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

The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Development of Inventions Acts, 1948, and 1954, so as to extend both the period of, and the financial limit on, the advances which Government makes to the National Research Development Corporation. It does not modify the Corporation's functions in any way.

During the passage of the 1954 Act, my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Sir W. Wakefield) said:

"The history of the Corporation is one of support from all parties."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th January, 1954; Vol. 522, c. 1636].

I believe that this is still true. Although the Bill is solely concerned with finance, no doubt it will be for the convenience of the House if I give some background on the Corporation's work.

The first question which hon. Members may ask me is why the Corporation exists at all. The 1948 Act gave it two functions. First, it was to develop inventions emerging from public research. The Corporation was expected to give expert help to research organisations in the public sector in assessing the potential commercial value of any inventive material, in arranging patent protection at home and abroad and in negotiating agreements for its use with the commercial interests concerned. In this way, the Corporation was to offer private industry another pair of eyes, to ensure that new ideas with valuable industrial applications do not lie undetected and wasted in publicly-financed research laboratories. I do not think that anyone would question that this is a sensible and useful arrangement.

The second function of the Corporation was to act as a long-stop, developing any private inventions which seemed to be worth while, but neglected. I think that this, too, is a useful provision, not because industry is slow to take up new ideas, but because nobody can claim an infallible judgment in the assessment of inventions; and it is of the greatest importance that we should make the fullest possible use of all the important new inventive ideas which come our way.

The fact that the Corporation has not been called on to do much in this field, is, however, evidence that there are not—as has been, and sometimes still is, suggested—innumerable inventions carelessly neglected or wickedly suppressed by industry.

The 1954 Act enabled the Corporation to go somewhat further in suitable cases and undertake research to find a way to solve a specific problem; and it is now supporting two promising lines of research in partnership with the cooperative Research Associations of the cotton and scientific instruments industries, in one case with a view to applying automatic control to cotton spinning and in the other to the development of an ultrasonic flowmeter.

I now pass to the methods the Corporation uses to carry out its many tasks of developing and exploiting inventions. These methods must vary quite widely according to the nature of the invention handed over to the Corporation and the stage which it has reached. It was not, of course, intended that the Corporation should compete with industrial interests, or that it should acquire extensive laboratories and workshops of its own; and the 1948 Act requires it normally to entrust the exploitation of any invention to persons engaged in the industry concerned.

If the invention is ready for commercial application, the Corporation's task is merely to patent it and licence it to industrial users. If it needs more development, the Corporation can put this out to a firm on a contract basis; or it may enter into association with, say, the inventor and a suitable firm to underwrite the development of a prototype; or, if further research is needed to bring an idea up to the point of a practical invention, the Corporation can assist that research, subject to the approval of the Lord President of the Council as well as of the Board of Trade—the approval of the Lord President is required to ensure that there shall be no duplication of work with other public bodies engaged in scientific research.

What are the fruits of this work? Hon. Members will doubtless have seen the Corporation's annual reports and accounts which are laid before Parliament, the most recent being that for the year ended 30th June, 1957, which was laid on 3rd March this year. I have heard it suggested that these Reports come out too late.

I agree with this view and I may say that the Corporation has normally finished its work on them by November. My right hon. Friend will try to publish them in future immediately after the Christmas Recess or, indeed, before the Recess if that proves practicable. In these annual reports, the Corporation has set out fully the progress in the work on which it has been engaged over the years.

Currently, the Corporation holds nearly 1,000 British patents and nearly 2,000 overseas patents. It has over 350 licensing agreements at home and abroad; and these are now bringing in royalties of about £170,000 a year, of which—and I think that the House will note this with interest—one-third represents dollar receipts from the United States.

The last published report lists roughly 50 projects on which the Corporation has been engaged, some of which have been commercially exploited and some of which are still in course of development. Among the inventions on which the Corporation was then obtaining revenue were Bailey bridges, many of which have been exported to the less developed countries; the control gear for the ship stabilisers which are now adding to the comfort of sea travel in such great ships as "Queen Mary" and "Queen Elizabeth"; as well as such humbler but important inventions as new weedkillers and medical preparations.

Among its development projects were various inventions for food preservation, a new form of mechanical transmission designed to make big fuel savings on buses and heavy lorries, and a flat cathode ray tube for colour television.

Many hon. Members will also have heard of the very substantial contribution which the Corporation has made to the growth in this country of an electronic computer industry. More recently, some hon. Members may have heard of a new race of sea serpents to be seen on Southampton Water. I can reassure them that these were merely trials, sponsored by the Corporation, of large flexible bags for transporting oil, the development of research carried out at Cambridge University.

The fact that the Corporation has been able to make such a contribution is a tribute to the valuable work of its chairman and other part-time members, who find the direction of its affairs of sufficient interest and importance to fit it in with their already heavy commitments in the world of science, industry and finance. It would be invidious of me to pick out names, but I know that the other members of the board would like me to make a special mention of the vital part played by the Managing Director, Lord Halsbury, who, when he leaves the Corporation next March, will have spent nearly ten years in building it up on a firm and practical foundation. From the beginning Lord Halsbury has guided the Corporation, and its success is due in no small measure to his efforts.

I now come to the financial matters with which the Bill is concerned. The Development of Inventions Act, 1948, empowered the Board of Trade, with the consent of the Treasury, to make advances to the Corporation for its capital requirements within five years from its establishment, subject to a limit of £5 million outstanding at any one time. The 1954 Act extended the period in which this power could be exercised to ten years, which terminate in June next year.

The Acts also require the Corporation, so far as can be done consistently with the fulfilment of its purposes, to meet its outgoings on revenue account from the receipts from its activities at the earliest possible date, taking one year with another. This position has not yet been reached; it is, in fact, too early to judge whether the Corporation will prove self-supporting on a long-term basis. Unlike a commercial firm which would normally make its profit from the sale of equipment embodying an invention, the Corporation can derive revenue only from royalties on patents—which become more valuable towards the end of the patents' 16-year life—and from the inevitably slow return on capital invested in development projects. One cannot expect quick turnover; what one can look for at this stage is a steady build-up of income.

In the financial year in which the 1954 Bill came before the House, the Corporation's gross income was £30,000. This covered only a little more than one quarter of the Corporation's administrative expenses. Since then, the Corporation's income has continued to rise steadily; and, for the financial year ended on 30th June of this year, it stands at almost £200,000 which, the Corporation informs me, more than covers administrative expenses at the moment by a sum of roughly £20,000.

It is against this background that the Government have decided to bring the present Bill before the House. The Bill does two things. It extends the power to make advances to the Corporation to cover the period up to twenty years from its establishment; that is, by a further ten years from next June onwards. Secondly, it raises the limit on the amount of advances from £5 million to £10 million.

As to the period of advances, some extension is necessary if the Corporation is not to abandon many projects already in hand before they could come to fruition. Since the Corporation is now just about half way along the period of some sixteen to eighteen years needed to assess whether it will prove self-supporting, the Government believing that the results so far justify giving the Corporation a fair run over the rest of the course, have come down in favour of a 10-year extension.

This decision bears on the question of what the permissible level of these advances should be. At the moment, the limit is £5 million, and out of this just under £2 million had been advanced over the nine years ended 30th June this year. The Government do not, however, believe that the limit should be left at £5 million. The Corporation had inevitably to build up its business slowly, but, in recent years, the tempo has been quickening.

I understand that, if all the Corporation's existing plans and projects proceed on the lines that they hope, its total borrowings may well exceed £4 million; and this would leave very little for new projects unless the Corporation's income rose to an unexpected extent. The actual expenditure of substantial sums of money by the Corporation upon a particular project comes often at the end of many months, or even years, of preliminary work.

Unless, therefore, the financial limit to the advances is raised, the Corporation might quite soon find itself unable even to discuss new projects with inventors or research organisations, however important their proposals appeared, since it could not be certain that the money would be available to carry them through. We do not think that its activities, whose worth has already been proved, should be cramped in this way.

Accordingly, the Government consider that the limit should be raised from £5 million to £10 million. This money will, of course, only be drawn on against actual requirements; but it should enable the Corporation to continue its work right up to 1969 in much the same way as it has developed in the past. If there were to be a diminution in the flow of inventions—which I hope there will not—or if the Corporation's own income rises more rapidly than we can at present expect—which, I hope, will be the case—then perhaps not all of this £10 million would need to be drawn on.

I ought to draw the attention of the House to something that the Bill does not do. Under existing legislation, the Board of Trade is empowered, subject to the approval of the Treasury, to waive payments which are due to it from the Corporation by way of interest on advances made. This power has never yet been used; and I see no reason why the Corporation should not be able to pay interest. Indeed, I think it necessary that it should do so if the Corporation's financial arrangements are to be on a proper business-like footing.

Accordingly, no extension of the power to waive interest is included in the Bill although the timing of the repayment of interest will be determined by the Treasury and the Board of Trade in the light of the Corporation's financial position from time to time.

These, then, Mr. Speaker, are the views which the Government hold about the Corporation's future. The Bill makes no change whatsoever in the Corporation's functions; and the doubling of the financial limit does not imply any change of policy in respect of its activities or any sudden increase in expenditure in any particular direction. It is important to keep matters in perspective. It has been estimated that, in 1955, British industry was, out of its own resources, devoting about £70 million a year to research and development for civil purposes; and there are no grounds for thinking that these activities are likely to slacken.

Behind such an annual outlay there must be a vast stock of capital, invested in laboratories, testing facilities and experimental plants. The growing importance in our export trade of new industries, of industries which have shot ahead since the war, and of industries which are firmly based in science and technology, is adequate evidence of the willingness and ability of British industry to maintain a massive research and development programme in order to preserve our competitiveness in world markets.

The financial provisions we are discussing today are on a much more modest scale; but they, too, have their part to play as a further contribution to the full use of this country's resources of inventiveness and commercial talent. The Government are confident that the National Research Development Corporation will be enabled, by this Bill, to continue the activities upon which it has so successfully embarked and to demonstrate over the years that it is a useful and financially sound element in our national industrial life.

In this sense, I commend the Bill to the favour of the House.

The Parliamentary Secretary was right in say- ing that this Bill would have the support of the whole House; in fact, I would be surprised if there were any opposition to it. The original Bill was, of course, one of the many far-sighted measures which were introduced by the Labour Government in the first years after the war, being introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) when he was President of the Board of Trade.

I must say, however, that this unanimity is a rather newer feature, because at that time the Bill received a very lukewarm welcome from the Opposition, led by the present Lord Chandos, then Mr. Oliver Lyttelton. He made a speech on the Second Reading of the Bill in the best manner—which surprised me in this extremely progressive industrialist—of an industrial fuddy-duddy of the 'thirties. He said that he would like to divide the House against it, but I imagine that some of his hon. Friends who were members of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee at that time persuaded him against doing so. At any rate, the Conservative Opposition during the Committee stage of the Bill tried to reduce the original limit of the advances which the Corporation was to receive from £5 million to £2 million. However, as the Parliamentary Secretary has told us, by 1954 so useful had the Government found the Corporation that they extended its life for another five years. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards) aid at that time in speaking for the Opposition, the gloomy forebodings of the Opposition in 1948 had been proved false.

I think two things are now recognised on all sides. The first is that many inventions come from people working in public bodies, not working for profit, either individually or the bodies themselves. The second, though this may be more controversial, is that a public corporation with a good board and good staff can operate efficiently. This would not be the occasion to argue that matter in detail, nor would it be suitable on what is generally a non-controversial day. Nevertheless there are a number of examples, and this is certainly one of them.

I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary, however, that for this success and for this efficiency all credit must be given to the chairman and the various members of the board, a number of distinguished scientists and industrialists who have given their time to the service of the board, and to its staff. I would like especially to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Gentleman about the present Managing Director, Lord Halsbury, who is that strange combination of a chartered accountant and scientist with a famous legal ancestry. I believe that it is largely his personal drive, his percipient intelligence and his strong commonsense that has kept the Corporation on the right road and made it the successful body it is. I have been extremely interested in the last year or two to find Lord Halsbury becoming an almost equal expert in the social sciences. He is one of the few men in this country who may be able to integrate the technological and sociological problems of our age, and a very heavy responsibility will lie on those who have to appoint his successor.

In the debates on the original Bill in 1948 much play was made by the Opposition with Clause 3, which instructs the Corporation to balance its revenue account taking one year with another. The Opposition seemed to think that the Government of the time thought that to pass a Clause of this type made it certain that this was bound to happen. This was obvious nonsense, but it is necessary in such a measure, setting up a public authority, to give that public authority directions as to whether it is to behave as a social service or as a commercial undertaking.

I am afraid that sometimes, especially in one or two of our nationalised industries, we are not clear as to which we intend it to be. Hon. Members on both sides of the House frequently make demands on the nationalised industries for what can only be thought of as social services, while at the same time they expect them to balance their accounts taking one year with another. The National Research Development Corporation is, with one sole exception to which I will refer in a moment, a commercial undertaking. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is expected to pay its way in the long term, though in view of its functions, that must be sometimes a fairly extended long term.

I was interested to hear the Parliamentary Secretary say that the revenues of the Corporation now exceed its administrative outgoings and are approaching a figure of around £200,000 a year. Incidentally, I was also pleased to hear him say that he intends to speed up the publication of the report. This, to my mind, lies in the hands of his Department and not so much in the Corporation. I cannot see why any body whose accounts run to June should not have them published before the end of the same year, especially in view of the interest Parliament is now taking in industrial research and development.

The measure of the success of the Corporation is the fact that the Government are now dropping the Section which enables the Treasury to waive the interest payments, so that for next year the Treasury presumably will be receiving interests on its advances. However, as I read Section 8 of the Act, it seems pretty flexible as to when the interest has to he paid.

One could underestimate the work of the Corporation if one looked only at the extent to which it has drawn down the advances, which it is entitled to do, and some criticism has been made of it in the past on that account. To some extent it is using its advances as a revolving fund because it has made prototypes and machines and has sold them and received the income from these sales.

The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the significance of the period it has now reached. The corporation has passed the half-term period in the life of its first patents. In his evidence before the Public Accounts Committee Lord Halsbury suggested that the Corporation must be paying its way by the sixteenth year, or thereabouts, or it would never pay its way, if the flow of patents remains constant: on the theory that patents are dying out as fast as they are coming in. I should have thought, however, that the value of patents would vary so considerably that this would not necessarily be statistically true. At any rate they are coming in at a steady rate of 600 a year, and the number of patents held by the Corporation, as mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary, have now risen very substantially indeed.

If one wants to recognise how extremely valuable the Corporation has been and how the actual amount of money it spends or the research and development that it does may bear very little relation to the catalytic effect that it has in industry, one has only to look at the development of electronic computers in this country. Ten years ago neither the scientists nor the manufacturers foresaw in any way the developments which are taking place in this most important field. Lord Halsbury has told in a paper which he read recently how he failed to interest the punched card manufacturers, the obvious people to undertake the work, or the electronic manufacturers in a joint effort to develop computers, especially for what was then an awakening market in America.

The British firms at the end of the war which were the sort of firms which would be capable of or suitable for undertaking the work were rather small and busy with re-equipping British industry with their ordinary regular line of goods, while in the United States there was that giant organisation, the I.B.M. Corporation. This had the subsequent advantage of the enormous requirement for the continental radar defence system which had to be linked by computers, the development of which on Government account amounted to an enormous subsidy to the American computer industry, a subsidy sometimes estimated at about 250 million dollars.

Without the National Research Development Corporation, one can see that there would be no computer industry in this country based on indigenous development. It would undoubtedly have developed, but very largely on American patents and research. Today there are a number of firms engaged in this activity, most of them sponsored by the National Research Development Corporation, which is itself also sponsoring a patent pool on which they can draw. On 1st December we shall have the opportunity of seeing the results of what British manufacturers are doing at the exhibition which is going to be held. I was interested when the Parliamentary Secretary said that the Corporation now has a substantial dollar income, which he said was about one-third of its revenue. I think I am right in saying that on the computer account, taking account of the cost of the patents in the United States, the Corporation is now making a dollar balance.

The wide range of activities covered by the Corporation were mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary. They are very extraordinary. They range from crude engineering products to the most important chemical and pharmaceutical products. There have been one or two developments which are of special interest, though some of them have not actually come to commercial fruition. One which interested me a great deal was the Ricardo light steam engine, developed at the request of the Indian Government. This seems to me to be of great importance, because one of the best ways of making economic advances in vast under-developed areas is to have local industries based on small sources of power. What is happening in China now is interesting in this connection. For various reasons, so far the Indian Government have not seen fit to order these engines. They are being made on a small scale; it has not yet been possible to reach the sort of commercial development that was once hoped.

Another very promising new development in the engineering field, which naturally interests me, is a new mechanism for storing energy in the flywheel of a commercial vehicle when braking and making the energy subsequently available for acceleration, which may enable us to reduce bus fares one day.

In the field of instruments the most outstanding new invention is that of Sir Thomas Merton's diffraction gratings at the National Physical Laboratory which will have increasing use in spectrometry and meteorology. There are also the printed circuits which constitute one of the most successful developments in this field.

The flexible containers for towing oil, to which the Parliamentary Secretary referred, developed by Professor Hawthorne and his colleagues at Cambridge University, hold out very great hopes for the future. This is one of the few useful outcomes of the Suez adventure, which drew our attention to the great importance of reducing the cost of transporting oil over long distances.

Many of these developments are now paying their way. Others need further development or await commercial exploitation. I advise any manufacturer looking for a new product, as many are already doing, to read the bulletin which the Corporation publishes from time to time.

There are one or two small points of possible criticism which I have heard. It is sometimes said that the Corporation imposes terms, in pursuit of its ideal of financial rectitude, which are over-harsh. Some research associations have said that they do not think it worth while co-operating with the Corporation because of this. I do not know whether this is the case or not. I have also heard a complaint from an industrial firm that the Corporation would not grant exclusive licences. The Corporation makes its position very clear about this in its little booklet. On the whole, I agree with the view that where public money has been involved in an invention, unless there are very strong reasons for doing so, it should not grant exclusive licences, though I believe the Corporation is willing to do so if the manufacturer can show that the cost of investment to get the product going makes it essential to have an exclusive licence.

What will be the future of the Corporation? I think it is agreed on both sides of the House and outside that no drastic change is required. As the Parliamentary Secretary said, the Bill makes no drastic change. But we still need to stimulate innovation in British industry; that still remains of absolutely prime importance. I have said previously—it is an exaggeration, but I still think it is the basis of the truth—that as other countries throughout the world industrialise, this country will only be able to sell goods that other people cannot make, and more and more we shall have to develop new products and processes if we are to maintain our competitive position in the world.

There have been a number of interesting academic studies recently on the conditions which encourage invention and industrial innovation. It is difficult to draw from them any very general conclusions, but, by and large, what appears is that most inventions, although they are made by individuals, are very rarely made by independent individuals. The inventor today is generally a professional engineer or scientist working in a large organisation or at least in a research laboratory, possibly a university research laboratory or the laboratory of a research council or institute. However the invention is made, its subsequent development is possible only in a large organisation because of the increasing cost of the capital equipment required to develop an invention, particularly the cost of such things as pilot plants.

The very nature of inventions is changing. Inventions are no longer simple, highly profitable things by themselves. They are often just improvements on existing techniques or processes, and even they may have a short life because they are liable to be overtaken in a very few years. This has led to a system of royalty free licensing by companies because it is hardly worth while to maintain or defend a patent. It is a system which is sometimes rather hard on the inventor who may be an employee of the company.

The truth is that the romantic conception of the inventor living and starving in a garret are out of date, and the day of the inspired amateur has almost gone. This does not, however, rule out the existence of serendipity, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident. This is especially so in the chemical and metallurgical fields where inquiry consists of conducting hundreds of experiments, some of which provide clues for valuable sidelines of investigation, such as the Welsbach gas mantle, penicillin and some of the artificial fibres.

There are three directions in which the Corporation can best develop its work in helping Ito increase the rate of technical innovation in British industry under modern conditions. The first is by using to the full its power to place development contracts, particularly for new processes or for new machines which are very often based on the work of the industrial research association. This was one of the recommendations two or three years ago of the Advisory Committee on Scientific Policy, and the Parliamentary Secretary referred to examples.

The response of the industrial research associations has not yet been as good as it might have been, or as was expected, but an increasing interest is being shown in this type of work. This type of development contract is especially valuable where the project falls between the interests of a producer and user industry, where neither has very advanced technical knowledge, or where the firms in the industry, either producer or consumer, are very small or under capitalised. That applies in instrument manufacture and in the machine tool industry, particularly with the invention of the new techniques of computer control, and in the Sheffield industries such as file-making machinery. I have heard it suggested that one of the subjects in which the Corporation might take an interest is the development of rocket fuel for industrial use, a development which I understand to be taking place in the United States, although it is probably a fairly long-term project.

The second direction in which the Corporation might expand its activities is in making more use of Section 5 of the 1948 Act which enabled the Government to ask it to undertake work which was not economic and for which it would make good a loss if the work was in the public interest. A number of important developments seem to fall between Government Departments, between different authorities, between the research councils, associations, or institutes.

Among the examples of that are the recovery of sulphur from flue gases. Another is the use of small coal, about which we have heard so much lately and which still seems to be bagged down between the Government Departments and research associations. It is incredible that the development of the use of small coal, the need for which must have been foreseen for several years, should still be in what appears to be a very dilatory state. This is a research which the Corporation, with its great drive and energy, might undertake. That is also true of the underground gassification of coal, a matter which always seems to be falling between Departments or the two corporations.

A more elaborate and long-term project would be the development of a super-fast electronic computer, such as the S.T.R.E.T.C.H. computer, commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission in the United States. This will almost certainly not be a profitable proposition in the near future, but its development might be extremely valuable in the long term in the development of new techniques in the design and manufacture of electronic apparatus.

In recent years, many of our most spectacular industrial advances would never have taken place without the uneconomic support of defence research. It is well known that that applies to aircraft, electronics and so forth. The fact that 60 per cent. of the total research expenditure in this country is Government expenditure on defence indicates the extent to which we are dependent on research expenditure for new ideas. Even today, the Government are considering spending millions of pounds on what may be purely prestige activities, such as sending rockets to the moon. There is a very strong case for some of that expenditure being used for more mundane matters. It might be that one day we shall even find a cure for the common cold.

Finally, I hope to see the Corporation develop its existing good collaboration with the universities and the colleges of technology. Already it is developing inventions or supporting research at Cambridge, Oxford, the Imperial College of Science and Technology, The Manchester College of Science and Technology, Reading University, Glasgow University, Battersea College of Technology, University College of the West Indies, and Wye College of the University of London, as well as a number of hospitals and medical schools.

In the past, universities have been reluctant to become too closely associated with industry, for instance, by sponsored research, Although one can understand their attitude and reasons, both industry and the universities have suffered. The Corporation is in the best position to effect the necessary liaison and break down the barrier from which we suffer compared with the United States and some other countries, certainly Russia, where there are no traditional barriers in this respect. As I said earlier, in many ways the Corporation acts as a catalytic body and forms a useful meeting point for all those engaged in applied research and in development, whether in industry, Government, research councils, or universities.

Under continuing wise leadership, its influence could probably be greater than a mere study of its reports and accounts would suggest. The Bill extends its life to a total of twenty years and by doing so will help it to recruit those experienced engineers and scientists whom the Corporation will need for its expanding activities. For those reasons, together with my hon. and right hon. Friend, I give the Bill a hearty welcome.

I am sure that all hon. Members will wish me to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) on their elevation to the Front Benches. They made very erudite and competent speeches supporting the objectives of the Corporation and, therefore, serving a useful purpose. I am delighted that the Minister has appeared to be an enthusiastic convert in favour of public corporations.

I want to take up a matter which has not yet been satisfactorily covered. It is concerned with Section 3 of the parent Act. It has to be conceded that the Bill is being presented because Section 3 has become a fiction. We should no longer accept "Morrison's Law" as being an infallible guide to public corporations. This is a corporation which is not purely a commercial corporation and consideration of the public finance supporting such a corporation raises difficult problems.

Steps should be taken to categorise the projects being supported so that we can clearly appreciate those which are regarded as non-profitable and those which are regarded as being eventually profitable. That would give us a guide to the judgment of the Corporation. It is a lax way of financial control to have the fiction that the Corporation will pay its way, taking one year with another, especially when one repeatedly asks for further financial aid. We should be frank about it, and say that this is a body which is not purely concerned with projects of money-making possibilities.

If we concede that, equally we have the responsibility to consider whether it is possible for the Corporation to regard its work in that light and whether it would be possible for it to have two budgets. It should be clearly recognised that this is a body which is not being supported on commercial lines and we should recognise that it has to exercise its judgment about projects which it regards as not profitable. I am always disturbed that in a society such as ours, a society which is short of scientists, scientists and technicians should spend useless time on useless research. It is extraordinarily difficult to make a decision on that, when many vitally important developments have been invented fortuitously, but there should be priorities. We all know what is happening in Russia and in the United States.

I would like to know what liaison exists between the Corporation and D.S.I.R. and A.R.C. From a study of the Corporation's annual reports we see that there is a good deal of support for inventions affecting agriculture. I want to know how close an association there has been with A.R.C., and how far A.R.C. is encouraging and promoting research where it seems particularly needed. To put the matter quite shortly, here we have several publicly financed corporations which are supporting scientific inventions and research, and I want to know how far behind this there is a conscious promotional drive to seek to obtain the results that we need to compete in the world today.

The Minister was a little flippant about research and invention by individuals. I am not making out a case that an enormous amount of inventive research is being wasted in industry. Nevertheless, it is a little disappointing that we have not got much from individuals. I wonder how far restrictive contracts of service affect the situation, and whether this is not a matter which should be looked into rather more carefully. Agreeing that a good deal of research in industry might be fortuitous, casual and unexpected, I should like to know how far the promotion of this research is discouraged, either by lack of interest or by the restrictive covenants of those working in industry.

Having raised those points, however, I join the Minister and my hon. Friend in praising the Corporation for the work it has done, and particularly for the work done by Lord Halsbury. I also recognise the work done by members of the board. I am sure that everyone was grieved at the death of Sir Alan Saunders. I had the privilege of knowing him. My hon. Friend was talking about research into electronic computers, and I would assume that that had a good deal to do with the interest and initiative of the chairman. We recognise the valuable work that the Corporation has done, and I do not want to disturb the amity which exists between the two parties. It is important that we support this research to its utmost. But as a public corporation like this is developing in its work we should pay attention to its financial structure. We should not be doctrinaire one way or the other, because the financial structure is bound to effect the way in which a public corporation works.

Secondly, although it is true that this is a limited Bill, we should take the opportunity it affords to review the work of the Corporation, particularly in regard to other public corporations, and see how best we can forward its work.

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

The main purpose of the Bill is to extend for another five years the powers which exist under the 1949 Act, as extended in 1953, to raise money by loan for expenditure on housing for the Services in the United Kingdom. In addition, it provides that if any Service houses built under the provisions of this Act are sold the proceeds of sale may be applied to the premature repayment of the loans incurred to build them.

I want to say a word about the original Act, its terms and conditions, and the story of what has been achieved under it and under the 1953 Act which extended it. As I understand, it was conceived by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), the right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson), and the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards). I hope that they realise how much it has been appreciated by the Services, and how successfully it has worked out.

The purpose of the original Act was, broadly, to free building houses for married Service men in the United Kingdom from the financial pressures of providing for capital expenditure out of current revenue, and thus to put the Service man as nearly as possible on the same footing as the civilian in respect of the provision of his housing. This principle was universally supported in 1949 and again in 1953, and I do not believe that anyone doubts its wisdom.

The main condition of the original Act is that a married quarter can be approved as suitable for financing by loan only if it is in a situation in the United Kingdom where, if it should ever come to be sold by the Services, it could be used by the civilian population. Married quarters abroad, or those in isolated parts of this country, must still be financed by the ordinary Services building Votes. Whether or not a particular block of married quarters is eligible for finance under the loan is decided between the Service Ministers, on the one hand, and the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Secretary of State for Scotland, on the other. It applies to quarters both for the Active and the Auxiliary Forces.

The 1949 Act provided for loans up to £40 million in the period 1st April, 1950, to 31st March, 1955. By the end of 1953, when it had to be decided whether the Act should be extended, a total of 15,500 quarters had been built or were building under the Act, besides those provided from the normal building Votes. But still more were needed, so the Act was extended for a further five years and the total authorised amount of the loan increased from £40 million to £75 million.

We now have to review the position once again. We expect that by the end of March, 1960, when the Act at present on the Statute Book runs out, approximately £67 million out of the £75 million authorised will have been spent on housing approved under the Acts, leaving a balance of £8 million. For this money—that is, for £67 million over a period from 1950 to 1960—about 24,500 quarters will have been provided; that is, up to what we think we will have finished by 1960.

To date we have spent £61 million, but we think that by the end of 1960, by the time the Act runs out, it will be £67 million. Apart from this, about 7,900 quarters have been built since the end of the war in the United Kingdom for which provision was made out of the Service works Votes. In the United Kingdom, we now have in all about 13,000 officers' married quarters, and 44,000 for other ranks. Some of these are in places where the Services will not need them when they are redeployed on a more Regular basis. Others are sub-standard and not worth modernising, and the net result, as far as we can see at the moment, is that we are still short of what we will need in the long term.

The House will appreciate that I cannot give exact figures of the number more we will need for five years. For one thing, we cannot be absolutely certain what proportion of the men in an all-Regular force will be married, but on a reasonably conservative estimate we shall want, in the years 1960 to 1965, to build in places where houses can be approved under the Act—and I am talking now of all three Services—about 11,500 married quarters at a total cost of £28 million. This works out at less money per quarter than the 24,500 built up to now, which cost £68 million.

There are two main reasons for this. The first is that the need now is for a higher proportion of married quarters for other ranks than for officers, and the second is that a larger proportion of them will be built in already existing estates, which is cheaper than if we had to build a new estate, with all the roads and services that go with it.

It may well be asked—indeed, the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) gave me notice last Friday that he would ask—why there has been a shortfall in the amount spent on building quarters compared with what has been voted by Parliament. Out of the total of £75 million, which was the figure which the Services were authorised under these Acts to borrow up to April, 1960, from the Treasury, £8 million will not have been spent. Over and above that, there has been a shortfall in the capital works Votes of the three Services in past years, a proportion of which would have been for married quarters.

There are two important reasons for this. Firstly, there are the constant and shifting commitments which the Services have to meet. When the Estimates are drawn up at the time of the year, and when they are passed by Parliament in March, there is a commitment, and, for instance, I take Kenya as an example, when the Army was deployed to meet the Mau Mau emergency in Kenya. At that time of the year, when the commitment is there and the emergency is on, it looks as if we will have to keep troops there, and we plan the forces accordingly.

Later, it looks more as if that particular emergency will subside, and we shall not require the troops, so the money is not spent. It was so in Kenya, Malaya, in the Suez Canal, and in Cyprus and Jordan, to which the hon. Gentleman referred in our debate on the Army Act. One cannot foresee what the commitments are. One only gets the Vote in March, and, naturally, as the commitments change later in the year, it is not possible to be a soothsayer and say exactly how things will go in any country, so that the Estimate can be considerably out.

The next point is that the decision announced in the 1957 Defence White Paper that, when the present National Service Acts ceased to be effective, we would depend on all-Regular forces, was not arrived at from one day to the next, as hon. Members will appreciate. Thought, discussion and argument as to what should be the size of our forces from 1962 onwards began seriously many years earlier, and this raised all kinds of doubts about the deployment of our forces, both in terms of location and in terms of numbers.

This, naturally, had its effect on the building policies of the three Service Departments, which were anxious not to start building in 1955, 1956 and 1957 only to find that they had built accommodation where it might be found later that it would not be needed. It acted as quite a brake upon the building policies of all three Departments, and I think that the House will agree that, broadly speaking, until it was clear what the position in regard to deployment would be, it was right that it should have acted as a brake. The short answer is that the 1957 Defence White Paper cast its shadow before it, and brought about a slowing down of the building programme as it had been envisaged in 1954 when the Act was extended.

The Bill is primarily a financial measure to make it easier for the Services to find the money to build the houses that we need. It in no way, I hardly need say, involves any relaxation of control by Parliament or the Treasury over the activities of the Service Departments. The amounts of money which we propose to spend annually from the loan are presented in the appropriate Votes in the Service Estimates—Vote 11 for the Army and Air Force and Vote 15 for the Navy. Where control and scrutiny are concerned, there is no difference between the houses built under the loan and those built from revenue under the quite normal building Votes of the Services.

While on the subject of finance, I must refer briefly to virement between the works Votes and the loan, although my hon. and learned Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury went into this aspect of the matter in some detail in Committee last Friday. The amount of £67 million, which will, we think, have been spent by 1960 on houses built under the Act, does not, in fact, represent the total of issues on loan. This total will be approximately £40 million. The balance of £27 million has been found by virement from the normal works Votes of Departments which were under-spent for the reasons I have given. It would obviously have been a foolish financial exercise to borrow under the Act money that could have been found from within the under-spent works Votes, and this was agreed by Parliament when this particular virement was authorised.

The effect of this is that issues under the loan have been correspondingly reduced, and the burden of repayment and interest removed from future defence Budgets, but, of course, any building done out of virement which was planned to have been financed by the loan had to count against the loan and against the total number of quarters to be built under the loan. Therefore, although we have borrowed only £40 million, we have used up our entitlement, and have built houses to the value of £67 million, the difference having been found by virement from the works Votes. It is for that reason that we are now seeking authority to extend our total money for building approved quarters between 1950 and 1965 to £95 million; that is, £20 million above the present allocation, although, in fact, even if there is no further virement, we will not have borrowed by the end of the day more than a total of £68 million.

I now turn to Clause 2 of the Bill, which deals with the financial aspect of the sale of quarters. Under the original Act, repayment can only be made by 60 equal annual instalments of interest and principle combined. Up to now, the question of selling any of these quarters has not arisen, but, with the contraction of forces, we will be giving up certain barracks and installations, and with them will go the quarters that have served them.

For instance, the Army expects, during the next five years, to have for sale about 1,500 quarters which were financed under the Acts. As the Act now stands, we should have to go on repaying the principal and interest on these houses up to the end of the 60-year term, even though we had realised their capital value; but the proceeds of their sale would, like cash received from the sale of any other Army asset, be taken as appropriation-in-aid for the year in which we got the money, and that would be a most inconvenient way of handling our affairs.

Clause 2 provides for the commonsense solution that when a quarter is sold the proceeds of sale may go to pay off the capital debt incurred for its building. The Clause has to be complicated by a technical financial provision to allow for the fact that repayments are not made at par. Interest rates may have gone up or down between the date when the loan was made and the date of repayment. If they have gone up, the value of the loan will have been correspondingly reduced, and if they have gone down it will have increased. This procedure ensures what is patently right, that the full benefit or cost of the operation accrues to Service Votes and is not absorbed in the charge for interest on the National Debt.

An aspect of this point was raised by the hon. Member for Bermondsey, and also by the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) last Friday, when they said that they feared that the Service Departments would not get the benefit of any profit that might be made as a result of the sale of married quarters whose value had increased over and above what it cost to build them. I can set their minds at rest. This is not so. We will obviously sell the houses for as much as we can get for them, and the money will go to reduce our debt to the Treasury once this Bill is enacted, whether it be more or less than it cost us to build the married quarters in the first place. We pay back the capital sum to the Treasury which goes to reduce our debt to it.

I have covered some of the points raised last Friday by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and about which he gave notice that he would like to talk today, but there are two more points which I have not yet mentioned. The hon. Gentleman asked what had been spent on new married quarters and on modernisation between 1st April, 1950, and 31st March, 1958. On new married quarters we have spent £61 million from the loan Vote, that is, up to 31st March, 1958—the figure of £67 million takes it on to 1960—plus £15 million from normal works Votes, making a total of £76 million, and on modernisation we have spent £2 million.

The hon. Gentleman also asked what interest the Treasury had been charging. The answer is that when Service Departments borrow these sums from the Exchequer, the Treasury must fix rates of interest in accord with the rates current at the time for loans of a 60-year life—that is the life for which we are borrowing—for the Treasury, in turn, is borrowing from time to time at rates of interest which accord closely to current market rates for the period of the loan which it is raising. So the rate which the Treasury has been charging over the years is the same as that which it has been charging to the Public Works Loan Board. It has varied from 3 per cent. to 6¼ per cent., and the average, I am told, is 4·39 per cent.

I hope that the Bill will have the support of both sides of the House, as its predecessors have. Many opinions are held as to what militates for or against a high level of Regular recruiting, but no one doubts that one essential factor is that the married Service man should be able to be united with his family at his station for as high a proportion as possible of his service.

The Bill, like the other Measures before it, will make a considerable contribution towards that. Without the Act which the Bill extends we could not have provided anything like the number of married quarters that have been built, and we are sure that it is right to continue in the same way for a further period.

I am sure that the House is indebted to the Secretary of State for War for the very clear and lucid statement which he has made in moving the Second Reading of the Bill. I, personally, am obliged to him for the information he has given in answering the questions I have raised, and I can give him and the House the assurance that we on this side shall give the Bill a Second Reading. Of course, we have a number of criticisms to make about the provision in past years of married quarters, and I shall deal with that matter in a moment.

First, I want to thank the right hon. Gentleman very much for the tribute which he quite rightly paid to hon. Members on this side of the House when we were in Government and were responsible for the 1949 Act. Going back on the history of that Measure, it was introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson), who was then Secretary of State for Air. I remember that at the time it was supported on behalf of what was then the Opposition Conservative Party by the noble Lord, Earl Winterton. It received from him a rousing reception.

May I say, in passing, how much we miss the noble Lord in our debates, because although, personally, I did not agree with much that he said, except on the 1949 Measure, he was a great character, and we certainly miss him very much. I am sure that the noble Lord would have been present here today were he still a Member of this House and would have joined with me in some of the criticisms that I have to make about the way in which the legislation which Parliament passed in 1949 has been dealt with.

Of course, the Secretary of State for War quite properly glossed the picture which he painted, a picture which conveyed the impression that there had been tremendous energy, drive and determination in building as many married quarters as possible. But the fact is that this is a unique situation. This is a story of where Service Departments, as a consequence of legislation introduced by a Labour Government, have since 1949 had all the money they wanted with which to provide the married quarters required. The grave doubt which was raised in 1949, and which was symptomatic of that day and age, was whether the men and materials would be available for building the married quarters. Shortly after the 1949 Act was passed the Labour Government departed and the present Government took their place.

I can only say, looking back, that the record of this Government, who had all the money possible, and the necessary resources of materials and manpower, is a pretty poor one. I intend to show why, and to bring in as evidence not only my own personal point of view but also the point of view of others who have studied the matter.

The first aspect of the matter to which I wish to call attention is that the Select Committee on Estimates has already criticised the Service Departments for the manner in which they have spent some of the money which they had on the married quarters. Parliament, as the Secretary of State said, voted in 1949 the sum of £40 million. We said, in effect, that they could borrow the money in the same way as the right hon. Gentleman stated. The amount was extended to £75 million in 1953, and now we have been asked to vote an additional sum, making a total of £95 million. One would believe, therefore, that all this money was spent on additional married quarters.

I will quote what the Public Accounts Committee of the House say about this. It says:

"Expenditure by the three Service Departments charged to special Married Quarters Votes up to 31st March, 1957, amounted to £53 million. Of that sum about £23 million or almost half was met by the application of savings on ordinary works Votes under the virement procedure mentioned above. Indeed, over the years 1953 to 1957, the whole of the War Office expenditure on additional married quarters, which amounted to some £9 million, was met by virement out of moneys voted for ordinary works services."

In other words, all that the Service Departments did was to steal from Peter to pay Paul. They took money from a Vote which had been allocated by Parliament on the annual Estimates, the works Vote.

I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that this was money agreed by Parliament for the provision of barracks and for improving the conditions of the men. The Service Departments badly underspent on that subhead and, therefore, they transferred money from that subhead for the building of these additional married quarters. That was at a time when Parliament said to them that there was all the money they needed to do a first-class job. I would not mind so much if the Secretary of State were able to say with pride that the back of this problem had been broken and that the position was now first-class, or if he could say that we have the married quarters now.

After all, the Government have had seven, or, rather, eight, years in which to do the job. I should not mind were it the case that we had built all the married quarters required and also improved our barracks to such an extent that the Government might well be proud of themselves. But it is not anything like that sort of story. I propose to quote in support—

The hon. Gentleman seems to be complaining that we have not spent the money under the loan. The reason why we have not spent more is that the Public Accounts Committee took the view, which, evidently, was a correct view, that any money we used from virement from the works Vote to build houses would have to be approved under the loan and counted against the number we built under the loan whether or not we got the money from the Treasury.

Whether we get the money from the Treasury or by virement we can only build a certain number of married quarters within that ceiling of £75 million. In fact, I would agree that we are £8 million down on the figure of £75 million, which is a 10 per cent. drop, and I agree that it would have been better had we been plumb level. But it is not the miserable, sordid picture which the hon. Member is trying to paint.

I will produce evidence in an endeavour to show that it is a sordid picture which I am trying to paint. I repeat that the right hon. Gentleman's Department and the other Service Departments took money from Vote 8, the works Vote, and used some of it to build additional married quarters. I say that the money under that Vote should have been used for the purpose for which Parliament intended, the improvement of barracks and things of that kind. It is not as though there was not a clear field for a tremendous drive and for first-class planning for the improvement of barracks and the provision of additional married quarters which we still lack.

This is not a repetition of the state of affairs in 1953. Then there was some excuse for what was said by the right hon. Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch). Incidentally, the trouble about the right hon. Member for Flint, West is that he moves about so much. He was at the Air Ministry and then at the Defence Ministry. Later, he appeared on the Treasury Bench and now, of course, he has retired from the Government Front Bench and is just a back-bench Member. In those days he was associated with the Air Ministry and he admitted that the story of progress was not very good. But he gave us a glowing report of plans yet to come and how the Government would drive on and improve these matters. No indication was then given of the fact that the Government would borrow money from Vote 8 and were going to lose money on that account in the building of barracks.

Let me quote from the Report of Sir James Grigg, the Report of the Advisory Committee on Recruiting. The Minister says that I am painting a gloomy picture. Let us see whether my picture is more gloomy than that painted by the Report. I recognise that we shall have a full day in which to discuss the Grigg Report, and I wish now to quote only items from it which concern the matters we are discussing in this debate. On page 15 of the Report, in paragraph 72, it is stated that

"To the married man serving in the ranks, it is of the utmost importance that he should be provided with a quarter or hiring when he is posted to a new station. If this is lacking, the probability is that he will have to be separated from his family, with disastrous effects on his willingness to re-engage. Yet at the moment there are simply not enough to go round; nor will there be enough in 1963."

Paragraph 73 states:

"As with barracks, married quarters vary enormously in quality. A large number have been built since the Second World War, and these, while they may be open to criticism in detail, are of course adequate. But we were shocked by the condition of some of the older quarters we saw."

Paragraph 74 it states:

"We have seen married quarters created by converting temporary hutting put up forty years ago. Others have stood condemned so long that the big 'D' painted on the side to mark them for demolition has grown almost indecipherable. The ceilings of others were green with growth as a result of damp. A man faced with the decision whether or not to re-engage is often decisively influenced by his wife; if she has been living in a quarter like one of these, she is not going to urge him to stay in the Service."

We have had millions of pounds available for the Armed Forces, to be used to get rid of these sort of quarters, and that has not been done. Therefore, hon. Members on this side of the House, while congratulating the Secretary of State on what has been done, are entitled to ask why there was not first-class planning, and why we did not do as much as was practicably possible. We should have borrowed more money under the 1949 legislation, but the fact is that even today the Minister has told the House that, in the estimation of the Government, we need at least another 11,000 new married quarters.

May I add one thing to the argument being advanced by my hon. Friend, although I am not blaming the Secretary of State for War for this? The right hon. Gentleman has the particulars of the case in hand, I have sent them to him. But it is important that the House should know this. A young man aged 20, married and with two children, decided to leave the pits and join the Army as a Regular. He was turned out of the Coal Board house which he occupied and for six or seven months efforts have been made to find him a married quarter. It may be said that a man of 20 is too young to be the father of two children. But if he is allowed to fight at 18, he should be provided with married quarters when he is 20, if he happens to be a father. It is important that we get young men into the forces, but we should not disrupt their family life.

If the Government, over the last few years, had provided sufficient married quarters, I believe that they could have reduced the age at which a man becomes entitled to occupy married quarters. Under the present regulations, as will be known by my hon. Friend, a man cannot qualify for married quarters until he is 21. It is an anomalous situation if a soldier aged 20, who is married and has children, cannot be considered eligible. But the eligibility of such people is determined by the number of married quarters available and that is the burden of my case against the Government.

I wish now to quote again from the Grigg Report. Paragraph 144 states:

"We realise that a good deal of building (especially of married quarters, with the assistance of the Armed Forces (Housing Loans) Acts) has been carried out during the last few years, and that in the 1958 White Paper (Cmd. 363) the Government expressed their intention of spending £90 million on this work over the next five years. If however, this money is to be spent (in the past the Forces have not always managed to use all the money voted for housing) and to be spent sensibly, then the Service Departments must regard themselves as under an obligation to reach such policy decisions as are necessary to allow a reasonable building programme to be implemented."

This is the trouble. What are regarded as the best purposes of the Government in this matter? There has been no real policy. As I said earlier, the situation is unique. All of us have some measure of responsibility for the running of one thing or another. I am chairman of a hospital management committee which controls a staff of 1,000. Our greatest problem is that we are never allowed sufficient money to do what we want to do. But here we have the Armed Forces given all the money necessary, and provided with all the materials and resources, and those responsible have not measured up to what I believe to be the task they were required to perform. That is the main burden of my criticism.

I wish that the hon. Member would face the remarks which I made about the difficulties inevitably created in Service life by shifting commitments. These works Votes which have been underspent do not apply only to married quarters or barracks in the United Kingdom. Alas, an all too high proportion applies to the building of temporary accommodation the world over, to meet the influx of troops to certain places on certain occasions. I think that here there exists a fundamental misunderstanding between us.

I cannot readily forget what was said by the hon. Gentleman when we were discussing the Draft Army Act, 1955 (Continuation) Order, 1958, on 6th November. I think it brings out the disagreement between us. Referring to the troops which we sent to Jordan, the hon. Gentleman said:

"When our men were serving in the heat of the desert, what arrangements were made to get them decent living conditions? In this atomic age, was imagination used in an effort to provide the men with air conditioning?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th November, 1958; Vol. 594, c. 1175.]

To provide air conditioning it is necessary to have permanent buildings. Air conditioning cannot be provided in tents or temporary accommodation. A fairly permanent structure is required. But had the War Office built that sort of accommodation in Jordan, in Amman, to house the battalion that was sent there, and the troops had left a couple of months later, we should, rightly, have been open to considerable criticism for incurring that kind of expenditure.

If the right hon. Gentleman is proposing to make another speech, will he—

Order. I hope that this debate will not develop into an argument between the Secretary of State for War and hon. Members opposite. Let us conduct it by speeches.

Personally, I think it fair that the Secretary of State should, quite properly, defend what has been done, but on this very issue he has raised the point to which we object. How can he be proud of the fact that he has underspent on Vote 8? It is not as if, in this matter of better accommodation in married quarters and barracks, there is not an enormous amount needed. That was the point of the argument about Jordan.

I really do not think that a single hon. Member would have criticised the spending of any money to improve the conditions of our troops in Jordan. If the Secretary of State for War had any inhibitions about that, I am sure I can speak for all my hon. Friends and say that we should have said that money spent in trying to bring comfort and improved conditions to our troops there would have been money well spent.

Returning to the main argument, I think that I have shown quite clearly that we have every right to say that, while accepting the Bill and giving it a Second Reading, we must record our profound dissatisfaction with the fact that there has been no genuine planning here for the urgent needs we all know about in the matter of married quarters. The right hon. Gentleman, who was Secretary of State for Air, as I have said, gave figures which have not been exceeded even now, in 1958, and that was in 1949. He said that 30,000 married quarters were needed, as he put it, as a matter of urgency. This is not modernisation; it is new quarters which are required. We have not reached that figure yet.

The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War, quite properly, says that, as far as he can judge, we need at least another 11,000, and it is against that background that we have the story of Parliament voting all the money the Departments have needed, providing them with the resources and manpower to undertake the task. It is on that count that we criticise the Government.

I hope that we shall have from the Under-Secretary of State for Air some more details about these 11,000 quarters, and how the number is to be broken up between the Services. I understand that, in the Navy, the need for married quarters has, by and large, been fulfilled. The main criticism, according to what I am advised, has been in regard to the R.A.F. and the Army. We wish to know how this proportion is to be spent and how the Government see the plan. Is this figure of 11,000 a final figure and does it mean that, after the task is completed, all the bad quarters of the type referred to in the Grigg Report will be removed? Can we be assured that, at least by 1965, if we are then asked to vote any more money, the representative of the Government, whoever it is then—I hope that it will be somebody from our side then—will be able to paint a true and impressive picture of what has been accomplished? These are some of the things that we shall want to know about.

I gather that it is proposed that properties no longer of use are to be handed over to local authorities. Is this necessarily to be only to local authorities? Have we no imagination in this matter? One of the biggest problems I find, as a Member of Parliament dealing with Regular soldiers, is this. When a man is due to leave the Army or Royal Air Force, he very often just has not got a home to go to. It is a very sad problem. Local authorities have been asked, by the usual letter which is sent, whether they will be good enough to include Regular soldiers leaving the Service on their housing lists. Of course, no local authority does, or at any rate, very few do.

I have no wish to become involved in an argument about housing, but it is an indication of the nature of the Government's policy that almost every general waiting list in the country has been closed and that local authorities are concerned only with slum clearance. This means that the Regular soldier coming out of the Army after, let us say, twelve years' service, has no home to go to. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we often receive most pathetic letters from men in this position.

I know that the Secretary of State for War has looked at the matter himself, but I believe that one of the finest things which could happen for recruitment would be this. We should be able to say to the soldier, upon his coming into the Army, that we will help him to buy a house, with a 100 per cent. loan, on the lowest possible interest charges. In other words, we should try to settle the soldier while he is in the Armed Forces. I do not accept the idea that the soldier has to have his family with him all the time. He does not necessarily want to take his family wherever he goes. He is much happier if he knows that his wife and family are living in decent conditions even though they are not with him.

When families trail around the country, in and out of married quarters, going from one good lot to a bad lot, tremendous dissatisfaction is caused, as the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well. The best recruiting sergeant of all is the satisfied Regular soldier. If he can go to his local "pub" and say to his friends, "The Army life is first-class. We have first-class conditions, good food, and I am getting settled as regards the future", the difficulties indicated by the map we find in the Grigg Report, showing where manpower is available and recruiting is possible, would go. I wish that we could make the Regular soldier the best agent for recruitment, but we shall not do that until there is a first-class drive energetically directed towards improving the things we are talking about this morning. Of course, the Government are to be congratulated on what they have built. I concede that at once. We are very glad to see any new married quarters. The burden of my complaint, which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman now fully understands, is that not enough has been done.

I end as I began. The Act introduced by the Labour Government of the day was welcomed by everyone. It made possible the building of whatever additional married quarters have been built. The present Government have been in power for about seven years, and if they had had the drive and initiative required we should have had a far finer story to tell than we have today; and the Grigg Report would not have been able to speak as it does of really bad accommodation. We shall not stop the Government borrowing more money, of course. We only hope that, when the next amount of money is asked for, there will be a far better record to tell.

I hope that I shall be excused if I make some reference to affairs in my constituency when discussing this Bill. Everyone will appreciate that the importance of the Army for Aldershot is very great. Before I make the particular comments I have in mind, I wish to say how much I have been impressed by the new buildings which have been erected in my constituency, both ordinary barrack accommodation and married quarters.

One matter which gives me great cause for worry has been accentuated now because it has been decided that, for a time at any rate, families will not go to Cyprus. I refer to the case of a soldier who is posted overseas who is doubtful whether his wife and family will be able to find accommodation when they leave the married quarters. I constantly receive letters from the War Office pointing out that, in the difficult situation as regards accommodation, it is prepared to allow a certain time to elapse before the family which is left behind when a soldier goes abroad has to leave an Army house. This is one of the worst things which can affect recruiting, and it should be realised that it is vital to try to meet these cases. I believe that every effort is being made, but in a place like Aldershot, where this sort of thing happens due to frequent postings overseas, a special effort should be made by the Government to deal with this type of problem.

I do not want to follow the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) in any detail into the question of local authorities dealing with housing for those people who leave the Regular Army. My experience in my constituency is that they do the very best they can to fit in people in the Services. It is very difficult for local authorities to decide the priorities as between Service men and those who have other claims to accommodation. I think the temporary provision of accommodation in these circumstances is another angle which should be in the minds of the Government in building accommodation. It cannot be perfect, but there is a problem which must have some effect upon the individual who is making the Army his career.

The other matter to which I want to refer is this. As I have said before, we are very glad to see these buildings going up in Aldershot. We are glad to see that they are of a very good type, but we have still got the old horse barracks of the Crimea which are not particularly liked and which I do not think are particularly good from the Service man's point of view. I hope that the rebuilding will be thoughtfully considered and that there will be consultation with the local authority.

It seems to me that the local authority has a great interest in this matter. My constituency is proud to call itself, accurately or otherwise, the home of the British Army, but from the point of view of commerce it may well be that it is desirable to have secondary industries in addition to the Army. I hope that when the War Office is considering these matters it will have full consultation with local authorities about rebuilding and planning. It would be very unfortunate if it were not realised that we in Aldershot are most anxious that secondary industries should develop; the Army should not keep land which it intends to use only in the unforeseeable future. Some of us believe that that land can be better used in attracting commerce and industry to Aldershot than by being put to virtually no use at all.

In conclusion, I think that at last—and it has taken a little time—we are getting a programme which will produce a much more satisfied body of people in the Services. I am most anxious that particular attention should be paid to the points that I have raised, because I believe that they are more important than some of the more obvious points of building.

The operative words in the speech of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) seemed to be "at last." At last, perhaps there is a hope that we may get some- thing a bit better, but what we have failed to get anything like a satisfactory account of is why we have not had it before. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) has pointed out, it has not been because the money was not available. That was made clearer and clearer the more the Secretary of State for War sought to intervene and explain. He first explained that the houses were not available because the money which he had taken from the Vote was required for barracks. It was pointed out that the barracks were not there either, and he then intervened to say, "But we required temporary things for Jordan." The only trouble was that temporary buildings were not there either.

So that, the Grigg Report pointed out, we had a period in which recruiting became a problem, and for that reason the Grigg Committee was appointed. The Grigg Committee reported that both married quarters and barracks were in many instances a scandal. I do not know if the Government really required the Grigg Report to tell them that. We on these benches have been telling that for a long time. With the money available, the Government were not doing and have not done for a period of eight years that which Parliament intended they should do by providing the money.

The money provided under the Vote was not used for the barracks not because temporary stuff was wanted. It was not used for temporary stuff either. But the houses could have been provided by means of the loan. The Government could not have it both ways. Even the loan did not take them up to the limit. The houses still were not available. We have not had any kind of satisfactory explanation for this.

The only money used from virement and from the work Votes, so far as the Army is concerned, Votes 8 and 11, was money voted for the building of married quarters. It was not taken from any surplus from other works Services, which ranged from barracks to runways and every other conceivable kind of works services.

Let us see. Either the money was used for building married quarters, as it should have been, or it was not. Which was it? These are the oddest statements that we keep on hearing. Our complaint is that when Parliament provides money for married quarters, those married quarters are not built, and the money is not used.

However much the Government may squirm over this matter, one comes back to that simple question. We on these benches do not propose to be fobbed off by long words or talk about virement. Money was provided for these houses, they have not been produced and no explanation has been provided. Probably the original explanation was the 300,000 houses programme into which the Government got bounced by an earlier Tory Party Conference. That disrupted other building programmes and the Army, among other things, had to pay, because the building materials and building labour could not do two things at once. A purely political advantage threw a programme into confusion.

That, however, was only an old excuse. When they got into a mess with their programme, the Government had not been building any houses for years. For years, there had been an unemployed element in the building industry and the building is still not being done. It is a lamentable story and I much regret that on this Friday there are not more Members on the Government benches to hear the Government's explanation.

I welcome the Second Reading of the Bill, but, at the same time, I must express my disappointment that it does not go nearly far enough to provide what may be regarded as a decent standard of accommodation for those who are serving in Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

I am quite sure that most hon. Members, at some time in their career here, have had brought home to them very vividly the difficulties of the married soldier or of the married recruit who has a family. We all know of the difficulties of finding accommodation for such a man's family in married quarters, in whatever branch of the forces he serves. It is obvious that there is a serious shortage of housing accommodation for those who serve in the Armed Forces. Two types of accommodation are required for this purpose: namely, barrack accommodation for single men and married quarters for married Service men.

I was privileged, a few years ago, to serve on the Select Committee on Estimates. The sub-committee upon which I served examined the War Office Vote on works and buildings. We paid some interesting visits to Army establishments. In some cases, the housing problem was the worst, and the housing was probably the worst, to be found anywhere. We visited also other establishments where new construction had been undertaken. While I should like to express my satisfaction with the new construction, which was equal to any new construction anywhere by local authorities, nevertheless we must not be complacent about the dreadful places that can still be found in some parts of the country.

I vividly remember going into some old rickety huts, some of them called Nissen huts, in which a wife and her children were trying to eke out a civilised existence. It was deplorable and shocking to see the standard of housing accommodation in which many families of serving men had to live.

I am ready to accept that the position today is not as bad as it was a few years ago, but there is a considerable backlog to be dealt with. That is why I am disappointed that the Secretary of State has not used, or is not using, all the resources which this House has placed at his disposal to try to reduce the backlog. We all know that there are difficulties in organising a housing scheme to satisfy all the men serving in the forces wherever they may be. It is practically impossible to say that every man in the forces, wherever he may be, at any time, can expect to have the new accommodation or married quarters, or even the existing barrack accommodation that meets requirements.

I agree that there is force in what the Secretary of State has said. Emergencies arise and troops may remain at one place only temporarily. Therefore, the question of economy must he borne in mind. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman should not he reluctant to come forward, whenever it is clear that a need exists, simply because he is afraid that in a few years' time he will have Houses—for instance, married quarters—on his hands and nobody to put in them in the area in question.

I would have thought it possible for the Secretary of State to have an arrangement with the Minister of Housing and Local Government. There is a serious shortage of civilian accommodation throughout the country, despite what hon. Members opposite may say. It should be possible to transfer a great deal of this redundant housing to local authorities, who have power to raise loans to acquire it. It should be merely a bookkeeping transaction, easily effected, to transfer this redundant housing accommodation to local authorities. I do not say that it could be done in every case, but I am sure that in a good many cases it could be achieved.

My hon. Friend will, I think, find that the original scheme envisaged the transfer of such houses to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government if they were not wanted by the Armed Forces. This strengthens the case that my hon. Friend is now putting.

I had in mind the statement during the Minister's speech that he has 1,500 redundant houses which are being offered for sale, from which I rather thought that he would put them on the market and sell them to anybody who came along. He did not indicate that there was any tie-up with local authorities in the disposal of these houses.

indicated assent.

If there is a tie-up, I am glad to hear it.

We all know the problem, for example, of rural housing. Many of these dwellings are situated in remote areas in rural districts, where there is a serious shortage of housing accommodation. I would have thought it possible, through the Minister of Housing and Local Government, to make arrangements with local authorities to take practically all the redundant houses that were no longer required for the purposes of the Armed Forces.

One other aspect which struck me forcibly in my visits to Army establishments was that many of the establishments of the Army, and, presumably, of the other Services, too, are situated in isolated areas, where there does not seem to be enough community spirit. Even though the living accommodation may be fairly good, more should be done to organise the life of the community in these isolated establishments or depots.

A consequence of this lack of community spirit is that life becomes depressing, especially for the women and children. This does not apply so much to the serving man, because he may go away on other duties, but if the women and children have to remain long in residence in an isolated area without any active community life, all kinds of emotional problems and difficulties arise.

As I said in the beginning of my speech, I am sure that the House will welcome the Bill, but, at the same time, hon. Members will want to show clearly that they do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman is going far enough in the provision of adequate accommodation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said, probably that can be dealt with in Committee, but I feel that there is far wider scope for increasing barrack accommodation and married quarters for an ever larger number of serving men and women. Now that the Armed Forces of the Crown are to become a voluntary professional body very soon, and people are to be encouraged to serve for long periods, the question of decent housing accommodation will became far more important than in the past.

When a man is in the Services for only a year or two, or even for four or five years, he does not bother much about this problem, but if we are to rely on professional long-service men it is much more important that they should have a reasonable standard of comfort, either in barracks or married quarters. If we can get that, our professional Service men of the future can be built up into a very fine body of men in all branches of the Armed Forces. If we have contentment on the matter of home accommodation that will go a long way to build good morale, which we all want to see among all sections of the Armed Forces.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not be hesitant in coming forward and saying that he wants a bit more money to achieve that ideal. A number of problems will face us if we are to end National Service and to rely on voluntary professional forces. The House has to face the responsibility of deciding what is to be done in that direction. The right hon. Gentleman ought not to shirk any effort in securing from the House the maximum financial assistance to provide the very basis of what then will be a loyal, contented and efficient service in all parts of the Armed Forces.

Another point arises with reference to housing of Service men at the end of their period of Service. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey pointed out, there is difficulty then. Too many Service men are told while they are in the forces that it is all right, that they will get priority when they leave the Service, that local authorities will have places ready for them. It is quite wrong to lead Service men to believe that that is the case, because, after all, the civilian population has to be taken into consideration.

No one denies that when he leaves the forces the Service man should have the same opportunities and facilities as any civilian for obtaining accommodation through a local authority. That can be done in the main only if before he leaves the serving man has his name on the housing list of the local authority in his home area. If he has got his name on that list he has a good claim, or, if he is a married man, he has a good claim to have his name on the list of the authority in whose area his wife's home was before he joined the forces.

I am sure some arrangement could be made between the right hon. Gentleman and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to have it recognised that a serving man while in the forces should have credit for residential purposes in the district in which he is registered for housing accommodation. Where the housing problem is serious, local authorities, when they allocate vacant accommodation, must base the qualification of the applicant—not wholly, but largely—upon the period of residence in the district. They cannot undertake to rehouse people who have not lived in an area for more than twelve months when, perhaps, others have lived there for fifteen or twenty years. If the Services could follow up this matter by advising married Service men to have their names put on housing lists of local authorities—preferably in the areas where their homes or their wives' homes are situated and credit given for service in the forces, it might not be quite so difficult for them to obtain accommodation.

I see that you are about to rise from your seat, Mr. Speaker, so I had better not say anything more on that line, but the future of the Service man is an important factor which ought not to be forgotten. If we could give Service men a feeling of security that when they complete their service for the State they are not to be thrown on the scrap heap, it would help to encourage men and women to join the forces and serve their country.

I wish the Minister good luck with the Bill, but I can assure him that no one on this side of the House will be at all disappointed if, in Committee, he asks for a little more money and tells us that he intends to develop and extend the housing services of the Armed Forces. I am sure that we shall all be delighted, because we want our serving men to serve under the best possible conditions.

It is not my intention to keep the House for very long, but I want to raise one matter with the Minister. I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman in advance for possibly having to disappear quickly after making my speech. That will not be because I want only to hear my own voice, but because I have to catch a train, as I have an engagement in my constituency later today.

I do not blame the Minister for the present position. He is a kindly, capable, intelligent man. Nevertheless, it is one of the factors of government that Ministers have responsibility.

Do not flatter him too much, or he may be promoted.

Ministers have responsibility and I want the right hon. Gentleman to use his responsibility and his power to do something about the case I mentioned when I interrupted the speech of one of my hon. Friends. The right hon. Gentleman has a letter from me about a man of 20 years of age. I do not want to reveal the man's name. He has been a collier and a seaman and came into the Army. He has two children. When he went to the recruiting office he was told that it was all right, he would get married accommodation. That should not be said to our men unless it is known in recruiting offices that accommodation is available. He signed on as a Regular soldier. He lives in the Leek constituency, in a village called Baddeley Green, and at the moment he is in a highly nervous state. He occupies a National Coal Board house and the Board has given him six months' notice because it is a tied house and colliers are wanting to take such accommodation.

This man was told by the welfare officer that he would do his best to help him, but it was found that because of the Regulations accommodation could only be obtained for men aged 21 or over. With speed, alacrity and purpose, the House could do something in ten minutes to alter all that. I suggest, therefore, that this is something which should be done rapidly. Whether it can be done under the Bill in Committee is another matter. It certainly cannot be done today.

It only requires a regulation.

It does not require action by the House. The Minister can do it on his own if he wants to.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) for that advice.

We are living in a very different kind of world today from that of a couple of generations ago. When I attended a little school in Wales I used to be called out to recite sometimes. Among the poems, the wonderful language of which used to thrill me to the core, was this:

"Last night among his fellow roughs,

He jested, quaffed, and swore,

A drunken private of the Buffs

Who never looked before."

That is not the kind of Army we have today.

The modern Army comes from highly intelligent families. The old recruiting sergeants of poverty, misery and disease, thank God, are not very much in evidence now. It does not matter which side of the House achieved the change. This is a social revolution which has taken place all over the world. We are bringing into the Army men and women who are refined and cultured, and many of them are much more intelligent than their officers. These people want accommodation which at the least bears comparison with a modern, decent council house. They want their wives and children to live in dignity and their families to be brought up in a healthy atmosphere of social life.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) for the benefit of his vast experience in this matter derived from his service on an important committee. He made the important point that when we establish these quarters there should be a community or social centre and that we should try to develop the social and cultural life of these people. Service in the Armed Forces must no longer be looked upon in the same way as it was regarded forty or fifty years ago.

The Minister says that there are 1,500 redundant houses. I appeal to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton to say whether he thinks that there is some means whereby a redundant house could be made available for a young married man and his wife and children before the house is sold to a local authority. I hope that the Minister will take this as a serious appeal to him. It is important to both sides of the House and to the nation that we have well-housed and contented, young and capable men in the Forces.

The young man to whom I have referred is a collier. We are very proud of our miners. This young man was not earning as much in the pits as he is now earning in the Army. I do not think that the public, who know nothing about mining, understand that for every man at the coal-face earning, if he is lucky and in a good pit, £20 a week, there are others working on haulage, earning between £8 and £9 17s. 6d. a week. The young man to whom I referred was working hard underground and risking life and limb, but he is now, as a married man with two children, getting better pay in the forces than he was when he was working in the coal mine. He came into the Army, but he is now frustrated. He may become delinquent and be subjected to all kinds of punishment unless something is done for him.

That example can be multiplied very many times, and I appeal to the Minister and his colleagues to see that a quick answer is found to this problem, which, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton has pointed out, should be easy to answer.

I should like to deal first with a point raised by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). He always speaks with such charm that I find it difficult sometimes to refute the suggestions he makes, but I notice, on reading his speeches in HANSARD, that they are put not only with charm but with pertinence, and I have often wondered whether they do not have a certain amount of political effect. In that context, I hope that the hon. Member will not mind if I point out some of the facts on record.

The general burden of his complaint was that the Government had acted too slowly and that we ought to have acted very much more quickly in supplying married quarters both under normal Votes and under the Act. This matter was dealt with by the then Under-Secretary of State for War when he wound up the debate on 29th November, 1949, on the Armed Forces (Housing Loans) Bill.

This is what he said, after four and a half years of Labour rule:

"May I draw the attention of the House to these figures? Since the end of the war some 570,000 permanent houses have been constructed and 3,000 Service married quarters have been constructed. The reasons for that comparatively slow rate were fully explained by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air at the beginning of this debate. It is not a reproach to the Government that the figure is so low …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November, 1949; Vol. 470, c. 1043.]

In fact, in building 3,000 married quarters in those four and a half years, the Labour Government achieved an average of 700 married quarters each year.

Let us look at the results achieved in a comparative period. In the eight years since this Measure was first introduced, we have built 22,000 married quarters under the Measure and over 5,000 under Works Votes, an average of 3,500 a year. I am not pretending that any Government is perfect, but I think that it will be agreed that these figures are a consider- able improvement on those achieved prior to the change of Governments in 1951.

The hon. Gentleman says that some of the points which I made are not too logical, but even Lord Winterton, in the debate to which he has referred, was mostly worried whether there would be materials and men available to build married quarters. No one suggested then, and I should not have thought that anyone would suggest now, that the Labour Government between 1945 and 1949 had all the material resources available. The present Government have, because we have moved further away from the war.

I am glad the hon. Member recognises that we have the materials available not only for houses in general but for building a large number of houses for the Services as well, and that we have done.

When the 1949 Act was amended in 1953 we were then informed that 15,500 houses were either built or being built. Therefore, a large number of those must have been built between 1949 and 1951 when the Labour Government left office, and they were built under an Act passed by that Labour Government. The criticism which we are now offering is that the Government now in power have not taken advantage of the legislation which we produced.

The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion, but I think, and I shall quote more figures, that the House and the country will recognise that the comparison is very favourable to the present Government and not to their predecessors.

I will quote the global figures, because we might as well put the whole thing in perspective. The quarters available to the Armed Forces on 31st March, 1950, were about 30,000. During the period from 1st April, 1950, to the present date, 22,000 new houses have been built either under the Act or under virement. In addition, 5,000 houses have been built under the Works Vote. That is 27,000, so in that period we have almost doubled the number of married quarters available to the Services.

In opening the debate for the Opposition, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bermondsey asked what was our eventual target. It is difficult to make a firm plan because it depends on the deployment of the Services, and that deployment depends on the weapons which the Services have. In the Air Force there are places where the new weapons and new techniques make it impossible to use some of the old married quarters, and we have to start our plans again. For instance, as aerodromes go out of use and guided weapons stations come into use, we have to start new construction processes. This further Measure will not expire until 1965, so since we are considering some seven years ahead it would be wrong if I set a firm target, because we cannot foresee the weapons or the shape or deployment of our Forces that far ahead.

In the global context, even at the end of this period we shall be short of the ideal number of married quarters. It is, however, the intention of all three Services to meet to the greatest possible extent the needs of men and officers for married quarters. This, I think, was the sentiment underlying a large number of the contributions that have been made to this debate. We do not in any way underrate that, and I believe that at the end of this period we shall meet 70 per cent, or 75 per cent. of the need, but that is affected by the age of marriage, a social change which is going on all over the world, and therefore the figures must be adjusted accordingly.

Is the hon. Gentleman in a position to tell us the proportion of the existing Service men who are married? I am not saying that married Service men all want to live in married quarters, but if the Minister could give the House an idea of that proportion and relate it to the housing accommodation already available, it would give us an idea of the gap between the two.

I could not give those figures now, but if the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question my right hon. Friend or myself will do our best to reply to it.

I will now deal with another question raised by the hon. Member for Bermondsey about the surplus. Another hon. Gentleman asked how we would dispose of the surplus. In opening the debate, my right hon. Friend said that the Army expect to have 1,500 houses surplus. In all three Services as at present envisaged, it looks as if there will be 6,000 surplus married quarters which will be made available either to the local authorities or, if they are not interested, can be sold in the open market for what they will fetch.

Coming to the point made by the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks), I would add that when a soldier, an airman or a sailor goes overseas, his family is not immediately turned out of their house, some period of time always being given In addition, where surplus married quarters become available, all three Services try to make these available to divided families.

Can my hon. Friend tell me what is the position in Aldershot about surplus accommodation?

I cannot reply to that question off the cuff, but my right hon. Friend has already told me that he would like to deal with a number of aspects raised by the hon. Gentleman in a personal letter to him, rather than by way of question and answer across the floor of the House.

So 6,000 houses appear likely to he surplus in the coming years. Some of them will be sold privately, some will go back to local authorities in accordance with the principles of the Bill, and some will be made use of by divided families.

Before my hon. Friend leaves this point, may I ask a question? In the case of the surplus houses which are to be sold privately, will it be possible for them to be offered first—if I may put it that way—to men inside the Services?

My right hon. Friend and I would like to consider that sub-gestion. We must also bear in mind the fact that when a man leaves the Service—I imagine this is what my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind—he wants a house near his eventual place of employment. That is not always near the place where he has been stationed.

I was also asked how the target of 11,650 houses would be divided. The figures I have before me show that the Navy will have 3,000, the Army 6,250 and the R.A.F. 2,400, making that total. In considering these figures, I could make the point that in addition to these houses there are also officially approved hirings which are made use of by all three Services. The number of hirings in this country amounts to 16,700 in total, and that should be added to the total figures I have already given.

The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) accused us of under-spending. I think we have come within a reasonable measure of spending our full entitlement. Certainly it would not be true to say that the achieved target of 300,000 houses built for five consecutive years has in any way mitigated against the progress being made with the housing of our Service families, because in both respects there has been a tremendous expansion, as my figures show.

The hon. Member for Acton made a most sympathetic speech. He always shows sympathy for the Services and those of us in the Service Departments appreciate it. The hon. Gentleman said there was a tremendous backlog, going back almost 100 years, in some barrack accommodation. My right hon. Friend recognises that, but even this Government cannot correct 100 years backlog in a few years. The drive with which modern barrack accommodation is now being erected, and married quarters being supplied, shows how sympathetic we are to the need, and I have no doubt that in due course the old barracks will be abolished.

The hon. Gentleman also asked some questions about the local authorities. I ought to make it clear that houses can only be built under the Act, and amendments of it, when they have the approval of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government; that is to say, they fall in with the eventual needs of civilians. So, when the Services have to build remote houses—and often Service stations are remote—it would not be done under this Bill but under the normal works Vote. So the remoter houses in rural areas will not in general come within the gounds of this Bill, and therefore will not become surplus, as was suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) has been able to stay with us in spite of his apologies. He made the point that we ought to reduce the age at which married Service men are entitled to a house. There are two views on this point. Although we have made great progress in providing married quarters, by virtue of the changing form of the Services we shall never really have all the married quarters we want.

That being so, surely priority should go to the senior people and to the people over the age of 21 rather than giving a youngster a priority which he would certainly never achieve in civilian life. In the case quoted—I have not seen the full figures—it seems that in one year the hon. Gentleman's constituent would qualify for a married quarter. I do not say that he would immediately get one, but he would qualify. I wonder how many people waiting for council houses could go to some area and in one year get on the list and have a hope of getting a house in two years. Every hon. Member who has constituency problems must know the size of the problem of those waiting for council houses. Service men are immeasurably better off than their civilian equivalents at present, and I doubt whether there would be an advantage at this stage in lowering the age at which people become entitled to married quarters.

I do not want to become involved in the cut and thrust of debate on the issue. I am very grateful for the sympathetic attitude which is displayed, for I know that there is a different point of view. However, I suggest that welfare officers and others might increase their efforts to help to find houses in the transition period for young men who will within, say, 12 months be 21. For such a man the most important problem in the world at that time is that he will be put out of his house and in another year he will be able to qualify. Could we increase our efforts with local authorities to provide some temporary accommodation for men in the transition stage?

The Under-Secretary of State has just told us that he expects to have about 6,000 redundant dwellings soon. Cannot they be sorted out and a few earmarked in cases as temporary shelter for families which are put out such as my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) has mentioned. I believe that it could be done if the matter were looked into.

My right hon. Friend and I will certainly look at the proposal, and perhaps we may discuss it if the opportunity occurs at a later stage.

I hope I have dealt with the main points which have been raised in the debate. We are not stating that we have achieved everything that we set out to achieve—that is never done—but we have got very much closer to it than our predecessors did. Our results and the figures which I have given prove that. No hon. Member will under-estimate the value of having an adequate number of married quarters. This was brought out by the Grigg Committee, which said in its Report:

"We have been left in no doubt that the availability and quality of Service acommodation … is a very powerful factor in the morale of members of the Forces."

It also said:

"To the married man serving in the ranks, it is of the utmost importance that he should be provided with a quarter or hiring when he is posted to a new station."

If the House approves it, the Bill will help us to meet these needs, and it will, we hope, have a substantial effect not only on recruiting to our Services but on the contentment of all those who are serving.

Will my hon. Friend say whether he is prepared to consult local authorities on certain common building problems that may arise?

Very close consultation always takes place with the local authorities concerned on all problems of building Service accommodation. I say this in the case of the Air Ministry, and I am sure the same applies to the War Office and the Admiralty. If my hon. Friend has any other specific issue in mind with which I have not dealt, perhaps he will write to my right hon. Friend, who will no doubt deal with it.

On 31st December this year Croydon Airport, which is bound up with the history of civil aviation in this country, is due to close, and if it goes London will be one of the few capital cities of the world around which there is not one airport available for the use of light aircraft. I am told that within a 10-mile radius of Paris there are seven such airfields available, and within a similar radius of New York there are 11 available. If this decision is put into effect we shall have London without any airfield of that kind. Croydon Airport is due to be closed as the result of a decision made in 1953.

There are so many informed and responsible people who believe that a mistake is being made that I thought that the matter ought to he fully discussed in the House. I am looking forward to hearing what the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has to say. At the outset, I might say that in 1945 I attacked the use of Croydon as an airport, and I used some strong language which I have no doubt the hon. Gentleman has taken the trouble to read; but in 1945 I was very much concerned with the necessity for building an international airport for the use of heavy transport aircraft and I did not then have in mind the great need there would be for light aircraft. Apparently, when he made the decision in 1953 about the future pattern of London Airports, the Minister was not even then considering the potential of light aircraft.

What, briefly, is the case for Croydon Airport? It is that we need in or conveniently near London one airport, at any rate, with Customs facilities which can be used by aircraft severely restricted in size and weight and. I might add, noise—club aircraft, privately-owned machines, the executive type of aircraft now being built and developed in so many other parts of the world in increasing numbers, and, possibly, in addition, some passenger-carrying aircraft up to the size of the Dove or the Heron.

The Government have always accepted the need, in theory, at any rate, that there should be such an airfield and have promised on several occasions an alternative if and when Croydon Airport was closed. I shall have more to say about the alternatives later, but I must say now that in the consideration of those alternatives there seems to be a sad story of muddle and contradictions and I shall expect to have some explanation of some of the offers which have been made.

Different reasons at different times have been advanced to support the closure decision. I should like to examine them. They can be grouped in the following categories: defence and security reasons, to which only vague allusion has been made; the problem of public amenity; the problems connected with aircraft control and safety; and reasons of economics and finance.

Let us consider, first, the security plans. Like most of these top secret plans, they are fairly well known to those who take an interest in these matters, and I will not go into them more than to say that I know of the matters to which reference has made, I have considered them and I do not think that there is anything in the proposal for development around London which means that there could not be at any rate a temporary extension of the life of Croydon. I say no more than that.

The next question is that of public amenity which, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows, I have very much at heart. If it were argued to me that on grounds of noise and public amenity the use of Croydon as an airport was not possible, and if it were shown to me that there was an overriding argument in this connection, I should be inclined to accept it, but as far as I can see this argument is not seriously put forward by the Ministry as a reason for closing Croydon.

Indeed, with the length of the runways there, the contemplated size of aircraft, the possibility of these light aircraft climbing to a reasonable height before they reach the boundaries of the airport, and the fact that silencers are being used more and more and there seems no reason why they should not be developed even further, I think that noise of itself is not a very important factor in this argument. Certainly, it is not a factor which the Minister now appears seriously to advance.

Let us next consider the question of control and safety generally. Here again, if a convincing argument were advanced by the Minister that it was not possible, because of the control and safety problems involved, to have Croydon within the London control zone, I should be inclined to accept the closure for that one reason, but as far as I can make it out this argument seems to be brought in only as a makeweight and does not seem to be a conclusive argument. It is certainly not advanced as a conclusive argument.

Moreover, I cannot accept this argument as long as the Minister is offering Biggin Hill as an alternative. I have tried to obtain the advice of people with more knowledge of this subject than I possess, and as far as I can see there is no substantial control problem at Croydon which would not equally be encountered at Biggin Hill. Moreover, Biggin Hill is nearer to Gatwick than is Croydon.

If we are talking about control, we must remember that the Minister has offered Gatwick as an alternative. If the Ministry is seriously thinking of accepting the problems which will be involved by bringing into the Gatwick circuit all the light aircraft now using Croydon, and if it feels that it can overcome the difficulties at Gatwick, then I do not accept that it is beyond its power to contrive some arrangement which would entail the continued use of Croydon. I go as far as to say that the suggestion that all these light aircraft, piloted by men of varying experience, as is necessarily the case, should be mixed with the jet aircraft, cannot be considered as a serious alternative to the separate operation of Croydon. I therefore do not feel that the closure decision is justified on that ground.

We come next to the economic argument. Many believe that this is the explanation of the Minister's obstinacy. Some people say that it is because of a wish to cut down the financial Estimates of one Government Department that the Minister ignores completely the interests and economics of this field of aviation generally. In other words, it is believed that some people are trying to make paper economies for submission to the Treasury, even though these would undoubtedly involve considerably greater loss to individual enterprises and to the country's economy generally.

Let us look at some of the alternatives which have been put forward. There was the suggestion that the clubs and aviation firms now operating from and working around Croydon should move to Biggin Hill. This was held to implement the promise to provide alternative accommodation. The organisations were expected to leave the accommodation which they at present enjoy, most of which is only of specialist use and which would be wasted if they left, and to build new hangars or to adapt old hangars and to provide the necessary technical facilities and office accommodation at Biggin Hill. In addition, they were to provide various fire, ambulance and control services.

When all this expensive capital equipment had been set up afresh, the longest period of tenancy which the operators could expect would be seven years, with a possible break at four years. I do not think that any concern could spend money on fixed capital assets of this kind for such a limited period of secured use. I might say that even these terms were offered only after earlier and even less reasonable proposals had been put forward by the Air Ministry.

I should emphasise that, in any case, the situation at Biggin Hill is quite unsuitable for this kind of air traffic. It has nit the necessary surface communications with London. If we are serious about developing a centre for light aircraft, with the possibility of attracting the kind of machines on the kind of business from the Continent which we expect, it is essential that there should be very quick and convenient access to the centre of London. This is now available at Croydon and it is not available at Biggin Hill.

This alternative has been pat forward in such a piecemeal fashion, such a halfhearted fashion, that do not believe that it was put forward in the belief that it was acceptable. Certainly, very few people seem to have given it serious consideration.

I understand that last Friday the present users of Croydon were summoned to a meeting to be held at the Ministry on Monday. They were there presented with fresh proposals purporting to be an implementation of the promise to provide alternative accommodation to Croydon. Some of these people were offered accommodation in an old hanger, which I believe had to be moved and erected at Gatwick, at a rental, exclusive of maintenance, insurance, rates, heating and other outgoings, of 8s. 6d. per square foot. This compares with the present cost of their accommodation at Croydon of about 1s. 9d. per square foot.

Alternatively, it was suggested that a new hanger should be erected at a minimum cost of £168,000, without workshops, without offices and without any boilerhouse, to be available, unheated, at a rental of 10s. 6d. per square foot. I am told that the unfortunate Croydon users who attended the meeting on Monday and were presented with these proposals were expected to make a decision on the spot about accepting them. I do not think that people can be blamed if they say that the proposals did not bear the mark of any responsible action. They were hurried proposals, hurriedly put forward, and it was unreasonable to expect an immediate answer.

There was an additional proposal to look into the economics of a grass strip at Gatwick for the use of these light aircraft. On other occasions I have suggested that there might be a strip of this kind, but it is only at this late stage that consideration is being given to the provision of a grass airstrip at Gatwick, when on 31st December these people are supposed to be getting out, and when it will be impossible for them to carry on their businesses because they will have no airfield from which to take off.

In this connection, it is significant and indicative of the state of mind of some people who are considering this matter that, whereas they were prepared to consider the economics of a grass strip at Croydon for the use of these light aircraft, if they have to consider the licensing of an airfield for such a use anywhere else in the country, a licence would not be given unless there were two alternative runway directions. Yet here, apparently, it is being seriously suggested that we should have one grass airstrip mixed into the circuit of this major airport. The users of Croydon Airport are expected to give up their accommodation there in favour of this hypothetical facility.

The hon. Member keeps referring to a grass airstrip, but those of us who are interested in private flying want to go further and have a grass landing area. We do not want the position to be misunderstood. I am sure that the hon. Member agrees with me in this matter.

Yes. I am now talking about the proposal put forward in a somewhat vague fashion at the meeting on Monday. This was to be considered as a serious alternative to the use of Croydon. Accepting the advisability of a landing area, all I say at present is that I understand the proposal was merely for a grass strip in one direction, although the Ministry would not license such a single strip on any other airfield. I first looked at this matter from the outside, and I was able to go only upon newspaper reports, but the more I have gone into it the greater is my feeling that the present users of Croydon have not had a fair deal in this matter; nor that any fair alternative proposals have been put to them.

Let us consider the possibility of going to Gatwick. If the users of Croydon Airport could afford to pull up their roots, abandon their present fixed equipment and incur the cost of rebuilding at Gatwick; if they could accept the quite extraordinary rents which are being asked of them, there would still be no security for them, as I understand it. They would make this move to Gatwick and still not be able to make certain of their future. If Gatwick traffic develops as I think it will, despite all the present pessimism, and in a few years' time it is found impossible to cope at Gatwick with the 7,000 additional light aircraft movements which we now have at Croydon in certain months, any Minister would find it his duty to tell those users that they would have to move again. With such a limited security it is unfair to expect these people to move.

I agree that the Minister must have a proper regard for costs, but I would put certain considerations before him. Different figures have been quoted of the gap between present income and expenditure at Croydon, and I believe that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has used figures varying between £30,000 and £50,000 a year. I do not know whether these estimates include the cost at present incurred for the accommodation of such activities of the Ministry as the training of the constabulary.

Aside from that, whatever may be the gap at present, it is due partly to the fact that there has been no long-term plan for the development of the airport either for the use of aircraft or for factory accommodation around the field. Some of the hangars are at present empty as a result of deliberate policy of the Ministry, and that is understandable if the airfield is to close. If the accommodation which is at present empty could be tenanted; if the rents of the other tenants were revised, as they could and should be, and some of the land which is at present sterilised were used for the development of commercial buildings of one kind or another, I see no reason why the gap should not eventually be closed.

If all that were done, and if the airport were managed in a proper businesslike way, I believe that we could get pretty near to balancing revenue and expenditure at Croydon Airport. Indeed, I know a little about these matters and I would go as far as to say that if the Minister decided to provide an airport for the use of these light aircraft somewhere else around the Metropolitan area; if he started afresh and built new facilities, he could not provide an airfield at a cost less than that which he would incur at Croydon if the airport were managed properly and had a proper long-term development plan. I believe Croydon would offer the best chance of being self-supporting because, in its present position and with the present facilities around it, it is possible to spread the overheads in a way which could not be done with any other new airfield. Properly developed, Croydon could be a lively and economic centre for light aircraft.

Compare with that constructive and imaginative possibility as a centre for light aircraft the Minister's proposal. He intends to abandon valuable fixed assets and literally to cut the ground from beneath the feet of some of the small companies which are now providing useful employment around the airfield for some 1,200 men.

I very much hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary can give us some other very good reasons—which have not been available to the public so far—for closing the airport. If he cannot, it would seem that there is a very sound case for having an outside, independent inquiry into this decision, and I therefore look forward to what the hon. Gentleman has to say.

Perhaps I should begin by explaining that Croydon Airport lies outside my constituency and within that of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health who, as the House will see, is in his place, but is, by convention, barred from taking part in the debate. One of the more trying situations for Ministers is that they have to sit and hear somebody else saying what they would like to say, and probably saying it far less forcibly and eloquently.

I know that I speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris), who had intended to take part in the debate, but did not expect it to come on so early and cannot be present because he has an engagement for this time.

Croydon Members want to make it clear that it is not through any lack of interest that they have not raised this matter in Parliament. On the contrary, we have all been much involved in this problem—this dispute, one might say—ever since it boiled up rather over a year ago. We have received delegations, on which members of the Corporation have been represented, with members of the chambers of commerce concerned, and, of course, representatives of the users of the airport as well.

I should like, in passing, to pay a small tribute to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, who has been courtesy itself in explaining to us some of the difficulties and the reasons which have actuated the Government in reaching the decision which has been reached. As a result of all these talks, meetings, and the correspondence which we have had, we have all very reluctantly reached the conclusion that the reasons which have actuated the Government in their decision are unanswerable.

I will not recapitulate them now, because no doubt that will be done in a few minutes' time by the Minister, but I would say that I remember that, at the first big discussion we had, the question of safety came up and occupied most of the time. There were present at that time representatives of the airport control, who came to argue that safety was not an overriding difficulty. I must say that they did not convince me, nor did they convince my hon. Friends. It seemed to us that safety was a very big factor indeed, but no doubt the Minister will elaborate on this point in due course.

Once we have reached that conclusion, we really had no option but to accept the Government's decision, and, once we were satisfied, from what we have been told by the Minister, that there was no question of going back on it, we felt it would be a mistake, and, indeed, that it would not do any service at all to the present users, to pursue this battle too far in Parliament and raise false hopes that the decision might be reversed. In fact, I think I should say quite frankly that there is a suspicion locally that some of the present users have perhaps been tempted to delay their efforts to find alternative accommodation or to make alternative arrangements, because they hope that if they sit tight the Government will eventually give way and the airport will remain open after all.

I am obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman for giving way. Is he not being a little unfair to his constituents there? The onus of providing alternative accommodation does not rest upon the people concerned, but upon the Ministry. It was the Ministry which said that it would provide alternative accommodation if and when Croydon was closed. It was said from that Box on several occasions. It really is not feasible for these people to provide their own airfield.

I shall await with interest what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say on this subject, but I would remind the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) that anybody who believes a Government when they announce their long-range decisions would have come to the conclusion as far back as 1953 that Croydon Airport would be closed. This is not a new project. The facts were originally announced more than five years ago.

I should like to say that I have the greatest sympathy with the private owners of light aircraft and perhaps even more with the flying clubs. I have a personal reason for that. I used to do a bit of flying before the war, and I got quite a lot of fun out of it. After the war, in spite of the fact that I was on the full pay of a senior captain, I found it beyond my pocket, and how other people afford it in these days I would not know. To those young men disappointed in having to give it up, I would say that I took to motor-cycling instead, found it much cheaper, and, on the whole, got quite as much fun out of it.

Although I have sympathy with the clubs and private owners, I also have sympathy with the people who live in the immediate vicinity of the airport, and who object to the noise. I am thankful to say that the airport is not in my constituency, but I am assured by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. R. Thompson) that quite an appreciable proportion of his correspondence is supplied by people complaining of the noise. It is an unfortunate fact that, if one lives close to an airfield on which circuits and bumps are practised hour after hour, once one becomes aware of the noise it is a remarkably irritating thing.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge also raised the question of the finances of the aerodrome, and here again I should be very interested to hear what the Minister has to say, because of a suggestion made to me by the private operators who are anxious to continue the use of the aerodrome. I communicated it to my hon. Friend, who replied some time ago, giving in some detail the precise conditions under which the airport would be allowed to continue in use by these people as a private aerodrome, or, at any rate, a useful aerodrome. I understand, though I speak subject to correction, that there is still nothing to prevent the Croydon Corporation taking over this airport and running it under these limiting conditions. That proposition has found no favour, or not sufficient favour, to carry a majority on the council, and I suspect that the reason for that is that, financially, it is not an attractive proposition.

There is a very understandable sentiment which comes into this question. Croydon is associated with the early days of flying in this country, and everybody regrets when the time comes to close an aerodrome which has so many associations in the memories of the pioneers of flying. But, of course,

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new"

and, although I have not studied the proceedings of Parliament of a hundred years ago, or whatever it was, I cannot help feeling that probably similar debates to this one took place when it was finally decided to close Bucklers hard as a great centre of shipbuilding activity. There is a little difference, but these things are inevitable. London has grown up round the airport, and engulfed it, and that, I feel, is the real and inescapable reason for this decision.

Having said all these things, I should like to close by saying that, on behalf of my two colleagues, we very much appreciate the spirit which the hon. Member for Uxbridge has shown in raising this matter in Parliament. Although we cannot agree with his conclusions about the airfield, and I say that with great regret, none the less, we fully endorse everything he has said about the need to ensure that the present users get a square deal.

It is a very happy thing that today the Government have managed to get through their business in a commendably short space of time, and from the moment when the Question, "That this House do now adjourn," was put from the Chair, it became a private Members' day, which I as a back bencher very much welcome.

I find myself immediately and completely in support of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick) and absolutely against my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East (Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett), who was speaking for himself and his two colleagues, the three Members for Croydon all being on my own side of the House.

Before I go any further, I must declare a personal interest in this matter. It so happens that I am the Chairman of the Royal Aero Club, and my right hon. Friend has been good enough to receive a deputation from us on this subject. The Royal Aero Club, as the House will know, is probably both the father and mother of private flying.

I would say, in passing, that it is not generally known that had it not been for the existence of the Royal Aero Club before the outbreak of the first war in 1914 I doubt very much indeed if the Royal Naval Air Service would ever have come into existence at all. It certainly would not have been the immediate and unqualified success that it was had it not been for those early and intrepid flyers, all members of the Royal Aero Club. I will not mention arty names, but all hon. Members of the House know that that is indeed a fact. I would go further and say that the vast majority of the early members of the Royal Flying Corps in 1914 and 1915 were also members of this Club. I say that because I have today this onerous responsibility of speaking on behalf of private flying generally.

Before I go further into that, I wish to address a few remarks to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Croydon, North-East. I think it is really rather unfair to the House that my hon. and gallant Friend should say that the Minister has some reasons which are unanswerable and then not to deploy any arguments whatsoever about those reasons. In fact, he mentioned no reasons. He certainly mentioned the question of safety, and he said that he attended a meeting at which the airport control officers were present and that he did not believe a word they said.

Not at all. My hon. Friend has it entirely wrong. What I said, and what I am now repeating, was that we were convinced that the reasons were unanswerable. I believe that there is a distinct possibility that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will catch the eye of the Chair before the debate is over, and I shall be surprised if he does not himself deploy the reasons with greater accuracy than I could. I should be the last to waste the time of the House by saying something that will be repeated.

With great respect, I shall be equally surprised if my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary does, because none of us has been able to find any of the reasons put forward at different times. We have never got to the real reasons for the removal of Croydon beyond the fact that there was a statement in the White Paper of 1953 to the effect that when Gatwick was completed Croydon would be shut down. If we could get an assurance from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that Gatwick is completed, and that means that there will not be a second runway, then one might think differently. But Gatwick is not completed.

There are one or two other points in regard to my hon. and gallant Friend's speech which I think should be answered, if only for the purpose of the record. He said there was a suspicion that the users have delayed their efforts to find alternative accommodation. That point was answered by the hon. Member for Uxbridge, and I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend will not think that I am being too strict if I say that his remarks on this point were rather unworthy of him.

It is not in the hands of the private fliers at all. They have been waiting to get really proper alternatives from my right hon. Friend the Minister, and I propose to submit during the course of my speech that they have not as yet got anything that can measure up to the criteria that are absolutely essential.

The other point mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend—I think he underlined it fairly sincerely—was the question of noise. I believe I am right in saying—and I do not want to forecast what my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary is going to say—that the matter of noise is really nothing serious at all. After all, as my hon. and gallant Friend said, Croydon is one of the very earliest of our airports. Many of the inhabitants of Croydon have been there all their lives and the newcomers to Croydon came there knowing that an airport existed. Therefore, I do not attach any great importance to that matter.

I wish to deploy very simply the case for private flying. I believe that it would be a complete tragedy for the country if private flying were allowed to die. I entirely agree with my hon. and gallant Friend—I hope he will be pleased that I agree with him on something—that it is very difficult indeed for people to afford private flying. I think that makes my point, that the Government should give more sympathy to the matter than they do. I acknowledge both the sympathetic interest that my right hon. Friend is taking in private flying, and, if I may say so with respect, I acknowledge much more that of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who has taken an interest in the matter which is very much appreciated by private fliers.

I come back to the point that this decision if implemented will, as I see it, be a death blow to private flying. I say that for the reason that private flying must be centred round London. Private flying throughout the country will still depend on its development within London. I think I am right in saying—and I believe that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will endorse this—that the Government agree that there must be some centre for private flying within easy reach of the centre of London which carries out the following criteria.

The first criterion is that there must be security of tenure. Secondly, as I have said, the centre must be within easy distance of London, preferably in south London, in order to attract visitors from the Continent. Thirdly, there must be good public transport facilities, adequate airport buildings and hangars, and there must be a grass landing area—I underlined that point when the hon. Member for Uxbridge was speaking; a grass landing strip is not enough—and there should also be Customs facilities and hotel and restaurant facilities. I believe those requirements are generally agreed by the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary.

To go back on those points, I will first take security of tenure. We have been offered Biggin Hill and we have pressed to know how long we could be there. We are now told that we could be there for seven years, with strings attached. I seem to remember strings being put on Gatwick when I was arguing about the cost, so I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will not think me cynical or disbelieving when I say that seven years seems to me a rather improbable period, and that it may be less. In any case, seven years is no good at all; it is absolutely useless.

If the private fliers are to go to Biggin Hill, I say that the absolute minimum that they should expect is a period of something between fifteen and twenty years. Without that they cannot arrange their facilities for building hangars and doing the other things that have to be done.

Then, again, we are told—and we are very grateful indeed, and I want to emphasise this point—that we can have the use of a portion of Gatwick. We are extremely grateful, but I hope we shall not be considered to be ungrateful if we say, again, that that also must be a temporary facility. Indeed, we hope that it will be a temporary facility, because I believe that hon. Members on both sides look forward to the time when Gatwick will develop fully as a great international airport. If it does, then, again, there is no security of tenure for us at Gatwick.

I would point out to the Minister that we have the gravest possible doubts that there would be any security of tenure at either Biggin Hill or Gatwick. It has been mentioned that we might use London Airport, but I do not think that that would be anything but a very temporary expedient. The hon. Member for Uxbridge has already discussed the question of public transport facilities. I would like to say that these facilities are infinitely better at Croydon than at Biggin Hill or at Gatwick.

I have come to the conclusion that far too little time has been given to private fliers in which to make alternative arrangements. I feel very strongly, and I think I can say this as a staunch supporter of the Government, that they simply must leave us at Croydon for as long as it is humanly possible if the reasons to which my hon. and gallant Friend referred are really unanswerable, which I do not think they are.

Who knows what the shape of civil aviation will be in five or ten years' time? All of us must surely realise that we shall not go on having aircraft landing on and flying out of aerodromes at 100 miles an hour. We see great inventions taking place such as the Fairey Rotodyne. It seems to me to be quite possible that within a decade aircraft will be able to land and take off vertically. If that be the case, then all the arguments advanced at the moment regarding traffic control will have no application whatever. But if this decision is implemented London will have lost for ever a centre which is far more suitable for private flying than any alternative which has yet been put forward. I ask my hon. Friend, therefore, to ask his right hon. Friend to have another think about this subject and at least to say, "You can stay at Croydon until the end of 1960, and then we will review the situation."

Keen people, people with character who fly their small aeroplanes, are in a worried state at present. I feel it incumbent on the Government to give them some reassurance, first, that they will not be moved out from Croydon until an alternative site has been found for them, and secondly, when that alternative has been found, it will not be changed again within a decade.

I am at a grave disadvantage in not having heard my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick), who I am sure made one of his customary excellent speeches, or the other hon. Members who have spoken, because I was not able to be present in the Chamber in time to hear the commencement of this interesting and important debate.

I wish to underline certain things I have beard said by the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough), which I am sure were referred to adequately by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Uxbridge. I believe that the question of private flying is still not thoroughly understood by the Government, and it may be that it has not been understood by any Government which we have had so far. It is a very important matter. Little aeroplanes do not require big aeroplanes, but big aeroplanes do require little aeroplanes, otherwise we should have no trained pilots at all.

It is obvious to everyone that Croydon is the natural place to which flyers from the Continent can land when they come to Great Britain. It is a name which is well known on the Continent and in every flying club in the flying world as a London terminal. We know that Croydon is not suitable for large aeroplanes, and I shall not advance the argument that it is suitable even for twin-engined heavy aircraft, although they have been operated very well from there with magnificent regularity. But certainly, for club flying Croydon is ideal and something which we want in this country. We have no place to which foreign flyers can come unless they skirt London or go to White Waltham, which is miles away; or round to my own club at Elstree—ans that they have to go through the London control—or endeavour to miss it by making a detour of many miles. Croydon is therefore the obvious centre.

I suggest that the Air Ministry as well as the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation might take more interest in this question of private flying. There would appear to be a considerable lack of sympathy between the two Ministries, and this is illustrated by the difficulties regarding Biggin Hill. The Air Force does not really want Biggin Hill, it cannot want Biggin Hill. We do not need Royal Air Force aerodromes so close to London for the defence of London or the south of England, or indeed, of any part of England. We do not need our fighter planes to go up from a place only about twelve miles from Westminster. When one considers the speed of present-day fighter aircraft, it is ridiculous for the Air Ministry to be haggling about whether it needs this or that building and whether it should or should not be handed over to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation for civil operators at Biggin Hill. Incidentally, I must confess that in my opinion Biggin Hill is by no means an ideal alternative solution.

But to return to Croydon. In my view, it would be very shortsighted to allow Croydon to be given up. I do not know the present opinion of the inhabitants in that district because it has changed. A few years ago they did not want an aerodrome at Croydon, but the last time I spoke to several local inhabitants I was told that they did want it; that they did not want to see the aerodrome covered with little houses. Suddenly they had conceived a great liking for the aerodrome. Mr. Deputy-Speaker, we really must encourage flyers from overseas to visit this country, not only on pleasure but on business. Croydon is the ideal place for them to come to, and, indeed, there is no other airfield South and near London.

Perhaps the Minister is to suggest some other airfield. Hendon was a possibility except that there is the trouble of the London control, and, of course, the Air Ministry would not allow Hendon to be used; it can remain full of furniture and junk, but it must not be used as an aerodrome.

I ask the Minister to give further consideration to the matter of Croydon's future, as has been suggested by the hon. Member for Horsham, and, I am sure, by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge. Give the private operators at Croydon a little longer to get themselves organised at Gatwick or Biggin Hill. There are no maintenance facilities at Gatwick; indeed my own company is seeking permission to put a caravan at Gatwick in which to keep some tools, and so hon. Members will appreciate how fantastic it is to suggest that any operator can operate efficiently from Gatwick at the present time.

I therefore add my plea to what has been said already, that Croydon should stay, and that for the time being the private operators should be allowed to remain there.

As a long-term policy, for heaven's sake let us keep Croydon for flying clubs. Let Croydon be the rendezvous for the private flyers. Let the businessman, flying his Dove, come in from the Continent to land at Croydon and then travel on to London to do his business. As one who is a supporter of private flying clubs and who has an interest in them, I consider that a legitimate request to make to the Government. This Government, and indeed previous Governments, have made some dreadful errors over their aviation policy in my opinion. This will prove another error unless a halt is called now and further consideration given to the closure of Croydon.

I know that hon. Members wish to hear what my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has to say and, therefore, I shall be brief.

I do not wish to go over the arguments about whether Croydon should be shut down at all or whether it should be shut down at some later date; or whether Biggin Hill is a good alternative. I do not think that Biggin Hill is a good alternative. I do not wish to argue whether Gatwick would be suitable. My point is that the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation seems to be acting in this case in a way which will have a considerable impact on private flying one way or the other. I think it will prove disastrous if the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation gives the appearance of opposing the true interests of private flying. If anybody ought to be fighting the battle for private flying, it is the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.

The psychological effect resulting from the Government using the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation as the instrument to close Croydon will be most unsatisfactory. If I understand its functions aright, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation should be on the other side. It could be argued that the Ministry was unable to pursue its policy of developing private flying because it was baulked by the Treasury, or because there was a demand for the Croydon aerodrome site from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. But, in the present circumstances, private flyers regard the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation as their opponent rather than as their friend and sponsor. Perhaps I have misunderstood. I very much hope that during the next few minutes my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will be able to disabuse our minds of that idea so that we shall not look back on 1958 as a time when the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation showed itself to be the opponent rather than the sponsor of private flying.

This debate is extremely important, and I am very glad, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough) said, that we have a little longer than usual for an Adjournment debate, because I shall have an opportunity to tell the House the reasons why the Government came to their decision, to close Croydon, which they did as long ago as 1953. I am sure that the House will agree that I should do this at a little length. I am glad that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick), who, as he always does, presented his arguments in a most attractive way, has given me this opportunity. The Government have been asked to state their reasons, and they will certainly do so. Although these reasons have already been discussed with the numerous bodies concerned with Croydon, the fact that the operators do not accept them does not mean that they are not reasons. I shall begin by referring to the consultations which we have actually had.

I was glad that hon. Members said that my right hon. Friend and I had shown our interest in private flying. The Government certainly have a very considerable duty in regard to private flying. That is one point. The Government also have a grave responsibility for safety and air traffic control. That is another point. My right hon. Friend and I have had a great deal of personal consultation with the different interests concerned, and I will tell the House who they are. At Croydon, there are the independent operators. There are the flying clubs, the operators of private executive aircraft, and also the aircraft construction and maintenance firms which work on the airfield. Those are the people concerned in the decision to close Croydon.

We do not rejoice at all in the closure of Croydon. I want to make that quite clear. We recognise that it has played a great r—le in aviation in this country, and we recognise also that, in some respects, the facilities that it offers will be hard to replace. However, the Government have now decided, through the setting up of a standing joint committee on private flying, to examine the long-term prospects of private flying, to which hon. Members have referred and, in particular, to look at the establishment of what has been described as an aviation centre or a suitable aerodrome for private and club flyers.

I think that many of us here have been interested in the history of Croydon since we were boys. It was opened for flying in 1915 and was the original home of Imperial Airways. We are not, however, concerned with that today. One hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out that air transport is a growing and dynamic industry with an ever-changing demand, and big changes have taken place even during the past two years. Croydon is, by modern standards, a small airport That is not in dispute. It is in the middle of a heavily built-up area and, in our opinion, it is not capable of further development.

In 1953, we decided that, if we were to deal safely with the growing air traffic, the pattern of London's airports must be simplified. I should like to read some extracts from the White Paper on London's Airports, which was published in July, 1953. In paragraph 2, we said:

"The most important problem is that of the control of aircraft in the air near London. The control organisation is already heavily burdened and unless radical changes are made it will, in a few years' time, be unable to provide a safe and efficient service for the increased traffic. It is essential to simplify the pattern of air traffic and this can only be done by reorganising the system of airports near London. At present, the Ministry of Civil Aviation operates seven airports in the London area:—London Airport, Northolt, Blackbushe, Bovingdon, Croydon, Gatwick and Stansted. Her Majesty's Government propose to reduce this number to three operational airports (London Airport, Gatwick and Blackbushe) and one (Stansted) to be held in reserve. The reasons for this choice and the uses to which the three airports will be put are explained in this Paper."

Hon Members know that that was done.

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will allow me to call his attention also to paragraph 8, in which it is said that

"Of the five minor airports near London (Blackbushe, Bovingdon, Stansted, Croydon and Gatwick) none can be used intensively, the first three because of air traffic control problems and the last two because they are too small."

In other words, it was specifically stated that it was not an air traffic control problem which ruled out Croydon from further consideration. It was the fact that it was too small, but, of course, too small only for the larger aircraft, not for the type of aircraft we are discussing.

In the Appendix to the White Paper, to which I referred, it is said that

"Croydon is a small grass aerodrome in a heavily built-up area. It could only be extended and used at such great expense and disturbance to amenities as to make its selection out of the question."

That is what was said at that time.

I think that we ought to have the matter quite clear, because, although the White Paper was published in 1953, discussions had been going on for some time before that. It should be made clear that that was a consideration in regard to Croydon as an international airport for use by large transport aircraft. No one is seriously suggesting that Croydon could or should be developed for that type of aircraft. The fact is that there is not a word in the White Paper which justifies the closure of Croydon for the light aircraft which we are now discussing.

It is quite clear that the point about air traffic control was very much in the mind of the writers of the White Paper at that time, but, of course, if air traffic control were the only reason I had to deal with, the matter would be very much simpler. We have a good many other reasons, and the air traffic control problem has, since 1953, become very much more complicated and important. I shall deal in considerable detail with the air traffic control problem as it stands today, in answer to the hon. Member for Uxbridge.

There was, therefore, a clear statement of policy to which we have held. I do not think that anyone can claim that the operators were not warned that Croydon would close. We believe that a good many other reasons—I shall deal with the changes that have taken place—underlie the same policy. Some traffic, of course, has shifted away from Croydon, but there remain based on the aerodrome two commercial operators, several firms dealing with the building and repair of small aircraft or parts, and a number of flying clubs, to which I have already referred. We have had the pleasure of talking to them a good deal.

I quite understand that Croydon remains attractive to those who are still interested in it. It is close to the centre of London and, as I think the hon. Member for Uxbridge would accept, the rents there are very low at present. They are, in fact, uneconomically low. I do not say that we have not been right in maintaining that situation, but they are uneconomically low and, since we are to discuss the question of finance, there are certain matters that I shall have to talk about in that respect. Some of the firms have hitherto objected to moving to Gatwick because of difficulties in raising capital to erect the new buildings which they will need. We have done our best to meet these difficulties, and I shall talk about certain detailed proposals a little later.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge and my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham put the view that Croydon offered us the best possibility for providing a base for private flying in South-Eastern England. I think that that is the basis of their case. We have been repeatedly told of late that if we knew our business we could develop Croydon into a paying proposition. I shall certainly deal with that point in a moment. It has been suggested that it would be a fine site for a flourishing centre of aviation. Frankly, that is not true. The plain fact is that without a great increase in commercial traffic, there is not a chance of making Croydon pay. Such an increase could not be tolerated for air traffic control reasons, as I shall explain.

This airport has been operating at a considerable loss. The total revenue for the year ended March, 1958, was approximately £84,000, made up of about £47,000 from rents and concessions and £37,000 from aviation revenue. The costs of running the airport and providing technical services amounted to £177,000, to which must be added interest on capital at £43,500, together with a sum of £11,500, representing a proper share of divisional and headquarters costs, making a total in outgoings of £231,000.

This means that if the interest on capital, and the sum to which I have referred for the share of divisional and headquarters costs, are included, one gets a total loss of £147,000 for the year ended March, 1958. I answered a Question about this matter for the period 1956–57, in which those charges were not included. At that time the total loss, without those charges being included, was £72,000. If one excludes the charges to which I have referred, the loss has risen for the year ended March, 1958, to £93,500.

Would my hon. Friend think it very unkind if I put down a Question asking for the same figures for Gatwick, including interest on capital?

I do not object to any questions asked by my hon. Friend, but I understand that there will be an Adjournment debate about Gatwick next week, in which I shall be delighted to answer all the points raised. We are, however, talking about Croydon Airport, which was opened in 1915 as distinct from an airport which was opened in June this year, and which is of a very different character.

It may be claimed that the loss has been inflated by the use made of Croydon as a training ground for Gatwick. In 1957–58, this might account for about £15,000 to £20,000 of the loss, leaving about £130,000. The loss could be reduced if rents were raised by 85 per cent. to make them compare with rents elsewhere. Assuming that all accommodation was let, an additional £40,000 might be obtained in this way. Even then, there would be no prospect of Croydon ever breaking even unless revenue from landing fees could be substantially increased. Most of this revenue comes from a relatively small number of commercial movements, and now that Gatwick is in operation these have been reduced to less than half of what they were previously in the comparable last year.

I have figures for the Croydon movements with which I shall deal. There remains the possibility—and this will show the House that we have considered these matters anxiously and seriously—of an increase in the light air traffic by way of private, executive and club flying. Private aircraft do not in most cases pay landing fees, as hon. Members know. They present a landing card which is obtained through the Royal Aero Club, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham is chairman, and which is valid at any Government-owned aerodrome. The part of the landing card revenue attributable last year to Croydon was only £225. If private aircraft had to pay landing fees, the revenue from the present number of such landings—about 2,400 a year—would be no more than about £5,000.

It is clear, therefore, that not even an increase of four or five times in the use of Croydon by light aircraft would bring in sufficient revenue to enable the airport to meet its operating costs and other charges. If an increase of this order were feasible, it could hardly be allowed because of the risk to safety. The development which would have to take place at Croydon and in the traffic using it before the airport could pay its way is of an order which we do not think would be right to undertake in such a built-up area.

I am sure that every hon. Member will be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting his cards on the table and presenting these calculations, which are very interesting, but he spoke about a possible increase in rentals of 85 per cent. If the rentals were increased by 85 per cent. they would still be only about one-third of the rentals now being asked for the unsatisfactory accommodation at Gatwick. I think that this is a field in which the hon. Gentleman could easily look forward to an increase in revenue. I wonder if he has discussed rentals with the present users of the airport?

If the hon. Gentleman is referring to rentals at Gatwick, that matter has not been discussed yet. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was referring to Biggin Hill.

I am saying that an increase of 85 per cent. in Croydon rentals would only mean a rental of one-third of the amounts which have been put forward for Gatwick, not Biggin Hill. If the Department has gone into the possibility of making ends meet, has it discussed rentals with the present users of the airport at Croydon?

I do not know what the position is at the moment. I do not think we have, because, in view of our proposals to close Croydon, we had to keep the rents at this present level, which is an uneconomic level. I do not think that we can take the rents in isolation. There is the question of increasing the traffic, and other matters which I have discussed regarding air traffic control, and so forth. But I mentioned, after various circumstances, what figure would be needed to make Croydon break even. I did not think that that could be done. The rents at Gatwick are still the subject of negotiation. Users have already been told about the rents at Biggin Hill.

The House ought to know exactly what the position is at Croydon in regard to traffic movements, so as to put the matter in perspective. The air transport movements from March to August, 1957, were 5,842; March to August, 1958, 3,674, which is a considerable decline; June to August, 1957, 4,055; June to August, 1958, 1,638. This shows that in the March-May period there was a slight growth between 1957 and 1958, but since the opening of Gatwick the Croydon traffic of the kind to which I have referred has been less than it was a year earlier. So there has been a considerable decline in air transport movments.

I think that the hon. Member for Uxbridge suggested that we could solve this matter if we knew how to run aerodromes by reducing the area of Croydon that we are now holding. I looked into this point most carefully, but it is not a practical proposition. If we sold the land on which the buildings are, we should have to meet the loss in rents. If we sold part of the landing area we should not markedly reduce our costs. Moreover, the development of the land sold would have to be severely restricted for safety reasons. I do not think that that would be a practical way of dealing with this matter, even if it were possible to alter the decision that we have made.

I hope that the House does not mind my pursuing this matter at length, because it is very important. I want to come now to the question of controlled air space and air traffic control. For a long time, we have been very concerned about Croydon in regard to air traffic control. If extra traffic were to fly up into the controlled air space, it would interfere with the flow to and from London Airport and, later, Gatwick. Aircraft movements in any appreciable number into or out of Croydon through the airways system are already a serious embarrassment to London Airport. That is our advice.

Hon. Members will realise that although my right hon. Friend has a duty towards private flying—and I have explained the methods that he is taking—he has a national responsibility, as the hon. Member for Uxbridge himself particularly realises, concerning the safe operation of our airways. Traffic getting instru- ment flight rules clearance to enter or leave Croydon is bound to fly at a height otherwise available to London or Gatwick and would slow down London traffic when passing over Epsom. There has to be a rallying point in bad weather, but there is nowhere to act as a rallying point for Croydon exclusively.

When a holding area has to be used for two airports, the runway might be clear at one of them while an aircraft bound for it was held up in the circuit. Efficiency, therefore, demands an exclusive holding area for each aerodrome. It must be obvious that we have taken the best advice we have on this matter, which is that of our expert traffic controllers.

Will the hon. Gentleman now answer my question, namely, which of these control problems, which, he says, apply to Croydon, and which are so conclusive, would not equally apply to Biggin Hill and, in another form, to Gatwick?

I am coming to that. The question of whether the points I am raising would apply to Biggin Hill depends upon who goes there. As it would be mainly the clubs who did so, the hon. Member will see that there is a distinction. I will, however, deal with the point in detail.

Departing aircraft would have to climb away from Croydon to join an airway quite close to the airport. Where there is one airport, departures can be timed precisely and closely. Where there are two, delays will arise. That may seem a simple proposition to those concerned with air traffic control, but it is important that it should be realised. For that reason, we do not consider that it would be right to jeopardise the prospect of a proper return on the considerable investment which the development of London and Gatwick Airports represent.

The aircraft which would use Croydon would almost certainly be smaller than those which they would displace at London and Gatwick Airports. It is likely that in terms of aircraft movements, the total achieved at the three airports would be less than would be achieved at London and Gatwick alone. It may, however, be argued—this point was made by the hon. Member and by one of my hon. Friends—that small aircraft of the private or executive type, for which Croydon is so convenient, would not use the airways system. I have heard this argument several times.

Such aircraft can use the free lanes. The modern position is that the free lane southward from Croydon is now blocked by the Gatwick control zone. Another free lane over Sevenoaks will be blocked by aircraft operating from the R.A.F. Station at West Malling. The Air Ministry has undertaken to keep the fighter aircraft either below or to the east of the London control area and for some years to come there will be large numbers of fast fighters flying below 2,000 ft. in this area, entirely precluding a free lane from Croydon along the route of the railway line through Sevenoaks. Croydon aircraft would have to go via either Rochester or Guildford, which would be a serious handicap to commercial operators. Even where free lanes are available, I do not like the prospect of a considerable use of them over built-up areas. I hope that the hon. Member will agree upon this.

It may be argued that Biggin Hill is no better a proposition than Croydon. But for club flying—and it will be mainly club flying as there will not he scheduled services from Biggin Hill—it must be remembered that it is outside the control zone, so that operations will be less restricted and local flying will not be taking place over such built-up areas. I am not pretending that Biggin Hill is the final solution. For a time, perhaps, it will be.

What I have mentioned will also be of some advantage to any charter operators using Biggin Hill, although it has always been accepted that airways flights from Biggin Hill would have to be positioned via Gatwick. On the financial side, a much smaller build-up of traffic would be required for economic operation of the aerodrome.

I now come to a point which has been worrying many hon. Members, in particular the hon. and gallant Member for Derby, North (Group Captain Wilcock) and a number of my hon. Friends, who like myself, are very interested in flying and the extent to which the Government have a duty and a responsibility concerning Croydon, in addition to the serious question of safety in the air.

We are at present considering the problem of providing a centre for private aviation in the South-East of England. It is a difficult matter. Looking at the map, it is difficult to find a suitable place that meets all these difficulties if one accepts that Croydon must be closed. It is a matter at which I am looking with the help of my committee on private flying.

Hon. Members will know that the committee on private flying, of which I am chairman, includes representatives of all the different associations and clubs who have been represented in the great pressure which has been exerted upon my right hon. Friend and myself not to close Croydon. Putting that aspect aside, we are examining constructively—our first meeting went very well—all the possibilities that such an aviation centre presents. One thing of which I am certain, however, is that for the reasons I have given. Croydon is not the right place.

While we may, as the hon. Member for Uxbridge will know, be able to place some of the operators at Gatwick, we still have to consider the idea which has been put forward that a suitable airport or aviation centre with international aspects is the right thing for the future. The whole of the Government's policy on private flying is now being considered by my committee.

I am asked why we cannot extend the life of Croydon. I have given the reasons why it is imperative that we should take the action that we are doing, which we take with considerable regret. I was told that there was some possibility that the closure might cause local unemployment at the airport. We have considered this with the Ministry of Labour and I propose to give the facts.

The risks should not be overrated. Excluding the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation staff, about 1,250 people are employed at Croydon, over 1,000 of them by non-aviation tenants who do not need to be at an aerodrome. Of the remaining 250, it is expected that many would move with their firms either to Gatwick or Biggin Hill if the operators finally reach agreement with us and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air on the terms of their transfer. Our intention is that the progressive withdrawal already begun by the move of Transair and other traffic to Gatwick and by the reduction in hours of watch at Croydon should now continue and that it should do so as speedily as possible.

The alternatives of Biggin Hill and Gatwick have been thoroughly discussed with the tenants and each, I have no doubt, will now be considering which of the alternatives to adopt. Much has been said about the terms which have been offered at Biggin Hill for the present tenants at Croydon. The short term of the leases offered has been particularly attacked by my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham. I should tell him and the hon. Member who suggested that there was some difference of opinion or attitude between ourselves and the Air Ministry on this matter, that we have found my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air most helpful. He has extended the original offer of a four-year term to seven years, although, as hon. Members who have been concerned with this matter know, that might involve some reduction in aerodrome space after four years. I know that there is pressure for an extension of this term of years to a considerably greater degree.

I cannot make any promises as to whether any further extension can now be foreseen, but these matters are being put to the Secretary of State for Air and the question of extension is, in fact, being considered.

Would it not be eminently reasonable if an extension could be made until at least the committee of which the hon. Gentleman is the chairman comes to some decision about a future centre for light flying in the south-east of England? Surely it is quite impossible to expect those people to make a decision on the basis of the present offers when in a few months' time, possibly, the committee might throw up a much better solution.

Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to conclude on this question.

I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon.

I am coming to some of the things that we may be able to do, but I am afraid that in the circumstances I do not agree that any extension is possible. I cannot leave entirely out of account the question of disturbance, and so forth. I have not said anything so far about the views of hon. Members from Croydon who have been pressing me to do the opposite from what the hon. Member for Uxbridge is now pressing me to do, but that is a matter which cannot be left entirely out of account. I am sure that the House will forgive me for spending so long on this subject, but it is important to private flying.

Now about an extension of the terms of the lease. It is not intended that tenants of Biggin Hill should be turned out at the end of seven years if that does not prove necessary. It is not to be excluded that they may be allowed to continue in occupation for a longer period, but matters of defence are notoriously uncertain and that is something which my right hon. Friend feels at present cannot be guaranteed. That is the position of the Secretary of State for Air. The other terms of the leases provide that the tenants shall meet the outgoings of that part of the airfield they occupy. That is a matter which involves future Government policy on the question of private flying and it is a matter we are considering in the committee I have mentioned.

For reasons I have explained in some detail, it has been necessary to rule out the operation of scheduled services from Biggin Hill to prevent interference with traffic from London Airport and Gatwick such as we have considered unacceptable in the case of Croydon. It is unlikely that all the tenants at Croydon will find a new home at the same aerodrome. We should expect members of flying clubs from south of the Thames to be more likely to go to Biggin Hill since club flying cannot conveniently and safely be accepted at Gatwick. There is no reason why clubs should not go as soon as possible to new homes and re-establish themselves there in conditions quite as agreeable as those under which most flying clubs operate in this country, but I agree that there are a number of important outstanding matters to be settled and we hope that will be done by the end of the year.

There are several points to be considered about Gatwick. In the case of the non-club tenants, especially those concerned with air charter business, we have long considered that Gatwick is the better solution. So far as I know a good many operators feel that to be the case, but, if that is their choice, some further hangar accommodation will have to he put up. The hon. Member for Uxbridge was rather concerned about the rents of hangars. We have decided that if the tenants generally are unable to raise the necessary money to finance the building of hangars, the Ministry will put them up and let them to the users. We are also willing to consider the provision of a cross-wind landing strip for small aircraft if that is shown to be necessary. It was suggested that what was wanted was a grass area and I shall consider that point.

It is not, in fact, the case that we could not accommodate these operators on a grass strip at Gatwick. The grass strip at Gatwick is for use when cross winds on the main runway are too high for light aircraft, but both the grass strip and the runway could be used for light aircraft as required. That is my technical advice.

This has been a very important debate, and I am grateful to hon. Members, in what is a highly controversial matter and one on which there are strong feelings in aviation circles, for presenting their cases in such a way that it has enabled me to state the Government's position on this matter. My right hon. Friend has said that Croydon must be closed for flying on 31st December. He is prepared to do everything in his power to make the transfer of operators to their new homes as smooth as possible.

The position, therefore, is that all flying activities by clubs must cease on 31st December next. The business of their transfer to Biggin Hill should be effected more speedily than the transfer of charter and executive flyers and other business firms using Croydon. In their case, my right hon. Friend is prepared to allow Croydon to remain open for a very limited period after 31st December, during which there will be a progressive running down of operations concurrently with the transfer of tenants elsewhere. But he is willing to make this concession only provided that these tenants make genuine efforts to avail themselves of one or other of the alternative offers which have been put to them.

We shall continue to conduct our negotiations with them in a sympathetic spirit. I hope that we shall reach a conclusion to these matters which will be suitable for all. But in the meantime, we are examining the Government's long-term policy on private flying more closely, and we hope that we shall find eventually a more permanent solution than the one which I have been able to offer today.