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

The Bill is designed first and foremost to give the Government greater flexibility in the deployment of Parliamentary Secretaries between Departments, but it has two other more specific purposes. First, it authorises the payment of a salary, not exceeding £2,500 a year, to a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science. Secondly, it authorises an increase in salary from £2,200 a year to £3,000 a year for the Chief Whip in the House of Lords, under his title of Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms.

As the House may be aware, the legal position with regard to the power simply to appoint Parliamentary Secretaries is obscure, but it is quite certainly governed by two main sets of clear restrictions—first, the restrictions on the number of Parliamentary Secretaries to whom salaries may be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament and, secondly, the restrictions on the numbers of those who are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons at any one time. Before I describe the Bill, perhaps I should briefly say a few words about the present legislative position.

At present, there is statutory authority to pay salaries only to specified numbers of Parliamentary Secretaries in particular Departments. For example, Section 2 (2) of the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, as amended by the Act of 1951, limits the numbers of Parliamentary Secretaries to whom salaries may be paid by specifying the number for each Department to which the Acts refer. Within other Departments, the limit is imposed by separate Acts. For example, the Ministry of Fuel and Power Act, 1945, provides for the payment of a salary to only one Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Power; and likewise the Ministry of Defence Act, 1946, to only one in the Ministry of Defence. If one adds up all the piecemeal pieces of legislation which have been passed by Parliament at one time or another, the total effect is to allow salaries to be paid to a total of 32 Parliamentary Secretaries, but only in respect of offices limited to the specified numbers in particular Departments.

So far as voting in the House of Commons is concerned, Section 2 (1) of the House of Commons Disqualification Act, 1957, limits the numbers of Ministers who are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Commons at any one time. Part I of the Second Schedule of that Act lists senior Ministers and Part II lists junior Ministers. Section 2 enables only 70 Ministers in all and 27 senior Ministers to sit and vote at any one time. As I have explained, this legislation has grown up piecemeal over the years and, although the Bill is a modest step, I think that future Governments will be grateful to Parliament if it passes an Act which provides for slightly more flexibility than at present exists.

Clause 1 removes all the individual Departmental limits on the numbers of Parliamentary Secretaries to whom salaries may be paid, and replaces the individual limits by one single aggregate limit of 33. The Bill will therefore enable the Government to appoint more Parliamentary Secretaries in one Department by reducing the numbers appointed to other Departments, or else by making use of unfilled vacancies within the authorised complement of 33 salaried posts.

The House will probably agree that, while it is quite right that there should be a definite limit on the aggregate of Parliamentary Secretaries, it is only right that the Prime Minister of the day should have a considerable amount of flexibility at his disposal, and it is interesting to note that as I am moving the Second Reading of the Bill there are as many as six unfilled Parliamentary Secretary posts—in the Home Office, since the promotion of my right hon. Friend the present Minister of State, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Defence, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

So much for the main purpose of the Bill. I now want to say something about the more specific proposals. Clause 2 (1) authorises the payment of a salary not exceeding £2,500 a year to a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science. Indeed, it is because this is a new post that in Clause 1 the complement has been increased from 32 to 33. The Minister for Science will be the only Minister not having a Department who, without further legislation can be helped in this way. It is interesting to note that he will be Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister and not the Ministry. When opening schools and on similar occasions, I was constantly referred to as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Education, which was technically incorrect, of course, but, if my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister were to make this appointment, in this case it would be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science. Passing the Bill would not allow the payment of a salary out of public funds to a Parliamentary Secretary to any other non-Departmental Minister, nor indeed to any Parliamentary Secretary, other than to the Minister for Science, not at present included in Part II of the Second Schedule of the Disqualification Act, 1957.

I do not think that I need explain elaborately the purpose of the Clause, but it will be remembered that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 3rd November, 1959, in reply to Parliamentary Questions from the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) and others, explained that Questions falling within the responsibility of the Minister for Science were at present answered in a rather complicated way. Questions about the Medical Research Council, for example, are answered by the Minister of Health; about the Agricultural Research Council and the Nature Conservancy by the Minister of Agriculture; about atomic energy by the Minister of Education; about space research by the Minister of Aviation; and about atomic energy development relating to matters for which a particular Minister is responsible, by that Minister.

I recall that one of the last observations made by the late Mr. Aneurin Bevan in the House was when he listened to these arrangements and said that they constituted something of a dog's breakfast. I will not comment on that now, but at least one can feel that if he had been spared to be alive with us this morning, he would have been a supporter of this Clause. Obviously, the present arrangement is not the most convenient for the House. Questions falling within the responsibility of the Minister for Science would be answered in the Commons by one Minister, namely, the Parliamentary Secretary, if my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister thought fit to make that appointment.

Clause 2 (2) is technical, and simply brings the salary of a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science within the provisions of Section 6 of the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, against duplicate salaries. Clause 2 (3) adds the office of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science to the list of junior Ministers set out in the Disqualification Act, 1957. Incidentally, the limit of 70 Ministers is not affected by the Bill and I can assure any hon. Member who is concerned about it—and I am sure that hon. Members ought to be concerned—that no question arises in the Bill of any increase in the total of the Government's powers of patronage.

Finally, Clause 3 increases by £800 a year the salary of the Chief Whip in the House of Lords, or, to give him his full title, which is not often used, Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms. His salary will now be £3,000. It was increased from £1,200, which it had been since 1946, to £2,200 under the Ministerial Salaries Act, 1957.

The reason for the increase is to place him higher than the Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard, who is the Assistant Government Chief Whip in another place and, who, like him, is a member of Her Majesty's Household, and to prevent the Captain of the Gentlemen-of-Arms being £300 a year less well off than a Parliamentary Secretary. Instead of being £300 less well off than a Parliamentary Secretary he will become £500 better off. That seems to be a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

I do not think I need say any more in introducing the Bill. The remaining Clauses are formal. This is partly a Bill to give greater flexibility to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or future Governments in the deployment of Parliamentary Secretaries, and I believe that its specific proposals are such as to commend themselves to this House.

We are all grateful to the Financial Secretary for his clear exposition of the Bill. I take no objection to the arrangement about Parliamentary Secretaries in general. It consists in putting them, notionally at any rate, into a pool, from which, when Christmas comes near the Prime Minister—carrying his Moscow hat and attired as Santa Claus—will no doubt draw out one Parliamentary Secretary after another, appropriate to this or that Department. That seems to be an instance, as the hon. Member put it, of having a considerable amount of flexibility at his disposal—a "lucky bag", as it were, for Parliamentary Secretaries.

That seems a sensible arrangement, but I am very much more puzzled about the supposed need for a Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister for Science. The Minister for Science is a very peculiar Minister indeed. He is not a Minister of anything. He has not a Ministry. He is the Minister for Science. Ministers who have to deal with a subject usually deal with it with a certain amount of fervour. Even the Minister of Education embraces his subject, sometimes with a slightly disdainful embrace, but still quite definitely with an embrace, and the Minister of Transport nowadays certainly gives his subject what we can only call a jammy hug. But the Minister for Science only touches faintly and remotely at the fringes of the scientific garment.

It is extremely difficult to find out what he has to do. He is the chairman of a number of research committees, and he appoints the members of some of them. He was constituted by an Order which simply transferred to him a number of almost equally vague functions hitherto carried on by the Lord President of the Council. Ever since the present Minister for Science was appointed, hon. Members on this side of the House have been wondering exactly what he was supposed to be doing.

I have been reading through the reports of his public speeches. One of them was an excellent rectorial address when he became the Rector of Glasgow University. It had nothing whatever to do with science, and it had been duly issued by the Conservative Central Office, as had many other papers in the Library dealing with his speeches. When I tried to find out what he had been doing about science, I found it much more difficult. He has one definite set of functions in connection with atomic energy, and those I understand. What I do not understand is exactly what he does about them. Perhaps security reasons are involved.

Then there was another instance in which he embarked upon the scientific field. Addressing the Institute of Naval Architects, he said some words about shipbuilding. Shipbuilding and the machine tool industry have recently been the subject of inquiries by scientific cornmittees—in both cases from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. We do not know what their results have been, because they have not been published, at any rate in the form in which they were reported. But the Minister took the occasion to say something about shipbuilding. Therefore, looking at what he has been doing—because it is impossible to find out from his powers what he ought to be doing—I find it extremely difficult to appreciate the nature of the work that he carries on from day to day.

The Government are now asking for a Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister for Science. I looked him up in the Estimates, to see what sort of staff he had. He does not have a Ministry, but he has an office. When one looks at the Estimates one finds that the expenses of atomic energy and the expenses of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research are not carried under his office in any way; they are on separate Votes. Turning to his office, I find it is on a very modest scale. It is not for me to ask the Government to increase the expense of it, but it shows us how busy he must be, and how deep and urgent his need must be for a Parliamentary Secretary—which is what we are being asked to vote today.

The Minister's own salary does not even enter into the matter; I believe that it comes into the Privy Council Estimate. But when one looks at what he has, one finds that he has a deputy secretary, two under-secretaries, a United Kingdom representative in Vienna, some assistant secretaries and some principals, the total number of those gentlemen being 13. Remembering that he is Minister for Science, one would certainly expect him to have some high-grade scientists at his disposal, in order to give him the necessary scientific information with which to deal with the committees, full of extremely learned gentlemen, over whom he has to preside and whom he has to appoint.

We then come down the scale a little. After that, all that he has is a principal scientific officer, a senior scientific officer and some executive officers, and those distinguished gentlemen who have appeared before in debates of this matter—the doorkeepers. There used to be five, and there are now six. No doubt that is the result of comments made upon them by one of my hon. Friends.

If one looks at this establishment from the point of view of providing an indication of what this Minister is supposed to be doing, it is quite clear that he is not expected to be unduly busy. Neither from his powers nor, as far as one can tell, from his exercise of them—and not even from the establishment he has at his disposal—does one judge him to be a Minister who is exactly overburdened with work and requires the assistance of a Parliamentary Secretary to enable him to discharge his duties.

What, then, is the purpose of the Parliamentary Secretary? We were given a broad hint, although it was not an answer, by the Financial Secretary just now. He explained to us that there was an extremely absurd tradition in relation to the answering of Questions on behalf of the Minister for Science. That is true, but it is not the first absurd tradition. We began with general Questions, other than those relating to the Departments mentioned by the Financial Secretary, being answered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works. Only a British Government, in its more scatterbrained moments, could devise a scheme like that. Then they were taken over by the Prime Minister, for a short time. Finally, they passed to the Minister of Education.

There is a great deal to be said for having the Minister of Education answer those Questions because, time and time again, a Question directed to the Minister for Science involves matters concerned with education, sometimes within the Ministry and sometimes for independent autonomous universities and other more or less autonomous bodies. In a way there is necessarily a connection, particularly with the present shortage of scientific personnel, between the Minister of Education, on the one hand, and the Minister for Science, on the other I therefore understand that arrangement.

But we are now asked to provide a Parliamentary Secretary, to be drawn out of the lucky bag by the Prime Minister at Christmas. I suppose that it will be a sort of family party. At any rate, there it is. This gentleman has to do—what? He really cannot help the Minister for Science to do nothing in particular and to do it very well. He is there only to answer Questions, and the only reason he is there to answer Questions is because the Minister for Science has been appointed, has existed and continues to exist in another place. Had he been appointed in the House of Commons, nobody could possibly make out any case whatever for a Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister.

What we are being asked to do is to pay out of public funds for a Parliamentary Secretary—or a possible Parliamentary Secretary, who has not yet been appointed—who has to do nothing whatever but answer Questions in the Commons because the Minister for Science is in the Lords and, therefore, cannot answer Questions in the Commons.

There is another aspect of this matter. It is to the credit of the Government, and even more to those engaged in the higher ranks of science in this country, that national expenditure on research and science generally has increased considerably during recent years. It is less to our credit that it is still low by comparison with most other countries, so far as one can judge. It is not easy to get comparable figures, but I believe that the matter is being investigated at present.

We have a quite considerable expenditure on these bodies. We have a rising expenditure, we have a Minister in another place, and we have continual pressure for more research work to be done and paid for. I should be the last person to stand here and in any way whatever discourage expenditure of that kind. I think that it is thoroughly good and thoroughly healthy, but financial control—if the Minister for Science has anything to do—is not in this House.

Indeed, speaking for myself and, I think, for my party in this matter, we view with deep suspicion the introduction of new and important Ministries where the Minister is in another place. Therefore, if this is, as it is, an entirely new Ministry and if it is also, as it might be, an important one, and is engaged in considerable and rising expenditure, and the expenditure and character of its activities are nothing less than vital to the progress of this country, it seems to us entirely wrong that the Minister for Scienc should continue to sit in another place. We feel that it really is stiff to be asked to provide a Parliamentary Secretary when the best that the Financial Secretary can say for it is that he will be able to answer Questions in this place in a rather less confused manner than they have been answered previously. It is an extremely thin case indeed.

The Parliamentary Secretary, and whatever subordinate officers he brings with him, is to be put into a little office, in terms of personnel, with no good word to be said for it except that he is there to answer Questions. When one looks at what has happened in the office one finds that remarkably little appears to be going on, and that the really important work is being done by the scientists themselves—bodies like the Department for Scientific and Industrial Research. Yet because the Minister is in another place he has to have a Parliamentary Secretary. This is too much.

I am in some difficulty about the matter, and I say so quite frankly to the House. My hon. Friends, in previous debates, accepting for the purpose of those debates that the Minister for Science was in another place, repeatedly asked for a Parliamentary Secretary. That was because of the muddle—the absurd muddle—that there has been in the allocation of Questions. I do not say that, as long as the Minister for Science remains in another place, we should object to having a Parliamentary Secretary, but I say that it is totally absurd that the Minister for Science should be in another place and that there should be the possibility of appointing a Parliamentary Secretary for no other revealed purpose than to answer Questions for him. That is ridiculous.

It is not in our power, by opposing the Bill, to induce the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to see sense in the matter, and to see that, when dealing with a Minister of this potential importance, he is appointed from someone in this House. If we voted successfully against the appointment of a Parliamentary Secretary, we should really serve no other purpose than to perpetuate the present muddle, at any rate for the time being. That we do not want to do.

I say to the Government that it is rather ridiculous to have a Minister for Science sitting in another place and to ask for a Parliamentary Secretary, when the most that we can say about him is that he will answer the Minister's Questions; and then to look at what the Minister is doing and to find out that he may be doing great and wonderful things, but that, really, they are remarkably obscure.

The 64,000 dollar question about the Minister for Science—I say it in a hushed voice—is this: is he really doing anything? This is something which we should all like to know. I regard him at present as the flying brain of the Government, whizzing round, delivering profound discourses on matters that may or may not be connected with science. I hasten to add, and in all sincerity, that I have a considerable liking for the Minister of Science. I think that he is a highly intelligent person. I can quite understand the Government wishing to use him, but that does not excuse a Minister for Science being in another place and a Minister for Science whose duties are so vague and so ill-defined that he does not do anything, so far as I can see.

I know that my party had a programme for scientific research at the time of the General Election. I do not need to be reminded that we lost the General Election; but had we got in—I have been looking at what has been suggested; and we studied this matter very carefully—I think that the Minister for Science, if we had appointed someone of that character—which we probably would—would have had a great deal more executive power to approach the Departments and to carry out a plan for scientific research.

I believe that the difficulty at present is this. There are many people engaged, within limits, in considering what should be done next by way of scientific research. There is really no one, not even the Minister of Science, in a position to review the whole programme and make suggestions. Certainly, he has not made any. I am not asking for a completely ordered programme, doubt whether we could have that in questions of scientific research. As one of the reports said, questions of scientific research are largely a matter not of equilibrium, but of disequilibrium, and we have to be careful that we do not try to tidy matters up too much.

I believe that, as between this puny office on the one hand, and the executive Departments on the other, the puny office ought to be larger and have considerably more power. That would make it even more imperative to have a Minister for Science here rather than in another place.

I ought to add just a word or two about the last point. The office of Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms is no doubt an important one. I would not wish to introduce a blackleg element into the usual channels, but I must say that when I look at the Parliamentary Secretary and think of the burdens which he has to carry from day to day—the physical burdens that occupy some of these benches from one moment to another—and think, by comparison, of the peaceful and comparatively short hours of his picturesquely-named colleague in another place, I certainly do not think that he is overpaid.

I really wonder whether the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms is sorely in need of an increase in pay for the comparatively little that he has to do. But one does not want to push this kind of thing too far. It is really rather difficult for anyone not in close contact with the matter to judge, and if that was all that was in the Bill I doubt whether I should have said anything at all except, as this is a Friday, to tell the House a very short story.

A constituent of mine once wrote to me about hearing aids. I replied to him that the Government had not as yet made up their mind on this matter. I was informed to that effect in the House. My constituent replied, "You do not know what you are talking about. The Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms settled this matter in another place a day or two ago, by an answer that he gave."

Although this Measure would appear to be a rather pedestrian one, may I congratulate my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary on introducing what I think will be a wise and far-seeing Bill and one winch will bring flexibility to the assistance of the Government?

As the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has just said, it provides a pool of Parliamentary Secretaries. As a step towards more flexibility it goes far, but, in my opinion, not quite far enough. I am sometimes amazed at the prodigious amount of work undertaken by Parliamentary Secretaries, in which they get no help. I am thinking in terms of my unforgettable past. In my opinion, they have always received a most inadequate salary. However, to touch upon the salary aspect would necessitate raising other matters, so I had better not explore the matter further.

If, in his absence, I may cite my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, I was absolutely amazed at the amount of work he did on the Government of India Act in the 1931–35 Parliament. He did this work without the sort of assistance which would have come from a pool of Parliamentary Secretaries such as this. I felt at the time that the reward for his labours might have taken a more material form. My right hon. Friend also did a prodigious amount of work in the 1938–41 Parliament as Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. Looking back to those days, I must say to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary that I am amazed that the Bill did not come before the House long ago.

With regard to the reference to the size of Government, it is interesting to recall that the Government appointed in 1935 by Mr. Baldwin, as he then was, contained 64 members. The present Government contains 84, so that in that interval there has been an increase in, if I may so term it, the establishment of no less than 20 members. That, of course, flows from the activities of Government, the expansion of the permanent service, the Civil Service and the far wider activities which are thrust not only upon the Civil Service but upon Members of the House.

For this reason, there is one short point which I wish to put to my hon. Friend. I have always held the view that there could be more flexibility, more interchange between the junior Ministers and the back benchers in the House. I had always hoped that some proportion of our junior posts could be made sessional appointments, that an individual Member of the House could be appointed to serve as a Parliamentary Secretary for the term of one Session.

That is prompted by the intensification on both sides of the House of the system of party committees behind the scenes, whereby, because of the need for specialisation in subjects which come before the House, many Members of the House join a Government with an extremely well-informed mind upon subjects for which they will become responsible. As an illustration of that in the immediate past I would cite the appointment of my right hon. Friend the present Colonial Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the 1931–35 Parliament. He had been the chairman of the party's social committee and he was one of those exceptional appointments inasmuch as he was appointed to a Department without having served the necessary interval as a Parliamentary Secretary. He came to the Department with an extremely well-informed mind.

I have always held the view that there could be greater flexibility as between the back benchers and the junior Ministers. I know that certain difficulties might arise in that many Members of Parliament have business and other interests outside the House, but I am certain that to facilitate such a system of interchange many of the established and large businesses would be prepared to second an individual to discharge such a task and to serve in a Government for one year.

Perhaps I might recall to the House that years ago it was the custom for a member of the Armed Forces entering the House to be seconded from the Active List only for the whole term of his first Parliament. Such a man could sit in the House for four or five years and still remain on the Active List. It seems to me quite wrong that there should be the feeling that for a man to enter a Government for a short time and then to leave it might promote discontent or, to use an expression used in a popular journal, that a Minister might leave in a fit of pique.

If this new flexibility would make it possible for every Member of the House to undertake a short period of service in a Government, even though only at junior Minister level, then I think that, by and large, the general interest of the House, both from the point of view of the Government and the point of view of back benchers, would benefit.

I wish to express my agreement with all that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) has said about the way in which both the ranks of the Government and the ranks of the back benchers of the House could be greatly improved by more flexibility, not only within the Government as actually provided in the Bill but also as between the Government and the House itself.

One point I want to underline, and on which my hon. Friend touched, is the salary levels of Parliamentary Secretaries. I know that they have recently been increased, but they are, nevertheless, quite inadequate, whether judged by the responsibility, whether judged by the earning powers of those individuals outside, or whether judged by the salaries paid to people with equivalent responsibilities within the Civil Service.

However we look at it, it is wrong, and I believe that whereas in the past taxpayers did not appreciate the position, having been educated to the changes which have taken place in the composition of Parliament during this century, they now feel that the reputation of those holding Ministerial appointments is being undermined by the low level of salary which Parliament has voted. It is not for the electors, but for us in this House, to remedy that, and I am sorry that an opportunity has not been taken in the Bill to take a step in that direction.

I apologise for not having been in my place when the debate began, but it began unexpectedly early.

I am relieved that the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) is not to move his massive phalanx of support into action against us. We appreciate the admirable welcome, or perhaps the double-edged speech, that he made in welcoming the Bill.

The Minister for Science, being in the House of Lords, has put this House at a disadvantage in getting statements of policy about science. No doubt the fact that he is in another place is a continuation of the process when he was Lord President of the Council. However, I assure the hon. and learned Member for Kettering that he has given evidence to many Members on both sides of the House of his complete mastery of his duties and of the fantastic and most impressive grasp he has of the whole wide and extremely expert field of endeavour for which he is now responsible.

I speak as chairman of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. We have a particular affection for the Minister for Science in his present job, now that he has demonstrated his ability so overwhelmingly. I know that I speak for hon. Members on both sides in welcoming the provision of a Parliamentary Secretary in this House for the Minister of Science. It is something for which hon. Members on both sides have been pressing within the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. I therefore thank the Government for having acceded to the requests which have been made by that Committee.

With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to three points, and to thank hon. Members for the way in which they have received the Bill.

I would like to answer the points raised by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). He asked what the Minister for Science does. If and when we have a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science, as provided by the Bill, the hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to pursue his inquiries in rather greater detail. If he looks at the speech I made when moving the Civil and Army Supplementary Estimates on 7th December last year he will see that I said that the responsibilities of the Minister for Science fall into three main categories.

First, there is the Atomic Energy Authority. Secondly, he is responsible for the four main executive research councils—the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research; the Medical Research Council; the Agricultural Research Council; and the Nature Conservancy. Thirdly, my noble Friend is responsible for three very important advisory bodies—the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, with its offshoot the Scientific Manpower Committee; the Overseas Research Council; and the Steering Group for Space Research.

If we have a Parliamentary Secretary, he will be here not only to answer Questions, but also to reply to debates on all these subjects. If, on the Adjournment, hon. Members wish to raise the whole question of the work of the D.S.I.R., or of the Research Councils, or of the advisory bodies, there will be a junior Minister whose job it will be to reply specifically to those matters. That will be for the convenience of the House.

I agree that the Minister of Education has direct responsibility, or direct concern, with some of these councils, but there are others which are rather remote from the Ministry of Education, and I would have thought that it would be more convenient to have a single Minister who was in a position to reply to debates on these matters.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have read his speech with care. Does he consider that if the Minister for Science were in this House a Parliamentary Secretary would still be necessary?

The hon. and learned Gentleman has anticipated the point I was about to make. He said that the Minister for Science should not be in another place. Suppose that, in the future, we have a Minister for Science who is a Member of this House. I would have thought that it was still very much a matter for consideration by the Government whether a Parliamentary Secretary might not be needed to respond on these matters in another place because, after all, there are a great many people in another place who are as well informed and as interested in these questions as we are, and I would not have thought that that consideration worked against the desirability of appointing a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Science.

I hesitate to press the hon. Gentleman, particularly as the Leader of the House is sitting next to him, but the Government must have thought about this. Would it be necessary to have a Parliamentary Secretary if the Minister for Science were in this House?

It is not a matter of whether it is strictly necessary; the Prime Minister might well consider it is in the best interest of Government to appoint one. I think that any Government, or any Prime Minister, would be glad to have flexibility in this matter and to be in a position to appoint a Parliamentary Secretary in another place if he so desired.

Two other matters were raised. The hon. and learned Gentleman raised the question of the salary of the Captain of the Gentleman-at-Arms. With respect, I thought that he rather under-rated the arduous tasks of the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms. It is not the easiest of tasks. It is very much easier to secure a majority in this place on relatively minor legislative business than it is in another place. I think that if we were to try we would find that the job of helping to manage the day-to-day business in another place, with quite a number of their Lordships taking independent views, was not as easy as the hon. and learned Gentleman suggested.

We also have to remember that Members of another place do not draw £750 a year of their Parliamentary salaries if they are members of the Government. I think that the provision whereby the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms has £3,000 a year under the Bill is perfectly reasonable.

Finally, one or two of my hon. Friends raised the question of the salary levels of Parliamentary Secretaries. It would not be proper to comment on that now, except to say that I have been Parliamentary Secretary or a junior Minister in one Department or another for more than six years, and never once have I been made to feel of less consequence, or not been treated properly by senior civil servants in another Department, because of a difference in salary. I think that that point should be made clear.

I am glad that the Lord Privy Seal, who is really our Minister for European affairs, has passed to the Ministry of Education the task of replying to this debate, and I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary, with whom my own relations are the cordial relations of two sparring partners from time to time, for undertaking to reply. Nevertheless, at the beginning of this debate I would point out that while the issue I am raising is primarily cultural I believe its implications are both European and international.

There are three or four great rivers in the world which have been the cradles of art and science and of civilisations. Perhaps the most important of these is the River Nile. It was there that the passage of time was first measured. It was there that the great Pharaohs and the even greater Moses lived and gave the world a rich legacy, the Pharaohs of art and science and Moses of law and religion. On its banks some thousands of years ago the genius of man erected buildings, carved statues and inscribed records which are an important part of the cultural heritage not only of Egypt but of all man everywhere. The beauty of the sculpture may have been equalled in later days, but it has never been surpassed.

Along the middle Nile are some of the most precious of these treasures of the architecture and sculpture of the Pharaohs. In addition, on the same spot there lived prehistoric man thousands of years before the conquering Shepherd Kings invaded Egypt. Here on the banks of the middle Nile as yet unexplored and unexcavated are ancient living grounds which contain invaluable material for the study of human prehistory. It is known that in the area of which I am speaking there are twenty-five Pharaonic temples, some as big as Gothic cathedrals, countless tombs and chapels, rich in carvings, twenty early Christian churches, over 1,200 Greek inscriptions and a vast area of unexplored architecture and fields which may be sites of profound importance to us if we can only explore them.

In the next five years, unless the world does something about it, all these treasures will be lost for ever. They include two particular ones of which I wish to speak for a moment, the Island of Philae and its temple of Isis, picturesquely named over a hundred years ago the Pearl of Egypt. I am conscious of my limitations in this debate and feel that for once the debate needs to be illustrated with colour films as I am speaking. This is an island of temples and colonnades, the, Mecca of all who worshipped Isis and love and beauty some 2,000 years ago.

Even greater and more wonderful is the temple of Rameses II at Abu Simbel carved out of a single rock over 3,000 years ago and embellished by gigantic statues at the entrance, four colossi each 67 ft. high; each, to adapt Joyce's superb description of Michelangelo's Moses:

"a stony effigy in frozen music, of the human form divine, which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor has wrought that deserves to live, deserves to live."

I ask the House to try to imagine our own Westminster Abbey or Westminster Hall carved out of a single stone, its walls lined with massive statues also carved out of the same single rock, and on the walls profoundly important historical inscriptions one telling the story of a great battle, the Battle of Kadesh, fought 3,245 years ago. Just as the exquisite hieroglyphs of the ancient scribes became for 2,000 years a mystery, so Abu Simbel lay buried in sand for nearly 2,000 years until discovered by a young Swiss explorer, named Burckhardt, in 1813. Gradually the drifting sand was swept away until it was revealed in all its glory in 1910.

Egypt is engaged in building a high dam at Aswan which will raise the water level for some 180 miles of Southern Egypt and 150 miles of Northern Sudan, and the middle Nile of which I am speaking will become a vast lake 300 miles long and up to 25 miles wide from Aswan to the Dal Cataract. And beneath that new lake will lie Abu Simbel and the Island of Philae, ruins, as a poet said of Petra, "half as old as time."

In April last year the United Arab Republic asked U.N.E.S.C.O. for international action to preserve these treasures and in October of the same year the Sudanese Government made a similar appeal. U.N.E.S.C.O. responded enthusiastically and at the end of last year launched an international campaign to save the Monuments of Nubia.

Already, in conjunction with the two Governments, U.N.E.S.C.O. has carried out preparatory measures, including photographing some of the carvings and inscriptions. A new technique, called photogrammetry, has been discovered. By this stereoscopic photograms can be taken which show accurately the contours of solid objects. From these photograms facsimiles of sculptures, and even a whole temple, can be made which are perfect in every detail. I understand that they can be accurate to within one-fiftieth of a millimetre.

It is certain that by this new scientific discovery we can preserve for all time copies of treasures which otherwise might pass from the ken of man. U.N.E.S.C.O. appointed a committee of experts to survey the whole ground to see exactly what could be done to preserve some of the treasures involved. Before I consider that, let me say that there can be no question of interfering with the Aswan Dam. Only a sentimental antiquarian, or a selfish artist like George Moore, who thought that the beauty and majesty of the pyramids compensated for all the human misery that went into their construction, would hesitate if he had to choose between the treasures of ancient Egypt and the building of the Aswan Dam, which will improve the health and happiness and raise the standard of living of ail who dwell in the Nile Valley. But that is not the choice before us. We are asking that men shall do what we know can be done to preserve this part of our cultural heritage, without interfering with the needs of modern Egypt and modern Sudan and the march of the Middle East towards a better standard of living.

I wish to show what can be done. First, the most important works of art can be saved in situ. At Abu Simbel surveys have shown that it is possible, by building an earth and rockfill dam, to keep intact the cliffs from which this massive temple has been hewn out. That dam, plus a pumping station, can preserve the temple and its colossal Guardians for ever. Philae is an island which is already submerged three-quarters of the year by the seasonal variations in the height of the Nile and by an earlier dam at Aswan. However, we are told that it would be possible to create an artificial lake with regular water heights and to have a system of dykes to link the island to the right bank of the Nile, and so to restore the treasures of Philae above water for all time.

The most important need is to raise enough money to achieve these two prime objectives. Secondly, smaller monuments and their priceless frescoes and hieroglyphic inscriptions and small temples could be carefully taken to pieces, carried away and re-erected in some safe place. A list of such artistic and archaeological treasures has been drawn up by the experts. Thirdly, there is the need to intensify the photogrammetry and photography of which I have spoken and, fourthly, to excavate a number of prehistoric sites. This must be done swiftly and intensively before the new waters cover them for ever.

The two major proposals are costly. Perhaps 4 million dollars would be sufficient for the Island of Philae and 40 million dollars for the Temple of Abu Simbel. Such sums are beyond the capacity of the United Arab Republic and the Sudanese Government, but they are not beyond the capacity of the civilised world. They perhaps represent the cost of one American submarine and one Russian submarine. U.N.E.S.C.O. is asking the world for gifts from individuals, foundations, institutions and from nations. For their part, the two Middle East Governments offer that half the products of excavation should go to the finders, except that naturally they would reserve certain pieces of supreme national importance for their own nations, and they offer the cession—one might say to humanity—of monuments which otherwise would be doomed to destruction by water.

U.N.E.S.C.O. has set up an international committee of distinguished experts in engineering, in art, in archaeology. Among them is our own Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Professor of Archaeology at London University. They are to carry out what has been called the "Tennessee Valley Authority of Archaeology", a really epic operation of rescue in the sphere of culture. It has also set up a comité d'honneur, of distinguished patrons with Gustav VI Adolph. King of Sweden, as President. Among its members are Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Serge Kaftanov, head of the Russian broadcasting system, and our own Sir Julian Huxley, who was formerly Director-General of U.N.E.S.C.O.

This appeal wants help both in cash and skilled labour. Belgium has already voted 1 million Belgian francs. Some United States universities have promised teams of archaeologists, India a group of experts, and Spain, I understand, is sending a salvage ship.

Parliament comes particularly into this because, at its meeting in September last in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe unanimously adapted a resolution calling on Europe, on the Council of Ministers and the Parliaments of Europe, to throw their weight behind the U.N.E.S.C.O. appeal. As a member of the British delegation to the Council of Europe, this debate to me is an attempt to further that resolution which we carried at Strasbourg. I speak in this debate for all hon. Members on both sides of the House, indeed for Members of both Houses in that delegation.

Incidentally, I hope that from time to time our members of the "Parliament of Europe" will be pressing here for the implementation of some of the unanimous recommendations made at Strasbourg, if desired, outside the main question of the Six and the Seven. I believe that would be good for Europe, good for international understanding, and good for the unity of the free world. This appeal which the Council of Europe supports is not particularly European. Art is indivisible. There is no German Beethoven, only Beethoven, no Russian Dostoevski, only Dostoevski, no British Shakespeare, only Shakespeare. Great art is not for an age, but for all time. It is not for this or that side of the Iron Curtain, but for all men.

I once said here in an East-West trade debate that commercial travellers are ambassadors for world peace. So too, speaking right across the ages, are the artists. I believe that the more mankind shares its common cultural heritage, the nearer we shall approach world understanding and world peace. Therefore, later I intend to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what the Government have done so far and what they propose to do in support of the U.N.E.S.C.O. campaign. I ask him to urge the Government and our representative on the Council of Ministers if they can to put teeth into the Resolution which was passed at Strasbourg by the Council of Europe.

A number of hon. Members who are unable to be here today have expressed support for the appeal I am making. The hon. and gallant Member for Poole (Captain Pilkington) asked me, if I had an opportunity, to read from the letter he wrote to me. In that letter he said:

"Future generations would utterly condemn a twentieth century so materialistic that monuments which are unequalled in the world and which have stood for thousands of years should now be sacrified for economic reasons, however admirable in themselves. I think that our Government should take a much more vigorous lead in this matter."

Much more important than the remarks of two back benchers of this House is the fact that world leaders of opinion have also spoken in support of this appeal. I shall quote one or two of them. Dr. Veronese, Director-General of U.N.E.S.C.O., said:

"So noble a cause demands no less generous response … it is fitting that from a land which throughout the centuries has been the scene of, or the stake in, so many covetous disputes, should spring a convincing proof of international solidarity."

Colonel Nasser, the head of the United Arab Republic, has said:

"Our own heritage consists of only a small part of the heritage of mankind. Our love for the heritage of mankind is based on the living link which unite generations to each other by a secret uninterrupted thread."

The parallel in the French Government to the Minister of Education, M. Andre Malraux, French Minister of Culture, said:

"This appeal is historic … because through it the first world civilisation publicly proclaims the world's art as its indivisible heritage … For the first time all nations, at the very moment when many of them are waging secret or proclaimed warfare, are called upon to save together the works of a civilisation which does not belong to them … For the first time man has discovered a universal language of art."

To me it would be a wonderful thing if one day there could stand by Abu Simbel—safely protected against a risen Nile which will have added to the wealth of Egypt—Russians and Americans, Egyptians and Britons, Indians, Frenchmen and Germans, who could say, "These two things we have achieved together. We have given more abundant life to the peasants of the Middle East and we have preserved a thing of beauty which otherwise might have been lost forever."

When Caesar watched the library of Alexandria burn, it was not Egypt, it was not even the ancient world, but it was all of us who shared in that loss. Similarly, if the U.N.E.S.C.O. campaign saves the monuments of Nubia, the gain is one for all men, both now and for centuries ahead. It is in that spirit that I urge the Government to play a leading and active part in U.N.E.S.C.O.'s appeal, to make a grant from Britain and to back to the hilt in this country all private and institutional efforts for this great cause.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) on having raised this subject today, and I congratulate him even more on having chosen a day when there is ample time to discuss it.

Like him, I welcome the presence of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education for the debate, but I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will impress upon his right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary the importance of some of the arguments which are being advanced this morning, because the Ministry of Education is the Government's agent in certain departments of policy, and U.N.E.S.C.O. is the instrument of a far bigger and more important organisation which concerns itself with the whole scope of the future of humanity; and it is as part of the work of the United Nations that we should like to refer to the work of U.N.E.S.C.O. in this respect.

My hon. Friend said that he wanted to look at this matter in the broadest light, and he will probably forgive me if I extend the range of his observations a little. It seems to me that this case, supremely important as it is on its own merits, of great urgency as it is on its own merits, yet has strangely broad and symbolic importance in many of its aspects, not least in that it seems to symbolise at this moment the age-old struggle between the hunger of some and the culture of others.

We have to bear in mind that this is perhaps another example of the recurring tragedy in history of mankind in which man has failed to ensure the continuity of his own culture and his awn experience, and knowledge which had been available has been lost because the hunger of some has driven them on occasions in the past to take violent action against a civilisation which they thought was not in their own interests.

In our own lifetime we have known of the man who said, "When I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my gun". Hunger is not the only enemy of culture, nor is fear; a sense of inferiority is often the enemy of culture. People who have been told that they are inferior and have been treated as if they were inferior, and who have been deprived of the elementary necessities of life, will not listen patiently sometimes when foreigners talk sentimentally about old ruins or old relics.

There is, however, fair evidence all over the world that this point of view is disappearing. Indeed, some of the most inspiring and encouraging things in the life of this planet at present are the spontaneous movements towards understanding the cultures of the past which are going on in many parts of the world, contrasted with the strange and terrifying crises into which we are constantly plunged. We learn this morning that many people in the North American continent are convinced that only their own Government prevents them from being invaded by Chinese barbarians in the Caribbean, and yet in that enormously complicated area, with its many problems of different origins, surely there must be some better explanation. If one nation can make to itself an image of danger from another people whom it regards as barbarians in such a short time, surely the sort of vigilance and the work which my hon. Friend has been describing acquires greater urgency and greater importance.

I remember taking a long car journey with a Chinese professor, about six years ago. He told me of his previous work as a professor in Shanghai, and I casually asked him when he had joined the Communist Party. He replied, "Late in 1949". I said, "Did you feel it to be the great surrender, turning your back on everything which you had lived for in the past?" He sat up most alertly and said, "Oh, no. Quite the opposite. It was a liberation for me. It was you in the West who had always told me that we should never make motor cars in China. It was you in the West who said that Chinese medicine was superstitious nonsense and that we should have to send more boys to the mission schools in order that they might go to the West and learn Western medicine. Now I know that I can look into my own culture and that of my own people and draw inspiration and interpretation for the present and future. Now I find that even American research workers in medicine are suddenly interested, because they have been developing a technique of the stimulation of nerve endings in treating certain diseases and they are suddenly interested in the possibility that a system employed by the Chinese doctors many hundreds of years ago, of sticking pins into people's limbs to cure them of certain internal ailments, might, after all, not be as ridiculous as has been suggested. It might be an indication that there has been knowledge in human experience which has been forgotten and which could be useful if it could be brought out again."

During the Recess I had the happy opportunity of a peaceful holiday thousands of miles away from trouble—in Samarkand. I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind if I take an example from as far away as that. It is only "as far away as that" in our image because we have always regarded Central Asia as a very inaccessible place, but the people who live there seem to think that it is quite near.

It is a pleasant place in which to spend a holiday, not only thousands of miles from the problems here but right away from the ideological disputes which are bedevilling relations between East and West and, indeed, between some sections of the West not very far from where I am standing. These problems have not suffered interference by outside influence. There is none of the wounds of ideological strife such as we have in some of the nearer territories, where there is conflict between Communism and the Western way of life at the moment.

I had a chance in Samarkand to see what had happened after forty years of fairly steady, uninterrupted endeavour. I suppose that most of the older people among us read a generation ago about the fierce struggles in that area at the time, of the campaign to get the veils removed from the women, to destroy the old influence of the reactionary priests, and so on. It was presented to us at a vast distance in a somewhat crude form, but there is no doubt that it was a very vigorous struggle. But the struggle is over, water has flowed under the bridge and the records of it are enshrined in the museums and in the memories of some who took part in it. It seems to have very little effect on life as it is today. The important point is that they seem to have solved, at the same time, the problems of hunger, literacy, ignorance and culture on equal terms.

The interesting thing is that they have been fortunate in having natural resources to develop. Perhaps they did very well during the war, as farmers did all over the world if they were producing raw materials. None the less, they laid the foundations for it by their educational programme. They now have a higher proportion of university graduates and technologists than we have.

I went to see the cultural monuments. I always like telling stories against myself. One always asks silly questions in the early stages. When I went to see the archaeologist and director of the Academy of Research, I asked him whether he had any difficulty in recruiting students to do his work. I wondered if the competition of the faculties of science and technology was too great. He laughed his head off and said that he had never heard of any such difficulty.

One very soon realised that the rediscovery of their own culture had clearly played an enormous part in raising the morale of the people of the area. It was a great joy to see them restoring the monuments, which had been neglected for so long. It was a great joy to see them digging like excited schoolboys to find traces of the city which Genghis Khan had destroyed. It was even more interesting to see their enthusiasm for digging up the remains of Tamburlaine to see if he really had been lame.

Even more important than restoring Tamburlaine, making a statue of him and reminding people that they once had great leaders, was their rediscovery of Tamburlaine's grandson, Ulug Beg, the astronomer. They had pleasure in taking visitors deep into the earth to examine the sextant which had been dug out of the earth to enable that astronomer of those days to study the stars in daylight and make the mathematical calculations which were so important. It is very nice for them to be able to say to visitors from Moscow, "You are now studying the navigation of outer space. So did Ulue Beg. What were you doing in Moscow at that time?"

This may seem a slightly childish and propagandist view to take, but it is of tremendous importance in restoring the notion of common humanity, dignity and equality. It is of tremendous importance in destroying the remnants of racial antagonisms and doctrines of superiority and inferiority which are still too much alive in the world.

It is a very encouraging experience when one sees people who have become completely released in this respect and where there is no trace of the old antagonisms. One hopes that it is a process which will be recognised as psychologically tremendously important throughout the world. After all, there was a tremendous amount of mathematical and astronomical research done in that area of the world in addition to the artistic work of which my hon. Friend spoke. That was the area in which man learned to make the calculations necessary to find his way about the calendar, as well as to find his way about the earth. That was where man learned to make his calculations about when the floods could be expected, and so on.

There is no reason why pride in these matters should not be shared by all the successors of those civilisations. One hopes that all over Africa research will continue to encourage this feeling of an original community of cultural interest which has been broken only by tragic accidents of history in the intervening centuries.

It is fortunate that we are on the Adjournment, otherwise I might find some difficulty in convincing you, Mr. Speaker, that any references to problems in my constituency came strictly within the scope of the argument my hon. Friend advanced earlier. Yet I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education will miss the point that, when there are tensions in society—when there are crises developing, whether they be inside certain of our own communities which, we hope through temporarily environmental problems, are experiencing difficulties, whether they exist in my constituency or anywhere in the world, at the level of the borough council or of the United Nations—we still have the common problem, which we must tackle, of showing people that they belong to something.

Is not the shortest way to take the chips off people's shoulders and get them into a constructive mood of co-operation to establish this common unity of humanity, this common cultural background? Is it not equally important as part of our efforts to solve our own social problem that we should bring back into the community these people who are being squeezed out, for reasons which differ from those which appeared to be the reasons a generation ago?

I have mentioned hunger. We often used to think that it was economic problems alone which caused the social problems in our country. Now we know that it is not. We know now that in addition to hunger—the problem of the daily bread and butter—there is the greater problem of making them realise that they do belong to a community and that that community is as good as the community to which they used to belong. It is possible to maintain this continuity of human culture without once more going through the tragedies which the world has seen when, through misunderstandings, great advances in human knowledge and understanding have been nullified by a conflict, a war, an invasion, a wiping out of previous experience.

We know full well that any further outbreak of that kind may well be the last and may well be the final disaster, the final failure of humanity to learn how to live together.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will recognise the urgency, on the broadest possible grounds, of giving all the support to this that is possible, not only for the reasons advocated by my hon. Friend for the preservation of the monuments in this particular area but for the contribution it can make to the efforts of mankind to save itself.

I know that the Parliamentary Secretary is anxious to give the House some good news. I will, therefore, occupy only a few minutes in supporting the plea made so eloquently by my learned and hon. Friend the. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King).

Not learned.

I think that my hon. Friend deserves the title of "learned" as much as the lawyers.

It is not often that the House has the opportunity to discuss the achievements of the human race over a period of a hundred generations or more. It is a good thing that we should do so occasionally and remind ourselves that, if we are to have a proper sense of wisdom in dealing with current events, we should bring to our judgment of current affairs something of the perspective of history.

It has been suggested that there need be no conflict between the claims of material living and the development of science and technology and those of the enjoyment of mankind's cultural heritage. In fact, there is the danger that today we may be so obssessed with the claims of material needs, and the Ministry of Education may be so pressed by the demand for developing in the fields of science and technology, that we may be inclined to neglect those other important fields of art, culture, archaeology and history, which may not appear to have immediate material values, but which, nevertheless, are a very important part of the development of the whole man and of mankind.

Without that preservation, we might very well go far wrong in dealing with the problems of the present and of the future. In fact, we cannot really have a future for mankind unless we have a sense of the past. I very much hope that we shall make our contribution towards making it possible for present and future generations to be able to live in touch with the history of mankind. Here we have not merely written records or guesses about the past but tangible history. The present generation in this country, with the modern development of transport, should be able before long to go in considerable numbers and as a matter of course to parts of the world like Egypt and the Sudan, put their hands on the carved rock and feel that they have contact with what man achieved in greatness and beauty, and also a little of the folly and grandeur of a hundred generations ago.

If all this is to be preserved, and not sunk beneath the waters, action must be taken, and taken quickly and generously. There are only four years in which to carry out this project. It needs experts, it needs excavating labour, and it needs money. While we are very glad that individual British archaeologists and Egyptologists are lending their support, we would like to feel that support is being given by this country as a whole; that the Government, as representing the nation, are making their contribution towards this great example of international cultural co-operation, and that they are prepared, as a Government, to make a financial contribution towards the very substantial resources needed to make this project successful. This is, indeed, a case where he who gives quickly gives not twice but twenty times. I hope that we shall have a favourable response from the Parliamentary Secretary.

He would be indeed a very poor Minister of Education who found it either possible or desirable to cavil at anything that has been said in this discussion so far, and I join with those who have congratulated the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) on the felicity of his choice of subject for a day on which there is ample time for the various and all-important considerations to be discussed.

If I may say so, I support entirely his approach to this subject. I can assure him and his hon. Friends that there is no disparity of approach to this subject between the Department on behalf of which I speak and the Government as a whole, including the Foreign Departments, on which there lies a collective responsibility. This is not a matter of politics, in the sense that politics are used to divide men, but rather a matter of world politics in which men ought to be and in this case happily are, broadly united.

The hon. Member has described the sequence of happenings that has brought this to our modern generation as a modern problem to be solved by the combined use of modern resources—for there is no other way. The United Arab Republic proposes to build this great high dam at Aswan in order to raise the level of the waters of the Nile, so creating in the United Arab Republic in Egypt, and beyond the border in the Sudan, this great lake, which will be about 300 miles long and, in parts, 25 miles wide. The consequence of the raising of the level of the river at this point will be that all these great monuments, representing the visible and tangible evidence of what men did 5,000 years ago, will be submerged, probably for ever, beneath the waters of the Nile.

I subscribe to the hon. Gentleman's views, supported by his hon. Friends, that no arguments could be adduced to deter the Egyptian Government from building the dam and from flooding this area, to the great material benefit, as we believe, and, consequently to the social and cultural benefit, of the people who live in that area. The dam is to be built, the area is to be flooded, and the monuments are to be submerged if they cannot, before that date, be preserved.

That being so, the United Nations and U.N.E.S.C.O. commonly have set about the task of seeing how the best can be made of these two conflicting interests. The Committee of Patrons, established in Paris under the presidency of the King of Sweden, represents, I believe, the collective voice of mankind that something should be done at the highest possible level, and should be seen to carry with it the esteem associated with the greatest names in the various lands that are represented. Below that, there is the working machinery to devise what can be done and, below that again, to get it done. There are, therefore, expert committees whose job it is to consider the issues involved, and working committees in Egypt and the Sudan.

I am happy to inform the House, not without some pride, that the British contribution to every one of these processes up to now has been not only direct, but abundant in every respect. The seconding of personnel, the recruitment of experts and the provision of advice and guidance from this country have been not less than but more than has been given by any other country, and has certainly set an example that most of the other countries interested will wish to emulate, if they are able to.

Mention has been made of the name of Professor Emery, who is our representative on the committees that are considering the processes involved and doing the actual work on the sites in Egypt and the Sudan. I imagine that, by common consent, there is no one of the stature of Professor Emery in this kind of work anywhere in the world today, and we Should take this opportunity to pay tribute both to the position that he has established for himself in this sphere and for his present work on this project. We have no cause to be other than proud of what he is doing, in our name, in this important and urgent task.

I understand that the first approach to the problem must be to decide what can be done. The hon. Member for Itchen described what is desired to be done at Abu Simbel and at the Island of Philae—the great temples of Rameses II at Abu Simbel, and the Graeco-Roman sanctuaries at Philae. In each case it is proposed to protect them from the waters by building great retaining dykes—at considerable cost in money, engineering skill and in physical labour in order to preserve them where they stand. That is very expensive and difficult work.

The figures mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, of as much as 40 million dollars for the Abu Simbel site and a sum of about one-tenth of that for the protection of the Island of Philae, will obviously require a considerable international effort to produce. I will come in a moment to the steps that are being taken to try to achieve that end.

The second category of monuments which may be preserved are those which can be cleared and removed stone by stone, piece by piece and fresco by fresco, from the site where they now stand in peril of the waters, to other sites necessarily not dissimilar from the sites where they now are but where they will be protected from the rising river.

Thirdly, there is a great effort needed to make quite sure that the other treasures not yet properly identified or uncovered in other parts of this great area shall be excavated, archaeologically examined and, where desirable and possible, removed to safety.

Fourthly, there is the process, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, of photogrammetry by which, whatever may happen to the monuments below the water, we shall always be able to have a permanent and realistic record of what they were, and, as a result, time to translate and interpret what they meant in the days when they were built and what they may possibly mean for us in our day and generation. Those four processes are the ways by which this problem is to be tackled.

The working committees in Egypt and the Sudan, working under the licence and with the co-operation of the national authorities of those two countries, are actually engaged on these tasks so far as this is possible: I understand that a project has been carried out, as far as it is possible to carry it out in today's circumstances, to examine the engineering problems of the Abu Simbel and the Island of Philae sites, and proposals have been put forward which, if finally worked out in greater detail, will result in their being preserved. Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, a very famous British company, have played a considerable part in this preparatory work.

Other work is going on to identify the suitable monuments which can be moved away, and there are a number of teams—not least prominent the British teams, those of the Egypt Exploration Society—working in Egypt and the Sudan. The British teams are working mainly in the Sudan at present, because that is the part of the task which fell to us to deal with first. Our teams are working now on the temple of Buhen, in the Sudan, the sanctuary of which was founded by Senusret I. The stone-built parts of Hatshepsut's temple are well preserved and the reliefs are considered by Professor Emery to be the finest in Nubia. The Sudan has plans to remove this memorial stone by stone to a site at Khartoum if it should prove possible to do so. I understand that there are reservations about whether the stone will be in a condition to enable the temple as a whole to be removed and rebuilt elsewhere.

From Buhen, the British teams will go to Meinarti, the island at the head of the Second Cataract, which has never yet been archaeologically explored. It is believed that here there may be found useful traces of the "X-Group" period which would provide information about one of the least-known periods in the history of this area. Britain's archaeological teams, limited only by the availability of skilled archaeologists and Egyptologists, are doing their utmost at present in those fields where the work is actually being carried on.

The House is right to ask what is the financial contribution which Britain is making. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury informed the House in July that the Government were increasing the grant to the Egypt Exploration Society so that it would have available to spend over the next two years a sum of £20,000, which is a considerable increase on anything the Society has had up to now and is, I understand, enough to enable it to occupy as fully as possible all the skilled Egyptologists that it can employ. That compares—I do not say this in any national sense, for it would be foolish to do so—with the Belgian contribution to which the hon. Gentleman referred of 1 million Belgian francs which, I understand, represents about £7,300 in sterling; so that we are fairly well in step with those of our fellows from other countries who are trying to get the job done.

I should like the House to be assured that we enter this project neither as Egyptophiles nor as Phillistines. The considerations which the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) so eloquently expressed, and which aroused a sympathetic response from both sides of the House, are very much in our minds. We believe, as he does, that we cannot face the problems of today except with the knowledge of how mankind in previous times has faced his problems, and draw perhaps for our benefit the lessons which his experiences produced for him.

There will be other advantages to us as a result of our co-operation in this matter. I understand that we will get a share of the products of the digging and research that will be made on the various sites in the area. We will have our share, and, indeed, all mankind will have its share, of the knowledge of what has gone before. I understand that the Government of the United Arab Republic and the Government of the Sudan have agreed that those who dig now will have consideration for the grant of licences in the future once this exercise is accomplished which will be of great advantage to us.

I very much hope that the work to which the United Nations and the committees of U.N.E.S.C.O. have set their hand will find a ready response among those who will be called upon to give, as individuals or institutions in this country, so that when the time comes for us to see what remains to be done, the Governments of all the countries in the world will know how far they may help still further.

In that sense, I hope that the House will agree that we are doing what we can in the cause to which reference has been made and we have an open mind as to what may follow before the task is ended.