Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Monday, 30th July, 1951

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

Prayers

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Private Business

Liverpool Extension Bill Lords(By Order)

As amended, considered;

Standing Order 205 (Notice of Third Reading) suspended; Bill to be read the Third time forthwith.—[ The Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Oral Answers To Questions

North Korea And China (" Daily Worker " Newspaper)

asked the Attorney-General whether he will now make a further statement on the results of the watch kept by the Director of Public Prosecutions on the relations of the "Daily Worker" newspaper with the North Korean and Chinese forces.

My right hon. and learned Friend has nothing further to add to the reply given by him on 19th June last in answer to a Question put to him by the hon. and gallant Member for Lewes (Major Beamish), reported in HANSARD of that date at columns 43 and 44.

What steps have the Government taken to secure evidence that this paper is using its contacts with the King's enemies to advance its circulation by publishing lists of prisoners of war exclusively available to it?

That is a separate question.

Mr Arthur Horner (Speech)

asked the Attorney General whether he will give his reasons for forming the opinion that no prima facie case exists against Mr. Horner for his recent speech, in view of the fact that it is a criminal offence to threaten force, violence or restraint, or to use any fraudulent device for the purpose of influencing elections.

My right hon. and learned Friend has considered this matter and, as appears from his reply on 23rd July to a question from the hon. and learned Member, he is satisfied that there is no prima facie case for prosecution. The reasons for my right hon. and learned Friend's conclusion are entirely matters of law for him to decide.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman realise that this speech has caused very considerable apprehension and concern in the country due to the fact that it strikes at our democratic institutions and our constitution, and that greater weight and authority appears to have been given to the speech by reason of the fact that the Secretary of State for the Colonies was on the platform when this was said and did not deny it? Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman think that, in those circumstances, an explanation ought to be given? Otherwise, people will remain extremely concerned as to why no action is taken?

There may be good political reasons for putting the Question. The legal answer is the one I have already given.

Does not my hon. and learned Friend consider that threat of force were used in the Leader of the Opposition's "Gestapo speech" in 1945?

As America and Australia are prosecuting and getting convictions against Communist traitors, why cannot we do the same thing in this country?

Will my hon. and learned Friend give an assurance that he will not, as a result of Parliamentary Questions of this kind, seek to bring political influence to bear upon the Director of Public Prosecutions in the discharge of that official's important duties?

My right hon. and learned Friend comes to his conclusions on legal grounds, and legal grounds alone.

Will the Solicitor-General do what he can to see that the law is observed?

I do not know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman is taking it upon himself to suggest that there is a prima facie case here.

indicated dissent.

I am glad to see that he is not. In that case, I fail to understand the point of the question.

I put the question in view of the previous supplementary question put to the hon. and learned Gentleman. I take it that he and his right hon. and learned Friend will, naturally, fulfil their duty to see that the law is observed?

I am very glad that, at any rate, it has elucidated the concurrence of the hon. and learned Gentleman that there is no prima facie case.

No.

Does the Solicitor-General realise that freedom of speech in this country depends upon the observation of a certain code, of which the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act is part?

Yes, certainly. I should have thought that, for that reason among others, it would be a perfectly good reason for not bringing a prosecution in this case.

Food Supplies

Flour Improvers

asked the Minister of Food what alternatives to agene are being considered as flour improvers; which organisations are conducting the research; and when he hopes a suitable improver will be agreed to.

The choice of an alternative improver to agene is still being examined jointly by my Department, the Ministry of Health and the Medical Research Council. Both Government and industrial laboratories in this country and the U.S.A. are continuing their investigations and the results are being taken into account in the present examination. Until this examination has been completed I regret that I am not in a position to add to previous replies on the subject.

While accepting completely the answer given by my hon. Friend, may I ask if he will bear in mind, and urge upon his right hon. Friend, the fact that a long time has already elapsed since the principle was agreed to by them that the present use of nitrogen trichloride is undesirable? Will he do all that he can to expedite the change-over?

I am aware of my hon. Friend's anxiety, and I assure him that I will do all I can to expedite the inquiry.

Will the hon. Gentleman take into account the fact that the announcement of this impending change has aggravated public apprehension on the point, whether that apprehension is justified or not, and will he accelerate, as best he can, the announcement of the new substance?

Yes, Sir. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point, but the difficulty at the moment is in deciding which is the best alternative improver to which mills should resort.

Lithium Chloride

asked the Minister of Food to what extent lithium chloride is used in Britain as a substitute for salt or in baking bread or confectionery.

From the inquiries I have made I have no reason to believe that any lithium chloride is used in Britain as a substitute for salt in food products, or in bread baking or confectionery manufacture.

In view of the fact that it has been used in other countries, with a very bad result, including some deaths, will my hon. Friend keep his eye on this substance and forbid its introduction if he sees any signs of its being introduced?

Yes, Sir.

Sweetening Agents

asked the Minister of Food what sweetening agents are in use in Britain, other than sugar and glucose; and what quantities, if any, of dulcin and P.4,000 are in use.

Neither dulcin nor P.4,000 is being put into food or drink in this country. Apart from sugar, glucose and allied carbonhydrates, the only sweetening agent at present in use is saccharin.

While assuring my hon. Friend that that answer will be most satisfactory to everybody, may I ask him if he is aware, or whether he remembers, that dulcin has been used in the past, and that it provided an example of the fact that we should be most cautious in allowing the introduction of these strange substances into our food before we know more about them?

It has been used, but I am glad to say that its use has now been abandoned.

Meat

asked the Minister of Food if, in view of the increase in the meat ration, he will now increase the allowance to those suffering from steatorrhoea.

As I stated on 21st June, my right hon. Friend is assured by his medical advisers that the meat allowances for steatorrhoea patients are adequate for their needs. When the meat ration was increased on 22nd July however, steatorrhoea patients had a proportionate increase in their extra meat allowance.

If, when the meat ration was at Is. 6d., it was considered necessary to give these people five extra rations, which enabled them to get 9s. worth of meat, why is it that they now are able to get only 7s. worth of meat? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the life of a woman in my constituency depends upon this extra 2s. worth of meat? As the number of sufferers from this disease is so minute a few extra tons would put the whole matter right. Could not the Minister be more charitable?

The decision to increase the number of extra rations from four to five was taken in the spring of 1945, when the meat ration was ls. 1d. When it subsequently rose, it was felt that it was better to allow the concession that had been made to stand.

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the whole country is suffering from a shortage of meat?

I agree that we should like more meat, and if the right hon. Gentleman can assist me in getting more meat I should be obliged.

In view of the fact that sufferers from diabetes have to supplement their ration by non-rationed foods, would the hon. Gentleman give them this increased ration also?

I think the best course to follow, in all cases such as these, is to accept the medical advice tendered to us.

Is my hon. Friend aware that technical terms like dulcin and steatorrhoea baffle an ordinary layman like myself? Would he explain them when he answers?

Could the Parliamentary Secretary say what medical advisers his Ministry possesses?

We are advised by the Food Rationing (Special Diets) Advisory Committee of the Medical Research Council.

When did they last meet?

asked the Minister of Food whether he will now revise his policy in regard to the meat ration for agricultural workers in view of the larger quantities of carcase meat becoming available; whether he will grant all agricultural workers a meat ration equal to that given to the miners; and whether he will give an estimate of the extra tonnage of meat which would thereby be consumed in a full year.

No, Sir. We have the advice of the Trades Union Congress in this matter, and they have supported the allowances already received by farm workers. They do not recommend acceptance of the principle of discrimination between the needs of different kinds of workers for the purpose of differential rationing. About 22,000 tons of meat a year would be required to give all agricultural workers an additional meat ration of 1s. 9d. a week.

If the Trades Union Congress does not recognise the need for discrimination, why is it that the miner is given a substantially larger meat ration? Surely the agricultural worker works longer today than any other member of the community. Why should not the Minister recognise that fact?

The House will remember the reason which led to the increase in the meat ration for miners, and the hon. Gentleman will remember, because he was present himself, a debate on the Adjournment which we had recently on the question of the meat ration for agricultural workers?

Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the fact that miners have hostels where they can get meat, whereas agricultural workers have no such hostels? Why cannot they have the meat ration in their own homes?

The absence of hostels is fully recognised, but most agricultural workers receive a special cheese ration and extra seasonal allowances which, in many cases, run for 48 weeks out of the year.

19.

asked the Minister of Food what his estimates now are of Argentine meat deliveries during the annual term of the recent agreement.

I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to the hon. and gallant Member for Angus, North, and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) on Wednesday, 25th July.

Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the current estimate in the Argentine is that there will be a shortfall of some 50,000 tons this year? Following the disgracefully disadvantageous agreement signed by the United Kingdom Government what action do they propose to take?

Neither the Argentine Government nor ourselves agree with the hon. Member's estimate.

Is not the Minister aware that people who are on the spot, and who know about cattle-rearing, make that estimate and that they have estimated fairly accurately up to now?

No, the Argentine Government are on the spot and they should know.

23.

asked the Minister of Food whether he will make a statement on the Report of the Official Committee on Meat Inspection, especially in regard to its recommendation concerning registration of retail butchers.

No, Sir, I think it would be premature to make a statement on this Report, which is still being considered by the various interests concerned.

Would my hon. Friend give an assurance that he will make a statement as soon as possible, because there is considerable alarm about the possibilities intrinsic in this Report?

This Report was published as recently as 30th May and we have to afford reasonable time to the various interests to consider the matter so that we may properly consult them.

25.

asked the Minister of Food how many ounces of beef steak and beef flank will be supplied against the new ration of 1s. 2d.; and how many ounces were supplied against 1s. 2d. in the corresponding week last year.

As the reply contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Is the Minister aware that the figures represent a loss of something like three ounces per ration book of flank meat and that this is 15 ounces a week on a household of five, which is by no means a large number? Does he not think that will mean a great deal of hardship?

As the reply involves a number of figures perhaps the hon. Member will read those figures before he makes any comments.

Following are the figures:

APPROXIMATE WEIGHT OF STEAK AND FLANK OF BEEF OBTAINABLE IN ENGLAND AND WALES AGAINST A 1/2D. RATION (a) AT OLD PRICES AND (b) AT THE PRICES RULING AS AND FROM JULY, 22ND, 1951
—		1st Quality Home Killed or Imported Chilled		2nd Quality Home Killed or Imported
—		Boneless ounces	Bone-in ounces	Boneless ounces	Bone-in ounces
(a)Rump and fillet steak	…	7	—	8	—
Shoulder or Chuck steak	…	10⅓	—	12½	—
Thick flank	…	8⅔	—	10⅓	—
Forequarter flank	…	14	18⅔	17¼	25
Hindquarter flank	…	16	18⅔	20⅓	25
(b)Rump and fillet steak	…	6¼	—	7	—
Chuck steak	…	8⅔	—	9⅓	—
Thick flank	…	7½	—	8⅔	—
Forequarter flank	…	12½	16	15	20⅓
Hindquarter flank	…	12½	16	15	20⅓

Fruit And Vegetables (Distribution)

9 and 10.

asked the Minister of Food (1) when he expects to be in a position to announce the action to be taken by the Government on the distribution of home-grown fruit and vegetables;

(2) when he will be in a position to announce the findings of the inquiries concerning distribution of actual consignments of lettuces and other vegetables as carried out by his Department prior to 11th May last.

With permission, I will answer this Question and Question No. 10 together.

On a point of order. May I have the answers to these Questions separately?

My right hon. Friend has nothing to add to the replies to Questions on the same subjects given to the hon. Lady on 16th July.

Does the Parliamentary Secretary recall that these two Questions are not the same? The Question a fortnight ago was to ask the Minister if he was in a position to make a statement. This one only asks when. Furthermore, does the Parliamentary Secretary realise that the Government have been working on these problems for four years now, and that on Friday last I gave him information about growers in Warwickshire ploughing in cabbages and lettuces because they could not get a halfpenny for them? Will he now expedite the reply?

The reason why I was asking permission to answer these two Questions together was not that the Questions are the same, but that the answers are the same. In answer to my hon. Friend's supplementary, may I say that I am sure she will recollect the discussion of last Friday and will not expect me to add to what I then said.

Is it not impossible for there to be any intelligent distribution of fruit and vegetables in the Metropolis, bearing in mind the chaotic arrangements at Spitalfields and Covent Garden?

I would not say that it is impossible, but it is difficult.

May I ask the hon. Gentleman how, if the answers are the same, the reply is different?

The answer to Question No. 10 is: My right hon. Friend has nothing to add to the replies to Questions on the same subjects given to the hon. Lady on 16th July.

The Ministry of Food really is impossible. Does my hon. Friend realise that this inquiry was commenced more than 11 weeks ago and that, at the outside, it takes only three days for lettuces to go from the growers to the shops? Is he going to give us an answer when lettuces are no longer available?

whatever else the Ministry of Food may be, it is not impossible. In answer to my hon. Friend's second supplementary, I would refer her to the reply I gave on Friday last.

does not my hon. Friend agree that the system of distribution of the commodities mentioned is really out of date and that a terrible indictment can be built up against the lack of organisation? In view of the serious position in which the country is at the present, and in view of the promise given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day, does he not think that action should be taken as soon as possible?

The fact that this field of distribution is not altogether satisfactory is implicit in what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on Thursday last.

" Food Leader News"

11.

asked the Minister of Food how many copies of each issue of the "Food Leader News" are distributed; what is the cost of each issue; and how many issues are published a year.

Twenty-six thousand five hundred copies, at a cost, including distribution, printing and paper of £152 18s. There have been 12 issues each year, but I regret that, in order to save paper, publication will be discontinued after the September issue.

South African Maize (Imports)

12.

asked the Minister of Food what steps he is taking to secure imports of maize from the Union of South Africa.

my Department is always ready to consider offers of maize and other grain, but no new crop maize has yet been offered from the Union of South Africa.

in view of the fact that 360,000 tons of old crop maize have been offered by the Union of South Africa, why has not the Minister taken any steps to buy it?

That does not accord with my information.

if the hon. Gentleman will look at the "Official Bulletin," published by the Union of South Africa, he will see that there are, in fact, 360,000 tons of yellow maize on offer.

our information is that at present there is no maize on offer; but I will certainly make inquiries, as the hon. Gentleman suggests.

would it not be better if farmers grew their own feeding-stuffs instead of relying on the spoon-feeding of the Opposition?

would the hon. Gentleman think of appointing his hon. and learned Friend as the expert maize grower of the United Kingdom?

Sausages (Content)

13.

asked the Minister of Food whether he will now secure rehabilitation of the meat sausages referred to in Statutory Instrument, 1951, No. 314, and restore the percentage meat contents applicable prior to 26th February, 1951; and whether he will now prohibit the inclusion of milk powder and whey in meat sausages.

as I have previously informed the House, it was at the request of the principal manufacturers that my right hon. Friend agreed to allow the restoration of the pre-war practice of including milk powder in certain meat products. The meat content of sausages may now be lowered to prescribed limits when a stated proportion of milk powder is included. For this purpose, milk powder does not include whey.

does the Minister realise that this debilitation of the milk sausage only arises because he refuses to grant the manufacturers sufficient meat, and that the public are fed up with it? How much longer is the milk sausage—this ministerial monstrosity—to be allowed to continue? When shall we get a decent sausage?

The rhetorical inaccuracies of the hon. Gentleman will not persuade me to frustrate the legitimate plans of manufacturers to revert, as far as possible, to the pre-war sausage.

is it not desirable that on grounds of taste alone meat should resume its normal place in the sausage, bearing in mind the excuse given by the hon. Gentleman that it was the shortage of meat which made the introduction of dairy products desirable?

does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is more important, in a matter of this sort, to have regard to the view of the consumer than to that of the manufacturers?

i believe that the principal manufacturers are better judges of the wishes of the consumer than is the hon. Gentleman.

is not the Minister aware that, despite what he and the manufacturers may think, housewives think that the Ministry of Food is quite impossible over this matter?

i would point out to the hon. Lady that this is not compulsory; it is entirely discretionary. The manufacturers will look to their sales to see what effect it has upon them.

does the Minister realise that I have been unable to buy a sausage for two weeks?

will the hon. Gentleman now tell the House when he proposes to revoke Statutory Instrument No. 314, which found its origin only when he claimed that meat was short? He promised to revoke it in due course. When does he intend to do so?

The hon. Gentleman is misinformed. I gave no such promise. It is not my intention to interfere with the freedom of the manufacturers.

Sugar

14.

asked the Minister of Food whether he will arrange for sugar to be allocated to suitable organisations in country districts in order that as many people as possible may preserve the large amount of fruit which is available.

my right hon. Friend is very sorry that the sugar supply position does not permit him to make the arrangement suggested.

if it was possible to do this, or something very like it, in the depths of war, why should it not be possible now, so that the people in the country may be allowed to use the fruit available?

we have been able this year to increase the amount of sugar which the housewife enjoys.

is the Minister aware that as things are at present country folk have to sell their fruit to manufacturers and buy it back at very much more expensive prices in the form of either preserved fruit or jam, and that the consequence will be that they will allow a lot of it to rot? In view of the rising cost of living, and the approaching General Election, does he not think that he should do something about it?

will the Minister bear in mind the relationship of this problem to the point raised by the hon. Lady the Member for Coventry, South (Miss I3urton), in Question No. 9, because unless sugar is given to preserve the available fruit there will not only be a waste of fruit, but the housewife will go short in the winter?

we have been able to give the housewife more sugar this year, and I am sure that she will take every advantage of it.

31.

asked the Minister of Food whether he will discontinue the loading of sugar ordered by Persia until after the present crisis, and use the sugar so saved for increasing the domestic sugar ration.

i do not think it would be wise for me at present to add to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member on 25th July. The quantities affected would not make any material difference to the sugar ration.

will the Parliamentary Secretary explain why, when our citizens are being harried in Persia, we have doubled our sales to Persia compared with 1949? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the effect of the last part of his reply would be to increase the domestic sugar ration by 4 lb. a head?

The hon Gentleman is inaccurate in his estimate. As I have indicated, the effect upon the ration would be negligible. This is an incident in a much larger question, and I am sure that he would not expect me to reply further at the moment.

has this policy been adopted because the Foreign Secretary wants to be known among the Persians as "Sugar Ray Morrison"?

what is the quantity of sugar now being exported to Persia?

i will not state the amount. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I think it would be undesirable to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] The amount at present involved is subject to discussions on current sales. It depends how the discussions go. I can assure the House that it is quite negligible as far as the amounts required in the rationing of this country are concerned.

did not the Minister tell us only last week that the amount involved was 1¾million cwt.?

32.

asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the increasing availability of world supplies of sugar, he will assure this House that His Majesty's Government have not entered, and will not enter, into any negotiations involving the reduction of the volume of sugar from home-grown sugar beet and, consequently, the limitation of the acreage grown.

his Majesty's Government have not entered into any negotiations involving a limitation of the acreage or the production of home-grown sugar beet.

in view of the fact that more sugar is available in the world, and that there is a prospect that at some time His Majesty's Government might try and obtain some, will the hon. Gentleman assure us that he understands that the sugar-beet crop is a pivotal crop in the husbandry of a large number of our farms, especially in East Anglia? If we can increase our imports of sugar does the Minister intend to reduce the quantities taken from home-grown sources?

we recognise the importance of the home-grown crop. At the same time, we recognise that whenever possible we should obtain large supplies from abroad. We do not accept present supplies as being adequate.

That is not quite the answer to my question. What I asked was, when we are able to obtain more from abroad will the Minister give an undertaking that he does not intend to reduce the amount that he obtains from homegrown sources?

i can assure the House that that is not our present intention.

will the Minister go a little further and assure the House that on no account will he consider reducing the acreage of the existing sugar-beet areas in Britain?

Horsemeat

15.

asked the Minister of Food if the 1,200 tons of chilled horse-meat worth £65,000 shipped from Australia to the United Kingdom via Rotterdam in the ss. "Hutingdon" is being imported into this country under open licence.

no, Sir. Horsemeat can only be imported into this country under specific licence.

how was this horsemeat imported?

it has not been imported.

Dried Fruit, Yorkshire

16.

asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the shortage in Yorkshire of dried fruit offered for sale at controlled prices, and that householders can only buy imported mincemeat at 50 per cent. higher prices; and whether he will increase the allocation of dried fruit to this area.

dried fruits, which are, unfortunately, in short supply generally, are distributed equitably throughout the country under a system of allocation to retailers which is based mainly on sugar registrations. Any increase in supplies to Yorkshire, therefore, could only be at the expense of fair distribution to the rest of the country.

is the Minister aware that Yorkshire is not getting a fair share in this matter, that the imports of dried fruit this year were, in fact, the same as last year, and that in Yorkshire we have had a much smaller allocation?

as far as my inquiries show, Yorkshire is getting an equally fair share.

are any of the goods "in short supply" scarce?

Civic Restaurants

17.

asked the Minister of Food how many civic restaurants were operating in 1945; how many are operating in 1951; how many have shown a surplus in trading; and how many have shown a deficiency.

i would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Roland Robinson), on 23rd July. Local authorities are responsible for civic restaurants, and the details for which he asks about their trading are not available to my Department.

is not the Minister able to get these figures?

perhaps the hon. Gentleman will inform himself by looking at the earlier replies.

Fat Cattle (Penalty Deductions)

18.

asked the Minister of Food the number of fat cattle above the weight of 13¾cwt. and above the weight of 15¾ cwt., respectively, which were purchased by his Department during the year ending 1st October, 1950; and the number in each category since a deduction of 5s. and 10s. per live cwt. was made for fat cattle above these weights, to the most convenient date for which figures are available.

as my Department does not as a matter of routine extract the weight ranges of animals it purchases, the information which the hon. Member seeks will necessitate the examination of the records of the individual weights of about 2¼million animals, a task which, I fear, would take two to three months. Perhaps the hon. Member would care to have a word with me as to whether a sample check would meet his purpose.

in spite even of this very small amount of information that he has, does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that if we had not had this deduction the extra meat would have been very valuable during the last few months?

perhaps the hon. Member will accept my offer to meet him and discuss the matter further, but this deduction was made because over-large animals resulted in wasteful cutting and they required excessive trimming.

24.

asked the Minister of Food if he is prepared to discontinue the penalty deductions of 5s. and 10s. per cwt. on fat cattle of the South Devon and British Frisian breeds above the weights of 13¾ cwt. and 15¾cwt., respectively, in view of the large size to which these breeds naturally develop.

no, Sir. It would be impracticable to make price concessions for particular breeds.

does not the Minister agree that in view of the shortage of meat it would be desirable that these two breeds should develop until they are what the farmer would call "ripe," which they do not do at the figures mentioned? Could not a special concession be made to these large-sized beasts?

This is a matter of which we are not unaware. We discussed it with various herd societies and it was agreed generally that it would be impracticable to do this.

Cotton-Cake (Contamination)

20.

asked the Minister of Food what was the total tonnage of the consignment of home manufactured cotton-cake, part of which was found in about January, 1950, to be contaminated with copper; how much was contaminated; how long the unsold part of the consignment lay in store and why; to which countries, at what price and by whom it is now being exported; and what have been to date the trading result to his department.

The total quantity affected was 956 tons. It lay in store from February, 1950, until March, 1951, while trade experts tried to find a means of separating the sound cake from that containing copper ore. Then, as no wholly effective method had been found, and as we were advised that the cake would be dangerous to cattle, it was offered for sale as unfit for cattle feeding. It was bought by a merchant for export, but I cannot give details of the way in which he has disposed of it. The amount realised by the Ministry on this cake was reduced by some £10,500 as a result of the contamination.

what is the Minister doing to ensure that our own reputation as traders is not impaired by this cake being sold as fit for cattle consumption?

This is being sold as unfit for cattle consumption.

Eggs

26.

asked the Minister of Food how many standard cases of 30 dozen eggs were handled by registered packing stations in the year 1938–39; and how many during the last year for which records are available.

The approximate figures for England and Wales for 1938 were 1,200,000 cases of 30 dozen eggs, and, in 1950, 10,200,000 cases. The figure for 1938 relates to packing stations registered under the National Mark Scheme for eggs, which was a voluntary scheme.

while thanking the Minister for his answer, may I ask if he is aware that pre-war, when producers were at liberty to dispose of their eggs to the packing stations or direct to the retailer, ample supplies were available in all seasons of the year? In future when his hon. Friends are asking if the present-day production of eggs has been increased will he point out to them that packing stations were free before the war and that they are compulsory now and that is how the discrepancy occurs in statements which have been made recently?

in 1938 is was a voluntary scheme, but the position is that the supplies of eggs today are greater than pre-war.

nonsense.

Cream

27.

asked the Minister of Food what arrangements he has made to allow cream to be supplied on doctor's prescription.

none. My right hon. Friend is advised that cream is not necessary in the treatment of any disease.

while the Minister no doubt is advised by doctors, is the hon. Gentleman aware that not all doctors would agree and that some doctors do advise their patients to have cream? Can he cite any other country where people are not able to obtain cream if they are recommended by their doctors to do so?

i agree that all doctors do not agree, but we have to seek the best possible advice available and we act on that advice. There is also the provisions that individual cases will be considered by our advisers.

can the hon. Gentleman say when his advisers last advised him on cream?

yes, if the hon. Member puts down a Question.

can the hon. Gentleman answer the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson), namely, what other country denies cream to patients who have been told by doctors that they must have it?

if the hon. Member requires that information perhaps he will put a Question down.

Wrapped Butter (Weight)

28.

asked the Minister of Food what is the weight of national butter contained in a half-pound packet wrapped in greaseproof paper and marked, 8 ounces gross.

The weight of national butter contained in a ½ lb. pre-packed packet marked 8 ounces gross should not be less than 7 oz. 14¾ drachms. The Sale of Food (Weights and Measures) Act, 1926, provides that when butter is weighed for sale in a wrapper or container, the weight purported to be sold may include the weight of the wrapper or container if the weight of the wrapper or container does not exceed 2½drachms per lb. of the butter.

would the Minister consider a regulation whereby packed rations should be net weight and not gross weight, as in view of the very small quantity of butter it makes a difference whether the paper is included in the weight of small packets? As the permitted legal allowance is, as I think he said. 2½ drachms per lb., does he not agree that in small packets of a quarter-pound or half-pound, which are more commonly collected by the consumer, it means that in many cases there is a loss of proportionately more in the weight of the paper than is legally allowed in the pound packet?

as I have said, we are governed by the Act of 1926, but we are always willing to look into these matters and we will do so.

29.

asked the Minister of Food if a packet of national butter, marked 8 ounces gross, ranks under his regulations as an 8 ounce ration of butter.

yes, Sir, provided the package weighs 8 ounces gross and the wrapper or container weighs not more than 1¼drachms.

has the Minister power to take action if I produce evidence of a case in which a half-pound wrapper weighed far more than 1¼drachms net?

The proper authority could take action.

Slaughterhouses

30.

asked the Minister of Food how many slaughterhouses are in use in Britain today; how many are under construction; and how many are contemplated for erection.

There are 587 slaughterhouses in Great Britain being used by my Department. Two experimental slaughterhouses are being built at Guildford and Fareham, and, as my right hon. Friend announced on 30th April, 1951, an additional seven new slaughterhouses are to be built and work has already started on one of the sites. My right hon. Friend will make an early announcement about further plans.

as the present congestion of animals awaiting slaughter involves suffering and loss, will not the Minister speed up the further erection of slaughterhouses or else re-open some of the 14,000 which existed before the war?

as the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, this matter has been repeatedly reviewed. Unfortunately, the larger number of slaughterhouses are quite unsuitable, but I would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to await my right hon. Friend's statement

will my hon. Friend resist any attempt to give slaughterhouses priority over other houses?

Bulk Buying

33.

asked the Minister of Food if he will now review the State bulk-buying of food in the light of experience gained as a result of handing back the purchase of some foods to private traders.

our methods of buying are under constant review.

is it not a fact that since the Parliamentary Secretary's right hon. Friend handed back the bulk buying of tea and several kinds of fruit to private traders there have been substantial increases in imports and much less friction between Government and Government? Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the same thing would occur if other commodities, like meat, were handled like that?

events have proved, or are proving, that my right hon. Friend was right in the decisions which he took.

does my hon. Friend not agree that the payment by the housewife to private enterprise of lls. a 1b. for gammon, 5s. a lb. for cheese and 5s. a lb. for fish is calling for more bulk buying?

i think the housewife appreciates that it is largely through long-term Government contracts that we have been able, relatively speaking, to hold down food prices.

Glasses (Washing)

asked the Minister of Food whether he will introduce legislation to require hotels, inns and public houses to wash glasses with approved mechanical appliances.

no, Sir. My right hon. Friend is not satisfied that mechanical methods of washing glasses are preferable in all circumstances to washing by hand.

can the hon. Gentleman say whether any minimum hygienic standards are prescribed for the washing of glasses in public-houses, inns and establishments of that sort, and if so, what they are? Does he realise that legislation has been introduced in Australia to prescribe minimum standards and the use of certain approved mechanical appliances and devices for this purpose?

i am sure that the hon. Gentleman could read with profit the Catering Trade Working Party's Report.

has my hon. Friend read with profit the advice given in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton), on the preparation of clean food? Has he also read the observations of the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill), as well as those of the hon. Member for Batley and Morley and other hon. Members, to the effect that the present methods of washing glasses are completely dangerous and almost prehistoric?

i remember that debate with pleasure, but washing by hand is not necessarily unhygienic.

will the hon. Gentleman undertake to consider the matter further, particularly during the Parliamentary Recess, and study the Australian legislation on the subject?

all these matters are being considered.

does the hon. Gentleman agree with his right hon. Friend the Minister of National Insurance, who, when she held his position, stated that it was best by far not to dry glasses with towels at all, or has the policy of his Ministry changed since then?

is not my hon. Friend awaiting a report on the use of detergents and the question whether it is desirable that they should be used in washing up? Until then, would it not be wiser to wait before coming to a decision?

This matter was dealt with at some length by the Working Party, and further inquiries and investigations are being made.

Transport

Road Traffic, London

34.

asked the Minister of Transport why Robert Adam Street and the south side of Leicester Square were not included among the areas speci- fied in Statutory Instrument, 1951, No. 737, dealing with the setting up of Festival of Britain "No Waiting" signs.

This Statutory Instrument relates only to certain streets in which I had previously imposed restrictions on the waiting of vehicles and in which the more extensive police restrictions are most conveniently indicated, as provided in the Instrument, by notices of a similar type to those which I had caused to be displayed. The streets mentioned by the hon. Member are not in that category.

That answer really will not do. Is it not a fact that these signs are marked "Festival of Britain, No Waiting," and that they enable the Commissioner of Police to stop parking up to 9 p.m.? Is it not making a mockery of this House if we have a phony schedule put before us and the Commissioner can come behind our backs and do just what he wishes?

The hon. Member is entirely wrong. The restrictions on these streets are imposed by the police by means of temporary signs. The other instruments referred to are the permanent signs for the "no waiting" streets—what are known as "yellow band" streets.

does not the Minister realise that these signs bear the marking "Festival of Britain, No Waiting" and that they have the effect of preventing parking up to 9 p.m.? Therefore, they come in the category of those streets dealt with under Statutory Instrument No. 737?

The hon. Member is wrong. I have already stated that the two streets to which he has referred are not yellow band streets.

35.

asked the Minister of Transport why traffic from Berkeley Square is diverted to Berkeley Street; and what route traffic from his Department in Berkeley Square to Berkeley Street now has to follow; and what is the distance by the direct route and the one now necessary.

This diversion was introduced to relieve the considerable congestion which previously occurred in Piccadilly between Berkeley Street and St. James's Street, and it has been successful for this purpose. The present route for traffic from Berkeley Square to Berkeley Street is via Hay Hill, Grafton Street, Albemarle Street, Stafford Street, Dover Street, Hay Hill to Berkeley Street. The direct route from Berkeley Square House to the south end of Berkeley Street is approximately 350 yards and the alternative route, 1,075 yards.

does the right hon. Gentleman's statistical mind tell him how many additional car miles are involved in this long route? My information is that the necessary route now is 1,364 yards, as opposed to a considerably shorter distance that the right hon. Gentleman gave. Further, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he left out some of the streets which are, as I understand, Hay Hill, Dover Street, Grafton Street, Albemarle Street, St. James's Street, Berwick Street, Arlington Street, Piccadilly, Stratton Street, past the Mayfair Hotel and then to Berkeley Street?

The hon. Member appears to have a route of his own. He must take into consideration the fact that this stretch of Piccadilly is intersected by quite a number of turnings, and that the delay to traffic in Piccadilly must be set against the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised.

does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that it is easy to allow traffic to go into Berkeley Street without necessarily allowing it to cross Piccadilly?

38.

asked the Minister of Transport whether, in order to minimise the obstruction to London traffic, he will arrange with the authorities concerned for the Lord Mayor's Show to be held on Saturdays in future.

my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I still have this suggestion under consideration.

is my right hon. Friend aware that he told me last November that he would consult the Home Secretary about it? Is he aware that present arrangements are very irritating and inconvenient to a large number of adult Londoners who seek to go about their business on Lord Mayor's Day and that the suggestion contained in the Question would provide a much happier day for a large number of children who, at present, cannot see the Lord Mayor's Show at all?

i appreciate those views and I expect to have views of the Home Office very shortly.

Train, Huntingdon (Fire)

37.

asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that on Saturday, 14th July, 1951, a serious fire took place on a north-bound express train near Huntingdon, and that four coaches were burnt out and 21 people injured; and whether he will make a statement.

yes, Sir, and I should like to express my sympathy with those who were injured and their relations. An inspecting officer of the railways visited the site on the following day to examine the burnt-out coaches, and he opened his formal inquiry on Friday, 20th July. The hon. Member will appreciate that it would not be right for me to make any further statement until his investigations are complete and his report has been published.

when will that be?

i could not say, but the railway inspectorate will expedite their inquiries as much as possible.

is my right hon. Friend aware that the London train from Liverpool, on the previous Monday, also caught fire, and that in the opinion of the guard of the train the canvas extensions between carriages need better inspection? It was that that caught fire.

when the Minister has the result of the inquiry, will he reconsider the question of the construction of railway carriages of wood—a practice which has been abandoned in a great many countries?

These matters are always discussed between my Department's inspectorate and the railway management. Generally, the latter are disposed to go a very long way to meet the recommendations of the inspectorate.

Motor Vehicles (Roadworthiness)

40.

asked the Minister of Transport what action is being taken to prevent motor cars proved to be unroadworthy from operating on the roads where they are a menace to road safety.

it is an offence under the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations. 1947, to use on the roads any motor vehicle which is in such a condition that it is likely to cause danger to any person on the vehicle or on a road. The enforcement of these regulations is a matter for the police.

is my right hon. Friend aware that the only penalty which can be imposed under those Regulations is a fine for driving to the danger of the public and that it does not prevent unroadworthy vehicles being used again and again if their drivers can manage to evade the police and a second fine? Could not these Regulations be strengthened to prevent those vehicles from being used again once a fine on those grounds has been imposed?

i am aware of many of the defects in this direction and my Committee on Road Safety recommended an amendment of the road traffic laws, which I will consider when an opportunity for legislation arises.

Bridge, Widnes—Runcorn

42.

asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the Widnes—Runcorn Transporter Bridge, after opening for a few days, has closed again; when it will be finally available for traffic; and what steps he is taking to arrange alternative means of meeting the traffic congestion caused.

yes, Sir; on 19th July further defects in the structure became apparent and it was necessary to close the bridge again for repairs. These will be carried out as quickly as possible and I expect they will occupy about three weeks. I am fully seized of the importance of keeping this crossing in operation and I am considering what can be done, but in the meantime traffic will have to use the alternative routes through Warrington and Liverpool.

does my right hon. Friend remember that any previous estimates of the likelihood of this bridge being put into repair—except those of the hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Vosper) and myself—have all been quite inexcusably optimistic? Will he consider, in view of the possibility of this bridge being closed all through the winter, the need for providing alternative means, possibly by railway, to take the thousands of people who cross to and from these two towns?

i will certainly consider that point. This is a very important traffic route and I appreciate the seriousness of the problem.

will the Minister keep in constant communication with the local authorities concerned, so that a real sense of urgency may be shown in this matter?

That is always done.

Highways (Maintenance)

43 and 44.

asked the Minister of Transport (1) why he issued circular 667 to local highway authorities without the knowledge of their representative associations and while negotiations were in progress; whether he has considered the terms of the resolution passed by the Sutton Coldfield Town Council on 4th July, of which a copy has been sent to him, protesting against the continued restrictions upon highway maintenance and drawing attention to the accumulation of arrears; and what action he proposes to take;

(2) why, in circular 667 to local highway authorities, he has required them to limit expenditure on unclassified roads to 90 per cent. of the annual average for 1946 to 1949; whether he is aware that, owing to increased cost of labour and materials, this represents a cut in excess of 10 per cent. in work; and if he can give an estimate of the ultimate cost of overtaking the deterioration due to the present cut.

78.

asked the Minister of Transport why, in June last, after entering into consultation with road authorities on the subject of limiting expenditure on unclassified roads, he then issued unilateral instructions thereby bypassing the said authorities with whom he was in consultation.

The request made in the circular was decided on by the Government in order to enable some improvement to be made in the standard of maintenance of the roads of greatest national importance without materially increasing expenditure upon roads as a whole. The associations of local authorities had been invited to suggest how this object could be achieved, but no proposals had been received from them when in June it became necessary to take decisions about the investment programme.

In asking for the 10 per cent. reduction, the effect of the increase in prices was not overlooked. Economies in road maintenance may inevitably involve some deterioration which will have to be made good in future years, but it is not possible to estimate the cost or incidence precisely.

In defending these economies I am not unmindful of the many protests I have received from highway authorities, including those from the Sutton Coldfield Town Council, against the restrictions which I have had with the greatest regret to impose upon highway maintenance in the wider national interests.

why did the Minister tell the County Councils' Association on 23rd May that he was confined in a financial straitjacket and that they should try to influence public and Parliamentary opinion so that a bigger share of public funds would be allotted for road work? Is not that a complete abdication of his Ministerial responsibilities?

i do not think so. I have stated in the House, when we have been considering these matters, that there is not a collective awareness of the importance of roads and highways in this country. That is a general view. I do not think it conflicts in any way with dealing with the details of any problem.

does the Minister appreciate that starting negotiations and then unilaterally settling things without further reference to those with whom he started these negotiations is very much resented? Does he realise that it starts off in a very unfavourable atmosphere—negotiations for making economies, which are never very easy anyhow?

on these matters one really must get decisions. I have subsequently met the local authorities again and have impressed upon them the desirability of getting an agreement on this matter. No one would welcome more than I a proper co-operative consultation on this rather difficult subject.

does the Minister agree that the longer maintenance is deferred the greater must be the ultimate cost?

i certainly agree with that; that applies to all the roads. The point involved here is whether there should be a greater proportional expenditure on roads of lesser national importance.

does the Minister realise the importance of these smaller roads, particularly in an agricultural community, and that rural authorities could not be expected to give an answer offhand?

i recognise the importance of all our highways, but it does not alter the point to which I have just replied; it is a matter of distributing whatever resources are available to the best advantage.

Civil Service (State Security)

45.

asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that civil servants who have access to confidential information have expressed agreement with or approval of the Communists; and if he will instruct all Departments to relieve such officials from their posts.

as I informed the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) on 4th April, 1950, it is the Government's policy to ensure that no one known to be a member of the Communist Party, or to be associated with it in such a way as to raise legitimate doubts about his reliability, is employed in connection with work the nature of which is vital to the security of the State. If the hon. Member considers that the persons to whom he refers come within the scope of this policy perhaps he will send me particulars.

does not my right hon. Friend think it rather mean to put down a Question like this, inasmuch as it implicates everybody without specifically mentioning anybody?

Livestock (Slaughtering)

47.

asked the Prime Minister whether he will consider authorising a change of responsibility between the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Food in regard to animals, so as to ensure that the Minister of Agriculture will be responsible for animals destined for human consumption until they are actually slaughtered, and that the Minister of Food only assumes responsibility after such animals are, in fact, food.

as I said in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mrs. Ganley) on 2nd July, discussions about the long-term arrangements for slaughtering home-produced livestock are now taking place between the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the interests concerned, and any question of a change of responsibilities must await their outcome.

will the appropriate Ministers bear in mind that Ministry of Food inspectors, though probably admirable people in every way, have no real knowledge of the habits and ways of animals when they are alive? They know about them only when the animals are dead and become meat. Is it not in everyone's interest that the division of responsibility should be decided?

That is exactly why the consultations are taking place. The Ministry of Food largely deal with dead animals and the Ministry of Agriculture with live animals.

Spain (Atlantic Pact)

48.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on how many occasions he has received representations from the Government of the United States of America suggesting that Spain should be admitted to closer military or economic relationship with countries of the Atlantic Pact; and what replies have been sent to such suggestions.

no representations have been made to His Majesty's Government by the United States Government for closer military and economic relationship between Spain and other countries which are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. As regards the exchanges between His Majesty's Government and the United States Government on this subject, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on 23rd July to the hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Astor).

does not the Government's policy towards Spain mean that they are prepared to endanger the strategic defence of Europe and to create differences with our Allies all for an ideological obsession? Has not the result of this attitude been that Franco has been kept more firmly in his position than would have been the case if we had adopted a more reasonable attitude? Is it not a fact that among Franco's opponents the Prime Minister is regarded as one of Franco's best friends?

no, Sir. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's statements. The position of His Majesty's Government was made quite clear during the recent debate on foreign affairs.

would not my hon. Friend show a more tolerant attitude towards the Opposition's representations on the question of Spain, as it is now perfectly clear that their policy is "One War Only"?

will my hon. Friend take note that, according to hon. Gentlemen opposite, opposition to Fascism is now an ideological obsession?

Armed Forces (Retired Pay And Pensions)

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on Service retired pay and pensions.

A White Paper which is being published today describes the substantial improvements which the Government have approved in the code of retired pay and pensions of the Armed Forces, including the Women's Services.

First, an entirely new feature will be introduced into the code. This will take the form of a terminal grant, payable in addition to Service retired pay and pension, to help the long service Regular to resettle in civil life. The standard rate in the case of officers will be £1,000 irrespective of rank; for ratings, other ranks and airmen the grant will vary with rank and length of service from £100 to £600. The grants will be tax-free.

Second, the present rates of Service retired pay and pension will be increased. For officers the increases range from £25 to £200 a year according to rank. For ratings, other ranks and airmen the improvement takes the form of a considerable increase in the element of pension earned by years of service in non-commissioned and warrant rank. Typical rates of pension will be £2 Os. 10d. a week for a serjeant with 22 years' service, instead of £1 14s. 10d. as at present, and £3 6s. 7d. for a warrant officer, Class I, with 27 years' service, instead of £2 12s. 10d. These changes will apply to officers retired, and ratings, other ranks, and airmen discharged to pension, on or after 1st September, 1950. Details will be found in the White Paper to which I have referred.

I think the House will agree that this improvement, in conjunction with the improvements in pay and other conditions of service announced last August, should do much to encourage greater numbers of men and women to make the Services their career.

is the right hon. Gentleman aware, first, that my hon. and right hon. Friends have always been desirous of finding means of encouraging those who serve us in the Armed Forces by giving rewards in this sort of way? Second, does the right hon. Gentleman's statement mean that nobody who retired or is retiring before the date mentioned, namely, 1st September, 1950, will receive any of these awards? Third, while I recognise that the sum must be cumulative, can the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea of the total annual cost?

This scheme will not apply to those who retire, whether officers or other ranks, before 1st September, 1950. It is anticipated that the scheme may cost, to begin with, £2 million a year, but that it may increase to round about £5 million.

is this not very unfair to those who retired before September and whose pensions have been greatly reduced in value by the increase in the cost of living? Cannot it be reconsidered?

This matter was fully considered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who made a statement in the House some time ago, and I have, in the light of the statement made by the Chancellor, replied to Questions accordingly. The matter of Service pensions before the date when this scheme begins is bound up with the general question of pensions and, I am afraid, permits of no amendment at present.

may I express to the Minister of Defence satisfaction with the statement he has just made and the hope that it will stimulate Regular recruiting? May I also say that that satisfaction is stimulated by the fact that almost every suggestion incorporated in his statement was made in speeches made by hon. Gentlemen on this side? [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] In the last debate on the Army Estimates. Hon. Members can look it up in HANSARD. That is a fact that I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have the generosity to admit.

i do not deny that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side have occasionally offered suggestions on this subject—

when in Opposition.

i have no wish to deny the desire of the Opposition, but, after all, it is the Labour Government who have done it.

while congratulating the Government on the considerable progress they have made judging by the statement of my right hon. Friend today, may I ask what consideration induced him to make the distinction that officers shall have a lump sum without any length of service qualification, whereas in the case of the ranks it is dependent not only upon rank but length of service?

These matters were very carefully considered, and no doubt the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) will agree that it is proper to give careful consideration to such matters; but, having given such consideration, we decided to continue the procedure that has been applied in the past.

while I welcome this statement, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman what the cost would be if it applied to all the Service pensioners?

i could not say without notice.

would my right hon. Friend say whether the tax free resettlement grant will be the same for women as for men when they have given comparable service and are of comparable rank?

The tax free resettlement grants apply both to men and women. Women, as will be seen from the White Paper, receive two-thirds of the amount the men receive.

will the men who have been retained longer than the time of service for pension—for 18 months longer, for instance, be able to earn increased pension?

as I understand that question I would say yes, but I should not care to commit myself fully about it. I should like to look at it.

will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this is a very important matter? These men feel that they have a deep sense of grievance.

i have not yet heard about the grievance; the scheme is only just beginning.

in the case of other ranks will the terminal grant be payable pro rata if the full term of service has not been, for some adequate reason, completed?

i think it depends on length of service—after a period of service.

can the right hon. Gentleman say how the new rates he has just announced compare with the rates payable in 1945, after making allowance for the reduction in the value of money that has occurred since?

They are very much. better.

Business Of The House

Ordered:

" That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may he taken before Ten o'Clock; and that if the first Resolution reported from the Committee of Supply of 25th July shall have been agreed to before half-past Nine o'Clock, Mr. Speaker shall proceed to put forthwith the Questions which he is directed to put at half-past Nine o'Clock by paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 16 (Business of Supply)."—[The Prime Minister.]

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

Orders Of The Day

Supply

[26TH ALLOTTED DAY]

REPORT [ 25th July]

Civil, Ministry Of Defence And Revenue Departments Estimates And Supplemen Tary Estimates, 1951–52; Navy, Army And Air Esti Mates, 1951–52

Resolution reported:

That a sum, not exceeding £36,818,493, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sums necessary to defray the charges for the following services connected with Foreign Affairs and Defence in relation thereto for the year ending on the 31st March, 1952, namely:

Civil Estimates and Supplementary Estimates, 1951–52
Ministry of Defence Estimate and Supplementary Estimate, 1951–52
	£
Class II, Vote 1, Foreign Service	8,434,087
Class II, Vote 2, Foreign Office Grants and Services (including a Supplementary sum of £10)	15,634,325
Class IX, Vote 6. Foreign Office (German Section)	2,650,081
Class II, Vote 4, United Nations	560,000
Ministry of Defence (including a Supplementary sum of £6,000,000)	9,540,000
Total	£36,818,493

Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Foreign Affairs (Middle East)

3.40 p.m.

This afternoon we are covering a good deal of ground, because this is a debate on the Middle East which deals with a considerable number of countries, and they vary in their characteristics, even though it is convenient at times to consider the problems of this important region of the world as a whole.

It may therefore be of assistance if I give to the House, in the first place, a brief outline of the matters I propose to discuss. I shall try to give an account of the main political, economic and social problems of the Middle East, an analysis of their causes, and an outline of the measures taken and to be taken both by the countries of the area and by ourselves. I propose to devote some attention to the particular questions of the day—Persia, Egypt, oil and defence—and to conclude by giving the House a description of our hopes and objectives.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire let loose a number of forces, some of which were latent in the Middle East and had been dammed up for centuries, while others swept in from the West when- the old order changed. Since then, no more than half a lifetime ago, the Middle East has undergone a revolution almost unparalleled in history; it has been accompanied by great convulsions, the aftermath of which will be felt for many years to come. But already a new order has begun to emerge. A number of independent sovereign Arab States have come into being, and they are beginning to take their place in the comity of nations; the new State of Israel has established itself, and is consolidating its position.

First and foremost among the forces to which I have referred must be reckoned that of nationalism. Now, national consciousness and national aspirations are, in themselves, desirable. Indeed, they are essential to the maturity of a nation, as our own history shows. We therefore welcome their emergence in the States of the Middle East, knowing them to be potentially good influences. But there is every difference between patriotism and xenophobia. As we and the other peoples of the West have learned, the interests of a nation cannot be served by unbridled nationalism, and there are sufficient recent examples to show that those who espouse it sooner or later destroy themselves and their followers. Today, the nations are so much members of one another that the interests of none can be advanced by ignoring the legitimate rights and needs of the rest.

A corollary to the irresponsible nationalism in many parts of the Middle East is an unreasoning hostility to and suspicion of our allegedly imperialist designs. If we had harboured such designs, it would have been easy enough for us to realise them. We did not. On the contrary, we gave every encouragement to the peoples for whose care we were responsible under League of Nations mandates to develop their institutions and so equip themselves for their newly-acquired freedom.

In a few short years the nations now known as Iraq and Jordan came into being, and, far from seeking to tighten our hold upon them, we did everything to hasten their progress towards complete independence. But it was clear to us then, as it is now, that an alliance between willing partners is more to our interest than the domination of discontented subjects. I am happy to record that, in consequence, we enjoy close and cordial relations with our two Middle Eastern allies, Iraq and Jordan.

One failure we admit: namely, Palestine. We had hoped eventually to bring about a settlement that would have been acceptable to Jew and Arab alike, and have brought peace and prosperity to the Holy Land. Unfortunately, we were not able to carry out this task. The House will be aware of the circumstances in which we felt compelled to abandon it. There comes a point when the man at the wheel cannot, in the interests of his own and his passengers' safety, allow himself to be further distracted by back-street drivers—[Laughter.] I gather that this afternoon hon. Gentlemen on the back benches opposite again have no particular wish to be serious but want to be hilarious. They can do as they like. If these back-seat drivers will not be silenced, then the driver has no alternative but to get out of the vehicle and leave it to those who feel better qualified to drive on.

We should like a little clarification. Is the right hon. Gentleman now referring to the conditions under which it was decided to evacuate Palestine? Is that the point to which he is directing our attention? In that case, who was the back-seat driver? And was it "backseat" or "baksheesh"? I am not quite clear.

What I said was quite clear because I repeated it, and I therefore need not repeat it again. As to the other drivers, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, there were some other countries who were interested in this matter. There were the people of Palestine itself, and it was to the ultimate evacuation of Palestine that I was directing my remarks.

We have strong traditional bonds of friendship with the Arab States which we would wish to see strengthened and developed in every possible way. I am also glad to say that cur relations with the young State of Israel are steadily improving. We wish her well. We cannot consider our relations with Israel and with the Arab States as in any way incompatible, despite the mutual friction which, to our regret still exists between them. Two years have now passed since the conclusion of the armistice between Israel and her Arab neighbours, and it is distressing that as yet they have made no progress towards a peace settlement. Indeed, mutual suspicion and hostility are as strong now as ever, and as the House will be aware, these emotions have been-exacerbated by a series of major frontier incidents.

In consequence of these unsettled conditions, little progress has been made in the economic and social improvement which is essential to the future prosperity of all the countries concerned. And, what is more serious, their stability remains in constant jeopardy. There is, I fear, responsibility on both sides for this unhappy state of affairs. The Arab States still seem unwilling or unable to recognise the plain fact that Israel has come to stay as a national entity and cannot be swept bag and baggage into the Mediterranean. The Israelis, for their part, do not perhaps fully appreciate the strength of Arab suspicions regarding their aims at expansion and the importance of taking positive steps to allay them.

I should like to take this opportunity of reaffirming the determination of His Majesty's Government to carry out the obligations which, in company with the Governments of France and the United States, they assumed in the Tripartite Statement of 25th May, 1950. As the House will recall, the three Governments undertook to join in taking appropriate measures to prevent violations of frontiers or of Armistice Agreements. We shall resist any act of aggression, whichever side may commit it. I earnestly hope that reason will soon prevail, and that both sides will come to the realisation that it is in their own interests to put forward sincere and positive proposals for peace. Their present pretensions are such that both will have to make considerable concessions.

His Majesty's Government, for their part, will do everything within their power to assist in the pacification of the area; but it must be understood that nothing can be done unless or until the initiative comes from the parties to the dispute. No settlement can be imposed from outside, and peace must be freely and willingly negotiated. If I have spoken bluntly on this matter, it has not been with the intention of criticising for the sake of criticism, but only as a genuine friend of both sides, who does not wish to stand by and watch them deliberately destroy themselves.

I will now turn to the problem of the Arab refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in Palestine. This is not only a very serious human problem, but a grave political problem, affecting the stability of the entire area, and in particular that of Jordan, where over half the refugees are concentrated. It constitutes, moreover, one of the major obstacles to the achievement of an Israel-Arab settlement. Until the end of last year, the Arab Governments, with the exception of the Jordan Government, refused to agree to the settlement of refugees in Arab countries. I am glad that more realistic counsels have now prevailed and some progress has been made towards a long-term solution.

At the Meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in November, 1950, and subsequently at the Arab League meeting in February, 1951, the Arab Governments accepted the principle of re-settlement of the refugees without prejudice to their rights to repatriation or compensation. The Assembly Resolution was also supported by the Israel Government. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine will shortly be negotiating a re-settlement programme with the Middle East Governments. There is, however, considerable anxiety in the Middle East that the necessary finance will not be forthcoming. In particular, it is felt that the Re-settlement Fund of 30 million dollars provided for in the General Assembly Resolution of November, 1950, is totally inadequate. It will obviously only enable a beginning to be made with the problem.

The task of re-settling some 150,000 families cannot be undertaken quickly or cheaply. The General Assembly Resolu- tion invited Governments to contribute a total of 50 million dollars for the year ending in June, 1952. So far 27 Governments out of 60 have made offers. We earnestly hope that those Governments who have not already responded will shortly do so. In this connection, I would refer to the United States Government's generous proposal, which is now before Congress, to step up its contribution from 25 million to 50 million dollars. For their part, His Majesty's Government have so far offered to contribute approximately £3 million, and we are considering whether we can increase this contribution. It will be recalled that since 1948, we have already, despite our straitened resources, contributed over £4 million to the Arab refugees.

Let us now consider the question of social and economic development. I have already referred to nationalism as one of the main forces which are shaping policies and events in the Middle East. The other is the urge for social and material betterment. Much of the frustration which now exists in the Middle East is due to failure to satisfy this urge. The best ideals of the West—the ideals of social justice and conquest of poverty, disease and illiteracy —have deeply stirred the peoples of the Middle East, particularly since the Second World War. In many parts of the area society is still organised on feudal lines. But, as in Western Europe centuries ago, the feudal structure has degenerated into glaring extremes between rich and poor—between a small minority of extremely wealthy individuals who have profited from the economic impact of the West, and the great mass of poverty-stricken peasants. Little has been done so far to remove these anomalies.

It must be recognised, however, that before standards of living can be appreciably raised the productive capacity and wealth of the area as a whole must be increased. Indeed, this will be necessary if the present standards are to be maintained and the effects of the great population increases which are taking place are to be met. Taken as a whole, the Middle East is poor. It has vast regions that are deserts incapable of development on an economic basis. Nevertheless, it has great resources, particularly in oil and agriculture, which must be developed.

Since the end of the war, the Middle East Governments have shown an increase- ing realisation of the need for economic and social development. Those in power at present are for the most part men whose aspirations were mainly political and who spent long years in the struggle for independence. It is to their credit that a number of them, and of the young men who have joined their ranks, are now devoting their energies to economic matters. During the last five years a number of over-all development plans have been prepared, a number of individual schemes have been surveyed and some of them have been put in hand.

The Egyptian Government, for example, launched a five-year development plan in 1946. A beginning has also been made with the Nile Waters projects which alone can increase the amount of cultivable land in Egypt.

In Iraq, an Irrigation Commission appointed in 1946, of which the chairman was a British engineer, has prepared a 50-year plan for flood control and irrigation development works, estimated to cost some £100 million. At the end of last year, the Iraq Government set up a Development Board with a British secretary-general to ensure the coordinated planning and execution of all aspects of the country's economic development. This Board has just produced a five-year development plan. The entire oil royalties will be allocated to the Board to meet the costs of the projects. Work on the Tigris and Euphrates projects is in hand.

In 1946, the Syrian Government—[Interruption.] Is there something wrong with my pronunciation? I do resent this snobbery on the part of the Opposition.

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is nothing snobbish, only that "Euphrates," as the right hon. Gentleman pronounced it, I am bound to say to my ears is an unusual pronunciation. But everybody has a right to pronounce a foreign name as he chooses. I am only anxious to make sure that it was the Euphrates that he meant.

In my recollection, the right hon. Gentleman certainly exercises the right to pronounce foreign names exactly as he likes. If I happen not to get a name pronounced according to the standards of hon. Gentlemen opposite, I think that good manners should guide them not to giggle about it.

In 1946 the Syrian Government engaged a British firm of consulting engineers to carry out a general survey of the country. As a result, projects for a water supply for Aleppo and the development of the port of Lattakia are now being put in hand. In 1948, the Lebanese Government engaged the same firm to carry out a similar survey, and this is now being followed up by a detailed survey of the Litani river basin, undertaken by the United States Point 4 Administration.

The Jordan Government are carrying out a number of small developments in agriculture, road construction, etc., financed by His Majesty's Government's £1 million development loan, to which I shall refer later. They also recently engaged a British firm of consulting engineers to prepare a report, which is being published today, on a major project for the irrigation development of the Jordan Valley.

Israel is, of course, pressing ahead rapidly and efficiently with economic development. In Saudi Arabia a number of public works projects for road and port development, and for electricity and water supplies, have been undertaken by British and American firms.

Finally, the Persian Government, in 1949, launched a seven-year plan of economic development based upon a report prepared by an American firm of consultants, and estimated to cost £210 million; but, unfortunately. very little progress in putting this plan into execution has yet been made.

Progress is being made in tackling development problems in such fields as forestry, animal husbandry, entomology and basic statistics. In the social field, attention is being given to the development of public health, nursing, education, agricultural co-operation and social security. Here I should like to mention the recently-introduced Egyptian social security scheme which constitutes an outstanding social reform. Labour legislation is also being generally introduced, and a start is being made in certain countries with the development of trade unions—a development which is highly to be encouraged.

All these measures, however, represent only the first step in tackling the immense problems of poverty, disease and illiteracy in the area. In many cases the plans are still mainly at the paper stage. Further progress in the area as a whole now depends largely on two main factors, firstly, on the willingness of the Middle East Governments to improve their administration, land tenure system and so forth; and secondly, on the provision from outside sources of the necessary capital and technical skill which are not available in the area.

With regard to the first point, the Middle East Governments have been accused of being reactionary. It is not for me to defend their shortcomings. The clash between reaction and progress, however, exists in the Middle East as everywhere. It is true that the Middle East Governments have so far failed to grapple with sufficient energy with the taxation, administration and land tenure reforms which are necessary to bring about a more stable and equitable social structure.

The standards of public life are not, with few exceptions, all that they should be. But, as I have already said, many of the Middle East countries are just emerging from the feudal state. There is virtually no middle class, much less an enlightened working class. Truly democratic governments can only be established after a period of evolution which is necessarily a slow process. There is no alternative, short of a resort to force which might throw up dictatorship either of the right or of the left. This would be revolution, not evolution.

Middle East Governments have also been handicapped by preoccupation with political questions, particularly the Palestine question, and with the false political aspirations of a few ambitious and unscrupulous men. Like other worthy causes, Middle East nationalism has its false prophets, men who, to achieve their own ends, have resorted to any means, fair or foul. During the war they were prepared to serve the Fascists and the Nazis. They have brought nothing but disaster to their fellow countrymen. Fortunately, the Middle East has its patriots also, who have far-sighted vision of the interests of their countries. I refer, and I should like to pay tribute, to his late Majesty King Abdullah and also to His Majesty King Ibn Saud.

With regard to the second factor—the provision of assistance for economic and social development from external sources —His Majesty's Government have so far, since the war, made the major contribution to the area. During the war, an attempt was made for the first time, through the Middle East Supply Centre, to collaborate with the local Governments in economic development. On 23rd November, 1945, my predecessor, Mr. Bevin, told the House:

" His Majesty's Government are anxious now to keep in being the same spirit of common effort to promote the well-being, health and prosperity of the people of these regions, and to collaborate with the Governments to raise the standard of living of the common man."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd November, 1945; Vol. 416, c. 775.]

This policy has subsequently been carried out in a number of ways, both directly by His Majesty's Government, and indirectly by the British oil companies and other firms.

Let me now enumerate some of these. Early in May, 1946, the Development Division of the Middle East Office was set up, consisting of a small team of experts in such subjects as agriculture, health, labour and statistics, whose task it is to give free advice to Middle East Governments at their request—a sort of British Point 4 for the Middle East. Although small in numbers, the Development Division has substantial achievements to its credit.

Its services have been acceptable in most Middle East countries and, in a number of cases, the experts' initial work has led to their subsequent direct employment on secondment by the Middle East Governments. During the past five years members of the Division have extensively surveyed the area. Definite progress in legislative and administrative fields has resulted. In addition to the work of these experts, the tradition of direct employment of other British experts by the Middle East Governments themselves has been maintained. At present, there are some 500 British experts and technicians so employed. There is also the important work, to which I have already referred, which a number of British firms of consultants and contractors are carrying out for the Middle East Governments.

As a result of the work of all these experts and firms, I think it is true to say that the survey stage has in the main been largely completed, and that the second stage, that of execution, has been reached. At this stage, the problem of the provision of capital arises. Here, unfortunately, our own post-war financial difficulties and responsibiliites in other areas, particularly the Colonies, have pre- cluded us from making a contribution on the scale which we would have liked. We have also as I have already explained to the Committee, been committed to contributing over £7 million to the Arab refugee problem which might otherwise have been available for economic development.

Nevertheless, we made a £1 million development loan to Jordan in 1949, and, in 1950 we authorised the Iraq Government to raise a loan of £3 million through the Export Credit Guarantee Department to meet obligations in connection with railway development projects. Another way in which we are contributing to the development of the area is through the work of the Desert Locust Service and Control Organisations at Nairobi. We are at present spending £1,250,000 on this work. Finally, I should not omit to mention the valuable work of the British Council in the Middle East.

In addition to direct forms of economic aid, we have, despite the strain on our balance of payments, permitted a number of Middle East countries to draw extensively on their sterling balances which were blocked during the war. A series of sterling release agreements with Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Israel, beginning in 1947, has enabled those countries to cover their financial requirements, including large purchases of capital goods. We have made every effort to supply the capital goods required to equip the new industries which had developed in the Middle East during the war and for the many new development projects. The proof of this can be seen in the steady increase of exports of capital goods from the United Kingdom to the Middle East.

Do we get anything in return?

We do business, and presumably that does give us something in return. At any rate, we consider that these are sensible and rational policies in the light of the need for the general economic development of the Middle East, with which we on this side, at any rate, want to be friends.

But perhaps the most significant factor in the post-war economy of the Middle East has been the development of its oil resources through the efforts of the British and American companies. Oil has today become the most important industry and source of revenue for a number of Middle Eastern countries, and it has made a major contribution towards the financing of projects designed to raise productivity and living standards in these areas. It is sometimes forgotten that it is the enterprise, revenues and technical skill of international oil companies which have made this development possible.

The oil industry requires the expenditure of vast human, financial and technical resources. Transport facilities and world-wide marketing arrangements must be developed to match the expansion of oil production. In addition to the revenues the oil industry has brought to these regions substantial economic and social benefits, such as transport facilities, water supplies, health, education and welfare services.

We are entering a new era in the history of Middle East Oil. Revenues from oil have vastly increased and the concession agreements are being modified to take account of changes in circumstances that have occurred. It is my earnest hope that the future development of the Middle East oil industry will be towards an ever closer partnership between the countries possessing the oil and the foreign companies contributing the capital, technical skill and marketing facilities, so that they may jointly and in full harmony develop the natural resources of the area to meet the world's requirements.

The next few years should see a still further and massive increase both in the rate of oil production and in the revenues accruing to the Governments. I can imagine no greater contribution to the solution of the Middle East problems than the wise and effective utilisation of these oil revenues for purposes of social reform and raising the living standards of the people, not only in the oil producing countries, but throughout the whole area. I am sure that His Majesty's Government will be ready to contribute towards this objective by any means within their power.

Persia affords an excellent example of the difficulties which excessive nationalism, unless allied with statesmanship, can bring in its train. The concession which the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company has been operating for so many years in South Persia has, in the past, provided an opportunity for British technical skill and commercial knowledge to come to the aid of the Persians in the development of the natural resources of the country, and at the same time to secure an increase in the revenues of the Persian State.

During the years since 1933, when the present concession was negotiated, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company has not only brought very considerable prosperity to the oil fields, but has provided a steadily increasing revenue to the Persian State, which, if properly handled, could have brought a great increase of prosperity to the country as a whole. Indeed when, after the war, Persia evolved her seven-year plan for economic development, which was to have been entirely financed out of her share of the oil revenues, it looked as though a new era for the Persian masses was in sight.

When the Persians asked for a greater share in the profits of oil, the Company, with the approval of His Majesty's Government, negotiated with the Persians the Supplemental Oil Agreement of 1949. Under this Agreement, Persian revenues would have received some £38 million for the years 1948–50 over and above the £38,670,000 which would have been obtained under the 1933 concession. The Supplemental Oil Agreement was signed by the Persian Minister of Finance in July, 1949, and was submitted to the Majlis for ratification. Dissident elements in that body succeeded in preventing its ratification for over 18 months, and in the meanwhile a vocal minority on the Majlis Oil Commission, after rejecting the Supplemental Oil Agreement, began to exert increasing pressure for nationalisation.

His Majesty's Government made it clear to General Razmara, who was then the Persian Prime Minister, that the Company's concession could not legally be terminated by an act of nationalisation, but nevertheless the Company told him on 10th February—and I should like the House to take note of this fact—that they would be ready to negotiate an entirely new agreement based on an equal sharing of profits. It was almost immediately after this that General Razmara was assassinated, and that the handful of so-called national front leaders embarked on the policy of forcing through an unconsidered programme of nationalisation of the industry, regardless of the consequences to Persia's economy. That is what brought about the present crisis.

From what I have said, it is clear that, as far as His Majesty's Government and the company are concerned, they have been ready at every stage to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Persian people and that, if it had not been for the assassination of General Razmara, an agreement acceptable to both parties might well have been reached last March. The unhappy history of events since then is well known to the House. For our part, we have every sympathy with the natural desire of the Persian people to control the mineral wealth of their own soil and we have agreed to accept the principle of nationalisation. What we have asked is that agreements freely entered into under international auspices should not be broken unlaterally without discussion or negotiation.

As regards the immediate situation, the Persian Government have communicated to Mr. Harriman, for transmission to His Majesty's Government, proposals for negotiations between His Majesty's Government and the Persian Government regarding the dispute between the Persian Government and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. His Majesty's Government have taken advantage of Mr. Harriman's visit to London to discuss these proposals with him. Certain points remain to be settled.

Meanwhile, His Majesty's Government have made arrangements, as soon as these points have been settled, to dispatch a Mission to Teheran, led by the Lord Privy Seal. If the Mission is dispatched, one of my right hon. Friend's first actions will be to pay a visit to Abadan in order to familiarise himself with the conditions there and in the oilfields area. Mr. Harriman himself will very shortly be returning to Teheran. I hope the House will agree that it is not expedient for me, at this moment, to say anything further on this matter.

I now turn to the Egyptian question. I should like first to pay tribute to the work of my predecessor, who laboured unflaggingly to place Anglo-Egyptian relations on a footing which will both preserve the best elements in the close relationship which has long linked our two countries and will, at the same time, take account of the realities of the dangerous situation in which the civilised world finds itself today.

That work I am anxious to carry on. He believed, and I also believe, that one of the cornerstones on which stability and security in the Middle East must rest is friendship and co-operation between us and Egypt in the various fields in which we have common interests. We are well aware of the difficulties which face the Egyptian Government and we have tried to approach our common problems with patience and the understanding of these difficulties. We know that the stand taken by Egypt has its roots deep in the past, and we have tried to take account of that fact. Unfortunately, our patience and understanding have not always been reciprocated, and we are still faced with uncompromising insistence on demands which bear no relation to present-day realities.

The problem of the presence of British troops in Egypt is not now a purely Anglo-Egyptian problem. We are a Power bearing responsibilities in the Middle East on behalf of the rest of the Commonwealth and the Western Allies as a whole. Egypt is in some respects the key to the Middle East. As history bears out, it is mere delusion to pretend that Egypt can stand aside in any major conflict. Situated as she is on the bridge between two continents and upon a vital link in the sea communications between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, she is an objective of first importance for any aggressive Power in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant.

The destinies and civilisation of our two countries are bound up together and it is unrealistic for Egypt to pretend that she can avoid danger by refusing to allow us to share in the defensive organisation of the area. Moreover, she can no more stand alone in the defence of her own territory than we can in the defence of our country.

I have confidence that should war be forced upon the free world the Egyptian people will, as in the past, join with us in resisting the aggressor, but the vital difference between us and the Egyptian Government is disagreement over the measures required to prepare to meet such an emergency. We know that without extensive preparations in time of peace our cause would be lost before the struggle began. Our task is to persuade the Egyptian Government to face this inescapable fact and to convince them of the dangers to them and to us all of neglecting such preparations.

In common with our North Atlantic and Commonwealth Allies, our own people have assumed a great burden in time of peace in order to make the world safe for those countries with whom we share a common heritage and civilisation. We invite Egypt's partnership as an equal in this common effort to make the world safe. We want to plan our relationship on an entirely new basis. If Egypt rejects that invitation, we cannot allow that to prejudice the fulfilment of our international responsibilities, but we shall not give up hope of persuading her to offer the spontaneous co-operation which will make our task immeasurably easier.

Now for the Sudan. We are now discussing with the Egyptian Government the future of the Sudan. Here, again, we are faced with certain prejudices which prevent the Egyptian Government from approaching the problem in a realistic frame of mind. The Sudanese people, though mixed in race and religion, have advanced rapidly in the political, social and economic spheres to become a well-ordered, self-reliant community. Their mutual dependence on the waters of the Nile have linked the destinies of the Sudan inextricably with those of Egypt, and in due course we hope to see the Sudanese people choose that relationship with Egypt which best fulfils their needs. It is our aim that they should be brought as soon as possible to a stage of development in which they are able to exercise their choice in full freedom and consciousness of its implications.

We are only too anxious that Egypt should play her full and proper part with us in guiding the Sudanese along the path of political evolution. To insist, however, as certain Egyptians do, that there is no distinction between the Sudanese and Egyptian peoples is simply to ignore the facts, and such an attitude can only tend to increase the difficulty of obtaining the close and intimate association and understanding which we should be glad to see develop between them.

I now come to the Suez Canal. The House will share my regret that the Egyptian Government have not yet seen fit to modify their attitude over the restrictions which they continue to maintain in defiance of world opinion on the free passage of shipping in the Suez Canal. In common with the other great maritime Powers, we have done everything open to us through diplomatic channels to persuade the Egyptian Government of the injustice and unreasonableness of these restrictions and to induce them to put an end to them by spontaneous action.

Unfortunately our efforts have borne little fruit and the matter is now before the Security Council of the United Nations. It may be that the Security Council will find that, since the permanent armistice régime has been in uninterrupted operation between Egypt and Israel for well over two years, there is no reasonable ground for the continued discrimination against international shipping in the Canal or for the ban which prevents oil from the Persian Gulf from reaching the great Haifa refineries. This irresponsible action on the part of the Egyptian Government is causing at least as much damage and distress to innocent third parties as it is to the intended victims. It is intolerable that the maritime nations should be expected to suffer, apparently indefinitely, from an abusive practice which has neither practical nor moral justification.

Moreover, whatever the immediate purpose of these restrictions, their effect is to retard rather than advance the prospects of a peaceful settlement of differences between the Arab States and Israel, to which both parties are committed on their own declarations. All maritime Powers have responsibilities as well as interests, and Egypt especially so. I think that we have the right to expect that in her unique geographical position Egypt should set an example of international conduct rather than abuse this position to flout maritime tradition and international convention in the way she is doing in the Suez Canal and in the Gulf of Aqaba.

In connection with the "Empire Roach" incident, I am glad to be able to inform the House that measures have been agreed upon between the Egyptian Government and ourselves to prevent the recurrence of incidents such as occurred recently in the case of the s.s. "Empire Roach" in the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba. These arrangements are, of course, without prejudice to the claims of His Majesty's Government in respect of that incident, on which naturally we reserve full rights.

As I have already told the House, His Majesty's Government hope that it will soon be possible to reach agreement on the inclusion of Turkey and Greece in the North Atlantic Treaty, and thus complete the organisation of North Atlantic defence by blocking the path of an aggressor through the backdoor to Europe.

The defence of Turkey is, however, not only a matter for Europe. It also closely concerns the defence of the Middle East. We are most anxious that Turkey should play her proper part in the defence of the Middle East, too. I was, therefore, very glad to see that the Turkish Foreign Minister, in a statement in the Turkish Parliament on 20th July, said that Turkey would be disposed to enter into negotiations with the interested parties in order to play her part effectively in the Middle East and to take the necessary joint measures.

The defence of the Middle East is just as vital for the Western World and for the United Kingdom as the defence of Europe itself. In Europe, we have, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, built up a system of defence co-operation, with integrated forces under integrated commands, which is unique in peace-time and offers the countries of Europe a real hope of effective defence against any aggressor. What we now have in mind is to do something similar for the Middle East. The problems there are, of course, different from those in Europe, and we cannot, therefore, apply exactly the same pattern. We have to work out an arrangement which will fit.

We also have to take account of the various interests of the countries concerned. We have to think of the Middle East countries themselves, and of how best their co-operation can be secured. We have to think of our Commonwealth and North Atlantic Treaty Allies, some of whom are concerned in the defence of the Middle East and some of whom are not. These are the sort of problems we are examining at this moment and discussing with our Allies, and until we have got further in our joint examination of them, I am sure the House will not expect me to make any detailed statement of our plans.

Let me now summarise the aims of His Majesty's Government in the Middle East. We wish to see the countries of the area free, stable, prosperous and secure; and we will help them in every possible way to attain these objectives. We hope for an early settlement of the differences between them; and we are ready to give them every assistance we can to this end. But unless they themselves are genuinely anxious for a settlement and will make positive efforts to secure it, our own efforts will be wasted.

Meanwhile we shall take all measures required to halt aggression by preventing the violation of frontiers, the breach of Armistice Agreements or any further outbreak of hostilities. We are determined to defend the area as a whole against aggression from without. The extent to which we can do so will depend in large measure upon the willingness and ability of Middle East States themselves to contribute to the common cause.

We wish to see the Middle East States develop their own institutions freely; and we do not expect them to adopt systems of government that are not consonant with their own particular needs. Constitutions cannot be transported and transplanted. I have often thought, and said, that on paper one could export the British constitution, but to make it work properly one would probably have to export the British people with it. But we expect that due account will be taken of the liberty of the subject, internal law and order, social justice, and all other principles in accord with the standards of the civilised world. We shall continue to give all possible financial and technical aid to economic and social development and, as a matter of especial urgency, to the solution of the refugee problem.

And, finally, we shall safeguard our own legitimate interests in the area. This is not an imperialist objective, nor does it conflict in any way with the interests of the Middle East countries themselves. On the contrary, partnership with them can be as fruitful to both sides in the future as it has been in the past.

Ernest Bevin aimed at a big and comprehensive policy for the Middle East which would result in co-operation between the countries of the Middle East not only among themselves but also with the Western Powers. He was determined to make war on poverty and despair, those enemies of peace and prosperity. And the more I myself see of the problems, the more I, too, feel the need for bold and imaginative policies, including social and economic policies.

His Majesty's Government are ready for them; and so also, I believe, are the United States and others. But we shall need much political wisdom and cool heads on the part of the Governments of the Middle East themselves, and sincere and energetic efforts to collaborate with the Western nations so that the help given from outside is properly used for the purposes for which it is intended.

4.40 p.m.

When the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary asked me to forgo the opportunity of opening this debate, I was encouraged to hope that he would have something to tell us. I thought that he would be able to cast a light on some of these anxious and serious problems which in more than one quarter press upon our minds this afternoon. Instead, he has treated us to an able and agreeable parade of bland truisms and platitudes which I fear must, in these busy times, have caused him many long hours of toil and study. I, also, shall indulge in a somewhat general survey, though I shall not go back so far as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which, after all, took place at the end of the First and not of the Second World War.

The decline of our influence and power throughout the Middle East is due to several causes. First, the loss of our Oriental Empire and of the well-placed and formidable resources of the Imperial armies in India. Second, it is due to the impression which has become widespread throughout the Middle East that Great Britain has only to be pressed sufficiently by one method or another to abandon her rights and interests in that, or indeed any other, part of the world. A third cause is the mistakes and miscalculations in policy which led to the winding-up of our affairs in Palestine in such a way as to earn almost in equal degree the hatred of the Arabs and the Jews.

I was struck by the fact that the right hon. Gentleman should have confessed mistakes which have been made in this matter. One failure, he said, we admit. It has long been evident how disastrous was the course we followed there, and all these put together, the loss of our power in the world, and in that part of the world, the diminution of our resources, the mistakes which we have made, and the feeling that we are incapable of putting up an effective resistance—most unjust assumptions I would certainly say—all these have brought us to the melancholy and anxious position in which we stand this afternoon.

The position is not necessarily irretrievable in its long-term aspects, but we certainly cannot restore it by ourselves alone. It can only be retrieved at a lower level in any case than before the Second World War, and it can only be retrieved, in my opinion, by the joint co-operative action of Britain and the United States, and, in the Mediterranean sphere, of France. [An HON. MEMBER: "And Turkey."] And Turkey, I entirely agree with that.

It is for this reason that I have been most anxious to encourage the United States Navy to take a leading part in the Mediterranean and that I welcome so strongly the support which they have given both to Greece and Turkey, and the keen attention they are at length—I might almost say at last—giving to Persian and Iraqi affairs.

The oil supplies from this part of the world have a value far above their commercial or financial importance, great though this be. The strategic aspect of the destination of the oil supplies and the immediate future of the Middle East countries is of immense importance, not only to Britain, but to the United States. It plays a part in their whole plan of creating ever-increasing deterrents, direct or indirect, to the spread of Communism, and thus to preserving the peace of the world by reaching conditions on which a lasting and friendly settlement may be made with Soviet Russia on the basis not of weakness and divided policy, but of strength, unity and well-conceived measures.

We may, indeed, truly say that the events which are taking place in Egypt and Persia play an integral and, possibly, vital part in the whole purpose of the vast alliance, under the supreme authority of the United Nations organisation, to which we have all bound ourselves. The consequences of this alliance present themselves now to us in this country in a manner which dominates our domestic life, with our immense expenditure on re-armament and the reactions which that entails on the standards of life of all classes throughout Great Britain. The issues at stake in the Middle East are of capital importance to us at home and abroad and to all our Allies.

Since the war stopped, I have always been anxious that the United States should become more interested in what is taking place in Persia and in Egypt. We admire and support the sacrifice and exertions they have made to resist aggression in Korea. Mortal injury would have fallen upon us all, upon the free democratic world, if we had been unable to serve, or unwilling to serve, the United Nations organisation in resisting armed aggression at any point.

But in a material and geographical sense, Korea, after all, is a promontory jutting out into salt water, ruled by American sea-power under an air canopy controlled by, in the main, American air forces. It is not a place from which things can spread in a physical way against the main interests of the United Nations. The moral and strategic importance of Persia and Egypt, on the other hand, and the relation of those countries to the Atlantic Pact system profoundly affect American interests and the success of their world policy in which Great Britain and the Dominions of the Commonwealth are all joined.

If, for instance, the Persian situation arising out of the oil dispute and the wrongful treatment meted out to us by Persia, with the consequent prolonged paralysis of the Persian oilfields, were to lead to the regions from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf being included in the satellite countries which are Kremlin-controlled today, the consequences would be far more deadly, not only to us, but to the United States than anything that could have arisen in Korea.

Therefore I have done, speaking as an individual, whatever was in my power —such as it is—to impress upon leading American statesmen and citizens whom I have met and with whom I am in contact that their main interests are engaged in the Middle East at least as much as they are in any other part of the world outside their own country.

General Eisenhower's sphere of responsibility is also deeply affected by what happens in Persia and Iraq. Turkey is the right flank of any front that can be formed in the Europe against Soviet aggression—should that occur, which I do not pre-judge—and the position of Turkey would be greatly endangered if the Soviet control covered all the regions immediately south of the Caspian Sea. The European situation is, therefore, directly involved in what takes place in Persia and Iraq.

In surveying the general scene in the Middle East our relations with Egypt, to which the right hon. Gentleman devoted some of the closing passages in his speech, are of the first importance. During the war we preserved Egypt from the injury and pillage of Nazi-Fascist subjugation. I shall not speak of our loss of life, for that cannot be computed in material terms, but we spent vast sums of money in Egypt maintaining a local war-time prosperity there beyond that which any other country was enjoying in the whole world. Unhappily, that prosperity was shared almost exclusively by the rich and well-to-do classes while the peasantry seemed to remain in very much the condition in which I saw them when I first went to Egypt as a young officer, towards the end of the last century.

This point of view was confirmed and, indeed, emphasised by the Foreign Secretary in his speech. These rich, well-to-do, classes who got so much control in Egypt are the very ones who are trying to keep a popularity with the masses of the people by ungratefully assailing us today. It was calculated at the end of the war that we owed more than £400 million to Egypt. Most of it was for the local services and supplies we had purchased to maintain the armies which protected them.

These are the notorious war-time sterling balances—I said war-time sterling balances, because more complicated forms of sterling balances have come into existence at later dates, but I am speaking of the war-time sterling balances—in other words, presented to us as British debts. The War Cabinet of the National Government had always reserved the right to present counter-claims against these debts for the services we rendered in saving Egypt from the horrors of war and conquest.

When, some weeks ago, I was referring to our immense volume of unrequited exports under the heading of sterling balances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer used extravagant language condemning anyone who could so violate, or talk of violating, contractual obligations as to refuse to pay or put in a counter-claim against these war-time debts. But his predecessor, the Minister of Local Government and Planning, used very different language, which I shall venture to quote to the House. This is what he said—it is a lengthy quotation, but I think hon. Members ought to have it in their minds as it was spoken by so high an authority at the beginning of the Socialist reign:

"That vast accumulation of debt represents an unreal, unjust and unsupportable burden. If Lend-Lease and mutual aid had been applied among all the members of the Grand Alliance as they were applied between the United States and the British Commonwealth, by far the greater part of these debts would never have been charged up against us. Sooner or later—and it would he better sooner than later—this mass must be very substantially scaled down. Britain is strong, but one side of her strength must he refusal to take on fantastic commitments, which are beyond her strength and beyond all limits of good sense and fair play. Nor could I, as the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, support financial arrangements which would mean that for years and generations to come this little island, which led the fight for freedom, would, through this peculiar war-time accountancy, carry a crushing load which even the defeated enemies of freedom—Germans, Japanese and the rest —would escape."

Pretty good stuff, that. The Chancellor is not here—no doubt he has some other preoccupations—but I trust that this quotation may be brought to his attention by some of his colleagues on the Front Bench. It is of special importance because the Prime Minister—who, I understand, is to wind up the debate tonight—was asked on 12th May, 1947, whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech represented the views of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman replied, with his usual laconic precision, "Yes, Sir." Surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer should moderate his denunciations of a policy which his predecessor declared in such illuminating terms and which his chief endorsed without a qualification of any kind.

I hold that we should have presented counter-claims and such a policy would have been supported by the United States. At the same time as we were being so strict, pedantic, meticulous, and punctilious in paying Egypt, we were borrowing or accepting from the United States far larger sums of money which I doubt if we shall ever be able to pay back. It must be an odd state of mind in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer can go on begging and borrowing from one country in order to pride himself and preen himself and plume himself in cutting such a fine example of financial probity, dignity and decorum with another.

It is said that one should be just before one is generous. In this case we ask the Americans to be generous in order that we might be just to the Egyptians and indeed, as I hold, unjust to our own people. I say that because it was known at the time that the United States' object in lending to us, giving us these very large sums, by which the Government have maintained themselves so remarkably—which, as I think the right hon. Gentleman said, have prevented unemployment rising to levels of millions in this country—the United States' motive in doing this was in order that the British people should be able to rebuild their own strength and stand securely on their own feet.

However, the payments of sterling balances continue on a large scale, and only the other day—I believe it was the day when the "Empire Roach" was attacked; but that was a mere coincidence, a pure accident, I am not making any serious point out of it—almost on that day another agreement for heavy payments was announced to the House.

What form do these payments take? There is a destroyer of the Hunt class. H.M.S. "Cottesmore" was her name. She, I understand, has been traded to the Egyptian Government, and her name has now been changed to the Ibrahim el Awal. [Laughter.]

They are laughing at the right hon. Gentleman behind him.

I expect that the right hon. Gentleman wishes that he had such cordial relations with his own back benchers. It would have been strange for the Government to have sold a destroyer to any Power outside the Atlantic Pact at this time, when anti-submarine vessels are regarded as top priority in our shipbuilding programme. But to have given one to Egypt in the circumstance and at this moment is, I think—I appeal to the ordinary unprejudiced common sense of the House—quite inexcusable.

And how will Egypt pay for it? They will not send us anything which will help our standard of life in this country; they will not send anything to us which will help us in our production of goods for export; not at all. All they will do is simply to scratch a few figures off their sterling balances account which the Government have lately consented to invalidate on a still larger scale.

I ask: Is this destroyer still in our shipyards or has she already been delivered? I am told that she is at present at Cowes—I may be misinformed. The Hunt class is a very valuable class of destroyer. Apparently we have not been able to afford to develop them for anti-U-boat purposes because of the money difficulties in which we are plunged. Here was one which we could have had for nothing. If it is not too late I say without any hesitation that she ought not to be handed over unless or until there has been a settlement of other matters.

There is another aspect which should be examined. After the brief war in which Israel, contrary to the expectations of His Majesty's Government—

And of the Opposition.

Not at all. The hon. Gentleman has been on all sides in this particular question. After the brief war in which Israel so conclusively demonstrated its fighting superiority over the much better armed Egyptian troops—perhaps the hon. Gentleman would agree with that?

Armed by us.

All right. I think that was a very foolish thing to do, but it was done in the period of the war when, naturally, arms got loose in different directions.

But this is a question of this destroyer; it is a question of going on arming Egypt now, long after the war. I quarrel with the hon. Gentleman on a great many things. I do not want to quarrel with him on any one of those points with regard to the innumerable facets of which we might occasionally get a gleam of agreement.

After this war with Israel an armistice was arranged. In breach of this armistice the Egyptians have closed the Suez Canal. The Foreign Secretary—let me put hon. Gentlemen at their ease—is entirely against the Egyptian closing of the Suez Canal, is he not?

Yes, Sir, I am. But, unlike the right hon. Gentleman, if I could come to an overall friendly agreement of good relations with Egypt, I would do so.

The question is whether the right hon. Gentleman is adopting the right course or not. At any rate, the course which he has adopted, as I shall presently show and have to some extent shown, has certainly not led to the conclusion which the right hon. Gentleman desires, and the closing phrases of his speech were instinct with an atmosphere of disappointment on this point.

But an armistice was arranged after this war. In breach of the armistice the Suez Canal was closed to all passage of tankers to the Haifa refinery. Here was a property in which we had an important interest and which could have made our petrol position easier here at home. We have been putting up with this complete breach of the armistice, and utterly illegal blockade, as I contend—I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman will challenge me—under the Suez Canal Convention—for more than two years.

And all through this time we have been releasing money—I am not talking about payments with Egypt; they were going on all the time—to Israel to buy oil that has to be brought all the way from South America. If one takes those things together—our treatment of Egypt, the misbehaviour of Egypt and our indemnifying of Israel; which I do not particularly quarrel with because it was our weakness that let them suffer through the Canal being blockaded—there one really has an example of British submissiveness to find an equal to which one would have to search the world very far.

All the time we were sending valuable exports to Egypt for no return, including ships of war, aeroplanes and other munitions, while all they had to do, for their part, was to go on breaking the Suez Canal Convention, insulting us ever more bitterly every day, clamouring for the Sudan and extorting further sterling balance concessions from us in the various agreements which were made.

The extraordinary thing is to see the Foreign Secretary carrying out this policy and the Chancellor of the Exchequer carrying out what looks to be an entirely separate policy. It is not departmentalism, it is compartmentalism of a kind quite extraordinary. I have not seen its like before. I contend that no payments of sterling balances should, on any account, have been made to Egypt while they persisted in their illegal action in the Suez Canal. Fancy not bringing this strong point and leverage into the argument.

There is the Prime Minister. I think it is a question to which he should address himself because he is not at the Foreign Office or the Exchequer; he sits over both. Fancy, I say, not bringing this into the general argument. Let the right hon. Gentleman give us his reasons when he winds up the debate tonight.

Here is another fact. I do not know why we should have waited all this time for Israel to bring the breach of the armistice before the United Nations. Why could we not have done this two years ago, or supported Israel in doing it two years ago? Why could we not have refused all military exports and all payments on the ground of sterling balances until the matter was satisfactorily settled? That is an argument which I honestly think requires the attention of the Government. Although much can be brushed aside in our present course, nevertheless there are verities, truths and sequences of causation which should be in the minds of hon. Members of the House of Commons, though I do not say of the public or of the whole of the Press.

The right hon. Gentleman is not directly responsible for much of this mistaken Egyptian policy. For more than a year we all watched with sorrow Mr. Bevin's illness. It was evident that we were virtually without a Foreign Secretary—

That is quite untrue.

—for a very long period. The Prime Minister is responsible for whatever happens, but I think it will be found that we were virtually without a Foreign Secretary during the whole of that period.

indicated dissent.

The Prime Minister may hold a very different view, but he cannot dismiss an argument or even an assertion by muttering, "Quite untrue, quite untrue."

I was trying to correct the right hon. Gentleman on a point of fact. It is quite true that my right hon. Friend was ill, but he was an effective Foreign Minister throughout. It may well have shortened his life, but it is quite untrue to say that Mr. Bevin ever let his hand go off the Foreign Office. Anybody in close contact with him knows that that is not in accordance with the facts.

That, of course, is a matter of opinion, but I adhere strongly to my statement. I fully admit that the Prime Minister had opportunities of closer study of what was actually taking place, but, anyhow, he is directly and personally responsible for allowing the Foreign Office to be without effective guidance during all this critical and, as it may well prove, costly time.

We have now got a new deal. The curtain has risen on a new star. The right hon. Gentleman is now at the Foreign Office. I have here a report of the speech delivered by him to the Durham miners a few days ago. I do not intend to inflame our debate or, indeed, to detain the House by reading it.

Why not?

Because I do not wish to inflame or detain the House. I have already given those two reasons, and it did not require any "why not" from the hon. Gentleman.

This, however I must say. Viewed against the sombre background of the world scene it must be considered as one of the most lamentable utterances which a British Foreign Secretary or, indeed, the Foreign Minister of any important Power has ever made in recent times. It shows how far the right hon. Gentleman dwells below the level of events, and how little he understands their proportion in the discharge of the great office to which he has been appointed. It will certainly be viewed abroad as a measure of the contribution he is capable of making to foreign affairs, and of the spirit in which he approaches this grave and solemn task.

Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough, after condemning me so strongly and so sweepingly, to quote what is objected to.

It will certainly not make for the tranquillity of the House if I read it out. [HON. MEMBERS: "Read the lot.") It will add considerably to the length of the proceedings. If the right hon. Gentleman really wants it I will read it.

That is the sort of churlishness we are accustomed to. All I can say is that there is presumably in the speech something to which the right hon. Gentleman takes strong exception. Will he read those parts of it to which he does take exception?

I really have no choice, but it will certainly add to the length of our proceedings and I expect it will give opportunities for cheering by partisans on both sides. I was hoping that we could keep this Foreign Office debate if not in controversial at any rate in calm channels.

Let me say this in advance. In judging what I am now about to read, the House, I am sure, will feel how much better it would have been if the right hon. Gentleman had got Foreign Office officials to write for him his speeches to be delivered in the country and he had devoted some of the leisure made possible thereby to learning something about the great task he has undertaken. Here is what he said:

"But Mr. Churchill had shown a sensible restraint, which, however, had not restrained the warlike fever of the Conservative backbenchers. A substantial body of Tory backbench M. Ps. and a number of Conservative newspapers are playing quite a vigorous party game in foreign affairs. It started way back in the days of Ernest Bevin and has, if anything, intensified in recent weeks. I make no personal complaint. I can take it."

The right hon. Gentleman must not be so touchy today.

"Indeed, I have naturally been a target of Tory attacks all my public life. And if some of the less distinguished chat paragraphists or London letter writers find their work easier by accepting cantankerous and untruthful copy from Tory quarters, well, have a heart! The weather has been warm and some folks find it tiring. Nevertheless, we have seen signs of dangerous Tory irresponsibility in foreign affairs. It is one of my duties as Foreign Secretary to stand up for the proper interests of our country. In doing so I rule out nothing that is legitimate."

That is a very far reaching assertion.

" But what I will not do is needlessly, precipitately and irresponsibly to take warlike courses."

What is wrong with all that? It is very small beer.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me to read it.

rose—

I expect the Foreign Secretary can look after himself, but will, no doubt, express his thanks to the hon. Member for his chivalry in coming to his rescue.

" If you had seen and heard the semi-hysteria of hack bench Tory M. Ps. in the last fortnight, if you have read the more excitable of the Conservative newspapers, then you will find it difficult not to come to the conclusion that, if they had had their way, we should have been involved in two wars in the last 10 days."

I say that was a falsehood, all the more shameful because all the facts were known to the right hon. Gentleman. I could read more, but I have taken up enough time. I have been forced to take up the time of the House with it.

Let me press this point. Here is the new Foreign Secretary, who shows to all the world that his main thought in life is to be a caucus boss and a bitter party electioneer. It is tragic indeed that at this time his distorted, twisted and malevolent mind should be the one to which our foreign affairs are confided.

Now I turn to Persia. The right hon. Gentleman told us nothing new about Persia. [An HON. MEMBER: "Neither have you.] The newspapers seem well informed, and I base myself on them. It is necessary for those on either side of the House to make their position clear. Judged by every standard, the conduct of the Persian Government has been outrageous, but this must not lead us to ignore what is fair and equitable in the Persian case. In February, 1948, Sir Stafford Cripps appealed for dividend restraint—we seem to go round that circle still—the Anglo-Iranian oil company was earning about 150 per cent. and paying 30 per cent. As payments by the company to Persia were in part proportional to the distributed profits, this had the effect of keeping down the amount received by the Persian Government, not on commercial merits but because of the domestic policy or the British Government. All this was put before the House in June by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden). I must repeat what he said then:

" As they"—

the Persian Government—

"saw it, the company was earning 150 per cent. or thereabouts but they were still paying 30 per cent. His Majesty's Government were getting a good rake-off, not as a shareholder but from taxation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st June, 1951; c. 758, Vol. 489.]

It was quite clear from the moment this situation developed, and indeed before it, that new proposals must be made to the Persian Government. In 1949, negotiations between the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Persian Government ended in a Supplemental Agreement, which was signed in 1949. Meanwhile, an agreement had been made in Saudi Arabia on a 50–50 basis by the American company which has been tactfully renamed "Iramco." Just watch that a little. It is as if we had changed the name of our company to "Persanglo." There is nothing like studying the customer.

The Supplemental Agreement of 1949—to quote the Foreign Secretary a few days ago—offered

" a more advantageous return for a ton of oil than was now enjoyed by any Middle Eastern Government."

Nevertheless the agreement was not ratified by the Persian Government for 18 months, and General Razmara, the Persian Prime Minister, who favoured it, was murdered on 17th March. The fall of British prestige in the Near and Middle East, particularly as a result of Anglo-Egyptian relations, must be considered as the main reason why this beneficial measure was not accepted, as it deserved to be. It is also a reflection on the British Government that they were not more active or more effective in pressing this matter from here., during the long interval of 18 months in 1950 and even before the end of 1949.

Then was the time to send a British Minister of the Crown to the spot. Then was the time to try to form with the United States a properly-conceived joint or harmoniously-co-ordinated policy; but the Foreign Office had fallen into the disarray to which I have referred, and which I believe was caused by the illness of Mr. Bevin. It had not the acumen, at any rate, or the ability to enable the Department to benefit from the accumulated experience of the old Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India, whose personnel they had absorbed.

As usual, no foresight was shown and nothing constructive or effective was done. It may be said, "How easy to be wise after the event," but surely it is the business of the British Government to be wise before the event. In this case, the facts were obvious. The loss of India as a factor in these regions had effects plainly visible, not only on our prestige but on our power, which could only, and can only, be compensated by a closer association of British policy in Persia with that of the United States.

The issue was of such great importance as to be well worth a visit by the Prime Minister to the United States at a time when the two countries were acting so closely together in matters like the Atlantic Pact and its development. This matter might well have been incidental to the important topics discussed; but, as we know, an interval of five years passed between his visit after taking office in 1945 and the hastily-resolved mission on which he went eight months ago.

The truth is that the Government are so unequal to the enormous and complicated task, and so oppressed by their own political preoccupations, that they only live from hand to mouth and week to week, and seem to derive no benefit from the invaluable resources of special information and the opportunities of guiding and shaping events which, as an Executive, they enjoy.

I have before pointed out to the House the different characters of the responsibility borne by the Executive Government and the Parliamentary Opposition. This presents itself in the sharpest form where military operations are in question. It is not the duty of the Opposition to suggest or demand specific military operations. They do not know what are the forces available, nor what course of action the Government are pursuing. It has well been said—I think, by Lord Lansdowne, although I have not been able to verify this—that an Opposition may properly urge restraint upon a Government where military action is concerned, but ought to be very chary in demanding military action. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]That is the course which I have followed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh !"]

I say that if military action were to be taken, it would usually be unwise for the Executive Government themselves to describe it or to discuss it beforehand. For that reason, I and my colleagues thought that some private interchanges would be useful, and might help the Government and the general policy of the country, by avoiding undue Parliamentary interrogation and debate which otherwise was inevitable on a matter about which we would feel very strongly and which rouses so much justifiable anxiety.

I may say here that there has been no question of any agreement between the representatives of the Opposition and those of His Majesty's Government at these private discussions. We have expressed our opinion. We have offered some suggestions. We have endeavoured to make the Government feel that a policy of firmness, exercised with prudence, would in this matter, as in other matters, be treated in a non-party spirit. On the other hand, there is one point, which I shall come to later, which we have made absolutely clear.

Our general attitude on this side of the House is not the same as that of the Prime Minister when he led his party into the Lobby against National Service less than four months before the late war. Then he was only asked to give the support of his party to measures which no one knew better than he were necessary and, indeed, overdue.

Who made the right hon. Gentleman Prime Minister?

If there is any urgent need which the Government feel for stronger military preparation, I can only remind them that they have always received our support in all major things that concern the national safety. But the giving and promising of our support to such measures of security and preparation is quite different from, and has no relation to, the urging upon the Executive of definite military operations. For these, the initiative and sole responsibility fall upon the Government of the day.

The situation in Persia is indeterminate. It follows from what I have already said that I attached great importance to the announcement that the President was sending Mr. Averell Harriman to Persia. He is a man who has a complete grasp of the whole world scene and a man of the highest personal capacity. Naturally, he was not, in our view, going as a mediator, still less as an arbitrator. We rightly take our stand upon the judgment of The Hague Court. That was the attitude of His Majesty's Government. It is the prima facieduty of those who believe in the rule of law to sustain in every way they can judgments of this character and not to make compromises between them and some other solution.

Mr. Harriman does not necessarily represent British views. Nevertheless, I believe that the Harriman mission has been helpful and that it has improved, and not lessened, the hopes of eventual agreement. Mr. Harriman's exertions have, at any rate, brought the prospects of a resumption of civilised conversations much nearer than they were before. We have been told nothing about this today, but at any rate I hope that what I have said will be found to be true.

If I may digress for a moment, it would seem that the Government have an advantage in their task in Persia in having so much in common with the Persian Government. They, like them, are holding on to office by the skin of their teeth and, like them, they are persevering in a policy of nationalisation without the slightest regard for national interests. This can certainly form a basis for mutual sympathy and future understanding.

We are now embarked upon a period of negotiations which may conceivably be protracted. The Government have been quite right to insist that the persecution and maltreatment of our personnel shall stop before sending a special envoy to Teheran. It does not follow that time is necessarily against us. The position in which the Persian Government have placed themselves so needlessly, and, as we all see, so heedlessly, has brought the whole process of producing and refining oil to a standstill. The tankers are dispersed on other business and cannot be replaced except as the result of an agreement. The markets to which Anglo-Persian oil was sent are almost entirely closed against them by agreements between the various oil companies. Finally, the Abadan refinery has been shut down.

We, both British and Persians alike, suffer from the delay, but the Persians suffer more and run greater risks with every week it continues; and meanwhile their Government is standing between their people and the immense new benefits embodied in the Supplemental Agreement, or variants of it, and the further welcome and important promises of American aid in arms and money. This seems to me to be a situation calling, in an exceptional degree, for patience on the basis of firmness.

Obviously, if the House were not rising this week, we should have postponed this debate. As it is, we have no choice but to set forth our position upon essentials in plain terms. We do not mind if the Government consider it necessary to withdraw our oil personnel from the mountain oilfields into Abadan. It may be necessary or it may not, but it may well be that we could not easily protect them there from violence and murder in their scattered positions in the oilfields. If they are withdrawn—it is said in the papers that there are 300 or 400; it may be true or not, I do not know—to Abadan, they may quite well be the ones who would not be needed there and would be surplus to the essential staff. The matter is not one, in my opinion, which raises any important issue.

We have, however, in all our discussions with the Government made it clear that the Conservative Party will oppose and censure by every means in their power the total evacuation of Abadan. The refinery must continue to be occupied by a sufficient number of British Anglo-Persian personnel to make it possible for the installations to be maintained in an effective fashion and for the business to be progressively re-started whenever a settlement is reached. Every effort should be made to rally this nucleus of British personnel to the high opportunity they have of rendering distinguished service to their country. They must stay, and we must never agree to their being withdrawn. If violence is offered to them, we must not hesitate to intervene, if necessary by force, and give all the necessary protection to our fellow subjects.

That means war.

But this I must say in conclusion. If the Government so manage this affair as to lead in the end to the total evacuation of the British oil personnel from the Abadan refinery, it will be our duty to challenge them here and in the country by every means in our power. The issue between us—which I trust may not arise—is the total evacuation, in any circumstances which are at present foreseeable, of the Abadan refinery by the nucleus of British personnel.

We request that if this decision is taken, and if possible before it is taken, Parliament should be recalled in order that a clear issue may be presented. All the power lies in the hands of the Government. If they use their precarious and divided majority to cast away one of the major interests of the nation, and indeed injure, as I think and I have sought to show, the world cause, if they are found to have been guilty of such a course of action now that they are asking of all of us so many sacrifices to carry out the policy of re-armament, then I say the responsibility will lie upon them for this shameful disaster, diminution and impoverishment of our world position and we are quite certain that in the long run justice will be done to them by the British people.

5.42 p.m.

In the course of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill), to which we have just listened, we were at least entertained. Indeed, I do not think that for a long time he has been in such boyish—or should it be "adolescent "—form as he was in that part of his speech in which he made a gross personal attack on the Foreign Secretary. I draw my own conclusion that when one has the very delicate problem of keeping one's own party behind one together, the best thing to do is to be as offensive as possible to someone important on the other side.

But there was a good deal of substance in what the right hon. Gentleman said, and I should like to make some comments on the views he expressed about Egypt. The right hon. Gentleman's diagnosis on Egypt was one with which I could hardly disagree. During the height of the Palestine controversy it was always a pleasure for those of us below the Gangway who are on the Left of the Socialist Party to have the lone support of the right hon. Gentleman for the right policy in Palestine. I will not disagree with him, therefore, that the disaster of Ernest Bevin's policy in Palestine led to most of our problems in Egypt today; nor would I disagree that it was that Palestine policy which led to our present troubles in the Suez Canal.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke very properly of how terrible it is that the Egyptians should blockade the Suez Canal. Yet for a long time, in 1948 and 1949, the Opposition, with the exception of their Leader, were egging on the Egyptians to close the Canal to ships going to Haifa. I should like to remind the House that—regrettably in my opinion—during the course of the Palestine war the Egyptians blockaded the Canal with the support of most people in this House. It is not surprising that having been egged on to treat a small people—the Jews—badly, they treat this country badly—a country which, having provided them with arms with the intention that they should defeat Israel, changed its side when the Israelis won the war.

I can well appreciate the reasons why the Egyptians feel very bitter against a vast majority of hon. Members in this House who wanted the defeat of Israel when that looked likely and switched round when Israel won. It may be necessary to support the winning side but it is not very creditable. [Interruption.] I was saying that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford was alone in support of the Left Wing below the Gangway on these benches at that time. If the right hon. Gentleman could name those of his hon. or right hon. Friends who gave one word of support to the Israelis in their fight before they were certain to win, I should be delighted to hear the names. He can number on the fingers of his one hand the members of his own party who backed him when he supported the Israelis at the time when things looked bad for them.

The right hon. Gentleman, from his position as Leader of the Opposition, has come out today with a demand for a complete economic blockade of Egypt undertaken unilaterally by this country. [Interruption.] That is what he said. We were to refuse absolutely to pay any of the sterling balances and bring such economic pressure on the Egyptians as would bring them to heel. He asked what on earth the Egyptians sent to this country. He said they got everything from us and we got nothing from them.

He is concerned with re-armament. Very well. Where shall we get Egyptian cotton during this period of economic blockade? I should like to get this thing right. It is a little easier for the other side to demand an economic blockade—in part without the consent of the United States—than it would be to carry it out if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford were in power.

When he came to Persia, and indeed in his whole treatment of the Middle East, the right hon. Gentleman's only real criticism of the Government was a nostalgia for what he so charmingly described as "our Oriental Empire." One does not make a policy by having a nostalgia for the Indian Army. We have to make a policy on the assumption that there is not an Indian Army to send to Basra, or wherever it might be, to bring people to heel. That is not the world in which we live, but that is the world in which the right hon. Gentleman still psychologically resides.

His second great demand was for strength, for firmness, for showing the flag—if possible an Anglo-American flag —with a view to—

I never mentioned the word "flag" or "showing the flag" in the whole of my lengthy discourse.

It was my fault for using a vulgar cliché where the right hon. Gentleman's rhetoric is far more stirring. But the substance of it was that we should be "stronger" and show how strong we were. I would remind him that this policy has been tried in the Middle East. Lord Killearn did exactly what we have been told by so many people is the way to handle the Egyptians. In order to effect a change of Government in 1942, he arranged for tanks to break into the Royal Palace and deliberately insulted the King. We are suffering still from the appalling scar on Egyptian national honour which this piece of toughness with the Egyptians has produced.

I hope the hon. Member will also recognise that it was thanks to Lord Killearn's firm action that we had a friendly Government in Egypt when Marshal Rommel marched in Alexandria.

On the contrary. The bringing of tanks and the rest of the paraphernalia of "being great and strong Imperialists" was not necessary to bring about the change of Government we wanted; and it has produced deep hatred against this country to this day. This is the whole difference between the Tory back benches and ourselves. They think that if one puts tanks in a palace that will "really show 'em." They want the oil installations protected by military force. They say, "Show the flag, use force, because that is the only language the lesser breeds understand."

I suggest it was tried in Egypt and in Palestine. In Palestine, 100,000 British troops were employed for a tough policy to break Jewish nationalism, with the incitement of hon. Gentlemen opposite who cheered when every Jewish leader was arrested. [Interruption.] Yes; my own side did it, but with full support from the Conservatives. They tried the Tory trick of being tough with the Jews.

Thank goodness, they have learned the lesson that in the Middle East this crude idea that we can treat people in this way, and knock them about or threaten to knock them about, does not work. Even when hon. Members opposite propose it, and it gets printed in every Arab newspaper that this is really what we want to do, this has the most disastrous results. Even since the last debate on Persia, it has made hon. Members on the back benches opposite look silly.

You wait.

I suggest to the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head) and others that they should read his speech in the last debate. Last time we were solemnly advised by the Tory back benchers that the Government must declare its determination to defend the installations in Persia. Then they were supported by a certain noble Lord who is the Leader of the Tories in another place.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Woodford on having departed so far from the company of his back benchers, up to this afternoon at least, that he did not support them in this demand that the installations should be protected. He was extremely careful. He only said that we should protect British personnel. If we send troops only to protect British personnel, the troops cannot be kept in Abadan indefinitely if the personnel are in danger.

I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman is walking so delicately, like Agag. He must satisfy his back benchers that he is tough, and yet he knows that no serious person can propose the course of action which the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton advised us to take last time. If we had done as he said six weeks ago and had put our troops into Persia, The Hague Court would not have given a decision in our favour, and Mr. Harriman's mission would have been impossible. We should have been engaged in military operations—in aggression.

rose—

The hon. and gallant Gentleman will be able to make his speech later. I should like to hear his reply, and I will sit quiet throughout his speech. Thank heavens we have here in the Foreign Secretary somebody who has not been lured into the belief that strong arm methods pay in the Middle East.

On the other hand, I must say to the Foreign Secretary that I regard his picture of what has been achieved in the last five years as extremely optimistic. When I listened to his statement of the record of our great achievements, and his suggestion that we were getting on splendidly—

I did not say we were getting on splendidly. I said that some very important things had been done.

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. Perhaps between us we can dispel the impression that things are going on splendidly. In fact, things are terribly dangerous.

I should like to put to my right hon. Friend four propositions. First of all, we have a responsibility in the Middle East rather like the American responsibility for Europe. Just as it is no good the U.S.A. doling out arms and men to Europe, just as it is necessary for Europe to defend herself, so the Middle East can only be defended if the people in that area are willing to do it themselves. Yet it is a fact that there is no country in the Middle East today which willingly accepts the presence of our troops. The right hon. Gentleman said that we had good relations with Iraq. Three years ago a Treaty of Portsmouth was signed. It was at once repudiated in Baghdad and no one there has dared to mention it again, so hostile is Iraqi public opinion to any connection with this country. It is a very dangerous situation when in Egypt, Iraq, and now, I fear, in Jordan, to be pro-British is regarded as high treason.

The right hon. Member for Woodford, in his moving references to Abdullah the other day. said two things—that he had been a faithful ally of Britain and that he was a true friend of the Jews. I thought, when I was listening to this obituary, that if he had spoken it about Abdullah while he was alive, it would have been tantamount to sentencing him to death. For those are the two most terrible things of which an Arab can be accused in the Middle East today. Surely we must consider the matter in its full seriousness. It is a desperately serious thing for this country that being pro-British or pro-Jewish in the Arab world is tantamount to being "bumped off." Unless we grasp the seriousness of the situation, we cannot find the correct remedies for it.

In the second place, broadly speaking, in the Middle East there is not a single country outside Israel and Turkey capable of defending itself or willing to lend a hand in any war—except on the winning side. So in 1940, so again in 1951. It is no good talking about allies in a situation of that sort. How has this come about? The right hon. Member for Woodford made his diagnosis of how we have come to this pass.

I thought the hon. Gentleman was turning on his right hon. Friend.

Oh, no. I have now switched back to the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Member for Woodford omitted a most important thing in his diagnosis which was stressed by the Foreign Secretary. For a generation we have grossly underrated the importance of nationalism in the Middle East. It is no good saying these nationalists are wicked people. I was a little nervous when the Foreign Secretary said that there were good nationalists and excessive nationalists. The Boston Tea Party was regarded in London as somewhat excessive nationalism when it took place. When Generals Smuts and Botha fought us, they were regarded by us as excessive nationalists. Mr. Ben Gurion was once thought to be an excessive nationalist—before he won the war.

What was Hitler?

Of course, there are excessive nationalists, but I am saying to the Foreign Secretary that if he thinks that every Arab who is awkward is excessive and should not be brought into a government, he would be mistaken by taking the advice of most of his officials in the Middle East. Recently I was talking to one of our officials in Amman. I told him I should like to meet the national opposition. "Oh." said the official, "they are not the sort of people you ought to meet. They are not important people: they count for nothing."

The hon. Gentleman wanted to have it both ways.

I wanted to meet both sides. Of the five men I met that day, despite official disapproval three are in the Cabinet today. Because Abdullah has been murdered, the nationalists are in, and the men whom the British officials said did not count because they were excessive nationalists, are in power. The trouble is that the sort of men with whom too many of our officials consort would be torn to pieces by their own people if our troops were to move out. If we allow our policy to be maintained on the basis of propping up so-called pro-British Arabs—men who are so reactionary that in the absence of ourselves, they would be torn to pieces—then we are building our policy on dangerously weak founda- tions. That is the prime fact we must recognise—the vast importance of the nationalist opposition, legal and illegal, in all these countries.

In the second place, I agree with the right hon. Member for Woodford; believe that he is right that in the past 25 years, the tragedy is that we have conceded to violence too late the things we should have granted to our friends voluntarily. I can think of three great statesmen in the Middle East who have been murdered because of this—or to be precise two of them murdered and one made ineffective. I am thinking, first, of Dr. Weizmann. We refused to concede to our friends among the Jews what we finally conceded to force.

Secondly, there is Abdullah. Abdullah has been murdered because so great is the power of nationalism in Jordan, with half the population starving refugees, that Abdullah was regarded as an enemy simply because he wanted peace with Israel and he wanted to stand loyal to Britain. As a result, the ferment arose and he was murdered out of popular hysteria.

If we had given even £10 million to Jordan for the re-settlement of those refugees in the last few years, we should have given Abdullah a chance to survive. Now we shall give the £10 million and give it probably too late to preserve democracy and preserve our position. The same is true of Razmara. In Persia in the end we shall grant infinitely more than Razmara asked, and we shall grant it to those who shot him because he was pro-British.

This is the very opposite of the view of the Tory back benchers that what we want is a "strong" policy. If in the last six years we had made the concessions we shall now have to make in Persia—and we shall have to make them because of nationalism—if we had made in Jordan an effort to help to re-settle the refugees; if we had made in Palestine the concession of a Jewish State which we refused, we could have saved our friends from their political or actual physical extinction.

The tragedy of the Middle East is this —concession to violence too late. If we could only learn that lesson and only say to ourselves from now on, "We will not believe that time will settle things." I know that in some western countries, in Britain for instance, it is often true to say that, if you leave a thing, time will settle it. The natural inclination of British statesmen is to say—especially when advised by experts—" Well, do not let us settle this; do not let us decide anything; it might settle itself." It is the one rule of the Middle East that nothing ever settles itself and that everything gets worse if you have not the courage to make up your mind—everything, every time.

What matters in the Middle East is bold policy and firm decision. It is better to decide the wrong thing than to decide nothing at all when dealing with the peoples of the Middle East. Because if you do not decide, if you let time settle things, you are regarded as weak, vacillating and contemptible, and finally, as people only fit to be thrown out.

I want to make three positive suggestions to the Foreign Secretary about how we might strengthen our position. My first is this. Let us give up using the big stick to keep reactionaries in power who are pro-British only because they are so unpopular in their own country. That is number one. Secondly, let us please recognise that the politicians who represent the mass of the people in the Middle East today are all out of Government and nearly all of them in jail.

It is no good having someone in power simply because he is pro-British and then encouraging him to lock up anybody and everybody in the opposition. In the end he will be "bumped off" and we shall have nobody left at all. Let us recognise that and let us make every effort in future negotiations to demand that the nationalist opposition are brought into every negotiation we have. In Iraq for instance it will be a wise precaution to bring into any future oil negotiations the nationalist politicians who very likely are going to obtain power in the next five years—because nationalism is growing very fast in Iraq.

The next suggestion I want to make is that, whatever else we do, we should not be under the delusion that economic aid by itself solves anything in the Middle East. We can pour money into the Middle East, but if it goes into the wrong hands it will not be used usefully for the people, and if pit goes without political settlement accompanying it, we shall merely be thought to be attempting to bribe the people of the Middle East. The result will be to strengthen their nationalism.

When the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company last February, as the Foreign Secretary said, found that it was possible to pay twice as much as they had been paying in the last six years, the result was not gratitude; the result was to ask why we could pay twice as much as a result of a bit of pressure and then to demand nationalisation as well, since we had not attempted a political solution, the mere granting of double royalties merely increased the rapacity of the demand.

First of all, then, we have to get a political framework in the Middle East and then we can start the economic aid. But what political framework? As a result of the death of King Abdullah, many doubt whether Jordan can survive as an integrated state. There are profound divisions between Palestinians and Trans-Jordanians who were held together only by the personality of the King. Half of the population are destitute refugees. The justification for Jordan was Abdullah.

I ask the Foreign Secretary to consider whether it is not now time for Jordan to be merged with Iraq in a larger unit. I know that would be very unpopular. The Egyptians, for instance, would complain. But unless we are forward-looking and bold and, seeing Jordan disintegrating, we at least do something definite, we shall be faced with the fact of disintegration and it will be too late to take action.

My third suggestion concerns the problem of Egypt and the refugees. I suppose the unhappiest part of the world, the most miserable piece of the world, is the Gaza strip—a strip of land cutoff from Palestine, attached to Egypt, but cut off by a range of desert, where 100,000 refugees are living in absolute destitution under the Egyptian Army. Why not negotiate with Egypt and Israel to make Gaza a British base and take the responsibility for these refugees, whom neither Egypt or Israel will look after? That is the sort of policy which will catch the imagination of the Middle East. It will create a lot of opposition but at least it will be proof that we are looking for something constructive.

Let me sum up. I think the Middle East today is the supreme proof that the Western Powers actually become weaker and not stronger by giving re-armament an overriding priority. For the more we think of arms and armaments in the Middle East, the less support we have. If we go to the Egyptians or the Syrians or the Iraki for military bases, they say, "There are one million Arab refugees for whom you have done nothing for about three years except leave it to U.N.O. and pay £4 million." The figures are £4,700 million for armaments and £4 million for Arab refugees. That is the contribution of this country so far, and an Arab measures our British sense of relative importance by comparing those figures and he concludes, "They want the bases here, they want the oil here, but they do not care about the people here."

As long as we give that impression we shall never have the people on our side, and if we do not have the people of the area wanting to defend themselves, then whatever defence we may create will fall to pieces in the stress and under the arbitrement of war. The lesson of the Middle East, therefore, is that social and economic and political policy must never be subjugated to strategy unless we are willing to destroy ourselves.

6.9 p.m.

I am glad that I have the opportunity of following the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), although to follow him completely needs an agility of which I am not certain that I am entirely capable. In the course of my speech I shall come to many of the points which he raised, but I thought that not the least interesting was the suggestion he made to those responsible for selecting the Governments of the Middle East that those who were going to form these Governments in five years' time should now be brought into office. I cannot help feeling that if that philosophy were applied here we should have a very interesting situation vis-à-vis the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan).

I want to be as brief as possible. Of the three areas in which are now engaged in the cold war—that is to say, the Atlantic Pact area, the Far East and the Middle East—I do not think any hon. Member would dispute that far the least satisfactory area, and that in which there is the least unity, both in planning and in policy, is that of the Middle East. That is incidentally the area in which at present we have the major responsibility.

There are many hon. Members on this side of the House who are genuinely and firmly convinced that our present position —our unsatisfactory position—in the Middle East is due to six years of weakness, vacillation and short-sightedness of policy on the part of the present Government. People may say, "That is just Opposition talk," but there are a large number of us who are interested in this matter who genuinely believe that, and I should like to try to explain why we think that, because it is not unimportant that each side of the House should share the. other's views, and this is, in my view, too important a matter for a purely partisan speech.

Ever since I have heard speeches about the Middle East in this House—not for very long: six years—the majority of the speeches from the opposite side have been concentrated on one particular aspect. Perhaps it is to over-stress it, but I should say that hon. Members opposite have regarded the Middle East as a kind of vast slum area which needs a rapid rise in the standard of living and a kind of Socialism brought to it to improve the lot of the fellaheen and other peasants. These are entirely worthy and estimable desires, but I so often feel that many of those who advocate them do not realise the appalling conditions in which people are living in the Middle East—do not realise the present state of the fellaheen or of the Persian peasants, or the utter corruption, incompetence and hopelessness of the Governments of many of those countries, or the full magnitude of this task.

Far too much concentration has been put upon this vast though desirable task, and far too little on keeping British prestige alive in the Middle East—because, paradoxically enough, the very thing that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to bring about, an improvement in the standard of living, can be brought about only if our prestige and influence with the Governments in the Middle East are high. If our prestige disappears, are we going to influence the Persian Government or the Egyptian Government or the pashas to be very provident and to look after the fellaheen and others better? The only land where there has been a marked rise in the standard of living in the Middle East is the Sudan, where British influence and prestige are greatest.

Turkey?

Turkey—that, of course, was largely through a dictatorship, and I think that hon. Members would agree that that is a method on which we in this House are not particularly keen. We have not interfered in Turkish affairs very much. I am saying that we have let go or tended to depreciate British prestige, which constitutes the one method of getting that which hon. Members desire so much. In these last six years something which has been built up laboriously year after year in the past has been dissipated at a really astonishing speed.

Nations are not unlike individuals where the summing up and assessing of policies and the characters of others are concerned. The "buzz goes round"—to use a colloquialism—in the Middle East about what can and cannot be done about Britain. If the hon. Member for Coventry, East, and I had been at school together, suppose I had heard that if I caused any trouble to him or got up to any nonsense with him he would turn out to be a very tough type, though fair; then probably I should have left him alone.

But suppose that I was told that not only would he do nothing if I kicked his backside—I apologise, Sir—not only would there be no reprisal, but that he would be likely to give me a piece of toffee as well, then, doubtless the hon. Member for Coventry, East, would know exactly what to expect and very often too. That is exactly and precisely the case in the Middle East. The Egyptians have come along and kicked us where I said; and what did the Government do? They turned round and gave them a bit of toffee—that is to say a very, very, satisfactory settlement of the sterling balances.

What I say to hon. Members is that this method of acting is extremely catching, and now in the Middle East they see that Britain's prestige is on the down and down, and they say, "You can twist the lion's tail and get away with it. Let us be in on this." It is that state of affairs which has developed in the last six years, which is the root cause of the Persian problem. It has grown up during these years. It is not a sudden phenomenon or a bit of bad luck. It is the logical continuation and result of six years of weakness.

Fifteen years.

I say the last six years. The hon. Gentleman says 15; but, as he himself said—and it is very nice to be able to agree with him—if some settlement could have been arranged between the Persians and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company two or three years ago, it would have been worth 50 times the arrangements which are now being sought.

There has been, in my opinion, so far as Persia is concerned, a lack of foresight, and a lack of liaison between the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and a very great lack of contact on general policy between us and America. This situation was easily foreseeable. Had the Persians known that we and America would have stood as closely together as we do now, I doubt very much whether this would ever have happened.

One month ago we had a debate in this House about Persia. I do not believe that in the short time I have been a Member of this House I have seen more unanimity in the House on this particular question. There was the exception of the hon. Member for Coventry, East, but speaker after speaker on both sides got up and said, "We must stay in Persia. Evacuation would be disastrous." Members on both sides said so.

Me, too.

I do not know what the hon. Gentleman really meant, although I have read his speech three or four times. However, my impression is that there was unanimity about this matter. Then at the end of that debate we listened to what I considered the most lamentable speech by a Foreign Secretary I have ever heard.

Subsequently, in the light of the unanimity of this House, that we must stay in Persia, and that evacuation would be disastrous—and there was a most eloquent speech from the other side of the House about that subject—in the light of that, the Foreign Secretary made a statement to the House that I must quote. Hon. Members accuse me and others of being warmongers, but this is what the Foreign Secretary said:

"At all events, it is clear that conditions are becoming intolerable."

That is, conditions in Persia.

"Our attitude remains the same. The Company has no desire to withdraw from an in- dusty which it has built and brought into a high state of efficiency. Yet this, with all the disastrous consequences to Persia that would ensue, is what the Persian Government appear bent on forcing the Company to do."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1951; Vol. 489, c. 2508.]

I repeat, "…the. Persian Government appear bent on forcing the Government to do."

That, in my opinion, is about as disastrous a statement as could have been made. What does it do? First, it has the effect of saying to the hard-pressed, unfortunate employees of the Company, out there in the boiling sun and subject to Persian insults, that if the state of affairs gets much worse we shall move out. If one is in a very difficult position and, as it were, holding a last-man, last-ditch, position, any talk of evacuation is always disastrous to the morale of the people concerned. The second effect of the statement is to encourage the Persians to say, "One more heave and they are out." It suggests to the agitators and the Persians in the oil fields that if they pinch another chap's house or insult one more Briton, we may go. I maintain that that statement was the worst possible statement in the circumstances.

Hon. Members opposite say that we are warmongers, but we did not say in that debate categorically—as the hon. Member for Coventry, East, tried to make out that I said—that we should send troops. What I said most carefully—and I repeat—was that we on this side cannot possibly know whether the troops are available and what the circumstances are or whether it would be a practicable operation. What we said was that we should stand firm, and we submitted that the logical consequence of standing firm might involve the dispatch of troops.

But when we say, "We stand firm," there is no obligation in foreign policy to state the number of troops. Supposing the Foreign Secretary had no intention of sending troops because it was impracticable, or because, for the sake of argument, there were not enough troops, he should still have said, "We stand firm." The Persians do not know that he has got no troops, and by saying that we encourage the oil company, discourage the Persians, and, if you like it, bluff. But to say that we might get out if they push harder is sheer ineptitude. All hon. Members do when we say that we should stand firm is to say that we are the "gunboat policy boys." Incidentally, while talking about gunboats, I notice that there are nine gunboats outside Abadan now. Apparently it does not seem to matter so long as hon. Members opposite send the gunboats.

That is quite right. That is the whole difference.

The hon. Gentleman displays the same immense lack of bias that he displays in all these matters.

Frankly, I am getting sick and tired of this long and constant accusation of "warmongers." They all call us warmongers. What is a warmonger? As far as I know, a warmonger is somebody who advocates a policy which, if put into effect, would make a war more likely. That is what I understand a warmonger to be. Now, what is the way in which war is most likely today? What would be the easiest way to encourage, for instance, Russian aggression? I say that Russian aggression will increase by the proportion that our defences are weak, or that there is lack of unity among the Allies, especially between Britain and America.

Now who is advocating no full re-armament drive? Who is making remarks calculated to drive a wedge between Britain and America? The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). If hon. Members opposite want a warmonger to point their fingers at, the logical person is to turn them on to him, and the ragtag and bobtail pack who follow him. They are the warmongers. They say that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wood-ford (Mr. Churchill) is a warmonger.

I never said that.

All I can say is that, if the hon. Gentleman has not said so he is very nearly the only one on his side of the House who has not. This has been their constant theme.

Throughout my speech I drew a sharp distinction between the relative sanity of the Leader of the Opposition and the insanity of his hon. Friends on the back benches behind him.

On this particular occasion the hon. Gentleman may not have said so. Certainly the Minister of Defence called him a "war-horse," which is a new expression.

His old friend Stalin called him that.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite keep calling my right hon. Friend a warmonger, but, when we consider how war comes about, it is worth noticing that when my right hon. Friend was advocating the only sane policy in those dismal years before the war, hon. Members opposite were tramping through the Lobbies against re-armament, and fighting by-elections against re-armament. Yet, it is they who call my right hon. Friend a warmonger. Personally, I think that there is only one real reason for it, and that is votes. That is the only reason for a great many of the contradictory statements that come from the other side of the House. In my opinion, there is nothing more dismal than a party which plays ducks and drakes with the nation's safety in order to gain votes.

I think that in the Middle East now there is still a chance of restoring the situation. If we and America together can bring closer unity between Greece, Turkey and Iraq, and perhaps other Arab countries as well, if we have a tougher and more enlightened policy, if we show some foresight, then I think we may still pull the situation out of the fire. But whether we succeed or not—and pray God we shall—we on this side of the House will never forget that that task has been made so much harder by the lack of foresight and determination of this Government, a failure which, in its long list of blunders, will long remain a classic.

6.25 p.m.

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) is absent from the Chamber. He was present when I came in, and I want to make a few remarks about his speech, which I consider irresponsible and deplorable, and little more than cheap party propaganda. I will take a few of the things he said. It is not pleasant, but I presume he was speaking for his party, and whoever replies for the Opposition can answer some of the points I raise, much against my will. In my opinion, we are living in most serious times; we are dealing with a serious crisis, and the things the right hon. Gentleman brought up today need never have been mentioned. However, as he has mentioned them, I also must mention them.

He said, perfectly truly, that our position as a nation suffered from weakness owing to the loss of the great and historic Indian Army. We admit that; everyone who has ever lived in the East knows that it is true. The implication of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks is, of course, that we have got rid of the Indian Army by our policy in India. He did not say so. I wish that he would say so, because then we could deal with it.

We have lost the Indian Army because India has got her independence, and giving India her independence is one of the finest things the Labour Government has done. The right hon. Member for Woodford tried to prevent us from giving India independence, and even suggested that we should send troops from Palestine to fight the Indians, to keep them down and rule by force. If the right hon. Gentleman's policy about India had been pursued, we might today not be fighting with the Indian Army on our side, but still fighting the Indian Army. That is a fact, which everyone who has lived with this problem in the East knows.

At the time we were debating the Indian Independence Act, I opposed the right hon. Gentleman's views and said that we might need our forces nearer home rather than have them fighting the Indians, the Burmese and the rest. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely off the rails when he accuses us of the loss of the Indian Army. Thank goodness we are not fighting the Indian Army.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the conflict between India and Pakistan was inevitable when the Government skedaddled out of India without settling the fate of Kashmir and Hyderabad? It was inevitable that those two countries would come into conflict.

Different settlements were proposed at the time. The federation of the whole of India was proposed by the Labour Government here, but the Indian parties refused to accept it. I cannot say that the quarrel between India and Pakistan over Kashmir was inevitable. I think I would agree that it was likely. But what would have happened if we had stayed? Would that have solved Indian problems? There would have been blood- shed between the two parties; we should have been mixed up in it, and our boys would have been killed.

I know that the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows India. So do I, and I can assure him that the people on the spot, including the people who know best of all —the Indian civil servants, who have spent their lives amongst the people and know their religions, their habits, customs and races—advised us to leave as quickly as possible. What the hon. and gallant Gentleman says may be true, but if the Indians and the rest were going to fight it out, our job was to be out of it and not to be mixed up in the bloodshed.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned Palestine, but if there is one person guilty of the mess that resulted from Palestine, it is the right hon. Gentleman himself. He made speeches on this subject in 1920 and 1921—I am speaking from memory, although I think the date is right, because I know this subject backwards—when he said that there was not to be a Jewish State, that we never promised them anything except a Jewish National Home, a home for the Jews in Palestine.

No.

Yes, excuse me.

Would my hon. Friend permit me—

Let me finish my sentence. The right hon. Gentleman at that time opposed the creation of a Jewish State. He was a Zionist and backed up the Jews. What is the result today? What have we gained even materially from what is happening today in Palestine? We have 900,000 Arab refugees, and a crime has been committed in which the right hon. Gentleman took part when he was Colonial Secretary.

In fact Members on both sides of the House stated quite categorically, including the right hon. Gentleman, that the ultimate object, was to allow the Jewish people to have a State in Palestine.

That is quite incorrect. Mr. Lloyd George said that long afterwards. He said that if the Jews should become a majority in Palestine they should then become a State. The whole policy was iniquitous. It was a blot on the good name of the West, and perhaps the biggest blot of all was on the part of America, who won an election with Jewish support fighting for partition of Palestine, aided and abetted by Russia. We are now reaping the aftermath.

The right hon. Gentleman should never have mentioned Palestine. It has been the cause of frightful friction in the East. The right hon. Gentleman accused us of weakness. He forgot to mention that since the war an immense force has risen to power, namely, the Soviet and its huge army. He says that we were weak. As a matter of fact, we were engaged, and have been since the end of the war, in Greece and in other parts of the world in resisting Soviet Communist imperialism, and therefore we have had to turn our eyes for the moment away from the Falkland Islands and other minor issues. The right hon. Gentleman knows these things well, but he has to make a propaganda speech.

Then he came along with the question of sterling balances. I want to ask Members of the Opposition a few questions about that subject. When were the sterling balances created? Who made the arrangements that created the sterling balances? Was it the Labour Government who made an arrangement with India, Ceylon and the rest during the war about how the Indian Army operations, for instance, were to be financed? Was it a Conservative Government or a Coalition Government? Now the right hon. Gentleman says that these sterling balances were spent in saving the countries concerned. That is largely true, but I ask the Opposition, "Do you suggest that we should now repudiate the repayment of sterling balances? If you do not, why try to make party capital out of the sterling balances arranged by yourselves and the Coalition Government?" All this makes me sick.

We have to pay back the sterling balances if only for the rehabilitation of backward areas. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, I think, are in favour of spending money for the rehabilitation of the backward areas. If they are not, I hope that they will deny it. Are we to go to these backward countries and say, "Give up your sterling balances; we will not pay them in full but will give you hundreds of millions of money under the Colombo Plan?" What are the sterling balances due now from India and Ceylon? Instead of giving them the money, we are giving them hundreds of millions out of the sterling balances. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite before I leave this subject, "Do the Opposition repudiate repayment of the sterling balances?" If not, we say, "Hold your peace."

It is a curious coincidence that about three years ago the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head) and I spoke one after the other about the Middle East. He knows the Middle East and I know it, too. I remember that on that occasion he stressed the danger of the Middle East and the need for some sort of pact to protect the Middle East. I backed him up. Anyone who knows the strategic position there should realise the immense danger to the West and the opportunity for Soviet imperialism if the Middle East is not defended. We had not the means to defend it. Stalin has seen that we stretched our resources from Korea to Hong Kong, to Malaya and the rest, and that is extremely dangerous.

I wish to say to some of my friends in the Arab countries—and I have some friends there—and to the Persians and others from Syria to the Timor Sea that they are living in a state of unprecedented peril. To the north of them, and on all sides are the countries of Soviet imperialism and in their midst are the Communist parties, in Persia the Tudeh Party, for instance.

I would ask these people in the Middle East a simple question: "Why has not Communist imperialism attacked you already by force?" I asked one of them the other day. He said, "We are too far away and they would have to come a long way." At last I forced him to answer. I said, "The real reason is that you, like ourselves, are being defended by the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and without that you would not exist for a week." In the end, he was bound to admit that was so; and that is what is going on.

In these countries—I will take Persia first—they are disgracing themselves by repudiating the contract made with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and secondly they are fiddling while Rome is burning. They have on the borders the Soviet power which is only kept off by the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. They are endangering their country by this attempt at confiscation of the property of their protectors. All these countries want capital to be pumped in and European enterprise. Who is going to sink capital in these countries after what has happened in Burma and is now happening in Persia? These people are behaving like children. They are ruining themselves and trying to ruin the world, which is trying to back them up against Communist imperialism.

This reckless conduct is happening not only in Persia but everywhere in many countries, except perhaps in Ceylon. We have in India people fighting about Kashmir, and all the time the great Indian and Pakistan armies are facing each other in Kashmir, though Soviet troops are on the border. Even if they cannot settle this question of Kashmir now, they should refer it to arbitration, settle it somehow and join forces with the West to prevent the whole of India and Pakistan from being gobbled up by Russia. There is parochialism everywhere and at the back of their minds is this idea: "We may fight between ourselves and behave parochially, but in the end the Western Powers will protect us from Russia." That is at the back of their heads the whole time, and it may prove to be quite a fallacious theory of security.

In contrast with these States which are not lifting a hand to join the West and save themselves and us from conquest by Communist Imperialism, there are at least two exceptions—Turkey and Greece. I know these countries well, especially Turkey. I say to my Turkish friends that, however poor the country's people may be and the difficulties they may be in, they have the morale, and we can depend upon them. In Greece there is a lot of political friction, but the Greeks are ready to fight. I commend the example of Turkey and Greece to the people further East who are squabbling over domestic politics and other things, and who should do their best, even with their limited means, to set up a united force and pledge themselves to join the West in the attempt to save the civilisation of the world.

I do not agree very much with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), but there was one thing which he said with which I do agree. There is a lot of talk now about the rehabilitation of the backward areas. But political problems have to be settled before real success can be achieved. I very much doubt if the people who talk about such things realise the colossal and enormous difficulties ahead. Take the system of Mushaa land tenure in Palestine. How can anything be done as long as there are people who occupy a piece of ground for two years and then hand it over to someone else? Take the Zemindar system in India or the landlord system in any country in the Far East. Unless one can get some unoccupied crown or public land, it may take years to do anything. There are immense difficulties of that kind.

Again, those who have read the report of the Colombo Plan will note the proposal to spend £2,000 million on sound wealth producing schemes in the East. The authors say that if the schemes are carried out in six years there will be produced enough wealth to meet the increase in the population in the meantime. I would say to my hon. Friends in the East that there is no use in going on expecting the Powers of the West to spend their blood and treasure in saving them and also, in supplying their vast economic needs.

We have 65 million people in our Colonies, excluding the Protectorates, and there are hundreds of millions of others in need. The people of the West cannot provide the necessities of life or even prevent starvation in those countries of the East and of Africa. There has got to be a social revolution there, and I say to my friends of the East that they must introduce some form of birth control. If they do not, nothing can save them. Mr. Nehru himself has said so; so I can do the same.

I have said perhaps some blunt things to my friends in the East, especially my Arab friends. One day I was talking to an Arab and saying things such as I have been mentioning today. He told me that they had an Arab proverb which said that if a friend threw stones at them the stones became pomegranates. I find that the people in the Middle East do not object to being told the truth bluntly. Those whom they despise are the people who do not tell them the truth.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East, made several recommendations, one of which was to merge Jordan and Iraq in a greater Syria. He suggested that we should do it, but I say we should do nothing of the kind. That is an entirely wrong approach. The people out there have got to do it. When I came back from Palestine in 1938, my advice was that the only way we could solve the whole Jewish problem was to merge Palestine, Iraq and Syria in la State. If that could be done, there would be a State with room for all. I therefore agree with my hon. Friend's suggestion, but what I object to is telling these people in the East that we must do it. They must do it, and the responsibility must be on them. If they will not save themselves, nobody else can.

I want to say one word about the confiscation of the oil refinery at Abadan. I do not know all the facts, but I was in entire agreement with His Majesty's Government in not rushing into arms straight away on a ticklish problem like this, apart altogether from the fact that once military operations are started in that part of the world the Lord alone knows where they may end.

Therefore, I appreciate the efforts of the Foreign Secretary to go cautiously and to see if peace and justice cannot be secured by negotiation. I think they can. I hope they can. I do not think the Persians are so demented that they are going to ruin themselves so long as they see we are not going to kowtow to everything they demand. I sincerely hope that, whatever happens about the negotiations and the risks that have to be taken, we will not surrender the oil company or Abadan.

6.45 p.m.

I should like at the outset to join in the last sentiment expressed by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid). There is an increasing feeling on both sides of the House that whatever happens we must never abandon British lives or British installations in Abadan.

Most of us have received with satisfaction the news that there is a prospect of resuming negotiations on a civilised basis with the Persian Government. For my part, I have also been very glad to see that this news has been received without any excessive enthusiasm. There is always a tendency in moments of this kind to jump at the idea of getting any kind of settlement, a tendency against which we must be on our guard. We must be very careful to ensure that any settlement that is reached is consistent, both with British honour and with British interests.

We must take our stand on the ruling laid down by The Hague Court. There can be no question of a satisfactory settlement if we are negotiating under duress. We must also make quite sure that whatever settlement is reached assures the British people of an adequate return on the effort and the outlay which has been made in building up the oil industry in Persia. I have been told that the revenue which accrues to the Treasury from the efforts of the Anglo-Iranian Company amounts to somewhere between £30 million and £40 million a year. The loss of this sum would be equivalent to one groundnut scheme every year.

We have also to take into consideration the possibility that the negotiations will not succeed. If that is the case then it must be the duty of the Government, as has been said by others today, to take all the necessary measures to protect British lives and British installations in Abadan. It is not for us to say, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head) has said, by what means we are to achieve this, but all necessary means must be employed, including a resort to force if necessary.

We must, however, be clear that no settlement of our present differences with Persia will by itself restore stability to the Middle East. The Persian crisis is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only another symptom of the decline of British influence throughout the whole of the Middle East. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) has already traced the course of events which has marked that decline—the story of our scuttle from Palestine, and our unhappy relations with Egypt and Iraq. I do not want to repeat this story, but it is against this background of weakness and withdrawal that we must consider recent events in Persia. They do not excuse the actions of Dr. Mossadeq and his colleagues, but they go a long way to explain them.

We must look closer at what the decline of British influence has meant to the peoples of the Middle East. There cannot be a vacuum in politics, and our place has been taken by factious groups of local leaders, very few of whom have either the experience, or the wisdom, or the power to govern effectively.

Independence has proved a very mixed blessing to the nations of the Middle East. I remember once asking an Egyptian peasant what he thought about it all. He told me in ungrammatical but rather expressive terms what he thought. He said, "Independence good for Pasha, bad for fella. British rule good for fella, bad for Pasha." So long as British influence prevailed in the Middle East there was at least some measure of justice and personal security. Now most of that has gone. In Egypt, even Cromer's law, under which no peasant could be deprived of the last four feddans of his land, has become a dead letter.

It would have been sad enough if the decline of British influence had only led to an extension of the area of misgovernment; but its consequences have been more sinister. Misgovernment breeds discontent, and, to divert the wrath of the people from their own misgovernment, the ruling groups in the Middle East have often found it tempting to make the foreigner, particularly the British, a scapegoat for all ills.

They have deliberately encouraged zenophobia, and, in this process, have unleashed terrorist forces which they can no longer control. For six years now, the whole Middle East has been in the grip of an epidemic of terrorism. The list of assassinations and attempted assassinations is formidable. At least a dozen of the leading men of Syria. Egypt, the Lebanon, Jordan and Persia have been struck down. Many of those men were our friends: Ahmed Maher and Amin Osman, in Egypt, General Razmara in Persia. the late Prime Minister of the Lebanon and, most grievous of all, our ally King Abdullah.

Nor is the influence of terrorism to be measured only by its victims. We are told that in Persia the moderate elements dare not raise their voice. The situation is not very different in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. In all of those countries our friends go in fear of their lives. These killings of moderate leaders are not just mad outbursts of fanaticism. They are acts of deliberate policy and it is very hard to believe that they are not all part of a common design. It is certainly easy enough to see whose interests are served. Communism, as such, is still a very weak force in the Middle East, but for some years it has been Soviet policy in that part of the world to penetrate and to work through extremist and terrorist organisations.

But Soviet policy is not the only or even the chief cause of terrorism. We have to recognise that there is another. We British have taught the Middle Eastern peoples that terrorism pays. It is a lesson which they have learned only too well. The other day we passed in this House a solemn Motion deploring the assassination of King Abdullah. It was very right that we should, but I wonder how many of us realised that the real responsibility for King Abdullah's death lies here, in Whitehall. King Abdullah was killed because he was a friend of Britain, and because the peoples of the Middle East no longer believe that Britain can or will protect her friends.

In the context of the present international situation, stability can only return to the Middle East by a build-up of British military power. I agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just resumed his seat; it is no good drooling away about Point Four or the development of backward areas by themselves. We may buy off Dr. Mossadeq for a time with promises of help for his seven-year plan, but until we have built up military power in the Middle East we shall have settled nothing.

For this purpose we must have an adequate base. Egypt alone possesses the natural advantages which are required for this purpose. It is sufficiently far removed from the potential military front. It has the harbours, the airfields, the communications and the labour force that can sustain a major military operation. For six years the Government have sought to conciliate the Egyptian regime. Seldom in history has good will been so ill requited, but though we may not win the favour of the rulers of Egypt we may still win their respect. It is high time that we turned our backs on any attempt to appease the Egyptian Government. I am glad to hear the Foreign Secretary indicate that we have no intention of withdrawing our troops from the Canal zone.

I hope that he will also take a strong line to ensure a free passage for our tankers through the Suez Canal. Here, I feel bound to say that it was a great mistake to leave it to Israel to raise this question in the Security Council. The issue is not primarily one between Arabs and Jews. Nor should we allow, still less encourage, issues to be raised which will increase the tension between those two races. In this matter of the Suez Canal, British rights and British interests are at stake far more than those of Israel. It is the British Government which should have brought the matter to the attention of the Security Council if, indeed, that is the right way to raise it at all.

There must be an end to the wholly artificial state of war between Israel and the Arab countries. We should not be afraid to apply very strong pressure to both sides to achieve this end. Of the issues at stake only two, I believe, are serious. There is, first, the question of Arab refugees. Something must be done, and done urgently, to resettle these victims of the war. We should make a greater effort than the Foreign Secretary indicates that we are prepared to make at the present time. After all, there never would have been a war if we had not run away from our responsibilities in Palestine. It is also important for the future peace of the Middle East that Israel should make a contribution to their resettlement. Her finances are already strained, but we should be prepared, either directly or through the International Bank, to help her raise a loan for this purpose.

The other important issue that stands in the way of a settlement is one of confidence. Neither the Arabs nor the Jews trust the other's signature. There must be an international guarantee that the terms of any eventual peace treaty will be upheld. There must also be evidence of British strength in the Middle East to ensure that such a guarantee will, if necessary, be enforced. I am glad that the Government have at last overcome their former hostility to the new State of Israel.

Relations with Israel seem to have become more normal. I trust that we shall try to make them something closer. We have very good friends, and have had in the past, among the Jews in Palestine. We have also had some bitter enemies. In the past we made the mistake of refusing to our friends what we afterwards conceded in much greater measure to our enemies. I hope that we shall not make the same mistake again.

Today, our friends are predominant in Israel. But everything out there is still in the making. Whether the new State will prove to be a stabilising and progressive influence, as Lord Balfour hoped, or whether it will be the disruptive force its enemies have feared, will very largely depend upon the support and understanding which our friends there receive from this country in these formative years.

The outlook for the Arab world is vague and uncertain. The vacuum which France left in Syria has never been filled, and with King Abdullah's death even the future of Jordan is in question. I hope that we shall do everything possible to strengthen the Arab Legion and to reinforce our bases in Iraq. I also believe that it would be wise to break finally with the bankrupt conception of the Arab League and to pursue instead the far more constructive and practical alternative, which was also King Abdullah's policy, of closer association between Iraq, Jordan, and Syria.

British influence in the Middle East must always rest on something more than military bases. This has always been the case. The work of Milner and Cromer in Egypt, of Cox in Iraq, and of the British Administration in Palestine, meant, in their time, an extension of security and of social and economic reform to those countries. We have to go on in that way. We have to prove to the peoples of the Middle East that we are their friends. The Government might be well advised to take the initiative in suggesting the formation of some kind of O.E.E.C. for the Middle Eastern countries, an organisation in which Britain, France and Turkey might also take part and with which, I hope, the United States would be associated.

By its very nature, the work of such an organisation must be of a long-term character, but the immediate and urgent task is to build up a situation of strength for regional defence. I have already spoken of the need to build up British bases in Egypt. I do not see how, even in peace-time our Forces in that part of the world can be much fewer than three or four divisions strong. We must be able to reinforce those troops both from home and from the Commonwealth and Empire. I hope that the Commonwealth conference which took place some weeks ago resulted in concrete decisions which will help in that direction.

Does the hon. Gentleman advocate the permanent posting of three or four divisions in the Middle East? Does he hold the view that these divisions should be taken from Germany, or would he lengthen the period of National Service in order to get the extra divisions?

I believe that we could raise three or four more divisions than we have at present by a more efficient organisation of the Army.

Three or four divisions?

Yes. We could also get more colonial troops There are other ways in which such troops could be raised.

We all welcome the Foreign Secretary's decision to support the extension of the Atlantic Pact to Greece and Turkey. We all want also to see the building up of a joint Middle Eastern defence force and defence command. It is not practicable to suppose that the defence of Turkey could be organised from General Eisenhower's headquarters in Paris. We should long since have formed a joint Allied command for the defence of the Middle East, a command which should rest primarily on the British Forces in Egypt and the Turkish army, a command within which Israel and the Arab countries could each make their specific contribution.

I hope that France and the United States will also make their contribution to such a command. The French have played a great part in the Middle East in past years. It might well be a good thing that they should be associated with its defence again. Even more important is to receive the support of the United States, but we must not underestimate the burden which is already laid on the shoulders of the American people. They will help us, no doubt, but in proportion to the effort which we ourselves make. The defence of the Middle East must be primarily a British responsibility.

Events in Persia have thrown a flood of light on the extent of our weakness in the Middle East. Is that light only a warning, or is it the first flame of a conflagration which may spread throughout the region? No one can say. None of us can tell in what circumstances we shall meet again in the autumn. But the Government's duty is plain. They must uphold our rights in Persia. They must work to build up a situation of strength in the Middle East.

The issue at stake is as transcendant as any in history. If Persia were to pass under Soviet control our Turkish allies would be outflanked, Russian submarines would find a base in the Persian Gulf, and what remains of our influence in the Middle East might well be swept away. Yet the Middle East is the backbone of the Commonwealth and Empire. If it goes, the sea and air routes to Australia and India will lie not through the Middle East but through the United States and the Panama Canal.

Let us be clear about it; nothing less is at stake in the Middle East today than the survival of the British Commonwealth and Empire as an independant force in the world.

7.4 p.m.

I am very pleased today to be able to follow my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on a line which is so different from the line taken by his predecessor and those which were adopted by some hon. Members on both sides of the House. I am convinced that the policy to which my right hon. Friend referred and regarded as an important long-term view, and which is apparently being accepted generally this afternoon, is one which can be adopted forthwith and with strength.

Israel has set an example which can well be followed in other parts of the Middle East and which is capable of dealing with a considerable amount of the distress and degradation which prevails in many of the Middle Eastern countries. I believe it is fundamental to the political situation to consider the desperate need for economic rehabilitation in the Middle East. The Middle East is the victim of centuries of human neglect of natural resources, so that once fertile soil has dried up and become eroded, its water resources have been permitted to stultify into swamps, and the area has degenerated into a liability on the economic resources of the world.

Those of us who have visited the Middle East from time to time know that the standard of life among most of the peoples there is pitifully low. Mass poverty goes hand in hand with an indecent privilege and wealth of the few. Diseases such as tuberculosis, bilhrzia and trachoma are rife among the Arab populations. Anyone who has visited the Middle East cannot fail to have observed the terrible number of blind people of all ages due to the scourge of trachoma.

It has been estimated that two out of every three fellaheen in Egypt are sufferers from the debilitating disease, bilhrzia, which is directly caused by wading in the waters of the Nile. The high incidence of tuberculosis, which is mainly due to over-crowding and malnutrition, is aggravated by such attendant diseases as pellagra and anaemia, and the total of human misery throughout the Near and Middle East should appal civilisation.

I believe that man and soil are closely wedded. Only rehabilitation schemes of bold and adventurous proportions that will irrigate the deserts and raise crops in the barren waste-lands; that will provide power for widespread industrial developments by the provision of hydro-electric plants, and create productive employment for the people; and that will inaugurate extensive medical and relief measures through recognised international agencies can radically bring an improvement of the human situation in the Middle Eastern countries.

The Middle East needs 20th century man with all his scientific and philanthrophic resources, as has been demonstrated—I say it with pride—in the young and growing state of Israel and in the spirit of the Zionist settlers. Time after time in this House I have said that those of us who believed in the Zionist cause were believing in something which was of tremendous advantage to the Middle East and that it was the only means which could possibly help the Middle East out of its difficulties.

I had even hoped at one time, as did Lord Wedgwood and other friends of mine that we should have been able to see established in Palestine a British dominion. Those who attacked the Zionist Movement did not attempt to deal with fundamental issues and they must now realise what a tremendous mistake they made. I do not say that in any party sense, for there were misunderstandings in all parts of the House, but I believe that very many of those who attacked the type of policy which was being advocated by my hon. Friends and myself in this House must now be regretting very seriously the steps they took.

If that policy had been supported in its full effect we should not have had the situation in the Middle East that we have today. I am astonished that there should still be left on this side of the House of all places one hon. Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. T. Reid), who is still grasping at fantasies which can never be realised. He must know that his proposals can help nobody.

In the days of the Mandate in Palestine Jewish pioneers there demonstrated that hard work, enthusiasm and the imaginative application of scientific methods could make even the dead sands bear fruit. The achievements of those men have become familiar to the world now that the Israel Government are applying their experience to the problem of the reclaiming of large tracts of wastelands. They have declared war on the desert, the one kind of war which the moral sentiments of mankind endorse without reservation.

Let me give an example. One of the most eminent soil experts in the United States visited Palestine in the days of the Mandate, Dr. Walter Lowdermilk. Our own British Government have used him since for research work in the Colonies. Dr. Lowdermilk prepared an irrigation and power scheme that would bring incalculable benefit not only to Israel, but also to Syria and Transjordan. This scheme would divert the sweet waters of the Upper Jordan and its tributaries into a network of irrigation canals and would compensate the Dead Sea for the loss of these waters by introducing sea water from the Mediterranean. As the sea water dropped into the river it would create an effective fall of almost 1,300 feet for the development of hydro-electric power.

The scheme envisages the drainage of the Huleh swamps, potentially one of the most fertile areas of the land, but at present a breeding ground for mosquitoes and the most heavily malarial district in the entire region. The supply of cheap and abundant power would make it possible to exploit the mineral resources of the Dead Sea and would help in establishing an extensive new range of industries. The Jordan Valley scheme should not cause envy among the neighbours of Israel. It should stimulate other countries to tackle their own desert areas.

Who can estimate the rich benefits for the Middle East that would result from a scientific exploitation of the waters of the Nile, for example? And one must not overlook the possibilities that could be uncovered by hydraulic drilling for new water resources. For instance, it has been suggested that a great subterranean lake may lie under the Sahara that may one day cause that terrible desert to blossom, and similar hidden water resources may well exist in the Middle East waiting to be surveyed and mapped.

The tragedy of this situation is that such eminently desirable works of peace as these could have been hindered by petty nationalism, as was seen in the recent Syrian opposition to the drainage of the Huleh basin by Israel. Some hon. Members actually supported the miserable attack made on the efforts of the people endeavouring to clear that swamp so that this malaria infested area might be cleaned up. Their only excuse for intervening was that there were a few acres of land of that area which happened to belong to Arab owners.

The protest of the Jordan Government against the work carried out by Israel on the Jordan Valley plan was, in my opinion, something which, instead of being commended by hon. Members should have been strongly protested against because, as Dr. Lowdermilk has said, "Such actions turn back the development of mankind." There is too much tendency by Middle East States to centre their policies around the parish pump and to neglect the larger interests of the region but also to act contrary to its interests for their own selfish ends.

Consider the attitude of Egypt over the Suez Canal. It is characteristic of this deplorable tendency. In open violation of Article I of the Suez Canal Convention of 1888, by which she is pledged to keep the Canal always free and open, and of the General Armistice Agreement between Israel and Egypt of 24th February, 1949, which, it was envisaged would put an end to blockade practices, the Egyptian Government has maintained its unwarranted restrictions upon tankers despite the individual protests of 10 maritime nations.

Such an attitude derives directly from the marked determination of that government not to end the state of war with Israel and to encourage its associates on the Arab League to remain hostile to Israel when it would be in the best interests of all the countries concerned and for the world at large that a real and effective peace should be restored to the area.

It is not only a question of the opposition to peace terms. The terms of the armistice were clear. No state of war is legally recognised. On the contrary, the terms of the armistice made it clear that there were pledges against any further active hostility between the parties.

Egypt at one time declared that she was aware of the fact that the armistice agreement was entered into for the purpose of preparing a permanent peace and it is only in recent months that she has attempted to contend that there is a state of war.

It is nonsense for her to break all her obligations in respect of the free passage of vessels through the Suez Canal and to Aqaba, on the excuse that there is a state of war. International agreement and maritime law prohibit her from taking the stand which she does, and which certainly makes it imperatve upon her to obey the behest of the United Nations, of which she is a member.

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point, would he say whether he and his friends support the internationalisation of the oil refineries at Haifa and thereby enable tankers to be allowed through the Canal so that they may make use of those refineries?

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman misses the point I am trying to make. It is not a question of internationalising the Haifa refineries which is involved. There is a definite and clear duty upon the Egyptians to allow tankers and other ships to pass through the Suez Canal. There is a duty upon Egypt to allow ships to enter the Gulf of Aqaba, to go to Aqaba or wherever it may be, on their legitimate business. It is wrong that questions of internationalisation should be raised in order to cover Egypt's breach of duty.

That does not answer the question of my hon. Friend.

While I agree with the hon. Gentleman, at the same time, to remove the final objection, would the hon. Gentleman say whether he and his friends support that?

As my right hon. Friends on the front Bench say, I should like notice of that question. The present position is that the oil refineries are British interests and I am not sure what would be the point of view of my right hon. Friends in regard to any suggestions I might make for internationalising them.

The hon. Gentleman speaks constantly in this House for the Israelites, and I am not attacking him for that, but he might let us have the answer.

If the right hon. Gentleman had done me the honour of being here at the start of my speech, he would have realised that on these issues I am not speaking in the interests of anybody but Britain. The policy I have always advocated in this House has been to make the position in Palestine one which would be of advantage to the whole world, including Israel and this country. I was referring to the body of people, including the late Lord Wedgwood, who had precisely the same view as myself on these matters.

Today, we can see for ourselves that the re-creation of Israel has done what those of us who advocated that cause always said it would do. There is no question of any part of Israel remaining a desert. One has only to go there to see what is happening. She is taking in literally hundreds of thousands of people who are fleeing from oppression in other places, and is rehabilitating them. If the Arab world would do the same as Israel, they would be able to do something prac- tical for refugees, instead of keeping them on the borders as a political pawn to play with from time to time.

Having seen what persecution has meant I should be the last person in the world to see anybody suffer by being deprived of the ordinary needs of life. Indeed, I need not refer to the terrible things that happened to many of those who have had to seek refuge in Israel. I say to the House that we must look at this realistically. It is ridiculous to ask that the Arab refugees should be returned into Israel at the present time. Look at the assassinations that are taking place. How can Israel possibly bring into its borders people whom it has to vet so meticulously? It has to vet every person who comes back in.

rose—

I am sorry, I cannot give way. I have done so several times already and I have taken more time than I desired to take.

I deprecate too many interruptions. We have exactly one hour remaining before the final speeches start.

I do not want to use more time than is necessary, and I have been talking merely on those matters on which I have some knowledge.

In conclusion, it seems to me that the solution of all problems in the Middle East will depend upon co-operation between the Middle Eastern countries. That co-operation should cover economic development; and in the political and military field, their actions should not be directed against somebody else, but for the common security and for the common collaboration of all countries in the area.

At present the Arab Governments are persisting in their policy in refusing to transform the armistice into permanent peace settlement. We in Britain want to encourage as much as we can the developing of the armistice into a peace treaty, and we should not put any bars in the way of that. We should realise that so far as Israel is concerned, she is prepared to do all she possibly can—and it is to her and the Arab countries' advantage to do so to create a peaceful settlement.

Instead of our stirring up trouble by taking actions which are not clearly understandable, we should do all that we possibly can to produce peace between the two sides. If we throw ourselves into a real determination to bring about peace, and rehabilitation in the Middle East we shall have done something not only for the Middle East, not only for the Arab States, but for the world as a whole.

7.23 p.m.

In a broadcast the other day, the Prime Minister went back to the Battle of Waterloo to prove how wicked the Tories were. I have had to go back a couple of thousand years before that to find a parallel for Socialist stubbornness. stupidity and lack of foresight. In the tragedies of the ancient Greeks, the principal character is always the last to foresee the disasters which ultimately overtake him. The other characters and the audience always see what is coming to him long before he does, but he blunders on blindly to meet his fate.

That, it seems to me, is exactly the position of the present Government. It is rather like "Twenty Questions"—everybody knows the answer long before the people principally concerned. Everybody saw ages ago that the Government were heading for trouble. Everybody warned them, but in spite of these warnings they persisted in their foolish muddle-headed course, and now, of course, their follies are coming home to roost at the most alarming rate, and nowhere more than in the Middle East.

To grasp just how disastrous the Government's conduct of affairs has been, we have to go back a full six years to the summer of 1945. At that time, our position in the Middle East was one of great strength. Alamein and our other wartime victories had brought us immense prestige—and then there was a change of Government. The mournful notes of "The Red Flag" resounded in the Chamber. Once again, one is reminded of a Greek tragedy. In the opening scene, everything is for the best. Then comes the first warning of trouble ahead, and from then onwards things go from bad to worse.

Looking back, it seems strange now to recall that six years ago the Labour Government actually had a foreign policy. But they had. It was a Labour foreign policy, a Socialist foreign policy, an ideological foreign policy. It was framed very largely by Mr. Zilliacus, the former Member for Gateshead, and it was summed up by the late Foreign Secretary, when he said in 1945:

"Left will talk to Left in comradeship and confidence."

In other words, it was based on the principle that a Socialist Government in this country should have close and intimate relations with Communist Russia, and distant and distrustful relations with capitalist America.

It seems extraordinary, looking back, that even the silliest of Socialists should have believed that such a policy was practicable. For one thing, one would have thought that they would have known enough about the Russians and about Communism to realise what was their attitude towards them. One would have thought that they would have remembered what Lenin said when he was asked whether he and his friends would support the British Labour party:

" We will support them "—

he said—

"as the rope supports the hanged man."

Of course, it very soon turned out that the comradeship and confidence were all on one side. Hon. Members opposite regarded the Russians with sympathy and admiration, but the Russians regarded them with nothing but contempt.

Nor was it possible in practice for the Government to be quite as offhand with the Americans as they had hoped to be, for the simple reason that they very soon found out that the only way in which they could hope to finance their famous Socialist experiment was with good capitalist dollars from the United States. In other words, their Socialist foreign policy was no good.

And so what did the Government do? They sacked Mr. Zilliacus. [Laughter.] It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to laugh, but six years ago Mr. Zilliacus played a very important part in the Government's foreign policy. They did not treat him as such a joke then. When he was sacked, the Government accused him, the architect of their foreign policy, of being deviationist, but of course what really happened was that the Labour Party had deviated from Zilliacus and not Zilliacus from the Labour Party. Looking back.

I must admit that there were some hon. Members opposite who were honest enough to admit that at the time and to point it out. But even though for a year or two now Mr. Zilliacus's political body has been mouldering in the grave, his soul has gone marching on. His ghost has been very difficult to lay. Not only has it hovered round the lunatic fringe of the party opposite; at times, it has even haunted the innermost meetings of the Cabinet. It is always looming up.

Of the old policy, three things have remained; three things have gone on hanging about in the air like a bad smell. The first is an unhappy love for the Soviet Union, a nostalgia for what many Socialists long regarded as their spiritual home: a hankering which the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) once diagnosed in an interesting article as the "Russia complex." Sometimes one is rather inclined to say to him, "Physician, heal thyself."

Secondly, the party opposite, while accepting American dollars by the sackful, have never really been able to get over their dislike for the American capitalists who provide them—" shabby moneylenders," in the vivid phrase of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman).

What about the Middle East?

This all has a lot to do with the Middle East; it provides the background for the Government's foreign policy.

Finally, at the back of the minds of a great many hon. Members opposite—and sometimes not very far back—there lurks another prejudice, a prejudice against the British Empire and the feeling that the Empire is something shameful and something which, in the picturesque Left-wing phrase of Sir Stafford Cripps, should be liquidated. Of course, that has not been a very happy psychological background to the conduct of our affairs. It has led to all kinds of things—to half-hearted appeasement of Russia and her satellites, to constant misunderstandings with America, and to a progressive weakening of our position throughout the world.

I said that in 1945 our position in the Middle East was one of great strength. Since then, in so far as we have had a policy at all, it has been one of withdrawal and abdication and a refusal to accept our responsibilities. Everywhere we have pulled out prematurely, letting down our friends and leaving those who looked to us for a lead to sort out affairs as best they could. Everywhere the result has been the same, chaos and bloodshed—chaos and bloodshed in India, where, in the space of a few weeks, more people were killed than in two centuries of British rule, and in the Middle East where the Government attained the remarkable feat of earning the hatred and contempt of Arabs and Jews alike. Above all, our Middle East defences have been so weakened that today they no longer serve to encourage our friends nor to deter our enemies.

The result has been to produce throughout the whole area uncertainty, disorder and disunion—in other words, a power vacuum. A power vacuum, like every other vacuum, is something which offends Nature and is bound to be filled. If one is created right up against an expanding aggressive Power like the Soviet Union, there is little doubt who will fill it. Russia is as much an Asiatic as a European Power, and every time she has been blocked in the West she has turned Eastwards. For a century or two the Dardanelles and the Persian Gulf have been traditional targets of Russian expansion, and they remain so today. Let us make no mistake about that.

That is the background to everything that is happening in the Middle East. That is the real danger of which we must never lose sight. Fifty years ago Russia was checked in her progress by the knowledge that if she went any further she would encounter the embattled might of the British Empire. What is to stop her now? Very little indeed. I recently spent a couple of months travelling around the Middle East, and I must say that I came back profoundly disturbed by what I saw and heard there. In my view, not one of those countries could stand up to an all-out attack by the overwhelming armour, artillery and air power of the Soviet Union for more than a few weeks, unless they received early and effective help from outside. In other words, if they are to be saved, their salvation must come from the West, and it is to the West that they are looking for help in the case of Soviet attack.

What are their prospects of receiving such help? In the minds of a great many people in the Middle East I found an uneasy suspicion that for them war would mean occupation by the Red Army followed, with luck, at some future date, by liberation at the hands of the West by when, on all probability, there would be nothing left to liberate. Certainly, when they look round to see where help could come from, the outlook for these potential victims is not very encouraging. There is no American land force, less than a division of British troops in the Canal Zone and only a couple of battalions scattered along the coast of North Africa. That is against scores of Soviet divisions in the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Black Sea and wherever they choose to concentrate them.

"We regard the Dardanelles,"

the chief of the Turkish General Staff said to me,

"as being of great strategic importance. But we do not even know what the Western Powers would do to help us defend them if the Russians attacked them, or even if they would help us to defend them at all."

That is not the sort of situation which is conducive to collective security. It is conducive to going off and making the best sort of arrangement one can with the enemy. Fortunately, for us the Turks happen to be an immensely courageous people who would fight by themselves if necessary, as we did. But I think that by our attitude of cold shouldering them as we have done hitherto we have exposed their loyalty to a very severe strain. If there is to be any sort of security in the Middle East, one thing is necessary, strong Western forces—and when I say strong Western forces I include the Commonwealth, America and France—with naval and air support within striking distance of the areas threatened.

Naturally, at this stage we cannot hope to match the Russians division for division, in the Middle East, or anywhere else. What we can do is to have in readiness an effective striking force which can at once come to the help of our Allies if attacked and stop the Russians having it all their own way. It seems to me vital that our Allies should know they can count on that and that the Russians should know that, wherever they or their satellites strike, they will have the Western Powers to reckon with from the very start. At present they do not know that.

The party opposite, in their speeches in the country—as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head) said—are always trying to brand us as "warmongers" or "warhorses." I want to say this. If war breaks out in the near future, the party opposite and the Government will have a very heavy responsibility to bear for their failure to maintain adequate defences. At the present time there is a very real danger that our manifest weakness in the Middle East may tempt the Russians into aggressive action. But if, on the other hand, they come to the conclusion that there is no hope of a quick easy victory for them and that we are as strong as or stronger than they are, they may think twice before starting anything. Our job is to see that they reach that conclusion without any delay. That is what hon. Members opposite ought to try to get into their heads instead of bleating about disarmament and calling us warmongers.

Something was said to me recently which struck me as being very much to the point. It was said by a Moscow-trained Communist, so perhaps its Left-wing origin will commend itself to hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was said to me by Marshal Tito. He said this:

"Never forget that the only argument the Russians understand is strength. It is the only thing that will deter them. In Western armed strength lies the only hope of preventing a third world war."

It appears from the Press that the principal author of that criminally foolish pamphlet, "One Way Only," the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) is at present on holiday in Yugoslavia as the guest of Marshal Tito. Let us hope that his host will take his opportunity to instil into him some grains of commonsense.

I am trying to follow the hon. Member's argument, but I should like to know what he is suggesting. Is he suggesting that the present re-armament programme is not big enough?

I am coming to that point. I am suggesting that the Government, for the last six years, have neg- lected their duties and failed to build up any sort of proper defence or security system in the Middle East. Fortunately, today there are at last signs of what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has so aptly called "a process of belated conversion to the obvious," and that the Government are at last getting round to the idea that a Middle Eastern defence system is necessary, and that we must now build up on existing positions of strength. But the trouble is that it has been left much too late.

Everywhere in the Middle East what were once positions of strength are rapidly being undermined and becoming positions of weakness. The Egyptians are seeking to drive us out of Egypt. In Jordan the assassination of King Abdullah has not only deprived us of a very good and loyal friend but has removed one of the most potent factors for stability in the Middle East. [An HON. MEMBER: "The hon. Member does not blame us for that? "] As my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) said just now, the Government might well be considered to have a certain responsibility for what has happened. Further East, Pakistan and India are now so divided over the question of Kashmir as to be able to make practically no contribution to the cause of Middle Eastern security.

Finally, there is Persia. We still do not know how things will end there, but one thing is certain—vital issues are at stake which far transcend the question of the oil. The gravest danger of all from our point of view and that of the free world is that Persia should fall under the domination of Russia. The present Persian Government completely lack stability. They are not representative of the Persian people as a whole but of a small corrupt ruling class. The egregious Mr. Makki yesterday called us "bloodsuckers." If anything describes the present ruling class in Persia, it is just that term, "bloodsuckers."

The Persian Government can depend on the loyalty neither of the Army nor the Civil Service. They are short of cash and they are at the mercy of a bunch of ruthless extremists who have already made short work of one Prime Minister. And of course, a little group of extremists can make life very difficult for a Prime Minister, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows. What it comes to is that if the Persian Government persist in their present course, if they drive out the oil company they will be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs; they will be cutting off their principal source of income, and they will be signing their own death warrant. Because then it will be only a question of time before that unfortunate country is plunged into complete and utter chaos.

Once that happens the next stage follows automatically. There is in Persia today only one really strong, efficient, well-organised force, the Communists, who take their orders from the Russian Embassy. If Persia is plunged into chaos, the Communists will take over. That will mean that in a very short time Persia will become a Soviet satellite. It will mean that Russia, without moving a single soldier, will have achieved what has been one of her important strategic aims through the centuries.

That is a possibility that we cannot afford to contemplate. If Persia, from the Caspian to the Shatt el Arab, were to fall under Soviet domination, it would disrupt our whole position in the Middle East. One country after another would follow the same way. Our flank would be turned. It would only be a question of time before the whole of Asia went the same way, with all the Foreign Secretary's schemes for entomology, basic statistics, waterworks and the rest. It would be the beginning of the end.

Some hon. Members may have read recently an article by the well-known Soviet publicist, Mr. Troyanovski, explaining how easily it should be for East and West to get along together. I hope that hon. Members were not taken in by it. I have been looking at an earlier article by Mr. Troyanovski on another aspect of the same subject. This is what he wrote then:

"India is our principal objective. Persia is the only path open to India. The Persian revolution is the key to the revolution of all the Orient, just as Egypt and the Suez Canal are the key to British domination of the Orient. Persia is the Suez Canal of the revolution. Persia must be ours."

That is Mr. Troyanovski in another vein.

Will the hon. Member say when that was written?

In 1918. They stated their policy and they stuck to it, unlike some people. If proof were wanted that they meant what they said, one has only to see what is happening now. I wonder that that has escaped the hon. Member.

What conclusion can we draw from all this? Only one conclusion can be drawn, and it has already been drawn, with his immense authority, by the Leader of the Opposition. It is, of course, that we have to stay in Persia. We have to maintain our position and interests there. We have to uphold the decision of The Hague Court. Above all, we have to ensure at all costs that Persia does not fall under Russian domination.

It seems that negotiations may shortly be re-opened with the Persian Government. I hope that, if so, the Government will tread very warily. I hope, in the first place, that they will not agree to negotiate while the Persians are still ill-treating our people in Persia as disgracefully as they are at present. That would be to negotiate under duress. I hope too that they will not accept any old settlement that they are offered simply for the sake of getting a settlement.

I should like to hear the Government make their position clear in advance—much clearer than they have hitherto made it, certainly much clearer than the Foreign Secretary made it in his speech. I should like to hear the Prime Minister, when he winds up the debate, state specifically that in all circumstances we intend to stay in South Persia, and that the Government will protect British lives and interests there by all the means at their disposal. If that object can be achieved by negotiation, so much the better.

I hope that he will make it equally clear that we intend to stay in Egypt. I think that on both sides of the House, and certainly in the country, there is a feeling that the Government have been deplorably weak in their dealings with the Egyptian Government; a feeling that it is high time we stopped letting the Egyptians kick us around. It is a feeling, I may say, which is particularly strong amongst people who were in Egypt during the war and know that country and its inhabitants at first hand.

I should like to see the Prime Minister do three things: first, reaffirm our Treaty right to maintain a British garrison in the Canal zone; second, take all necessary measures to restore the free passage of shipping through the Suez Canal; third, make clear our determination not to leave the Sudan until such time as the Sudanese people can freely determine their own destiny.

It may be argued that it would be dangerous to take such a tough line at the present time. Perhaps. But then under existing circumstances, in the straits we are in, any course is bound to involve certain dangers. And the most dangerous course of all is to let things drift—do nothing at all—as the Government have done up to the present.

It is the old story of the Sibylline Books: the longer you wait the higher the price you pay. If the Government had listened to our warnings over the past six years—[Interruption.] I can say that on the rare occasions when I have been fortunate to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, or that of Mr. Speaker, I have almost invariably dealt with this subject in very much the same terms as today. I do not expect hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to listen to me but they might at least listen to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench, who have said exactly the same over the same period.

If the Government had listened to our warning over the past six years, if they had had a firm and coherent policy, if they had not neglected our defences, if they had maintained better and closer relations with America, this whole situation might never have arisen. But they did not, and it has. And if it comes to war, they will have a very heavy responsibility to bear.

I do not myself believe that even now the risk involved is overwhelming. I do not think that even if our troops should be obliged to occupy Abadan they would meet with any serious resistance from the Persians; in fact, from what I know of Persia I think a great many Persians would welcome them. Nor do I think that we would find ourselves involved in hostilities with Russia. I do not believe that the Russians would seek battle with us unless they had already decided that the moment had come when it suited them to provoke a third world war. And if they have decided that, we shall get a third world war anyhow.

I believe that if we stand up for our rights, if we take steps to protect our legitimate interests, if we make it clear to all concerned, our friends and enemies, that we really mean business, then it will not increase the tension, it will relieve it; it will not increase the risk of war, it will reduce it. But if we drift, as we have done hitherto, then I do not see how disaster can be avoided for us and for the rest of the free world.

7.50 p.m.

I am a sincere admirer of the author of "Eastern Approaches" and therefore it is with all friendliness that I say to the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. F. Maclean), "When you come to the House do not come with a lot of party cracks written out." They sound dreadful when read out and they detract from the very valuable contribution which the hon. Member can make. This is not an occasion for party cracks at all. Both parties supported the policy of Mr. Ernest Bevin in the Middle East. I thought that policy was wrong. I still think it wrong, but the two main parties were agreed.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, in opening the debate, referred to the great changes which have come about in the Middle East. I believe that the real trouble is that there has been no substantial change in the Middle East for 500 years. In the Middle East man still lives as he lived 500 years ago. His social organisation is as it was then, and so is his mind. The trouble is that the Middle East has got into a rut of decaying feudalism from which it has been unable to extricate itself.

I do not think that we shall understand Middle Eastern problems so long as we go on judging them by reference to our European experience. So many things have a reverse significance in the Middle East. If, for instance, one wishes to conceal an intention one's best method is to proclaim it, because then one would certainly be disbelieved. On the other hand, if one wants to reveal an intention one should deny it publicly and whisper it in private, for only whispers are listened to. That seems to me to be the error in the criticism of the Government's statements made by the hon. and gallant Member for Carshalton (Brigadier Head).

The hon. and gallant Member said how wrong it was to suggest that we might evacuate Persia. I am not at all certain that the reality of evacuation is not the thing which the Persians most fear. It would put responsibility on them. I am not at all sure that a military landing would not be the one thing which would save Mossadeq by providing him with an excuse to accede to force and escape from responsibility. This is the sort of thing one has to consider here. This is an area in which only the devious appears credible. I have here a copy of a diplomatic correspondent's message in the paper "Al-Mokattam." He says:

" Britain realised America's imperialist intentions in the Middle East, and, therefore, brought pressure on America first to enter the Korean war, and then to oust MacArthur from his post, thus weakening America on the military and home fronts."

That is the kind of nonsense, the sort of devious ideas which make the hypo-thesis of Middle Eastern thought. That is the sort of line on which their minds run when Mr. Harriman goes to negotiate. Again, in the Middle East the advantage of surprise lies with the man who acts simply and directly. When we landed in Normandy our success was largely brought about because Hitler took it as a mask for another landing and did not send in his reserves. If one takes direct action in the Middle East the people there will be always looking for another landing.

The Middle East is an area in which democracy is the instrument of reaction and military dictatorship that of progress. Nationalism in the Middle East is not patriotic. It involves no willingness to serve one's nation let alone to die for it. It is, in fact, simply an expression of zenophobia while nationalisation is simply the theft of the foreigner's goods by a land-owning class that is engaged in the most shocking exploitation of its share-cropping peasants.

It is often said that poverty breeds Communism. Unfortunately, it more often breeds something worse—conservatism. The most conservative populations on earth are the poorest and most hopeless and most oppressed. Communism, or any other form of revolutionary thought, involves at least a sense that man bears some responsibility for his own destiny. That sense is absent in the Middle East and that is the problem.

The other day I came across a hillbilly story. A Yankee saw a house burning and its owner lying on a bank. He said to the owner, "Hurry, your house is on fire." The man lying on the bank said, "I know it." The Yankee said, "Well, why are you not doing something about it?" The man said, "Oh! But I am. I have been praying for rain ever since it started." That is the attitude of mind of the Middle East. Destiny is no man's affair. It belongs to Allah. Indeed, there are very striking resemblances between the situation in the Middle East and that in the deep South. In both areas one finds an atrophied society.

In the deep South society stopped with slavery and in the Middle East it stopped with feudalism. In both one finds impoverished land and man-made disease. In both one finds share-cropping—the worst method of agriculture in the world because it provides a man with no incentive to put anything back in the land —and degrading poverty. In both areas one finds the same decadent, diseased human beings—the lanky debilitated "poor white" of the South beside whom there is nothing worse save in the Middle East—and the same problem of malnutrition.

In both areas one finds the same savage racial and national intolerance, the same hysterical opposition to any form of reform, the same enforcement of reaction by secret societies—the Muslim Brotherhood and the Ku Klux Klan—the same fundamentalist beliefs—Genesis and the Koran—the same brand of reactionary conservatism, the same copper-bottomed, perfect anti-Communism. The Communist menace in this part of the world of which we have been hearing is, in my submission, a complete bogy. It would require an enormous advance, the sort of advance which Kemal Ataturk effected in Turkey or that Peter the Great imposed on Russia, to create the circumstances in which a Communist danger would arise. We have to cope in this area not with a Communist danger but with conservatism. Our enemy is popular reactionary conservatism coming up from the people.

I ask my right hon. Friend this question: Has the Foreign Office any evi- dence at all of any Cominform activity anywhere in this area? Is it not a fact that the Cominform have written off this Middle Eastern area as hopelessly arid soil from their point of view? Yet our policy in the Middle East has, I believe, been bedevilled by this futile fear of Communism. We have been propping up reactionary régimes who are our avowed enemies, because we fear that they might be succeeded by non-existent Communists, and I believe that that has been our trouble. We have granted concessions to Farouk which we have denied to Abdullah. We are now considering giving concessions to Mossadeq which we denied to Razmara. The result of this policy is that our friends are dead and our enemies are alive.

In this area we need a new policy—a simple and direct policy, a policy of sustaining our friends and of destroying our enemies. Persia has lived but a century in a world of power politics by exploiting her congenital weakness. She has lived on perpetual appeals to be propped up lest she fall into somebody else's arms. Today, she is threatening to topple into the arms of Russia and the Tudeh Party.

I think it is time that bluff was called. Is there a scrap of real evidence that Russia wants Persia? She did not raise a finger to support the régimes which she had left behind her in Azerbaijan. She left the tribesmen whose land she had enfranchised to be murdered by the army of the absentee landlords of Teheran.

More important still, has Russia done any development on her own in the Baku oil fields since the war? My information is that she has done none at all. I am informed that Russia's oil supplies are not limited at the moment by her oil reserves but by her development capacity, and that her entire development capacity has been used on the Volga and in Siberia. It would appear that at the moment Russia is not interested in any oil which is vulnerably close to her frontiers. All her effort is in the safe areas.

In the last debate we heard a great deal about Russia's treaty right to enter Persia in certain circumstances. I would ask again: Is there any evidence whatever of Russia's intention to do so? Have there been any troop movements of any sort? I am informed that there have been none.

Again, would Persia be of strategic use to Russia? Hon. Members may be interested to hear a German military appreciation. In 1940 the Germans were considering a joint Russo-German attack on Abadan. They came to the conclusion that such an attack could not be delivered through Persia. The communications were impossible. They came to the conclusion that an attack on the Gulf would have to go through a corner of Turkey, through the Syrian Plain and through Iraq. That was the German appreciation in 1940.

Since then there has been some improvement in those communications, but the new roads are carried along viaducts and are appallingly vulnerable to the air. I do not believe that Persia is of strategic use to Russia. Even if Russia had Abadan, she could not defend it against sea power. I ask seriously—because I believe that our Middle Eastern policy has been so bedevilled by these non-existent fears of Communism—is there any evidence that Russia is any less anxious than ourselves not to govern in Persia? Is there, indeed, any evidence that she has shown interest there since the war?

What about the Tudeh Party? It has. some following in Abadan, where the oil company has raised living standards to the point where people have begun to expect something of life. In Teheran it can raise a not very big riot. Is there any evidence that it has any following at all in the peasant areas, still less in the tribal areas? I do not believe that the Tudeh Party exists as a mass party of the Persian nation.

There is only one party in Persia that is capable of government, and that is the army. In Middle Eastern countries armies are political parties. They do not defend their countries or fight foreign enemies. Their solitary attempt to do so in Israel was not very encouraging. They exist for the purpose of exercising internal political power. Reza Shah established dominion over the tribes with an army. That army is still the effective power in Persia, and the Tudeh Party is tolerated so long as it is useful for the purpose of blackmailing us.

When my right hon. Friend negotiates with Mossadeq I would ask him to bear certain things in mind. First, Mossadeq needs an agreement with us far more than, we need one with him. The dagger of the assassin is at his back and the sword of the army is at his belly. If he is to survive he must have an agreement which, on the one hand, satisfies the extremists and, on the other hand, provides the money necessary to pay the army.

Second, an executive agreement with Mossadeq is worthless; even if he had the will to perform it, he has not the power. The next demagogue would tear it up just as Mossadeq himself tore up the agreement which we came to with Rasmara. If there are to be negotiations there should be parallel and unofficial negotiations with the Shah and the army. No agreement is worth anything with Persia unless it is under-written by the army.

Third, is it desirable to come to an agreement with Mossadeq at all? He has defied the International Court. Is the idea that while Abdullah and Rasmara die, Farouk and Mossadeq live, an idea that should be allowed to take root in the Middle East? Farouk and Mossadeq bear a far larger responsibility for the murders of Abdullah and Rasmara than Zaghoul ever bore for the murder of Lee Slack.

Ought we to negotiate with such people? Should we not remember that their undesirable survival depends on our willingness to negotiate with them? We have it in our power to create for them internal situations which will result in their elimination. Remember—these men have proved themselves not only our enemies, but the enemies of their own people and the whole Middle East. They cannot be appeased, for zenophobia is the basis of their authority and they are unworthy of conciliation. For my part, I believe that if there is, in my right hon. Friend's words, to be a free, stable and secure Middle East, these are two hides that will be required for the council rock.

I have not time to discuss the measures by which we can deal with the Pasha Government in Egypt, but I believe that they are available to us. In Persia, I believe the correct policy is to wait and leave Mossadeq without any money. He may be prepared to let the oil run into the sea, but the army is not prepared to let its pay run into the sea. Its pay is already in arrears. Without money from oil I do not believe Mossadeq can survive for more than a month or two.

I am sure that it would be a mistake to put in troops, not because it would involve fighting with the Persian army, for nobody with whom I have discussed this believes for a moment that the Persian army would fight, but because I believe we ought to force the Persians to clear this up for themselves. If we put in troops that takes away from Mossadeq the responsibility for the mess he is in. We should leave him to bear that responsibility and see how he survives. Meanwhile, we should enter into unofficial negotiations with the Shah and the generals.

In the Middle East we should always have double representation for, as a result of the futility of Middle Eastern democracy, the government generally is powerless. We need unofficial representation with the real power, and in Persia that is the army. The Shah has reformist ideas. He should now know enough to realise that such ideas can only be put into effect by strong military government. We should encourage him in this course. Reform must be imposed in the teeth of reactionary public opinion.

That is the position here. It is no use relying upon evolution. The trouble in this area is precisely that evolution has not acted. They have been in this rut for 500 years and they have to be yanked out of it. That is what Kemal proved in Turkey. Years earlier, in a very similar population, Peter the Great proved it in Russia. It is something of what Abdullah was doing in Jordania.

First, there must be strong central government. Then there must be the economic reforms that only strong government can carry through. Mossadeq and his gang of landlords must be stripped. Share cropping must be brought to an end and the land must be divided. Then, in time, we may create sufficient progressive opinion and found a tolerable democracy. First, autocracy has to do its job. We cannot have a tolerable democracy in the Middle East at the moment which is not completely reactionary. I would urge the Foreign Secretary to be firm, tough and patient, remembering always that an agreement is useless until we can get a Government capable of fulfilling its obligations.

8.14 p.m.

I shall not attempt to follow the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) into the very novel fields of thought into which he has led us, although I want to say a few words concerning his last remarks about Dr. Mossadeq. Whatever we may think about his obstinacy and his nationalism and his folly, the fact is that he is probably the only defender of the poor existing in Persia. One reason he has sought to nationalise the oil is the campaign which he has conducted, I believe for over 25 years, to try to secure an improvement in the conditions of the poor, and in that sense he is a traitor to his class in Persia, but—

In that case, why is he not doing something about the land? There is no worse share cropper.

That may be right. I am talking about what he is aiming at in his policy. I have only a few minutes, and I wish to deal with one point—the Anglo-Egyptian treaty negotiations. These negotiations were launched in great style in 1946 but in the very worst possible way and at the worst possible time. Had the Government, a year before, attempted to put into force the conditions of the 1936 Treaty and arranged for the evacuation of our troops and headquarters from the Citadel and Kasr-el-Nil barracks, from Cairo and Alexandria, to the Canal Zone, the Egyptian pressure for a revision of that Treaty would never have arisen.

As it was, the Government were forced to yield to that pressure and they started those negotiations by making the naive and futile gesture of saying that, whatever the outcome, they intended to take all British troops out of Egypt. Anybody who has ever brought a carpet in the Mousky bazaar in Cairo knows that that is not the way to go about business in the Middle East.

As a result they found themselves at a point in the treaty negotiations where they had reached agreement on every subject except that of the Sudan. On the question of the Sudan they came up against difficulties. The late Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin, made a statement on 27th January, 1947, that

"no change should be made in the status of the Sudan…until the Sudanese had been consulted through constitutional channels."

He said that he felt

"that for the sake of an agreement, which would have been as much in the interests of the Sudanese as of either of the other parties, I should be justified in alluding in the Sudan Protocol to the existence of a symbolic dynastic union between Egypt and the Sudan, provided always that no change was introduced into the existing system of administration.…"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th January, 1947; Vol. 432, c. 617.]

His Majesty's Government may have regarded such a phrase as symbolic, but the Egyptian interpretation and the interpretation in the Sudan itself was bound to be that His Majesty's Government intended to concede the union of Egypt with the Sudan without the right of self-government. In due course, as a result of protests made from this side of the House and elsewhere, those negotiations were broken off.

We know nothing about the present negotiations, but we trust that we may get an assurance from the Prime Minister that, with the object of getting a treaty for opportunist or electoral reasons, there will be no concession about the question of sole Egyptian sovereignty. What the Egyptian Under-Secretary said to the Press on 12th June—that the latest British note gave high hopes of solving the Sudan problem—gave us cause for anxiety on this point. The truth is that there is very great doubt as to what is exactly the constitutional position concerning the sovereignty of the Sudan.

The Condominium Agreement of 1899 is by no means clear on the point. have no time to go into it now, but what is quite certain is this—that the Condominium arrangements were continued by Article 11 of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936; and until the Sudanese people themselves decide whether to adopt complete independence, whether they want some form of association with Egypt or some form of union with Egypt, or whether they want the maintenance of the Condominium, it is essential that the present divided or undefined sovereignty of the Sudan should be maintained.

8.20 p.m.

I do not intend at this late stage in the debate to go over the general history of our Middle Eastern policy during the last six years. It is, in our view, a sad story of mismanagement and failure; and, in any case, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had the melancholy task of reviewing the collapse of those great policies in Palestine, in Arabia and in Egypt which he has done so much in his long life to build and to sustain. I shall try tonight to confine myself only to the two questions of Egypt and Persia.

Perhaps I may be allowed to say, in passing, with what pleasure it was that we heard from the Foreign Secretary his reference to the admission and adhesion of Turkey and Greece to the general defence system. Those of us on both sides of the House who were at Strasbourg know how keenly our Turkish and Greek colleagues felt on this matter, and I have already had some very happy messages from my Greek and Turkish friends on this important occasion.

Since the war there have been two main points of challenge from Egypt: the first is connected with the 1936 Treaty, the maintenance of British troops in the Canal Zone, and. of course, as part of this question, the future of the Sudan; and the second has resulted from the evacuation of Palestine by Great Britain, leaving a void and a large number of problems unresolved. From this has followed the illegal blockade of the Suez Canal and even of the Red Sea, beginning with the stopping of the tankers and ending with the "incident"—to use the colourless diplomatic phrase—of the "Empire Roach."

The "Empire Roach" was, in our view, proceeding on her lawful occasions, and I think it is a great pity that the Foreign Secretary, in Question and answer, introduced a complication which was inaccurate, meaningless, but none the less dangerous, when he referred to her being in territorial waters. Every international lawyer would surely agree that if a ship is on what is called "innocent passage" she has the same right in territorial waters as on the open sea.

Merchant ships of all nations pass every day within three miles of the Kentish coast on their way to the London docks and to the Thames, but that does not give the British Government any right to stop them or search them in time of peace. So that this absurd distinction—and dangerous distinction—about territorial waters ought to be immediately put aside.

The Egyptians have claimed, presumably under Article 10 of the Suez Convention, which deals with the right of self defence, that the blockade is and has been legal. I have never quite understood the Government's hesitation on this matter, for passage in peace or in war is guaranteed absolutely under Article 4 of the Convention—the setting up of the Suez Canal Convention.

Yet, during all this time, while our tankers have been illegally held up and while the Haifa refinery has been correspondingly put out of action, the Government have shown a hesitant attitude which I find it impossible to understand, the more so because they cannot be in doubt as to the law, because in the Note of 5th July of this year they referred to the earlier protests—and these are their words—

"against the illegal and unwarranted interference with the movement of shipping through the Suez Canal."

It is true, as has been referred to already, that the question of the blockade is now before the Security Council as part of its relation to the whole armistice convention. It has come up, as has already been said, on the application of Israel, and I understand that the Government have given instructions to Sir Gladwyn Jebb, their representative, to support the protest of the State of Israel. I am very glad of that. However, I think that it would have been very much better, as my right hon. Friend said—better for our prestige, and better, too, for the hope of ultimate reconciliation between Arab and Jew—if this matter had been dealt with on our initiative a long time ago.

So much for that side of this question. Now I come to the Treaty. For a long time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Hopkinson) said, a difficult and inconclusive negotiation has been going on regarding the Treaty, and during a great part of the time of this negotiation the Government of Egypt have openly defied us on the question of the Canal. In the autumn of last year they threatened to abrogate the 1936 Treaty altogether, unilaterally and illegally; and even then the Government were reluctant to take any counter-measures. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition observed, they seem to have an extraordinary capacity for separating related questions in their own minds; and different Government Departments operate, it would seem, almost independently, and without any unifying or coherent theme.

The Ministry of Supply went on supplying arms to Egypt, which blockaded our ships and threatened to denounce our Treaty rights, and it was only a revolt of some hon. Members of their own party—and I give them all credit for it—which led them, very reluctantly, to suspend the supply of arms. The House will remember the debate of—I think it was—20th November last year. If the Ministry of Supply was temporarily checkmated, the Treasury went out in a splendid isolation.

It would seem that, while the Foreign Office has built up since the war a large and powerful economic department, the Treasury has retaliated by setting up a diplomatic policy and machinery of its own, and at the very height of the blockade, during the most unsatisfactory part of these inconclusive treaty negotiations, the Chancellor of the Exchequer cheerfully concluded the sterling balances agreement, including the promise to supply Egypt with oil—no doubt, Persian oil. Indeed, at the very moment when the Foreign Office was expressing displeasure and even protest in one sphere of our relations with Egypt the British Treasury representative in Cairo, entering on the field of diplomacy with all the enthusiasm of the amateur, declared that this financial agreement was "a good send off to the political talks which will take place in London and Cairo shortly."

If he had been more experienced he would have known that there could not have been a worse possible send off to these talks. He went on to say that Britain had made most "valuable concessions." But what was the result of these concessions? As my right hon. Friend observed, the very day that the sterling balances agreement was signed—the glorious 1st July—was the day of the illegal boarding of the "Empire Roach."

The hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), I thought, no doubt quite sincerely, misunderstood or misstated the argument of my right hon. Friend. He challenged my right hon. Friend with demanding an economic blockade of Egypt. That is a travesty of my right hon. Friend's argument. During the whole of his argument he was not referring to current operations, or movements of goods, services or money for which real commercial consideration had been given. He was dealing entirely with the accumulated war balances, and was developing an argument which, after all, could not be so very disreputable. for, as he proved, it was an argument sustained by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister of Britain.

But then, I never very much worry about the hon. Gentleman's speeches. I know the hon. Gentleman well, and I ask my hon. Friends not to be too much concerned by the beginning of his speeches, when he throws taunts at his opponents. Let him alone, and as his speech proceeds he begins to develop a damaging series of attacks upon his friends, which make any blows that he may deal us seem but friendly and endearing taps in contrast.

I must revert for a moment to the negotiations over the Treaty of 1936. The Egyptian Foreign Minister announced this year that the British proposals had been rejected "collectively and singly." Well, that was very clear. I do not think our position is quite as clear. I wish it were. The Government have, of course, the right to take up the negotiations again. They equally have the legal and constitutional right to bring them to a conclusion, if they can, without consulting Parliament. I do not honestly say that I think the present is a very good atmosphere for such a conclusion, unless we mean to make an absolutely unconditional surrender.

But I do think that this ought to be emphasised: I trust that there will be no watering down of the Foreign Secretary's undertaking that, whatever may be the constitutional right of Government, Parliament will have a right to intervene and, if necessary, declare its view before such a treaty is ratified. Perhaps the Prime Minister will be able to give us a reassurance on that point, for, not only are British interests in the Canal and in the Middle East generally concerned, but there is involved, as my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton has just said, the important question of the future of the Sudan.

I am afraid that I must trespass for a few moments on the House on this matter. I trust that there will be no ambiguity, not the shadow of a doubt, about the Government's position in this matter. As I understand it, Mr. Bevin's pledge stands. He stated in the House that His Majesty's Government's attitude to the Sudan remained the same; that was that the Sudanese should in due course freely decide their own future.

I should be quite content with that, because it is a very good formula, if it were not for one possible source of doubt —to which my hon. Friend has just alluded—which must be removed. For, two years before this statement which I have quoted, in an attempt, and no doubt an honest attempt, to facilitate a general understanding, Mr. Bevin used these words on 27th January, 1947. He said that acting on the highest legal advice—never, I think, a very certain thing on which to base one's decision, but still important to have it to take into account—for the sake of an agreement he felt that he would be justified in alluding to the existence of a symbolic dynastic union between Egypt and the Sudan.

While, of course, Mr. Bevin considered the phrase, "union between Egypt and the Sudan"under the Crown of Egypt as a purely symbolic, and even, one might say, metaphysical, phrase, the interpretation given to it by the Egyptians—and I do not blame them—was a quite different one. Nokrashi Pasha told his party, regarding this Protocol:

"…when I say unity of Egypt and the Sudan under the Egyptian Crown, I mean permanent unity."

On this refined, 'but very real, difference, the negotiations broke down. The symbolic conception of the Condominium for a great part of more than half a century has, I think, served a useful purpose in the past. The unity of Egypt and the Sudan under the Crown of Egypt may serve a useful purpose in the future. I cannot tell, but I trust that there will be no doubt at all about this: if and when the time comes for the people of the Sudan to achieve what may be called Dominion status—when they reach that point—it will be in the sense that has been made familiar to us by the Statute of Westminster, and carrying the same rights. There should be no retreat and no compromise on this issue. I hope that the Prime Minister, when he replies, may be able to reaffirm this position.

I pass from Egypt to the only other question which I must deal with and try to sum up: the tangled and confused story of Persian oil. I shall spare the House by being very brief. There are only two things which I wish to say about it. Of the past, I will only say this: the Government are very fond of reminding us that they, and they alone, appreciate the significance and understand the subtleties of the rise of new nationalism in the Near and Far East.

The Government have some responsibility for the conduct of the company, because, after all, they are the majority shareholders. It is two years since the supplemental Agreement was initialled. How is it that they were not aware of the deteriorating position? How is it that they took no steps to forestall—to use the "Economist" phrase—" the outburst of passion that now threatens to end the Persian part of British oil operations"? Apart from this, there are some incidents and some aspects of the recent crisis which, I confess, are still a complete mystery to me, and, I think, to many other hon. Members.

What, for instance, does the British Government mean by the word "nationalisation"? What precise connotation do they give to this term? This is a word with which I think they are familiar. They have banded it about a good deal in the last 20 years. It is true that, like every epidemic, it has become a little less virulent at home. We are, perhaps, through the worst of it here. But the mischief is that this disease, like others, cannot be confined to one place. It cannot be kept to Britain; it spreads all over the world. One would have thought that the Government of a country which owns, or did own, more property abroad than any nation in the world would have realised the danger involved.

There are, I know, two kinds of nationalisation. There is the comparatively respectable and the not so respectable. The trouble is that what Ministers would call the right sort of nationalisation so easily slips into the wrong sort—just as Socialism so easily merges into Communism all over the world. In these ideological disputes, the line between orthodoxy and heresy is very tenuous. I ask, then, what precisely did His Majesty's Government mean to imply when they authorised the British Ambassador to state in April—I quote the precise words:

"His Majesty's Government was sympathetic to the principle of nationalisation of Persian oil, hut it did not accept the expropriation of the company"?

Nor does the statement of the Foreign Secretary, of which he was kind enough to give us a copy of the important part, take us much further. This is what he said today:

"For our part we have every sympathy with the natural desire of the Persian people to control the mineral wealth of their own soil and we have agreed to accept the principle of nationalisation."

Persian oil is nationally owned. It has always been nationally owned. It is in the same position as coal in Britain became after it became the property of the nation as a result of Conservative legislation. The oil belongs to the Persians as does the mineral wealth, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, but the installations, the tanker fleet and the mass of other properties are, of course, the property of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

Does the phrase which the Ambassador used in April and the phrase which is used in the statement made today mean that the Government were sympathetic to the nationalisation of these properties—the tankers, the installations and all the properties belonging to the Company? Those are assets of the Company analogous to those which, up to the Coal Mines Act, 1946, were the property of the various coal undertakings of this country.

Are they prepared to accept nationalisation on similar terms; that is to say, compensation but not expropriation at a rate to be fixed by the purchasing Government and payable in the currency of the nation acquiring the property? If not what do they mean by the phrase

"sympathetic to the principles of nationalisation."

I fear that this dangerous phrase was more useful perhaps for internal than for external needs. It should have been put on one side as an export reject. We are now beginning to see that it will lead to an interminable net and tangle of argument and confusion, from which it will be very difficult to escape.

Moreover to the oriental, as well as to many western minds, the distinction between the two conceptions, nationalisation and expropriation, has never been very clear and certainly not very agreeable. Indeed, many in the West as well as the East have often thought that one was really not much fun without the other.

Whatever may be the end of this tragic dispute, whatever the bandying of terms and phrases, surely it is clear that some form of partnership, ensuring a continuance of the skilled and scientific management of the oil industry in Persia, is absolutely vital to the interests of all there; for, quite apart from British rights under legal agreements made openly and freely, quite apart from the importance of this industry and the vast capital and devoted service which has been given to it, such a partnership is really vital to the political, economic and strategic life of Persia, to the whole of the Middle East, and, indeed, to the peace and freedom of the world.

Nothing shook me more and I think the country, too, than the narrow and unimaginative estimate which the Minister of Fuel and Power gave us at an early stage in the dispute: "It will be all right. We shall only lose a few million tons and there will be plenty of petrol for the holidays" That was the implication, when the things underneath are far more important than the money concerned or the tonnage of petroleum which can be taken from this part of the world.

I believe that the British influence is not at all unsympathetic to Persian aspirations, much as they resent the crude and hysterical zenophobia in which they have been manifested. But also, at this moment, this is not the real issue. We are prepared as a nation to be generous, but we do not like to be bullied. Meanwhile, it is right to enter on new negotiations, but only if free negotiations can be effectively guaranteed, and if the men in the employ of the Company are protected from unreasonable and cruel insult and attack.

I understand that the Government are making that condition, and are taking the firm stand which we regard as an essential preliminary to a successful negotiation. I trust that in no circumstances will this condition be abandoned or whittled down, even under friendly pressure. I hope that the Prime Minister will be able, before he finishes his speech, to give us a definite assurance on this point.

Whatever be the result of this negotiation, of this new effort—for which we owe so much to Mr. Harriman and his friends; the result of this week and next week—there will be many changes and twists in this difficult problem before we are out of it. I believe that the proper course, whatever be the result, is not to evacuate Southern Persia. I confess that I do not understand the policy followed so far as regards evacuation. In my view, the day when the last British employee of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company leaves Abadan will mark the end of the association of Britain with the development of Persian oil. It means, still more, the collapse of British power and prestige in the East.

On this question of evacuation there seems to have been a continual change of policy and shift of tactic from week to week. At one moment it was almost encouraged as a threat to Persian economy. At another, it was to be avoided at all costs as a major disaster. I did not find the Foreign Secretary's formula very robust. He told us on 9th July that the company's employees should stay as long as practicable. That was almost an incitement to forcible rejectment. It has given very little comfort to the men on the spot. On 25th July, the same day as the right hon. Gentleman renewed his plea to the men to stay in their posts, Mr. Mason, the senior representative of the company in Abadan, declared that the British workers were becoming exasperated and could scarcely carry on under present conditions.

Would it not have been possible to adopt a consistent and coherent policy of partial evacuation, of evacuation perhaps of the mountain oil fields which, those who know the country will be aware, are some hundreds of miles from Abadan, or even evacuation of the greater part of the staff in Abadan leaving a small, selected team of men to maintain the refinery?

That would have brought upon Persia all the economic pressures of the policy of total evacuation that some people have thought attractive. It would also have maintained the principles of the continuity and the reality of our connection. By limiting the number required to stay and by making frequent reliefs, the physical and moral pressure on the staff could have been reduced. It is difficult for those of us who normally visit hot countries during the cold season quite to realise how terrible that pressure must be today.

Such a policy of non-evacuation, or of only partial evacuation, involves a policy of protection. It means that measures must be taken to secure the safety and reasonable comfort of these men while they are carrying out the duty of protecting British rights and, incidentally, the decision of the International Court.

To secure this is a commitment on a comparatively modest scale for which we must assume that His Majesty's Government have made adequate provision and from which the Foreign Secretary has repeatedly told us that he would not, in certain circumstances, shrink. In any case, I trust that we may have a definite reply to this question, which my right hon. Friend has already posed: In the event of any change for the worse in the situation and before any question of a total evacuation of Abadan, will Parliament be recalled?

Naturally, the policy of hanging on and waiting, which I think is the right policy —and I also believe that the House thinks it is the right policy, judging from the temper of much of the debate—has its dangers. I am not particularly impressed about the argument concerning direct Russian intervention. If the Russians want or feel able to occupy Northern Persia at any time they will no doubt do so. After all, they have seized the greater part of Central and Eastern Europe and hold it still; and, in the same way, if they want a third world war they will not hesitate to launch it.

But they certainly could not appeal—nor, I think, would they worry to appeal —to the Soviet-Iranian Treaty of 1921. The terms of that Treaty have often been widely misunderstood and misrepresented. Under that Treaty Russia may send troops only if Persia should become the base for a third party's attack on Russia. Nobody could describe as coming under that definition the kind of action which the Foreign Secretary has repeatedly told us that he was prepared to take to protect British lives in Southern Persia.

But there are other dangers. There is the danger that pressure on the Persian economy may bring about what we want, a more sensible and reasonable Government, but it may on the contrary bring about a Government even more difficult or even a Government of the Tudeh Party and under the influence of Russia. These risks are there, but they are inherent in the whole Middle Eastern position and they have always been so. It is against those risks that our whole policy of Middle Eastern defence as part of the defence of the free world ought long ago to have been designed and made effective.

If the House will bear with we I should like to venture upon some concluding remarks. It is perhaps natural, at a time when parties are so nicely balanced in the House and when a fresh appeal to the country is perhaps so near that we should all watch each other with more than usual anxiety and keenness, each trying to see where a shrewd blow can be struck at some chink in our opponent's armour, that some electoral advantage can be obtained by charges, imputations or insinuations that one party which, after all, represents at least half our fellow countrymen—is seeking, or would thoughlessly risk, the frightful dangers and sufferings of war.

It is perhaps—if it were not so serious—a little comical that this should be the accusation levelled at the Conservative Party. It is certainly a new twist in the laborious and distorted presentation of the history of the years before the Second World War with which we are so familiar. I do not see one of the main authors in his place.

The charge concerning those years is that the Conservative Administration were filled with such horror and detestation of war that they passed over, or allowed the world to pass over, serious violations of international law and that the invasion of Manchuria, the conquest of Abyssinia, the forcible union of Germany and Austria and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia were not resisted by the collective force of European arms under British leadership.

That was the charge, and on these great issues history will, of course, give her final judgment. But do hon. Gentlemen opposite really accuse us of wanting war? Can they really have it in their hearts to say that we either want war or would rashly risk war, when they know well, if they search their hearts, that the sufferings and miseries would be distributed throughout every home in this country? If they do not know it, let them look at the war memorials of two wars. Many hon. Members—the Prime Minister is one —in all parts of the House have personal experience of war, some of two wars. I am convinced of this, that those who have seen the most war hate and abominate war with the deepest and sincerest feeling.

But let there be no mistake. If international obligations are consistently set aside without effective action in protest; if treaties are unilaterially abrogated; if the decisions of international courts, themselves the instruments of the United Nations, are flouted without penalty, then, in the long run—perhaps even in the short run—we may have to make a frightful choice: either another war, with all that we know it means, or the surrender of that freedom without which life is intolerable and peace a travesty.

Like many of my contemporaries—men of my age—it has been my good or perhaps evil fortune to remember the days before the lights went out all over Europe; before the frightful chaos of cynicism and crime which has made a shambles of the world these 30 years or more. The first war took from us the friends and companions of our youth. It broke up our families, destroyed our traditions, wasted our substance. The survivors suffered something more which made them sometimes even envy the fallen. The First World War shattered much of our faith and hopes and dreams. The Second World War has done the same for our sons.

Yet, in war, we have at least one compensating consolation. There grows amongst us a new sense of comradeship and solidarity. It is only a few years since that spirit was in this whole House. Must all that be forgotten and put aside when the battle ends? We have plenty of subjects for difference and dispute. We give and take the knocks of controversy without rancour and without much personal bitterness. But I beg of Ministers not to repeat these monstrous charges against their fellow countrymen.

Though we may differ in the means to achieve those ends—peace and freedom —which far transcend our minor differences, let us at least be generous enough to believe that we are each and all united in this: that we seek these common purposes in sincerity and good faith. At this moment our people, after all their efforts, are in these great affairs distracted, confused, even disillusioned. It is surely our duty to sustain their courage. Let us disdain to exploit their fears.

8.59 p.m.

I welcome very much the note that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan) struck in the conclusion of his speech. I wish that he had opened this debate, or that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) had been here to do so, because I cannot think that his substitute struck the kind of note that was needed in a serious discussion of these matters. We had instead a speech punctuated all through by the cheapest of jibes against the Government and against Members of the Government, and not even sparing a late Member of the Government who is dead. The right hon. Gentleman, I think, might have left that alone.

He made a number of very foolish attacks. He made a violent attack on my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for a speech which he delivered on a Saturday in Durham. I had the pleasure next day of reading an account of the speech which the right hon. Gentleman delivered in his own constituency the same day. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that my right hon. Friend's remarks were unworthy of a Foreign Secretary. I must say that the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition were hardly those one would have expected from a distinguished ex-Prime Minister. [HON. MEMBERS: "They were true."] That, of course, is a matter of opinion.

The right hon. Gentleman also spoke about the satisfaction, or the reverse, of the followers in various parts of the House when their leaders are speaking. I have often wished that the right hon. Gentleman had our advantage of seeing the faces of hon. Members opposite when he is speaking.

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that it would be a great and agreeable change from what I have to look at now.

Before the right hon. Gentleman can be sure of that, he had better get a periscope and watch them when next he makes a speech.

The right hon. Gentleman, I think, throughout showed a failure to appreciate the problems of the Middle East. The right hon. Member for Bromley and other hon. Members know a good deal about the Middle East, but it seemed to me that the right hon. Gentleman failed to realise what has been going on in the Middle East. He said, first, that the decline in our influence was due to the loss of India. It is quite true that there were a lot of Indian troops which could have been sent about the world, but supposing we had not given self-government to India, does the right hon. Gentleman really think that our influence throughout Asia would have been greater? Does he think that if we had followed his policy we should have been any better off? We can see the results where people have been slower than we have in recognising the forces of nationalism.

The right hon. Gentleman next said that what happened in Palestine was due to our mistakes. There was a great deal of division in both parties on the Palestine question.

Half a million lives on your head.

How many million would there have been if the right hon. Gentleman had tried to put down India by force?

They are just about to go to war with Pakistan.

I am now dealing with a matter in which I know the noble Lord is particularly interested. I am dealing with Palestine, on which I should like to see the noble Lord march together with his Leader. The one chance that I thought we might have had of settling the Palestine question before it became so exacerbated was in the war-time Coalition Government. It was very unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman did not take up the matter then, because there would have been a great chance, I think, of getting agreement on the matter.

Is the Prime Minister talking about me or the noble Lord?

Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was an impression of weakness that we gave. That was quite wrong, because we were not weak. There is a very sedulous propaganda to try to show that we are weak everywhere. I was struck by the speech of the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. F. Maclean), for whose writings I have a great admiration; but his was a most surprising speech which seemed to ignore everything that has been happening in the world. He seemed to think that somehow or other we could have maintained enormous forces, for they were enormous forces, in the Middle East and everywhere else, and he seemed to think that that was the policy put forward by the Opposition. It was never so. The Opposition always realised the limitations on the possibilities of what we could do in arms, and it is well known that we have been endeavouring all the time to build up our strength in the Middle East.

It is not a thing we can do by ourselves; we are in close touch with other Commonwealth countries and we have been in close touch with the United States all through this. But, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it took rather a long time to get the people of the United States to realise the importance of the Middle East. I am glad that, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, that is now being. realised. But it really is no good jobbing backwards to five years ago when we had a totally different position, and remember, there was a considerable hangover in American public opinion which always regarded our presence in another country as being equivalent to the oppression of the American colonies in 1778. It has taken a long time for them to realise that now they have succeeded to world responsibility, they are glad we are in some places where formerly they thought we had no business at all.

The next thing I think in regard to the right hon. Gentleman's speech and some other speeches is that we are living today under an acceptance of the rule of law. We have accepted the United Nations and we have, I am glad to say, taken action in Korea, with others, in support of the United Nations. I think the right hon. Gentleman and I were both agreed in the days before the Second World War in wishing to have the same thing done with the League of Nations. If that had been done, we might have been spared a Second World War.

It is quite incompatible with the acceptance of the United Nations organisation and the rule of law to think that we can go about the world in a kind of Palmerstonian fashion building up strength. How is that strength going to be used? We must remember that there are a number of old memories of that time which are not too good. In Egypt I see they were remembering the bombardment of Alexandria. That kind of thing could be done in the 19th Century; it cannot be done today. We are working under an entirely different code.

Next, I think the right hon. Gentleman did not fully appreciate the force of these nationalist movements and I think that throughout his speech he ignored the social and economic problem. I think there is a great appreciation of this today. It is quite true that we cannot cure all these matters just by social reforms—we must have effective political institutions —but I think we were far too slow in this country in realising the social responsibilities where money was being obtained from the development of some of those countries.

I think it is realised today that the oil companies were far too slow. Nothing was done, or very little was done, before. My late colleague, Mr. Ernest Bevin, as soon as he took office, was particularly impressed by the vital need to deal with the social and economic problems of the whole of the Middle East, and he did very much to influence the Anglo-Iranian Company to do a great deal more than it had ever done before for its employees in this area. He was constantly working with others and with the United States and the Commonwealth countries to try to get effective measures adopted to raise the standard of life in all these Middle Eastern countries.

As was pointed out in one speech made today, I think by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), there is too often a tendency to imagine that these countries are just like European countries. I think that they are suffering in all these countries from an old feudal system, with an irresponsible landlord system, bad cultivation and the rest. It is not very easy for us to make revolutions in other countries. We have to deal with the Governments that are there and try to influence them as much as we can towards better things.

It is equally important that if there is an increase of the resources of those countries, those resources must be used for the whole of the people and not for a narrow section. The trouble is that the profits from the oil have not been used for the mass of the people. They have gone to the small ruling class; and one must realise that even if there were a change there, it would be some time before there could be a real change because there is a limit to the amount of supplies and resources that can be effectively used by countries with a very low standard of administration. In fact, you have to make up your mind to slow progress because you cannot hurry the East. But the trouble is that wherever there are nationalist movements there are always people in a hurry who think that a great deal more can be done than can be done in a given period, and who get impatient.

A few days before his assassination, King Abdullah wrote to me a very wise and moving letter re-affirming the friendship and mutual confidence which have persisted between his country and the United Kingdom. In his letter he said:

"Likewise few are the people who comprehend that independence is a gradual affair and take into consideration the necessity of allowing a time lapse from the moment of its inception to its maturity."

That is always the difficulty. The desires of the nationalists always outstrip the possible performance. We get that in Persia, in the Arab countries and in Egypt; in fact, throughout the Near East.

I wish to turn to one or two points that have been put to me in regard to Egypt. The right hon. Gentleman raised again the old question of the sterling balances.

War-time sterling balances.

Yes, war-time sterling balances. That was not a matter peculiar to Egypt. It was a fact that these heavy balances were piled up. I dare say that some of these payments were far too large for the services rendered. But the House must remember that these were delayed payments for things and services that we utilised in the war. It may be that we ought to have made a better bargain, but no action was taken during the time of the war-time Government to warn these people and tell them that we would not pay these balances. There was no decision that this obligation would not be honoured. There was no decision by the Government. I know the right hon. Gentleman talked about it very often but a monologue is not a decision.

The quotation which I made was from a speech in 1947.

I have got that.

And the right hon. Gentleman was able to interject his "Yes, Sir," in the monologue of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The right hon. Gentleman is a little previous. I am still in 1944–45. I am coming on to 1947 and to the next point. Of course, we should all have liked to scale these balances down, but we could not do it just by arbitrary action. We could only seek agreement, and that is precisely what we did. We sought agreement; we were unable to get that agreement. It is perfectly well understood. The right hon. Gentleman talked about United States loans and the rest of it. We agreed we would do our best to scale down the balances, but we never suggested there should be a unilateral repudiation.

Therefore, since that time, as we could not get agreement for the scaling down, we have had a series of arrangements for blocking these balances. Some parts were blocked, others have been released and they were essentially for the rehabilitation of those countries. It must not be forgotten that in the war those countries also had to divert their activities to the production of things for the war and they therefore wanted to use the balances, like any other war saving. And it has been part of the process of getting world trade going again that, from time to time, we have released the sterling balances and we have come to an agreement.

There was an agreement made last March with Egypt in which there is to. be a release of £10 million a year over 10 years. The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in thinking that there was another large financial agreement made last week. That was merely the ratification of the agreement which was the subject of the March debate. Egypt, as we all know, holds a key position in the Middle East and we have been trying very patiently to get an agreement. Everybody realises that the 1936 Agreement is not a satisfactory agreement for our position in Egypt. We have to work with them at the present time on the basis of that agreement while trying to get a better one, and many times we have been pretty near to getting something satisfactory.

What other policy could we have carried out? Does the House really believe that any other policy would have been successful? Supposing we had refused to pay any sterling balances and cut off trade, we would not have got agreement. One cannot treat countries in that way. They are countries with which one wants to work in the future, and the House must remember the t if one takes a big stick attitude towards one of those countries, one may think it is going to have a good effect on the others, but it may have a very bad effect.

In the whole group of Moslem countries they are apt to quarrel among themselves but they are also apt to feel pretty acutely if there is failure to recognise the position of one of them. I am quite sure that if we had tried to treat Egypt roughly, not only would we not have succeeded in getting an agreement but it would have had a bad effect throughout the Arab world—in Pakistan and, in fact, throughout the whole Moslem world.

We are still trying to negotiate. There are one or two points which the right hon. Member for Bromley put to me about that. One was whether, if we reached an agreement, it would be brought before this House. The right hon. Gentleman knows how foreign affairs are carried on, and that if an agreement is come to, it is arrived at between Governments; it is brought to this House for ratification, and therefore, before the final decision, it is bound to be brought before this House.

It is within the constitutional right both to negotiate and to ratify it. I was only asking, if the House should not be sitting, that it should not be ratified without discussion in the House.

I think we should have a discussion in the House before ratification; I quite agree.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Sudan. We stand absolutely where we were on that matter. We believe that the people of the Sudan have the right to decide their own future. The right hon. Gentleman talked about symbolic kingship and so on, but he knows the long history of the Condominium. That was taken by us purely as a symbolic gesture which we thought would be useful at the time.

The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition asked me about a Hunt class destroyer, H.M.S. "Cottesmore." That destroyer was purchased by Egypt in October, 1949, and it was paid for and handed over in June, 1950. It went to Cowes under the Egyptian flag for a refit which was completed in April, 1951. It then left for Egypt. The ship is out of date. It was in the lowest category of our reserves, and it was a good commercial business to sell it to the Egyptians. The Egyptians will find it quite useful for their purposes.

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that we have ships which are not yet in commission. It is not possible to commission the whole lot, and there are ships which go out of date, and therefore from time to time, on the advice of our naval advisers, we sell them. I remember the right hon. Gentleman pleading for some obsolete ship to be retained. There is a sentimental approach to these things, but I do not think it need apply to this particular Hunt class destroyer.

What about the American destroyers?

I am assured that this one would not be useful to us.

Was not the Hunt class destroyer one of the type of destroyers that are now being furbished up for use in, the event of a U-boat attack? Was not the payment made quite simply by crossing out something of these sterling balances?

That is quite possible. Obviously, it is not much good releasing to people their sterling balances if they cannot buy anything with them. The right hon. Gentleman is like Mr. Bultitude who said to his son, "What is. the good of half a crown to you? You will only spend it." We base our rights in Egypt on the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. and so long as we do this we have to honour our own obligations under the Treaty, one of which is to facilitate the supply of arms to the Egyptians.

On the Suez Canal question, I think hon. Members were a little positive, perhaps, on the whole matter of this question in international law. I do not want to pursue it because the matter is now before the Security Council, and I would rather not follow that up when the matter is under discussion there.

I do not want to talk at any great length on Persia. I think the House will agree that it would be a mistake to go at any great length into this question when we are in negotiation. But the right hon. Member for Bromley asked me about the exact connotation of nationalisation. At one time I think he said it was the way the Labour Party or the Socialists moved towards Communism, but almost immediately afterwards he was glorying in the nationalisation of coal underground by the Conservative Party, so it looks as though they are still on the march.

I would say that the acceptance of the principle of nationalisation was very strongly pressed upon us by our American friends. What is its exact connotation? I quite agree that originally the oil belonged to Persia. I do not think we can go further than saying that the conception of nationalisation is that the oil should be worked primarily in the interests of Persia. I think the right hon. Gentleman came down to the right words towards the end of his speech when he talked of a partnership. When an operation of this kind is carried out, either you must pay people and they go altogether—and that is quite impossible, for it would be a loss to the world and to us and not least to Persia; or you must do the right thing, which is, I think, to work for some kind of working agreement or partnership in which we supply the knowledge, the know-how and all the rest of it and the Persians manage this thing in the interests of all.

And the plant.

And the plant. This seems to me to be really what we wish to bring under this rather general phrase of nationalisation. At the present moment we are accepting that principle. The details will have to be worked out.

I greatly hope that we may come to an agreement on this matter, but one has to realise that we are dealing with people who have a very large amount of xenophobia. I do not think we could even assume that they will not be ready to cut off their noses to spite their faces. It will require a great deal of careful and very patient negotiation and I should like again, here, to express the gratitude we all feel to President Truman for sending Mr. Harriman and to Mr. Harriman for going to Teheran to do what he can to ease the situation and to bring the parties together.

I was asked a number of detailed questions—

What about evacuation? Will the right hon. Gentleman say something about that?

I think the statement made was perfectly clear on that. There may have to be a withdrawal from the oil wells and there may have to be a withdrawal from some part of Abadan, but our intention is not to evacuate entirely.

Question put, and agreed to.

Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House this day, to put forthwith the Questions, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolutions reported in respect of Classes I to IX of the Civil Estimates and of the Revenue Departments Estimates, the Navy Estimates, the Army Estimates and the Air Estimates.

[ For details of the remaining Resolutions, seeOFFICIAL REPORT, 25 th July, 1951; Vol.490, c.2260–2266.]

Civil Estimates And Supplementary Estimates, 1951–52

Class I

Central Government And Finance

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class I of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class Ii

Commonwealth And Foreign

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class II of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class Iii

Home Department, Law And Justice

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class III of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class Iv

Education And Broadcasting

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class IV of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class V

Local Government And Planning, Housing, Health, Labour And National Insurance

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class V of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class Vi

Trade, Industry And Transport

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class VI of the Civil Estimates."

put, and agreed to.

Class Vii

Common Services (Works, Stationery, &C)

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class VII of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class Viii

Non-Effective Charges (Pensions)

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of Class VIII of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Class Ix

Supply, Food And Miscellaneous Services

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported: in respect in Class IX of the Civil Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Estimates For Revenue Departments, 1951–52

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of the Revenue Departments, Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Navy Estimates, 1951–52

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of the Navy Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Army Estimates, 1951–52

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of the Army Estimates,"

put, and agreed to.

Air Estimates, 1951–52

Question,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the outstanding Resolution reported in respect of the Air Estimates."

put, and agreed to.

Ways And Means 25Th July

Resolution reported:

That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the. year ending on 31st day of March, 1952, the sum of £2,133,650,240 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

Resolution agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by the Chairman of Ways, and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Douglas Jay.

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill

"to apply a sum out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the year ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two and to appropriate the Supplies granted in this Session of Parliament "; presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 149.]

Reserve And Auxiliary Forces (Protection Of Civil Interests) Bill

Lords Amendments considered.

Clause 5—(Procedure)

Lords Amendment: in page 8, line 44. leave out "foregoing."

9.34 p.m.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is the first of a large number of drafting Amendments and arises because of the insertion of the new Clause 13, and its subsection (4).

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 3, after "made" insert "and."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

I think it would be of convenience to the House if we considered with this Lords Amendment the next two Lords Amendments in line 4 and line 6.

These Amendments limit the discretion to admit as evidence under the rules reference by documents only. The drafting was rather widely drawn before.

We think that these three Amendments make an improvement in the Bill. They make the meaning of the original Clause clearer than it was. Under the wording as it stood, it appeared that a very wide power was being given to the Lord Chancellor, whereas the new form makes quite clear what he is entitled to do. It is obviously desirable that there should be special facilities here for facilitating proof by people who are overseas.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 9, leave out "foregoing," and insert "said."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This and the three following Amendments are drafting Amendments to ensure that application may be made in proper circumstances on behalf of absent Service men, and that when they are so made the court, if it thinks fit, is permitted to grant the right of audience.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 9, leave out lines 27 to 31.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This and the next Lords Amendment go together. Its purpose is to declare beyond doubt that the reference in Clause 2 (2, a) to "the levying of distress" includes the levying of distress for rates, and to provide the requisite machinery for enabling the application for the warrant and the application for permission to levy distress to be considered together. That was already covered by what it is now proposed to be left out.

The explanation is that there is already sufficient power to do this by rule, and it was, therefore, unnecessary to include it specifically in the subsection. It is merely a case of doing it by rule where there is power to do it instead of providing for it expressly in the subsection. The declaratory provision about the levying of distress for rates is still preserved. It has been thought better to insert that provision in the definition Clause, Clause 6, and the next Lords Amendment achieves that object.

I am not quite sure that I follow the hon. and learned Gentleman. I quite follow that it may be convenient in the definition Clause to insert a definition to show that "distress" will include the levying of distress for rates. It does not, of course, include levying of distress for arrears of tax. As I understand Clause 5 (5) of this very complicated Bill, in its present form it is made a condition precedent to the levying of a distress for rates that notice of intention to apply for leave to levy that distress should have been served.

The effect of the proposed Amendment will. as far as I can see, be to omit that requirement from the Bill. I may be wrong about this, and no doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman will correct me if I am, but I think I am right in saying that under the Bill there is no obligation in respect of other levyings of distress to give notice of intention so to do. Am I correct in understanding the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that it is not necessary to have a provision in the statute that there should be notice of intention to levy the distress for rates given first, but that will be provided fur by rule?

indicated assent.

I am interested to know that. I am also interested to know why there should be this disparity of treatment in relation to the levying of different kinds of distress. As I understand it—and I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will correct me if I am wrong, because I am very likely to be wrong on this complicated matter—that still means that it is only necessary to give this notice first where one seeks to levy distress for rates; that under the Bill and, indeed, under the regulations there will be no need to give such notice in other cases. If that is correct, it seems to me, at first sight, to be a little anomalous. This is obviously a little more than a drafting Amendment, and I should be grateful if the hon. and learned Gentleman could throw a little further light on this rather complicated branch of the Bill.

It is a rather difficult and complicated matter, and I will try, with the leave of the House, to answer the hon. and learned Gentleman. The purpose of Clause 5 as it stood was to provide the machinery to enable the application for the issue of a warrant, where a warrant was required for levying distress and the application to proceed to levy the distress to be heard together. There would be no point in applying for a warrant unless leave to levy the distress was required.

In the case of distress for rent, there is no need for a warrant for the purpose. One can, under the self-help system, proceed without having leave. The purpose of this special provision is for levying distress with regard to rates. That is why this provision was inserted in Clause 5, and why it is proposed to reserve the effect to Clause 5 not by provisions in the Bill but by provision by rule.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 13—(Effect Of Failure To Observe Restrictions Under Part I)

Lords Amendment: In page 16, line 23, leave out "such action or proceedings as aforesaid," and insert:

"action or proceedings which lie by virtue of any such omission, failure or contravention."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This and the following Amendment, in line 25, are drafting Amendments to ensure that the defence of acting "honestly and reasonably," which was inserted in the Bill as a result of various suggestions made by the hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), should be available in all proceedings.

The first Amendment, I gather, is to cover the possibility of a criminal prosecution as well as civil proceedings. I am a little puzzled to know whether the second Amendment is quite right. As I see it subsection (3) will now read:

"If in any such action or proceedings which lie by virtue of any such omission, failure or contravention the court is satisfied that the defendant acted honestly and reasonably, and ought fairly to he excused for it…."

I am all in favour of using the word "it" where it can be used, but what does "it" refer to in this subsection? It does not seem to me that the drafting is quite correct. I would suggest to the hon. and learned Gentleman that it might have been better drafting to stop the sentence after the word "excused," rather than "excused for it," without saying what "it" is.

I entirely agree that it is a drafting point and a very pertinent problem which the hon. and learned Gentleman has posed. It may be that if one is being excused, one is being excused for something and, therefore, why not for "it."

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 17, line 9, at end, insert:

"( ) In relation to an action or other proceedings tried by a judge and jury—
(a) the references to the court in sub- sections (2) and (3) of this section shall be construed as references to the jury, but with- out prejudice to the power of the judge to give to the jury directions whether there is any evidence of facts justifying an award of exemplary damages on the one hand or the granting of relief on the other hand, or to give them advice as to the making of such an award or grant;
(b) the references to the court in subsection (4) of this section shall be construed as references to the judge alone."

9.45 p.m.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment arises out of a matter raised by the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), on the Report stage, and its purpose is to define the functions of the judge and jury in dealing with exemplary damages and also with the question of the restoration of the status quo.

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for the con- sideration given to the point which I raised on the Bill on the last stage in the House. I think it has met it satisfactorily, although very little indication is given in the proposed draft as to the criteria which a judge has to bear in mind in determining whether or not to give directions to the jury when awarding exemplary damages. It is possible that it might not have been convenient to do that with any precision, and no doubt it is the intention that such directions, when the jury can award exemplary damages, should only be given where it is clear that it means a deliberate disregard of the provisions of the Bill and a deliberate attempt to evade their operations.

I notice that the Solicitor-General said that this Amendment was made upon consideration of the argument advanced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller). I think I would be in order in referring to the words of the Government spokesman in another place when this Amendment was proposed there.

It was described by the Lord Chancellor as

"the best I have been able to do in the interval of time between the day before yesterday and today."

That suggests that the observations of my hon. and learned Friend were a long time incubating in the minds of the Government before they emerged into the realm of consciousness.

We ought to be quite sure that this Amendment will not cause any conflict with the Amendment which we have just agreed to in Clause 5, which was deliberately designed to enable the Lord Chancellor by rule to define the court referred to in Clause 13 (4). I take it that the definition of the court in subsection (4), which we are now inserting, will be the overriding provision, within which the Lord Chancellor's rules will be made..

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 20—(Modifications Of Rent Acts As Respects Occupation By Employees)

Lords Amendment: In page 28, line 7, at end, insert:

"or will have such accommodation at their disposal at or before the time when it is proposed that the order or judgment should take effect."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Subsection (3) enables the court, in certain circumstances, for police or public utility purposes to grant an order for possession of a house without proving that suitable alternative accommodation is available. This Amendment meets a point raised on the Report stage and provides that the court can take into consideration the question of whether the public utility company or public concern have alternative accommodation at their disposal at the time of the hearing, and, as was emphasised on the Report stage, at or before the time the order will have been effected.

I do not think that anyone looking at the Clause in the Bill corresponding to Clause 20 when it was introduced and Clause 20 now would think that they had any relation to each other. During the discussion on this Clause very considerable alterations were made. We raised points of the greatest importance about the privileged position which the new town corporations and local authorities were given for securing accommodation without proving that alternative accommodation would be available for the occupants of the premises whom they were seeking to dispossess. The Clause has been very radically altered, largely thanks to the efforts of my hon. Friends. It is in very much better form, and much better also than the corresponding Clause in the Leasehold Reform Bill. It is much better for achieving the purpose.

The defect of the Clause was that the local authority or the new town corporations could avoid offering alternative accommodation if they could show that at the time of the application they had no alternative accommodation. The Amendment entitles the county court judge to make inquiries whether, before the order takes effect, it will be possible for the local authority, statutory undertaker or new town corporation to provide alternative accommodation. I am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman has been able to meet us in alleviating hardship that might otherwise have arisen.

I regard the Amendment as a very substantial improvement in the Bill, but I would ask the hon. Gentleman for his interpretation of the words in the Lords Amendment:

"when it is proposed."

Does that expression refer to the time proposed for the judgment to take effect, in the sense that that is the time when the plaintiff is asking for it to take effect, or is it the time when the court decides that possession shall be granted?

The intention is that it should be the time when the judgment of the court is to take effect. If it were the time of the application it would obviously be difficult to work.

It relates to the intention of the court as to the time?

Yes.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment, in page 30, line 14, at end, insert new Clause.

New Clause—(Facilities For Action On Behalf Of Men Serving Abroad In Proceedings As To Tenancies)

—(1) Where in the course of any proceedings brought before a court under the Rent Restrictions Acts, or of any proceedings consequential upon the making of a reference or application to a rent tribunal under the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, or under this Part of this Act, it appears to the court or tribunal—

(a) that the proceedings relate to a tenancy vested in a service man;

(b) that a person other than the service man desires to take a step in the proceedings on behalf of the service man at a time when he is serving abroad or has purported to take a step in the proceedings on his behalf at a time when he was so serving; and

(c) that the said person, in seeking or purporting to take that step, is or was acting in good faith in the interests of the service man, and is or was a fit person to take that step on his behalf, but is or was not duly authorised to do so,

the court or tribunal may direct that the said person shall be deemed to be, or to have been, duly authorised to take that step on behalf of the service man.

(2) The provisions of the preceding subsection apply in relation to the institution of proceedings before a court as they apply in relation to the taking of a step in such proceedings, and apply in relation to the making of a reference or application to a rent tribunal as they apply in relation to the taking of a step in proceedings consequential upon the making of such a reference or application; and references in that subsection to proceedings brought or a reference or application made as therein mentioned include references to proceedings which purport to be so brought or to a reference or application which purports to be so made, as the case may be.

(3) Where in the course of any proceedings a court or tribunal gives a direction under subsection (1) of this section, the person to whom the direction relates shall have the like right of audience in those proceedings as the service man himself would have.

(4) The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries may make regulations—

(a) for enabling a counter-notice under subsection (1) of section twenty-four of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1948, to he served on behalf of a service man at a time when he is serving abroad, in a case where a notice to quit is given to him as mentioned in subsection (1) of section twenty-one of this Act; and

(b) for enabling any act or proceedings consequential upon the service of a counter-notice under subsection (1) of the said section twenty-four to be performed or conducted on behalf of a service man at a time when he is serving abroad, either in such a case as is mentioned in the preceding paragraph or in a case where subsection (5) of section twenty-one of this Act applies in relation to the service man.

(5) Regulations made under the last preceding subsection may contain such incidental and consequential provisions as may appear to the said Minister to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of the regulations.

(6) The power to make regulations under subsection (4) of this section shall be exercisable by. statutory instrument, which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

(7) References in this section to a time when a service man is serving abroad are references to a time when he is performing a period of relevant service and is outside the United Kingdom.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The object of Part II of the Bill is to provide the Service man with security of tenure, which will often depend upon his ability to bring or to defend proceedings. Difficulty may arise when the Service man is out of the country, carrying out his service. He may have gone away without giving anyone express authority to take action on his behalf and to protect his interests. The proposed new Clause confers that authority but it does so only if he is outside the United Kingdom, and it is subject to the safeguards which are laid down.

Subsection (1) provides that the Court or tribunal has to be satisfied that the person authorised to act on behalf of the Service man—I shall call him the representative of the Service man—is or was acting in good faith in the Service man's interest and is a fit person to act on his behalf. There we have discretion for the Court to safeguard the Service man's interests by ensuring that the representative is a person who, in the opinion of the Court, is suitable for the purpose. Subsection (1) deals only with the taking of steps in proceedings which have already begun. Subsection (2) makes corresponding provision to cover the beginning of new proceedings on behalf of a Service man.

Subsection (3) provides that the representative who has been so authorised by the court shall have the right of audience. This is because, apart from a provision of this kind, although the Service man himself would be entitled to appear and act on his own behalf without a solicitor or counsel, his representative would not be so entitled unless this specially expressed provision is made to ensure that he is. so entitled. The subsection gives the representative the same right of audience as the Service man himself would have.

Subsections (4) and (5) deal with the provision in the Agricultural Holdings Act. In the case of an agricultural holding, protection is extended to the Service man by extending the provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act. In order to obtain the protection under the Agricultural Holdings Act where there is danger of eviction the tenant has to give a counter notice to the landlord, and the tenant is also the proper person to make representations to the Minister as to the reasons why the Minister should withhold consent to eviction and also the proper person to bring or defend an appeal against the Minister's decision before the Agricultural Land Tribunal.

The subsections enable the Minister of Agriculture to make regulations enabling a Service man's representative to take the necessary act on his behalf so that we can apply the same code to the Agricultural Holdings Act as would be applied to, cases where protection is required outside the Agricultural Holdings Act. Subsection (6) provides that the regulations which the Minister makes shall be made by a Statutory Instrument and shall be subject to a negative Resolution.

The Clause has a rather curious history and it is right that we should spend a little time in considering it, because it is the first time this House has had the chance of seeing the Clause in its present form.

I believe it was my hon. Friends who first raised the point as to the provision for the family of the Service man when the Service man was overseas and could not very easily institute or defend proceedings where he left no power of attorney. The Solicitor-General saw a difficulty and said he would try to meet it. On the Report stage a new Clause of about six lines was put down. It was considered most carefully and as a result of the criticisms then offered the Solicitor-General withdrew it and introduced this Clause in another place. We are all grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for his endeavours to meet us upon this point. He has done so to a considerable extent.

10.0 p.m.

As I understand it, both with regard to the institution of proceedings, and taking part in proceedings which are already going on, it will be for the court to determine whether the representative of the Service man should be deemed to be authorised to act for him. That would probably work in the majority of cases, but what will be the position where the court deems that Mr. X or Mrs. X is the representative of the Service man overseas, and the Service man comes home and says that is quite wrong, that Mr. X or Mrs. X is really no friend of his? It may be that there is a possibility of matrimonial proceedings which might introduce a new element with regard to occupation of those premises. Is the Service man to be bound by the decision of the court that the representative is to be deemed to be acting for him? The representative may be instituting the proceedings and the Service man may not, in fact, be a party to the proceedings at all.

If it be the intention that the Service man should be bound by the decision of the court that a certain individual should be entitled to represent him, to consent to judgment, to consent to any terms, then that point ought to be dealt with in this Bill. As I read the new Clause, there is nothing in it to indicate that the decision of the court in relation to the claim by the plaintiff against the representative of the Service man, where it deemed the Service man as having authority to act, will be binding in law on the Service man.

I am not sure whether it is right to exclude any possibility of the Service man, in Korea or elsewhere, when he comes home, coming before the court and asking for what has been done to be set aside because the court was wrong to give authority to this individual to represent him on the ground that what was agreed to by that representative was not in his interest, though it may be in the interests of his children.

One has not had much time to consider this new Clause, and at first sight I should feel happier if there were some machinery available whereby, in that kind of case, the Service man could appeal to a higher tribunal for the matter to be re-opened. However, I gather from what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said that it is deemed that where the court finds that the person is representing the Service man, this will always be binding upon the Service man whether the decision of the court was right or wrong. We ought to give more consideration to that, because it is a serious point and has certain dangers.

My second point is in regard to Subsection (4). There the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries will make regulations. Presumably under this subsection it will not be for the court to determine who is to be deemed to be authorised to represent the Service man. Any person who can bring himself within one of the categories mentioned in the regulations will be entitled automatically to give notice under those regulations. If that is so, it may be open to the same objections as those voiced on the Report stage with regard to automatic representation. I hope I have made the point clear.

I do not quite follow the hon. and learned Gentleman.

The point is this: under subsections (1) and (2) the court has to be satisfied in each case that there is authority to act. Under subsection (4) the court will not come into that with regard to giving a notice. The regulations presumably will prescribe who can give the notice. They will prescribe categories. Once a person is within the category, presumably the court can give the notice and the notice will be binding on the Service man. That seems to open a door to the Service man being represented by people who are not really representing him, and in view of the fact that it is automatic and the court has no discretionary power, that makes it perhaps a little dangerous.

I appreciate that this is a very difficult Clause to draft. It is one which comes upon the Order Paper largely as a result of observations from this side, but I should be glad to know the views of the hon. and learned Gentleman regarding the points I have mentioned before we agree to the Amendment.

With what study I have been able to give to the Clause, I cannot feel convinced that it is drawn sufficiently widely to achieve the object which both sides of the House have in view. Its effect is restricted to the taking of proceedings, I think, in every case defined in subsection (1). The actions which may be performed on behalf of a serving man are proceedings before a court. There are in several parts of the Bill actions which are not proceedings and which, as the Bill is drafted, have to be taken by the serving man himself.

The first example to which I would refer is in Clause 16 (5, c). That is the application to a tribunal, which has to be made by the tenant; the tenant may apply to a tribunal. It is perfectly true that under the new Clause, when proceedings follow he may be represented and another person may act on his behalf, but we do not seem to have dealt with the fact that the application has still to be made by the tenant—that is, by the serving man.

Again, if we turn to Clause 28, which is in Part III of the Bill and is not covered at all by the proposed new Clause, we find that an order for the granting of a new business tenancy can only be made if there is an application to the county court by the tenant. There again, there is nothing at all to say that another person may make the application on his behalf.

Should the hon. and learned Gentleman argue that it is not necessary in those cases for it to be stated that the application may be made by another person on the Service man's behalf, I would refer him to Clause 5 (4), where it is expressly provided that the Lord Chancellor may make rules for treating an application made by another person as an application made by the Service man. If it were necessary to enable the Lord Chancellor to make rules for the purposes of Clause 3, for an action by another person to be treated as an action by the tenant or by the Service man himself, surely we ought to cover all the cases in the Bill where not merely court proceedings, but applications and other formal acts, are prescribed to be made by the tenant. Otherwise, the Service man who is on service abroad will be in a hardly less difficult position after we have added the new Clause to the Bill than he was before.

I wish to put one point to the Solicitor-General which is different from those raised by my hon. Friends. It seems to me that there is a small defect in the Clause, if I am right in its construction, which may have been overlooked. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will look at subsection (1) of the new Clause, he will see that it empowers the court or tribunal to direct

"that the said person shall be deemed to be, or to have been, duly authorised to take that step on behalf of the Service man."

That is, of course, quite rightly placed at the discretion of the court, but before the court can exercise that discretion three conditions have to be satisfied. It is to the third of those conditions that I invite the hon. and learned Gentleman to give his attention. The third of those conditions is:

"that the said person, in seeking or purporting to take that step, is or was acting in good faith in the interests of the Service man, and is or was a fit person to take that step on his behalf, but is or was not duly authorised to do so."

I think the reason for the insertion of those last 10 words is that if he had been duly authorised there would be no need of this subsection at all. I think that that was in the mind of those who drafted the Clause and that the effect is that, if the serving man has given specific authority, the court would probably not think fit to authorise anybody else.

What would be the effect of that? The effect would be that the man specifically authorised by the serving man would not obtain a right of audience under subsection (3), because the condition precedent to obtaining a right of audience under subsection (3) is that the court should have given a direction under subsection (1), and the court in such a case would not have been able to give a direction under subsection (1) because, the serving man having appointed an agent, the words of paragraph (c) of subsection (1) could not be satisfied.

We have the rather curious result that, while any agent appointed by the court will have the same right of audience as the serving man, a man specifically authorised by the serving man will not have that right. That seems a curious provision and I ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to comment on it.

We ought to thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for having brought this Clause forward. It was quite clear that without a Clause to enable someone to defend proceedings on behalf of an absent serving man, the Measure would not operate in a great number of cases. I am a little frightened by the wideness of this Clause and I suggest that its provisions ought to be watched.

In the first place, it is retrospective and that means that if someone had no authority at all to act for the Service man but had already acted, or acts in the future without authority and takes proceedings on behalf of the serving man, that person can go to the court and say, "Please validate everything that has been done up to date." This is a very strong measure against other parties and it is admittedly one to help the serving man. I do not want to make too much of it, but when we have a wide Clause of this sort which is retrospective in its effects, we have to watch closely how it operates and see that it does not do injustice.

The other point is that whereas there are provisions for appeal in cases under the Rent Restriction Acts and cases under this Part of this Bill, there are no provisions for appeal in cases under the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, as far as I know. I think it would be possible by an appeal very often to put right what goes wrong under this Clause, but under the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act there is a tribunal and I am afraid that tribunals act a great deal more recklessly than do county courts and will accept anyone appearing on behalf of a Service man and make orders on behalf of the Service man.

When the Service man returns, the difficulty to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manning ham-Buller), referred will arise far more frequently under this Measure than under the other Acts. This is another reason why I think it is necessary for the Government to consider whether they ought not to bring before the House a Measure to provide for some form of appeal from decisions of rent tribunals.

10.15 p.m.

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House who will probably have to deal with constituency cases, would feel very much happier if they could have some sort of assurance that in extreme cases which arise under this Clause the Service Ministries will regard it as grounds for compassionate leave in order that the persons concerned may deal with the matter. I wonder whether the Solicitor-General would consider bringing that point to the notice of the Service Ministries.

I am sure that the Service Ministries will read the report of this debate and note the observations of the hon. and gallant Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Major Gates).

The hon. and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), put his finger on a very tender spot in this Clause. As I ventured to point out on the Report stage, the house must really make up its mind whether or not it thinks that on the whole it is worth while having discretionary representation provided on the lines of this Clause for Service men or whether it will say that they shall have no representation, which is inherent in this Clause and quite ineradicable. We have to choose.

If we are to give Service men representation of this kind, they have to take the rough with the smooth. If they get representation they must be bound by the representation. It was considered by the House that it was, on the whole, worth while providing for representation rather than to omit a provision for representation. While I fully appreciate the strength of the observation made by the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South, it was directed not to a drafting point or one modification or another of this Clause; I am sure he will recognise it was an observation which went to the very root of the Clause itself.

I appreciate what the Solicitor-General has been saying. With the leave of the House, may I say that obviously if one could avoid recourse to this Clause it would have its advantages. I wonder whether a way might not be provided if the hon. and learned Gentleman could impress on the Service Ministries the desirability of pointing out to all those who are to go overseas the wisdom of giving authority to someone to act for them before they depart. I should have thought that that would not be impossible at this time. In war-time it might become very difficult to do. If steps of that sort could be taken, it would immediately reduce the risks of something going wrong as a result of recourse to this Clause.

I fully appreciate what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said. I think it is a valuable suggestion, and I am sure that it is one to which the Service Ministries will pay attention. There is really nothing between us in regard to the observations which the hon. and learned Gentleman has made.

I pass on to his observations on subsection (4). There again, there is considerable substance in what the hon. and learned Gentleman said, but he will appreciate that these powers will be exercised by regulation, so that the precise provisions made by the Minister will appear in regulations which will be laid before the House and be subject to annulment. There will thus be opportunity for dealing with any difficulties that might arise, as they might well arise, in respect of the provisions made under the regulations.

The tribunals are not excluded from the provisions of this Clause. It is not limited to courts: it extends to tribunals also. The hon. and learned Member for Norwich, South (Mr. H. Strauss), referred to cases where the Service man had specifically authorised someone to act on his behalf. If we follow the precepts of the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South, perhaps we shall have an increase of those cases. There I entirely agree with him in his analysis of the Clause, if I may say so with respect. There, of course, there is no right to audience for the person who is expressly, specifically authorised by the Service man because, as he says, it does not come within the court's authorisation under subsection (1).

But that is a case where the Service man has acted under the general law, and where he has acted under the general law there does not seem to be a case for seeing that then there shall be some special right of audience. It is where the court exercises its discretion in order to make some special provision for the Service man which he has not sought for himself and where there is real need—and only in those circumstances—that it has been thought right that the special right of audience should be given.

The hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), referred to the discretion of the court. I agree that in a case like this the discretion of the court will have to be care- fully exercised: but I have not the slightest doubt that it will be judicially exercised as all courts in fact do exercise their discretion in matters of this kind. Certainly, if I may say so, the way in which the courts have exercised this discretion under the Courts (Emergency Powers) Acts, not with regard to this provision but in general, I think has won the gratitude of everybody who has been concerned with such litigation.

The only thing on which I was sorry to disagree with the hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South, was with regard to his observations on rent tribunals. I am certainly far from agreeing with him on that matter, but I gather that on that he was really just grinding an axe.

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman propose to refer to the point I made?

I referred to the point raised by the hon. Member.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 24—(Protection During Short Period Of Training)

Lords Amendment: In page 33, line 17, leave out from "court" to "to" in line 18.

I beg to move. "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

I should like to refer, at the same time, to the Amendment to page 34, line 5. These Amendments are to extend the Lord Chancellor's rule-making power under Part I of the Bill to Clause 24 of Part II as well.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 26—(Renewal Of Tenancy Ex Piring During Period Of Service Or Within Two Months Thereafter)

Lords Amendment: In page 35, line 45, at end, insert:

"and, in relation to a business or practice carried on by a partnership firm or by a company, references in those provisions to the proprietor of the business or practice include references to a person being one of two such partners in the firm or, as the case may be, being one of two persons each holding such shares in the company, and references to the working proprietor of the business or practice shall be construed accordingly."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This is consequential upon the Amendments made in the House at an earlier stage when the qualification of proprietor referred to in the Clause in the case of a partnership and of a company was reduced from a 75 per cent. interest to a 50 per cent. interest. The result of that reduction is that it would be now possible for two persons to answer to the description of proprietor. The purpose of this Amendment is to remove any doubt whether it would be possible for either of those persons to be regarded as the proprietor. Either of two persons with 50 per cent. share can be regarded as the proprietor.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 28—(Application For Grant Of New Tenancy)

Lords Amendment: In page 38, line 10, leave out "expire by effluxion of time" and insert:

"come to an end—
(a) by effluxion of time, or
(b) by notice to quit given by the landlord so as to expire not less than four months after the giving of the notice,".

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment extends the landlord's right to put the tenant to election whether or not he is going to apply for a new tenancy, to a notice to quit case as well as to a case where a tenancy expires by effluxion of time. It will be recalled that during the Report stage I indicated that an Amendment on these lines would be introduced to cover the notice to quit case.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 29—(Power Of Court To Gran T0 0New Tenancy)

Lords Amendment: In page 40, line 24, leave out from "order," to "there," in line 27.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The words which it is proposed to leave out by this Amendment refer to a power to take possession of land under an authorisation given under Section 2 of the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946. Section 2 of the Act of 1946 was a temporary provision and, as many hon. Members wilt be glad to hear, the words proposed to be left out have become obsolete since the Bill was introduced in this House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 37—(Application By Service Man For Renewal Of Tenancy Of Business Premises)

Lords Amendment: In page 45, line 12, at end insert:

"and, in relation to a business or practice carried on by a partnership firm or by a company, references in those provisions to the proprietor of the business or practice include references to a person being one of two such partners in the firm or, as the case may be, being one of two persons each holding such shares in the company, and references to the working proprietor of the business or practice shall be construed accordingly."

I beg to move,. "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The explanation for this Amendment has already been given by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General in moving the Amendment in page 35.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 41—(Provisions As To Firemen's Pensions)

Lords Amendment: In page 49, line 37, leave out "by way of training" and insert

"for the purposes of training only."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Perhaps it would be to the general convenience of the House if I were to refer also to the Amendments in page 69, lines 10 and 25, and in page 70, line 30t. This is simply a drafting Amendment to make sure that the Service man should not lose the protection of the Bill simply because his service contained an element of training.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 45—(General Provisions As To Payments To Make Up Civil Remuneration)

Lords Amendment: In page 51, line 3'6, leave out "notification" and insert "death."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

In an earlier form of the Clause the words "notification of death" appeared, and we now wish to take out the word "notification" and to insert the word "death."

I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary, who has made his debut at this stage, the reason for this remarkable change in the Clause as it stood from the date of the notification of death to the date of death. The hon. Gentleman gave no explanation why we are suddenly asked to make this radical alteration. I think the hon. Gentleman has not completed the onerous duties which fall upon his shoulders without telling the House why he wants this Amendment made.

If I may speak with the leave of the House, the hon. and learned Gentleman is a trifle late. In the Bill at the moment "notification of death" does not appear; only the word "notification" appears, and we are now changing it to the time of death.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 51, leave out lines 40 to 44.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning

(Mr. Lindgren)

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

As the Bill left this House there was a provision in Clause 45 which required that on death any payments that were made to a widow should take into account any other payments that were to be made to her from charities or public funds. This Amendment deletes that provision and, therefore, at the same time it may throw a slightly increased cost on the Exchequer in the form of larger Exchequer grants arising from local authorities' increased payments.

10.30 p.m.

One of the puzzles in connection with this Bill is to decide in advance which Member of the Government will move an Amendment. We have had this puzzle all the way through the. Bill. It is, therefore, delightful to find the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning taking such an interest in public and charitable funds and to find him moving an Amendment to a Clause respecting which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour gave such a lengthy explanation.

This Amendment is obviously an improvement in the Bill. During its rapid passage, and owing to the time being short, it had escaped the notice of a great many of us that provision was being inserted in the Bill to reduce the amount payable to a widow by the amount payable to her out of other public or charitable funds.

It seems odd, indeed, that a pension should be reduced because of a payment being made out of charitable funds. I think that noble Lords on our side in another place ought to be congratulated for giving such close study to the Bill as to come across this and seek to put it right, and that the Government ought to be thanked for going a little farther than the original suggestion made in another place for remedying this defect.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 59—(Evidence As To Per Formance Of Relevant Service)

Lords Amendment: In page 64, line 17, at end, insert:

"( ) The Admiralty, the Army Council, the Air Council and the Minister of Labour and National Service shall respectively be under obligation to secure that, on enquiry made to them for the purposes of this Act as to a person therein described, if the information appearing from records kept by them is such as to enable a certificate falling within subsection (1) or subsection (2) of this section to be given as to a person appearing to answer that description, or is such as to justify the giving of a certificate falling within subsection (3) of this section, such a certificate shall be given:

Provided that no certificate the giving of which would in the opinion of the authority to whom the enquiry is made be against the interests of national security shall be given."

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment makes the securing of a certificate obligatory on the Service Departments.

I am a little surprised that the Under-Secretary should have moved that we agree with this Amendment in such brief remarks. He ought to have expressed his indebtedness to us for the way in which we pressed the Government to make this Amendment, which obviously improved the Bill. May I remind him, because he was absent very often from Committee discussions, that we raised this on Committee and advanced powerful arguments in support of it? Under the Bill as it stood, a certificate might be issued by a Government Department that a man was serving, had served or would serve, or could not be traced.

Both on Committee and on Report, we pointed out that if creditors were being exposed to liability for exemplary damages, as under Clause 13, if they do not conform to the provisions of the Bill, then at least there ought to be an obligation on Government Departments, and the Ministry of Labour especially to provide them, on application, with a certificate which would enable those who are trying to conform to the requirements of the Bill to ascertain the facts which would facilitate their determination of the true position.

The Solicitor-General strenuously resisted this proposal, both in private discussions, on report stage and in Committee. I must say we are delighted to find that, on reflection, the Government have come to the considered conclusion that the arguments we advanced are right, and have sought to give effect to them by this Amendment, which, from our point of view, is entirely satisfactory. I am glad at last we have convinced the Government that this Amendment is a good one, but I cannot refrain from pointing out that if they had only listened to us a little earlier much Parliamentary time would have been saved and that if they listened to us more often their Bills would be much better.

The hon. and learned Gentleman should not put his case so high.

The Under-Secretary of State for War might have told us more about what caused the Government to change their mind at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller), has fought this particular issue stage by stage throughout the passage of this Bill and has received nothing but the most stubborn opposition from the Government until now. I think we ought to have some explanation why the Government have changed their mind, for it is a little surprising that this Government of all Governments should show such deference to arguments addressed in another place, when it has treated them with something approaching contempt when advanced in this House.

While I welcome this concession. I think it would have been frank with the House if some indication had been given of the reasons for it. In the Standing Committee the opposition of the Government could not have been more direct to this proposal. The Solicitor-General for Scotland was put up on the morning of 3rd July to say that they—the Service Departments—were unwilling to accept the statutory obligations, and indeed the Under-Secretary of State for Air, who I think is the only Minister concerned with the Bill who has not spoken this evening, made a remarkable speech in which he said acceptance of this obligation would make the issue of certificates more slow than otherwise it would have been.

In face of that attitude, it is remarkable for the Under Secretary of State for War to come here and in a couple of sentences asked the House to agree with the Lords Amendment. Though I welcome it, unlike my hon. and learned Friend I do not think it is completely satisfactory, because there is omitted from it the provision we sought to add to the statutory obligation at an early stage relating to a time limit.

This Amendment, as I understand it in its present form, imposes a statutory obligation on the Service Departments and the Minister of Labour but sets no limit of time in which they must discharge that obligation. From a drafting point of view that does not seem to be wholly satisfactory, because I suppose technically so long as the Department said that sooner or later they felt inclined to issue a certificate they would be carrying out their duty under the Bill as amended, and this seems to diminish the enthusiasm with which one could accede to the Government's deathbed repentance.

Question put, and agreed to.

First Schedule—(Service Relevant For The Purposes Of This Act)

Lords Amendment: In page 69, line 24, leave out "Korea" and insert:

"the Korean operations continuing at the passing of this Act or in other operations designated for the purposes of this sub-paragraph by His Majesty by Order in Council "

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The purpose of this Amendment and a further Amendment in page 70, line 3, is simple. It is that if in future there should be another occurrence similar to that in Korea, we should be able by Order in Council to extend the provisions of the Bill.

This is an Amendment which at first reading is, perhaps, gloomy in character, as it appears to envisage the possibility of other operations. I am sure there is a good case for it, as this is not meant to be a Bill giving only temporary protection to Service men outside the country. If it were only a Bill of limited duration and only likely to last for a short time, coming to an end with what we hope will be a speedy termination to hostilities in Korea, then clearly the Bill should be limited to Korea and nothing else, but now one must realise that there is a possibility of operations in other fields. We hope that possibility will not arise, but to avoid the necessity of introducing another Bill to extend this Bill to those operations, it is necessary to make some Amendment of this kind.

I think I am right in saying that this was yet another Amendment to the Bill suggested by Members of the Conservative Party in another place, and I hope I shall not be out of order in expressing our thanks to the hon. Gentlemen opposite who have been responsible for this Bill for the way in which they have met so many of the points that we have raised and so many of the points which have been raised in another place. It will be agreed that they have done much to improve this Bill. This Bill has passed through this House and another place in a very short space of time, and owing to the efforts made, it has been much improved since its original introduction.

Question put, and agreed to.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to. [ Several with Special Entries.]

Mineral Workings Bill

Lords Amendments considered.

Clause 1—(The Ironstone District)

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 15, leave out from "section" to "shall" in line 16.

10.43 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning

(Mr. Lindgren)

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

The Government propose to accept all the Amendments on the Order Paper and, subject to any explanations which hon. Members may require on them, I intend to move them formally as we go along.

I think it would be proper to take the Amendments one by one, so that Members who wish can raise points on them.

Although these are mostly drafting Amendments, in one or two cases what is to be moved is not apparently intelligible. After reading the proceedings in another place, it would seem that some of the Amendments were introduced at the last moment and that they were not intelligible to members of another place. I shall ask for some explanation as we come to them.

I do not think it is likely that hon. Members on this side of the House will object to any of the Amendments. There are, in fact, more than 50, which I think gives the House a very useful impression of the work which another place does and disposes of those who feel that unicameral legislation would be more satisfactory.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 6—(Application To Land Held By Operators On 1St July, 1948)

Lords Amendment: In page 5, line 35, leave out from "from" to end of line 36 and insert:

"payments by the lessee under the lease."

10.45 p.m.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Dalton.]

I think I am right in assuming that the Amendments in line 35 and 37 hang together. The result would be that the material words of this subsection would read:

"A deduction of the amount authorised‥‥may be made on account of the said contribution from any payments by the lessee under the lease in accordance with the provisions of that Schedule, or otherwise recovered by the lessee in accordance with those provisions."

If I have incorporated those Amendments correctly, I do not think we can accept them, because they involve statements that a deduction of the amount authorised may be recovered by the lessee in accordance with the provisions of the Third Schedule. The material words are "a deduction may be recovered by the lessee." I submit that it is possible for the lessee to recover an amount or to recover a thing, but it is quite impossible for a lessee to recover a deduction. Unless I have misconstrued the Clause, I do not think we can accept this Amendment.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 6. line 21. at end, insert:

"or

(c) under any enactment other than the principal Act, in consequence of the imposition of any prohibition or restriction in respect of that development."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment"— [ Mr. Dalton.]

I rise only to ask what is the purpose of inserting this paragraph. It would be helpful to know what enactments were in the mind of the Government when this Amendment was introduced.

I am anxious, on the one hand, to be available to the House for any explanation required, and, on the other hand, not to delay the proceedings unduly. This Amendment is consequential on the Amendment, in page 6, line 8, to leave out "the winning and working" and to insert "any development."

We have a series of Amendments to Clause 6 (4) which are drafting. Perhaps the hon. Member will consider the arrangements for setting off development charges against payments from the £300 million. If permission is revoked, or the ironstone is acquired compulsorily or working is prevented, compensation is made payable. This proposes that a slice of compensation shall be taken from the Ironstone Restoration Fund after payment has been made in the ordinary way. That item covers not only this particular matter, but the whole of the series.

I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman has appreciated the difficulties which I and my hon. Friend feel will arise from adding these words. It is common knowledge that, under the principal Act, if permission for development is in certain circumstances withheld or is revoked after having been granted, then compensation is payable to the person who previously benefited by that planning permission. I am not, however, as at present advised, aware of any Act, other than the principal Act, under which such compensation is payable. We are here writing in a new paragraph referring to such enactments other than the principal Act. Might we be told of at least one other enactment under which such compensation is payable?

Yes, I can readily do that. Under the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, and the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 6, line 28, after the words last inserted, insert:

New Clause "A"—(Land Held On Charitable Trusts)

"(1) The Minister may by order direct that sections five and six of this Act shall not apply to ironstone specified in the order, being ironstone an interest in which is held on the date of the order on charitable trusts or for charitable purposes.

(2) No order shall be made under this section after the thirty-first day of December nineteen hundred and fifty-two.

(3) An order under this section may be made so as to take effect from the date of the order or from such earlier date as may be specified therein."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.—[ Mr. Dalton.]

While I hope that the House will agree to this new Clause, I think it should be pointed out that there is a certain illogicality in making this concession in favour of land held by charitable trusts and expressly withhold it from other owners of mineral-bearing land. There is no real analogy between what we are doing in this Clause and the tempering of the wind of taxation to the shorn lamb of charitable trusts. The whole basis throughout of the levy under this Bill upon the ironstone landowner has been that he had a duty towards the restoration of the land which he had, in the past, failed, or partially failed, to carry out and, therefore, it was proper that from his compensation under the Act of 1947 a certain amount should be recovered for the purpose from the Ironstone Restoration Fund.

Now we are proposing that a particular class of landowners, if they are deemed in the past to have carried out their obligations properly, are to be excused from the necessity of a reimbursement. But there is really no logical ground for distinguishing between this type of landowner who is to be excused, and any other landowner of mineral-bearing land, who has properly carried out his obligations as a landowner. I take this Clause as an admission on the part of the Government that there is an inherent injustice in the provisions of the Bill so far as the landowner is concerned.

There are two observations I want to make and one question I wish to ask. The first observation is that, however glad one may be that special treatment is being accorded in proper cases to charitable trusts, this levy partakes of the nature of a tax. This was, indeed, implicit in an argument used on behalf of the Government in another place, where it was pointed out that charities are exempted from some taxes. The end does not always justify the means, and for a Minister to have the power of exempting from a tax which falls upon other members of the community a certain category of persons or charities who otherwise would be compelled to make this payment, is, I think, on principle highly objectionable.

The second observation is that there appears to be a certain inconsistency in the attitude of the Government at the present time in making this exemption in favour of charities, but in the case of the principal Act, the Act of 1947, when a number of hon. Members on this side of the House urged that land belonging to charities should be freed from the obligation to pay development charges, that was resisted by the Government on the ground that there was no justification for trying to distinguish between charities and other members of the public.

The question I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman is this. Am I right in understanding that when these great and, as I think, rather objectionable powers are being taken by the Minister, it will be necessary for any order to be made by him to give effect to this and that the positive assent of both Houses of Parliament will be required?

I rather think this Clause owes its origin to an Amendment moved in another place by Lord Samuel. Although I wholly agree with the points raised by my hon. Friends behind me, both of whom raised points of considerable substance, we are here going along the road we have travelled before. That is the road of conceding to charities certain advantages not conceded to other members of the public. I am glad to see justice done even to charities, and on those grounds I would recommend hon. Members on this side of the House to accept their Lordships' new Clause.

It might be convenient for me to make an observation. The right hon. Member for Blackburn, West (Mr. Assheton) was quite correct. Lord Samuel proposed the Amendment in the House of Lords and, after consideration, the Government accepted it. Therefore, I advise this House to accept the Clause.

There is a consequential Amendment later to Clause 36, which will enable any Order made under the provision to be annulled by Resolution of both Houses, which is the negative procedure, and the Minister, whoever he may be—I, or it may be another, although the Order operates only until the end of 1952 because we want to clear the matter before the payment out of the £300 million; it is a short-term power to be exercised by the Minister—will be subject to the negative procedure of either House.

There are many cases in our law of a preferential treatment of charities in respect of taxation. When these cases were deployed, as in another place by the noble Lord, I felt that he made a convincing case and, without speaking at great length on the subject, I would mention the Income Tax Act, 1842, which gave substantial exemptions to charities from tax on their endowments, which are still enjoyed today. More recently, the Income Tax Act, 1918, exempts land belonging to a large range of charities from Income Tax, and Corporation Duty, which is a substitute for Death Duty, does not fall upon charities that are expressly exempt.

The War Damage Act, 1943, which is analagous in extent, because this is a peace damage Act, granted exemption from war damage contribution to a considerable range of charities. It seems reasonable that the Minister should have power to exempt from this contribution such charities as may seem to deserve exemption, particularly in the light of their conduct as landowners in relation to the restoration of land.

I hope, therefore, in view of the control that will be exercised by either or both Houses of Parliament, and the fact that the period of exercising orders is only until 1952, that the House will agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite and myself that we should accept this Clause.

11.0 p.m.

I do not object to the Clause, and I hold the noble Lord who was its author in very high respect. It is, of course, quite true that there are many precedents in Income Tax law and elsewhere for the preferential treatment of charities, but what is really inconsistent, and I think this was in the minds of my hon. Friends, is the treatment accorded in this section of this planning Act compared with the treatment accorded in the principal Act of 1947.

There a sharp distinction is drawn between charitable land held for investment purposes and charitable land held for functional purposes, and the only relief from development charge is for land held on charitable purposes. That distinction seems to have gone in this Clause, which refers both to land held on charitable trust and for charitable purposes. I am wholly in favour of the way in which it is now dealt with, but it does seem regrettable that it should not have appealed to the Government in this light in Section 85 or Section 86 of the 1947 Act.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 8—(Payments To Operators From The Fund)

Lords Amendment: In page 7, line 8, leave out "average" and insert "standard."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Dalton.]

I think this Amendment is a paving Amendment to the Amendment which immediately follows. As the Clause stands, it determines the average rate of the cost of land restoration so that where an operator necessarily incurs more expenditure than that average rate, he can obtain' reimbursement from the Ironstone Restoration Fund. That average rate, which was based upon the average cost per acre of carrying out the restoration operations specified in subsection (1) has now disappeared completely and is to be replaced by a standard rate determined by the Minister on two criteria which are set out in the Amendment.

These two criteria are the application of the sort of restoration which ironstone workers used to have to carry out and, secondly, in the second half of paragraph (b) the cost this sort of work used to involve them in. I want to ask the Minister why he has gone back to the cost of the sort of restoration that used to be imposed upon ironstone working under the old leases as the whole basis for this future standard rate, instead of taking into account the actual cost under current conditions of the full restoration which is now to be required.

I should like to press this inquiry a little bit further. During the Committee stage, I raised with the Government the great desirability of insuring that there should be a maximum inducement for those restoring land to do so in the most economical and efficient manner, and I understood that the way in which that desirable purpose would be effected was that the criterion of payment would be the average cost of restoration, so that if there was some ironstone operator who was able to restore the land more cheaply than the average he would stand to benefit by the payment. If owing to his inefficiency or using old equipment his cost of restoration was higher, he would suffer to that extent. That is a repetition from my memory of the explanation given, I think, at the time by the Parliamentary Secretary.

When I turn to this new Amendment, which is, I understand, the result of discussions that have taken place between the Government and the industry, I find myself unable to understand quite how it is to operate. Reading the Clause, I am not quite satisfied that that very important point upon which I was reassured by the Parliamentary Secretary in the case of the original draft is going to be safeguarded in this Amendment.

As the hon. Gentleman has surmised, I have been discussing with the industry, as we undertook that we would do, the best way of fixing the rate under subsection (3), and we have introduced this new provision because we are satisfied, after discussions with the Iron and Steel Corporation and others, that this is really better.

The new subsection leaves the Minister a reasonably free hand to fix a fair figure after due consultation. If the hon. Member looks at Clause 14, he will see that the Minister shall consult with the Corporation. He may also consult the Advisory Committee which is to be set up under the Bill. Under the new subsection the Minister will now fix a fair figure having regard to the general run of lease obligations and the cost of the restoration that was actually being carried out on 25th July, 1950—the date on which the special Order I made came into operation, which pre-dates this Bill. Having that information, and having been duly advised by the Corporation and the Advisory Committee, either I or my successors will be able to fix a reasonably fair figure.

Payments from the Ironstone Fund will be made, where the reasonable cost of restoring the land exceeds the amount, irrespective of the depth of the ironstone —which the hon. Gentleman said was an arbitrary figure when we were discussing the matter in Committee. I have accepted that now, following consultations, and I hope that this new procedure will be more equitable and will not be unduly bound by the specific depth of work.

It is true that the other figure was rather arbitrary, but it seems to me that this Clause really leaves the Minister an almost completely free hand and that the two matters to which he has to have regard have very little effect in fettering his discretion at all. That may have been the purpose of the Clause, but it is a little unsatisfactory when one looks at the two matters to which he has to have regard. The nature and extent of the works may be defined, but so far as the obligations usually imposed on lessees are concerned, my experience, which may be small compared with the august bodies and persons who advise the Minister, is that they vary immensely in mining leases in regard to this matter. I should have thought that the first matter to which the Minister has to have regard is one which he will have difficulty in translating into actuality.

I have only one question to ask: why, if the persons who are about to be kicked prefer the length of the Minister's foot to some other arbitrary standard, should they not be allowed to choose accordingly?

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 22—(Compulsory Acquisition For Purposes Of Agriculture)

Lords Amendment: In page 18, line 11, leave out paragraph ( c).

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Dalton.]

This Amendment omits a paragraph to which grave exception has been taken at all stages by hon. Members on this side. At an earlier stage this evening a one-sentence capitulation was made to many hours of barrage. The brevity on that occasion was exceeded when, with an element of disingenuousness a noble Lord speaking on this Amendment in another place said, "This is purely drafting." This is far from drafting. We have always felt it was improper that the conditions imposed on a hiring Order under the War Damage Sites Act, a very special Act dealing with conditions not comparable with those under this Bill, should be applied to hirings in pursuance of this Bill, and we are very glad to see the last of this paragraph.

This is a very great triumph of the Opposition over the Government. I only rise to express the great regret of hon. Members on this side that so much of our time was wasted in Committee and on Report, with the Government giving way in the end.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 27—(Mineral Development Charge Set-Off)

Lords Amendment: In page 20, line 6, at end, insert:

New Clause "B"—(Modification Of Payments In Lieu Of Restoration Under Ironstone Leases)

"(1) Where any ironstone.comprised in a mining lease made before the commencement of this Act is worked by opencast operations in accordance with planning permission, then if—

(a) the lease contains provisions requiring or enabling the lessee to pay a specified sum in lieu of compliance with any obligation relating to the restoration of the land, or by way of liquidated damages for breach of such an obligation, or to return the land after restoration or upon payment of a specified sum. in lieu of restoration; and

(b) the planning permission is subject to conditions regulating the manner in which the land is to be dealt with after working, but not requiring its restoration in the manner or to the extent specified in the lease, and those conditions are complied with,

the sum payable by the lessee as aforesaid under the lease in respect of that land shall be reduced to such extent (if any) as may be just having regard to any benefit accruing to the lesson or any person deriving title from him in consequence of compliance with the said conditions.

(2) Any question whether any and if so what reduction falls to be made under this section in the sums payable under a lease shall, in default of agreement between the parties, be determined by arbitration.

(3) For the purpose of calculating the amount of any reduction under this section the value of any benefit accruing in consequence of compliance with any conditions shall be ascertained by reference to prices of land current at the time when the sum to be reduced is payable; but if that sum is less than the sum which would represent the value of the land at that time if it were restored to the extent contemplated in the lease, the value of the benefit accruing as aforesaid shall be reduced proportionately.

(4) The provisions of this section shall apply in relation to a conveyance of ironstone or a conveyance of land subject to an exception of ironstone as they apply in relation to a mining lease, and as if for references to the lessee and to the lessor there were substituted respectively references to the person entitled to the ironstone by virtue of the conveyance or exception and to the person entitled to the surface of the land."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment"— [ Mr. Dalton.]

I rise to ask the Government to give us some explanation of this, substantial Clause.

This is a new Clause which makes provision for the re-assessment of the sum payable in lieu of restoration of land. In most ironstone leases there is a. covenant for a payment in lieu of restoration. Frequently the amount of this payment is less than the cost of the restoration, and frequently the conditions attached to a planning permission will require restoration which falls short of the. restoration required by the lease, and wilt be less stringent. This Clause is intended to allow an operator to obtain a reduction of the payment in lieu in certain circumstances, having regard to the work carried out under the terms of his planning permission and the benefit which accrues to the owner as a result of his work.

My recollection is that this was asked for by hon. Members opposite, and we have put it in the Bill after considerable discussion, because it has been subject to full consideration with representatives of the landowners and operators. It is in agreed terms. We ask the House to agree with it, but if the House should reject it, they would do so in opposition to some of their own people.

11.15 p.m.

I am afraid the Minister's recent history of this Clause is a little inaccurate. So far from it having been introduced in another place by the Opposition, it came as a complete surprise to them. Neither they nor the Government could understand it, so that it was necessary for proceedings to be adjourned for a time in order that discussions should take place, I imagine, behind the Woolsack.

The Clause had been agreed between two bodies described 'as the Landowners' Association and the Federation of British Industries, but by no means between the two sides of the House. I feel that it re- quires no excuse for examining a little more closely what the Clause does before we agree to it being added to the Bill. It seems to me that the Minister's explanation was a great surprise after all we have heard about the effect of the Bill.

We have been told throughout that in the past restoration had been inadequate in scale and that only recently, since the middle of last year, have planning conditions been imposed which have ensured a suitable degree of restoration. Now we are being told that we have to add this Clause to the Bill to deal with cases where restoration carried out in accordance with the terms of a lease would be a fuller restoration than that involved in planning permission.

It is possible that the full restoration which was envisaged when the sum in lieu was fixed in the lease was a fuller restoration than the Minister feels disposed to write into the planning conditions, but the fact remains that we have here pre-Act agreements between landowners and mineral workers implying a higher degree of restoration than the Minister expects he is going to impose under his planning conditions. If that is not the meaning of it, then it only indicates how insufficient is the explanation of this Clause which he has given to the House.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us of any such instances. I have a suspicion that he is pulling the Woolsack over our eyes.

If the hon. and learned Member had taken the trouble to read this new Clause, he would have seen the wording presupposes such cases.

I share the apprehensions of my hon. Friend about the wording of the Clause. It is surprising that it should now be envisaged that the conditions imposed by planning permissions as a general rule should fall short of what must be contained in the covenants of leases. In the course of the Second Reading, I ventured to express the hope that restoration would now become governed by the conditions of the planning permission and would not normally be the concern of private individuals in the covenants of their leases. The Parliamentary Secretary was good enough to indicate assent on that occasion, and it is a little disappointing now to see in this Clause that that will not be so.

May I venture to remind the Minister that compensation fixed in lieu of restoration in some leases was very small indeed. If there is something which is going to be paid back in respect of that amount, the restoration envisaged by the planning conditions cannot be very much. It is all very well to say this is an agreed Clause but, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, it did not achieve any notable discussion in another place, and it has not achieved an elaborate explanation from the right hon. Gentleman now. If the Clause goes on the Statute Book, it is the Clause of the Federation of British Industries and the other body—I forget its name now—much more than of the Houses of Parliament.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 28—(Modification Of Leases Granted Before 1St July, 1948)

Lords Amendment: In page 22, line 4, leave out "a willing lessor and lessee" and insert "the parties."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

We are here leaving out the words "a willing lessor and lessee" and inserting the words "the parties." What is happening is that in this Clause the Lands Tribunal are trying to ascertain what sort of royalty would have been fixed in a given lease if it had been made after 30th June, 1951. The tribunal is assuming that the terms and conditions of the lease are the same as the existing one, but under the Clause as it stands at present they have to assume, as is normal in such cases, a willing lessor and lessee. By substituting for those words the ones proposed by the Amendment, it seems to me that particular circumstances are brought into account which might result in a different and unjust assessment being made. The particular parties involved in the bargain might for various reasons reach a different figure from that fixed as between a willing lessor and lessee. The reason for substituting one formula for another does not appear equitable on the face of it.

The object of the Clause is to enable a lease made before the 1947 Act came into operation to be modified, taking account of the effect of that Act and making the corresponding transfer to the lessee of some part of the lessee's payment from the £300 million fund. There may be certain cases where the lessee might have liabilities under the lease in spite of which he has no claim on the fund, and a revision of these liabilities will not be proper. The object of the Amendment is to enable the Lands Tribunal to take this into account when modifying the lease.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 31—(Offences)

Lords Amendment: In page 26, line 18, after "corporate" insert:

"or any person who was purporting to act in any such capacity."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

This is now by way of being a standard subsection, having already appeared in three Bills. All I want to do is to draw the attention of the Government to the desirability of seeing that in all the Bills concerned this subsection should reach the Statute Book in the same form.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 26, line 23, at end, insert:

New Clause "C"—(Advisory Committee On Ironstone Restoration)

"(1) For the purpose of advising the Minister on questions referred to them under this section, the Minister shall appoint a Committee, to be known as the Advisory Committee on Ironstone Restoration, consisting of such number of members as the Minister may from time to time determine.

(2) The chairman and other members of the Advisory Committee on Ironstone Restoration shall be appointed by the Minister, and shall hold and vacate office in accordance with the terms of the instrument by which they are appointed.

(3) The Minister may refer to the Advisory Committee on Ironstone Restoration any question arising in connection with the determination of payments to be made to operators under section eight of this Act, or of the standard rate within the meaning of that section, or any other question connected with functions of the Minister in respect of the restoration of worked ironstone land, whether exercisable under this Act or otherwise.

(4) The Minister may pay to the members of the Advisory Committee on Ironstone Restoration such remuneration or allowances as he may with the consent of the Treasury determine."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in their said Amendment"— [ Mr. Lindgren.]

We pressed for this committee being given higher status, and we were unable with our limited powers of eloquence in this House to convince the Government of the desirability of making it into a statutory authority. We rejoice that in another place the arguments which we unsuccessfully advanced fell on more willing ears, and thereby obtained the result which we desired.

Question put, and agreed to.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to. [ Several with Special Entries.]

Rivers (Prevention Of Pollution) Bill

Lords Amendments considered.

11.26 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning

(Mr. Lindgren)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. We propose, with the permission of the House, to follow the same procedure as on the previous Bill. We propose to accept all the Amendments which have come to us from another place, and while we do not wish to delay the House, I will gladly give any explanation that is desired on any Amendment.

We must remember that there is an Amendment to be moved to one of the Lords Amendments.

We have no objection to the same procedure being adopted. The first three Amendments can be dealt with separately, and after that a considerable number of Amendments will fall to be considered under one head.

Title

Lords Amendment: In line 5, at end,. insert:

"and to provide for laying before Parliament the annual reports of river boards."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

I would point out that we have now repealed the Rivers Pollution Prevention (Border Councils) Act, 1898, and new legislation will have to be submitted to deal with that. I think the Parliamentary Secretary will confirm that we have now no statutory means of co-operating between England and Scotland over the rivers Tweed and Esk, and we shall require to give that further consideration.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 2—(Prohibition On Use Of Stream For Disposal Of Polluting Matter, Refuse, Etc)

Lords Amendment: In page 2, line 35, at end, insert:

( ) Subject to section five of this Act, the said subsection shall not by virtue of paragraph ( a) thereof, penalise the discharge into a stream of any trade effluent or any effluent from the sewage disposal or sewerage works of a local authority, if—

(a) it is not reasonably practicable to dispose of the effluent otherwise than by discharging it (directly or indirectly) into that or some other stream; and

(b) all reasonably practicable steps are taken to prevent the effluent being unnecessarily poisonous, noxious or polluting:

Provided that this subsection shall not have effect so long as the period referred to in subsection (2) of section eight of this Act (as varied by any Order in Council under subsection (3) of that section) has not expired or been terminated.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

I only rise to ask a question on the use of "reasonable" in modifying the word "practicable." The phrase is used in paragraphs (a) and (b) and I was wondering how this will modify the procedure. I should have thought that the words "reasonably practicable" would be very difficult of interpretation. I also think that it might be possible to leave out "reasonable" and that the word "practicable" in this context could be accepted generally to mean that which accords with the best known practice. I should like to know how my hon. Friend feels about it.

The House will remember that on the Report stage there was considerable discussion on the best practicable means, and at the end of the discussion, in which an Amendment by my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Hargreaves) was before the House, the Minister undertook. that there would be discussions between the interested parties, because it was appreciated that local authorities, in particular, have a very heavy and responsible task in regard to effluents from sewage disposal works. They have a more difficult task because of the present capital investment position, and the fact that they cannot install, even if they are willing to do so, certain plant because of that position.

11.30 p.m.

Discussions have taken place and, as a result, I am assured that this Amendment, and others with which we shall be dealing later on, do meet the position. I am assured that they make the position as satisfactory as it can be where there are the conflicting interests of local authorities, industry and of all those who are concerned with the purification of rivers.

I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that this Amendment goes together with a whole set of Amendments which complete the combination of the power to look after new discharges and the considerable tightening up which that will involve. Great power will be given over new discharges. Therefore, we think it reasonable to insert the words, "reasonably practicable", to which otherwise we would have taken exception.

Question put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 3, line 30, leave out from "section" to end of line 39 and insert:

"which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate, or any person purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be deemed to be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

I regret this Amendment, which I think weakens the Bill, and I take the view which was expressed in another place by the Lord Chancellor. I do not like the Amendment because I feel it is wrong that the onus should be shifted to the director of a company which has committed an offence, so that he shall be presumed to have been guilty himself of the offence unless he can prove that he had no complicity in it.

Surely, unless I am wrong, this Amendment does exactly the opposite. This is an Amendment asked for by the Opposition, who complained that the onus of proof was on the defendant. This puts the onus of proof upon the prosecution. It is in line with the general view taken in another place.

There is no real question of principle involved here, because a large. number of Measures on the Statute Book at present contain the words which this Amendment proposes to delete, and which in fact put the onus on the director to prove his innocence. I think it is worth while referring to some of these Measures, if only to put on record that they exist. There are the Official Secrets Act, 1920, the Dentists Act, 1921, the Treaty of Washington Act, 1922, the Representation of the People (No. 2) Act, 1922, the Dangerous Drugs and Poisons (Amendment) Act, 1923, the Theatrical Employers Registration Act, 1925, the Midwives and Maternity Homes Act, 1926, the Companies Act, 1929, the Betting and Lotteries Act, 1934, and the Building Societies Act, 1939. I think there have been other Acts since the outbreak of the late war, in particular, The Disabled Persons (Employment) Act, 1944.

Many of the Acts were passed through this House at a time when there was a Conservative majority and, therefore it is not open to those of my hon. Friends, who regard this as a matter of principle, to argue that it is a principle for which the Conservative Party has always stood. I think there is no question of principle here. I asked a question of the Attorney-General the other day on this subject and I put a supplementary question to this effect:

"Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that this matter is dealt with in a different way in four different Bills now before Parliament and does not he think that that is some reason for putting order into the matter? "

I suggested an appropriate way would be to appoint a committee to look into the whole question, and the Attorney-General replied:

"No, Sir. The appropriate provision in each Bill depends on the nature of the Bill, and these Bills differ."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1951; Vol. 488, c. 1656.]

With great respect, I do not think that the appropriate provision depends on the nature of the Bill. Both in this House and in another place, it is perfectly plain that noble Lords and hon. Members have all argued that the proper test is the nature of the company. It would be ridiculous to fix each one of the directors of I.C.I., for example, with a crime which might be committed by some branch of the company, and of which they could have no possible knowledge.

In the case of the one-man company, it is impossible to make a distinction between that and the case of the absolute owner, who is guilty unless he can prove lack of knowledge of the facts. The proper test is the nature of the company and not the nature of the offences. I do not believe that one can generalise in a Bill like this and say that all directors of companies Who commit offences are to be held free from guilt unless it can be shown otherwise. I think that would be putting an impossible burden on the prosecution and there would be many cases where serious damage could be done to rivers through lack of the power which would be contained in this Bill were it not for this Amendment.

For this reason, I object to this Amendment and ask the Government to consider this as a matter of general principle. I do not believe we can deal with this question piecemeal. It is obviously impossible to divide the House against the great mass of opinion which exists, but I ask the House to look at this question as a matter of principle and try to legislate in future cases on a broader basis, having regard to the considerations involved.

If I may speak again, by leave of the House, I would say that the position is that the hon. Baronet's view is that of my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friends. This Amendment was put forward to meet the wishes of the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman is out- of-step with his hon. Friends. We are doing our best to please his own hon. Friends, because they were very helpful in the amicable passage of this Bill. Much as I should like to please the hon. Gentleman, I really want to retain the co-operation of his colleagues during this Bill and get it dealt with at an early hour tonight.

This is an example of how remarkably the discussion of this Bill has been of a non-party character. In fact it was not discussed by Government and Opposition, but simply by those interested in one or other aspects of it. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) has felt compelled to testify on a point to which he attaches great importance. I consider that the view taken by another place was a sound one, and so counsel my hon. Friends.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 5—(Byelaws)

Lords Amendment: In page 6, line 36, leave out "animals or of other things" and insert "things of any class or description."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

Mr. Speaker, may I move my Amendment to the Lords Amendment—at the beginning to insert "animals or"?

I did not call on the hon. Member to move his Amendment because I regarded it as a negative and did not select it. I think he might talk on the Lords Amendment, but not move his Amendment to it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 7—(Restrictions On New Outlets And New Discharges)

Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 7, leave out from "shall" to end of line 22 and insert:

"without the consent of the river board (which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld) bring into use any new or altered outlet for the discharge of trade or sewage effluent to a stream or begin to make any new discharge of trade or sewage effluent to a stream.

( ) On an application for consent under the foregoing subsection the river board may grant their consent subject to such conditions as they may reasonably impose, being—

(a) in the case of a new or altered outlet, conditions as to the point of discharge into the stream or the construction of the outlet, or as to the use of that outlet or any other outlet for trade or sewage effluent from the same land or premises; and

(b) in the case of a new discharge, conditions as to the nature and composition, temperature, volume or rate of discharge of effluent from the land or premises from which the new discharge is to be made.

( ) A river board shall not grant their consent to the bringing into use of a new or altered outlet unless the outlet is so constructed as to comply with any conditions reasonably imposed by the board to enable them to exercise their right to take samples of the effluent."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, in line 7, after "may," to insert:

"require the submission for their reasonable approval of plans, sections and specifications of the new or altered outlet, or full particulars of the new discharge, as the case may he, and may."

I move this Amendment purely for the purpose of getting an explanation from my hon. Friend. I agree that the Lords Amendment would greatly improve the Bill. It lays down that the consent of the river board must be obtained for new discharges but it leaves out something which I should like to see inserted. The Bill, before it went to another place, contained the words:

"or made available for their inspection at all reasonable times at a place specified in the notice, plans and specifications of the new or altered outlet."

Those words were left out of the Lords Amendment, and my object in moving my Amendment is to find out why they were left out, as it would be of great use to the river boards to be able to call for plans and specifications of new outlets.

I beg to second the Amendment.

The Amendment which has reached us from another place is the first of a series which give effect to an undertaking which my right hon. Friend gave on the Report stage on the "best practical means," and these Amendments recast Clause 7. They provide that no new outlet shall be made or new discharge shall commence without the prior consent of the river board, and the river board may attach conditions or withhold that consent. If there is any dispute as to the actions of the river boards, the aggrieved parties may apply to the Minister to determine whether the board has acted unreasonably.

11.45 p.m.

My hon. Friend has called attention to the fact that in the Bill originally there was a requirement for certain plans and so forth to be made available. That is unnecessary in the Clause as it is now drafted because the Clause gives the board permission to refuse or withhold consent and to make conditions in regard to consent. In order that they perform their functions of considering conditions, the board must be given all the facilities they require in regard to plans and details of the scheme. This means that, under Clause 7 as redrafted, the powers of the river boards in regard to withholding consent or attaching conditions are much larger than before, and that is in accordance with the general wish to the House expressed during the Committee stage.

The Amendment which the hon. Gentleman has now moved is unnecessary. I hope he will withdraw it and that the House will give us this series of Amendments which give the river boards this additional power.

Question, "That those words be there inserted in the Lords Amendment," put, and negatived.

Question again proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

Before we leave this Amendment, I feel I should say a word on it. After all, this Amendment and the next six are to put a great deal more power in the hands of the river boards than they had before, on the lines just described by the Parliamentary Secretary. I am sure it was a momentary omission that he did not pay tribute to our side in seeing that the provision is in the Bill. It will be within his recollection that his right hon. Friend, on the Report stage, agreed to the third Amendment on the Lords' list without any such qualification as this, and if, in fact, the matter had rested there, the very valuable new powers might never have appeared in the Bill at all.

It was because the House expressed itself very strongly that to open the door to bad new discharges in the way suggested would have injured the whole effect of the Bill, that the Minister finally undertook, if all the Amendments were withdrawn, that he would reconsider the matter to see whether we could get some agreed basis. What, in effect, the other place have done is to produce in a very admirable form the basis upon which the Minister managed to get all sides to agree. I feel certainly that the Parliamentary Secretary would be glad to pay tribute to the labours put forth from this side to achieve that desirable end, and I feel sure the outcome will be successful.

rose—

The hon. Member has lost his right to talk on this Lords Amendment by seconding the Amendment to it.

I feel that credit should be given to everyone concerned in this matter, and there is one right hon. Gentleman who has not been mentioned. That is the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), because it was a remarkable thing on the last occasion that he approved of and agreed with something I said and I agreed with him. This is a very important series of Amendments which, in the view of all concerned, strengthen this Bill very materially. I believe they will be very valuable.

It may be, as we now find ourselves in agreement with each other and with the Minister of Local Government and Planning, that this has been found to be the only way. Many of us will remember seeing a famous play with Sir John Martin-Harvey called "The Only Way", and his great line in that play was: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done.' [Interruption.] I do not know whether that is the basis of the choice of the title for a certain pamphlet, but it is certainly very appropriate to this Amendment.

I should like to say that I was in error with the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood). He had not spoken to the Question that I put; he had merely spoken to the Amendment, and therefore he has his right to speak.

Thank you, Sir. I only wanted to say that one of the most gratifying features of the debates in Committee was the complete lack of party bias. I regret that the hon. Member has attempted to derive party capital at this late stage, and I want to express my sympathy with him that ony 12 Members of his party should be present to hear him.

Question put, and agreed to.

New Clause— (Reports Of River Boards)

Lords Amendment: In page 11, line 33, at end insert new Clause:

"The Minister shall lay before each House of Parliament copies of the reports of river boards sent to him in each year under section twelve of the River Boards Act, 1948."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

I am gratified that this Amendment has been accepted by the Government. I was the original mover of an Amendment on these lines in Committee, but owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding between the Minister and myself, the Amendment could not be made on the Report stage. Fortunately, an opportunity occurred in another place to remedy that, and because it was essentially a non-party Amendment I rejoice that it has been made. I regard it, apart from the strength of the technical provisions of the Bill, as an important Amendment, because it will focus public attention on the river boards and the work they have to do.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 10—(Interpretation)

Lords Amendment: In page 12, line 40, at end insert:

"'tidal waters' includes the waters of any enclosed dock which adjoins tidal waters; "

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—[ Mr. Lindgren.]

This Amendment, which sets out to define tidal waters, does give rise to some anxiety in the minds of the river boards who have to operate this Bill when it becomes law. While it is too late and probably too difficult to define what tidal waters are, I think the Minister could give some reassurance to the River Boards Association if he could give an undertaking that when river boards have a stretch of tidal water within the meaning of this definition which they wish to bring within their sphere of operation, he will be expeditious and sympathetic in making orders under Clause 6, which enables him to bring tidal waters within the operation of the river boards on application.

There are long stretches of river, particularly in East Anglia, where the tide may come up as much as 100 miles inland. It is most important that the river boards should bring these stretches into a condition of purity, but unless an order is made they will not, as tidal waters, come within the sphere of the boards. In order to clarify this, and to reassure the river boards, I ask the Parliamentary Secretary for an assurance that when applications are made for such orders they will be considered expeditiously and sympathetically.

I am very glad the hon. Member has raised this point. The whole definition of tidal waters is not clear even now. It is in the case of closed docks, but not in a whole lot of other cases. The result of this Clause will be to lay on the Minister the onus of deciding whether a river board shall take action or not in a whole series of cases. For a certain class of water which is tidal, or is affected by sluice gates and goes up and down indirectly as a result of the tide, the board will not take action except after an application to the Minister. It is important that the Minister should be fully seized of this point, and give an undertaking that he will consider applications sympathetically.

I really do not know where we are getting. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Nugent) spoke of everything except the Amendment. This Amendment is to place it beyond all doubt—at least that is its intention—that docks in tidal waters are included in the definition of tidal waters. My hon. Friend made a speech which I should have thought would have come on the Amendment he has put down. We cannot at this stage start re-defining the question of tidal waters and their effect.

Question put, and agreed to.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to. [ Several with Special Entries.]

Rivers (Prevention Of Pollution) (Scotland) (No 2) Bill

Lords Amendments considered.

Clause 1—(Duty Of Secretary Of State In Relation To Prevention Of Po Llution Of Rivers And Other Waters)

In page 2, line 10, at end, insert:

(4) The Secretary of State shall lay before each House of Parliament a copy of any report made to him by the Scottish River Purification Advisory Committee upon any matter which in his opinion is likely to be of general public interest.

12 midnight.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I did not make a speech on each of these Amendments. The Government propose to advise the House to agree to all the Amendments. If any hon. Member wishes to have an explanation or justification of any of them, I shall be pleased to do what I can to assist.

In regard to the first Amendment, I should have thought that the Under-Secretary of State might have had a word to say, as he rejected a similar Amendment in Committee. He said it was unnecessary to put it into the Bill, and both sides of the Committee agreed with him. I was rather surprised to see this Amendment on the Order Paper tonight, and I think the hon. Gentleman might have given us an explanation of why he has changed his mind.

I do not think it is true to say that both sides agreed. I think it was decided that some alteration should be made and that the matter should be brought to public notice when suitable occasions arose. I think the Government would do well to insert this Amendment.

I think this matter was left open when the Bill left this House. From the Government Bench we had expressed the view that it was unnecessary to put the provision in the Bill that the reports of the Advisory Committee should be published. In consequence of the discussions in another place, we agreed that such reports of the Advisory Committee as in the opinion of the Secretary of State for Scotland would be of general public interest should be published. We still think that the Advisory Committee will give the Secretary of State advice on matters which would not be of sufficiently wide interest to justify publication, but it is provided that reports on wider issues should be published.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 28—(Restrictions On New Outlets And New Discharges)

Lords Amendment: In page 26, line 47, at end insert:

(11) If, on an application to the Secretary of State for him to determine a question under the last foregoing subsection, he determines that the withholding of consent, or the condition imposed, or the variation of a condition, as the case may he, was unreasonable, then—

(a) where the application was in respect of the withholding of consent, he may direct that the consent shall be treated as given either unconditionally or subject to such conditions as appear to him to be reasonable;

(b) where the application was in respect of the unreasonableness of any condition imposed, he may direct either that the condition shall be treated as annulled or that there shall be substituted for it such condition as appears to him to be reasonable;

(c) where the application was in respect of the reasonableness of any variation of a condition, he may direct either that the condition shall he treated as continuing in force unvaried or that it shall he varied in such manner as appears to him to be reasonable;

but, as respects the period before the giving of the direction, this section shall apply as if the withholding of consent, or the condition imposed, or the variation of a condition, as the case may be, had not been unreasonble.

(12) If a river purification authority fail, within three months of the making to them of an application for their consent under this section, to give the person proposing to bring into use the new or altered outlet or to begin to make the new discharge, as the case may be, notice that they give or refuse their consent the consent shall be deemed to be granted unconditionally at the expiration of those three months.

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This Amendment also deals with new discharges and we feel it is an improvement along the lines which we have been discussing in regard to the English Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to. [ One with Special Entry.]

Housing

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[ Mr. Royle.]

12.4 a.m.

I want to raise tonight a number of urgent housing problems. I am sorry this matter has come up at this late hour, but that is the fault of neither the hon. Gentleman who is to reply nor myself. The first problem is of nation-wide interest—namely, the raising of the selling price of houses dealt with under private licence in proportion to the increase in the cost of building. Secondly, I want to raise some problems which are causing acute misery to individual constituents of mine, and I think other hon. Members will be familiar with these problems from the letters they receive and from their contacts with constituents.

On the question of the selling price, Section 43 of the Housing Act, 1949, allows a supplementary licence to be issued under certain conditions, one of which is if an addition is made to a house after the original size has been decided. What the Act does not allow for is any increase in the selling price if the selling price of the house rises after it is completed.

That means that a man who had a house built in 1948 when the cost was, I understand, 30s. a square foot, and who now has to move to another town, as is happening, cannot sell it for more than the price fixed in 1948. If he wants to buy another house in the town to which he moves, he will have to pay today's price, that is, 36s. a square foot. During the passage of the Housing Act, 1949, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) moved an Amendment which read:

" Provided that the local authority (as defined by section eight of that Act) in the area in which the house is situated shall have power upon application made to them by the owner of the house and having regard to the market price of comparable houses in the locality in which the house is situated, to modify or cancel any condition limiting the price for which the house may be sold."— [OFFICIAL REPORT. Standing Committee C. 10th May, 1949; c. 2104.]

That Amendment was rejected on a Division.

When I asked the Minister of Local Government and Planning on 17th July if he would amend that Section of the Act, he gave a categorical "No." When I asked him, in a supplementary question, whether he realised the hardship that was being caused, he evaded the issue, and added that the nearer we could get to a price freeze the happier he would be.

But there is no sign of a freeze, so the hardship continues. I asked the Minister why he would not amend the Act, and the Parliamentary Secretary, who is to reply to this debate, said that it was because it would lead to profiteering. How can there be any profiteering if the owner obtains no more for the house he sells than he has to pay for the new one?

Hardship is being caused not only to purchasers but to building firms by the restriction. I have heard of a building firm whose houses last November were fixed at a price of £1,310, but because of delay in the supply of steel pipes, and also because of bad weather, by March the cost had increased by £250. No supplementary licence has yet been issued. The local authority concerned is not Wembley, but I will not mention it because I do not want to pillory them. Much time has been wasted in correspondence between the firm and the local authority. All this is inconvenience and a waste of time for the firm, which is trying to get on with the job of building houses.

This brings me to the problem of a constituent of mine who owns a house in Wembley, but whose employer has moved him to Blackpool. He wants to sell his house in Wembley and to buy one in Blackpool. Half of his house in Wembley is let to a family which is on a housing list but has not got sufficient points to justify its being housed. If the owner sells without vacant possession, the price will not be enough to pay for a similar house in Blackpool, or elsewhere, for that matter. What is this owner to do? Meanwhile, he himself is living in rooms in Blackpool and his wife is living in the house at Wembley. Periodically he pays a train fare, which is expensive, to come and visit his wife, and see whether he cannot do something about selling the house.

I next come to families who have no residential qualifications. I have one case where there is a family of four children, three of whom are in Dr. Barnardo's Homes because there is no room for them in the room in which the family is living. The other child is living with the mother, and the father is in hospital suffering from tuberculosis, which is alleged to have been accentuated by the poor housing conditions in which they are living. They have moved from place to place, and that is why they have no residential qualification.

Another case is of a family with three children living in two furnished rooms and sharing a kitchen. They came to Wembley a few years ago, and because they have not got the five years' residential qualification which the Wembley Borough Council requires, they have unfortunately no home. I am not blaming the Wembley Borough Council for placing a residential qualification, because if they did not do so, they would find their waiting list increased by another 1,000 or 2,000 families.

The third family is a family of Czechs with one child, who came to Wembley after the Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in 1948. They are naturalised British subjects, but they have no housing qualifications. I wonder what can be held out to that family, along with the other two, in the way of some chance of being re-housed.

A few months ago I wrote to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, which was then responsible for housing, asking him what families like those I have mentioned were to do and what hope they had of obtaining accommodation. Two sentences in his letter stand out as a little bit inconsistent with the Welfare State. He says:

" I am afraid families in those circumstances must rely on their own efforts."

And another sentence is:

" I suggest that they look around for themselves,"

These families have been looking around for themselves for several months, and we all know how hopeless a task that is, particularly for a family with a large number of children.

Lastly, there are two problems concerning private building licences very different from the aspect which I raised at the beginning. A constituent of mine wants to build in Harrow. He has lived in Harrow for 17 years, but due to his father's employment the family moved to Wembley. When he first applied for a licence in Harrow, he was given to understand that he would be granted one, but before the matter had moved very much further, the Harrow Urban District Council passed a resolution laying down a 20 years' residential qualification for building houses in Harrow. He had 17, and as he has left Harrow he cannot acquire the extra three years. It is difficult to blame the Harrow Urban Council, because without this qualification presumably many more people would be added to their list of applicants but it is hard indeed on this man to have this condition imposed upon him after he had begun negotiations for an application for a licence.

The second problem concerns a constituent who has a delicate son, and because of that he has been advised to move further out into the country. He has been more fortunate in that the Wembley Borough Council granted him a licence and allowed him to transfer it to another area. He has an option on a plot of land and a builder ready to undertake the building. Unfortunately, the local authority concerned will not at the moment accept transfer of the licence. Meanwhile, there is the danger of the licence expiring, although if that happened I rather imagine that it could be transferred to another family and another licence issued to the original applicant. There is also danger of the option on the plot of land being withdrawn, and every day that is wasted the more the house is likely to cost this man. That is another burden upon him.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to hold out a little more hope than the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health did in a letter a few months ago. I hope also that he will be able to give advice to citizens faced with these appalling problems. When hon. Members on this side of the House complain of conditions today, we are often met with the retort, "What about the mass unemployment before the war?" But I want to make this point. I am certain that the shortage of houses today is causing every bit as much misery as did unemployment before the war to the people who are affected. Moreover, the number of unemployed before the war was being gradually reduced. I wish that there were as great a reduction in the number of applicants on the waiting lists for houses.

So I hope that if the hon. Gentleman cannot give much consolation to those families, he will at least promise, on behalf of the Minister, to reconsider the whole of the operation of Section 43 of the Housing Act, 1949, so as to end the injustice to people who built a house three or four years ago, and who now have to sell it, not getting for it the price which they will have to pay for a new one.

12.17 a.m.

I am glad to have a brief opportunity of supporting my hon. Friend in this important subject. I must confess my surprise that there are so few hon. Members here when such an important topic is being dealt with, for I have no doubt that, like myself, other hon. Members have had hundreds of urgent housing cases brought to their notice.

On my constituents' nights, I take the precaution of having with me a borough councillor, because almost invariably all the cases coming before me are urgent housing cases. Almost invariably reference to the local housing department confirms the details of the individual cases, and it is always a case of a long wait, or one of hopelessness, because an applicant cannot fulfil the conditions necessary to qualify him for a municipal house.

One of my cases concerns a man who urgently needs a three-bedroomed house. He has the necessary certificate of health and points. The Wembley Council has just recently completed the building of three-bedroomed houses, and now has begun to build two-bedroomed houses, so that this man may have to wait a considerable time. Another man telephoned to me on a Saturday at noon, at which time it is usually too late to engage the local authority's attention. In this case the man, his wife and child had been turned out of the home of a long-suffering mother-in-law, and they were literally on the streets.

The tragedy is that one cannot do anything in these cases. I did not feel any less responsible in the matter when I learned that the man concerned belonged really to the division of my hon. Friend, the Member for Wembley, South, he having concluded that he was in the North Wembley Division because he lived near North Wembley station.

I understand that my hon. Friend originally balloted for the opportunity to raise this subject under the title, "Hopeless Housing Cases." I think that we may still speak of hopeless housing case, because there are those wanting houses who do not fulfil the necessary qualifications to enable them to get on to any municipal housing list. Therefore, their cases are hopeless. There are others who are well down the waiting list, and who can have no chance of getting houses in the desired area.

This month, in the minutes of the Housing and Town Planning Committee of the Wembley Borough Council, it is stated that Wembley have only 750 sites remaining available for building houses in the borough. This means that thousands on Wembley's waiting list can have no hope whatsoever of a house in Wembley. That is a position not peculiar to Wembley alone. There are other authorities in Middlesex—Edmonton, Tottenham, Finchley, Harrow—which are similarly placed. I suggest that these authorities have an especial interest in the new towns, and it is to be hoped the Minister will give sympathetic consideration to their obvious needs.

While taking note of these hopeless and urgent cases, do not let us forget to be just to those who, as my hon. Friend has mentioned, have occasion to leave the houses they have built themselves. My hon. Friend has put the case very clearly. A man might have built a house for £1,400 just after the war. Three or four years later, through no fault of his own, and probably because of a question of health or of a posting to other employment, he has to leave and is not allowed to sell his house for more than £1,400. Yet, he will have to pay, for a similar house elsewhere, £3,200 to £3,500. I am not suggesting that he should be allowed to sell his £1,400 house for £3,500, but it is reasonable to expect that he might be allowed to sell for the amount it would cost to build such a house at the time he is selling. The obvious solution is the building of more houses and once again I urge that upon the Government.

12.22 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Local Government and Planning

(Mr. Lindgren)

May I thank the hon. Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell) for his courtesy in giving me very early notice of this Adjournment debate. Even Parliamentary Secretaries like to make arrangements ahead sometimes, and it is a little, disconcerting when an Adjournment debate occurs at short notice and upsets those arrangements. The hon. Gentleman's courtesy is very much appreciated, and I am sorry that I cannot, after starting in that good mood, met him a little more on the points he has raised. His points were on two issues. One concerned those who have a house built under licence for their own occupation and who want to sell, and the other dealt with people waiting for houses to rent.

The hon. Gentleman was right in referring to Section 43 of the Housing Act, 1949. Previously, controls had been under the Building Materials and Housing Act, 1945, when the period of control was four years. Under the Act of 1949, it was extended to eight years. He referred to the Amendment moved during the passage of that Measure by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) in regard to local authorities being given certain powers to vary the licence.

There was also an Amendment moved by the right hon. and gallant Member for reducing the period from eight years to five. That Amendment was resisted from this side of the House and the Opposition did not press it to a Division, although they did not withdraw it. The reason they did not press it to a Division was because they were impressed by the arguments used by my hon. Friend the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, which was then responsible for housing. The arguments my hon. Friend used in 1949 are just as valid today.

Both hon. Gentlemen have made their speeches tonight in moderate terms, and everybody will agree—I do not disagree—that there is a very desperate shortage of houses. We may disagree whether or not some of that housing need can be met in a better way than it is being met. It is the Government's policy to do their utmost to meet the shortage, and they are doing it on the basis of need, making provision first for those who have the greatest need. There are, firstly, those who wish to rent houses and, secondly, those fortunate enough to be able to build a house under licence. The determination of need is done by the local authority.

What about those who are not the responsibility of a local authority and whose need is urgent?

There is no such thing. There are some local authorities who do not accept their responsibilities in the way they should. Hon. Members opposite, as elected representatives, ought to be very careful before they ask us to start being dictators to local authorities. They will remember our debate on local government last week. The function of this House is to provide opportunities for local authorities, and it is for the local authorities to use those opportunities. If they do not use them, it is for local electors to deal with them at the local elections. In housing, the opportunity is there for the local authorities to deal with every person in the country. Some do and some do not, and the varying standards in which local authorities deal with the problem, I agree. aggravate the position in which hon. Members find themselves in dealing with cases of their constituents.

I want to deal with the argument put by the hon. Member for Wembley, South. First, he will agree that a local authority in issuing a building licence takes into account the need of the individual and gives preference to the most deserving cases. If there is a man with three children he gets priority over a newly married couple. The man who gets a licence is in a privileged position from the start, because he gets a house in a period of scarcity.

The surprising fact is that it is cheaper to build a new house—in spite of current building, labour, and material costs—than it is to buy an old pre-war house. That shows there is excessive exploitation; exploitation of scarcity value by house owners. A person who gets a building licence is in a privileged position compared with the person who has to buy on the open market. The person who buys on the open market is, some of us think, exploited to a very unreasonable extent. If a person who gets a house in that privileged way were allowed to do what the hon. Member suggests, we would be adding to the exploitation which is going on. Why should a person selected by the local authority on the basis of need to have a licence and build a house for £1,400 and then be allowed three or four weeks later to sell it for £3,500?

The hon. Gentleman knows I was not suggesting anything of the sort. What I was suggesting is that a man who builds a house should, three or four years later, obtain the price he would have to pay if he had to build at that time.

He has only eight years under the Act as it is. Where are we to draw the line? The case quoted by the hon. Member was that a person had to move, because of his job, from Wembley to Blackpool. It is quite possible that a man who has been on the Wembley waiting list for two years finds that when the house is built he has to go to Blackpool because he may have been appointed pier manager there. But he is in exactly the same position as the person who has had a house for four years. He is, in fact, no worse off than if he never had a licence; he will, at least, get back the money he originally paid. He has lost nothing. if he comes to the new area he is in exactly the same position as a person who has not got a licence.

He will have no qualifications and will be at the bottom of the list.

He only had his privileged position where he was because he had certain qualifications of need there. Why should he, just because he had certain qualifications, be able to exploit the community. That is really what the issue is. What the hon. Member is saying is that we should add to the existing exploitation by removing restraint from those who have had the privilege of a building licence. We do not say that at all. We feel that we should reduce the exploitation that is going on by keeping the price of a new house at the figure that was paid for it, and if the owner got a privilege over the rest of the community by having a building licence, then he should not exploit it by selling the house at a higher price.

I know hon. Gentlemen opposite do not want to make it possible for exploitation to go on unnecessarily. This suggestion tonight opens the door to it, and where is one going to stop? Not only the selling price of new houses, but their maximum rentals are controlled, and if one concedes the case for an increased selling price, one has equally got to concede an increased maximum rental.

In the case of the man who moves from Wembley to Blackpool, whose responsibility does he become? Which local authority accepts responsibility for placing him on a waiting list. He is worse off than when he started.

Of course he is worse off. But he would not go there unless it suited him. I was a railwayman—

He might be posted there —bank managers, for example.

The same applies as to railwaymen—we agreed that we would serve anywhere in the country. We agreed to move, particularly to accept promotion, and if one accepts promotion one expects to put up with what it entails. Many people resign themselves to their present situations and will not accept promotion because of the present housing shortage. If one accepts promotion and goes somewhere else, one must accept the consequences of it. No one would expect to go into a new area, whether on account of work or residential choice, and then immediately become a priority case in that area in exactly the same way as he was, say, two years before a priority case in the place he has left.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Wembley and Harrow. Far be it from me to enter into differences between two adjacent authorities, but the situation strikes me as a little curious. You can throw a stone from Harrow into Wembley, and if a man's job was moved from Harrow to Wembley and he really wished to move his house from Harrow to Wembley—I should have thought that he ought to buy a bicycle.

The Question having been proposed after Ten O'Clock on Monday evening and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty-Six Minutes to One O'Clock a.m.

Volume 491: debated on Monday 30 July 1951

House Of Commons

Prayers

Private Business

Liverpool Extension Bill Lords(By Order)

Oral Answers To Questions

North Korea And China (" Daily Worker " Newspaper)

Mr Arthur Horner (Speech)

Food Supplies

Flour Improvers

Lithium Chloride

Sweetening Agents

Meat

Fruit And Vegetables (Distribution)

" Food Leader News"

South African Maize (Imports)

Sausages (Content)

Sugar

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Civic Restaurants

Fat Cattle (Penalty Deductions)

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Slaughterhouses

Bulk Buying

Glasses (Washing)

Transport

Road Traffic, London

Train, Huntingdon (Fire)

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Bridge, Widnes—Runcorn

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Civil Service (State Security)

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Spain (Atlantic Pact)

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Business Of The House

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Civil, Ministry Of Defence And Revenue Departments Estimates And Supplemen Tary Estimates, 1951–52; Navy, Army And Air Esti Mates, 1951–52

Foreign Affairs (Middle East)

Civil Estimates And Supplementary Estimates, 1951–52

Class I

Central Government And Finance

Class Ii

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Class Iv

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Class V

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Class Vi

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Class Vii

Common Services (Works, Stationery, &C)

Class Viii

Non-Effective Charges (Pensions)

Class Ix

Supply, Food And Miscellaneous Services

Estimates For Revenue Departments, 1951–52

Navy Estimates, 1951–52

Army Estimates, 1951–52

Air Estimates, 1951–52

Ways And Means 25Th July

Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill

Reserve And Auxiliary Forces (Protection Of Civil Interests) Bill

Clause 5—(Procedure)

Clause 13—(Effect Of Failure To Observe Restrictions Under Part I)

Clause 20—(Modifications Of Rent Acts As Respects Occupation By Employees)

New Clause—(Facilities For Action On Behalf Of Men Serving Abroad In Proceedings As To Tenancies)

Clause 24—(Protection During Short Period Of Training)

Clause 26—(Renewal Of Tenancy Ex Piring During Period Of Service Or Within Two Months Thereafter)

Clause 28—(Application For Grant Of New Tenancy)

Clause 29—(Power Of Court To Gran T0 0New Tenancy)

Clause 37—(Application By Service Man For Renewal Of Tenancy Of Business Premises)