I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Moss Turner-Samuels, esquire, Q.C., Member for Gloucester, and I desire on behalf of the House to express our sense of the loss we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.

I will, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, make a short statement in response to the request which the Leader of the Opposition made to me yesterday.

The prerogative power of intercepting telephone communications can be used only by the personal authority of the Secretary of State. This power is one which Parliament has always recognised to be essential for the protection of society. It is used solely in cases involving the security of the State, or for the purpose of detecting serious crime. Information from this source is jealously guarded and it is settled principle that it is not disclosed to persons outside the public service.

The circumstances of this case, that is, the one we were discussing yesterday, were, however, wholly exceptional. It was represented to the Secretary of State that the disclosure of this information to the Bar Council was desirable in the interests of maintaining our high standard in the administration of justice. The Secretary of State felt it to be his duty to supply to the Bar Council information which had already been obtained, as I said yesterday, from an intercept on the telephone communications of a notorious and confessed criminal.

As certain disciplinary proceedings are pending and the matter is sub judice, it would be improper for me to go into any further detail. But I must make clear that this case will not be treated as a precedent. I can further assure the House that Her Majesty's Government appreciate to the full the necessity of preventing any abuse of this necessary but distasteful power.

The House will be obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for having made a statement this morning. He will forgive me if I say that, nevertheless, the statement does not carry us very much further than we were yesterday. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman, first, when was this decision made, and, secondly, whether he can explain in what way passing this information to the Bar Council was related to the detection of serious crime or to public security, because the right hon. Gentleman pointed out that it was only for those reasons that the power was exercised, even the power of tapping telephones, much less the power of passing on information.

The answer to the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question is that the decision was taken at the end of last year, that is, under my predecessor's administration. The answer to the second part is that I cannot go into details as this matter is now sub judice, and it would be impossible for me to do so while the case is in that state.

On a point of order. So that further exchanges shall not be embarrassed, may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether this case is or is not sub judice within the meaning of those words applied in the House of Commons? I understand that this is a professional, domestic inquiry by a professional body into the professional conduct of one of its own members. In what way is that sub judice as far as the House of Commons is concerned?

The strict meaning of the words "sub judice" I have always understood to be that the case is before the constituted courts of justice. I should not like to give that as a final opinion, but it is what I have always understood, and in response to the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) I express that opinion. But with regard to the tribunal of which I have heard today, I think it may be that it is not within the terms of "sub judice" as hitherto applied. I would say, however, and I think that the House will agree, that it might be undesirable to prejudice any case which is being considered, even by such a tribunal. That is a matter of opinion, and although the narrow construction of the words is as I have said, yet the inadvisability of prejudging issues which are to be considered by other bodies applies to some extent in both cases.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, and your Ruling— for which I am sure the House will be grateful—may I submit that when the point at issue is not the merits or demerits of a particular charge in a particular place, but the fundamental question of the administration of justice and the preservation of civil liberty in this country, the judges of that issue are properly the House of Commons and not any outside body, except in so far as our own practice has led us in previous cases not to act in such a way as to prejudice people or to prejudice the investigation by the courts of matters within the jurisdiction of the courts?

Naturally, we are all grateful for the advice that in anything we say about the matter we should exercise our own personal discretion, having regard to what is involved. All I am submitting is that there is no rule which prevents the House of Commons from discussing this matter merely because a professional body is investigating a private, individual case.

As I understand, the Home Secretary himself admits that this is a departure from all settled principle. If that is the case, cannot he tell us why it is necessary to report these conversations to the Bar Council? It surely cannot be concerned either with the security of the State or the detection of serious crime. He must exercise this prerogative in accordance with some principle, and when he makes a serious departure from this principle should not he make a statement as to the reasons for that departure?

I really cannot go further. I have given the facts of this case and I have given the authority, namely, my predecessor as Secretary of State. Therefore, the hon. Member is not quite exact in attributing responsibility to me, personally. As Secretary of State, however, I am defending the situation, and I am right to do so. I cannot go back on the action which has been taken, but I have said that this case will not be treated as a precedent. In my opinion, the general principle that this sort of information is not disclosed to persons outside the public service should be the line of conduct in future.

On the first part of his statement, would my right hon. Friend be prepared to make a more extensive statement after the Recess, containing a precise list of the crimes or alleged crimes upon which permission is given by him to cause telephones to be tapped? If this is not done, a grave fear will arise in the public mind that police methods themselves rest not so much upon the law, but upon power, privilege and personality. If that course is followed we shall be entering on very dangerous paths.

I sympathise with what my noble Friend says, but I must reserve this right as a prerogative power of the Secretary of State, just as my predecessors have done. In my statement I have endeavoured to indicate that this power will be used only in defence of the security of the State or for the purpose of detecting serious crime—and I now speak as one of Her Majesty's Secretaries of State. I would like to make it quite clear that that is the case, so that the very natural anxieties which have been aroused by this sort of incident are not spread more widely in the country, because I think that people will then feel that the power is being exercised properly and duly, as it should be.

I am sure that the House will welcome the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that this kind of thing is not to be a precedent. I am sure, too, that we all have some sympathy with him in the position in which he finds himself. But I am afraid that we must press this matter a little further. With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not told us why this information was passed on. I would ask him whether he can answer the question which the Leader of the Liberal Party and I both put to him, namely, in what way was this related to serious crime or the security of the State?

Further, in view of the feelings among hon. Members that this should not have been done, is it not most undesirable that in considering this matter the Bar Council should continue to have this information available and take it into account? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider withdrawing the information which has been passed on and asking the Council to disregard it in considering this matter?

I would not like to give an immediate answer to that because, the information having been passed on, it is rather difficult for me to take any action now. I will, however, with the aid of expert advice, give consideration to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

May I make an appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the House? I fully recognise the importance of this issue and I would like very much to indulge it, but can it be carried further today? Meanwhile, I have on my conscience the timetable of private Members, whose day this is. This is one of the few occasions upon which private Members have the opportunity of airing constituency grievances. I hope that the House will let the matter stay there for the moment. without prejudice to anything that may arise later.

As the originator of the Question, yesterday, may I be allowed to put one question to the Home Secretary, Sir? It relates to his statement with regard to the barrister concerned. I am now at liberty to name him as Mr. P. Marrinan. The Home Secretary yesterday said that

"… persons concerned in the administration of justice should not be associated with criminals in their criminal activities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th June, 1957; Vol. 571. c. 1469.]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Marrinan is quite willing that a complete transcript of all these telephone conversations should be placed in the Library of the House, so that any hon. Member can read through the transcript and decide for himself whether or not there has been any breach of professional conduct in this matter? Will the Home Secretary be willing to place the transcript in the Library?

I shall have to give that request consideration. I would only say that my own perusal of the papers is represented in digest in the statement which I gave this morning, namely, that it was represented to my predecessor that the disclosure of this information was desirable in the interests of maintaining a high standard in the administration of justice. I do not want to criticise any person or persons, but I do not think that he would have acted unless he were sure that that was the case. I must say that out of fairness to the decision taken.

I will consider the two requests made— one by the right hon. Gentleman and the other by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton)—and I will, of course, also be available to hon. Members in this matter, because I must treat it with the utmost seriousness.

The Home Secretary has kindly promised to consider the important suggestion put forward by my right hon. Friend that this information should be withdrawn from the Bar Council and that it should be asked to disregard it in any decision which it comes to. May I ask the Home Secretary to consider that matter together with the suggestion that the Bar Council might be asked to suspend any action on this matter while he is considering it? Further, will he make a statement on the matter again when the House resumes?

I hope that hon. Members will bring this matter to a conclusion. We are getting very much behind time.

May I ask one question, Mr. Speaker? I do not think that the Home Secretary's statement today will have allayed public concern. Might I ask him to tell us quite clearly, perhaps after Whitsun, whether or not we are to understand that he claims that. as a matter of prerogative, the Crown can use information obtained by tapping telephone conversations and, in any circumstances, convey that information to unofficial bodies? I would have thought that if that doctrine is being enunciated it is an entirely novel one, and one which the House would wish to consider in detail.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am able to give him again the assurance that it is the settled policy that such information is not disclosed to persons outside the public service. I have said that there were exceptional circumstances in this case and I have added that this case is not to be used as a precedent.

I should like to say something else, if it is any consolation to the legal profession: that there is no question of using this power to obtain information about what passes between a lawyer and his instructing solicitor or a member of the legal profession and his client. The power is used, as I said, to detect serious crime, and would never be used for prying into confidential communications between an accused person and his legal adviser. I can say no more about this case.

Already this morning, the House has shown its traditional great concern for the liberty of the subject. I am conscious that I must try to curtail some of my remarks upon another aspect of this important subject. I shall do my best, but, nevertheless, I hope that hon. Members will realise that I also propose to raise a matter concerning the liberty of the subject, and that it must be discussed thoroughly if the discussion is to be of any value.

Considerable uneasiness has been aroused recently by reports in the Press of increased activity by agents of security services in seeking information from teachers in universities. It has raised in the public mind two questions; how far, if at all, it is right and proper that activities of the security services should endanger the relations between the university teacher and his pupil, and how far—indeed, I doubt whether anyone can rightly say it ought to be at all—any activities by the security services can conceivably justify endangering the relations between university teachers themselves, one university teacher with another.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State and the Home Secretary are both graduates of the University of Cambridge. I am sure they would agree with me that, if it should be proved true that fellows of Cambridge colleges had been asked to report upon one another by security agents, surely the cry would go up,

" Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee;"

Milton was a graduate of Cambridge University, like the hon. and learned Gentleman, and that university has a magnificent tradition of defence of liberty of thought and liberty of speech. It is not the only university, but I am addressing myself particularly to the Joint Under-Secretary of State who comes from that university.

It is a university with a tradition in this respect which is second to none. Milton wrote his Areopagitica at a time of social strife, war and revolution, when the security of the State was daily threatened, and he did it to proclaim the right to speak and to write as one pleased without fear of persecution if authority was offended. It is to defend those same rights that we are opposed to Fascism and Communism, and none more strongly than I. It is the totalitarian nature of those creeds that we chiefly detest, but it would be a tragedy indeed if, in defending ourselves from Fascism or Communism, we were to lose the most precious thing we possess, our liberty to think, speak, discuss, argue, read and write as we please.

An eminent man, as it happened a Cambridge man, expressed these views on the radio some days ago. Mr. David Thompson, Master-elect of Sidney Sussex College, said:

"The university is the last place in which free play of ideas and arguments should be inhibited. There should be in any and every university complete liberty to pursue any idea wherever it may lead and to challenge fearlessly any belief."

I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will say that he approves every one of those words; that he feels, as we do, that there is something especially important and sacred in the relationship between the tutor and the taught, and between the tutors themselves within their colleges, which is peculiarly precious, and we should ensure that it be not destroyed.

I am not in the slightest degree attempting to underrate the importance of freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of activity in other spheres. I am speaking particularly of the universities this morning, because this question has been raised lately in connection with the universities. I need hardly say that my references to Cambridge are not meant to suggest that this is exclusively a problem of the older universities—very far from it. I have gained all my experience in the newer universities and in universities in the United States of America. I realise that this problem affects them quite as vitally as—possibly, since in some cases they are not so old and their traditions may not be so deeply rooted, even more than—it does the older universities.

There is, of course, another side to the question, and I recognise that we should not, through our zeal for freedom, permit the enemies of democracy to destroy it. I accept that. I have not heard any com- ment on this matter by anyone at all who does not accept the necessity to take all reasonable precautions to ensure that only reliable persons shall be employed in posts where access to secret information is possible. It is obvious that persons with defects of character may sell secrets or betray them under the threat of blackmail. Experience during and since the war has shown that Fascists and Communists will betray secrets to other Governments in the interests of what they conceive to be a higher loyalty. Because that is so, we are bound to ensure that such persons do not have access to the secrets of defence and foreign policy.

University teachers are accustomed to being asked by prospective employers to give their confidential opinion on the suitability of their former pupils for employment by that employer. They do not object to that. They are accustomed to it. I have done it myself scores of times. They do not object to being asked a similar question in this connection, "Do you think that Mr. So-and-so is a person who, in your judgment, is suitable to be employed on work of a highly confidential or secret nature?" That is not an unreasonable question to ask. It is a question which, I believe, university teachers are quite prepared to answer.

Mr. Thomson went so far as to say:

" I believe it is a don's duty to help to keep any potential traitor out of what you might call security risk jobs."

I have no doubt that opinion would be agreed by most university teachers. But he went on to say:

" I do not think he should be asked to divulge to security officers or to anybody else the knowledge or considerations that have led him to this verdict. Nothing should be done to extract from him details about his pupil's beliefs and opinions, political or any other."

That, I think, expresses very succinctly and fairly the line which should be drawn.

It is right, reasonable and proper to ask teachers for their confidential opinion, which they can give freely; but there is no reason to go further and to ask what they know about the activities and the opinions of the young men in their charge. They are in a far better position to judge the extent to which one should give weight, in youth, to political activities and expressions of opinion and the extent to which these things can be discounted and disregarded as due to immaturity and the like. If university teachers are treated in this way, as responsible individuals, they will respond as responsible individuals, and they should be so approached. As Mr. Thomson put it:

"… it would be more to the point to ask teachers whether a man is discreet or not than whether he is a Communist or not."

I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will say that he realises the force of this argument.

We are not dealing with ignorant people, with no ability to distinguish the chaff from the wheat, the essential from the inessential. We are dealing with people who spend their whole lives doing precisely that, people whose advice can be of much more value to the Home Secretary if it can be given in confidence, and freely, than if attempts are made to ask a whole list of questions which the conscience of the teacher will make him refuse to answer. As Mr. Thomson says:

"A don can teach successfully only through a personal relationship based on confidence."

If we destroy that personal relationship based upon confidence, we attack university life at its roots, and we deprive it of its ability to do the very thing which it is supposed to do.

It may be said. "Well what are you talking about? We agree with all this. Everybody can subscribe to what you have said. We are not lost to the danger." I am convinced that there is a danger. Mr. Thomson himself referred to

"… these absurdities and these pernicious distrusts will grow unless security officers are forbidden to ask in universities the detailed political questions they have sometimes been asking."

He knew before he said that that questions had been put of a detailed nature of that kind which are objectionable.

The Council of the Association of University Teachers, meeting recently in Cardiff, made it quite clear, in the discussion on this question, which was reported at fair length in the Press, that there had been an extension of the inquiries recently and that they were going altogether beyond the bounds of what is tolerable and reasonable in the interests, indeed, of the Government themselves.

The Home Secretary said in the House yesterday:

" I can say that no significant changes or extensions have been made in the last twelve months."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th June, 1957; Vol. 571. c. 1465.]

He said that in reply to Questions asking what changes or what new inquiries had been made to ascertain the political views and activities of university students. Of course, I accept that when the right hon. Gentleman said that he could say that no significant changes or extensions had been made in the last twelve months he was saying what he thought, from his experience, to be true.

I want the Under-Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend, when he reports to him on this topic, whether he will inquire further into the matter and satisfy himself whether, in fact, there have been no changes and no extensions recently. I suggest that it is possible for security services, full of zeal to do their job, as all good civil servants are, to go further than their instructions really warrant in their anxiety to be sure that they are fully seized of all the information they ought to have and that the information they have is reliable. They carry their investigations and inquiries beyond the bounds that the Home Secretary himself would approve.

I ask the Home Secretary to take the profession more closely into his confidence than the Government seem to have done so far. The profession to which I belong, or to which I belonged until I became a Member of Parliament, no more wants our free institutions destroyed than does the right hon. Gentleman or the Under-Secretary; but the profession has its professional honour to safeguard, and the relations-hip between the university teacher and his pupil, though it may be somewhat different, is not very greatly different in character from the relation between the doctor and his patient or the priest and the penitent.

Their exchanges of views and confidence ought not to be interfered with to any greater degree than those other confidences are interfered with. They have as much right to safeguard their special relationship as the profession of medicine or the profession of religion. They may have to consider drawing up a code of conduct, as other professions have done, but I am sure that before they do that they would welcome the opportunity to talk to the right hon. Gentleman and the Under-Secretary.

I pass from the question of relations between staff and students to the other question of whether or not university teachers have been invited to watch one another and to report the actions, behaviour and opinions of other university teachers to the security authorities. I believe that this is what may have happened. The security authorities or agents, having asked a university don for an opinion upon one or more of his students, may then have said to themselves, or perhaps some other wing of the security organisation may have said, "This opinion is all very well, but what do we know of the person who gave it?", and they may then have started a check upon the person from whom they asked the opinion.

That kind of thing can go on and on and never end. Espionage leads to counter-espionage and to counter-counter-espionage until a whole tangle of people can be involved in this sort of inquiry and nobody can know whether liberty is being preserved or not. The high probability of it is that at the end of the day false information is given to the Government.

Who investigates the policeman?

I believe quite seriously that, in the desire to check upon those who have given opinions, the security authorities have asked teachers in universities to give opinions on their fellow teachers. That is a serious statement to make. I think it is true. I do not believe that that could have been done with the personal authority of the Home Secretary.

The right hon. Gentleman told us earlier today that something had been done by his predecessor which he would now not regard as a precedent. We were very glad indeed to hear that. Possibly, in this case, something of that kind may have occurred. If so, I hope we shall get the same answer—that what may have been done in the past was due either to an action for which the Home Secretary was not personally responsible or was due to excess of zeal on the part of agents of the Crown and that it will not be regarded as a precedent, and will be stopped.

I have taken steps to check the accuracy of the story that at least one university teacher has been asked to report on the activities of his fellow teachers in his university institution. I have prima facie evidence that the story is true. I will say no more. I have no intention of mentioning names. The name, I shall, of course, give freely to the right hon. Gentleman and to the hon. and learned Gentleman; indeed, the person who gave me the information has asked me to do so.

All I ask is that the hon. and learned Gentleman shall investigate that evidence. Then we shall know that he appreciates the gravity of a charge of this nature. I do not believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman could deny the truth and the high value of what Professor Montrose said at the last meeting of the A.U.T. Conference, which was:

" We ought to make it clear that this Association is quite convinced that no person can with honour remain a university teacher and, at the same time, agree to be a secret agent for the Government in this work."

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman accept that this is a proper professional view to take? Would he disagree with what Mr. Thompson also said, which was:

"To entice or expect dons to reveal the views of their colleagues in the common room or at the high table must always be pernicious and impermissible."

Is it impermissible? If it takes place, and if the hon. and learned Gentleman, after looking at the evidence which this person is prepared to give him, will accept that it is true, will he ensure that it is in future impermissible?

I would also ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to request the Home Secretary to go further than the individual case to which I will give him access. If there were reason to believe that an approach of this kind had been made to one university teacher, alarm would spread throughout the university world, and the relationship between teacher and taught would be in jeopardy throughout our land. Therefore, it should be necessary to go further than merely to investigate the one case, and to set on foot some kind of inquiry into how far the security services really carry out the wishes of Ministers. Have they gone beyond the bounds of reason? Have they been engaging in something which the Government did not wish to happen and would not approve of, and can Parliament be informed that the requisite measures have been taken to stop it?

The right hon. Gentleman might perhaps approach the Conference of the Privy Councillors which looked into this matter a short time ago. It then reported that it was satisfied that reasonable precautions were being taken which did not go unnecessarily far in restricting the liberty of the subject. The right hon. Gentleman might ask it to look at it again and report to him, so that its report can, in part, be published to satisfy Parliament and the country whether or not there has been any extension of this practice, since it last reported, and whether the right hon. Gentleman is satisfied.

I am asking the hon. and learned Gentleman three questions today to which I would like an answer. The first is whether he will consult the profession. By that I mean not merely consult the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals—though I certainly agree and think that it ought to be consulted. Knowing so many of the Committee as I do as personal friends, I am sure that it would take the same kind of view as I have taken this morning. But the Association of University Teachers—will they be consulted about this matter and taken, to some permissible degree, into the confidence of the Government and their views expressed?

Secondly, will the hon. and learned Gentleman consider—I am sure that he must say "Yes" to this—the evidence that university teachers have been asked to report on their fellows?

Thirdly, will he invite a group of Privy Councillors to look into the matter? If the hon. and learned Gentleman does not think that is appropriate, would he invite an eminent person whose impartiality and high standing will give confidence to the public to do so? This was done in wartime, when Sir Norman Birkett was invited to report on the 18B procedure. Would he ask such a person, who would be as anxious to protect the liberties of the public as to protect the due interests of the State, to make some inquiry into this matter, if it is inappropriate to refer the matter to Privy Councillors?

I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to answer all three questions in the affirmative.

I am sure that the whole House will be grateful for the way in which the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) has raised this important issue, not only for the spirit in which he has approached it, but —I hope it will not be thought an impertinence if I say this—for the very impressive way in which he phrased the case that he made. The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, a Privy Councillor himself, and he is entitled to be heard with particular authority on this matter in that his own academic record both as student and as teacher was one of singular brilliance.

The question that the right hon. Gentleman has raised today is one of very grave importance. It is an aspect of the age-long relationship between security and freedom. Without security there can be no freedom. The problem on the one hand, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, is to prevent freedom from being used to destroy freedom; but equally, on the other hand, we must take care that the measures we take for the preservation of freedom do not themselves result in its impairment.

The problem first arose in its modern form in the 1930s, when the menace was primarily a Fascist one. A strongly organised Fascist Party abused such simple, traditional liberties as to dress as we please, to parade in procession and to criticise other classes of the community. It abused such freedoms in such a way, we believed, as to threaten to destroy the very liberty on which such freedoms depended. Therefore, it was felt necessary, reluctantly and distastefully, to limit to some degree the freedoms which the community generally had enjoyed so that the greater freedom should be retained.

Today, it is another alien, extremist and subversive movement which generally threatens our liberty. The cold war may vary in temperature and may even flare up, as in Hungary and Korea, into armed conflict, but the aim of the subjugation of the free world to Communism remains constant. It would be as great a mistake to exaggerate the menace so far as it relates to the internal security of this country as to pretend that it does not exist. The Canadian spy ring, Nunn May, Fuchs, Burgess and Maclean, are too recent in our memory.

The statement of the Conference of Privy Councillors, of which the right hon. Gentleman for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) was a member, really gives the authoritative analysis of the general nature of the security risks with which this country is faced today. I will quote from the words of the Report:

"The Conference point out that whereas once the main risk to be guarded against was espionage by foreign Powers carried out by professional agents, today the chief risks are presented by Communists and by other persons who, for one reason or another, are subject to Communist influence. The Communist faith overrides a man's normal loyalties to his country and induces the belief that it is justifiable to hand over secret information to the Communist Party or to the Communist foreign Power. This risk from Communists is not, however, confined to party members, either open or underground, but it extends to sympathisers with Communism."

That is a summary of the findings of the Privy Councillors. It is the task of the security authorities to deal with that problem.

The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East was, of course, quite right in pointing out that that Conference was not dealing specifically with the question of security in the universities, but with regard to security arrangements generally the Conference concluded that there was nothing organically wrong and unsound about that. In fact, it made some recommendations for strengthening the arrangements in some respects.

I should point out, particularly in view of the false quotation by the Home Secretary yesterday of that same passage, that our conclusion there was really the answer to the question the Conference was asked: "Are the existing security arrangements adequate or should they be fortified and strengthened?" Our reply was, "No, they should not be fortified and strengthened. They are adequate to deal with the problem."

That does not mean that we went into every detail to see whether it offended against civil liberty. We did not do that. The quotation the Joint Under-Secretary has just made was in reply to the question whether more powers were necessary.

Of course, I entirely accept what the right hon. Member for Vauxhall said. The actual quotation was:

"Their main conclusion is that there is nothing organically wrong or unsound about those arrangements."

The Conference, however, made certain recommendations the purpose of which was to strengthen the system in some respects. Looking at the very distinguished names of the gentlemen who constituted that Conference, I cannot believe that if there were a real menace to civil liberties in the arrangements made they would not have said so. I am quite sure the right hon. Member for Vauxhall himself would have said so.

Before I deal specifically with the position of the universities, I will say this. The activities of the security services fall under two heads. First, there are general inquiries to guard against subversion of our freedom and, secondly, there are specific inquiries to ensure that anyone taken into certain work of great secrecy is reliable. With regard to the second, the specific inquiries, I accept what the right hon. Member for Middlesborough. East said, that it is necessary to make that sort of inquiry and that is well understood by the persons who are asked —who, in certain cases, are university teachers—and that the university teachers accept that it is necessary and that there is nothing undesirable about it.

I shall certainly draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend what the right hon. Member suggested as to the method of approach to university teachers. Indeed, I do not see that that should necessarily be limited to university people. The fact that an individual may have been associated with a Communist organisation in his student days does not automatically bar him from access to secret information.

Secondly, it is the aim of the Government to obtain a complete picture. All the information about such a person which can assist in the assessment of his reliability—and the testimony of university teachers is, as the right hon. Member suggested, of great assistance in making that assessment—

Are the university teachers asked about the opinions expressed by students in the course of their education? That, to my mind, is the central vice of all this. It poisons the relationship between the student and his teacher in the course of the student's education. I do hope that questions on those lines, at any rate, are not asked, but if they are asked, that consideration is given to that.

Before the Under-Secretary answers that, I wonder whether he would mind if I add a short appendix to it? If a university teacher is asked, in respect of a particular student, whether he holds Communist opinions, is a member of a Communist Party, has Communist associations, or has shown signs of Communist sympathies, the university teacher cannot know that unless he knows what the actual political opinions of the student are. Therefore, once we admit the question we widen the range inevitably so as to cover what everyone regards as undesirable, namely, an assessment of character on the basis of political opinions or ideas.

I was going to deal later with the aspect of the matter which was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-East (Sir L. Ungoed-Thomas). The question asked by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) is, I think, a corollary of the point made by the hon. and learned Member. As I said, as to the method of approach, I will draw what has been said to the attention of my right hon. Friend and I will indicate later what the repercussions there might be.

I wanted to add another matter, which, I hope, may be some reassurance to the House. No adverse recommendation would be made on the basis of the unsupported evidence of one witness— nothing like that. As I have said, I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to what has been said as to the method of approach and what sort of question could be asked. The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East suggested that the fundamental question is: is he reliable? I think that that would meet the point made by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne.

The right hon. Member also asked whether the Home Secretary will make a personal inquiry into these matters. I think I can say, without referring the matter to him, that he will do so, that he will make this his personal responsibility to look into the case to which the right hon. Member referred, and I shall myself gladly look at any evidence or meet any person the right hon. Member desires. My right hon. Friend will look personally into that case and, as the right hon. Member suggested, into the matter generally as well.

Does that mean with the A.U.T. and the vice-chancellors and principals of universities?

That is a different matter. All I can say about that is that I will draw that suggestion to the attention of my right hon. Friend. With regard to the specific case, my right hon. Friend will look into that and, if it is so desired, I will meet personally the gentleman concerned.

With regard to the general matter, I will draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the suggestion that he should not only look into it himself, but take the university authorities into consultation.

When the Home Secretary has made his inquiry, will he make a report to the House of Commons on the outcome of it?

That I cannot answer specifically; I think it depends very much on the nature of the inquiries. I hope that the hon. Lady will not press me on that because, obviously, it is not a matter on which I can commit my right hon. Friend, but I shall draw to his attention further what is obviously the desire of the hon. Lady, and it might well be that of the House generally, that, if possible, a report should be made to the House.

I have dealt so far with the specific inquiries relating to individuals, and, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, provided that those inquiries are reasonably circumscribed, there is no objection on the part of university dons to answering references from Government Departments any more than to their answering references by, say, commercial undertakings.

There is, however, the second question, which is the general inquiry into subversive activities. It may be espionage activities; it may be subversive activities. I cannot, of course, say what those arrangements are. That would obviously be contrary to the public interest. Indeed, it would be destroying the whole purpose of the security investigations. However, I want to say one or two things—I will do so briefly, because I have exceeded my time—about the position of the universities.

I recognise that the universities are, to some extent, in an especial position. In the first place, there is the fact which the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Younger) mentioned yesterday. He said that

"… the political activities of students should be taken very much less seriously than the political activities of more adult people …." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th June, 1957; Vol. 571, c. 1466–7.]

I think that university students themselves take their own political activities quite seriously, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman's sentence was not fortunately phrased, but I think we understood very well what he meant, which is that a student's political activities must be viewed in relation to the other activities of a man or girl of that age. I can well remember while at school writing an essay on the French Revolution, in red ink, in protest against the views of my brilliant instructor, who is now Professor of History at the R.M.C., whose political views I now hold.

The second and, I think, more important thing is the point which was adverted to by the right hon. Gentleman, and that is that free speculation is the essence of university life and it would be a very great loss if anything occurred to impair that freedom.

Thirdly, I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it would also be a severe loss if the confidential relationship between tutor and student were destroyed, and that academic life as we know it could hardly continue to exist if it were thought that a spy was planted in every common room. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is no justification for any such apprehension, no justification for the belief that university teachers are encouraged to spy upon their colleagues or their students.

As I have said, I will investigate any case which is—[Interruption.] I used the word "encouraged".

That is the whole allegation.

That is the allegation which I hope I have met. I hope I have made clear the spirit in which the Government approach the matter. I will investigate any case which is brought to my notice. I can only conclude as I began, by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he approached the matter.

The hon. and learned Gentleman said that he would deal with the question raised about opinions expressed. Are questions asked of tutors about opinions expressed by students in the course of their education by the tutors?

Yes, they are.

I cannot answer that categorically, but I will go into the matter and ascertain the extent of the inquiries that are made.

This week is a notable one for the health of this country, and, I think, for local authorities also, because in this week we have had the publication of the Percy Report on the Law relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency, and now we are, I hope, about to hear Government policy on the Percy Report on the Rehabilitation, Training and Resettlement of Disabled Persons.

Anyone approaching the subject of disability must be humbled before the suffering of its victims and the distress caused to their families. One is also humbled by the dedicated efforts and initiatives throughout many generations of the voluntary bodies who have led the Government and local authorities to so much good action today and by the selfless devotion of all those who care for disabled people. If, during the debate, one is forced to talk in generalities, I venture to suggest that no hon. Member ever really forgets that disabled people are people and not cases.

Disability presents both a human and an economic challenge. It is the duty of the community to minimise the intensity and the length of suffering of disabled people and at the same time, for economic reasons, to minimise the number of passengers who have, through no fault of their own, to be carried by their fellow citizens. The numbers are very large. At the moment on what is only, after all, a voluntary register there are 800,000 disabled people in the country. The British Medical Association reckons that there would be 50,000 new candidates for comprehensive rehabilitation each year.

A high percentage of those people are away from work or from active life for a very long time. Indeed, in mid-1954 there were no fewer than 85,000 people who, because of disability, had been away from their work for between six months and two years. Compared with this scale of industrial inactivity, the magnitude of strikes and industrial disputes is absolutely dwarfed. Disability and industrial sickness are far bigger problems, though they seldom reach the headlines, than the completely trivial amount, in absolute terms, of loss of production due to strikes. It is our job, I believe, to rehabilitate all that we can to the maximum degree of activity in life, including work.

The excellent Piercy Report, about which I hope we shall hear the Government's reaction, concentrates on three main themes: discovery of disability; the assessment and rehabilitation of the disabled; and employment and amenities for them.

On discovery, the Report stresses the importance in the case of young people of finding the disability as soon as possible after the child leaves school, if not earlier, so that there can be no drift before the child finds a proper job, because drift leads to demoralisation and deterioration. I must confess that I was very disappointed that after the rather shocking disclosures made in the Glasgow survey of disabled youths in 1954, in M.R.C. leaflet No. 28, the Piercey Committee, despite its excellent work, did not, in all its three and half years of activity, follow up those figures and tell the country whether there had been an improvement since then. I hope we shall hear that there is to be some follow-up of that rather worrying report of drift and demoralisation on the part of disabled youths in Glasgow.

If discovery is important for young people, it is equally important that disabled adults should have a full assessment made of the prospects in front of them as early as possible. Here the stress on discovery in the Report marries up with its stress on assessment and rehabilitation, because early discovery and also accurate assessment and proper rehabilitation depend upon a very alert general practitioner.

To pass to the second theme of the Report, it stresses that the activities of the general practitioner are absolutely central to the problem. It says that the general practitioner is not even getting enough training about disabilities and the rehabilitation of the disabled. It recommends that medical students should learn more about the subject, that the Ministry of Health refresher courses should contain rehabilitation lectures, and that easily and quickly read leaflets should be issued to all general practitioners by local authorities about the facilities for rehabilitation in their areas. The Report emphasises throughout that if a disabled person is to be restored to optimum activity in life he must be treated from the beginning to restore his confidence, his self-reliance and his belief in himself.

That means that the doctor must have that confidence that he can restore the patient to maximum activity. It seems to me most sensible that the Report should stress that rehabilitation is a single and continuous process, that treatment must not be palliative but, to use the words in the Report, should be planned, intensive and disciplined. The treatment by doctors must be "purposive and not diversionary".

The Report makes three main proposals: first, that the practitioner should be better trained; secondly, that there should be resettlement clinics in which the consultant, the general practitioner, the social worker, the almoner, the disablement resettlement officer and the local welfare authority should get together to discuss the progress made, and where—I consciously avoid the word "rehabilitee" —the patient can see what future is available for him. The Committee makes a very sensible suggestion in putting forward the idea that there should be at once an inquiry into the rehabilitation prospects of all those who have been on sickness benefit for more than six months. The third and equally important proposal is that there should be comprehensive rehabilitation centres marrying together the medical and the industrial training rehabilitation which the Report stresses must go hand in hand.

It is only fair that one should say that the 15 industrial rehabilitation units which carry out vocational training as well as disablement rehabilitation will be less needed the better the medical rehabilitation that is carried out in the hospital. In fact, I have been given to understand that of all the people who passed through one medical rehabilitation centre in a two-year period, only 2 per cent. needed to be passed for completion of their rehabilitation to an I.R.U. If that is the picture ahead, we must be delighted that the hospitals can rehabilitate to active employment such a large proportion of those who are disabled. Of course, the I.R.U.s will retain their purpose of vocational training and of training the residue of people who cannot be fully tackled by the hospitals.

I confess that there is one disappointment in this Report, excellent though it is, and that is that after three and a half years' work there are not enough statistics to get one's teeth into. I will give an example. There is a complex which, I believe, affects many disabled people and which is quite understandable; I make no suggestion whatsoever of malingering. It is the complex of compensation.

There is a vicious circle here. Insurance companies will not settle a compensation case until there has been medical finality. Any person with symptoms subconsciously tends to retain those symptoms, because they are the proof of his disability, until his case has been settled. I believe it is absolutely true that a man who has lost a limb shows no such complex because he can point to his stump and say, "I was disabled; nobody can deny it." But that is not true of someone with a hurt back or with some less visible evidence of a disability.

I am not making this statement out of the blue. I have some figures to quote. I cannot vouch for them, because I am not a technical man, but I am told that of all the cases of a similar sort which passed through one rehabilitation unit in a two year period, in those cases involving compensation claims there was a period of 33 weeks between the disablement and their return to optimum activity. Of those 33 weeks, they spent 7½ weeks in the rehabilitation centre and 25½ weeks at home before and after re habilitation, whereas those people with no compensation claims spent only 17 weeks between disability and return to optimum activity, of which six weeks were in the rehabilitation centre and only 11 weeks at home before and afterwards.

If that is so—and, obviously, this is too big a subject on which to make suggestions now—it is a case for an inter-Departmental inquiry to see whether some method, possibly the Canadian method, should be followed, whereby while agreeing on compensation in principle, although not the amount, this gap between compensation and non-compensation cases might be narrowed. If I criticise the Report, that is the only reason, that there are not quite enough statistics to get one's teeth into.

The third factor stressed by the Report concerns the employment and amenity prospects for disabled people. Here the object must be to enable disabled people to get work on their own merits. If a man cannot get a normal job, an effort should be made to fit him into one of the quota or designated schemes, and if that does not work he should be given sheltered employment by Remploy—which is very properly praised—or in a local authority workshop—which should, the Report suggests, be multiplied in number—or, failing that, he should be given home employment if that is practicable.

Only if all these alternative employments are impracticable does the Committee go on to discuss what amenities should be provided by the community to make life for the disabled person and his family less intolerable. Here there are three important proposals. The first, which was warmly welcomed by the Press when the Report was published, is that the suitability, quality and training of the disablement resettlement officer should be improved. I accept this entirely and I hope that we shall hear that the Ministry also accepts it.

I want to make one suggestion. The job of the D.R.O. is to do two things. He has to open doors for employment to people who are either thought not to be or are not in fact 100 per cent. well. Secondly, he has to try to get work for these people to do in Remploy or local authority workshops or in the form of home activities. Excellent as those D.R.O.S may be or may become, they are not as qualified to open these doors for employment and work as are ex-tycoons, retired executives.

Surely one could find some retired executives with enthusiasm for this sort of endeavour who would give part-time service to help the D.R.O.'s by introduction. I am sure the D.R.O. is an excellent technical man, but he may not know the people concerned as well as these volunteers—whether with or without pay it is not my business to suggest. Such a person might help in finding employment.

The second constructive proposal in the Report on this subject of employment and amenities is the suggestion for an extension of local authority activities. The Report proposes that what are now merely permissive non-grant aided activities should be mandatory and block grant aided.

I should like to quote a phrase from the Report as evidence of the Committee's understanding approach to the subject. It speaks of the co-operation that it would like to see as

"sensitive contact and willing collaboration"

between the myriad different authorities involved in this subject. It is suggested that for local authorities there should be a register, and that they should run transit and permanent hostels. They should spend money to adapt homes to make life as easy as possible for the disabled person and his family, and it is also suggested that more money should be spent on clubs and workshops.

In the City of Leeds, of which I have the honour to represent one-sixth, the local authority has built most imaginatively and constructively on the work of the large number of voluntary societies which handle this sort of problem. I was much moved a few weeks ago, when I spent part of an afternoon in the handicapped persons' club, to meet the local authority and voluntary workers who look after people and to talk to some of the handicapped who go there to get company and some purpose in life which otherwise would be denied to them by their difficulty in moving.

It is extraordinary how, to a fit person, these people seem to communicate a self-reliance and a serenity that is hard for the layman to understand. I believe that the people who are conscious of the disability that has come upon many of them in adult life would be wonderful proselytizers in the voluntary welfare work which, up to now, has only been carried out by a small section of the community. So many have said to me, "If only we had known before the disability occurred to us what some of our colleagues were suffering, how much we would have tried to do for them." If more people would say that in the workshops and the factories, I believe that the voluntary activities upon which local authority action must partly depend would get more recruits. This expansion of local authority activities, of course, involves the main cost of what is recommended in the Report, about £6 million, and I hope that we shall hear from my hon. Friend about what the Government feel they can do towards that.

The co-operation between all the bodies concerned which is at the heart of the proposals in the Report will not be achieved by any directive from Whitehall; we all know that. There is, however, a method which Whitehall can employ which will stimulate, as far as possible, both high standards and cooperation. I refer to the provision of statistics. There may here be a question of grant aiding which will justify us in asking for them. If we can acquire more and more records of the time lag between the reporting of disability and the return of the disabled person to optimum function, be it in a job, in a sheltered workshop, or at home, we, and all informed public opinion, will be able to compare the performance of one area with another. This, I believe, will provide the main discipline by which we can both keep high standards and make sure that those standards are always being raised with new scientific discoveries.

It seems silly that we should spend, as we are now spending, large sums of money on rehabilitation so that people can work and then, for lack of the initiative and drive, or for lack of understanding from employers, perhaps, in many cases, there is a long gap between the ability of a man to return to work and the availability of a job for him. A man is inevitably demoralised by such a gap, and, from the economic point of view, a great deal of the expenditure goes to waste.

I have not the time to discuss the enormously important side of the subject concerned with the special cases, the paraplegics, the spastics, the deaf and the blind, and the epileptics. I omit them not because I do not fully realise the vital importance of their problems, but because I would not venture to be impertinent enough to try to discuss them now and say the many things which should be said in so short a time. I hope that we shall have an opportunity, at a later stage, of returning to that subject.

I believe that the community can be proud of its achievements, based on the voluntary initiative of selfless, dedicated and imaginative people, which has led to what is now a great communal effort. I recognise that the Tomlinson Report on employment opportunities was a milestone, and I hope that, in years to come, people will look back and say that the Piercy Report on medical rehabilitation, also, was a milestone. The time is approaching when, I believe, we shall be able to have a third report which will not discuss how to cure the disabled, but will discuss the prevention of disability. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able today to welcome the Report and tell us what action the Government are to take upon it.

The hon. Member for Leeds. North-East (Sir K. Joseph) has done a very useful service, in his wide and sympathetic approach to this problem, in raising this matter in the House today. I hope he will not misunderstand me when I say that we shall be very disappointed if this is to be the only opportunity the House has to discuss this very important Report. When the Government Departments have gone a little further into their examination of the matter, which I know they are now doing, I hope that there will be time for us to have a real debate on the Piercy Report, which is a document of such outstanding value and importance.

There are two specific points I wish briefly to refer to. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-East mentioned the Exchequer grant to local authorities, a matter which I regard as vital. With all the good will in the world, and all the help from voluntary societies, local authorities are inhibited from implementing the recommendations of the Report and also the recommendations from the Advisory Council set up by the Minister which have been in their hands. I hope that members of the Government present will accept the importance of making available to local authorities which have already opted into the scheme financial resources to enable them to carry on the work.

There is one technical matter arising out of the Report—which, on the whole, I very warmly support—about which I feel very strongly, and I hope that we shall hear from the Parliamentary Secretary that the Government have it in mind. I thought that the Report was a little timid on the subject of the D.R.O. To my mind, it is vital to have an effective disablement resettlement officer in all services. The training is utterly inadequate, and the prospects are very meagre. They are a part of the great establishment in the Ministry of Labour, and I urge the Minister to make use of the special facilities for placement services run by the voluntary societies. I have in mind particularly the excellent placement service run by the National Institution for the Blind.

Placement means not only finding a man a job; placement means keeping a man happy in the job, not only vis-à-vis his employer, but also vis-à-vis his workmates. I hope, in this connection, that the Minister will have very high regard for the services which have been rendered by the voluntary societies and the very highly specialised welfare work done by what we call, in this field, the missioners. It is almost impossible for a D.R.O. to get sufficient specialised knowledge of the various types of disability to be an effective all-purpose officer.

There is a great deal one could say. In conclusion, I re-emphasise the hope that we shall have a full opportunity to discuss this Report in the House later in the year.

I very much welcome this opportunity of saying something about the Government's attitude towards the Piercy Report, particularly, if I may say so, since the matter has been raised in such an understanding and penetrating way by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph). As he and the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Edward Evans) said, this is a very wide subject, and all I shall attempt to do today is to give a progress report on what the Government have been doing in considering and acting upon the Report since it was published six months ago. I certainly should not object to the suggestion that later on, if opportunity arises, we might go into it more fully.

First of all, I will take this opportunity, on behalf of the Government, of thanking Lord Piercy and his Committee for having undertaken this formidable task. Some people did at one time impatiently ask when the Report would be forthcoming. That was, I think, an easy thing for those not on the Committee to ask, and I do not think that any criticism can be levelled at the Committee, for it dealt with this wide and complex subject with speed and thoroughness.

In the concluding part of its Report, the Committee makes 46 specific recommendations, and obviously I cannot deal with all of them. All I can do is to try to indicate what the Government think about the most important of them. Before I come to that, it is worth noting, I think, with considerable satisfaction, the general judgment of the Piercy Committee on our services for the disabled. Among all our social services, what is done for the disabled is something of which we may be justly proud in this country, however much we may be conscious of further improvements we still wish to make. It is very satisfactory to find the Piercy Committee, after looking so closely into the matter, coming to that conclusion.

In its summary at the end of the Report, the Committee draws attention to a number of impressions, two of which I want to mention. Firstly, the Committee says that it formed an impression

"of the completeness of the statutory provision which now exists for the services of the disabled."

Another impression it mentions is that

"the facilities for enabling disabled persons to get suitable employment are comprehensive and well established, needing little change or development."

That is a remarkable thing to be able to say. Not so very many years ago, what we now regard as the ideal in our services for the disabled, that is, bringing people back into full life in the community, would have been regarded as virtually unattainable. The success with which the task is now tackled and employment is found in which disabled people can adequately contribute to the community's life, a comparatively few years ago would have been thought, if not impossible, at least highly idealistic. We should be pleased with the progress which has been made.

I had better say a word now about how the Report is being dealt with by the Government. Since it was published in November last year, it has been carefully studied by my right hon. Friend and by the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Health, the three Ministers jointly responsible for the appointment of the Piercy Committee. Several other Government Departments are also concerned, and the responsibility for co-ordinating action on the Report has been entrusted to the official Standing Rehabilitation and Resettlement Committee. In addition, my right hon. Friend has also had the advice of his National Advisory Council on the Employment of the Disabled.

Through all these channels good progress has been made in considering the Report, although, as I am sure it will be realised, this is not a task which can be completed quickly. As I have said, all I can do today is to report progress and deal with the most important of the 46 recommendations which the Report contains. Some of these recommendations do no more than reaffirm existing practice or suggest minor administrative changes which have been already in many cases put into effect. A few of the recommendations will involve legislation, and for that reason I cannot deal with them in this debate. Others envisage important changes which can only be brought about gradually. Others would require additional Government expenditure; and here, as in other fields, we have to keep in mind the pressing need for economy which was emphasised in the Piercy Committee's terms of reference.

Subject to this, I can say on behalf of my right hon. Friends that, in general, they welcome the Report and intend to press on, wherever possible, with implementing its recommendations. In some cases discussions are still going on between the Government Departments concerned or with local authorities or other interested bodies involved, so it is not yet possible to give the Government's final decision. I can mention considerable progress in actual decisions or towards actual decisions in relation to many of the recommendations.

The recommendations fall into five main groups. The first group concerns hospital and medical services. The Committee regarded as the single most important factor in medical rehabilitation the attitude of mind in which the individual doctor approaches the treatment of his patient. My hon. Friend had something to say about that. Of course, the medical profession has a vital rôle to play in this. I think this is widely accepted by the profession, and, indeed, those who gave evidence on its behalf to the Committee recognised that many consultants and general practitioners are still a little slow to adopt the rehabilitation approach and often need more information about its scope, nature and potentialities. But the profession itself is playing a most useful part in promoting this educational process; and all the Departments concerned are considering, in conjunction with the profession, what can be done further to give the general practitioner and the consultant the information and knowledge they need about this subject.

So far as the hospital rehabilitation service is concerned, the Committee regarded the present pattern and the present trends as being on the whole satisfactory. But they thought that the organisation needed some tightening up and that developments were required in certain directions. For example, the Committee drew attention to the value of what it called planned and purposeful physiotherapy and hoped that the use of existing resources on these lines, as already practised in many hospitals, would lead to better results, even without any actual expansion of the resources available. The Committee considered that development should await the results of a review of the use of resources on that basis.

The Committee also commended the tendency of occupational therapy to move towards more realistic occupations and to concern itself with advice and help on how to live with a disability. The Health Ministers will shortly be advising hospital authorities on all these matters. They will also ask hospital boards to consider the Committee's recommendation for a rehabilitation committee to be set up by each board to further the suggestions made in the Report in relation to the hospital service.

Another important recommendation which will be taken up is that for setting up in every major hospital as a normal feature of its work a resettlement clinic to review difficult cases of disablement. A few hospitals already use this technique with success, and the purpose of the recommendation is to stimulate its wider adoption throughout the whole hospital service.

We should realise that a resettlement clinic which brings together all the workers involved in the treatment of the patient is a valuable instrument, not only in dealing with the individual problem, but also in promoting the close co-operation of all the different agencies concerned in rehabilitation and resettlement, and in acting as an educational medium for the medical profession. That is a point to which the British Medical Association attaches much importance.

In referring to the development of the hospital service, the Committee recommended that the major share of any resources available for capital development should be devoted to the hospital side. The Government have allocated and are allocating each year a larger capital expenditure for the hospital service, and hospital boards will be asked to have regard to the needs of rehabilitation departments in drawing up their capital programmes; but clearly the rate of development must be conditioned by the availability of funds, and also, let us not forget, the availability of staff, which is an important matter. It is essential that we should make the best use of existing resources before seeking to enlarge them further. As my hon. Friend made clear in some of the facts and figures he gave, this development of rehabilitation offers a most hopeful field not only for relieving the suffering of the people concerned but also for greater economy in the long run in the operation of the services.

The second main group of the Committee's recommendations relates to industrial rehabilitation. The Committee recommended that while the larger share of what can be spared from the national resources for capital development for rehabilitation should for the present be devoted to the development of the hospital rehabilitation service, some important industrial areas now without industrial rehabilitation units should be supplied with them. It also proposed that all new developments for industrial rehabilitation units or hospital rehabilitation centres should be planned with the facilities and needs of the other services in mind, so that we do not get overlapping and wasting of resources. My right hon. Friends are studying these recommendations.

There are areas where I should like to see additional industrial rehabilitation units established as soon as circumstances allow, but here again I am afraid the expansion must be governed by the need for economy to which I have already referred. The same consideration applies also to another principal recommendation in this group made by the Committee, namely, the proposal to set up on an experimental basis two or three comprehensive centres which would combine facilities both for hospital and industrial rehabilitation as well as for assessment. There are various views about the actual merits of this idea and the practicability of it. The recommendation needs careful thinking out and is still under consideration.

Is the unit being built at Winchester in fact a comprehensive one?

I am afraid I should require notice of that. I am sorry, I am not informed on that point. I shall have to write to my hon. Friend about it.

Another of the Committee's recommendations proposed that the minimum age for industrial rehabilitation should be reduced from 16 to school-leaving age. That is a recommendation which we propose to accept. I think that when talking about industrial rehabilitation it is worth putting on record some of the results. My hon. Friend referred to the lack of statistics, and I think that these are worth putting on record. About 80 per cent. of the persons leaving industrial rehabilitation units are normally placed in employment or sent to training within three months of completing their courses.

The figures for the most recent six-monthly period for which there are statistics show that of every 100 rehabilitees— I will use the awful word mentioned by my hon. Friend—completing an I.R.U. course, 47 were placed and 15 sent to training within one month—that is, 62 per cent. were dealt with within one month; twelve were placed and five sent to training between one and three months; six were placed and two sent to training between four and six months; and only thirteen out of every 100 were unplaced six months after leaving the course.

That should be compared with the figures which we have showing the length of time for which these people who come to the courses were out of work before they came. On the whole, from figures we have obtained, 18 per cent. had been away from work for three months or less, 14 per cent. had been away from work from 4 to 6 months, 36 per cent. had been away from work for between six months or two years, and no less than 32 per cent. had been away from work for more than two years before they came to these rehabilitation courses. If, therefore, we compare the periods which people were away from work before they came to the courses with the speed with which they obtained work after completing the courses, we have a remarkable achievement which indicates very clearly the scope of this type of work.

The third main group of recommendations contains a number dealing with the welfare of the disabled. The first recommendation under this heading is the important one and was mentioned by both hon. Members, namely, that local authorities should be grant-aided by the Exchequer in their expenditure on these services. This recommendation must be considered in the context of the Government's decision to introduce a general Exchequer grant covering a large number of services, including the local health services provided under the National Health Service Act and the Exchequer contribution to local authorities for accommodation provided under Section 21 of the National Assistance Act.

In the Government's view, it would be inappropriate in these circumstances to introduce a new percentage grant for welfare services for disabled persons, but the question whether some allowance should be made in the total of the general grant for the first fixed grant period to take account of development in these local authority services for the handicapped will be considered when the amount of that grant is determined.

That is a most important statement, which needs clarification. Does the hon. Gentleman mean that the block grant will be static and not able to be expanded in what, in the view of the Report, is essentially an expanding service?

As I said, this is an important statement, and I cannot add to it or expand on it this morning, except to emphasise that the essential content of the question of these services will be considered when the total grant is fixed.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health hopes shortly to be consulting local authority associations about a circular which he would propose to issue to local authorities drawing their attention to a number of the Committee's recommendations as to the way in which the welfare services could usefully be developed. My right hon. Friend regards all these recommendations, which include increased provision of day centres, wider provision of occupational home work, more help in supplying personal aids, and so on, as of great value.

The question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Edward Evans) is a very important one, and I quite understand that at this stage the Parliamentary Secretary is not, perhaps, fully informed about it. The Minister, however, is himself present this morning, and I was wondering whether, at some stage in the Adjournment debate, he could enlarge on the point raised by my hon. Friend. The responsibility is obviously that of the Minister rather than of the Parliamentary Secretary.

My right hon. Friend will, I have no doubt, hear and consider what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but I think it most unlikely that anything could, or indeed should, be added to the statement I have made, because these are matters which have to be gone into with the local authority associations. The procedure for doing that is well known and should be followed.

The fourth group of recommendations concern the employment services for the disabled which are provided by the Ministry of Labour. The Committee proposes no fundamental change in these services, but suggests a few minor improvements in the registration scheme relating to such matters as the qualifying and maximum periods of registration, voluntary removal from the Register and the registration of hospital patients. My right hon. Friend has decided to accept these recommendations, some of which involve amendment to the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act and some amendment to the relevant Regulations. A further recommendation dealing with the position of aliens is still being considered.

I come now to the Committee's recommendations about the important subject of D.R.O.s, to which, I was glad, both hon. Members paid considerable attention. The Committee had a considerable amount to say about the selection and training of these disablement resettlement officers and these recommendations also have been accepted and plans are being worked out for a longer initial training course.

How long?

I said that plans are being worked out. In due course I will be able to tell the hon. Member, but that is not yet completed. It will be, we hope, a substantial increase over the existing period.

I am sure that in what my hon. Friend and, indeed, the hon. Member for Lowestoft said, they did not in any way wish to belittle the excellent work which is being done by our D.R.O.s at the moment.

Hear, hear.

Although I paid attention to what my hon. Friend said, I must say that his remarks on this aspect were those with which I felt less in agreement than anything else he said. In selecting our D.R.O.s, we pay attention to their ability to make the sort of contacts which are essential and I believe that their success in doing so is very great. We try to take a wide view of what constitutes placing. I should like also to assure the House that we value very greatly the work of voluntary bodies in this direction.

That leads me to the placing in employment of the blind, about which the Committee had something to say. The Piercy Committee considered that while good work was being done by some local authorities and voluntary bodies, the present patchwork of administration might well have had the effect over the country as a whole of providing for the blind a service inferior to that provided for other classes of disabled. The Committee, therefore, recommended that my Department should assume responsibility for putting the placement of the blind on a satisfactory footing and should normally provide a placing service for the blind as it does for other disabled people, although other bodies which now carry out the work satisfactorily should continue to do so if they wish. All I can say about this recommendation is that we are studying it carefully, but I am not yet able to announce any decision about it.

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the best placement in that sphere is by the body I mentioned and that the work of placement in other sections of blind welfare does not compare with it?

I certainly would not in any way belittle what is being done. Perhaps what was felt by the Committee was that the standard of the placing service for the blind was not as uniformly good over the whole country as for other classes of disabled persons. That was, perhaps, something which could best be looked after by bringing it in, as in the case of the other services, with the Ministry of Labour.

My right hon. Friend has accepted the Committee's recommendation that the present scheme of providing sheltered employment through Remploy should remain in force and that the Ministry should continue to assist the valuable work done by voluntary bodies in this direction.

So far, I have spoken in the main about the activities of the. Government, but before I conclude, I think that the House would wish me to say something about the rôle of the voluntary organisations, which have been referred to in passing in relation to a number of different subjects and which should be referred to also as a whole. The Piercy Committee rightly pointed out that these voluntary services are an essential part of our British social life and social services and the Committee paid a well-deserved tribute to what voluntary service has done in providing the means for developing new branches of social work.

The Committee, however, came to the conclusion that, perhaps, in order to allow voluntary bodies to continue in the future as effectively as in the past, the time had come to set up a working party, or some similar body, which would be able to reach conclusions as to how they should fit into the pattern in the future. The House will probably like to know that the National Council of Social Service and the Central Council for the Care of Cripples has set up an inquiry into the welfare of the disabled and is to consider local and national organisation and problems, and all related subjects. The Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health are both represented on that committee of inquiry.

In conclusion, I should like to assure the House—and I hope that what I have said will be some assurance on this point—that the Government regard the Piercy Report as an important and valuable one and, subject to the needs of economy, intend to maintain the progress which, I think, has already been made in the first six months since its publication. The Standing Rehabilitation and Resettlement Committee is, as I have said, the official body responsible for co-ordination of work between all the Government Departments concerned. As its name implies, it is a standing committee. It is keeping the whole matter under review, and will be publishing a report later this year on the progress made. That, also, will be an opportunity for the House to know what is happening.

I should like to thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter, and so giving me the chance to report on what we have been able to do in the six months since the Report was published, and I assure him and the hon. Member for Lowestoft that the views that have been expressed, including those on which I have not been able to comment, will be noted and carefully considered.

I wish briefly to raise a few points about our scientific information services, and in case I should be thought to be speaking critically I want to say at once that I believe that Britain has a brilliant record for scientific research and a brilliant future. To the Parliamentary Secretary, may I say that while he had an unfortunate initiation into Ministerial responsibility, I am very impressed by the present enthusiasm he shows for his new responsibilities, and am hopeful that we will get some concrete and constructive action in this very important field.

It is because the world in which we live is changing at such a pace that I believe that we have to devote even greater resources not only to scientific research itself, but to the dissemination of the results of that research to industry. We have to see that this information is speedily known, and in a large number of places, because the impact of science today is so widespread and we have to make the information not only widely available but available with the greatest possible speed to ensure that we maintain our superiority in industrial production.

I confine myself to the limited field of the provision of up-to-date current information about scientific research in the form of scientific abstracts, both in the sense of information to research workers in order to improve and aid their research, and in the informative sense to industry itself. I say at once that I appreciate the work that is being done. I know that there are 127 different publications which are providing these services from various sources—from Government Departments, research associations, professional societies, the larger industrial firms, and technical journals. I do not criticise, but welcome these varied sources of information. I am not in favour of streamlining and unifying research itself but, having said that, I believe that there are current difficulties to which I should call the Parliamentary Secretary's attention.

I have mentioned present publications. One important publication has gone— British Abstracts, which went in 1954 when the Bureau of Abstracts was wound up because of financial difficulties. I notice that the grants-in-aid of scientific publications to the Royal Society have fallen over the past two or three years from £27,000 to £8,500. I am informed that, at present, the Journal of the Chemical Society, one of the most highly regarded technical journals in the world, is facing very real difficulties; that the Society has to face a loss of between £10,000 and £15,000 a year on this publication; that in 1958 its cost will be considerably increased, not only to non-fellows but to fellows as well, and that it is anticipated that as many as half of the fellows who at present subscribe will no longer do so.

This would be a disastrous consequence, and I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will do all that he can to avoid it, but he must recognise that rising costs are prejudicing both the publication and content of these valuable technical journals and the abstracting services themselves.

My first point is to request him to review the whole field, to review the present grants-in-aid and see that these are increased on a sufficiently substantial scale so that, far from discouraging this activity we should further encourage it. My next point is one which arises out of the multifarious character of these abstracting services. As I say, I do not criticise—I think that there is a lot to be said for independence and variety in research—but, arising from this, there is obvious need for some form of collaboration and co-ordination of this work, and I can mention one of two facets of this problem. We need more uniform standardisation of the format in which this work is presented. We need more frequent indexes. While, as I have indicated, I do not mind overlapping, I think that we should avoid duplication where possible.

I cannot speak as an expert, but I am informed that there are several not unimportant gaps in, for example, marine biology—which the Parliamentary Secretary would have appreciated had he still been in his previous job—in engineering technology, ecology, and in geophysics. In all these spheres there are gaps which we should seek to cover. I am not saying that the responsibility for the work should be undertaken by the Government, but it is a responsibility of the Government to ensure that the work is undertaken. I should have thought that to co-ordinate and supplement this work called for some form of Government-sponsored agency.

Moreover, I would say that, apart from co-ordination and collaboration, there is a need for the provision of certain central services—an obvious illustration is translating—and the services might be provided centrally, and also be Government-sponsored. If we look at our competitors, the Parliamentary Secretary will be aware of the steps taken in the Soviet Union— the creation in 1953 of the Institution of Scientific and Technical Information Services, which now already has a staff of several thousand. It is producing 12 journals of abstracts and, what is more important, it has established an express information service, which means that in particular selected fields information is provided with the minimum delay.

Repeatedly, over the last few years, I have raised in the House the allied question of library facilities—a national science lending library and a national science reference library. I am very glad to see that a start is being made with the lending library, but on the question of the reference library we should be beyond vigorous discussion, and have money devoted to these projects and real progress made.

The third point that I put to the Parliamentary Secretary is a broader one, one in which he cannot have direct personal responsibility but one in which the Government can take the initiative. I refer to the need for taking international action in relation to the provision of up-to-date, current scientific information. I realise that in some respects we are entirely dependent on the United States. We are dependent on the United States for chemical abstracts. To give another illustration, medicine, we are dependent on the United States for the two indexes which are provided by the American Medical Association and by an American Government agency.

I am not suggesting that we should compete with those agencies. There is no necessity to do that as the work is being done, and in view of the matters which I am raising I would not press the case for this additional burden. I do not criticise the United States for doing it. We very much appreciate it and we are very much indebted to them for the information upon which we rely. But the mere fact that we are dependent on them for this vital information reveals the need for such information being provided by an international agency.

I have mentioned medicine. Abstracting in that case is, in fact, done by an international agency in Amsterdam, but we should take a real initiative in U.N.E.S.C.O., and, not only for purely scientific but also for political reasons, encourage the provision of this essential information through international agencies.

Perhaps, in a more limited field, we could look again at the possibility of providing within the Commonwealth special services along the lines of the Commonwealth Agriculture Bureau. I know that this has been considered by the Commonwealth, but no further action has been taken. We should keep this matter constantly under review. In broad political terms, we could strengthen the Commonwealth. Especially when we think of the new developing industrial parts of the Commonwealth such as the Dominions of Canada and Australia, it would be useful if we could provide a joint Commonwealth service. Apart from the broad international aspect, I hope that the Government will keep open this discussion with the fellow members of the Commonwealth.

The fourth and final point which I put to the Parliamentary Secretary is rather different from those which I have raised. Apart from the technical side of this matter, we have to do more to ensure that this information is known and appreciated by industry, especially the small firms. I am very much encouraged by the work of A.S.L.I.B., which, during the past three years, has had 450 people attending its courses. During the last six years I believe that the number of inquiries with which it has dealt has risen from 1,000 to 35,000 a year.

All that is very good, but we should not rest content. We should encourage such services and, by publicity, education and other ways, improve the receptive climate within industry to the acceptance and utilisation of scientific research. We should ensure that as soon as possible the results of scientific work are recognised and appreciated within industry. This is a broad question of public relations. It is not only a matter of improving the techniques of the dissemination of scientific knowledge. We have to see that within the board rooms themselves there is a better appreciation of the necessity to take advantage of research when it has reached the point at which it can become effective in industry.

This means not only that the board rooms should be conscious of the need to take the earliest possible advantage of new scientific discoveries, but that within the firms themselves there should be a structure to ensure that early advantage is taken of all scientific information which is relevant to that firm's industrial processes. To give an illustration, in most firms there should be somebody whose job it would be to take advantage of the scientific services I have been discussing. There should be provision within firms for what might be called the storage of scientific information which is relevant, so that that information is used in anticipation of changes and improvements within industry.

I am sure that these are matters of vital concern to British industry. I am equally convinced that the Government can do a great deal to facilitate the use of up-to-date scientific knowledge and further assist the work of organisations such as A.S.L.I.B. Of course, all this will cost money. I do not for a moment denigrate the help at present being given, but I have been anxious to raise this matter because we have to look at it in a different light. We have to realise that the work now being done is invaluable, but Government assistance and the increasing assistance from industry will have to be on a different scale.

I have made inquiries and I am told that at least £300,000 would be needed to tackle a job like this. Although such a sum sounds large, it is small in the context of the need, and it is small in relation to what is being done in other countries with whom we are competing. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will do his utmost to see that we get a new approach. While I appreciate the work which is being done, especially the work which has been done since the war, I realise that we do not want it to depend entirely on Government assistance. It must be supported from within industry itself, because unless industry itself subscribes to this research work we will not get the full results we require.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, with his new responsibilities, will be able to assure us that he will make this an especial responsibility and that he will do his utmost to encourage a far greater response from industry and that the Government themselves will give a considerable lead.

I am very glad to have this opportunity to support my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who has raised a most important topic. It will be generally agreed that the Government of any modern industrial country must often take the lead in certain aspects of scientific policy, because there is nobody else who can do the essential co-ordinating work which is required or ensure that national interests are safeguarded.

It is part of the national duty of a Government to assist scientific endeavours where there are gaps in the services available, or where some other form of external help is required if success is to be obtained. One sometimes gets the impression that the attitude of the Government in this matter is slightly eighteenth century. Recently we found that in the Ministry of Education—for which the Parliamentary Secretary who is to reply to this debate is not, of course, responsible—there is only one statistician. There can be no other Department whose activities must depend so much on precise knowledge of figures, such as to forecasting the supply of teachers and courses, and whether we shall have enough qualified students to meet national requirements; and yet the Minister of Education has but one statistician.

In this matter of scientific information there seems to be an obvious need for the Government to act as a co-ordinating authority to see that information is readily available to all and to take steps to fill any of the gaps. It is obvious that scientists must have an opportunity of being able to know without difficulty what is happening in their specialities in other parts of the world.

So we want to work towards the provision of central information of two types; first, the sort of index which will give a brief account of major scientific and technical developments in other countries, together with information as to where original matter on them can be obtained, and, secondly, an index which also gives a brief synopsis of developments in various fields, so that people here may be kept abreast of what is happening abroad. Although I do not wish to denigrate the excellent piecemeal pieces of information which are made available, it seems to me that we fall woefully behind some other countries. We really have no proper co-ordinating machinery of all the information available. There are lots of little bits of information, but there are also many gaps where no information at all is available.

That was the view of the Royal Society's Information Conference in 1948. It drew specific attention to the overlapping in some fields and, on the other hand, the complete lack of information in others. Its first working party drew attention to the need for the comprehensive index about which I have been talking, and, incidentally, the need to have a consolidated comprehensive index about every ten years if the mass of information accumulated was to be manageable.

Many other bodies have sounded warnings and drawn attention to the need for improvements. The Seventh Annual Report of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, in Cmd. 9260, specifically referred to the fact that many small firms today cannot get the information that is available because no comprehensive service exists, and large firms sometimes tend to keep this information to themselves. The Report also drew attention to the need—to which my hon. Friend has referred—for a proper scientific reference library. That is absolutely essential. The cost of establishing such an institution, considered against the background of our national income and budget, is a trifling sum, but the advantages that it would give to industry and to scientists are overwhelming. I hope that we shall be given some information on that point.

Another body which drew attention to present dangers was the British Commonwealth Scientific Conference, held in Australia in 1952, which passed a resolution, part of which said:

"The Conference believes that scientific and technical progress requires the improvement of certain abstracting services. It also notes with alarm the rising cost of abstracting and is concerned lest this will force some valuable journals to curtail their services or even suspend publication."

The alarm expressed has now been shown to have had positive results, in the fact that several journals have had to suspend their activities, due to high costs. In its leading article on 10th March, 1955, the Manchester Guardian also criticised the existing abstracting services as being often unsatisfactory in relation to the very large number of scientific journals now published. All these bodies and all the specialists who have looked at the matter feel that there is a need for a central authority of some kind, and for the gaps in information to be filled.

I should like to refer to what other countries do. I am told that even in Hungary there is a central library where abstracts are made from more than 2,000 technical journals published in other countries. Certainly in the Soviet Union —whose scientific advance has been very marked, as one can see by examining their expenditure on scientific education, and by the number of graduates now being available—there is a central library, with more than 50 specialists at work and between 2,000 and 3,000 others giving a complete synopsis of scientific developments in practically every other country in the world. I doubt if there is any other country where the abstracting of information about scientific developments is so complete as it now is in the Soviet Union. Even in France they have managed to have an exhaustive extract from world literature on some aspects of science and technology. If this sort of thing can be done in those countries, and if they realise the imperative need for it, I am certain that Britain must follow.

I want very much to support the proposals put forward by my hon. Friend, The first is that there must be some kind of co-ordinating authority, either in the form of a Government Department, or a joint organisation in which private industry, Government scientific Departments and learned societies can organise a central abstracting service. Secondly, there should be set up as soon as possible a scientific reference library in London. It is absolutely incredible that we have not got one. This is the first thing that we want, and the expense, viewed against our national income, is relatively trifling. Lastly, there is the question of grants to the various bodies who perform first-class services to science in general.

My hon. Friend referred to the grants made to the Royal Society and pointed out that whereas a grant of £27,000 was made in 1954, the grant made in 1956 was only £8,500. This is a grant-in-aid of scientific publications by the Royal Society. In point of fact, the grant for 1956 is the lowest in the ten years since the war, and no one can possibly believe that that is because there is no further information which could be published. I find this low figure extremely difficult to understand.

This seems to me to be the minimum effort which must be made if Britain is to maintain the great prestige which she has in the scientific world. I believe that our scientists are second to none; indeed, they can probably lead the world. But they will not lead the world if they have difficulty in knowing what is being done by their colleagues in other countries, and if they are duplicating work which is sometimes unnecessary. Our national survival depends upon the efficiency with which our scientists work as well as upon the actual work that they do. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can promise us some very speedy and generous help in this matter.

We are all grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) for introducing this very important debate. Although the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Works is to reply, this question is the responsibility of the Lord President of the Council, and I hope that what we are saying in this House will be conveyed to him in no unmistakable way.

The economic facts of life of this country are sufficiently well known not to require my saying any more about them than that 50 million people cannot go on living on this very small island unless they are well in advance of the rest of the world in the application of their technical knowledge to industry. In the second half of the twentieth century we can no longer hope to live upon exports of textiles, coal and things of that kind. Rather, we have to depend upon the building of nuclear power stations abroad, the application of electronics to industry, the development of the new sciences to industry, and the selling of their products abroad in markets where Britain is taking the lead at the moment.

In order to maintain that lead, not only must we have a large number of technicians in industry, but they have to be backed by a large number of scientists who, in turn, are able to get the latest information about discoveries made by other nations. There is a need to inform scientists, in the fields in which they are working, of exactly what is happening elsewhere The only way in which this can be done satisfactorily is by abstracting information from all the scientific papers and journals which are published.

In this respect an example is set by the Russians. I will not go into details, but they have an amazingly efficient and well-managed service. They publish a number of journals. We are able to obtain copies of most of them, but few are being translated and the necessary abstracts taken for the benefit of British scientists. I consider that a great mistake. My hon. Friend indicated that a large number of bodies are doing valuable work, and I will not catalogue them. Industrial as well as scientific societies do this work, but what is required is some co-ordinating machinery, backed by finance, to help to fill in the gaps and to prevent duplication. I do not believe that could be done better than by some Government-sponsored authority. I do not say that it should be a Government Department, but it should be sponsored by the Government, with representation not only from the Department of the Lord President, but from the scientific bodies, and, I hope, from industry.

Such a body should be backed by reasonably sufficient funds from the Government. My hon. Friend thought the amount should be about £300,000 a year. I would not quarrel with that, although I had in mind a Government contribution of £250,000 a year. The rest could easily be raised from industry. In the first few years that amount might prove adequate. This body would be responsible for dealing with the whole question of co-ordinating the abstraction of scientific information. All the present services could be utilised, and where they were failing through lack of physical or financial assistance they could be aided by a body such as I am suggesting.

Although this is a short debate, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will regard it as an important one. It is true that unless we keep abreast, or, indeed, keep ahead, in relation to scientific knowledge and its application to British industry, we shall fail to maintain for the population of this country anything like a good standard of living. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not regard replying to this debate as a chore. No doubt he has a good brief and plenty of information to give us. I hope that he will reflect on everything that has been said, because this is not a party matter; it concerns the nation as a whole.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will read again the speeches of my hon. Friends; that he will consult the Lord President of the Council and his excellent advisers, and press them to proceed on the lines we suggest. We are not laying down anything which is hard and fast. We are merely making suggestions about the broad principle of a Government-sponsored organisation charged with the responsibility for coordinating the work of abstracting scientific data and backed by at least £250,000 a year for the first five years. Such an organisation would be useful for the scientists who have done such a grand job for Britain and who, given the tools to do the job, in the shape of information, will keep Britain abreast of the rest of the world not only in scientific knowledge but in its application to British industry.

As one would expect from a speaker from the Opposition Front Bench, the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) stood back from the details and gave the House a broad picture of what we are discussing and its effect on the economic life of the country.

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that my noble Friend is concerned about the importance of this matter. As the right hon. Gentleman said, no party differences arise in this connection and there is no difference in the emphasis put upon it by the right hon. Gentleman and by my noble Friend. Although this is a comparatively small debate it will be studied carefully, and great attention paid to the suggestions which have been advanced.

I join with those who have said how helpful it is that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) should have chosen this subject for debate today. It is right that we should take every opportunity to examine what progress has been made since the receipt of various reports and the conclusions of conferences. One of the things which is pleasant about my new job is that it will keep me in contact with the hon. Member for Sunderland, North. When I formerly answered questions on agriculture he and I were protagonists and it is delightful to me to find that this is another of the many subjects to which the hon. Member applies himself. It proves him to be one of the most industrious Members of this House.

I am sure that both the hon. Member for Sunderland, North and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) will not expect me to give detailed answers to any of the points which they have raised today, but I can assure them that these matters will be carefully examined. I think that the comments made so far may be divided up under several heads. First, that the Government should be more active in co-ordinating the results of research carried out by the main independent bodies.

The hon. Gentleman urged that the Government should take the initiative in ensuring that the presentation of results was standardised, and that in cases where information was inadequate the Government should be responsible for filling in the gaps. Comment was also made on the contributions for publications, and the hon. Gentleman covered a wide field when discussing how far these matters should be internationalised. From previous questions which he has asked, I am aware that in this connection the hon. Gentleman was referring to the use which might be made of U.N.E.S.C.O. and the work done by that organisation.

The hon. Member's final point, one which the right hon. Member for Blyth thought fit to emphasise, was that special attention should be given to ensuring that the needs of smaller firms are taken into account; not only that they are supplied with information, but that they are encouraged to use it.

In passing, I would refer to the question of the Commonwealth contribution. It is as well to remember that there is a standing Commonwealth scientific conference which is continually reviewing possible schemes for co-operation. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that in this, as in all other matters, we wish to move in step with the Commonwealth and to share information.

Mention has been made of Russia. It is true that the Russians have started a centralised scheme and that in Moscow they have a vast building, with card indexes, electronic computers and the like. I do not wish to belittle that, but we do not know how much good can flow from it. Before we start even to suggest that we should wipe out all we have done up to now and switch over to that kind of thing we must see how it works out, because the Russian brand is brand new. It started from nothing at all in 1952–53.

None of us is advocating that we should adopt the Russian method. We are saying that what comes out of the machine is printed in Russian and that, where it is important for use here, it should be translated into English.

I get that point, but the fact that each speaker has referred to the Russian system could, to anyone reading the OFFICIAL REPORT, bear the inference that there was a suggestion that they had something very special which we had not got. It may be that they have, but they started from nothing. This is a new thing which started in 1952. We have had about forty years' experience, perhaps more, in our own special way. Our way has been quite different. We think that it is best, especially in an activity like this, that the different specialist organisations should provide the scientific information services within their own spheres.

I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not disagree with that. That is the way we have built up, and great credit has been given by all speakers who recognise what has been achieved. The question has been whether we could do better, and that is very proper, but we have found that leaving it to the different specialist organisations has been a good thing. We think that it is more likely to be more effective and more manageable than one single, central organisation.

Having said that, I would say that it is recognised that certain services need co-ordinating or supplementing from a central point. It is here that the D.S.I.R. policy in industry has devoted a lot of its energy. It has been trying to do just that, and it will continue to do so. For many years the D.S.I.R. has maintained a service to direct inquirers, where necessary, to specialist sources of information or, where such sources do not exist, for answering inquiries direct. To that extent, we have already started along the road which has been advocated by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite.

I do not think that there is any doubt at all that abstracts are essential to guide scientists to the scientific papers they need to know about. As world output of scientific literature increases, abstracts become even more essential and, as one hon. Member said, even more expensive, too, but the volume which is coming out means that a great many abstracting organisations in this country are facing increasing difficulties because of the extra volume. These difficulties become very serious for the British abstracting organisations, especially in the chemical field.

In 1953, the D.S.I.R. offered a grant of £35,000 to keep the organisation concerned with chemical abstracts in being for twelve months, in the hope that in that period the activity could be placed on a sounder financial basis. It was found that this was not possible, and we are now relying upon the American service. However, it ought to be emphasised—and I think that it will be accepted by hon. Members—that in relying on the American service there is no technical loss at all. The service it gives, and the quality of it, leaves us almost as we were when we had our own.

I should like to make it clear that while, for chemical abstracts, we are relying upon the American service, we have not left the production of abstracts entirely to our American cousins. We are preparing for them abstracts in physics, electrical engineering and radio. The Americans use this British service just as we use theirs. There is no question that we have withdrawn from abstracts completely and left it entirely to the Americans.

This is a very sensible and helpful practice for two nations which talk almost the same language and, as the hon. Member for Sunderland, North said, there is no point in duplicating just for the sake of duplicating. While it is true that we have withdrawn from chemical abstracts and rely upon the Americans, we put on the other side the fact that, in the other three activities, they rely upon us.

I was trying to make it clear that I was not suggesting that we should duplicate work done by the Americans. I was saying that where it appears that we are dependent upon that work, it would be advisable to try to get it brought under an international agency. I mentioned this for two reasons. One is that, obviously, we have no say about the cost of the work done. The other is that on broad, political grounds it is better to make this available internationally and to have the various countries subscribing to the work. I am fully in accord with the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not think that we should undertake burdensome work when it is being adequately done already by the United States.

I appreciate the point. It fits in completely with the whole of the hon. Gentleman's argument. I merely thought it right to point out that, while we depend on their chemical abstracting, they depend upon us completely for electrical engineering, radio and physics. It is not a question that we have withdrawn from it; it is an arrangement which is sensible, and, if it is thought fit, later, to extend it over the wider area recommended by the hon. Gentleman, it is, at any rate, a good start.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the Americans were filling the gaps for us. I have said that in three cases we are filling the gaps for them. He quoted four actual activities where we ought to look at the position. I can promise him that we will have a look at the point he has made. He mentioned ecology in particular. If he had used that word to me two months ago, I should not have known what he was talking about. As a Philistine, I know now that it is rather a, high-falutin way of saying, "nature study." I know that the purists will not like me putting it in that way, but that, I think, is just what it means.

On the question of publications and grants by the Royal Society, I think there is a lot to be said on the other side as to the improvements which have been made. In 1956–57, £8,500 was granted. That was the figure mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, but what perhaps he did not realise was that in that year, in addition to the £8,500, there was a carryover of £6,000 from the previous year, so that there was a total of £14,500. For 1957–58, the grant is to be increased to £21,000. The hon. Gentleman rather suggested that the grant had gone down, but the opposite is really the position. It has gone up from £14,500 to £21,000. This is a substantial increase, and I hope that it will give some satisfaction to the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for Sunderland, North and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned the Journal of the Chemical Society. What they said is on the record. All I can say is that if the Journal of the Chemical Society is in trouble, it should make its case to the Royal Society. I do not think that it is for us as politicians to judge the merits of the case. We are laymen in this matter. If it feels that it has a strong case which warrants greater assistance, the Royal Society is the place to which it should go, and I have no doubt that, as always, the Royal Society will view the question impartially and in great detail.

The Royal Society has found it possible to make its own publications financially solvent, and generally it is advocating that other learned societies should take measures to make their publications self-supporting. I do not think that it is unhealthy. It is not a bad thing for people to help themselves and for them to be supplemented only when it can be proved to an impartial body that supplementation is really necessary.

The Royal Society has been joined in this drive by the Nuffield Foundation, which has been making grants of a nonrecurring nature so that societies can produce their publications without a general subsidy, following the investigations I have mentioned. I am sure hon. Members will agree that if it can be achieved in this way it will be a very good thing indeed.

On the international aspect, raised by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, I note his idea that U.N.E.S.C.O. might help to fill some of the gaps, particularly in the field of abstracts. U.N.E.S.C.O. can only help through existing scientific organisations, and the results have not been very spectacular. It is as well to remember that U.N.E.S.C.O. is co-operating and always intends to co-operate with the International Council of Scientific Unions to assist the learned societies of the world to see that abstract investigation does take place and is as widely spread as possible.

On the question of the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux, it may help if I tell the hon. Gentleman that the date for a delegation to see the D.S.I.R.'s Industrial Grants Committee has been fixed for 19th June. I have no doubt that at that meeting it will go into many of the details that have been raised in the debate.

On the question of small firms, it is widely recognised that there is very great difficulty in ensuring that scientific and technical information is supplied to such firms in a way that they can understand. It is a problem to know how to get down to the language that they can understand and which will encourage them to do what the hon. Gentleman suggested, of having somebody in their organisation who will concentrate upon it.

America has precisely the same difficulty in getting the results of its research to the quarters where the knowledge can be put into practical effect. If one had to compare, I would say that we have so far done it rather better than the Americans. If they can produce any new ideas which we can follow we shall do that, just as they are prepared to learn from our own experience over the years. The small people are not the kind who are helped by the more elaborate system of scientific abstracts; they need something much more simple and direct.

The D.S.I.R. is trying to help them in various ways. First and foremost, the D.S.I.R. research associations are financed partly by industrial organisations and other sources. One of the important functions of these associations is to ensure that their members get in a digestible form—I think that was the hon. Gentleman's phrase—the results which may be relevant of research by the association and others. It is studying closely all the ways and means of stimulating a flow of information of this kind mainly through the existing organisations, and carrying out surveys on most of these subjects, in Scotland, Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham, and in the South-East.

Perhaps the most important result of the work has been the greatly increased local interest and the local arrangements for providing scientific information to these industries. The D.S.I.R. deserves great credit, because it is getting down to the real beginning of things and I know that is what it will pursue. The hon. Gentleman should realise that we are not as far behind as some people sometimes think. I thought it right to explain that we were working on a system which has been built up over forty years. While we are not going to be hidebound, we do not want to move off that until we have been convinced by practical results that somebody has produced something better that it is worth while to follow.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned Hungary. There is a Central Institute there, but little else. It is all in the shop window and there is nothing on the shelves at the back of it. The fact that Hungary has this Central Institute does not necessarily mean that it is backed up by all the details of which we have heard. We do not want to be despondent about it or, on the other hand, to be complacent. I think that that was the object of the hon. Gentleman in raising this debate. As the scientific activity of the world increases and the volume of our scientific manpower grows, the scientific information services will need to expand. We know that and we accept it, but how and where is a subject that we have always to be examining and that is how this debate will be particularly helpful.

In considering any particular scheme, we have to remember that scientific manpower devoted to the information services cannot be used on the practical work itself. That is what I wanted to say to the hon. Gentleman when he was making the point about other countries. We have to decide whether to apply our very limited scientific manpower to actually doing the job or to using it for disseminating information about work that has already been done. It is a difficult problem that will have to be examined every day and all day so that the available manpower may be properly utilised. The problem is how to obtain the maximum output from our limited scientific manpower, and on that problem we welcome any assistance from hon. Members who are interested in this topic.

The debate has been helpful. I realise that my reply to the points that were put is very sketchy, but the record is there. Interested as are the hon. Gentlemen who have raised this matter, we all realise that we are at the beginning of a very great and wonderful thing and that it behoves all of us not to be too stereotyped in our approach but, at the same time, not to be derogatory in our recognition of what we have done so far.

Can the hon. Gentleman make any positive remarks about the possibility of a central reference library?

We pursued this matter at Question Time. I can now tell the hon. Gentleman that the unit has moved into the new accommodation that I have already reported to the House and it is hoping to start a lending library before the end of the year.

The D.S.I.R. takes the new responsibility very seriously indeed and I can assure the House that it will work as quickly as possible. The end of the year should see it operating in its new quarters. We are at the beginning of what I hope will be a long and very useful existence.

I welcome warmly this opportunity of raising a subject which I believe will be of interest to the House and to the country—the methods and precautions taken to prevent accidents and to reduce industrial injury and disease. That is certainly a wide enough topic to be getting on with.

The main issue and theme of what I want to say is that the public are not safety-conscious. There is a great need that it should be made far more safety-conscious. It is conscious that it has to cross the road carefully for fear of being run down by a motor car, but quite unconscious of the need to take elementary care in day-to-day work. This nation is strike-minded, but safety-blinded. The nation should be safety-conscious in factory, in the home, on the road, in the air, by the sea and on the land, but it is not.

There is a loss of productivity which is well known as being due to strikes. About 2½ million man-days per year have been lost through strikes, but the Ministry knows full well that through accidents more than 18 million man-days are lost, or seven times as great as the number lost on account of strikes. That I am sure the nation does not want, or at any rate does not appreciate. If, therefore, measures that I will indicate could lead to a reduction by one-seventh in the total number of man-days lost through accidents, we would wipe out the days lost in a whole year by strikes; and what a great objective that is.

I wish to say a few words about the causation of accidents. An admirable booklet called "Safety and Health in Industry" has been issued and to the 1956 edition an admirable foreword was written by Sir George Barnett, Chief Inspector of Factories. He indicated in that booklet that approximately only 15 per cent. of the accidents in factories are attributable to machinery. Six-sevenths of all the accidents in factories are attributable to other causes and there are five main causes, five 'main groups. They all arise from lack of education and thought.

The first is personal faults; the second is falling articles; the third, slipping or standing on objects; the fourth, use of hand tools; and the fifth, the handling of objects and materials. These five groups of causes result in two-thirds of all accidents in factories. Sir George wrote:

"Training and education are basic and essential features of any work accident prevention organisation."

I agree with every word of that.

There are 218,000 factories and workshops in this country and 80,000 to 85,000 of them employ 30 or more workers. The reported accident rate, involving three days or more absence from work, is 180,000 to 200,000 a year. There has been a welcome reduction, but it is small because the figures do not include minor accidents, to which I am devoting attention this afternoon. A vastly greater proportion of accidents are unreported.

There is only one organisation of this kind in existence. It has a membership of approximately 1 per cent. of all the factories in the country, a mere 2,000 members from at least 80,000 effective factories and workshops. The Annual Report of the Chief Inspector, admirable as it is in its own field, does not touch on education or deal, therefore, with the need for being safety-conscious by management, by men, the trade unions, insurance companies, or national organisations.

I want to compare the position of this country and other countries and will take America by way of example. In the United Kingdom, there is one accident every year to one person in every 31. In America, there is one accident every year to one person in every 33. Therefore, our rate is slightly worse, but not much worse, than the American rate. Why is that? This country leads the world in all the regulations designed to secure safety—that is to say, in mechanisation— by the use of guards and such facilities. Frequently, the Americans do not use guards. On the other hand, they undoubtedly lead us in education and being safety-conscious. That is the difference.

Take, for example, the iron and steel industry. In this country we have four-and-a-half times as many accidents in the iron and steel industry as America has. In 1951, the British Productivity Team which visited America came back and said:

"Accident prevention is a matter of considerable importance in any steel works. The United States companies have established a good record. Their lost time accident frequency rate per million man hours worked for the year 1949 is reported as 7·2, whilst the British frequency rate is 32·6."

Those are unfortunate figures.

Look at the position with reference to accidents on the roads. There are three-and-a-half times as many accidents at work as on the roads. We have a great deal of ballyhoo about road accidents, but none about accidents in factories. On the roads there were 216,000 accidents last year, and 5,000 people were killed, but there were 725,000 accidents at work. What measures are to be taken to meet what I hope the House will agree is a proved need?

There is an admirable Report on the matter, published by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. On page 15 its arguments for the prevention of accidents can be summarised thus: first, the necessity for a national organisation as there is in the United States. There is the National Safety Council, the focal point of an accident prevention movement covering industry, transport, agriculture, home and factory accidents. Its function is the publication of all types of documents, posters, films, broadcasting, consultation and lectures.

Secondly, in the specialist field there is the American Society of Safety Engineers working as specialists in accident prevention. Thirdly, and this is a most important matter, in America insurance companies point the way by participating in the safety programmes of their policy holders and, through their inspectors, influence policy on the promotion of accident prevention. Fourthly, executive management co-operates effectively with the trade union movement and the men in the factories, who set up works accident prevention programmes. A result, or a by-product, of that is that industrial relations are improved because there is an attempt to take care of the men at their places of work.

The results of this have been seen over recent years, particularly in the case of certain big firms. I take one example, the very well-known Esso firm. Esso Standard Oil, with 4,000 employees, had an accident frequency rate of 13 in 1930, it dropped to 7 in 1935, to 5 in 1940, and, in 1954, it was down to 3·8. That is one example of what can be done in this matter, irrespective of the existence of guards, in the general field of the need for being safety-conscious.

What should be our objectives? First, I think that there should be a national accident prevention policy for the purpose of achieving this and additional objectives, which are greater production with increased productivity, improved industrial relations and a close co-operation, in particular, between the Government, the safety organisation, the insurance companies, the employers and, through them, the workers and the trade union movement.

I will quote one final passage from page 41 of the O.E.E.C. Report:

"At national level it would be advantageous in each country to create an organisation which could initiate an exchange of experience, organise meetings, give technical and organisational advice on safety matters, inform industry about safety publications, compare and evaluate safety statistics, distribute material for publicity, education and training."

It is time to form a national organisation, a safety council, for the purpose of achieving these objectives, with specialists chosen in these various fields in order to achieve them so that we may promote a safety-conscious state of mind by publicity, posters, films, displays, articles, broadcasting, and the whole medium of modern public relations. This will succeed only if it has the encouragement and support of the Government and the backing of the employers and the trade union movement, and of the insurance companies, which I hope will also take a keen interest in the project.

I should like the Minister to consider whether he can give an assurance that we shall have the co-operation of Her Majesty's Government in a movement of this nature, to try to secure a really safety-conscious outlook on the part of our workpeople. If it succeeds, the movement will increase productivity, prevent a good deal of human misery and pain, go a long way to improve industrial relations, and raise the country's output.

I must, first, ask for the leave of the House to speak again, as I replied to another subject earlier this morning.

My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) has served a most useful purpose in initiating this debate. I am sure that he has not over-emphasised the importance of the subject or the need for giving it greater attention. On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Minister, who has the chief responsibility in this field, I thank my hon. Friend for raising the subject.

As my hon. Friend said, the figure of the loss due to accidents in this country is not generally known, and it is about time it was. We give it publicity in a number of ways. In speeches during the last eighteen months my right hon. Friend and I have taken all possible opportunities to put the figure across, and we welcome the opportunity of drawing attention to it again today.

Twenty million man-days a year lost as a result of industrial accidents is a tremendous figure. Even when we allow for the fact that that figure includes not only accidents in factories but accidents in the mines, in transport and agriculture—in industrial employment in the widest sense—it is still a tremendous figure and much too high.

I am particularly glad that my hon. Friend drew attention to the comparison between this figure and the figure of our loss through strikes. As he said, the figure is seven times greater than the loss last year through strikes, and it is four times the loss due to strikes in the worst post-war year.

The figure not only represents a most serious loss to our national production. It also represents a great sum total of individual suffering and hardship. Undoubtedly, one reason why the figure is higher than it need be is because people are not sufficiently safety-conscious. If we could make them more so, it would be a most important contribution to reducing the accident rate. Any initiative which will serve this purpose is to be welcomed, and we do welcome it.

It is illuminating to look, as my hon. Friend did, at some of the details of industrial accidents. In 1955 there were no fewer than 188,403 reportable accidents in premises covered by the Factory Acts, and of these 703 were fatal. Complete statistics for 1956 are not yet available. It is known, however, that there has been a welcome decrease, probably of the order of 2 per cent., and the number of fatal accidents has fallen to 687. It should be noted that those totals cover only reportable accidents; that is, those which have led to death, or caused disablement for more than three days. If one had the figures of the lesser accidents which do not come within this definition, the total loss due to accidents would be seen to be much greater even than the enormous figure which I have already quoted.

It is certainly true that one fact which is not sufficiently well known—I am glad that my hon. Friend brought it out so clearly—is that machines are not the main cause of accidents. In 1955 27 per cent. of all accidents in factories happened while workers were handling goods. Another 14 per cent. were accounted for by falls. Only 16 per cent. were caused by power-driven machinery. Moreover, it is notable as a result of all our activities over many years that the proportion of accidents caused by machinery is decreasing. In fact, there were 13 per cent. fewer accidents due to power-driven machinery in 1955 than in 1950. On the other hand, falls and accidents due to striking against objects, objects dropping on people and all the other myriad causes mentioned by my hon. Friend, have been on the increase.

That fact underlines what my hon. Friend has said, that it is to safety-consciousness together with what has been called "good industrial house keeping" that we have to look to an increasing extent as the means of reducing the accident toll which we are suffering at the moment. The improvement achieved in factories which have given close attention to accident prevention provides practical proof on this point.

My hon. Friend mentioned the case of the Esso Company in the United States. We have knowledge of factories in this country where careful attention to the details of safety and the growth of safety-consciousness throughout the factory indeed bring about results. I hope I have already said enough to encourage my hon. Friend to believe that we are convinced of the value of a well-directed approach in some of the directions that he has suggested.

Before I reply in more detail to some of the points made by my hon. Friend and say something about what is already being done on the lines he advocates, I think it would be helpful for me to sketch the background to our approach to industrial safety in this country. My hon. Friend said that we ought to have a national safety policy. In sketching the background, I hope to be able to show the lines on which that national safety policy, in industry at least, is built up.

Our safety provisions in this country are founded on Factories Acts legislation. This places the major part of the responsibility for the safety and, indeed, the industrial health of workpeople, on their employers. Certain commonsense obligations are also imposed on the workpeople to make sure that the efforts of employers to implement their responsibilities are not frustrated.

The duty to observe the law embodied in the Factories Acts is clear, and it is clear that it rests on the employer, but the Government have always accepted that special action is necessary to obtain reasonable compliance. That is the main function of the Factory Inspectorate. The great contribution of the Inspectorate in securing steadily improved working conditions over more than a century is widely recognised. Certainly, nothing said by my hon. Friend this morning detracts from the work which it has done and is still doing. The Factory Inspectorate has over the years achieved greater compliance by employers with the law.

The standards of work of the Inspectorate are today, I am sure, as high as they have ever been, and it continues to earn respect in industry, and far outside industry, as a unique instrument of social progress. We must, however, be char about the rôle of the Inspectorate. There are more than 200,000 factories, tens of thousands of building operations and civil engineering works, and hundreds of shipbuilding yards, docks, warehouses and other workplaces to which the Factories Acts apply. Whatever the size of the Inspectorate, it is obviously quite out of the question that it could visit all those places at intervals frequent enough to try to ensure 100 per cent. observance of the law at all times. It is, as I have said, the responsibility, both legal and moral, of the employer to satisfy himself that the law is observed. It is the task of the Ministry to see that a well-qualified Inspectorate is used in the most efficient way, not only in carrying out the primary duty to take enforcement action where necessary but also to give employers and workers help in carrying out their responsibilities.

The figures that I have given about the numbers of workplaces involved and the impossibility of covering them by inspection indicates that we must look beyond that method, however important that method may be. We must realise that close supervision is impossible, and too much visiting by Government officials would, in any case, I believe, be undesirable. There are, therefore, limits to what can be done by inspection. But other steps must be taken to raise safety standards in industry and these must be on the basis of co-operation between Government, employers and workpeople.

Certainly I can assure my hon. Friend that it is the Government's policy to develop this co-operative approach to the problem. In fact, considerable progress has been made, and I should like to mention some examples of this policy in action because I think we ought to see the picture as a whole. I hope my hon. Friend and the House as a whole will draw some comfort from the fact that many of the matters that I am going to mention are approaches to the problem which are comparatively recent in origin, showing a greater awareness by both Government and industry, and also because they are comparatively recent in origin we must appreciate that the benefits are yet to come.

In 1954 the National Joint Advisory Council appointed an Industrial Safety Sub-Committee, and as a result of its work a report entitled "Industrial Accident Prevention" was published in the autumn of 1955. I am glad to say that this has had an encouragingly wide circulation and I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree, having studied it, that the principles and practice which this booklet lays down are very much in tune with the recommendations mentioned in the O.E.E.C. booklet which he commended.

Following the Industrial Safety Sub-Committee which has produced this Report, the National Joint Advisory Council has now appointed a Standing Industrial Safety Sub-Committee

"to review progress in furthering all aspects of industrial safety within the field covered by the Factories Acts."

This Committee has representatives on it of the British Employers Confederation, the Trades Union Congress and the nationalised industries. During the early months of its existence it has reviewed the arrangements within industries for consideration of industrial safety at a national level, and also subjects such as safety training, and arrangements for publicity on safety problems. So here is one direction in which we are trying to encourage the sort of safety-consciousness and activity which my hon. Friend wishes to foster.

There are, of course, examples of similar co-operative action in particular industries. A recent one is the agreement of representatives of employers and workers in the building and civil engineering industries. They have agreed to take part in the work of the Standing Joint Advisory Committee

"to consider how to stimulate interest in the building and civil engineering industries in problems of safety and health with a view to reducing the incidence of accidents and dangers to health."

I have quoted the terms of reference, because I think they are important. The Committee will not be advising the Minister on what action the Government should take. It will enable employers and trade unions to examine, in collaboration with the Government, how best they themselves—the employers and the trade unions—can not only carry out their legal responsibilities but go beyond them in improving standards of safety and health.

Then, of course, there are other examples of industries which are cooperating closely with the Government in a somewhat similar way—industries where there are joint standing committees set up on the initiative of Sir George Barnett, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Factories. The industries which have these joint advisory committees comprise quite a long list. They cover iron foundries, steel foundries, non-ferrous metal foundries, drop forging, cotton spinning and cotton weaving, wool textiles, jute and paper manufacturing, and potteries.

There are two other striking examples, different in character, of the initiative now being taken by industry to improve safety. The British Employers Confederation recently organised for its members a national conference on industrial safety and health problems. I am sure that the Confederation is to be congratulated on its initiative. The conference was successful, but it is recognised by the Confederation that the process of improving safety and health has got to be a continuing effort and is not just a matter for one conference of that kind. The matter is, therefore, being kept under review by one of the standing committees.

Another example is this. Employers in the Birmingham area some time ago established on a co-operative basis an Industrial Safety Training Centre. This has proved a most successful venture. Its courses are well booked up. It is beginning to serve larger areas than the area from which it was originally formed, and I hope that this idea may be equally successful elsewhere.

So much for what has been done by this co-operative approach within industry. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree with me in thinking that these are good developments and in hoping that they will go still further. But equally I would certainly agree with him in thinking that there is room and, indeed, need for this attack on the problem to be supplemented by other action to stimulate safety-consciousness.

Some useful work is being done over the field as a whole, and particularly in the direction of stimulation of safety-consciousness, by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, known as "Ro.S.P.A." My hon. Friend mentioned its small membership. That is true, and no doubt we would wish that it covered a much wider field. Equally it would be fair to say that its influence extends beyond its actual membership. Ro.S.P.A. has a special industrial safety division and under it there are industrial safety groups organised throughout the country. It organises a national industrial safety conference every year. It holds local conferences and exhibitions of safety equipment and protective clothing, and courses for safety officers and the like.

Ro.S.P.A. therefore gives general advice on safety problems by way of general propaganda and also to firms. It issues booklets, posters and so forth. It works in close co-operation, both nationally and locally, with the Factory Inspectorate and other officers in my Department, and I agree that this cooperation, although it is valuable now, should be developed still further. On publicity, for example, we hope that there may be scope for the Government's work to be linked more closely with the work that Ro.S.P.A. is doing.

To sum up, our methods at the moment for dealing with the problems of industrial safety depend on the combination of four factors: first, law, imposing duties on employers and workers; secondly, enforcement of that law through a Government Inspectorate; thirdly, voluntary action by industry itself; fourthly, further action by outside bodies to stimulate a greater awareness of safety and a greater knowledge of the ways of achieving it.

I have outlined this combination of methods, not because I wish in any way to belittle the importance of the fourth, which is what my hon. Friend was speaking to principally this morning, but because I think that all four necessarily go together, as I am sure he would agree. I recognise, of course, that it is in connection with the fourth method, the way of action by outside bodies to stimulate greater safety consciousness, that he is suggesting further action and, in particular, has put forward the proposal for a new safety council which he believes will supplement and invigorate the work already being done.

My hon. Friend drew attention to the practice and experience of other countries. Most other countries adopt the same combination of four methods as we do, although the balance is often markedly different between one country and another. Of course, as regards effectiveness in preventing accidents, it is extremely difficult to make valid comparisons, but what is important is that, even if our own accident rate could be shown to be better than that in any other country, it would still be too high. For that reason, it is right for us to be on the look-out for any useful lesson to be learned from any other country as to how we can reduce it.

Perhaps the country which differs most in its approach to the problem of industrial safety is the United States, to which my hon. Friend referred at some length. Policy and practice in the United States are not, of course, uniform; they vary between States. In some States there is legislation enforced by a State inspectorate; in others, inspection is done by officers of insurance companies. Generally speaking, it is interesting to note, as my hon. Friend says, that insurance companies in the United States play a far more active part than they do here in the work of positive accident prevention. They undertake inspection, and establish public standards of safety; they provide technical information for their policy holders, and also they publish advisory literature.

While there is, to some extent, law on the subject of safety in the United States, for the most part it is much less elaborate and detailed than here, and relies less upon specific requirements about the guarding of machinery. By implication, therefore, Americans rely more than we do on creative and active widespread safety-conciousness in order to prevent accidents. It is certainly interesting to note the work of the extremely active National Safety Council in the United States, to which my hon. Friend referred.

To give an idea of its activity and range of effort, I notice that in 1955 it had a convention on safety which no less than 15,000 people attended. I notice also —while I wish my hon. Friend well in his movement in this country, I hope he will not follow this—that there were no less than 400 lectures at that convention. I feel that 400 lectures would be too much for the digestion of any British audience, and I fear that it might hinder the good cause rather than promote it. But, apart from that, I agree that the greater attention paid in some countries, including the United States, to the need to instil safety-consciousness in the public mind is one lesson which we should definitely take to heart in this country.

The excellent work done by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is pursued, of course, on the same lines as those adopted by the American National Safety Council. As I have already said, we hope that the work of Ro.S.P.A. will be intensified, but, in response to my hon. Friend's suggestion, I would say that all well directed efforts which can be made to increase safety-consciousness will be welcomed by the Government. Sympathetic consideration will be given to ways and means whereby the Government can assist in such efforts, taking account, of course, of the need to avoid overlapping or dissipation of effort.

I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that the response to his suggestion is a reasonable one. We value his initiative in raising this debate today, and I hope that he will feel confident that we do attach very great importance to this problem. We are ready to welcome any constructive initiative which will bring new forces into the campaign to reduce the immense toll of accidents which we suffer at the moment and which we ought. and must, reduce in the next few years.

I wish to call attention to the danger threatening workers in the aircraft industry in a number of constituencies, including my own and those of certain of my hon. Friends, and also, I believe, the constituencies of some hon. Gentlemen opposite. I wish to ask what steps the Government are taking, or will take, to meet this danger.

In the aircraft industry, many workers have been engaged in making military aircraft. For example, the company in my constituency, the Gloster Aircraft Company, is famous for the work it has done in this respect. But as so often happens, the discoveries of science have their repercussions upon industry, and the new type of warfare which is, alas, envisaged—God forbid that it should ever come—will be of a very different kind from what we have known in the past. The piloted aircraft is now on its way out, and we shall have more horrible things like guided missiles.

These developments have immediate repercussions, and will have continuing repercussions in the next few years, in causing many workers to become redundant. The Gloster Aircraft Company in my constituency is not threatened with closure, as I believe are certain firms in other constituencies, particularly those of certain of my hon. Friends, who will I hope, follow me and explain what is happening in their case, but there is in my constituency the threat of increasing redundancy, and I ask the Government to pay very special attention to it.

In July last year, there were indications of the danger when 51 toolmakers were declared redundant from the Gloster Aircraft Company, and the trade unions concerned inform me that they are afraid that, towards the end of this year, as many as 2,000 may become redundant, 700 of them by the end of this month. I believe that the management is very well aware of the danger and is doing all it can to prevent it, but help is needed in obtaining new orders for other kinds of aircraft and putting men on to other work. This is where I ask the Minister to give special help.

The whole thing, if course, is, as yet, very uncertain. The men are worried because they do not see the future. Many have settled down in the neighbourhood of Gloucester and the rural areas around, there having been a tremendous expansion there during the war and for some time afterwards. They have settled with their families, their children going to schools in the neighbourhood. The Gloucester Education Committee has a big scheme for building new schools in the area to meet the demands of an increased population. We are here threatened, as a result of the change to which I have referred, with very serious social repercussions. One cannot root people up from one area and hope that they will find jobs somewhere else, leaving families to the rough operation of economic laws such as happened, alas, during much of the last century, and particularly in the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago.

Last month, the local Ministry of Labour exchange stated that 479 had left the Gloster Aircraft Company, many of them voluntarily and some discharged. Already there is fear stalking the land, and people are beginning to look around for other jobs. Some, of course, can find them and some cannot. I am told that some highly-skilled men, especially the sheet metal workers, are very likely to be affected and not likely to find work locally. Other skilled men may do so. There is enough apprehension there to make it clear that action should be taken to forestall this situation, which, I admit, is not yet calamitous in my constituency; I believe that it is much worse elsewhere. Therefore, I am asking the Government to do something to anticipate trouble.

There is, of course, one possibility. If the piloted military aircraft is on its way out, there is no doubt the civilian aircraft is on its way in. There is an enormous potential market for civilian aircraft. My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) put a Question last week to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation in regard to the number of air passengers using the London Airport. At the present time, the number is 3 million a year. It is estimated that by 1962 the figure will have risen to 11 million. That shows that there is an enormous possibility. We should therefore take up the slack quickly —do it as soon as ever we can—where military aircraft is declining to replace it with orders for something which is wanted and will be wanted still more.

British European Airways and British Overseas Airways are Corporations operating with Government capital and, to some extent, are under Government control. Here I think that those of us concerned with this matter are entitled to ask the Government, because their responsibility is a direct one, to do something about this. They can surely see that orders which are given for civilian aircraft go to those places where unemployment and redundancy are most likely to be suffered. I know that there is also a further large possibility of developing our export trade in civilian aircraft. There is an enormous demand overseas for civilian aircraft, and we have some of the finest aircraft in the world. I admit that the Government are not so directly able to control this, because it is largely in private hands, but I suggest that there are ways by which they can use their influence to see that in areas where redundancy is threatened orders flow in whenever possible to those areas.

If there must be some redundancy in these aircraft industries, and if it is impossible even for new orders to fill all the gaps—there may be some who cannot get jobs which they have been used to and who have to go elsewhere and others who may have to give up one type of job and retrain for another—surely here is a case where the workers should not have to bear the whole of that cost. It is a case where the industry itself and the Government particularly must take steps to see that the burden of retraining or the shifting of their homes to other places is not left solely on the shoulders of the workers.

That is the last point that I wish to make, and I believe that the Ministry has done something in this matter. There was a statement in the House not long ago which went some one to show that the Government are aware of this problem. I am, therefore, making use of this opportunity to ask the Under-Secretary to make a further statement about this to assuage the fears of those who see before them the expense of having to retrain and even shift their homes in order to get employment. This is a responsibility which the Government cannot shirk, and how they handle this situation will be a proof of their outlook on our modern industrial problems. This is a serious problem which is bound to occur in our modern world where scientific inventions are piling on us one after the other and causing serious industrial dislocation. This must not be allowed, as it has been in the past, to fall on the shoulders of those least able to bear it.

This is a very big subject, and we have only a brief time to discuss it. If we are to have, as we hope we shall have, large defence cuts, we must be thinking of the alternative work which must be provided for those who have been engaged in aircraft construction or armament production.

I want to speak particularly of the firms in the Hawker-Siddeley group which so far have been the worst sufferers. The group has factories at Kingston, Langley, Dunsfold, Blackpool, Woodford in Cheshire, Langar in Nottinghamshire, Coventry and Brockworth, Gloucestershire, as well as the Gloster Aircraft Company to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price) has referred. The two main sufferers so far have been Hawker Aircraft at Blackpool and at Langley in my own constituency. At Blackpool, 4,000 workers were employed. The production shops are to be entirely closed this month, and the repair shops and stores will only be open until October. The reduction of workers since January this year will be from 3,800 to between 200 and 300.

At the Hawker Aircraft works at Langley the number of workers is not so large—800—but there production has been entirely stopped. What impressed me when I visited that factory was this. It is a modern factory with every kind of equipment for the production of engineering goods, from a refrigerator to a locomotive, and the whole place has been closed down. Production has stopped entirely. In addition to that magnificent floor which is now entirely idle, there are two hangars with 300,000 square feet which are empty except for being used as stores.

:Is this at Blackpool?

No, it is at Langley in my constituency—the Hawker Aircraft works. A deputation recently came to see Members of Parliament in this House from the joint shop stewards committee of the Hawker Siddeley combine, and I think that all of us were impressed by their constructive approach to this problem. I must put the case telegraphically because of the shortage of time.

The first thing that the deputation said was that despite the effect on themselves they welcomed the defence cuts. They put the cause of peace before their own personal interest. Secondly, they asked for a national plan for the aircraft industry instead of the haphazard closing down of factories and dismissals which now takes place. I will not emphasise what my hon. Friend said concerning the anxiety and uncertainty among men who often have been employed in the industry for as long as twenty years as to whether their opportunities for the future should be closed. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, although I cannot develop the point now, to pay particular attention to the plan which the Confederation of Engineering Unions has prepared for the industry.

Thirdly, the deputation made a series of proposals for alternative work. It suggested that as an immediate measure factories and workers should be kept together by subcontracting the work of firms which find it difficult to meet delivery dates. The deputation asked— and I should have placed the greatest emphasis on this had my hon. Friend not concentrated upon it—for the manufacture of civilian aircraft instead of the military aircraft on which they have so far been engaged. I need not underline the enormous scope to which my hon. Friend has referred.

The next suggestion for alternative employment, and one which is very near my own heart, is development in the colonial field. Development in that sector would make a demand on exactly the kind of goods which could be made in these engineering factories—power stations, wells, railways and bridges, for example.

Under this heading, the deputation asked for the extension of foreign markets and suggested in particular that we should increase our trade with China, which would also result in demands for engineering goods. I am afraid, however, that we are rather late in that direction.

The deputation's fourth constructive proposal was that orders should be placed where workers are available rather than that workers should be transferred to where orders are placed. Frequently, there is a tendency to regard workers just as though they were goods like coal and steel, for example. When an order is given, coal and steel has to be provided. In the same way, workers have to be provided just as though they were material goods. When they are shifted from place to place, their whole life is destroyed, they lose their friends, their children have to be transferred to new schools and there is the difficulty of getting accommodation.

Blackpool is an illustration. In March, there were 2,616 unemployed workers at the employment exchange at Blackpool as a result of closing down in this way. Very often, these people have to be transferred to other industries and their skills cannot be used.

The fifth point urged by the deputation was that there should be a comprehensive survey of the whole industry. If there are too many factories and workers for aircraft, other work should be drafted into the areas now engaged on aircraft production, otherwise as a result of the defence cuts great depressed areas will develop. That is all that time allows me to say, but I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to pay attention to this problem because it is one that will grow and, unless plans are prepared now, it may grow to a scale which it will be very difficult for the Government to handle.

I do not propose to detain the House long, except to say that my union is much concerned with this problem and also with the wider problem affecting Ordnance factories generally. We do not complain about running down the arms programme, but we feel that the Government have been lacking in providing anything like an orderly plan for the use of this highly-skilled labour which is no longer to be used for the production of armaments and aircraft.

Reference has been made to the possibility of producing civilian aircraft instead. The successful producers of civil aircraft, whose order books may be full for the next five years, will not readily agree to transfer work which would leave their order books full only for two years. It is, however, essential for the future of the industry that work should be transferred, although that viewpoint is understandable. I should like to know whether the Ministry of Supply and the Government generally are doing anything to bring pressure to bear on the firms which have this long back-log of work which they find difficulty in completing, to utilise the reservoir of skilled labour which is becoming increasingly available in the aircraft industry.

Two types of labour are principally concerned. First, there are the people, to whom my hon. Friends have referred, who have spent their whole life in the industry and who have developed a peculiar skill which is useful in the aircraft industry and is, perhaps, useful engineering skill but which does not have the wider application of the skills of others in the industry who have been trained, perhaps, in other than aircraft work. They might present less of a problem, but they nevertheless present a problem.

I should have thought that, in the factories which are closing down, the Government would have been concerned about the tremendous amount of capital goods that lie idle. The machine tools should be put into use, and it should be the Government's job to see that they are put into use in the shortest possible time. Another factor with an important bearing is the fact that Government decisions are given haphazard and willy-nilly. I appreciate that when there is a change of policy the Government must do something about it, but the speed with which the Government sometimes give decisions and run down work at factories, before anything can be done to effect a changed outlook in the factory or to secure alternative work, is beyond the comprehension of managements. Consequently, there are great upheavals, which would not arise if a little more forethought was exercised by Government Departments in looking ahead.

If the Government would think ahead a little more, many of the difficulties might be avoided and the transition to other types of employment more easily effected. All this should be receiving the Government's attention. They should consider how to bring pressure to bear on possibly unwilling people in the civil aircraft industry with a view to spreading some of the available work to the factories where the skilled labour now exists. In addition, by treating orders for aircraft not as orders for ships which can be completed in three years, but as something to be fulfilled rather in three or four months, the manufacturers of aircraft would be all the better equipped to meet world competition and to fulfil their orders. This is one of the most pressing items to which the Government should give their attention.

I very fully appreciate the concern of the hon. Members who have spoken in this debate about the possible effects of the reductions in defence work in the Gloucester area.

The Government realise that their plans for reducing defence expenditure may well mean hardship to some individuals, though these should represent only a very small minority. But it is an essential part of the plan announced in the Defence White Paper that the resources released from defence work should be absorbed quickly into civilian industry, and the Government Departments concerned are doing all they can to ensure that the transfer takes place as smoothly as possible.

The House has, I believe, generally accepted the Government's aim to reduce defence expenditure, which has been absorbing an undue proportion of our industrial resources and skilled labour. The Defence White Paper, in paragraph 69, said:

"The volume of defence work of many kinds will be curtailed …"

Later, it said:

"The manpower and industrial resources released must be absorbed into productive use as quickly as possible; and the Government Departments concerned will do all they can to secure that this switch is effected smoothly."

There is, however, a feeling, which has been expressed by the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter), that the cuts in our aircraft programme are being made too quickly in some cases, and are allowing too little time for firms and individuals to readjust themselves. I must say, however, that for many months before the White Paper was issued Ministers have given repeated warnings to this House that the military load on the aircraft industry would decline, and that firms must seek other work.

For example, on 29th February, 1956, during the defence debate, the former Minister of Supply discussed the new situation which we were facing, and said:

"The demand for military aircraft is falling. In fact, the production of military aircraft will decline substantially in number over the next few years, as I have on more than one occasion told the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th February, 1956; Vol. 549, c. 1233.]

This afternoon we are concerned particularly with the situation in the Gloucester area. Under the impetus of the rearmament programme, the aircraft industry in that area has doubled in size since the beginning of 1950. Firms wholly or principally engaged in work for the aircraft industry now employ about 19,000 people out of a total insured labour force of about 107,000. Of the various firms involved, the two of which the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price) spoke as being those principally concerned are both members of the Hawker Siddeley group, namely, the Gloster Aircraft Company, which makes Javelins, and Armstrong Siddeley (Brockworth) Limited, which makes the Sapphire engines to go into them, and also into the Victor Mark I. These two firms, between them, employ rather less than one-half of the total labour force of 19,000 which I have mentioned.

The volume of work which these two firms are doing for the Ministry of Supply is now declining steeply. This is not a sudden state of affairs that emerged with the Defence White Paper although, of course, the policy decisions announced in that Paper have affected the prospects of alternative Government work. As far as I can see at present, there is little prospect within the next few years of our having any requirements upon which a major new Ministry of Supply production contract with either of these firms could be based. However, since they have had long warning of the present state of affairs, both firms are already energetically seeking other work both inside and outside the aircraft industry and have already met with some success.

I hope that they will continue their efforts in this direction. It is, indeed, vital in their own interests and in the interests of the country that they should do so. Their excellent equipment, high reputation, and the skilled labour force that they have built up over many years render them highly qualified to carry out other engineering work. The other firms in the Gloucester area are concerned with the development and manufacture of equipment, and the future level of their work seems to be reasonably assured.

At this point, I should like to clear up any possible misunderstanding of the powers of the Ministry of Supply in relation to the aircraft industry. We can place orders for military aircraft and equipment only to meet the requirements of the Services. We can advise our main contractors, when they seek our guidance, about where sub-contracts may be placed. We can, and do, assist firms in obtaining export orders, and we also play a part in the development of civil aircraft to meet the requirements of the airways Corporations. But we do not place production orders for those aircraft. That is a matter for the Corporations themselves—

But surely, even if the hon. Gentleman's Department cannot place orders, it can use its influence to ensure the orders are there.

My right hon. Friend regards it as a moral, if no other, responsibility to sponsor and encourage the aircraft industry wherever he possibly can. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that any influence that my right hon. Friend can use in the direction just indicated will certainly be used.

I should not, however, like the House to think that we have done nothing to assist the Gloster Aircraft Company and Armstrong Siddeley during the present difficult period of transition. As long ago as the middle of 1956, when it became clear that the Royal Air Force's Javelin requirements would not be sufficient to sustain production for many years more, we allowed the Gloster Company to reduce its rate of production so as to spin out its work. More recently, we have accepted a further reduction in the delivery rate. These adjustments have, of course, been made in agreement with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air. Similar measures have been taken with Armstrong Siddeley.

Indeed, we have taken considerable risks in slowing down production of engines to the bare minimum necessary to meet Service requirements. I think that I can confidently say that the measures we have so far taken have been successful in the sense that they have allowed workers made redundant to find other jobs, and have given the companies as much time as possible to seek other work.

The problem of redundancies was referred to by the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West. The number of redundancies and the rate at which they come forward is, of course, primarily a matter for the companies concerned, but I must say that I did not quite understand the figure quoted by the hon. Gentleman. I think that he said that 2,000 were threatened—

By the end of this year.

I must say that my information is that the firm's estimate is very far short of that figure. Its figure is about 800 more, that is, in addition to those already discharged. I do not have the precise figure of those already discharged. I think it will, in any case, be less than the gross figure mentioned by the hon. Member.

The subject of the debate is not limited to one works in Gloucestershire. The subject is the danger of redundancy as a result of the withdrawal of military orders. Has the hon. Gentleman any information about anything else? I am very glad for my hon. Friend, but will not the hon. Gentleman say something about the others concerned in this matter?

Perhaps the hon. Member will wait until I have completed my speech. I hope that I shall have something of a more general character to say, but I was entitled to assume that this question related primarily or principally to those firms in the area which the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West represents.

I was saying that I would not like the House to think that we have done nothing to assist the Gloster Aircraft Company and Armstrong Siddeley during the present difficult period. We have had further success in avoiding difficulties in Gloster's in other ways.

On the question of the export orders, the Gloster Aircraft Company has made and is still making great efforts to obtain export orders for the Javelin. Both the West German and Belgian Governments at one time expressed a keen interest in this aircraft and if they had placed orders the future for aircraft work in Gloucester would be brighter than it is today. However, although the Government were ready to make special facilities available in aid of the purchasers, these allied Governments have decided to meet their requirements for all-weather aircraft in other ways.

The main reason for that is that, unfortunately, the company was unable to provide sufficiently early deliveries for fully operational aircraft to meet the foreign requirements. There are still prospects of sale to other friendly countries in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere.

The Ministry of Supply and other Government Departments concerned have given, and will continue to give, every possible assistance to the company's efforts to obtain export orders. We are, for example, endeavouring to adapt the necessary security precautions affecting the Javelin and its highly confidential equipment so as to allow potential customers to make a full assessment of the aircraft. We have also, by the release of aircraft and in other ways, assisted Gloster's in the export of reconditioned Meteors.

Since the hon. Member has rightly laid such stress on the importance of export orders, I shall take this opportunity of explaining some of the ways in which the Government seek to assist firms to obtain foreign orders—and this goes for firms outside the Gloucester area as well as inside it.

Thank you.

Our commercial and Service attaches at foreign embassies supplement the efforts of the firms' own overseas agents in transmitting information about our products. Classified information may be passed through official channels to friendly Governments and special security agreements have been negotiated to permit equipment developed in this country to be manufactured under licence abroad. Reports of trials and tests are supplied and special trials arranged on appropriate terms and, where necessary, training facilities are offered by the Royal Air Force or Fleet Air Arm.

Aircraft, engines and equipment are sometimes diverted from Government orders or stocks to enable attractive export deliveries to be offered where that can be done without causing unacceptable delays in supplies to our own Services. In short, the Government are fully aware of the vital importance of these exports to the national economy and play an active part in assisting them.

The hon. Member asked what could be done to provide further contracts for civil aircraft. I have already said that the Ministry of Supply does not place production orders on behalf of the civil operators. At present the Gloster Company has no significant orders for civil aircraft work and does not itself design civil aircraft. It takes several years to design a civil aircraft of any size and establish its success and even if the firm were ready to act as prime contractor and were entrusted with a project, whether as a private venture or with Government aid at the development stage, it would be years before the effect could be felt in terms of employment on the shop floor.

The company is, however, a component part of the important Hawker-Siddeley group, which has a current interest in two projects—this, again, is part of the reply to the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway). First, through its member company, Armstrong Whitworth, at Coventry, it is developing a freighter aircraft known as the A.W.650. Production of this freighter is still some way off and it is too early for any orders to be placed.

Secondly, the group is competing for the contract to design and build a medium-range jet aircraft for British European Airways Corporation. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation said on 29th May, in reply to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick), that British European Airways has not yet completed its examination of the possibilities of that aircraft.

These two projects should reach the production stage in the early and mid-1960s. The supersonic aircraft, to which I referred during the Adjournment debate last Monday, would come later. It is too early to say whether the group will secure the B.E.A. project, or to estimate the size of the orders which they will receive for their own freighter. In any case, we cannot say what share the group will give to Gloster's.

However, even on the most optimistic assumptions, namely, that Gloster's secure a major share, the time which must elapse before production gets under way makes it impossible for these projects to provide early relief to the present labour force, except to the design staff. For more immediate relief the company will have to rely on such civil aircraft sub-contract work as it can attract, but I should be misleading the House if I gave the impression that the main contractors have a great deal of this work to place.

The point was made by one hon. Member that the new defence policy will mean the breaking up of many highly expert teams, with a consequent loss to the country's technological resources. This subject was dealt with, I hope fully, in the Adjournment debate last Monday. It is the view of the Government that too much of this skilled labour is being used on defence work and that enterprising aircraft firms using adequate foresight should be able to find other work and use a proportion of the skilled labour force on production of greater importance to the economy under present circumstances. Where this is impossible, the skilled workers must be prepared to leave their jobs, and they will be assisted in this matter by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour.

I have tried, in the short time available to me, to give the House a fair picture of the prospects for these firms so far as I can see them. It is, unfortunately, inevitable that the decline in Service orders should cause temporary dislocation in those firms and localities immediately affected. I greatly regret this, but I believe that most hon. Members will agree that this readjustment is essential if the country is to maintain her economic strength.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour will make every effort to place people in other suitable employment. When this cannot be found within the area, he will apply the measures which he described to the House on 7th May, in answer to a Question by the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Miss Burton). It is the aim of the Government to reduce hardship to a minimum, and I assure the House that we shall do all in our power to achieve that aim.

The hon. Member for Eton and Slough referred to the plan of the National Federation of Engineering Unions for the future of the aircraft industry. I will draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to this plan. I assure the hon. Gentleman that it will receive the consideration which undoubtedly it deserves.

I hope the Minister will be able to understand what I am saying. I am in some difficulty in speaking as I had four stitches inserted in my cheek only yesterday, which I find an unusual handicap when making a speech. However, I did not wish to lose the opportunity of bringing the subject matter of this Adjournment debate before the House and to the attention of the Minister, because it is a very serious matter for the men and women who are to lose their jobs in the two factories, Kraft Food Products and Electrical and Musical Instruments in Hayes and, indeed, for the town itself.

On 28th March the Chairman of Electrical and Musical Instruments at Hayes announced that the departments for the manufacture of domestic radios and television receiving sets were to be merged into a new general company under the leadership of Mr. Julian Thorn and the production concentrated at the Thorn factories at Enfield and Spenny-moor. This sudden announcement came as a considerable shock both to the workers and to the town. It was indeed the first announcement, the first hint of any disaster, which either those working at the factory or people in the town had received.

The E.M.I, factories, both in the physical sense—for they are large tall buildings in the town—and certainly in the financial sense, have dominated the district for many years. E.M.I. is still the largest single employer, and certainly in the past to a very considerable extent the prosperity of the town has been closely linked with the activities at the E.M.I. factories. This announcement, which means that over 3,000 men and women will be out of work, is a very serious thing for workers and for the district.

Perhaps I should mention here that many of those who will be sacked have given a lifetime of service to the firms concerned and it is a tragic thing for them that they should be placed in this position. I have always heard from all sides the highest praise for their loyalty to the firms and for their good workmanship. It is a monstrous thing to find that at the end of their life's work, without any warning and without any consultations, they should be put on the street. Had I been in their position I should have felt a great deal more bitter than most of them. They have taken this matter with great fortitude but they have expressed some indignation.

I am surprised that in the twentieth century it is still possible for conscientious and skilled men to lose their work in this way purely as a result of a city financial amalgamation. That they should lose their jobs is a deplorable thing, but if it had to happen, that it should happen without any consultation, is even worse. I realise that I cannot develop the argument very far because it is beyond the responsibilities of the Minister of Labour, but I felt bound to express my own feeling of indignation about the matter. It is an indignation shared not only by workers but by many in the town.

I now hear that, in addition to the general shut down to which I have referred, the whole of what is known as the cabinet works is also to close. This, again, seems quite a crazy thing. There is a first-class carpenters' shop with men who are known to be among the most skilled in the furniture industry, and yet it has suddenly been decided that, although they are doing excellent work, there is no future for them.

That is one of the serious developments in Hayes. The other is that, almost simultaneously, we had the announcement that the Kraft Food Company is to transfer the whole of its production to Liverpool, certainly by the end of the year. That will result in another 1,500 workers being out of work. They cannot go with the firm, though it would like to take many of its old and experienced employees, because there would be nowhere for them to live in Liverpool if they did go.

With these two unfortunate incidents together we are likely to face in this small community an unemployment problem of about 5,000. The town of Hayes and Harlington has about 45,000 adults and a working population of some 35,000, and to have the equivalent of one-seventh of that population out of work is indeed very serious. It is serious for the men and women concerned. It is also serious for the town, so much so that the local authority, the Hayes and Harlington Urban District Council, whose initiative in this matter should be praised, called a representative meeting of townspeople to discuss what could be done. It passed a resolution which concluded by saying:

"… the people of this town view with the deepest concern the effect of the closing down and transfer of industry in and from Hayes on the trade and well being of the district, and they urge the Minister of Labour and the President of the Board of Trade to take immediate and effective steps to provide suitable alternative employment for those directly affected."

Both my hon. Friends the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter), and Southall (Mr. Pargiter) have been most effective in the help they have given me on this problem. In Questions which we put to the Minister of Labour at the beginning of April I thought I detected a certain amount of complacency about the position. Without detailing the Questions and Answers, I do not think I am being unfair, if I may telescope what the Minister of Labour said, when I say that. The impression given was that, because in West Middlesex the average number out of work was less than the national average, there was little for us to worry about.

The first comment I would make on that is that it completely ignores the fact that many of those who will be out of work from both these factories are the older and more skilled men and women, I can see no likelihood of their getting jobs of comparable status and pay. Therefore, their difficulties cannot be written off like this, even if the statistical averages show that unemployment is lower in this part of the country. On 4th April, when we had these Questions and Answers, I urged that the Minister of Labour should use his influence to ensure that no man is in fact declared redundant until there is an alternative job for him. I am sure that the firm, with its resources, could carry this liability, and it seems to me to be the only fair and just thing to do.

However, I doubt whether in fact the labour position is so good as has been suggested. This morning, I received the latest figures for the West London area to mid-April. There are now 6,440 persons registered as unemployed, increase of 2,300 on last year. That is a big increase. One sees from the individual figures for some of the surrounding exchanges that there are quite a number without work. They include: Acton, 218; Brentford, 184; Ealing, 378; Feltham, 138; Hayes, 155; Hounslow, 321; Slough, 193; Staines, 218; Uxbridge, 146; and West Drayton, 74. If on top of that in the next few months we get another 5,000 out of work, the position will be very serious indeed, even though the average unemployment is below that of the rest of the country.

There is one other matter to which I want to refer. It is that at the E.M.I, factory there will be available about 200,000 square feet of excellent factory space. With my colleagues I approached the President of the Board of Trade to see whether, in conjunction with the Minister of Labour and any other authority which could help, some use might be made of this area. I thought that we got a somewhat unsympathetic reply, and I mention it now because I hope that in trying to solve the general problem the Minister will consult his colleagues in the Board of Trade, for they have a joint responsibility. On 28th May, the Parliamentary Secretary said:

"For us to take special steps to encourage new industrial development in this area, an integral part of Greater London, would not in our view be justified in the circumstances. To do so, indeed, would be to reverse one of the principal aims of the distribution of industry policy."

There seems to be a complete misunderstanding. I am not asking the Minister to sponsor a new development in the sense that it would be an additional activity, but merely to try to get some work for the men who have been working there. There are men and excellent workshops available, and all the services that they require—power, water, light, etc. We have a number of skilled craftsmen. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will put these points to the President of the Board of Trade in an effort to solve the difficulties that will affect my constituency of Hayes and Harlington.

To sum up. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will make efforts to see that nobody from E.M.I, and Krafts is declared redundant until there is a prospect of work. I hope that he will use all the influence to obtain compensation for the older, skilled men for whom there is no guarantee that they will be re-employed and certainly not in comparable work. I hope further that he will consult his colleagues in the Board of Trade to see that work is brought into the excellent factory space at E.M.I. It cannot be in the national interest that this space is left vacant any more than it is in the interest of people in the locality. If these three things can be done, they will mitigate the blow to our community.

I support the plea which has been put by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) that the Minister of Labour should give serious consideration to the pending redundancies at E.M.I, and Kraft Food Products, at Hayes. Though the factories are in my hon. Friend's constituency, quite a number of my constituents in Feltham and Hounslow work in those two factories. Unless prompt action is taken, there may be unemployment in South-West Middlesex.

For seventeen years we have had a record of almost full employment in that area and we are most anxious to keep it. We know what full employment means; it means regular wages, with all that means to the wives and children. Therefore, we are as anxious to keep full employment in South-West Middlesex as we are in the whole of Great Britain.

The pending redundancy of nearly 3,000 people at E.M.I., Hayes, is caused by a financial merger between E.M.I, and Ferguson's Radio Company. All the television and radio production of E.M.I., will be transferred to Enfield. That merger is going through and it is only a matter of time before the redundancy notices operate in the Hayes factories of E.M.I.

The second redundancy to which my hon. Friend referred is the transfer of Kraft Food Products, makers of margarine and cheese. This firm is having a new factory built at Kirkdale, Liverpool. This will mean over 1,000 people being declared redundant. I would also mention that the cabinet-making factory at E.M.I, is going out of operation. It will mean, in all, nearly 5,000 redundancies. That will be a very serious blow to Feltham, Hayes, Southall and Hounslow.

I know that the Minister of Labour is giving consideration to this problem. Replying to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington, my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter), and myself, he pointed out that there had been only 1 per cent. of unemployment in our area. More than 12 months ago there was a redundancy of 2,000 E.M.I. workers. They were absorbed in the general employment in the district. I do not think that the position is quite so good today. The changed circumstances in South-West Middlesex have made London Airport, B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. the biggest employers in the district, with more than 27,000 people, and they have taken on surplus labour for many years. At present, they are almost at their peak of employment and I do not think we can look with much hope in that direction.

Some of our constituents have been employed in these firms for many years. Some have worked at E.M.I. and Kraft Food Products ever since they left school. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington, like myself, has constituents who have worked at E.M.I. for forty years. Their job there has been the only one they have had since leaving school. Hon. Members will appreciate the great blow that these employees are suffering in their middle-age. There are quite a number of part-time workers in these companies. It has been in the national interest to encourage part-time work. Women in the district often do three or four hours' work a day. That has helped the national effort and has meant for their families a rise in their standard of living. Hours have been arranged conveniently by those firms for part-time workers and their families have been able to afford some of the extra comforts of life.

There is a further point I want to draw to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. Today, I received a letter from a constituent who is secretary of a shop stewards' committee. The Minister may not be in a position to reply to this now, but it affects my constituency and the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington and Southall. The War Office has announced that in September it is time to close the R.E.M.E. workshops at Ashford. That will mean that another 500 will be redundant in the engineering industry in that area. I feel sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will warn his right hon. Friend that this third blow is coming to South-West Middlesex. I trust that measures will be taken to keep the R.E.M.E. factory open.

These factories may become vacant. When Kraft Food Products goes to Liverpool valuable factory space will become vacant. When E.M.I. transfers its television and radio work to Enfield nearly ¼ million sq. ft. of factory space will become empty. There is also the question, if the R.E.M.E. factory is closed, of additional empty factory space becoming available there. The working lives of our constituents depend on their having full employment and it is in the national interest that these factories should be used. I support the strong plea put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington that the Minister of Labour should deal firmly and energetically with this problem in case we have unemployment spreading in South-West Middlesex. We must have full employment to ensure for our people rising standards of living, with all that that means to them.

Once again, I must ask the leave of the House to reply to the points which have been raised. I have already inflicted two speeches on the House today, but I have not done so on my own initiative. I feel that I shall have earned my Whitsun Adjournment, although those who have listened to me may also feel that way.

Before dealing with the points which have been raised, I should like to express my sympathy with the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) in the accident, or whatever was the cause of his having four stitches put in his face. I am very glad that in spite of that he came here today. I must say that had he not said so, I would not have realised that he was speaking under such a great handicap.

I am glad the hon. Member raised this matter. I agree with him and with the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) that changes such as those they have outlined must inevitably cause dislocation and anxiety, which goes even further than the actual dislocation. It is particularly unfortunate when changes of this kind cause people who have done long service in a particular employment to lose their old jobs and have to seek new ones.

I do not want to belittle or be complacent about any of the difficulties involved. Nevertheless, I think I must say to the House that we have to face the fact that changes of this kind are, from time to time, absolutely inevitable in a progressive economy, and if we were to try to resist and prevent them, to freeze them or even unduly to retard the speed at which they happen, I am convinced that it would in the end lead to disaster for full employment throughout the country as a whole.

I realise that a broader outlook and the philosophy of the maintenance of full employment do not bring immediate comfort to those who are affected by the changes which are taking place. I do not wish to try to pretend that they do. But I think that these changes are something which we must face, while concentrating our efforts to make them as smooth and as painless as possible. That I hope we shall do.

I thought the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington made some rather harsh remarks about the management of E.M.I. Ltd. in relation to the notice which it has given about this matter. It is not for me to comment on that, and I do not pretend to know the details of how it was done, but, as I understand the position, no redundancies from the planned changes have yet occurred. Therefore, what is to happen is at least well known considerably in advance of any redundancies taking place.

As far as I know, the facts of the situation are broadly as stated by the hon. Member. I understand that at E.M.I. Ltd., while the production of radio and television receivers in this area will be entirely discontinued, production of electronic equipment will probably be increased. However, the firm has not made any pretence that the result will not be that many fewer workers will be required. In fact, as a result the firm will eventually have to discharge about 3,000 workers from Hayes and Feltham.

No date has yet been fixed for the commencement of the discharges, with the exception of those from the cabinet factory, which will cease to make polished cabinets in August or September. This will probably mean loss of employment at that time for about half, perhaps slightly more than half, of the 400 or 500 workers employed in it.

In the case of the Kraft factory, there is a different cause for the change. The firm originally opened its first English factory in Liverpool and later moved to Hayes. It has now decided once again to concentrate its production at Liverpool, and it will begin that process as soon as the new factory there is ready.

The result of the closure of the Kraft factory at Hayes will mean that altogether some 900 full-time workers, including about 500 men, and another 400 part-time women workers will be discharged. This redundancy will start in the second week of July and will continue up to or beyond the end of this year.

To summarise the facts, as the result of the changes at these two firms we appear to be facing a total redundancy of between 4,000 and 4,500 people, about half of them men and half of them women. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned a figure of 5,000. I will not argue whether my estimate is more accurate than his; whatever the figure is, it is a very substantial number indeed.

I should like now to turn to the prospects. As I have already said, I realise that a redundancy of this size is a most serious matter, and it must naturally give rise to great concern in the district. I do not want to belittle this anxiety, nor do I want to deny these changes will cause temporary difficulties for many people. However, I want to assure hon. Members that in the Ministry's considered view, the changes ought not to cause unemployment of any long duration, and I believe that the record of full employment in this area, about which the hon. Member for Feltham spoke, should be maintained.

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, aware that there is a reluctance on the part of the planning authorities to bring new industry into Middlesex and particularly into the Great London area. Will the hon. Gentleman deal with that point while he is concerned with the question of prospects of employment?

I shall come on to that point. It is part and parcel of the employment rate in the area. If I may anticipate a little the order with which I was going to deal with the matter, I would say that we believe, and I think we have great reason for beIieving—my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade holds these views as a result of what the Board of Trade knows of the area—that there are a number of firms in the area which are likely to expand their activities when they are satisfied that they will be able to get the labour necessary.

It is, of course, rather like the chicken and the egg. It is very difficult to get firms to expand, let alone to get new firms to come in, as long as an acute labour shortage exists. It is sometimes difficult to time these two processes with complete exactitude. We believe that there are already in the area firms which will be likely to expand when it is known that it will be possible to get the labour that they need.

The difficulty here is that some of the firms which would like to expand have been unable to get the necessary building licences. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the appreciation of the situation by the Board of Trade. Does this mean that the Board of Trade is going to take a different attitude towards the granting of licences?

It is not for me to answer on the location of industry policy, and I should not like to try to do so. I would assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friends the Minister of Labour and the President of the Board of Trade jointly will watch this and other similar situations carefully. It is the general policy that new industry should not be attracted into the London area when there are other parts of the country to which we ought to endeavour to attract industry. If we were to try to attract industry everywhere at once the whole policy would become nonsense. I hardly think that this area can be one in which there would be a positive attempt to attract industry.

Nevertheless, just as we believe that there are firms already there which would like to expand their activities if the; could have the assurance of getting adequate labour, so we believe that the freeing of factory space is an advantageous aspect of the changes which we are discussing. The situation would be far more serious if it were merely a case of reducing employment without freeing the factor space. Half a million square feet o private factory space will be freed for new employers, and the general experience of the demand for premises it the London area is that the demand is so great that it will be extremely surprising if this space is allowed to lit idle for any length of time.

If I may come back to the labour figures for the area, there are few part of the country where less difficulty would be expected in absorbing redundancies This is still true today. Workers in the factories concerned are recruited mainly from the areas of our Hayes, Feltham, Ealing, Southall, Hounslow, West Drayton, Uxbridge and Ruislip offices.

Our experience in these areas is that the labour shortage is more acute ever than in most other parts of London. The latest figures show that in May in the areas of those offices there were just over 1,000 unemployed men and just under 600 unemployed women, whereas out standing vacancies in that same area numbered something like 1,700 men and almost the same figure for women—it other words, 3,400 vacancies compare with 1,600 unemployed, a ratio in favour of vacancies of more than two to one

These figures are very important, but the ratio has been altering appreciably. I happen to be chairman of the employment committee in the area, and the figures have changed so rapidly that there is considerable alarm about the ratio of vacancies. Also it is doubtful whether many of them are genuine vacancies. In other words, while there is a shortage of labour, everybody is putting in a demand. When labour becomes available the vacancies do not appear to be anything like that number I hope the hon. Gentleman will use those figures with some caution.

I certainly agree that all these figures need using with caution. I think that our vacancy figures are more realistic since the revocation of the Notification of Vacancies Order, but I agree that these vacancy figures are always questionable, not on account of their genuineness or the accuracy with which they are collected but because, in areas where labour is short, there is sometimes a tendency to notify vacancies for more workers than are actually required. In periods of change, these are problems which we must take into account.

Whilst I agree that there are difficulties in travelling to different areas, we ought to realise that, even at the moment, an appreciable number of workers employed in these factories, who will be among those losing their jobs or their present employment when these changes occur, do come from much farther afield. We know of people who come from Hendon, Dagenham and Slough to work there. I do not want to over-estimate the numbers, but we can reasonably expect that not all the workers who will become redundant will in fact need, or even want, new employment in the same area.

Transport in the Greater London area is reasonably good, unless one has to make rather awkward cross-country journeys, and it is fair to look at the employment prospects of a wider area. Throughout Greater London as a whole, unemployment has been for many years, and still is, consistently and substantially below the national average. Last month, the number of unfilled vacancies—again. I agree that we must make all the necessary qualifications in these figures—was over 64,000 in the Greater London area. compared with an unemployment figure of only about 38,500.

On the basis of a consideration of these general employment figures, we feel confident that the unemployment caused by these changes should not be prolonged or very serious. This confidence is not just a matter of supposition. It is backed by actual experience over the last fifteen months. The House ought to realise that E.M.I. has already reduced its labour force considerably. Since 1955, the number employed at Hayes and Feltham has already fallen by some thousands, while unemployment in the area during this period has risen by less than 600. A hon. Members will know, this was a period when economic circumstances were not as easy as they have been in some recent years, and it was certainly not a time when there was a booming expansion in the opportunities for employment to absorb redundancies easily. Thus, during the last fifteen months, very considerable redundancy from E.M.I. has in fact been absorbed, with comparatively little trouble.

I have already said that my right hon. Friend will, of course, consult with his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. I have also told the House that no redundancy notice has yet been issued. Both firms are in touch with the Ministry of Labour about their plans and will, as soon as possible, let us have particulars of the numbers selected for discharge and the dates from which the notices will become effective. We then propose to ask for facilities to register and interview the people affected while they are still at work. In last year's redundancies these facilities were readily granted by E.M.I., and we believe that they will be again. Similarly, we have always found Kraft Food Products to be co-operative. We value these facilities because they make our work in getting workers into other jobs smoothly and as quickly as possible very much easier.

Our experience of past redundancies in London has been that about half the workers affected do not come to us for help in obtaining a new job. Of the half who do come to us, we have usually been able to submit by far the greater number to other vacancies almost immediately. I believe that, in view of the employment position, and if we are granted the facilities at the firms that I have mentioned. we shall be able to ease over this change without too much dislocation; but some dislocation there must be. Moreover, we must look at the national as well as the local significance of changes of this kind.

In the case of E.M.I., the change is brought about by a reorganisation within the radio and television section of their business, which, in their opinion, should lead to greater overall efficiency. If their opinion is proved to be right, the change will eventually benefit not only the company but the country as a whole.

Kraft Food Products is moving from an area of labour shortage to the Mersey-side Development Area, where unemployment has been over 3 per cent. for every month of this year. I am sure that hon. Members will agree that, in spite of the difficulties it may cause them and their constituents at the moment, the decision of a firm like Kraft's to set up its factory in a Development Area, when there is higher unemployment, is a step which we welcome and for which the firm is to be commended.

I hope that I have said enough to give some reassurance to hon. Members and to their constituents that these changes will not bring too much dislocation and hardship in their train. I can assure them that the Minister of Labour and I, and our officials, will do our best to keep on top of the position.

It is with a sense of gratitude that I rise to discuss what I believe to be a subject of very considerable importance, that of multiple, or disseminated, sclerosis. This disease is one of the most debilitating that is known today, but there is considerable lack of public knowledge about it.

I should like to make quite clear that it is not my intention, by virtue of this debate, to spread alarm and despondency, nor do I wish it to be inferred that this disease is any more prevalent now than it has ever been in this country or that it is on the increase. I do not think that there are any grounds at all to support that contention. My reason for bringing the subject to the attention of the House is to try to assist the Multiple Sclerosis Society in its work of Looking after sufferers and to put into proper perspective the relationship of the community to the sufferers of this disease.

Perhaps of all serious diseases in this country this is the one which is least known to the man in the street. I think that most people know what infantile paralysis is. Everyone has heard of cancer, but very few realise the crippling nature of the disease of multiple sclerosis. Yet it is extremely important not to bring the spotlight of publicity on one disease, but simply to inform the public what is the nature of the disease, so that the proper community relationship can be fostered and, I hope, the cause of the sufferers furthered.

To deal with the incidence of this disease in the country today, I would point out that one person in every 1,200 suffers from multiple or disseminated sclerosis which gives a total number of sufferers of between 40,000 and 50,000 people. It is, therefore, a much more prevalent disease than infantile paralysis. The highest number of sufferers in any age group are in the young adults' category. This fact in itself makes the disease perhaps more tragic in many ways than diseases which attack children, because it takes out of circulation people of mature years at a time when their earning capacity is at the highest and it may, in the course of years, completely debilitate them to the point of absolute paralysis.

The first thing, therefore, that I should like to be widely known about this disease is its incidence and, secondly, that it attacks people in the prime of life. Thirdly, I think that it should be known that this it not, as such, a killing disease. It does not manifestly shorten the lives of those who have it; it leaves them, although paralysed, mentally as active as they were before. The worst feature, perhaps, is that it is a progressive disease. It is one which goes on from year to year, which means, as I shall try to emphasise when I discuss the question of rehabilitation, that, because it is progressive, it is a great deal harder to find useful things for these people to do.

We have had this afternoon, at the instigation of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), a short debate on the subject of rehabilitation, and I do not wish to overlap anything which has already been said, but I submit that there is a very special problem of rehabilitation among the sufferers of multiple sclerosis for the very reason that it is a progressive disease. If a man loses an arm or leg through industrial injury, or has the misfortune to be blind or deaf, he knows the extent of his injury and of his disability, and there are societies—and, indeed, the Government themselves—which do a great deal to rehabilitate that person into a useful job which he can, with luck, continue for the rest of his life. I do not say that there are no other complaints which cause a progressive degree of disability, but, on the whole, most disabilities at a certain time become completely known and people can learn to live with them and a useful job, which takes into account their disability, can be found for them.

The sufferer from multiple sclerosis does not know from day to day, or even from month to month, what the extent of his disability will be. Therefore, when he knows that he has contracted this disease, the problem of employing him is very acute indeed. The disease may well take many years to reach its fullest pitch and all those years could be spent in useful employment, but employers cannot be blamed for fighting shy of employing people who, one day, will be fit and well enough to do a job, albeit suffering from a disability, but who, next day, might well become extremely prone to industrial accident because their disability has progressed to a stage which makes it dangerous for them to do their work. When that is taken into account with the fact that the disease attacks the young adult, one realises how serious is the problem of rehabilitation.

I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to say a word about the special question of rehabilitation of the multiple sclerosis sufferer and whether he will pass on my remarks to his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, who, of course, has an interest in this subject, too.

These facts bring one into contact with the whole problem of the young chronic sick. It is the sclerotic who forms a large part of this category. It is well known that we have excellent facilities for dealing with both the young and the old chronic sick. I do not wish the Minister to think that the Ministry's services are necessarily perfect, but services of a specialised nature exist for both these categories.

For the young chronic sick, however, it is a difficult question. When a man of, say, thirty years of age is completely paralysed because he has suffered from this disease, one can imagine what this must mean for his family. It might be impossible for him to remain at home, which, medically speaking, probably would be the best place for him; but this might not be possible because his wife has to go out to work and there is simply nobody at home to look after him. If he goes into an institution of any sort, it is more than likely that he will find himself in the geriatric wing of a hospital, where he will be among senile, old people.

When one considers that multiple sclerosis does not necessarily attack one's mental capacity and that, although completely paralysed, these people may have their wits about them entirely, one can imagine the living death that it is for the young chronic sick to find themselves, perhaps for the rest of their lives, for a large number of years as patients in a geriatric ward of a hospital. This poses a very special problem and I should like my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to give his Department's view on what is the best thing to be done in this acute problem of the young chronic sick who cannot be cared for at home.

I come now to another question, which arises from Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, with which I will deal by quoting, first, subsection (1). It states that

"A local authority shall have power to make arrangements for promoting the welfare of persons to whom this section applies, that is to say, persons who are blind, deaf or dumb, and other persons who are substantially and permanently handicapped by illness, injury, or congenital deformity or such other disabilities as may be prescribed by the Minister."

It will be observed that that Section gives power to the local authority to provide services for people in this category. I should like to say at once that most local authorities do provide generous, efficient and humane services founded upon that Section of the Act but, regrettable though it may be, there are some local authorities that have not seen fit to take any powers under the Act to provide services for the crippled people living within their community. This means that, in some parts of the country, there are those who suffer from disabilities such as multiple sclerosis who are not getting the attention given to their more fortunate neighbours.

I have here a letter written to me by the Secretary of the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which reads:

"Many counties and county boroughs have welfare schemes which they pursue with varying enthusiasm and finance. Some are quite wonderful in the help, the compassion and the generosity they bring to this task. Others, including one or two notorious examples with bloated budgets, do not yet have these welfare schemes, and the sufferers who live in these areas are at great disadvantages compared with their more fortunate neighbours."

It would be wrong and, indeed, out of order were I to ask for any change in the National Assistance Act, and I do not intend to do so. But I would ask the Minister to try to promote in those local communities where these facilities are not yet present a desire to help. I am quite sure that the local communities generally wish to see that cripples and those disabled for any reason are satisfactorily cared for, but, of course, the local authority is the proper authority to do this, because it has the local knowledge and the community sense for putting these things into effect. As I say, there are some that have not done so, and I ask my hon. Friend to do what he can to foster a better condition in that sense.

I have mentioned the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and I should like to say just one or two words about it. It was formed in 1953. My right hon. Friend, now the Minister of Labour and then Minister of Health, attended its inaugural meeting. From that day it has continued the excellent work which it started and, I think, with much success. It has about 6,000 members and would best describe itself as a mutual aid society.

Those who do not suffer from a disability tend too often to take a far too academic view of disease. They tend to ask whether or not there is a cure, and forget that to be disabled in the way in which multiple sclerosis disables is, in fact, to have one's whole life altered in every aspect. For instance, it can be difficult for a sufferer to walk up and down stairs, and in many cases he suffers from double vision.

It is in all the little practical problems that must be solved that this Society gives so much help, not from the medical but from what might be termed the self-help point of view. A man who has suffered from this disability for ten or fifteen years acquires an enormous amount of experience in overcoming these minor disabilities, and the Society's aim is to bring mutual aid to all sufferers of the disease.

Not long ago I was privileged to attend the annual meeting of a branch of the Society in my constituency. It was a very heart-warming occasion, because I saw how the Society brought these sufferers together to assist them in their task of overcoming their handicaps. The greatest thing that the Society can teach them is that they must learn to live with the disability. That is something that no doctor or research can do. It can be done only by friendship and understanding.

In conclusion, I should like to mention perhaps the most important feature of this disease. There is no known cure for it, and its causes are very obscure. I know that the Minister may not be in a position to give any very encouraging answer this afternoon—indeed, I am not competent to discuss the question of research here—but perhaps he would be kind enough to say a few words about what is being done to find a cure for this most depressing and distressing of diseases.

I welcome very much indeed the initiative which has been shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Keegan) in raising this subject today. I have two reasons, the first being that my hon. Friend has the honour or privilege, if one may so call it, of being represented in this House by myself. The second is that he has chosen quite rightly to concentrate the attention of the House on this little known and particularly sad disease. He has done it with a very right sense of perspective, neither exaggerating its extent nor minimising its consequences.

It is, in fact, one of the commonest organic diseases of the nervous system. It is commoner among women than among men. It starts, as my hon. Friend said, in early adult life, progressing, often with many relapses and remissions, to permanent paralysis and crippling. The main advance in treatment of late years has been the discovery and the demonstration that to avoid strain and fatigue helps to prevent relapses. My hon. Friend was quite right in the statistics he gave. He was correct in saying that there are about 40,000 cases in the country and about 1,500 deaths a year, due either to the disease or to its complications.

Alas, so far the cause of the disease is unknown. The treatment which can be given to it is merely palliative, but research is going on the whole time and I respond to my hon. Friend's invitation to say a few words about research. A great deal is being done under the auspices of the Medical Research Council and otherwise to try to find the cause of this curiously intractable disease. Social and geographical studies have suggested that there is a variation in the incidence of the disease, but the reason for it is not known. Fortunately, there has been no significant change in the incidence in recent years. In other words, it is not increasing but, unfortunately, it is not diminishing.

One curious feature which makes it difficult to find a cure is, as some hon. Members may know, that there are spontaneous improvements and then relapses after them accompanied by the feature that often in the course of the disease's progress the sufferer has a compensatory sense of well-being. That is making research difficult. The main effort is being concentrated on fundamental work in shedding more light on the nature and causes of demyelinisation, which is a form of degeneration of parts of the central nervous system which, in turn, leads to the appearance of symptoms of the disease.

Work is in progress at a number of centres. About £1,000 was provided by the Medical Research Council in 1956–57 towards the expenses of work of this type. One of the Council's six Rockefeller travelling fellowships in medicine has been made available to Dr. G. C. Webster of Guy's Hospital Medical School to enable him to study in the United States certain bio-chemical problems which may have a bearing on the cause of disseminated sclerosis. The need for further research on multiple sclerosis is fully realised, but it is the intractable nature of the problem rather than lack of funds which hampers progress at the moment. if I can put it more simply, it is lack of bright ideas and not of cash which is holding us back.

Now I turn from research to what can be and is being done for the sufferers from this disease. The full range of the services provided under the National Health Service is, of course, available to them and they share with others in benefiting from the expansion of the Service which has taken place. The domiciliary service, home nursing and home help services, are the most likely to be of benefit to them, and it is good to report in this connection that the number of home helps has trebled in the last nine years.

None the less, there are many cases for which it is not possible for the local authorities to give as full help as they desire. Behind the domiciliary services lie hospital and local authority residential services. A growing feature of both those services is the taking of a chronically ill or handicapped person into a hospital or local authority home for a period in order to give the relatives who have been looking after that sick or handicapped person a rest or break and a chance to have a holiday. It is a service the extension of which I know my Department welcomes and wishes to encourage.

Regarding hospital accommodation, my right hon. Friend is considering how far it will be practicable to group together the younger chronic sick, a category which includes sufferers from multiple sclerosis. The idea is to try to group them in one or more hospitals in each area. There are difficulties. because their numbers are comparatively few and one would wish to get them as near their homes as possible. It is, however, a matter which is under active consideration at the present time.

Lastly, there are the welfare services which the majority of local authorities are beginning to provide under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act for persons substantially or permanently handicapped. The provision they make is for visiting, for helping them and encouraging occupational activities. I noted what my hon. Friend said about local authorities which are not using their present powers. Any extensions would generally meet with the approval of the Department but these things are best initiated locally. I will see that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service is made aware of the views of my hon. Friend on the matter of finding jobs for those who have been rehabilitated.

I turn now to the Multiple Sclerosis Society, and I wish to echo and support everything said about its work by my hon. Friend. It organises branches and local groups all over the country to arrange mutual help and comradeship and to assist those suffering from this disease. It is desirable that local groups of the Society should always seek to work in collaboration with the county and county borough councils responsible for local health and welfare societies. Friendly liaison with these authorities is of the utmost importance in the work which the Society is trying to do. I wish it every success in its efforts to arouse wider public understanding of the disease and bring together groups of volunteers willing to render personal service to ease the lot of those afflicted.

I hope that this short debate will achieve publicity for this Society and those who suffer from this disease. I hope that attention will be drawn to the existence of the Society in the medical journals because in the long run it is the general practitioner who can help the sufferer to get in touch with the Society and to see that he has the companionship of his fellow sufferers. It is perhaps unusual at this Box to give a "puff" to a monthly newspaper. But I would draw the attention of my hon. Friend to the June issue of an admirable publication called Family Doctor which contains most sensible and balanced articles on this disease and the need to encourage patients with help and sympathy.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this matter to the notice of the House and I am sure that hon. Members will demonstrate their sympathy for those who suffer from what is at present, unfortunately, an incurable disease.

I am grateful to the Minister who replied to the previous debate for streamlining his remarks, and I wish to refer now to a subject completely different from those which have been discussed previously this afternoon. I wish to deal with the vital aspect of Vietnam and South-East Asia. I too must streamline what I have to say and condense my speech into seven minutes, but I give notice to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and to the Ministries concerned that from time to time they will be concerned with the problem of the whole of South-East Asia and the relationship of Vietnam, because as one of the co-chairman of the Geneva Agreement we have a responsibility concerning Vietnam.

With the signing of the Geneva Agreement in July, 1954, hostilities ceased, and in Indo-China we have to face the position that Cambodia and Laos were left as a geographical entity. It was then that this House gave great praise to Sir Anthony Eden, which he well deserved, because he maintained the name of England despite the attitude and opposition of the United States. I wish to reiterate that praise which I heard emphasised in China last week by Chou En-lai and Ho Chi Minh, the President, in discussions with me, and also by other dignitaries both north and south of the 17th Parallel.

I think it right to pay a tribute to the part played by Sir Anthony Eden because, although he was a political opponent, he was a great leader. I do not agree with what was contained in a well-informed article on the South—there was very little in it about the North—which appeared in The Times yesterday. Reference was made about hopes fading in a divided Vietnam. It says:

"further, it is doubtful whether even the Governments of the two zones of the Vietnam, however much they pay lip service to unification, really desire it. They themselves are established in power in their zones. It is the people who suffer."

With five of my colleagues from this House I have just visited the Far East. I have had the good fortune to visit Indo-China and the Far East on a number of occasions. We were agreed on one thing, which is that the people who are suffering from this division of the 17th Parallel are the people of Vietnam. It is a harder division than that between East and West Germany. I have travelled in East and West Germany. One can walk on each side of the Brandenburg Gate, but we were the first people outside the International Commission or officials to move from Hanoi into Saigon. We did it as a result of getting a lift, which incidentally we paid for, on the International Commission's plane.

As a side light, I would point out that the very plane in which we returned from Saigon to Hanoi was impounded because there were 2¼ kilogram's of opium which was being smuggled from Laos to South Vietnam and it was found in the pilot's cabin.

One thing which Sir Anthony Eden achieved at Geneva—he succeeded to a point—was to get Laos as a neutral. This was a policy which Chou En-lai and the Great Powers at Geneva agreed upon, but there is great competition between the United States and some of the smaller nations, such as Laos and Cambodia, to draw them into the ambit of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. I voted openly against the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. It is neither an organisation nor a treaty. At present it is just something used by the United States in the Pacific Ocean. It is not at this juncture constructively working for peace. I do not mean by that that the United States desires war. Far from it. Some of the leaders, especially Mr. Leyland Barrows, who is responsible for the excellent report, "The United States Operation Mission to Viet-nam" are good Americans struggling to build up a useful system in Asia.

What I am concerned about is the way that America is tackling the problem at the moment. It is leading to a complete breakdown of Western leadership in Asia and giving to Russia and China propaganda points and a leadership out of all proportion to the work which, for instance, Britain has done in this part of the world.

We met many colleagues of the President of the South too, and we were treated to the statement that the 17th Parallel was the frontier of the United States of America. This is an absurd and inflammatory statement which we must denounce. I cannot quote the Geneva Agreement because there is not sufficient time, but the 17th Parallel was never meant to be a permanent division. As The Times says, what are we doing about it? I talked to Pham Van Dong, the Prime Minister of Vietnam, and Chou En-lai and Ho Chi Minh confirmed it.

Are we allowing the position in Vietnam to deteriorate? Is President Diem contravening the Geneva Agreement by introducing conscription? I could quote if I had the time figures to show that the majority of American aid goes to the Vietnamese Army. They are figures from American sources. Incidentally, while we were there, this country, whether members of the House of Commons knew it or not, was taking part in the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation manoeuvres in the Bay of Thailand with a number of aircraft and warships. I consider that that was a contravention of the Geneva Agreement when they came over into Saigon.

The Sixth Report of the International Commission gives an account of the Americans bringing troops and military material into the South without first consulting the Commission. Did Britain consult the Commission on 26th October last year when we took in some of our aircraft and troops for military manoeuvres? I should like to know?

There is only one other point I wish to make. The immediate hopes of unity in North and South may not seem to be there, but I know that leaders in the North and the South want the unity of their country. Ho Chi Minh in the North and others in the South have reiterated their desire for unity. What can we do? If we cannot get a general election throughout Vietnam at the moment we can humanise the 17th Parallel. At the present moment brother cannot visit sister and husband cannot visit wife. I have met men and women who have been fighting in the jungle for years and know nothing about their families.

At the present time, President Diem is not prepared to meet representatives of the North. I made the suggestion to Ho Chi Minh and a similar suggestion in the South. Without a general election the Hanoi Powers could send a representative to a central assembly and Diem's Parliament could send representatives to that central assembly at somewhere like Hue in the centre of Indo-China. Without a general election we could discuss this question of letters, communications and people moving. I hope that something will be done to humanise the 17th Parallel as soon as possible and that the co-chairmen will accept their responsibilities. I hope that Vietnam will be treated exactly like China in respect of trade. Finally, I hope that this House will take seriously its responsibilities as one of the co-signatories to the Geneva Agreement.

As a result of the war in Indo-China, the people of Vietnam gained their freedom, and this led to the signing of the Geneva Agreement.

I want to emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) said about the 17th Parallel. This was intended to be a temporary dividing line until elections were held in July, 1956, and they were to be supervised by the Control Commission. The Geneva Agreement provided that there should be free elections supervised by the Control Commission in 1956, that there should be no victimisation on either side of the dividing line, and no military build-up on either side of that line.

What has happened? There have been no elections. There has been victimisation. There has been a military build-up. There have been no elections because the Government of the South, under President Diem, have refused to agree to them. There has been victimisation which has taken place almost completely in the South, under President Diem and his American military supporters. There has been a military build-up and it has taken place in the South. I am not speaking for myself; these are not my views. These are the views of the Control Commission's Report which was jointly signed by Canada, Holland and India. It made these charges in its last Report.

What are we doing about it? I know that a year ago the British Foreign Office sent a Note to Russia in which it said that there had been a military build-up in the North which had increased its forces from seven to 20 divisions. From where did the Department get that information? Certainly not from the Control Commission, which is on the spot and is a neutral body. It could have supplied one of the co-chairmen, Britain, with any information we wanted. The Control Commission was not asked by the British Government to supply information. From where did we get it?

As a matter of fact, it was completely untrue. There has been a considerable military build-up in the South. More than 2,000 American officers have gone into South Vietnam since Geneva, including five generals, 50 colonels and many other senior officers. The Army and the police force have been re-equipped with American sub-machine guns, rifles and uniforms. The Control Commission also says that there has been very much victimisation and many hundreds of murders in the South, while there has been nothing in the North. Not one specific charge has been levelled against the North which has been proved true. These statements come from the Control Commission and not from the Government of North Vietnam.

Why do we not recognise North Vietnam? Why do we recognise the South? The North is not only the de facto but the de jure Government, and was freely elected in 1946. Why do we recognise this puppet Government in the South, which would not last another month if American troops and assistance were withdrawn? I appeal to the Minister to look at this question again. Let me say, in warning, in the half minute that remains to me, that there is great danger. We met the Control Commission out there and it is getting a bit tired of the situation. There is great danger that some sectors will say, "It is time to get out." The Commission is the only element in Vietnam which has kept the two sides apart.

I hope that the Government will do something to give the people of Vietnam some encouragement to get the unity of their country in the near future. If the Control Commission withdraws there is great danger of war breaking out in that part of the world. I hope that the Foreign Office realises that the danger is real and may blow up at any minute in that area.

I must at once express my obligation to the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies), who has raised this Adjournment debate, for sending me so much notice of all the various points he wished to raise, and my regret that, owing to the time available, he has not been able to deploy them all and that, therefore, I shall not be able to answer them all. I must express my gratitude to him, also, for the references he made to Sir Anthony Eden, which I feel were thoroughly deserved, and I am obliged to him for making them.

The House will understand that Her Majesty's Government recognise the Government of South Vietnam. Furthermore, the hon. Member, of course, brings to this House personal experience of affairs in Vietnam, as he was, I think, with the party which accompanied him, the guest of the Vietminh on his recent visit. I do not wish to say that he has said anything intentionally misleading, but I think that possibly his account of events may have been slightly coloured by the attentions of his hosts.

I went to the South, too.

Yes, and I understand the hon. Member had to pay for the lift by which he went. It is a fact that he and his party were the guests of the Vietminh.

Of course, we recognise the problems which exist. On the points made by the hon. Member, I would only observe that, first of all, far from the situation in the South being a build-up as he indicated, the French Union High Command has, in fact, been dissolved. That is a very considerable point which he passed over without any reference at all—which I think was unfortunate.

Furthermore, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Baird) indicated in his speech, the elections which were anticipated have not been field. That again entirely changes the present situation.

I think it is not without significance that conditions in the Vietminh area are not the rosy conditions which one would infer from the speech of the hon. Member. It is, in fact, a full-going Communist State—

No.

Well, the hon. Member is entitled to his views, but, of course, he may have a different interpretation of a full-going Communist State.

No more so than China.

It is a totalitarian State and totalitarian conditions exist there—

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is now accusing me of saying deliberate untruths. I can prove to him that there is no freedom of speech and newspapers are limited—

Order. There was no such accusation by the Minister.

I think that a careful study—if I may say so, an objective study—of the situation will show that the Government in South Vietnam is, in fact, a freely-elected Government, whereas the conditions in the North have only recently led to quite considerable unrest. One does not have quite considerable unrest in a community which is happy and satisfied with its lot. The hon. Member made some reference to President Diem. I should like to make some reference to him also, because, as a result of his personality and leadership, the situation in South Vietnam is one of steadily increasing strength and prosperity. I cannot accept that, as a result of this division, the South Vietnam State has in any way interfered with the conditions which exist in the North.

I did not say that.

It is a fact that more than 800,000 refugees have fled from the Vietminh area to South Vietnam. This is a situation which must give us cause for the greatest possible concern.