do not know whether they are talking about "plunging necklines" or hobble skirts.

I have come to the House prepared to give some of the distortions of truth put out by Radio Moscow to their own people. Three days ago the Moscow Home Service programme put out the following talk about London, in a programme series called "From the Map of the World," the author of which is given as Boris Izakov. Some of the descriptions given in this talk on London make most interesting reading and must have been very interesting listening for the Russian radio listeners.

"London is the abode of the Imperialistic octopus which draws the juices from the 500 million strong population of the British Empire and many semi-colonial countries. But at the present time the British Empire is shaken to its very foundations and the irradicable imprint of decadence has descended on its capital."

Then comes a description of Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square:

"There are no neon advertisements. It is forbidden to light up shop windows. After nightfall the entire city is soon immersed in semi-darkness. By nine o'clock pedestrians become scarce. The owner of a roll of dollars feels he is the boss in London. All doors are open to him. Only for him are exceptions in the rationing of goods made. Notices to the effect, 'Ration cards not required for payment in dollars,' can be constantly seen in the windows of fashionable shops in Regent Street and Bond Street. Such is one of the consequences of the notorious Marshall Plan."

All that is not very far from the truth. I think they are showing rather a high degree of accuracy.

The hon. Member might very well join the Communist radio in view of the amount of distortions he is able to put across weekly in his "Recorder" article.

The Izakov talk goes on to discuss housing:

"At the expense of money pumped from the pockets of the workers, the rich landlords and municipal authorities are zealously engaged in perfecting the comforts of the bourgois residential quarters. Buildings destroyed during the air-raids are not being reconstructed. Scaffoldings are nearly completely absent from the streets of the capital. After touring the entire city one can count the houses in the process of building on the fingers of one hand."

The Soviet may well have been listening to the Conservative Party. The distortions must be perfectly evident to the House when they say,

"In the suburbs homeless people shelter in huts knocked together from boards and tin plates."

This probably is the pièce de résistance.

My hon. Friend will recall that the Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) announced in New York prior to the nationalisation of British Railways, that they had already started to lose money because of the threat of nationalisation. Would my hon. Friend on those terms advocate the banning of short-wave broadcasts from the United States to this country, because we do not want to hear such distorted statements.

If my hon. Friend stays here long enough he will find out my attitude to jamming. The B.B.C. have invited Mr. Boris Izakov to come to London. They will give him the freedom of the microphone, allowing him to make as many running commentaries as he likes. However, not only would Mr. Izakov's broadcasts be jammed but he himself would no doubt be jammed, if he told the truth. Radio Moscow said this about the dock strike on 21st July:

"The Labour Government has resorted to open terror. The troops they have sent to the docks are not only to unload the ships but to intimidate the strikers."

This distortion is nothing new. It has been going on for some time, and they might have been listening to the Conservative Party when in January, 1948—this is appropriate in the light of events in this House last week—they put this out:

"Regarding the citadel of the British bourgeoisie, the iron and steel industry, since the outcry of American monopolists the Labourites no longer even mention it."

I will not weary the House with any more equally obvious misrepresentation, such as the description of London given by the Moscow "New Times" of 3rd September, 1947: At this stage one should ask whether similar misrepresentations are put out by the B.B.C. in order to justify this radio war. If one listened to Radio Moscow on this subject one would imagine that the B.B.C. was guilty of gross misrepresentation, for on 24th July last Moscow Radio said,

"The fewer lies the B.B.C. disseminates, the cleaner will the ether be."

B.B.C. scripts are available. Any hon. Member of this House is free to examine them. I have done so, and I find that over a long period they have contained factual news and fair comment. Over a period it is right to say that there is no bias in these broadcasts, the opinions and comments given are a fair reflection of our British way of life. In fact, we would have no difficulty in recognising our Britain from the broadcasts put out by the B.B.C. I would add that if mistakes of fact are made they are subsequently corrected in later broadcasts.

It is quite true that in the last year, since the cold war was intensified, B.B.C. programmes tended to contain more political material and less cultural material. Today the B.B.C., in the face of long-continuing provocation, now "talk back," but this cut and thrust in debate, even on the air, is, in my view, a healthy thing. The American broadcasts are in a slightly different category. They are more deliberately propagandist, less balanced and probably less objective. They are talking back to Russia in her own language of political Billingsgate. I personally believe that we must avoid mere abuse, because in the end the objective voice of the B.B.C. will prevail, as it did in the war.

I should like to quote one amusing sidelight which, arose from this jamming. It would appear that the Russian jammers are now jamming their lord and master, Stalin, or at any rate some of the words he used on famous occasions during the war. In recent weeks the propaganda line of Radio Moscow has been that the Russians won the war unaided, that the battle of Britain was a myth and that what happened on D-Day was grossly exaggerated. The B.B.C., quite rightly, in order to combat that, broadcast as an answer Stalin's own comments on various incidents during the war. For example, they gave his comment on our D-Day landings on the shores of Normandy, which he described as one of the greatest military achievements of history. That has been jammed, and it is likely that someone in Russia will now be purged for jamming Stalin.

What action does His Majesty's Government propose to take to end the radio war? That is a question to which we should like to have a considered answer, because in our opinion this radio airlift to Moscow is as important to us as was the Berlin airlift. I would ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any representations are to be made through the usual diplomatic channels. Last Wednesday I put a question to the Minister of State, and his answer indicated that that was not to be so. I should like to hear that we have reconsidered that, and are about to make representations through the Soviet Embassy here in London. Secondly, I should like to know if this jamming is, in fact, a violation of the Geneva Convention on Freedom of Information, which I know did not reach very satisfactory conclusions? However, is thïs a violation of the agreements which were reached there?

Thirdly, I should like to know—and this is probably the most important question I shall put—whether it is proposed to raise this question at the next Assembly of the United Nations. Clearly this is a problem which concerns other nations besides ourselves, the United States in particular and is, therefore, a United Nations matter. I would ask my hon. Friend to state categorically that we ourselves will not consider counter-jamming. Though that is the sort of action which, no doubt, the Russians understand, I hope that we shall not resort to it. We should tell the Russians that no one in this country listens to their broadcasts here and jamming would be a waste of time.

I am convinced that if the ordinary people of the world know and understand each other we shall have peace. There is no better way for nation to speak peace unto nation than by radio. Russia, who so frequently condemns the West for warmongering, is the greatest warmonger in the ether. This radio war should cease. My right hon. Friends should do everything in their power to bring it to an end. So long as it lasts, peace is unreal and international understanding a mockery. Let Russia for once follow the advice of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary when he said,

"Let us open up our countries for inspection; let us open up the world; let light and knowledge come in."

We ourselves would add:

"Let Russia not fear the B.B.C. It was the voice of truth to millions during the war. It can bring truth and friendship to Russia now."

We have had a most interesting speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire). If I may, I should like to begin by answering the specific questions which he has just put to me. First, he asked whether this jamming was a violation of the Freedom of Information Conventions. The answer is that the Conventions are not yet complete, and have not yet been ratified. If the Conventions—there are three of them—had been completed and ratified in their present form, then this jamming would be a violation of them. I cannot assure the House that the Soviet Government intend to ratify the Conventions when completed, but jamming certainly violates them in their present form.

This question will be discussed at the next meeting of the United Nations Assembly, and though I cannot undertake to raise this as a matter of substance or to move any amendment, I am sure that the British delegates will comment on this jamming as a violation of the Conventions in their draft form, and that they will consider seriously whether the Conventions require altering or strengthening in the light of this jamming.

On the question of retaliation, the plain answer is that His Majesty's Government will not resort to any retaliation in this matter. It is not our practice, and will not be, to jam foreign broadcasts and, in particular, Moscow Radio. We have freedom of truth in Britain and I think there should be freedom of falsehood as well.

May I ask my hon. Friend what is the position under the Potsdam Agreement in regard to radio and the use of stations which were originally in German possession? Are we using such stations for broadcasts to Russia at all?

There is a station in Austria which we are using, but it is not, I think, directly related to the topic of my hon. Friend's speech.

May I ask another question? Is it not a contravention of the Potsdam Agreement that we are using such a station to broadcast to Russia? I think the question is relevant to the discussion we are having.

No, Sir, it is not a contravention at all of the Potsdam Agreement. It is as a result of the Potsdam Agreement that we are able to use the station. We are in no way violating the Potsdam Agreement by using it.

May I remind the Minister that in Berlin the Russian Control Commission have a station in the British sector of Berlin which was granted to them at the time of the Potsdam Agreement and that it is being used by them for the broadcast of very tendentious news, which is a breach of the spirit of the Potsdam Agreement?

May I come back to the facts of the existing jamming of the B.B.C. Overseas Services? This jamming began sporadically at the end of 1947, not only of our B.B.C. Russian broadcasts but also from time to time of others as well. One evening it would be jamming of the Norwegian broadcast and on another of the Hungarian broadcast of the B.B.C. In retrospect, those examples of jamming were clearly ranging shots, experiments in the technique of jamming. The very large-scale jamming programme from which we now suffer began on 25th April, 1949. All the Russian broadcasts of the B.B.C. and of the "Voice of America" were immediately and completely obliterated. Very strong and prompt counter-measures were taken by the B.B.C. and by the "Voice of America." A fortnight later there were two extra programmes which had been put on daily and simultaneously for the B.B.C. and the "Voice of America" on a large number of shortwave transmitters. The jammers were also directed against these programmes and so the broadcasts were re-arranged. They now take place three times daily, for 30 minutes at a time, upon 23 to 28 transmitters.

The technique of jamming is painstaking and thorough. It is clearly a technique similar to that which was used by the Germans during the war. At first a large number of high-power and high-quality transmitters were used, but the tendency is now to replace those with low-quality transmitters. No doubt the high-quality transmitters are being returned to their proper use for home broadcasting. The House will want to know the effectiveness of this jamming and what the prospects are for the future of the truth about Britain being brought to the Soviet people by the B.B.C. broadcasts.

Undoubtedly, listening has been greatly hampered. The number of listeners, which was formerly quite substantial, has been severely cut down. As my hon. Friend has said, the Soviet Union has an unusually high density of short-wave receivers because of the huge distances of the Soviet Union, which fact makes it necessary for the home broadcasts to be on short waves. Nevertheless we feel that it is fairly certain that a Russian listener who is determined to hear these programmes and who has a short-wave set can hear them. The B.B.C. will do their best to counter any further jamming, but it is difficult to see how they can do it without affecting other foreign broadcasts. It is clearly easier and cheaper for the Russians to put up jamming stations than for us to find new means of defeating them.

My hon. Friend has given a number of quotations from Moscow Radio, but I am bound to say that he did not choose them altogether felicitously, for they were neither libellous nor slanderous. As a student of propaganda I must say that I have heard worse than that. Perhaps if the House is patient with me, I might read out one or two of my own. I have a selection which I think illustrates much better than those read out by my hon. Friend, the kind of broadcast which takes place. First, I would quote this broadcast by Moscow Radio of an article which appeared in "Pravda" on 13th July by the well-known commentator M. Zaslavsky. He commented upon a speech by the Prime Minister in which Fascist and Communist disturbances in London were mentioned. He said:

"In Britain, the Fascist cut-throats, hooligans and bandits, the adherents of Hitler, organised a demonstration against democracy. … They were well guarded by the police, but the honest workers who came out into the streets to protest against the instigators of a new war and the revival of Fascism were beaten up, thrown into police torture chambers, tried and imprisoned. Such all-powerful, arbitrary police action is impossible and unthinkable in a true democratic State. The workers were making preparations for the peaceful celebration of international May Day, but the Government said 'No' and the police transformed the town"—

that is, London—

"into an armed camp. Armoured cars assembled in front of the workers' districts. Lines of police waited in full military preparedness. Mothers hid their children so that they should not fall before the merciless bullets of the police of the enemies."

If the House is interested, perhaps I could give another example by quoting from the Soviet periodical "Teachers' Gazette," for 23rd February last. It said:

"The Soviet Army was forced to fight single-handed against the Hitlerite hordes for three years. Great Britain and America entered the war when, as a result of annihilating blows of the Soviet armed forces, victory over Hitlerite Germany was a foregone conclusion."

Would the Minister also quote the delightful one that it was entirely owing to the Soviet Union that the forces of Japan were defeated?

I have not got that quotation with me, but I recollect it. Just before I got up to speak I was handed a quotation from this morning's Moscow Radio which referred to the codex of forced labour which was made public by the British delegation on the E.C.E. On this subject, Moscow Radio this morning said:

"The codex illustrates the humane aims and character of the Soviet corrective labour policy, a policy which has nothing in common with the bourgeois prison system, the aim of which is the moral and physical crippling and annihilation of the inmates … in bourgeois prisons … prisoners who do not fulfil their output quota are cruelly tortured."

Does my right hon. Friend realise that the codex to which he refers is the code which was published as long ago as 1936, and which received very favourable reviews at that time, from a number of leading journals, including "The Times," I think?

I am perfectly sure that no one who understood the code and had any regard for democracy would give it any favourable review at all. Perhaps I may just give one further quotation, this time from M. V. V. Kuznetsov, President of the All-Union T.U.C. who, speaking at the 10th Congress, as reported in "Trud" of 20th April, said:

"If a worker"—

in a capitalist country—

"perishes as a result of an accident at his work or is crippled the employer simply takes on another worker out of the numbers of unemployed. As regards medical aid in works and factories over there, there is no point in mentioning the subject. It doesn't exist. The life and health of the working man is not worth a farthing in capitalist countries."

This shows the need, if we can possibly do it, to tell the truth about Britain to the Soviet people. What ideas must they have of workers' conditions in Britain and of who are the true leaders of working-class opinion? These things must be unknown to them. What we do know is that there is intense curiosity among the Russian people on the subject of conditions in Britain. We know that from those who go there. It is a pity that so many who travel to the Soviet Union do not fairly satisfy the curiosity of the Soviet people in this regard. We want to do our utmost to get the truth across if we possibly can.

The extracts which the hon. Gentleman has read out are wildly exaggerated and this country is much in need of cheerful literature. Could they not be published on some occasion in our newspapers? They are so wildly exaggerated that they would appeal to the humour of the British people?

Have we not committed similar sins? Does not the hon. Gentleman remember that a "Pravda" was forged in London and circulated in Russia?

If the hon. Gentleman can point out any quotation from the B.B.C. which is as distorted and exaggerated as the passages I have read out, I shall be interested to see it. It is clear that the general policy of the Soviet authorities is to prevent any information from reaching the Soviet people except that which is collected and issued by the Soviet authorities themselves. There is something in what was said by my hon. Friend when he suggested that the B.B.C. broadcasts had been too successful in getting the truth to the Russian people.

However, it is not only radio jamming. The Soviet authorities use every means of censoring news about Britain which may reach the Russian people. There is a tight control on home radio and newspapers. The restrictions on foreign travellers to the Soviet Union are very tight, and they are even tighter on travellers from the Soviet Union to other countries, including Britain. The circulation of foreign newspapers is forbidden or tightly restricted. Only one British newspaper is on public sale in Russia, and then only in restricted parts of the Soviet Union, and that is the "British Ally." Newspapers like the "Daily Herald," "The Times," and the "Manchester Guardian," and even the "Daily Worker" can only be studied in libraries with permission.

It is an interesting point that in Britain the "Daily Worker" can be bought and read openly by the man in the street, but in Russia the Soviet citizen must visit a library, give his name and address and produce a reason for wanting to read the paper before he is allowed to read the "Daily Worker" and other foreign newspapers. As a faithful reader of the "Daily Worker," I can assure the Soviet authorities that nothing in that paper need give them any anxiety whatever. Any deviation in the "Daily Worker" from the official propaganda line of Moscow radio is purely accidental. I would urge the Soviet authorities to give the Soviet citizen the same right to read the "Daily Worker" as the British citizen enjoys.

Is "Forward" permitted?

I do not know about "Forward." I should be surprised to find it on public sale in Moscow.

It has gone to Moscow regularly for 20 years, to the Lenin Institute.

It remains to be seen how widespread is the readership of "Forward" even in the Lenin Institute. If the hon. Gentleman will let me know, I shall be glad to consider any information about it. I maintain that it is clear that the Soviet Government know well that if the Russian workers could compare their lot with that of the British workers, their faith in their rulers would be very badly shaken, and that is why they prevent the truth about Britain being known to the Soviet people. That is why our invitations for exchange visits are constantly declined, or have been declined. That is why our efforts to break down the barriers between the two peoples are frustrated. That is why Russian citizens may not listen to the B.B.C. and may not take their holidays in Britain, may read only selected British books and see only selected British films, and may not write letters freely to us.

The plain truth is that the rulers of Russia cannot trust their people with the truth. I say that it is a terrible crime to deny to a whole people access to the truth. It violates every principle of civilised government. It defies every lesson of history. In Russia it deliberately fosters ignorance, misunderstanding and prejudice. It is a great obstacle to international friendship and peace. His Majesty's Government feel that they have a duty to make the truth about Britain known, especially in countries where falsehoods about it are deliberately circulated. They feel that this attitude will in the long run contribute to friendship and understanding between the British and the Russian peoples. I cannot assure the House that the B.B.C. will successfully reach the Soviet listening public if the Soviet Government are determined, regardless of cost, to prevent it, but I do assure the House that, as far as His Majesty's Government are concerned, no effort will be spared to see that the truth about Britain is as widely known as possible.

An assurance on one point would be valuable. People have made the suggestion that it would be desirable to make these broadcasts as innocuous as possible so that there would be greater hope that they would not be jammed. The only consequence of that would be to destroy the interest of these broadcasts for the people in Russia who are willing to take the trouble and risk to hear them. It would be a great public service if the hon. Gentleman would give an assurance that the influence of His Majesty's Government will in no way be brought to bear in that respect on the contents of the scripts. I do not ask that merely because my own broadcasts have been jammed, but in the interest of all broadcasts.

I can certainly give the answer that as far as the Government are concerned, and not the B.B.C., the truth will be told, and told in a bold, direct and challenging way. It is not merely a question of the broadcasts not being sufficiently interesting to those who have the courage to listen to them. It is also a question of giving a true representation, and of not allowing one's representation to be a false one simply because that is the only way of getting anything across.

Is it possible to have a copy of the scripts which my hon. Friend has mentioned placed in the Library so that hon. Members may know what is actually being given? Would it also be possible to let hon. Members have a script of the broadcast "The Voice of America"? I understand that the jamming started after "The Voice of America" got going. Also, is there any interference with the normal English broadcasts of the B.B.C.? There are numbers of people in the Soviet Union who understand English and who listened to the ordinary English B.B.C. broadcasts when I was there.

On the first point, I believe that the scripts are already in the Library, and if they are not, I will certainly consider my hon. Friend's suggestion. As to the second point, I should not without notice like to commit myself about placing "The Voice of America" script in the Library, because I am not sure of the responsibility of His Majesty's Government in this regard and other factors, but I will consider it. On the third point, I have no knowledge of any jamming of the English language broadcasts

As far as I can make out, the Debate which has just closed has been about frustrated experts. It has been a question of having jam yesterday and jam tomorrow but no jam today. The question of frustrated exports may not be of equally great popular appeal but it is of very great importance. It must be seen against the background of the need for our exports all over the world, not only to hard currency countries and to the dollar area but to others, being kept on an even flow. I wish to make it perfectly clear that I am not attempting to make any case for mushroom firms which may have gone into the export business with the idea of making a quick profit during the sellers' market. They may meet the fate which befalls everybody who attempts that very dangerous operation.

It is with the idea of bringing to light the great dangers coming to the good and normal and necessary channels through which the manufactured goods of this country have to flow to the rest of the world, that I will try to give the causes. The amounts are considerable. At the present moment there are in the woollen and worsted trades alone, over £10 million of frustrated exports, and in the cotton and rayon industry something like £50 million. If one takes an aggregate of all the other manufacturing industries—light engineering, pottery, hardware and hollow-ware—the amounts concerned are great.

As always happens, in spite of having been warned about it there will be surprise and distress when we come with a jerk to the end of the sellers' market, as we shall fairly soon. And as we come into the full blast of buyers' resistance, which is the sign of the buyers' market, these accumulations of stocks will increase greatly. I have seen in my time as a merchant the end of the sellers' market and the beginning of a buyers' market after the end of the 1914–1918 war, but there are certain vital differences on this occasion. There are now features in the way of foreign exchange control, of quota legislation, and the very fact that manufacturers and exporters have themselves been working on a quota basis, with the highest possible quota devoted to export. These are some of the features that have created the accumulated stocks which are the sign-manual of frustration of exports both now and in the future.

The chief reason for this is undoubtedly the shutting down of iron curtains, which countries importing from this country find necessary in view of their difficult economy. South Africa, the Argentine, India, Pakistan, the Dutch East Indies—all these countries to a greater or lesser degree, and for a greater length of time, have, practically overnight or sometimes with a little more warning, shut down an iron curtain which has left in the hands of the exporter considerable amounts of merchandise for which he had made a contract. There are foreign exchange questions; there are great delays in delivery. These mean that when a man has made a contract for the export of goods to, say, Pakistan in June or July, he has been unable to fulfil his contract for some cause such as the dock strike, or because of the slowness in moving goods that we have experienced for a long time.

In the switch from the sellers' to the buyers' market the buyer is no longer willing to take delivery a month or two later, and quickly takes every opportunity—like the thermostatic control of the refrigerator—for getting out of these contracts. If there is a delay in delivery, if there is something wrong with the terms of the letter of credit, if the packing is wrong, those goods which were genuinely sold to help the export trade of this country in the normal course of the business of the exporting merchant firms, become, overnight, frustrated exports. The weight of this will gradually begin to bear upon the whole of the manufacturing potential of this country and will be one of the greatest immediate weapons to upset what we know is a cherished idea of the Government and of everybody else—full employment.

It is not an easy matter with which to deal, and I am not pretending that the Government have an easy task in the incidents which will always arise when there is a switch over from the sellers' to the buyers' market. However, they have to make up their minds, and quite a good deal has to be done about it. The buyers' moods change a good deal, and it is important to create now, different machinery to deal with this matter. When the next change takes place in due course, when the sponge that is the world's demand for goods which is now to some extent, though not entirely, saturated begins to get a bit dry again and once again there is a demand for goods, if the correct machinery has not been created, if those concerns have been left with such a great burden that they go out of business altogether—I am talking of the genuine firms and that is something which may happen—then the opportunity which this country must seize, to be the first in the field with the new export trade, will have been greatly mitigated and we shall be quite unnecessarily and wrongly handicapped.

Do not forget that another of the causes of our many frustrated exports is one about which the Government themselves have expressed concern—the high price of many of our goods. If other goods of equal quality and attractiveness are coming on the market from other countries, if we are getting into the era of competition which so many of us have predicted, the tendency to cancel our goods is also a considerable factor in creating frustrated exports. I do not think it would be right to go into too much detail as to how, in the various compartments of different kinds of manufactures, the frustrated exports arise. I have indicated the main heads. However, I have seen it happen in many countries and in many lines of goods and the Secretary for Overseas Trade, whose task it is to follow these things, knows from his journeyings and from the great attention he gives this matter, that it is a real danger today. If he is quite honest with himself and us, he will say later on that it will be an increasing danger tomorrow.

It is true that all the dangers are not yet apparent. For instance, in the woollen and worsted industry the frustrated exports are not weighing heavily at the moment, largely because the basic price of wool is being well maintained and, therefore, the holder has not seen that he will be faced with the necessity for making a considerable loss. However, the present price structure of all raw materials is not so firmly supported as it has been in the past and there is a considerable decline in many basic materials. That may well affect the whole range of the exports which at present are lying in this country eating up a great deal of money in the cost of financing them, insuring them and storing them. The amounts are large, and those I have quoted show quite sufficiently that the matter cannot be treated in the way it has been treated up to now.

I was a little disappointed this week at the reply which the Secretary for Overseas Trade gave to a Question asked by one of his own supporters who asked what further steps the President of the Board of Trade was taking to deal with the problem of frustrated exports. The hon. Gentleman replied:

"None. I am satisfied that the present arrangements are working satisfactorily and am grateful to the Association of British Chambers of Commerce for their continued co-operation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th July, 1949; Vol. 467, c. 106.]

I think it is wrong that he should have given that reply, "None." The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the President of the Board of Trade not long ago received a deputation from Yorkshire from the woollen and worsted manufacturers and that they were more than disappointed with the coolness of their reception. There is a great danger from the point of view of the President of the Board of Trade. We know that recently he has been driven from multilateral to bilateral and, this week, to unilateral action without consultation. We on this side of the House feel rather strongly that he would have devoted his time better to unilateral action to assist frustrated exports. He is saying all the time, "You must bring your costs down." Let me say in all seriousness that if he looks upon the weight of frustrated exports which may flow into the home market as a means of breaking down the price structure, he is doing something extremely dangerous—although I do not think that, in the depth of his ignorance of these matters, the right hon. Gentleman would be deterred in any way from doing something really dangerous. Probably he would not recognise it as such. Certainly, as a salesman overseas to help our exports he has been a conspicuous failure.

One of the reasons why we have frustrated exports today is that no buyers want to buy at the present moment, and many want to cancel their present purchases because they have been told by the President of the Board of Trade that these goods will be cheaper and better in the near future. A lesson might be learnt from that humble member of the trading community, the barrow boy. He does not very often put on his barrow of cherries, "Beautiful cherries, 2s. 6d." up to lunch time and "2s. 0d." after lunch and expect to have record sales in the morning. That is a little bit of what the President of the Board of Trade has been doing when he has been round the United States and Canada with his high-powered assistant who helps him over there; and that, too, has certainly brought the Americans back to the old conclusion that "Gentlemen prefer Blonds."

One of the great difficulties and dangers at present is to arrange an orderly sale of frustrated goods on the home market. The Secretary for Overseas Trade may say that the first thing to do is to try to sell these goods in other export markets. That is quite right, but he knows perfectly well that in many cases goods are manufactured specially for certain markets and that goods which may be suitable for the Dutch East Indies cannot be sold in South America, and vice versa. This country produces the greatest amount of the best quality of specialities in practically every line. Therefore, the difficulty, where an export is frustrated and cancelled, of sending it elsewhere is very great, and sometimes the advice of the Department concerned is a little academic and hollow.

The difficulty of selling the goods on the home market is also considerable. First, there is the question of utility goods. Where export goods of exactly the same type, appearance and quality as utility goods come to be sold on the home market, they are completely and utterly frustrated by the Purchase Tax, which they have to bear. From the replies which I and others have received from the Board of Trade, their concern seems to be more in the possible loss of revenue from the Purchase Tax than anything else. What chance has the man who may receive a licence to sell in the home market, to sell in competition with utility goods when he has to pay the Purchase Tax? I realise that there is a great technical difficulty here, but I do not think it is so difficult that it cannot be overcome if there is a desire to do so.

My second point concerns the giving of a licence for the sale in the home market of goods not of the utility type. The Board of Trade have hitherto been very reluctant to do this. A case can, undoubtedly, be made out for their not doing so; it may be considered to be inflationary or unfair to people who are dealing in the home trade—both of those are perfectly valid arguments. But if we are approaching, as I believe we are, a moment when the weight of these frustrated exports, big as it is today, will increase very greatly, then that answer will not be sufficient; and more ingenuity will have to be displayed. Suggestions have been and are going to be put to the Board of Trade and to the hon. Gentleman about how that can be brought about.

There is undoubtedly, and always has been, in the minds of the Government a curious separation of idea in thinking that the home market can be divided from the overseas market. That is an extremely dangerous fallacy, and if pursued and continued, it will in the end have exactly the opposite effect to what the Government are trying to do—that is, to assist the export market. We have worked so far on the basis of selling everything we possibly can in the export market. That is quite right, and must continue to be the main target, but the Government must not be too rigid. They have, I believe, now reached the point, as is shown in the figures I have given for the textile industry alone, where the answer given by the hon. Gentleman only a few days ago is totally insufficient; where it is absolutely necessary for this whole question to be examined again. Exports will continue to be frustrated, for the reasons I have given and for a number of other reasons.

As the hon. Gentleman is well aware, other countries in competition with ourselves, in spite of bilateral agreements and exchange controls, will find themselves, as they are finding themselves already, keener to clear their shelves and their stocks of these goods which are accumulating the whole time and which are difficult to absorb entirely in the home market, although that can be done partially. If their arrangements and outlook are more live and more realistic; if the machinery that they create—in France, Italy, the United States, Belgium and Holland, for example, and in other manufacturing countries—is better than the arrangements that we make; if their Minister does not give the answer that he is "perfecty satisfied" with the arrange- ment as it stands, or does not, in reply to a question asking whether he is going to make any change, answer "None": then the weight will break down the whole machinery by which export is carried out. We shall not be able, from the experience of others which will, I hope, be shown in this Debate, to create the machinery for export, which is not only the manufacturer but the exporting machine, the whole chain that has to be created for that purpose. If that machinery had been broken, it will take years to build it up again.

It is not, therefore, only with surplus and frustrated stocks that I am dealing today, but also with the need to prevent these stocks from increasing and to find the means of clearing them as rapidly as possible. Otherwise it will be like stopping a train—it will shunt the whole way back and the process of manufacture will be interfered with and we shall begin to get difficulties of employment in the industries concerned. This is the biggest and most important sign of that process we have yet seen, and I hope that the disappointment which I feel at the reply of the hon. Gentleman, to which I have referred, and the attitude of the President of the Board of Trade and of the Department itself, will be changed.

I have had many negotiations with the hon. Gentleman and I know that he takes a very great deal of trouble to understand these matters and that he is most anxious to promote the welfare of our industry. I hope that today he will take what I have said not as a matter of bias or contention, but of belief that it is extremely important for the future that this subject of the accumulation of frustrated stocks and exports should be handled in a totally different spirit.

It is no use exhorting us to manufacture exports and when people who have carried out that task and have really exported, find their exports broken and their contracts, for the reasons I have given, not carried out, saying to them, "We can do nothing about it." That is just stupid, and if the hon. Gentleman does that, he will do incalculable harm. If he does exactly the opposite and says, "Yes, I will now set up new machinery in co-operation with the trade"—not as unilateral as the President of the Board of Trade—" and go into this very quickly and accept willingly any suggestions," he will be carrying out a most important task; people will again feel confidence in the ability of this country, in times which are as difficult for export as any in my experience, and he will be doing a great service to the whole country.

I support the points which have been made by the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher). Anybody with the experience of having frustrated exports either in the warehouses or in the mills in the years before the war, knows what a very bad effect it had on the mill or warehouse and the atmosphere in it. As far as I am aware, the present amount of frustrated exports in the textile industry is not known. The hon. Member for Bury has mentioned £10 million for wool and worsteds and something like £40 or £50 million for the cotton and rayon industry. But I doubt very much whether those figures are accurate, and it is about time that a real survey was made throughout all the textile trades to find out exactly what amount of frustrated exports we are now holding. Frustrated exports are a menace not only to home trade and prices, but also to the efforts which manufacturers and merchants are making to send their goods overseas. It is time also that our export mechanism was thoroughly overhauled.

We are working under conditions which were never known before the war. We need only to take the difficulties of exporting to the Scandinavian countries during the last 12 months and the difficulties which have arisen in South Africa and also the circumstances in which woollens and worsteds are now being exported to South America, to realise that. The markets were never easy, except in those brief months in 1946, 1947 and at the beginning of 1948. When I used to sit on the council of the Huddersfield Chamber of Commerce during the war, we continually pestered the Government to allow us to send a little trickle of exports to America. That was always turned down and there was a reason, but from 1945 to 1947 I would say that our exports from the textile industry to any market in the world were cheaper than those of any other country. I contend that the textile manufacturers and merchants have an honourable record in the work they have done since the war ended. We know full well that there may have been people who have come into the textile field who could come under the category of mushroom firms, but it should not be difficult to sort them out when we have all the statistics of applications for and grants of licences back to 1945.

What about the importation of continental cloths? I ask the Secretary for Overseas Trade if it is not a fact that cloths have been allowed to come into this country which could and should have fitted into a lower cost specification in utility goods? I will refresh my hon. Friend's memory in regard to the types of cloth, worsted flannel cloths. Is it not a fact that because they are of foreign origin they have been allowed to come into categories at higher prices, namely, 4s. higher than the British manufacturer is allowed? Is it fair that the manufacturer or merchant should be in a more difficult position, a less advantageous position, than a continental maker, who is allowed to send cloths over here to go into utility categories?

What about damaged cloths? Are the Board of Trade making any discrimination between damaged cloths and those which are genuinely frustrated? If a proper organisation were set up, something could be done in regard to that matter and if the figures given by the hon. Member for Bury are anything like correct, this question is on a gigantic scale. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to get down to the question of frustrated exports. Every month he delays now is going to make it more difficult for him to make a decision. We have to remember that quite a lot of these cloths are seasonal and are cloths made for particular markets. If these cloths are to be in warehouses and mills they will have a bigger effect on morale and the efforts made for export trade than my hon. Friend realises.

I implore him to get down to the job right away and to set up an organisation that can deal with it and not only deal with it as a form of panel for frustrated exports, but also take into consideration damaged cloths for which claims that they are frustrated exports are being made. One suggestion with regard to frustrated exports is that cloths which will fit to a price should be allowed to go into utility specifications straight away. There is a lot to be said for that. What is good for the continental maker should surely be good for the British maker. I hope the Secretary for Overseas Trade will give us some favourable news.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) is to be congratulated on having raised this subject before we adjourn. I am glad that the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) has supported him.

There is little I can add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury has said, but I hope the Secretary for Overseas Trade will take the opportunity in the next two months to go into this matter carefully, to see what can be done to help those in the industry. It is extremely important that manufacturers should feel that they have an adequate base in the home market from which to start export operations. We must return to such a system and I therefore wholeheartedly support the suggestion that those frustrated exports which conform to utility standards should be made available in the home market at utility prices instead of, as at present, being subject to Purchase Tax.

Utility goods have been the subject of a statement by the President of the Board of Trade recently and it has been suggested that these new arrangements might bring about a reduction in staff, and a curtailment of services to the public. Here is an opportunity of releasing for public consumption at utility prices, goods which we are unable to sell overseas, at the same time ensuring that there will be work for the staffs in the retail industry concerned and that additional goods will be available for the public. The possibilities of exports are considerably narrowing and I hope that if the Secretary for Overseas Trade has no encouraging remarks to make this afternoon he will at least give an assurance that he will go carefully into the matter during the next few months to see what he can do to help the industry.

I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Balham and Tooting (Mr. R. Adams) sitting by me that we could be sure that when the hon. Member for Bury (Mr. W. Fletcher) spoke he would put his finger on a case that really mattered and therefore I should have to be certain to give him a really considered reply. I intend doing that, but comments about the President of the Board of Trade can be dealt with quite effectively on another occasion. I think it as well to get clear what we mean by this problem of frustrated exports. It means that if there are goods subject to planning or some measure of control which fail to get into overseas territory, we can say there is frustration of that export, particularly if it is earmarked for a particular country.

The essence of a frustrated export is that it is the subject of a contract for sale and that the contract for sale has been broken for some reason—it may be exchange reasons, or the imposition of a quota, or the putting down of an iron curtain which forbids such imports. The essence of the problem is that a contract is in existence but cannot be fulfilled.

The frustrated export problem with which we are dealing—I will deal with that section of the matter later—is illustrated by the explanation I have given. If we make arrangements—

We must get this point quite clear. Does my hon. Friend mean to say that any exports which have not been arranged under P.R.M., say, in the last six months, will not be regarded as frustrated exports if they are cancelled?

No, I do not altogether suggest that. I say that we cannot accept a general claim that exports have been frustrated, if for some reason other than the operation of a Government control, the contract has not been completed. That would include many of the items to which the hon. Member for Bury has referred. We cannot accept every frustrated export as coming within that category.

It does not matter whether the Government accept it; it is there.

It makes a difference. If we accepted that claim many manufacturers who fail to sell goods overseas would claim that they should be sold on the home market. That would enable many of the less reputable firms to do business which would not secure the maximum credit for our industrial activity at home. If we allowed the release on the home market of the goods I have in mind, it would mean that all the raw material and the labour which we have specially earmarked to produce the goods required for an overseas market with which we are in balance of payment difficulties would be diverted and to that extent it would mean the aggravation of our own domestic problems.

That is a thing of the past.

No, I do not think it is, but whether it is or is not a thing of the past, it is certainly unfair to those manufacturers who are at present doing all they can to export, if they find that others on whom the same obligation is imposed, are able to get away with it without making an effort.

The Government said that we ought to look at all these cases, and we feel the people best able to do it are those who are experts in the matter. We thought that the Associated British Chambers of Commerce could help us considerably. We have had great help from them, and a body or panel which they have established has been in existence for about 12 months. In the light of what they have been doing, I find that the figures mentioned by the hon. Member for Bury are not quite accurate. I think he made the suggestion that wool stocks at present frustrated amounted to the value of £10 million and in the case of rayon £50 million. The latest information I have is that the outstanding applications for frustrated exports before the panel amount to a value, in the case of wool, of £62,077 and in the case of cotton and rayon £143,314.

Is it not obvious from what the hon. Gentleman has just said that we are talking about totally different things? The hon. Gentleman is talking about things for which there may have been an application and the exporter is trying and hoping that he will be able to export when an iron curtain is lifted or when there is some change in the allocation of exchange. I ask him not to try to bring this matter down to trying to prove that on the advice which he has been given most of the goods are sold because a change has taken place recently, and that everything is for the best in the best of worlds. If he does that, he is going the wrong way about the matter.

I must take the advice of the most reputable business associates as well as of civil servants concerned with this matter. They say that, as a result of the last 12 months' work of this panel, out of the 3,650 applications for the release of frustrated exports 1,732 have been granted and 1,471 rejected. The remainder either have not pressed the matter, or for other reasons they have been able to export. If we take these figures, and they must be accepted as reliable, coming from such a source, it means that every case of frustrated exports receives the fullest consideration, and the figures I have given in connection with wool, cotton and rayon come within that category.

Those are only the cases which have been put to the hon. Gentleman.

Has my hon. Friend had any census taken or any inquiries made as to the extent to which goods are piling up, although applications have not been made on account of them? Is my hon. Friend making any provision to deal with the time when applications may be made to deal with accumulated stocks?

If applications are made, there is machinery in existence to deal with them. It is not part of my job to assess a difficulty which does not exist so far as I know. If there is already an authoritative body established to consider the question of frustrated exports, and someone does not choose to put their problem before that body, who am I to say that their problem exists? I should have thought that if in fact they have a problem and they have not taken that action, it is not a big enough problem for them to consider putting it before the committee, and those concerned must know that their case is not strong enough to enable them to get freedom from the obligation to export.

Does not the hon. Gentleman think that there is another explanation, namely, that a great many people, including associations, have been unsympathetically treated and have received such poor answers that they are trying to find other means without going through the official channels?

No. I think that is an unfair comment to make about the panel which has been established. I think that the figures I have given are an indication that fair treatment is meted out and full consideration given.

Once the panel has decided that an exporter is free not to send his goods overseas, he is given a certificate which allows him to sell the goods on the home market. He can then deal with his goods in the way in which the hon. Member for Bury and those who have supported him this morning have been pleading with me to allow. Ninety-five per cent. of the applications for the release of frustrated exports concern textiles. I would say to the hon. Member for Bury that the question does not in any way build itself up into a tremendous problem covering other industries as he indicated.

Will the hon. Gentleman produce figures to show that 95 per cent. of the frustrated exports are textiles?

I am prepared to stand by the figures I have given, and would further say that, so far as such goods are concerned, it is true that we encounter other difficulties caused by import licence restrictions. In such cases we give full consideration to them. So far as I am able to judge, the frustration is limited to some few consumer goods, some of which were made for the Argentine. The most striking instance is that of textiles; there is also the case of pottery which has been made for a special market and has not been taken because of import licensing restrictions or something of that kind. I do not dispute that the problem is likely to grow. Import licensing restrictions are getting no easier in most markets. The Government, however, have said that we are anxious to liberalise trade and with that, we hope, will come an easing of many of these restrictions. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) has said that we shall have difficulty in South Africa. That is so, but the machinery I have indicated still exists, and those who cannot export have an opportunity of putting their case to the Board of Trade.

They have done so and had a very cold reception, with which they were very disappointed.

I am sorry if they thought they had a cold reception. I accept their word for it. It is a matter of feeling. When one receives someone officially, one may be told that it is a cold reception, but one has to receive people according to how they present themselves. The hon. Member for Bury has paid some fine tributes to the way in which I have received him, and I hope that I shall always receive him in that way, because I know that it is his desire, as it is mine, to try to co-operate in order that trade can be helped, and we can overcome the problems that confront us. It is in that sense that I am saying that it is no use making these suggestions that the Government should do something about it when industry is not using the existing machinery.

Is my hon. Friend aware that it is impossible for the woollen worsted trade to carry out examinations? In the field of damaged cloths, for instance, it is not being done.

I am quite sure that the panel we have set up considers each matter, but with respect, that has nothing at all to do with frustrated exports.

They come under it.

Yes, they may do. I am afraid it is pretty obvious that I shall not have a chance to deal with the other point of substance. It will have to be dismissed by my saying that the question of whether frustrated exports released on the home market, which are similar to utility goods, should be free from Purchase Tax, was answered by the Chancellor himself in a recent reply to Questions from hon. Members, when he said that Purchase Tax was a matter on its own and had to be dealt with as such. It certainly is not a matter for the Board of Trade, which is concerned with utility garments and materials stamped as such in order to ensure the right quality and standards for that class of goods—

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I wrote to the Board of Trade suggesting that, as the machinery is such that we cannot take off the Purchase Tax until the next Budget, the cloth might be stamped as utility cloth by the manufac- turers, which would get over the difficulty; but that that and other suggestions have been callously turned down by the Board of Trade? It is the Board of Trade which refuses suggestions about ways to get round it.

That was with regard to the actual commodities going overseas. We allow the manufacturer to stamp the material produced in his own factory with the utility mark. We cannot allow that to spread to the merchants. The general responsibility must be put on the manufacturer, and it is in that sense, I think, that we have been co-operative and not, as is inferred by the hon. Member, difficult in the matter. It is more a question of making sure there is proper order—

May I take it—

We are a little behind time and the hon. Gentleman has been interrupted a very great deal. I think he ought to be allowed to continue his speech.

I have deliberately allowed these interruptions, because I wish to answer precise points, but I am bound to say there appears to be an endeavour to show that the existing machinery is not suitable. With that I disagree. I consider the existing machinery is adequate and those concerned are to be congratulated. I feel it should continue until circumstances warrant a change and I remain unconvinced after what has been said today that a change is necessary.

The House today has been occupied with a wide range of important topics, but there is no subject more important than that of education. One of the subjects in which the people of Wales take a proud, and indeed a passionate, interest is that of education. The Welsh are not interested in the narrowness of education, but rather in its fullness; that it may serve the great purposes of humanity. We believe that education should help towards the fullest and richest development of human personality.

Thus on Monday next there will begin a pilgrimage of ardent Welsh folk from all parts of the Principality to the little township of Dolgelly. For a week the attention of Wales will be focused on "Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru," which means the Welsh National Eisteddfod. There the leading bard of Wales will be crowned; soloists will be selected; choristers, musicians, artists and craftsmen will all be given their place of honour. In Wales we are proud that we have a culture of our own, a culture rooted in the education and religion of our people. The City of Cardiff which, with the Minister of Pensions and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport I have the honour to represent in this House, has the paramount distinction of being the capital of that gallant little nation.

It is because I am proud of the City of Cardiff that I am so disturbed about the state of its education. The past 30 years have seen astonishing developments in the field of education in this country, but unhappily most of those developments have passed our city by. In 1926 we had the Hadow Report which recommended new standards of organisation. Local authorities in all parts of the country, with the encouragement of the then Board of Education, began to reorganise their schools, ensuring that all children over the age of 11 should be housed in a separate building. This reorganisation was accepted in 1944 as the basis of the new Education Act. The Ministry of Education are today obliged by the terms of that Act to regard all schools which are not so reorganised as primary schools; thus if children whose ages range from 6 to 15 are in one school, the children of 11-plus cannot be regarded for grant purposes as being in a secondary school.

Cardiff has never reorganised her schools, with the result that today there is not a single secondary modern school in the whole of the confines of our city. There never has been a junior secondary school in the pre-1944 terms of education. In Merthyr, Rhondda and Aberdare, and the valleys that wind their way to the north of the City of Cardiff, secondary modern schools are to be found in abundance, because the authorities proved themselves enlightened at the right time.

Labour local authorities.

These are indeed Labour authorities; but it should in fairness be stated that the local education authority at Cardiff in 1929 and in 1936 set about a scheme for the reorganisation of the schools on the basis of the Hadow Report. Both those schemes were rejected by the finance committee of the council and later by the full council. The finance committee, unfortunately, has always been penny-minded instead of educationally minded, and it is upon the finance committee of the corporation that the full responsibility must lie. In 1939, when war clouds were dark upon us the authority once again passed educational reorganisation plans and this time the full council passed the plans and they were carefully pigeon-holed. They have remained pigeon-holed ever since.

What the children of Cardiff have lost, due to the mean and miserable attitude of the finance committee, no tongue can tell; no words can describe. I earnestly hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will not, reply to me as did my right hon. Friend at Question Time the other day—that in the first instance this is the responsibility of the local authority. For 23 years, we have waited for the reorganisation of our schools, to give at least equal opportunity to the children of Cardiff with the children of the Rhondda. Now I wish to know what representations are the Ministry making to obtain this necessary reorganisation? What pressure have they brought to bear, and how long is it likely to be before our children have the same advantages as are enjoyed in other areas in this country?

The Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin Morris), who is sitting opposite, know that the state of secondary grammar education in Cardiff has been the cause of great concern recently. At the beginning of this month I attended a mass meeting of the combined staffs of high school teachers in our city. The meeting was exceptionally well attended, and a resolution was unanimously passed expressing grave concern at the prolonged neglect of education in the city. I found that the bitterness of the teachers was alarming. The forcefulness of their criticism was such that the entire Press of the Principality felt obliged to give considerable space to the matter. There was unanimous agreement for the following clauses of the resolution:

"It specifically condemns in the strongest possible terms:

(1) the almost complete absence of nursery schools;

(2) the failure to implement the Hadow Report, so that no secondary education other than grammar schools is provided in the city;

(3) the fact that only one new school building has been begun since the end of the war."

On that point I think they may be wrong. There may be two.

"(4) The indescribable conditions under which the staff and pupils work at three high schools damaged by enemy action in 1941;

(5) the existing inadequate provision of playing fields for both primary and secondary schools."

I must tell the House the conditions of secondary grammar school accommodation in Cardiff. The Howard Gardens High School for Boys was damaged by enemy action in 1941 and it remains in a scandalous condition. A fortnight ago I visited this school. It happened that we had had a thunderstorm in Cardiff that morning. When I walked round the school I found pools of water in the rooms. There was water on the walls, the ceiling of the staff room was falling down, and biscuit tins and buckets were being used to catch water as it dripped through the ceiling. There is no laboratory and no school hall.

I submit that the Parliamentary Secretary ought to have been receiving reports long ago from his inspectors. I understand from an article in the "Western Mail" that the director of education stated at a meeting of the education committee on 15th July that he had no written report about this school during the past 12 months. The fact that such brilliant academic achievements have been secured by pupils from that school, even during the past year, is a tribute to the teacher and to the child, but it ought to be a challenge to the local authority and the Ministry of Education. If parents kept their children under home conditions similar to those at this school, I think the N.S.P.C.C. might well have been interested in them a long time ago.

In the Canton High School for Girls conditions are almost as grave. On the 23rd of this month a letter was published in the "South Wales Echo" signed by the staff of the school. It said:

"Conditions are detrimental to the health of all concerned and cause a deplorable waste of time. Teachers have a six-minute walk between lessons to go to different classes."

Unfortunately, this school also suffered bomb damage. The letter added:

"There are no facilities for games except an under-sized netball pitch …"

Indeed, it is under-sized—

"… and an open space surrounded by the ruins of 20 air-raid shelters and the remains of a static water tank."

Yesterday at a meeting of the Cardiff Education Authority the new chairman, who is a man of considerable drive and initiative, made a special appeal to teachers. I understand from today's "Western Mail" that he said:

"We are doing our best and all I ask from the teachers is loyalty—loyalty to the authority and loyalty to us all."

He also said:

"I would like the spirit to emanate right through our schools that those difficulties …"

And he agrees with what I have said about the Howard Gardens High School—

"… may be spurs for greater activity and greater enthusiasm to overcome them."

I assure the House—and indeed the local authority—that the loyalty and the service of the teachers will never be withheld; but, in return, those who are giving the extra effort in their service to the rising generation have every right to ask for greater initiative on the part of both the local authority and the Ministry.

I speak today more as a teacher than as a political partisan. It is monstrous that our children in Cardiff have not the same opportunity as they would have had if they had been born but 20 miles to the north. What prospect is there in the next year of new schools, prefabricated buildings perhaps, being erected? The local authority have decided to press for their own school architect. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will encourage them. There has been a bottleneck in the Cardiff City Engineer's Department, with the result that plans for new schools have been slow in production. I trust that my hon. Friend will be able to tell me that presentation of these plans will be speeded considerably.

I ask my hon. Friend, who has manifested such a deep and sympathetic understanding in the problems of the Principality, to say something about playing fields accommodation for Cardiff schools. A school without a playing field is like a man with one arm. It cannot do properly what it sets out to do. The Minister of Education and my hon. Friend have done a great deal for Wales. I readily pay tribute to the Welsh Department, and in particular to the Parliamentary Secretary, for the way in which they have understood our bi-lingual problem and the different approach which we have to modern difficulties.

But I speak for the teachers of Cardiff when I say that we are seriously disturbed at the slowness, the lack of vision, and apparently the lack of faith, which has been revealed in the past. If the speech of the new chairman of the education Committee means what I take it to mean, then perhaps in Cardiff today we stand on the threshold of a new era in education. I earnestly hope that this is so, and that the House will appreciate that I raised this subject only because it is one of pressing and paramount importance.

I cannot hope to emulate my hon. Friend the Member for Central Cardiff (Mr. G. Thomas) in the matter of his beautiful lilting tones and his delightful Welsh words describing the Eisteddfod. It is possible, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you will rule me out of Order, because I propose to use this Debate in order to raise a matter which has been troubling me for some time. Of course, I do not know sufficient about conditions in Cardiff to add to my hon. Friend's speech about the difficulties in his home town which he now represents in this House. The points I want to raise, and about which I am very troubled, concern the tendency on the part of many authorities to treat their teachers in a rather niggardly way.

Order. The hon. Lady should understand that Mr. Speaker decided to set apart a number of periods of three-quarters of an hour each for the discussion of subjects which he specified, and that this Debate is restricted to schools in Cardiff.

I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

I am sure hon. Members on all sides of the House have been very disturbed by the facts which have been made known to them by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Cardiff (Mr. G. Thomas). We have known these facts at the Ministry for some time, of course, and I should be the last person to say that I was not also disturbed. Indeed I have been disturbed about the educational provision in Cardiff for some time. I am not, therefore, standing at this Box this afternoon in order to whitewash anybody. We are, in one degree or another, responsible for the present condition of the schools and of the equipment of the schools in the City of Cardiff.

I want to answer as many of the points raised by my hon. Friend as I possibly can, because I know that what I have to say will be of interest not only to him and to hon. Members who heard his most eloquent pleading, but will be of very considerable interest to my hon. Friend's constituents and indeed to the citizens of Cardiff generally.

There are legitimate grounds for criticising educational provision in Cardiff. We have heard more and more about this at the Ministry recently: My hon. Friend has referred to what was aid at the annual general meeting of the staffs of the high schools on 11th July last, and he referred to a resolution which my right hon. Friend received as a result of that meeting. I shall refer to the details of that resolution in a few minutes. Then, there have been Parliamentary Questions apropos of this problem in the city, and I know that in one or two instances my hon. Friend has been told that the teachers of Cardiff should take up their problems with the local education authority. In addition, other events have occurred in the Cardiff educational administration that bring this matter to a head still more.

I have myself visited the schools in Cardiff, and I have been shocked at many of the conditions I have seen. I must confess, however, that I have seen equally bad buildings and equally inferior sanitary conditions and equipment in other parts of the country. Cardiff, unfortunately, is not alone in its heritage of dreadful schools and unsuitable equipment, and it would be grossly unfair to suggest that Cardiff was an educational Black Hole of Calcutta among the pristine whiteness of educational provision elsewhere in the Principality, or even elsewhere in Great Britain.

Cardiff has a number of bad schools; I know, because I have seen them. There are, too, many very bad schools everywhere both in rural and in industrial areas, but the problem of getting rid of these schools has reached gigantic proportions because, between the wars, Governments did not do their duty by education. The school life of the children was conceived as part of a cheap, cheeseparing policy, and we must face up to the fact that the Government could not hope, in the four years in which they have been in power, to make up for a backward, niggardly policy followed for at least 20 years before the war. Present economic conditions and the rise in the birthrate are making it an even more formidable task. With all of that, I am quite certain that my hon. Friend will agree.

May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman? Silence on these benches does not indicate that we agree with this electioneering speech.

It is an extraordinary thing that, when hon. Members on the opposite benches hear a few home truths, they describe them as an "electioneering speech." If it is an electioneering speech, they ought to be very much ashamed of it.

I think my hon. Friend agrees with me, and certainly hon. Members on this side of the House will agree with me, from what I have said, that they can quite properly ask wherein lies the apparent failure to progress at a greater speed since 1945. That really is the question which is interesting us this afternoon. I am going to be quite frank about this, and I am going to agree that the City Fathers have not in the past been really anxious to spend money on educational progress. My hon. Friend referred to it as "a penny-minded policy," and we cannot avoid the issue that that has been the prevailing spirit in the discussions by the representatives on the Cardiff City Council.

The hon. Gentleman will agree, will he not, that in this case they were Socialist City Fathers?

Oh, no. Unhappily for education, the party opposite had a majority on the Cardiff City Council.

In the past in Cardiff, educational interests have had far too often to take a back seat, and, whatever political complexion we may have, we have to see the facts in this light. For example, the estates committee has tended to allocate inadequate and unsuitable space to educational buildings, reserving the best land over and over again for housing and for parks. There was often a good case to be made out for this decision, but, nevertheless, education has not had its fair share.

Moreover, there has been—and I was glad that my hon. Friend referred to this point—a failure to allot sufficient architectural staff to educational building work in order to enable the minimum essential building programme to be implemented. It is my view that every local education authority should have its schools and educational architect, and that Cardiff should appoint one who should have responsibility for the educational building work of the education committee. Any words that I can utter to encourage the Cardiff authority to appoint such an architect will, I hope, be taken to heart. But this again is not an omission peculiar to Cardiff. It is one which many authorities should rectify, even though city surveyors, borough engineers and county architects in some instances may not like it. We must not allow professional prejudice to stand in the way of educational progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Cardiff raised, very largely by implication, the problem which is really at issue this afternoon. He asked, in effect, in the cases where the authority is a bad one in this or other respects, wherein lies the power of the Ministry of Education. There are, of course, official letters. They go to authorities whenever we feel that certain duties are being neglected, and, believe me, Sir, those official letters are from time to time couched in very strong terms. However, they may receive no answer. It is His Majesty's inspectors' business constantly to keep in touch with the local education officials, and in Cardiff, for instance, periodic meetings have been held between His Majesty's inspectors and these officials. At their meetings there has been investigation of pro- gress made, and of the need of further progress. There has been insistence on keeping the urgent problems before the authority's officials. Then, in Cardiff—and this happens in other parts of the country, too, where the need arises—there have been meetings with the Ministry's priority officer. The object of such meetings is to speed up building work. All these methods have been used in Cardiff, and they have been used in co-operation with the authority.

Those are examples of what my hon. Friend would describe as "pressure." The final pressure that the Minister can bring to bear upon an authority is that provided by the power to withhold grant, or in the use of Section 68 of the Act; but I am quite certain—this is something which has not yet been done since the Act was passed—my hon. Friend will be the first person to agree, that an atomic bomb effect of that kind must be used only as a final resort.

However, in Cardiff, we have gone a step beyond those sorts of pressure tactics I have described. A deputation from that new education committee with its new chairman has met representatives of the Ministry of Education—in fact, on 9th June this year; and we have fully and very frankly discussed the rate of educational building in Cardiff; and we at the Ministry and the inspectorate in Wales feel that, with the changes that have taken place there, there is likely to be a more rapid progress in some directions than we have known in the past.

It is perfectly true, as my hon. Friend has said, that nursery school provision, for instance, is an item in the resolution of the annual general meeting to which he referred. Nursery school provision in Cardiff has been very poor indeed. Before the war, there was only one nursery school. There are now eight, of which seven were formerly war-time nurseries, opened during the war under the Ministry of Health scheme. We have carried out considerable improvements to those premises in the last 12 months. Under the authority's development plans it is proposed to make nursery provision for between one-fifth and one-sixth of the children of nursery school age in Cardiff, but the Minister has already informed the authority that he would by no means regard such provision as adequate.

My hon. Friend referred also to the second part of the resolution which was sent to my right hon. Friend—the need for reorganisation. Frankly, before the war the authority showed no great enthusiasm for reorganisation on the lines of the Hadow Report. It preferred to make liberal provision for grammar schools, and to provide the remaining section of the children with some advanced practical instruction in their existing large all-standard schools. They felt that in doing this they were complying with all the requirements of educational legislation as it was then.

Does not the hon. Gentleman really think that the children should come first, before all else?

That is the whole point.

That is the whole point of the Debate. We want to see that there is in Cardiff adequate provision for the education of the children there, and the teachers, in fact, from their annual general meeting, sent a resolution to the Minister in order to emphasise the needs of the children of Cardiff.

Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Ministry of Education has threatened to drop the atom bomb of Section 68 on Cardiff? Is that not the vital thing to do?

No. We have not given any such order, and, moreover, we do not think either that the time is appropriate, nor that there is any need to give such an order. I have already suggested that with the new chairman of the education committee taking over it is our business at the Ministry to do our very best to help him with the task he is undertaking with very great enthusiasm. We are admitting that mistakes have taken place in the past, but it would surely be very unwise and unstatesmanlike to hold a threat over a new education officer and over a new chairman of an education committee. I hope we shall never have to use the threat of Section 68 of the Act of 1944 in respect of any authority. But, unfortunately, I am having to admit today that there have been faults on all sides in the past, and that is why my hon. Friend has raised this subject very properly today, and why the new educational chairman of Cardiff faces such a very formidable task.

I was asked specifically by my hon. Friend to say something about the new school provision in the city. Since the war there have been three temporary primary schools constructed, and there has been completed the Lady Margaret High School to provide new premises for the Howard Gardens Girls High School, to which my hon. Friend referred.

That was before the war.

Yes. The new premises since the war—

Will my hon. Friend allow me? The school was completed, and was just about to be entered into, when the war broke out and troops took it over, and £40,000 worth of repairs to dilapidations had to be done after the troops left before we could take the school over again—18 months or two years after the war.

I thought we had heard that nothing was done before the war.

That is one school of which the hon. Gentleman can, no doubt, be very proud.

I may have been mistaken in suggesting that the whole of this provision was made since the war. In all probability I ought to have said that the money had been expended on the repair of premises dilapidated by occupying forces during the war. But in addition—and this, I think, was the point of my hon. Friend's question—plans for new permanent primary schools for the Ely, Gabalfa, Heath and Rumney housing estates are in an advanced stage of preparation. However, that does not carry us very far; but I can add that work on these four schools is scheduled to start at the end of this year; and I shall do everything in my power to see that we hit that target.

Recently some publicity was given in the Press to statements made by the director of education to the effect that the programme for the building of schools for housing estates in Cardiff had been seriously cut by the Ministry of Education. I think that I am in duty bound to suggest that this does give a misleading impression. The programmes sub- mitted by Cardiff have not been sufficiently closely related to the authority's capacity to produce plans for schools. The Ministry included in the programmes everything which it was thought the authority could build. I am sorry to say that even this target has not been reached.

My hon. Friend referred to playing-field facilities. I am not being unjust when I say that too often in the past there has been almost a definite antagonism to the provision of playing-field accommodation in Cardiff. Few open spaces have been left in the built-up parts of the city, and it was felt that these grounds should be available for the use of adults as well as for school children. In the authority's development plan it was proposed to make no provision for separate playing fields in existing primary schools. The Ministry has already indicated that this cannot be accepted, and the authority has been asked to investigate the possibility of providing playing-fields to be used exclusively by schools in accordance with the building regulations.

Unfortunately, the parks committee has had too dominant a say in the matter of open spaces in the city. I think this has been an important factor in prolonging the neglect to set aside land for school playing-fields. I want to say nothing which will damp the enthusiasm of the new set-up in the committee, nor am I going to say that what has happened in the past has been wholly black, or indeed has been a dereliction of educational duties. Mistakes have been made; we all have to admit it; but a new leaf has been turned over and there are possibilities for big advancement. I am convinced that the education committee in Cardiff is now well aware of the seriousness of the educational position in the city. I am well aware of the fact that the education committee is desirous of getting on with the job as quickly as possible.

I think I have been critical, like my hon. Friend, of certain aspects of past policy, but I wish the new chairman, his committee and his new chief education officer well in the formidable task which confronts them. It is a most disturbing picture that my hon. Friend has revealed, and I assure him that as far as the Ministry are concerned we will do every- thing in our power to help the new Committee and the new education officer to solve the very serious education problems that confront the people of Cardiff.

I regret that circumstances and the official attitude of the Minister of Works compel me to bring to the notice of the House a special case in the County of Carmarthen. In the heart of Carmarthenshire there is a rural parish called Llandefeilog, which has a number of enterprising and energetic young people who have formed a welfare association they call the Llandefeilog Welfare Association. In January, 1947, they decided to buy two huts for the purpose of setting up two welfare centres in the parish. They approached the Office of Works in order to buy the huts in the possession of the Ministry. These huts stood upon land which at that time was requisitioned and occupied by the War Office.

A contract was entered into in January, 1947, and on 30th January the sum of £95—the sum asked for in respect of the two huts—was paid by the Association to the Ministry of Works. It was part of the contract that the purchase price should be paid, that when it had been paid the authority for releasing the huts would be issued, and that the huts were to be removed from the land within a month of that date—that is, some time at the end of February or the beginning of March. The contract having been signed and the money paid, the Association were then faced with difficulties, some of which were expected and some of which were not. They had to obtain the necessary permits and licences to build, and, what was much more difficult, they had to find the labour.

They were unable to move the huts within the stipulated time of one month, and an application was made to the Office of Works to extend the period. This is important. The period was extended with the consent of the Ministry from time to time until September, the Association not having been able during that time to find the labour to set up the huts. However, if they had found the labour, they had not the necessary permits and licences, and all they could have done was to store the huts, but this being a rural area there was no place available in which they could store them. On 4th September, 1947, the War Office, who were in possession of the land, derequisitioned it. Normally, when land is derequisitioned huts standing upon the land become the property of the landowner. The Ministry of Works say, and they say it after the event, that they informed the landowner on 4th September that access must be kept for the Association to go on the land and take away the huts. I see that the Minister shakes his head. I am not surprised, because I rather believe that that was not so; but it is in his own letter. The fact was that it was derequisitioned.

The Ministry of Works wrote to the Association on 14th October and again on 10th Novemebr, urging them to remove the huts, but gave the Association no information of any kind that the land had been derequisitioned. They gave no information of any kind that notice had been given to the landlord that access must be retained for the Association to go on the land to remove the huts. Shortly after the letter of 10th November, the Association went to remove the huts, but they found to their great surprise and disappointment that the huts had been sold.

The first time the Association learnt that the land had been derequisitioned on 4th September, was on 5th February, 1948, three months after the huts had been sold and very nearly six months after the land had been derequisitioned. One would have thought that the Ministry, having consented to extend the time from the end of February to September, and in view of the fact that the derequisitioning of the land involved a possible change of ownership of the huts, would at least have informed the Association that the land had been derequisitioned by the War Office. The Minister was acting as the agent of the War Office, but whether he knew, I cannot say. However, the letter he addressed to me in April of this year was to the effect that the Ministry made special arrangements with the landowner for access to be granted for a reasonable period so that the huts could be removed, and that the welfare association were reminded on 16th October and 10th November that the huts must be cleared from the site. They were reminded that the huts should be cleared from the site, but that had been done from the end of February. There was no suggestion, as the Minister claimed in this letter, that at any time the Association was informed that the derequisitioning had taken place.

It is clear upon those facts that the Ministry should have returned the money to the Association. In a legal sense, there is no manner of right by which the Ministry are entitled to keep that money. The contract on which the Ministry rely, the original contract of January—which he says was broken by the Association—was broken by the Ministry themselves on 4th September. Even if they had a legal right to retain this money, no one in this House would say that they have any moral right, or that this Association of young people, who have worked hard to collect the £95 and who are responsible to the subscribers of the money for what they have done with it, should be penalised, or that their energy and enterprise should be penalised by what can only be called a sharp practice. No private person would dare to deal with the Association in the way which a Government Department have done.

Before bringing the matter to the attention of the House, I exhausted every resource open to me in an effort to persuade the Minister to change his mind and take the correct course. I have failed to persuade the Minister to do so, and, therefore, he leaves no other course open to me than to raise this issue in the House in the hope that the Minister will do the right thing and refund the money to the Association. That body has paid the £95 and without notice, has been deprived of it by the action of the Ministry. It is to be hoped that the Minister will now, even at this late hour, repay the money to the Association.

It would be well if I went over the history of this case, because there have been certain very important omissions and mis-statements in the recital of the facts. As has been said, it is the duty of my Department to dispose of surplus Government huts. The practice is for the Department with surplus huts on requisitioned land to report the matter to the Ministry of Works so that the huts can be disposed of, after which my Ministry report back to the Department that that has been done when the Department concerned deals with the derequisitioning. It has not been the practice of the Ministry of Works to dismantle the huts themselves, but to sell them as they are standing, the purchaser to undertake to remove them within a specified period.

In this particular case there were two huts involved, which were sold to this Welfare Association for £95. They were standing on land under requisition by the War Office. The terms of the contract with the Association include this paragraph—I have the actual document here—immediately over the signature of the secretary:

"The Purchaser shall make payment for the goods to the authority within seven days of the acceptance of his tender, and shall commence the dismantling and the removal of the goods from the date of issue to him of instructions for release. Thereafter the works shall be carried out by the Purchaser with all due diligence and in regular progression or as may be directed, and shall be completed, all goods removed, the site cleared of rubbish, and delivered up in a clean and tidy state to the satisfaction of the Authority within four weeks from the date of the instructions for release."

The secretary of the Association, before actually paying over his money, signed the contract containing those conditions. When the money was paid two days later a letter was sent to the secretary, and in it there was—

In order to make it clear, because I have not got the point, could the Minister say whether the money was paid within the stipulated period?

Yes, Sir. The money was paid, and two days later a letter was sent to the honorary secretary, in which there was this paragraph:

"This acceptance is issued subject to your ability to provide the necessary labour to remove the property purchased and clear the site within one month from the date of the authority for release."

That again he accepted, and by acceptance really said to the Ministry of Works, "We have the labour and we are able to remove the property within one month."

He never said that.

The condition under which his tender was accepted was:

"This acceptance is issued subject to your ability to provide the necessary labour."

The Association accepted that condition. That was in January, 1947. Months passed and the huts were still left standing. There was no communication between my Department and the Association in those months.

That is a positive challenge. There was a communication and notification to the Ministry of Works between the end of February and September asking for the extension of the time.

There is no record in my Ministry of any such communication, and no alteration of the conditions.

Why was there no communication from the Ministry after the four weeks had gone by when these young men had failed to carry out their contract?

I would draw the attention of the Minister to his own letter of 23rd February. If there was no communication at all and no extension of the time clearly there had been a breach of contract as the Minister now states it, but in paragraph 3 of his letter of 23rd February—

A letter from the Ministry?

From the Minister to me. It says:

"In this case, however, my Ministry made special arrangements with the site-owner for access to be granted for a reasonable period. …"

Why should the Minister make that special arrangement if we were in breach?

It was not a special arrangement for the Association, but I will deal with that point when I reach it.

It is an important point.

It is, and I will deal with it when I reach it. These huts were not removed, the site was still under requisition and the huts were being disposed of. It was necessary that the site should be derequisitioned, and the War Office, therefore, in September took steps for the derequisitioning of the site. When that was done an arrangement was made for a right of re-entry after derequisitioning, the first for a period of a month, which was extended later by another month.

Who made it?

The War Office made that for us for the purpose of the removal of Government property still remaining on the site. That being the case, it extended therefore by another two months the period in which it was possible for this welfare association to obtain entrance on the site for the removal of their huts.

Was that a general power which was reserved to the Office of Works to enter upon the land?

Yes, it was a general power.

That is not consistent with this letter which I have here, and which says that the reservation was in order that an entry should be made upon the land to remove these huts.

I have not that letter, unfortunately, in front of me. The purpose of the reservation was in order that entry might be made by the Ministry for the removal of Government huts. It is not stated definitely in the letter to the hon. and learned Gentleman that it was for Government property, but it was for that purpose that it was extended. That extension would give the same extension to the association for the purpose of removing the huts. Because of that, a communication was sent to the Association regarding the removals. On 16th October—the huts were purchased in January—a letter was sent to the honorary secretary in these words:

"With reference to your purchase of the above huts, I understand that no action has been taken by you for their removal. I must refer you to the terms of contract that clearance must be effected in one month, as it is now nine months since the release was issued. I am compelled, therefore, to ask you for immediate removal, otherwise action as laid down in the contract documents will be taken."

I agree.

The action laid down in the contract document is stated in the part which reads as follows:

"Where the purchaser … fails to remove the goods within the time specified in the schedule, the authority may … re-sell … the goods and retain out of the proceeds the costs of such re-sale … and any charges for room space, removal and warehousing, and all other expenses incurred by him in connection with the goods."

Those were the terms of contract under which the huts were originally sold. In that letter, which was sent in October, attention was drawn to them.

I am not disputing one word of the facts which the Minister has stated. He has not in his mind anything that I am complaining about. He is right even about the letter of 16th October. There is not one word, however, in that, of the derequisitioning. Although it refers back to the contract in the end of January, it says nothing about the extension of time and the variations made.

It has nothing to do with the contract which was entered into. The question of the removal of the huts within one month had nothing to do with the extension of the derequisitioning period. A return letter came from the association asking for an extension of another six months after this period. Mind you, the land was already in process of derequisitioning, so we wrote back to the Association in November and said:

"With reference to your letter of the 25th ultimo, I cannot agree for the huts to remain on the site any longer. Please arrange for immediate removal otherwise, action as laid down in the contract documents will be taken."

Still no steps were taken to remove the huts. Derequisitioning came into operation. On 2nd December one of my officers went specially to see the secretary of this association and to inform him—

I saw him—

No, the date which the hon. and learned Member gave was in the following year.

No.

It is on record. I am stating that so soon as derequisitioning had taken place my officer went to the secretary of the Association and informed him that the land had been derequisitioned. This is the note which my officer made:

"He"—

that is the secretary—

"informed me that he could make arrangements with the owners and their agent for the removal of their two huts and he was not at all worried over it."

That was the statement made by this gentleman. The huts had not been removed.

Later, the Association discovered that the huts had been sold by the owner of the land, as he was fully entitled to do under the terms of derequisitioning. They were sold originally on the condition that they were removed within one month, and they were not so removed. As a result of this situation, a deputation to represent the Association asked to be received by my officers. The deputation was received on 5th February, 1948. The case was fully discussed. When the deputation left it was apparent that they had accepted the position and agreed that their only approach was to the landowner who had resold the huts.

To ask that I should pay back out of public money £95 to an association, because of the neglect of the Association to carry out the terms of the contract into which it had entered and which had been extended, not for one month but for pretty well a twelvemonth, is to ask me to do something with public funds which I certainly am not prepared to do.

Does that mean that the Minister can sell the huts twice and confiscate the £95?

No, it does not mean that we sold the huts twice. We sold the huts to the Association, and no other sale was made by my Ministry. We got £95 for the huts which were sold and that was the only money we got for them, and having sold huts of this kind under normal terms of contract, I am not justified in paying back the money, leaving the Government with no return whatever for the huts which were sold.

Not a private enterprise in the country would do this. There is nothing to justify confiscating the entire sum so that in the end the purchaser has nothing left. This is unheard of. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman quite realises what he is putting before the House.

But the terms of the contract were that the huts would be removed within one month.

"Or as may be directed."

Yes, and we went to them at the end of the period in October and did what I stated in the letters which were read out. We did not dispose of the huts. The huts were left standing on the land when it was derequisitioned, and it was the landowner and not the Ministry of Works who disposed of the huts.

The Association was not told about the derequisitioning.

The derequisitioning had nothing to do with the Association.

Yes it had.

We went to the Association and told them that they had still two months in which to remove the huts and said that they must obey the conditions of the contract into which they had entered. It was they who failed to do this, and because of their failure, it is they who must suffer the consequences.

Is it not a fact that what really happened was that the Ministry took the huts which really belonged to the Association and gave them to the landlord?

That is not the case at all. My Ministry had nothing further to do with it. What happened was that the War Office derequisitioned the land on which the huts were still standing because the Association had not removed them. For two months after the derequisitioning we had made arrangements for right of entry on to the site. On two occasions we took the step of telling the Association to remove their huts, but they still failed to deal with them, and at the end of two months, with the huts still standing there, it was the landlord who got rid of them.

What has happened in this case is clear. Nobody is saying for a moment that the Association carried through their share of the contract. The fact is that the huts have been sold twice, I agree once by the Minister and once, through derequisitioning, by the owner. There is, therefore, to begin with the fact that the huts have been sold twice. The price has been paid twice. The welfare association paid one amount of £95 and have nothing to show for it.

Those with some experience know that if things have been sold in good faith on an instalment plan and have to be recovered, no one would ever think of doing what the Minister has advocated today. There is always a system of refund. What the Minister must tell us is how his Department's conscience can be reconciled with the confiscation of £95 because the contract was not carried out. What harm has been done to the Ministry? What cost is there to the State? By what twisting of conscience can this confiscation of money take place. There ought to be a refund. There must be an estimate of how much the Ministry is out of pocket, but as for confiscating the whole amount, not a court of law in the country would sustain it. In these difficult times people, especially a welfare association which is not an ordinary concern, will enter into such a contract containing some provisions about labour and so on in good faith. These things must be recognised. I think the Ministry is acting with extraordinary and unreasonable hardness.

I take the line, to which I adhere, that it is my duty to dispose of Government property when it has to be disposed of, and get a return for its disposal. I am being asked to get rid of two huts without a halfpenny in return. I am being asked to give back £95 paid for the huts by the Association and have nothing to show for the huts of which I have disposed. Because of the failure of an association to carry out its duties, should the national funds be depleted by £95?

The reason is quite clear, and the right hon. Gentleman has not touched upon it in all the explanations he has given. We could not have left the huts there if he had not agreed from time to time that they should be left there. It would not have been necessary for him on 4th September to make the arrangement with the landowner if that agreement were not in being. He wrote two letters with not a word about derequisitioning in either of them.

What I am saying is that that right of entry which was given by the landlord was given to the Government Department for the removal of Government property. It was not given to the Association specifically. They were informed that they still had the period in which to remove their huts. They still failed to do it. It was for them to remove the huts and store them until such time as they had the power to re-erect them. They had as long as 11 months within which to do that, and they failed to do it. I do not see that I should be justified in giving £95 to an Association merely because within 11 months they failed to carry out the undertaking into which they had entered.

Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, will he not agree that it was a term of the contract that he should sell the huts if the contract was not carried out, recoup his own expenses and Then hand over the balance to the owners of the huts? Instead of that, he gave the huts away. Does he think that was behaving in good conscience?

The huts were not given away by me. I had not control over the land—

Not over the land.

—and I had no control over the huts, because the huts were already the property of the Association and the land was under requisition by the War Office. So I had no control over this at all in that sense and, as I say, it was for the Association to carry out their conditions. That I did not impose the penalties within the contract was because I was giving every opportunity to the Association to remove their huts and it was their failure, right to the very end, after our endeavours to get them to do it, that was the cause of their losing the huts, and for that they were responsible.

The last Adjournment Debate before the Summer Recess, though it has from some points of view some agreeable aspects, is not a spectacular Parliamentary occasion, but it gives the opportunity, which I desire to take, of raising a brief preliminary Parliamentary Debate upon an issue which affects the personal and political liberties of half a million of our fellow citizens. I hope and believe that it will not be the last Debate on this matter but, in view of the answer which the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council gave the day before yesterday to my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) it is not clear at this stage whether this may not be the last opportunity of raising this matter before irrevocable decisions have been taken. Therefore I desire, before that state of affairs has been reached, before it has become a question of the credit and face of Governments, while the matter is still open, to put one or two points to the House upon this matter.

As the House is aware, last year His Majesty's Government appointed a distinguished committee with the following terms of reference:

"To examine the existing limitations on the political activities (both national and local) which may be undertaken by civilian Government staffs, and to make recommendations as to any changes which may be desirable in the public interest."

That committee, after deliberating for about a year, reported last month and its report was printed.

The next stage was this: on 28th June this year, by one of those happy Parliamentary coincidences, the hon. Member in reply to whose Question a year ago the announcement had been made of the appointment of this Committee, put a written Question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Question appears at column 77 of the Written Answers section of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 28th June:

"MR. RANDALL asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has now received the Report of the Committee which he appointed last year to inquire into the existing limitations on the political activities which may be undertaken by civil servants; and whether he will make a statement.

SIR S. CRIPPs: Yes. Copies of the Report will be available in the Vote Office after Questions."

The remainder of the reply is very important:

"The Government have considered this document and have decided to accept the Committee's recommendations. The detailed arrangements to give effect to the Committee's findings are being considered and will be promulgated as soon as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June, 1949; Vol. 466, c. 77.]

The Chancellor then added a very appropriate tribute to the Chairman of the Committee.

Written answers do not always attract very wide attention, and for a little while this announcement by the Government that they accepted and proposed without further ado to implement the report of the Committee, did not attract attention; but when it became apparent to large sections of opinion, both inside and outside the Civil Service, very considerable perturbation was aroused. I need only quote in support of that the document which was issued by that very responsible body, the Staff Side of the Civil Service National Whitley Council, and circulated to all hon. Members:

"The National Staff Side is shocked that such proposals should be put forward in 1949. It is still more shocked that the Government has announced acceptance of this Report without any prior discussion with the National Staff Side. The National Staff Side by unanimous decision is taking steps to deal with this but it wants the help of every member of every affiliated organisation."

After that, public opinion became aroused, and on 28th July, my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington asked this question of the Lord President of the Council:

"MR. EDEN: Will the Lord President give us an early day after our return in the autumn for a discussion of the Masterman Report, and could he, in addition, give the House an undertaking—I hope that he will be able to do so—that no restrictions will be enforced until the House has had an opportunity to discuss that report?

MR. MORRISON: The Government are considering the representations made by the Staff Side at a meeting of the National Whitley Council held on 22nd July. Meanwhile, it has been agreed that no action will be taken to put the Committee's recommendations into effect until another meeting of the National Whitley Council takes place. In the circumstances I think that the House will agree that any Debate at this stage would be inappropriate, and it would perhaps he wiser to wait and see what the result of those discussions are."

Hear, hear.

My right hon. Friend then put this supplementary question, which, I think, will assist those hon. Members opposite whose interjection indicates that they agree with the Lord President:

"MR. EDEN: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind what I was anxious to safeguard. There is to be this further meeting of the Whitley Council. I should like to be assured that no action will follow that meeting until this House has had a chance to examine and discuss the report.

MR. MORRISON: I will consider that. My mind will be partly influenced by the result of those discussions, but I shall keep in mind the point made by the right hon. Gentleman."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th July, 1949; Vol. 467, c. 2686.]

Speaking for myself, it seems that that assurance takes us no distance at all. From the circumstances I have recounted to the House, we have had the astonishing and most incomprehensible fact that the Government could commit themselves, as they did in June, to acceptance and implementation of these proposals without consulting either the Staff Side of the National Whitley Council or the House of Commons.

As the result—and, apparently, only as the result—of the revulsion of public opinion on this subject, the Government have given away so far as the Staff Side are concerned, and I am glad to know that they are very properly, although belatedly, now consulting them. But I ask the Lord President to reflect on this. This is a matter that cannot be left purely to settlement between the Government and the Staff Side of the Whitley Council, although their interests should, of course, have been consulted from the beginning.

This is a matter affecting the political liberties of half a million of our fellow citizens; affecting constituents of, I should imagine, literally every Member of this House, and affecting the exercise of their political rights. Whether the arrangements that the Government make or propose to make are good or bad, it seems to me quite intolerable that they should be made unless and until this House has had an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon them. It is possible that when the Lord President answered that supplementary question put by my right hon. Friend two days ago, he was not fully prepared to deal with the point put to him. I do not know, but he must certainly be now so prepared and I hope that before we separate for the Summer Recess, we shall have from the Lord President a specific assurance to the effect that no new restriction, or re-enforcement of an old restriction which has lapsed, will be put into effect until this House has had an opportunity of debating the matter. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give that assurance.

This is in no sense a party matter. I believe hon. Members on either side of the House are disturbed and I believe all hon. Members will agree that this is essentially a House of Commons matter. We are sent here above all to safeguard the political liberties of our constituents. This directly affects the exercise of those political liberties and it seems quite wrong, if it be the intention of the Government, to deal with those political liberties and come to any final decision before this House has had an opportunity of making a decision. At the risk of repetition, I ask that when the right hon. Gentleman makes his reply, he will come to that Box and give a definite assurance to that effect, because I do not see that there is any other proper way in which he or the Government, or any Government, whatever its political colour, can treat this House.

That is the background of the matter; the Government's handling of this report. It seems almost a classical example of how not to conduct the business of government; to announce a decision without consultations, then belatedly to undertake some of those consultations and then to give half a pledge to have further consultations. I do not want to stress that aspect of the matter, as I know that there are hon. Members opposite who quite appreciate that the matter has been mishandled. But what we are now concerned with is what is to happen in future and I want to put one or two general considerations which, I hope, will be considered. They are certainly intended to be reasonably put forward and I hope they will be reasonably received.

It seems quite wrong to impose, or reimpose, these restrictions on political activity unless abuses have taken place. These restrictions are in some degree obviously necessary, but, unless there have been abuses under the present system, there does not seem any justification for tightening up the restrictions. The present system, as I understand it, is largely the result of letting the old rigid restrictions lapse and leaving the matter largely to the discretion of the Departments. In my experience—and I represent a large number of civil servants in this House—that has worked extraordinarily well.

It is obvious that the permanent Under-Secretary of a great Department of State could not become chairman of a local Conservative or Labour Party. But no restriction is needed to enforce that. because he would have demonstrated how completely unfitted he was for both positions. It would not be a question of making restrictions to prevent him, but a question of having to take action to remove him. So obvious a breach of discretion and understanding of his position would make the man quite unsuitable for that position. I am not aware of any difficulty which has arisen over this matter. I know that on the whole our regular Civil Service carry discretion to a point which, as a party politician, seem to me sometimes wholly unnecessary, but they have not erred the other way.

What necessity has arisen for reimposing these old or imposing these new restrictions? Secondly, as the House is aware, the report proceeds by imposing a demarcation line between certain categories of civil servants. Those above the line have very severe restrictions imposed upon their political activity; those below the line are free from those restrictions. For the reasons 1 have given it seems to me doubtful whether a rigid line of demarcation is the right way in which to handle the matter—whether we should not give discretion to Departments and rely on the sense of responsibility of the individual.

If there is to be a line of demarcation it seems to me that in the report, which the Government have accepted, the line has been drawn at the wrong place.

I ask hon. Members to look at appendix 7 of the report. It is rather like a bridge scoring card—amounts above the line and amounts below—in which is laid down the categories whose liberty to take any active political steps is virtually eliminated. These include the typing grades. Is there any justification why a typist in a Government office should not serve on a ward committee of either the Conservative or Labour Party? It seems to me very doubtful whether its application to the professional, scientific and technical grades can possibly be justified. I know of a technical officer of a Government Department who in a part of the world which I know well served a most successful term of office as mayor of his borough without the slightest prejudice to his impartiality in performing his technical duties. Many hon. Members know of similar examples.

If there is to be this rigid line of demarcation at all, instead of it being drawn where it has been drawn it should be drawn very much higher up. I appreciate that a number of hon. Members naturally desire to take part in this Debate, so I shall cut short one of two of the observations which I had proposed to make. I will content myself by saying that the House has been left, and the country has certainly been left in a rather perturbed state of mind by reason of the Government's handling of the matter since the Committee's report. I will not repeat the facts, I think that largely they speak for themselves. We are, therefore, anxious to be given, before the House separates for the Summer Recess, not only the undertaking for which I ask, that no liberties be taken away until this House has had the opportunity of discussing the matter, but also some understanding that the Government will give consideration to the general points which I have made and which I have no doubt other hon. Members will raise this afternoon.

That is wholly without prejudice to the Government's discussions with the Staff Side of the Whitley Council. I hope that they will discuss the matter with that responsible body. I hope that they will be able to find a basis of agreement but I do not want to leave the Government in the frame of mind that if they agree upon anything with the Staff Side they consider that that excludes criticism, or comment or observations by other people. This is not purely an industrial matter such as can be settled under our industrial machinery by discussions between the two sides. This is a political matter affecting the exercise of political rights and also the political position of our magnificent Civil Service. For those reasons we are entitled to insist that this is a House of Commons matter in which the House, in the exercise of its duty to its constituents, cannot only express its views, but can, if necessary. make its views felt.

My interest in this subject goes back for 25 years. As I was listening to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), I could not help feeling that it might perhaps have been settled by this time had the political friends of his own party who were then in control, and with whom we discussed this matter, made a more serious attempt to reach a compromise, which was then submitted to them by the Staff Side of the National Whitley Council. Be that as it may, I confess I was a little surprised and sorry that the hon. Member started by attempting to make this an opportunity for a political bang at the Government. I thought we were concerned with the political liberties of civil servants, and it is about that subject that I wish to say a word or two.

I am glad indeed that the report itself recommends the abolition, in effect, of any restrictions on what are called the minor and manipulative grades. It has always appeared to me that there was no justification for making the restrictions which were made in days gone by on the political activities of people like porters, record keepers, messengers and so on. I hope that in the further consideration which is now being given, one or two of the grades mentioned in the report as above the line will also be included. It is important also that nothing should be done which will interfere with or restrict the political liberties of civil servants of any grade.

I agree that there are bound to be jobs in the Civil Service which are of a highly secret and confidential nature, and about which political rules and regulations must be made; but to say that a clerical officer must not canvass for a political party, or to say that he must not be a member of a ward committee, seems to me to be carrying the matter much too far. I doubt very much whether this House is the proper place, in the early stage, to discuss or, at any rate, to settle this matter. Twenty-five years ago, when I was a member of the National Whitley Council for the Civil Service, there were discussions with the Staff Side of the Civil Service, that body representing fully the whole of the Civil Service. I hope that discussions will continue with them. The Association of Civil Servants have always recognised the fundamental necessity for maintaining both the appearance and the actuality of impartiality and fairness on the part of all civil servants, and I have never heard anybody seriously suggest that our great Civil Service is not both incorruptible and completely impartial in the way it does its work.

The Staff Side have made a suggestion. They have suggested a formula which it seems to me might at least be the basis of discussion. I hope that discussions with the Staff Side will be aimed at endeavouring to get some understanding which will preserve the obviously fair and proper political protection which the State ought to have in these matters, and yet retain the widest possible freedom of political activity in the ranks of the Civil Service. I believe we can trust our men and women in the Civil Service, and I hope that one result of this discussion will be that it will be possible to reach some form of agreement, some formula, which the Staff Side can recommend to their people to accept.

I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames that when that is done, it still has to be endorsed by this House and, if necessary, there must be discussion and criticism. I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council will agree 100 per cent. with that and present rather vigorously anything he may have to bring before this House; but the effective early discussions ought to be with the people mainly concerned, and I hope that the House will agree that that is the right way to do it.

I and a number of my hon. and right hon. Friends have a Motion on the Order Paper asking the Government to provide an opportunity for a full Debate on this matter before a decision is reached. I am sure that that course is advisable. The hon. Member for Kennington (Mr. Gibson) went a long way towards supporting our contention that this is a matter which ought to be fully discussed. He said that there are various ideas and various shades of opinion inside the Staff Side of the Whitley Council. It is perfectly clear from the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) that, on the highest political grounds, this is a subject which ought to, be debated, because it concerns the defence of civil liberties.

I must join issue with the hon. Member for Kennington in reference to his remark that we on this side of the House were trying to make political capital in this matter. Certainly, we are attacking the Lord President and the Government for the way in which they have behaved. We think that they have behaved absolutely inexcusably. We think that the average civil servant thinks in the same way and that, after this Debate, a great many other people will take the view that the Government have behaved inexcusably. They have issued what amounts to a ukase that orders will be promulgated as thought fit by the Government and that nobody will be consulted. Now the Government have agreed to consult the Staff Side of the Whitley Council.

We ask that the Government should go further and that not merely should they consult the Staff Side of the Whitley Council, but they should bring this business before the House of Commons before a final decision is reached. The Lord President of the Council is present and, surely, before this Debate is over, he could give an answer saying "Yes" or "No." I am sure that on all sides of the House there is a strong feeling that the answer to our request should be "Yes."

From a reading of the Report it is clear that this is a subject which demands Debate. The Masterman Report leaves certain matters very much in the air. They ought to be clarified. To take one instance, the whole question of action in local government is left free for five years. There is to be a five-year interim period. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames pointed out, there is the question of where the line should be drawn. It seems that the line has been drawn somewhat at a venture. I should like to refer to the existing departmental rules obligatory to non-industrial grades. The Ministry of Agriculture say:

"It is a well-understood rule that civil servants should not take an overt part in public political affairs."

The Ministry of Labour take a different attitude. They say:

"A civil servant is also expected to refrain from taking any prominent part in politics."

No doubt, these lines of variation have worked out very well.

Obviously the number of civil servants is growing as nationalised industries increase, and a vast number of people are concerned. As one reads through the Masterman Report, one sees that the Committee, intelligent, if not brilliant, as they were, come to decisions on questions when they were not absolutely and posi- tively sure. They had to weigh the evidence. For the Government merely to promulgate and accept these instructions without any full discussion either with the Staff Side of the Whitley Council or in this House is nothing short of a scandal.

I should like to deal very briefly with two points arising out of the Master-man Report. The first concerns one of matters which has already been covered in this Debate—the drawing of this line above which political liberties are reduced to a deplorable minimum. I think it will be accepted on both sides of the House that there are certain high-ranking civil servants dealing directly with matters of policy whose freedom of expression politically must to some extent be limited. Where I disagree with the Masterman Committee is that this limitation should be extended downwards through the executive grade and even to include the clerical and typists grades. This proposal seems to me to be wholly unwarrantable and quite unnecessary, and I think that the reasons adduced by the Committee for their decision are in the main spurious ones.

First of all, we are told that an Under-Secretary, a clerical officer and a shorthand-typist form part of a single organisation and work together. We are also told that there is a ladder of promotion from the lowest to the highest grade in that organisation. That is perfectly true in theory, but any of us who have knowledge of the Civil Service know that very few reach by promotion the higher rungs of that ladder, which represent, of course, the administrative grade, the only one dealing with matters of policy. In order to keep these few pure, the many have got to be denied their elementary political rights.

Then, the report goes on to suggest that the public confidence depends to a large extent on bringing into force the particular recommendations which they envisage, and this is where I come to the more general point. Throughout the report there is an idea—implicit, but nevertheless a very definite idea—that public confidence in the Civil Service could quite easily be undermined, that it is poised precariously on a razor's edge, so to speak, and in this I think the Committee completely misunderstands the public attitude of mind towards our Civil Service.

I believe the people of this country have a very soundly based and fully-justified faith in the impartiality of their Civil Service, and it is a faith which is not based on a woolly notion that civil servants have no political views, but which is founded on the knowledge that its members are a responsible, intelligent body of people whose discretion can be relied upon. We all know that the Civil Service is doing its job in the best interests of the people whom it serves, according to a unique and voluntarily accepted code which has nothing whatever to do with sanctions and prohibitions.

To suggest, as the Masterman Committee does, that the whole structure of impartial administration in this country in some way depends on the denial to civil servants of their fundamental political rights is little short of an affront to our Civil Service as well as an infringement of our elementary civil liberties, and I hope sincerely that the Government will reconsider their acceptance of these rather unfortunate recommendations.

I represent a very large number of civil servants of the Admiralty in Bath, and they have asked me formally to lodge a protest. I am quite certain that they would approve of every word that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said. I will not repeat what he has said, but touch upon one point.

If there is one thing which stands out in recent history it is the fact of the peculiar and particular difficulties of relationship of a Government which is both an employer and a conciliator. If we look at the dock strike, I think that what we see is the Minister of Labour as an employer who subsequently puts on another wig and moustache and becomes a conciliator; and, as somebody who has considered organisation, I think that particular point largely underlies the trouble. I have been asked why is it that that trouble does not arise in the Post Office and in the Civil Service generally, and I think the answer is that the Treasury, as distinct from the Ministry of Labour, has worked out over a long period of time good machinery and good Whitley Council arrangements for arriving at the right decision harmoniously.

I especially plead with the Lord President, who, I take it, in this case is acting for the Chancellor of the Exchequer—for I understand that the employment of the civil servants does definitely come within the responsibility of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—not to let down the Treasury in this respect, but to back it up, and keep hale, hearty and respected right through the Civil Service, that Whitley Council organisation, which has been worked out in years of experience, and which experience has shown to be capable of producing both harmony and the most wonderful Civil Service the world has known.

I think the first thing the House ought to do in considering this Masterman Report is to say whether or not it agrees with the general principles which are contained in the report. Speaking for myself, I think that most hon. Members on this side of the House would wish to say that the principles enunciated in the report have our wholehearted support. The difficulty, of course, is to apply them and reconcile them. The principles are these:

"(i) In a democratic society it is desirable for all citizens to have a voice in the affairs of the State and for as many as possible to play an active part in public life.

(ii) The public interest demands the maintenance of political impartiality in the Civil Service and of confidence in that impartiality as an essential part of the structure of Government in this country."

For myself, I think that when one comes to look at the detailed recommendations of the Masterman Committee, they can be criticised on three general grounds, and I hope that those criticisms will be taken into account in the discussions that are to take place with the National Whitley Council and subsequently in this House. Let me as a preliminary say that I think that if this subject is to be settled on any coherent principle at all for the future, it may be necessary to consider not merely the civil servants but also the senior staffs of the nationalised industries, and also the senior staffs of local government services, to whom precisely similar principles ought to apply.

My criticism is three-fold. First, I think it is unrealistic to impose the same restrictions on the whole of the 450,000 civil servants who are classified above the line. I think it is unrealistic to impose the same disqualifications, for example, on administrative and professional grades as are imposed on clerical and typing grades.

Secondly, it seems to me quite unrealistic to impose the precise restrictions which are in fact suggested by the Masterman Committee. I can quite well understand the desirability of preventing, civil servants, for example, from speaking. in public on matters of party political controversy, but I doubt whether the same principle makes it necessary to impose any restriction on such persons engaging in canvassing in support of political candidates. One has to remember that there is a great difference between the open support of one political party and participating in some of the activities of a local party in a manner which may be quite anonymous, as, for example, is canvassing.

Third—and I think that this is, perhaps, the gravest criticism of the report—I think it is quite inconsistent in the way in which it deals with participation in national politics and participation in local government politics. The report concedes the right of all those above the line to participate in local government politics, even to the extent of standing as candidates in local government elections on one party ticket or the other. I find it difficult to see how it is logical to reconcile that right of a civil servant with the disqualification of participation in the activities of political parties. If the disqualifications imposed in the main part of the report are adhered to—and I hope they will be seriously curtailed—I think it whittles down very considerably the rights given to civil servants to participate in local government politics

The House will forgive me if I compress my remarks somewhat severely. I hope the Lord President is in no doubt as to the keen interest the House takes in this question. All Members regard it, I think, as one of the most important aspects of our duties to safeguard civil rights. I hope that this Debate, not the least important of our Debates in this part of the Session, has shown at least that we are entitled to a full-dress Debate on the subject later on. I think that Members in all parts of the House will insist upon that.

It is, of course, a matter of common sense, but I doubt myself whether it is really susceptible of precise regulation. Speaking as an ordinary citizen, I do not demand that a civil servant shall take no interest in politics. Politically sterile people do not seem to me to make the best people to have in the Civil Service. All we demand is that the actual carrying out of the work shall not allow of any political bias. I know that other Members wish to speak, so I will conclude by expressing my firm conviction to the Lord President that we are entitled to a full-dress Debate.

In the minute which I have there is one point I wish to put. This is undoubtedly, as far as the content of the report is concerned, a complex matter, but we have a right to know from the Government that they stand for the principle of seeking the maximum liberty possible in the circumstances. The Committee in the section of their report dealing with "General Principles," describe the considerations which have led them to believe that

"civil servants should not be excluded from full citizenship except in so far as other overriding considerations of public interest render this unavoidable."

I suggest that these considerations of public interest should have been clear and demonstrable if they are being held to justify restrictions upon the civil servants. I hope the Government will be able to give us some indication that in the discussions on the National Whitley Council they will abide by that principle. This is clearly a matter most appropriate to the National Whitley Council, where it can receive the detailed discussion which is desirable. But what is most essential is that the Government should make clear that their desire is for the maximum degree of liberty, restricted only where there can be shown to be some positive arguments for limitation.

At the outset, I think I should reply to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) when he made his oratorical ballon d'essai by anticipating that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council would reply instead of myself. My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, as I think he knows, was unable to come today and it is for that reason that I. who have some indirect departmental responsibility, have to reply. Perhaps it would be best if at the outset I recapitulated the chain of events that took place in connection with the subject of this Debate.

As my right hon. Friend the Lord President said in the House last Thursday, a meeting of the National Whitley Council was held on 22nd July at the request of the Staff Side to give them an opportunity of expressing their objections to the Government's adoption of the Masterman Committee Report. The Official Side then undertook to submit to the staff such representations to the Ministers concerned, and it was agreed that no action should be taken to implement the Committee's recommendations until the Government considered the situation. A further meeting of the National Whitley Council will take place as soon as the Official Side are in a position to report their views to the Minister. As the whole question, therefore, is sub judice it might not be proper for me to say anything further at this stage. However, in view of some of the observations that have been made I think I should comment on one or two points that were raised, more especially by the hon Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames.

I hope the hon. Gentleman is going to give us an assurance, which is far more important than any comments he, as a Junior Lord of the Treasury, may make, because what we want to have is an undertaking, particularly in view of the character of this Debate, that these changes will not be effected until the matter has been discussed in the House.

I will tell the right hon. Gentleman the noble Lord what I am prepared to say and what I am not prepared to say, in my own time.

What does the hon. Gentleman mean by that observation? It is most discourteous. I think I was perfectly frank in my question, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will be prepared to give an answer.

I do not think I was discourteous; I did not intend to be. All I said was I was prepared to inform the noble Lord of what I was going to say, in my own time. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was making the point that it would be wrong for a decision to be come to while the House was not sitting and before the House had had an opportunity to deliberate the matter. I think that is probably based on the contention that the National Whitley Council was incompetent to put forward adequately the views of the members concerned.

No. I hope I made it expressly clear at the time that I thought it was right for the Government to consult the Whitley Council. They ought to have done it before the original decision to implement the Report was taken, but this is a serious matter, involving as it does the political liberties of a section of the people, and I say nothing should be done in this question without the consent of the House of Commons.

We have that point cleared up now. I think the hon. Gentleman might leave the matter to the ordinary constitutional processes, whereby if this House does not like what the Government does, then it can bring the Government's attention to it. I would emphasise that my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council is not prepared to say whether he may or may not take a decision after this further meeting has taken place. It is rather a pity to accuse the Government in this instance because of a decision, when generally hon. Members opposite are criticising the Government for lack of decision.

There is another point on which I should like to touch. The hon. Member also mentioned that this was in the nature of a preliminary Debate. When the recommendations of the Masterman Committee were first published, they received virtually the unanimous approval of the Press, and the Government felt that, in the nature of things, acceptance of the recommendations would be justified. The fact that certain Motions have been put down by hon. Members on both sides of the House have left the Government in no doubt that the position would have to be looked at again, and it was for that reason that a further meeting was arranged between the Government and the National Whitley Council.

I do not want, on this, my first appearance at the Box, to be unduly controversial. In fact, I do not want to be controversial at all. I have observed the activities of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames for four years from the "servants' hall" end of the Treasury Bench, and I am sure that he would not wish to give the impression that this is a partisan attack upon the Government in this matter. On that assumption I have accepted his speech. A short intervention by the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. H. Fraser) casts doubts into my mind. I think it was a pity that he should have intervened in this matter. I do not want to sound trite, but it is a most serious matter that we should maintain the political integrity of all grades of the Civil Service. The recollections of the Trades Disputes Act, 1927, Section 5, restricting the rights of civil servants to a very marked degree, I should have thought would make it rather difficult for the hon. Member for Stone to intervene as he did. It must be a difficult matter in the conscience of the party opposite.

The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman) mentioned the large establishments of civil servants in his constituency. I can only say in reply to him that we have confidence in the National Whitley Council adequately to put forward the views of civil servants to the Government. The strong reactions which have been felt this afternoon ensure that the forthcoming meeting will produce a state of affairs when there will be no doubt on either side about what is wanted. The decision may or may not be taken before the House comes together again. In reply to the noble Lord, I am not prepared on behalf of the Government, to say that action will not be taken before the House meets again. On the other hand, if the Government feel inclined to take a decision, they will.

I do not think that the House will regard that reply as satisfactory. Unlike the hon. Member for Central Portsmouth (Mr. Snow), who did his very best to import prejudice into this matter on this, his first appearance at the Box, the House has not approached the matter from a party political point of view. It is the clear duty of the hon. Gentleman—I am sorry that the Leader of the House did not intervene—to say that, in view of the Debate which has taken place and of the opinions which have been expressed on all sides of the House, the Government have decided that no action will be taken until the House has had an opportunity of expressing its opinion on this specific matter. For all I know, when I hear the Government's opinion on the matter I may agree with it. I regret that the hon. Gentleman has not taken that action. The whole tone of his speech shows the need for a General Election and a change of Government. This Government is tired.

I am sorry that the noble Lord thinks that I introduced prejudice. I did not intend to do so. I think when he reads the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Stone he will see that I was not guilty in that matter. The noble Lord himself tried to put me off my stroke in my opening words just now.

The hon. Gentleman did not answer one question which was put by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames. He asked whether the hon. Gentleman would give an undertaking that no fresh limitation will be imposed without coming through the House of Commons. Will he answer that question?

I must leave the matter in the words of my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council last Thursday, when he said that on the basis of the forthcoming meeting the Government will take a further decision.

The hon. Gentleman has not met one of our main points, which is that we consider that this is House of Commons business.

Oh, yes, Sir, we understand that quite well. We also understand that if the House objects to any decision which the Government take while the House is not sitting, the Government are answerable to the House of Commons.