6.12 p.m.

Mr. Peter Thorneycroft (Monmouth)

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Address, at the end, to add: But humbly regret that the only contribution in the Gracious Speech to the solution of the grave financial and economic problems which confront the nation is to make permanent the wartime powers of control by regulation already enjoyed by the Government, and to extend still further the State ownership of industry, instead of using their powers to halt the process of depriving the road hauliers of their livelihood and their customers of their services and to defer the vesting date of the nationalisation of iron and steel at this critical time. We have reached the concluding stages of our Debate upon the Government's programme for the forthcoming Session. We felt that it might be for the convenience of the House if we set down an Amendment in wide terms in which we could outline what we, at any rate, conceive to be the Government's main sins of commission and omission in the Gracious Speech. Speaking from this unaccustomed position at the Despatch Box, I am most anxious to start, at any rate, on the most uncontroversial note. I am very far from criticising all the proposals in the Gracious Speech. If I were a salmon or a sea trout I should be well satisfied with the efforts His Majesty's Ministers propose to make on my behalf. Should anyone seek to pollute my river or to poach me on a dark night, I am well satisfied that all the legislative and administrative machinery envisaged by right hon. Gentlemen opposite would be put into effect on my behalf.

We feel that, in the few hours that remain to us, we should be considering, perhaps, some of the graver issues that are raised, and I think that, whatever else we may differ about on the two sides of the House, there is one matter referred to in this Amendment on which we should all be agreed, and that that is the gravity of the present situation—the gravity of the economic problem which confronts us, the difficulty of financing rearmament in an economy already stretched a long way. the gravity of the foreign problem, as to how we can rally the Western Powers to meet the threat which is deployed against them, and, not least, the moral problem of how we in the West can provide an alternative to that Communism which is already the effective master of very nearly the whole of Asia. I would say this, that if we failed in that last, I think we should fail in all else, too. We should be condemned to fight an endless rearguard action against the doctrines of Karl Marx, and Western civilisation and Western culture would have abandoned the possibility of giving to the world the leadership and government that it demands.

It is against that background, we believe, that the terms of the Gracious Speech should be examined, and I feel bound to say that, judged against that background, the proposals are miserably inadequate. No one could find in the terms of the Gracious Speech a very inspiring answer to the challenge of our times. Apart from a few reforms of a minor character, the main proposals are to perpetuate certain controls which the Government already possess and to extend their universal panacea of nationalisation to sugar beet refining. I believe that there are hon. Members on the benches opposite who also are disappointed with the terms of the King's Speech. They find it a somewhat timid venture into the realms of Socialism. At least, I believe I express their views when I say that. It may be that they are, in part, satisfied with the intention of the Government to go ahead with the great programme of steel nationalisation, and also to go ahead in hounding the remaining free hauliers out of business.

A lot can be said, and no doubt will be said, about the details of the individual proposals. I intend to say something about the details of them myself. But I think that their real importance—and certainly the reason why we have brought them together in this Amendment—is not so much their individual or intrinsic merits, as that they are signposts which indicate the road which the Government are inviting us to travel. I thought that it would be convenient if at the outset of my remarks I said, very shortly, and as concisely as I could, what I think are the alternatives in front of us at this moment, and that then I could use these various illustrations—the road haulage situation, the question of controls, the matter of steel nationalisation—to illustrate my argument.

It seems to me that there are two courses open to us. I wish to state them as objectively as I can. There is, first of all, what I may call the traditional policy of this country, which hon. Members may disagree with but in which they would acknowledge that honourable men hold a belief. We hold it on these benches. We believe that the main basis of our society should be the capitalist and. broadly the competitive system: We think that private property is a respectable institution. We think that the profit motive is a useful and desirable incentive. We think that competition has an important part to play in keeping down prices. We think that monopoly, whether it is State monopoly or private monopoly, should be checked by appropriate institutions.

We think that the maximum amount of control should be exercised through the Budget and the minimum amount of control by administrative measures at the periphery. We believe that all controls and priorities ought to be under the constant supervision of the House of Commons; we should have regular opportunities of examining them and checking them, and if necessary of amending them. We believe that the proceeds of production should be widely shared, not only to support the State-run social ser- vices, but also to encourage thrift over and above that.

A few weeks ago some of my hon. Friends published a book called "One Nation." That book dealt, if I may say so with respect, very fully and, I think many hon. Members would agree, in a most interesting manner with many of these matters which I am discussing. In that book they used a quotation which I should like to read because it is particularly appropriate to this theme. It was a quotation from Lord Randolph Churchill, who said: Public and private thrift must animate the whole"— that is the whole of the body politic— for it is from public thrift that the funds for these largesses can be drawn, and it is by private thrift alone that their results can be utilised and appreciated. That was the epitome of Tory democracy at that time, and it remains the epitome of Tory democracy today. I apologise for giving that quotation, but I think it is as well to get the background of this thing clearly in mind.

I would be the first to acknowledge that there are other views than that. There are honourable men who sincerely hold a different view of our society. Many of them are on the benches opposite. There are men who sincerely believe that the capitalist system degrades humanity: who genuinely believe that the private sector of the economy is not something to be praised and encouraged, but something to be tolerated only temporarily as a rather bitter and odious necessity: who feel that as soon as may be the privately-run industries, or most of them, should be replaced by public boards and run by public servants of distinction, varying in their composition to suit the needs of the particular industry; who think that public thrift is very often a bit of nonsense put up by the Tory Party as an excuse for cutting the social services, and that private thrift is in any event not now so much of a necessity in the Welfare State, in which everybody is looked after from the cradle to the grave.

In any event, those men who hold that view—and I say they are honourable men, and it is a view which is and can be held sincerely—wish to see the existing economic system altered as soon as may be, and the whole replaced by a Socialist economic system.

It is possible to hold either of those views, but I think it is important for political parties to make up their minds which of the two views they hold. Again, I say I believe that the majority of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite are prepared to say where they stand in this matter. I believe—I hope I am right—that they believe in their Socialist economy; they want a Socialist economy in this country; I believe that they have not lost faith in nationalisation; I believe that they certainly would, if they were asked, say that they wanted to go on with the nationalisation of, say, cement. insurance, sugar, steel——

Captain Hewitson (Hull. Central)

Chemicals.

Mr. Thorneycroft

I am much obliged —and of chemicals. I think that if I were to put the question to hon. Members opposite, none would rise and say that they wished to call a halt to that particular process.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, when he replies to the Debate, will give us his views about that. I should like him to say quite plainly—because after all, these matters will be challenged and fought out under our ordinary democratic system—where he stands in that matter. If, as I believe, he wishes to go forward in the way that I have described—which appears to have met with certainly general approval on the benches opposite—he will be in good company. Perhaps not good company, but at least he will have some doughty companions on the road, because of course Mr. Harry Pollitt would wish to go along that road as well. It would be at any rate interesting if the right hon. Gentleman would in reply indicate to us at what point he and Mr. Harry Pollitt would in fact part company. I have not the slightest doubt that he might, and I hope will, address a most interesting argument to the House about how he differs in the methods whereby the Socialist economy is to be attained.

But is there any, and if so what, difference in the end at which he is driving? If so, I should be very interested to hear it. Certainly it was not the view of the Minister of Health when he said at the Margate Conference that his case was "Let us do our own Socialist job ourselves." He regarded the Communist Party, not as an organisation that was aiming at a different end, but as a rival in the process, and I wonder whether the Minister of Town and Country Planning will take the same view. At any rate, I hope he will tell us what he thinks about it when he replies.

If one wanted to know the general direction in which the party opposite was moving, I think one could not do better than study what they themselves were saying at their party conference. I believe it to be true that what parties say at their conferences the leaders of the party say, perhaps not then, but maybe next year or the year after. I think that will carry general approval. In the course of our Debate a great deal of criticism has been made about the way in which the Tory Party was supposed to have been stampeded into a resolution on 300,000 houses. The resolution on 300,000 houses at the Conservative Party Conference was chicken feed to the sort of resolutions which came out of the Margate Conference.

Let us take Willesden, East. Willesden, East, called for "a bold programme of nationalisation and socialisation." Is that what the right hon. Gentleman thinks we ought to have? I hope he will say. Then there was Salford, which wanted the introduction of "real Socialist planning"— none of this airy-fairy stuff in which the right hon. Gentleman indulges—by bringing the land, iron and steel, engineering, building, cotton, the banks and the other basic industries under State ownership.

Mr. Daines (East Ham, North)

The hon. Gentleman referred to the relationship of the party to its leader. Will he take it from me, as one who was present at Margate for most of the week, that the leader of our party stayed on the platform and listened to the debate? Will he also take it from me that the leader of our party did not find time to go to Newmarket to observe the racing.

Mr. Thorneycroft

I am interested to know that the Prime Minister was not at Newmarket. Indeed, I understand he has not got a horse. If, however, he listened to the debate it will be interesting, when the Minister rises to reply, to see what happened from that debate, because no doubt he will have been instructed to tell us how far it is proposed to carry this policy.

Let me proceed with these resolutions. Bristol, West, said that the party must either move forward or decline. It called upon the National Executive Committee to formulate a Socialist policy with which to fight and win the next election, and not to woo any particular section by pursuing the middle-of-the-road policy. I would be the first to concede that the party did not get all that it asked for. It cannot say that it is going to nationalise cotton, engineering, and the banks, but I suppose that hon. Gentlemen go about their constituencies saying: "We may not look like very good revolutionaries, but, by heavens, we have got your sugar beet refineries by the throat."

I would, however, like to say a particular word to the constituency party of Bristol, West. I do not think that they need worry themselves too much about the danger of the Socialist Party pursuing for any length of time a middle-of-the-road policy. I know that there have been individual members of the Government Front Bench who have talked about a mixed economy. The Lord President of the Council has often done it—how there was a sector for private enterprise and another sector for public enterprise.

I do not think that hon. Gentlemen opposite need worry themselves that they are going to have that mixed economy for very long. After all, what did the Minister of Health say? I know that the right hon. Gentleman sometimes says rather irresponsible things. I think that the right hon. Gentleman may agree with me about that. Here I am not accusing him of irresponsibility. He was winding-up on the official policy resolution of his party, with the full approval of the National Executive and of the Government. He said: We are on the way to Socialism, but we have not arrived. Eighty per cent. of the national economy is still in private hands and the whole public sector is poisoned by the miasma of private enterprise surrounding it everywhere. Hon. Gentlemen opposite need not worry about the mixed economy. They heard his speech, and they elected him by a record majority at the top of the poll. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with that view of the mixed system in this country? It was a speech well worth study, because the right hon. Gentleman described the Labour movement as the accoucheur of the new society. Anyone who, like myself, has studied the right hon. Gentleman's views about painless birth would hesitate to employ him in any such intimate relationship.

I would not like the House to think that I am taking special or partial quotations from His Majesty's Ministers. There was The Secretary of State for the Colonies, who said that Socialists knew that the only effective way of controlling surpluses was by public ownership. Of course, they are controlling surpluses in the transport industry already by public ownership. There was no surplus left to worry them. They have satisfactorily got rid of that one.

Mr. Poole (Birmingham, Perry Barr) rose——

Mr. Thorneycroft

The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity of interrupting me when I come to talk about the road haulier, if he can contain himself that long. The official view expressed by the platform undoubtedly was the view which hon. Gentlemen have already expressed this evening, namely, that the party should move as fast as may be and as fast as electoral possibilities will allow towards the Left.

I now want to illustrate the general point which I have been making from matters which are specifically referred to in this Amendment. Let me say at once that I do appreciate the difficulty in which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have found themselves in the matter of this control policy. After all, the right hon. Gentleman has to build an election platform on something. He is no doubt considering the possibility of sending the Chancellor of the Exchequer round the country to explain that the rising cost of living is a popular illusion not supported by a scientific study of the facts. I imagine, however, that he has rejected that course.

Equally, it would be possible to send the Minister of Health round the country to explain why people cannot have more than 200,000 houses. But then, heaven knows what else he might say. I do appreciate their difficulties. I feel—and I say this frankly and fairly—that the policy pursued by the Socialist Party at the last election of gagging the right hon. Gentleman, or, at least, of keeping him in South Wales, was, on the whole, a wise one.

The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have. I think, thought of something that is most ingenious. I compliment them on the handling of this control issue. They wish to paint to the country the following picture: They say that the choice that lies before the country is a wisely governed, carefully planned central organisation or Government, done under the aegis of great and wise statesmen—looking something like the right hon. Gentleman no doubt—or economic anarchy under the Tories. This particular theme does suggest obvious advantages. One is that they do not have to talk about Socialism at all. Socialism, on balance, has proved to be a rather unpopular issue in the country. It has another advantage —it is a theme which can be easily understood by the right hon. Gentleman's back benchers.

A member of the party to which I have the honour to belong has only to rise in his place and to suggest any possible action by the Government, and it will be met by the shrill girlish screams of the assembled ranks of economists below the Gangway, crying, "That means control, and you cannot do that." I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the way in which he has put this over. I will not insult him by suggesting that he really believes the story. It is perfectly plain to me that while we are, no doubt, confronted with many great difficulties in the months and years which lie ahead—with the problem of the rearmament campaign and all the rest—the danger of having too few controls would not rank very high. I should like to make this assurance to hon. Members opposite: If, at any moment, the Conservative Party found it necessary to get more power or to exercise more control by specific controls for the implementation of some facet of its policy, it would not hesitate to come to the House of Commons and ask for that power.

May I also say this: I think that we ought to be clear about the general principles which should govern us in this matter. We believe that in great matters it is right that laws should be made by the Legislature and not by the Executive. If I am asked what I mean by great matters, I mean things like the direction of labour. We should find it intolerable if the Government were to ask for permanent powers to direct labour in peacetime. That is a thing which we think should not be tolerated, and in that I think we are supported by the overwhelming majority of the British people. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, to give the House an assurance on that. [An HON. MEMBER: "It has been given in another place."] I am not concerned with what happens in another place. I ask that we shall have the assurance. I know that the Lord Chancellor has expressed the view of something he thought should be done, but I want an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman on what he knows will be done, and in the clearest and most specific terms.

The other point about controls is this. We believe that the House of Commons should have a regular opportunity of checking the controls and the powers which are granted, and of curtailing them if necessary, and of demanding from Ministers an account of how these powers are exercised and why they want them continued. We should certainly like to have the right hon. Gentleman's views upon that matter. We believe that the right place to take a dispute, as between the subject and the Crown, is the courts of justice, not some tribunal which, in the words of the Attorney-General, is an excuse for "blowing off steam." If I may summarise my remarks, we say that lawmaking is a matter for the Legislature, and that the judicial processes are a matter for the King's courts. That is the constitutional principle for which we stand.

We feel that this desire for centralised controls is part and parcel of the same process that is going on with nationalisation. We believe it is a desire to build up a Socialist economy. There is nationalisation of the sugar beet refineries, but I do not think I need say a great deal about that. The "Economist" summed it up rather well, when it said that it is a ridiculous gesture in support of a bad principle. There is the continued intention to nationalise the steel industry. That is a Marxist solution, and all the reasons which are advanced are Marxist reasons, namely, to attain economic power. Why should we go on doing the things which please the Russians? If anyone were to ask the Kremlin what policy they would like us to pursue with steel, I have not the slightest doubt they would say that we should put it under a public corporation, one member of which has been a Communist agent in this country for 10 years, and no member of which has had any experience at all in making steel.

I want to quote, as an illustration of my argument, what has happened in the case of the road hauliers. It is possible to see here, not as a matter of theory but of practice, what Socialism really means. It will be within the recollection of the House that under the Transport Act an artificial limit of 25 miles was placed upon the field of operations of transport hauliers, and that beyond that they were not allowed to operate without the permission of the British Transport Commission. Notice has just been served on no less than 5,300 of these hauliers that these permits are to be revoked. Virtually, their business will be halved, and probably the majority of them will be driven out of business. They will have to choose between competing either within the narrow confines of the 25-mile radius, or applying to be acquired by the British Transport Commission.

I want the House to notice the way this is being done. First of all, there is the picture given by the Government of what is happening—the British Transport Commission, a large responsible organisation with a great public servant at its head, with its judicial decisions taken after weighing the needs of the public, on the one hand, and the question of justice, on the other. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is not what is happening at all. What is happening is that the British Transport Commission has abdicated its responsibilities in this matter, handing them over to the Road Haulage Executive.

I have here a circular which has been sent down to the local group managers. They are invited to draw up a list of the permits which are to be granted and those which are to be revoked. These are men who are in direct competition with the hauliers concerned, and that is where the responsibility lies at the present time. Instructions are also given in this circular, in the clearest possible terms, that the majority of the permits are to be revoked. The only circumstances in which one is to be granted is that, for one reason or another, the traffic is so unremunerative that it could not be carried by the British Transport Commission at a profit. I say that this is a complete abdication of the responsibilities of the British Transport Commission.

Moreover, the matter does not even end there, because, with the removal of all competition from independent hauliers, there is no limit at all upon the amount to which the road rates of this nationalised monopoly can be raised against the consumer. If there is any limit, I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to tell me what it is. I am willing to give way for him to give the answer. The only answer may be the transport tribunal, but it has no jurisdiction. At this moment, they can raise their road rates to any height they like. The Lord President of the Council tried to say the other day that there was the consumer councils, but even if they were any good, they have not yet been set up.

By the Transport Act, the British Transport Commission has got into its hands an unfettered monopoly. There is no machinery whatsoever for protecting the consuming public against the exercise of these monopolistic powers. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to name anyone that can help them in this matter. One can argue these things upon their intrinsic merits. I find it difficult to speak of these road hauliers without a feeling of anger at the way they have been treated, but I have had other opportunities of speaking about transport.

Tonight, I say that what is happening in transport is a practical illustration of Socialism. This is what it really means, and people in other industries will do well to look at what is happening in the field of transport. The issue which divides us is not a mean one; it is whether we wish to go forward with the Socialist conception of society, or whether, on our part, we should hold to what we regard as the more traditional methods. We think that when a great nation begins to accept the ideas and institutions of its enemies, it begins to totter to decay. We say, stop borrowing your ideas from the East and your political philosophy from a German political economist. We have a great Imperial tradition. We have taught half the world the meaning of democratic government. That is not a tradition we should lightly squander and cast away. We, for our part, intend to remain true to it.

Mr. Leather (Somerset, North)

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. A. J. Irvine (Liverpool, Edge Hill)

The House would wish me, and I gladly do so, to congratulate the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft) upon the speech that he has just delivered from the Despatch Box opposite. I thoroughly enjoyed it; it was an interesting utterance. At the outset the hon. Gentleman stated some of the general points of difference which exist between the opinions held on the Government side of the House and the opinions held by the Opposition. He set them out quite accurately and effectively. He said, for example, that there were hon. Members on this side who regarded a capitalist society as a degrading form of society, and that upon that question there was a vital distinction between the opinions held on this side and the opinions held on the other side of the House. What do we say about that? We say that upon the evidence and the facts of history, capitalist society, when permitted to develop under its own steam and by its own methods, did prove itself to be a degrading society, which is the reason why we are here on this side of the House, and in such large numbers.

The hon. Member also referred to the fact that the Opposition were against any form of monopoly. He appeared to preach a kind of distributism. But, again, the capitalist economy of this country developed steadily in the direction of monopoly under the control and dispensation of hon. Members opposite. While that development was going on, and as the capitalist economy became more and more monopolistic and tyrannical in its effect, no kind of protest was made by the party opposite. On the contrary, they saw the process as a digging in of their power. They saw in it the creation and development of their opportunity. What do we say on this side of the House? We say that if monopoly there is to be—and present technical processes in large part demand monopoly—let it be a public monopoly, controlled by the people of the country exercising their sovereign powers in Parliament. After all, in the case of the nationalised industries the Minister responsible is answerable to Parliament.

Again, the hon. Gentleman—and I repeat, his was a speech which I greatly enjoyed—referred to resolutions which came before the Labour Party Conference in Margate. In doing so, he put his finger upon an excellent feature in our party organisation, which distinguishes us from the Conservative Party. It may possibly be that some of the resolutions put up at the Labour Party Conference are somewhat inexpert in their expression. But they are the authentic, democratic views of the members of a democratic party, and they develop the policy for all of us. In the last resort, our policy is formulated and developed out of the resolutions which come from local parties representing local opinion. That is not the case with hon. Gentlemen opposite. Their policy is imposed from above by their Leader, and it is a policy on which Lord Woolton has to spend a few uncertain moments in determining whether to accept it or not. In deciding to accept it, he has landed the Conservative Party in a situation which, as it develops, may confront them with great difficulties.

The Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Monmouth shows the fundamental distinction which will exist between the Labour and Conservative Parties in the coming months and years. We believe in the necessity for substantial controls. As quickly as possible they want to get rid of controls. On this subject of controls, I venture to put the point that any effectual development of a housing policy demands and requires controls and even an extension of controls. What I object to in the outlook of the Conservative Party is that one day they are presenting insubstantial arguments to defend the target of 300,000 houses, and the next day are arguing against those very controls which are necessary to ensure that that number of houses, or anything like it, are built for the people who need them. We say that extensive and effective controls—the subject of the Amendment—are an absolutely fundamental necessity to any effective housing policy.

We are not accepting 200,000 houses per year as a final target. There is all the difference in the world between a realistic statement of what we hope to achieve with the economic resources available under the circumstances of the time, and an attempt to get a greater number of houses built. We can only do it by methods of control which hon. Members opposite, in the Amendment, are decrying. For my part, if I may develop this theme in a very few sentences, I want to see the creation of special areas for housing, in which special emergency measures will be taken. I want to see the boundaries of these special areas established and their limits determined by reference to the ratio of the number of applications for houses in the locality and the number of houses being built. Where the number of houses being built is below a certain proportion of the applications on the housing list I want special areas to be created where special measures can be taken.

Mr. Jennings (Sheffield, Hallam)

Would the hon. Member say what percentage he has in mind in relation to the number being built and the number of applications on the waiting list?

Mr. Irvine

I can understand the hon. Gentleman's desire for a percentage, and my candid answer is that I have not got the material available with which to give him a definite answer. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has all the facts, but I cannot give the hon. Member a particular proportion. I could if I had all the information the Minister has.

It may be said that the method I have suggested, of determining the boundaries of these special housing areas, is unsatisfactory. Objections can be raised to it, but it is easier to raise objections than to build houses. I know of no better method. It can be said that the list of housing applicants is not necessarily a sound test of local housing needs, but I know of no better test. It can be said, if a special area is defined in the way I suggest, that the people situated just outside the area will be unfairly treated in comparison with those situated just within it. No doubt these are real difficulties, but I would still have these special areas created.

When I turn to consider the policy which I would apply to these areas I find that under every head I require directional control. The first thing I would do would be to place a veto for two or three years upon commercial, non-industrial building in these areas—a total veto. I say "nonindustrial" because I believe that a job is just as important for a man as a house, and I am not willing to cut down factory building or anything that will affect the maintenance of full employment. The building of shops, stores, dance halls, cinemas or amusement palaces in those areas should be vetoed altogether. That would involve a complete control. The National Production Authority of the United States has placed such a ban upon pleasure palaces and places of amusement and what they describe as "dude ranches." There is the great, private enterprise economy of the United States placing a ban upon that form of construction, because shortages of materials exist. I should have thought that that would have recommended itself to hon. Members opposite.

I would also like to see the local authorities in those special areas given power to control the letting of houses that fall vacant. That would involve directional control. I will be told by hon. Members opposite that that is an unwarrantable interference with liberty and with the rights of property. That is what the neo-Liberals of the Tory Party say.

But I reply that, like other hon. Members, I have constituents who fought in Burma, Africa, France and Germany, and who are still without a house. With their children, they are sleeping five or six in a single bedroom. They are lucky if they have two beds in the room. There may be a tuberculosis sufferer among them. Many hon. Members have that kind of thing in their constituencies, but I have it perhaps particularly badly in my division. I cannot too strongly emphasise the extent of the hardship which is being imposed upon those families as the result of existing housing conditions. Compared with that suffering, the interference with property rights involved in a local authority's taking control of the letting of houses falling vacant is a very small matter.

My point is that the policy which I seek to develop requires controls, and is, therefore, hostile to the spirit and intention of the Amendment. In those special areas—here, quite frankly, I differ from many of my hon. Friends—I would accept a carefully controlled modification of housing standards. The Minister of Health is dead against that and so are a great number of my hon. Friends. It is a matter upon which different views can be held. It is a fact that my divisional Labour Party unanimously support me in this controversial view I am expressing about standards of housing. If the consequences of modifying those standards were to increase the availability of houses, I would be prepared to accept some carefully controlled reduction of standards in these special areas.

In passing, let me say that this question of housing standards really poses a false dilemma. I should have thought that the army of architects, designers and experts which the Minister of Health has at his hand could easily develop a house capable of accommodating two families for a period while this extreme shortage exists, which could be reconditioned later, at small expense, to house one family in happier times. I would have an extension of the exercise of the powers of requisitioning of unoccupied houses. Here again, the proposal, which I regard as of great importance, is contrary to the spirit and intention of the Tory Amendment, but I think it is demanded by the crying need of these families. If I am told that requisitioning is an invasion of property rights and individual rights, once again I say that that inconvenience is as nothing compared with the sufferings of the overcrowded families.

Finally, I believe it would be possible in the special areas to develop model incentive schemes for building workers. The schemes might not be immediately acceptable to the country as a whole, but in those areas they could be experimented with and developed. In that way, I would seek to develop an expanding building programme. On this Amendment, my point is that every feature demands and requires some measure of directional control. It is upon that issue that this House and the country have to make up their minds. Yesterday, many of us heard the inspiring speech of the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George). She made a speech in the true Radical tradition, which made it abundantly plain that in the Liberal Party there are still some—I am afraid they are in a minority—true Radicals left. I had great hopes of the Chief Liberal Whip, who is an old friend of mine, but he went into the opposite Lobby. He shuffled down that Lobby with the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers), in a lurid procession of reactionaries.

Hon. Members opposite are always trying to woo the Liberal Party on this issue. I see opposite me the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter). He has often spoken upon the matter of the direction of labour. Never was there such a diehard wolf in a Liberal sheepskin as he. Although I am inclined to agree with him upon the particular issue of the direction of labour——

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

Why did the hon. Member vote for it?

Mr. Irvine

I would not exclude the possibility of circumstances arising when it might be advisable to keep that power in reserve. There is certain to be an extension of defence establishments, military, naval and air force, in the country as the result of our programme of rearmament. That might involve the diversion away from Merseyside—to take that as an example—of valuable building labour and material. I am only going the length of saying that the labour position in such an event would deserve careful and conscientious study. I am not going to permit anything to occur which will have the effect of cutting down the already inadequate steps being taken to house the overcrowded families in Liverpool and in my constituency.

The issue which I have attempted to describe is a clear one and I am glad that in the King's Speech the Government have made it abundantly clear where they stand upon this momentous question of our times.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson (Truro)

I hope that the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) will forgive me if I do not follow the many interesting arguments which he has put before the House about housing, Socialism, and Conservatism. I wish to confine my remarks to the case of the 5,300 road hauliers whose original permits are being revoked in four to six months' time and whose operations will thereby be limited to a 25 miles radius, as provided in Section 52 of the Transport Act, 1947, and to which my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft) alluded.

I hope that this honourable House consists of men and women who are practical people and who deal with practical matters in a practical way but it is no bad thing if, now and then, they cast their minds back to the more theoretical arguments of politics and consider for a while the sort of arguments which used to be discussed thousands of years ago by Aristotle or Plato, and some of which still hold good. In considering the very practical problem of the 5,300 original permit holders whose permits are being revoked, I would ask hon. Members for a moment to remember the old argument about the difference between deductive and inductive thinking and the dangers of deductive thinking.

Deductive thought may be described as the fixing of one's general principle first and deducing from it how to act in a given circumstance; such as saying that all men are equal, that one man is, therefore, as good as another and that if I have the toothache I might just as well go to the blacksmith as to the dentist. On the other hand, inductive thought is quite the reverse. It means starting from one's experience and building up one's principle from it; to take the example which I took, saying that a dentist has more practical experience than a blacksmith in dealing with teeth, and, therefore, that all men are not equal on all occasions.

It seems to me that ever since the Transport Act, 1947, many hon. Members opposite, and the British Transport Commission in particular, have been guilty of deductive thinking of the very worst kind in connection with the Act, because they have picked on one word in Section 3 of the Act and elevated it into a principle by which they seem to be deducing all their actions. The word is "integrated" and occurs in the phrase: … properly integrated system of public inland transport.… That word seems to have been made into a principle, or even a magical formula, by which any absurity can be perpetrated.

In the name of the blessed word "integration" all sorts of most extraordinary things have been done in the transport world. West countrymen have been promoted and sent to the Scottish Region quite regardless of what is to become of their families under the wonderfully improved housing system about which the Minister of Health is so proud, and quite regardless of the fact that such men, when taken to Scotland, are just as much in a foreign country as if they had been taken to Timbuctoo. To give another example, in adopting standards of signalling on railways an average appears to have been taken rather than the adoption of the best practices. Certainly, as far as the Western Region is concerned, practices have been introduced in connection with permanent way checks which many experienced drivers regard not as the safest but as a derogation of safety practices.

The same sort of thing seems to me to happen in the name of integration to the transport drivers on the road. Section 53 of the Transport Act appears to be interpreted as meaning that there is a duty upon the Transport Commission, through their deputies, the Road Haulage Executive, to carry out a wholesale slaughter of original permit holders. If hon. Members would look at the wording of the Act they will find that that is a broad interpretation of what is there written but that it cannot really be interpreted in that way. It seems to be thought that this slaughter should be carried out at the earliest possible moment regardless of whatever may be the consequences on the hauliers or their customers.

There are about 12,000 original permits, and of that large number only 3,800 are to remain, 2,700 are to be modified and 5,300 are to be revoked. Can it possibly be said that the Road Haulage Executive can provide an alternative public service cheaper and more convenient than that provided by the 5,300 road hauliers whose businesses are being written off at the stroke of a pen? If it can, why is it that these businesses are still in existence, because they have been in competition with the Road Haulage Executive for some time?

Although one could understand a number of businesses which were uneconomic and were running at a loss carrying on for sentimental reasons one cannot imagine such a large figure as 5,300 businesses being carried on, especially when one hears that they involve something like 25,000 vehicles. Is this an attempt to provide the people of this country with a better service, or is it merely an attempt to make a bigger and better monopoly? It is true that the displaced persons, if we may so describe them, have certain rights under the Act. They can require notice of acquisition to be given by the Commission under Section 54, but only if they can prove substantial interference. The Section reads: Substantial interference with the carrying on by the applicant for or holder of the permit of some activity which was, before the twenty-eighth day of November, nineteen hundred and forty-six, being carried on by him or by his predecessors in, or in any part of, his undertaking, and has, up to the time of the refusal, the imposition of limitations or conditions or the revocation, as the case may be, continued to be so carried on, with only such intermissions, if any, as are incidental to the nature of the activity. That is a long and complicated sentence and it is obvious that it is a long and complicated provision to prove. I can imagine the field day which lawyers in the courts or at tribunals will have in trying to decide what is a "substantial interference" in any particular case. True, if acquisition is obtained by the Commission, then compensation is payable to the road haulier. But surely, after our experience of this Act, we have realised by this time that its compensation clauses are somewhat cumbersome. To return to the simile of the dentist, the compensation provisions of this Act seem to me as if we are asking the blacksmith to make a dental extraction with his tongs: they seem only too likely to be cumbersome, painful, slow and ineffective.

A large number of road haulage businesses have already been nationalised. From time to time we on this side of the House have asked how many of those have been paid for and the transfer completed. I am not talking about those who did it by negotiation, but about those who resisted and were forcibly nationalised. I do not know the most up-to-date figure, but the last time that question was asked there was a substantial number of cases still not settled. I know of one case in my division of a man whose business was nationalised compulsorily in April, 1949, and he has not had his final payment yet. That is the way in which, and the pace at which, these compensation provisions work.

It may not be the fault of the Commission in all cases. No doubt some of these men who have been nationalised are rather difficult customers. I do not suppose they are pleased about it. Nevertheless, the compensation provisions are extremely complicated and it is not sufficient merely to say, "They will get compensation."

Mr. Poole

Is it not a fact that the compensation is based, first, on the value of the assets taken over and, second, on the net profits of the undertaking over certain years? The first, I imagine is easily ascertainable by the normal methods, but is it not the case that, wherever difficulty has arisen, it has been through the failure on the part of the operator to keep proper books or, in some cases, to keep two sets of books?

Mr. Wilson

There may be such cases. Certainly, there have been many cases of delay. The point is that if we take away a man's business, he must have his compensation within a reasonable time.

We ought to consider who are the people who are to have their licences revoked, and what they think about it. Of course, if they do not apply for compensation, do not seek to be acquired, but seek to continue to carry on their businesses within the 25-mile limit, it is still open to the Railway Executive or the Road Haulage Executive to have a shot at them on the next occasion on which they come up for a licence. The experience of road hauliers often is that they get both barrels of the gun: they are attacked by both Executives and have to carry on a two-to-one fight against them.

Many of these 5,300 are small men and sometimes women, some have a number of lorries, others have only one. Some of them are one-man businesses, similar to the one-man business referred to in the housing debate yesterday. They have built up their businesses out of their own savings, with nothing but their own skill and ability. I have here two specific examples, neither from my own constituency.

The first is an extract from the "Yorkshire Evening Post" of 27th October, 1950. It says: Grey-haired grizzled Jim Barker, of Leeds, has just received a letter which, in one sentence, destroys his 30-year-old one-man, one-vehicle, haulage business. 'A lifetime's work gone,' said Jim, who lives in Greenmount Street, 'just because the Socialists can't stand up to competition.' Jim is one of the hundreds of small road hauliers in the Leeds area who have had their permits to operate outside a 25-mile radius revoked by the Road Haulage Executive of the British Transport Commission. He faces disaster through the decision. Revocation of his permit means that 90 per cent. of his trade now stops. 'There is no hope of getting short-distance work,' he said today. In 1920, Jim sank his savings in an old Army truck. Now, at 56, he has a shining new five-ton truck. The second is a letter from a widow: Dear Sir, Could you please advise me what to do, this business is all I have to live on, all my savings are in this business, my late husband died in May, 1948, we both worked hard together to keep this haulage going, we have been 20 years contractors to the Atlas Stone Company, Whaddon, Royston, Hens, and I am still their contractor. Surely, they won't take my living away. As to how these people are thought of by some of their customers, let me read an extract from a firm which employs small contractors: We recently had our attention drawn to a flagrant instance of wastage. A driver in a nationalised concern was given three days to do a journey which a little man of our acquaintance would, by setting out very early in the morning, have done in one day.

Mr. Pargiter (Southall)

The letter does not say, of course, whether the little man who would get up early in the morning would preserve the conditions of the Road Traffic Act?

Mr. Wilson

That is a point, but I was showing that these small businesses have continued because they have given service. Had they not given such a service, they would have disappeared long ago and their forcible removal is to be deprecated. These are the sort of people whom it is sought to displace.

All my connections have been with the railways. I have no connections with the road haulage business and I believe in the future of rail transport. I would like to see it continue to provide cheap and convenient transport for the public and a decent living for the men who have grown up in that industry. However, I feel sure that all railwaymen would agree with me that they would not wish to bolster up their own industry by filching halfpenny packets of traffic from other concerns, if it means taking the bread out of the mouths of widows—and that is what is happening in this case.

In supporting the Amendment, I appeal to the Minister of Transport to have another look at this matter and at the actions that are being taken by the Road Haulage Executive in the cancellation of permits. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he could not give a direction to modify the policy that is being pursued. After all, it is a great maxim of our country that not only should justice be done but that it should appear to be done.

7.29 p.m.

Mr. Blackburn (Birmingham, Northfield)

I hope that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) will forgive me if I do not follow his topic, because the main subject of the Debate relates to the supersession of the system under which we have been governed since 1939. Although I must take full responsibility for Government policy, because I supported it at the time, I feel that in the administration of that policy it is vital that small men should get a square deal. Many hon. Members on the Labour side of the House have a great deal of sympathy with that point of view, because they have come across cases of grave hardship, and it is in the administration of the Act that so much can be done.

Mr. Speaker, I feel almost like asking your indulgence on the occasion of my maiden speech, because these surroundings are strange to one who was in the last House. Of the two or three main points I wish to make, the first is this: I think that the Opposition should generously acknowledge this fact—that the main case which has been made over years has now been accepted by the Government, namely, that it is recognised that there is a great gulf between property and personal liberty. As I understand it, the Minister of Town and Country Planning, who is to wind up the Debate, will deal specifically with the issue of direction of labour.

The case which, as many Members of the House will remember, was fought with great bitterness in 1947, was whether or no, in time of peace, permanent powers of direction of labour should be granted to a Government. As I understand the position—and I put this quite specifically to the right hon. Gentleman who is to reply—the Government say, "We will not include in the Bill which is foreshadowed in the King's Speech any power of direction of labour." I understand that to be the position, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to make a statement, with the authority of the Cabinet behind him, when he concludes the Debate tonight.

That being so, and that great case having been given, it seems to me that one ought to have an open mind and to wait to see the Bill which the Government are to produce. It is wholly wrong to inflate party political passion at this moment. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft), is not present, because I listened with great interest and with an enormous amount of agreement to his speech, but the appalling thing about this House, in which I must be in a minority of one on this subject, is that all the speeches that are made appear to me to be inflamed by party political passions instead of considering the overriding interests of the unity of the country at a moment which. I say now, is as dangerous as any moment since 1940. That being so, we should be exceedingly glad that the Government are bringing to an end Defence Regulations, which bear back for years, and that they will tell us in a Bill exactly what they want in the way of powers to provide for full employment and for an expanding economy.

0 As to controls, it is absolutely useless to suggest that the grant of certain forms of controls over property is a form of totalitarianism. That kind of argument carries no conviction whatever in the modern world. I speak as a young man, and I am bound to say this: I have some sympathy with the case, which ought to be made constantly from the Liberal benches, that under a Tory or Socialist Government a young man would come up against one form of monopoly or another The fact is that the Government require controls for an enormous number of purposes.

The issue is—and here I agree with the hon. Member for Monmouth—how are we to administer those controls? The fact that controls are needed in relation to a wide number of subjects will really be accepted, and has been accepted, by right hon. Gentlemen like the right hon. Member for Bromley (Mr. H. Macmillan), over a very long period of years, and I recognise that. The issue is: How are those controls administered, what protection exists for the individual, and what steps are taken to maximise incentive?

In my submission, controls are needed, not only in time of shortage, but also because of the system of modern industrial civilisation which tends to produce monopoly. But we must recognise that controls are terribly dangerous in themselves. It must be remembered that they are operated by officials and that the ordinary person who wishes, by working hard and by using ingenuity, to acquire a living for himself and to build up something for his children, must have some kind of a chance to operate on his own and must not find himself frustrated by the ipse dixit of an administrator.

That seems to me to be absolutely clear, and, therefore, I say, so far as concerns the Bill which we await, that the provisions of that Bill will be very carefully scrutinised by those who care for freedom; that, if it be the case, we welcome the fact that direction of labour will be excluded entirely from the Bill. One further point which I address to the Minister is that if he can say anything on the subject of direction of labour in general, I am sure it will be anxiously awaited by the country.

The main point which I wish to make in relation to the King's Speech is quite relevant to the Amendment which we are discussing. We are asking ourselves what we can do to improve our position in the world and to increase the housing target —to produce 300,000 houses instead of 200,000—and I am quite sure that hon. Members of the Labour Party are just as anxious as anyone to produce 300.000 houses if it can be done.

Mr. John Rodgers (Sevenoaks)

They did not show it last night.

Mr. Blackburn

With great deference, one does not necessarily show things by voting on matters on which there is a normal party division.

I have a challenge for the hon. Member, and also for right hon. Gentlemen on both Front Benches. There is one sure way to increase productivity and, by increasing productivity and improving our position in the world, to be able to buy more timber, to be able to produce more houses, to be able to buy more meat, and to enable the Englishman, wherever he goes in the world, once again to stand and to have people say of him, "There is the representative of the most thriving country in the world." There is one way, and one way only, and that is by working longer hours.

Mr. Jack Jones (Rotherham)

Hear, hear.

Mr. Jennings

The hon. Member got the sack for saying that.

Mr. Blackburn

I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. J. Jones) for saying that. I made the point upstairs in the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, where we had a most distinguished gathering, including Sir Geoffrey Heyworth, of Lever Brothers, Sir Charles Colston, of Hoovers, Ltd., Sir Thomas Hutton and Mr. Lincoln Evans. I asked Mr. Lincoln Evans this very question—and I do not think that hon. Members opposite will tell me that he is a man whose word can be lightly disregarded. I asked, "Is it not a fact that the quickest way to increase productivity now is for us all to go out and ask for longer hours of work—say, six hours of work per week—on terms to he approved by the trade union movement? "

Mr. J. Jones

Mr. Lincoln Evans, who happens to be the general secretary of the union which represents the members of an industry which has shown the way to increase productivity, could give a very simple answer: that the men in that industry were working a continuous working week of 168 hours out of 168 hours, giving 1,500,000 tons more steel than ever in history, under the firm promise of nationalisation, socialism, and fair shares for all.

Mr. Blackburn

The hon. Member, who, I know perfectly well, really agrees with what I am saying, has made an amazing answer, which I do not wish to deal with because I do not desire to take any part in party politics. [HON. MEMBERS: "No?"] I assure the House that I have no desire to take any part in party politics or to have the red herring of nationalisation dragged across the main point which I wish to make, namely, that it is the duty of hon. Members on all sides to go to their constituencies and to advocate longer hours of working upon terms to be agreed by the trade union movement. If hon. Members get up with tears in their eyes and tell me about the intolerable housing conditions—which I venture to say, I know as well as they do—then the way to get those tears out of their eyes is to go back to their constituents and to say that with that overall increase of production which would result, we should be able to produce not 300,000 houses but many more than 300,000.

Let me say a word in amplification. I remember raising this point when the miners were going back to a five day week and there was a debate in the House. The right hon. Gentleman who is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer very kindly gave way to enable me to make a three-minute speech, and I then said that the miners ought to go back to a five and a half day week and that if they did so, they would produce 210 million tons of coal a year. Many hon. Members will remember that I said that and it proved correct.

Mr. J. Jones

I said it five years ago.

Mr. Blackburn

The hon. Member was on the same side then. The miners are a very exclusive party and I will not welcome any additions to my party.

It is undoubtedly a fact and was accepted by Sir Geoffrey Haworth that if people worked longer hours we would get a great increase in productivity. About that there can be no doubt whatsoever and it is monstrous for us to debate as if there were a national cake which we could not increase. The great issue is how we shall increase the size of the national cake.

On one occasion the Prime Minister made a tentative appeal, which has never been followed up, for extended working hours. It has been suggested to me that this matter should probably be put on a national basis. One could almost imagine a situation in which we would say to the workers, "For the sake of the country let employers and workers give one hour of their time to Britain." If an appeal of that kind were made, I believe it would be accepted. For at least two years I have advocated this course; I have advocated it at mass meetings of workers in my constituency and I have never known an unfavourable reception.

This is a time for leadership and great leadership can be given by the Government and supported by the Opposition. This country can make a colossal name for itself in the world by showing that, after all we have been through and all the sacrifices our people have made in the interests of fair shares, we have just as much guts as were ever shown in the world and that, on proper terms, our workpeople are prepared to work another four or six hours a week for the sake of the country.

7.43 p.m.

Lord Dunglass (Lanark)

The hon. Member for Northfield (Mr. Blackburn) has raised a question and stated a theme which has our sympathy. He has learned, although I think he has learned rather late, that the secret of expansion for this country lies in the earning of new wealth rather than in the distribution of the wealth which is already existing. Although I do not intend to follow him in the methods he proposes to achieve this expansion of wealth, nevertheless, that is a truth he has uttered to which His Majesty's Government should certainly give the most serious attention.

It would have been optimistic and unreasonable in the present conditions of political deadlock, to expect too much from the King's Speech, but I did look at it in the hope that there would be an awareness on the part of His Majesty's Government of the social problems which are being created by over-centralisation and over-control. I also looked at it in the hope that His Majesty's Government would have shown some willingness to restrain the growing power of the Executive over the individual citizen. In fact there has been little sign of that in the Gracious Speech and still less sign in the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite during this Debate.

I cannot remember very far back, but even as far as I and other hon. Members can remember, we have seen the whole pattern of government in Europe change. That is an historical fact. Time after time in this century governments have been elected after going through all the democratic processes, only after a short time to use their power to impress their will and impress their theories and to control not only the people's minds but the people's lives. I should have thought, if there is a lesson to be learned from the 20th century, it is that power corrupts just as certainly as ever it did, and that no class of person is immune. Very often this is called the age of the common man, but this age has produced more tyrants than were ever produced in history before. Nor are Socialists immune and I believe they hoped and genuinely thought they would be immune.

I think the right hon. Gentleman claims a power and exercises a patronage which would have been the envy of a great many people who have sat in this ancient House. As we look at the broad picture of the way in which government is developing, not only in this country but in Western civilisation, we are bound to admit that the greatest boon which could come to the ordinary people of the world would be if their governments would learn to use restraint and discretion in the use of power and to use their power for high purpose.

In this country I think it would be generally agreed that the greatest power given to our Government comes through extensive nationalisation and the public ownership of industry. It is not true that the Government as an employer owns only great material assets, capital assets; in a sense they own the men and women who work in those industries. I am going to argue the case for a standstill in nationalisation not on the economic grounds—that has been done often and the arguments are familiar, both generally and in the particular case of iron and steel—but from the social implications which are bound to flow from extensive nationalisation, which is bound to affect the ordinary working men in those industries and organised labour as a whole.

I do not know whether it is generally appreciated how far nationalisation and State control have gone. In the coal industry 730,000 workmen are affected, in transport 900,000, in the electricity and gas industries 295,000 and, if we bring the steel industry under central Government control, there may be something like 150,000 people added—perhaps a quarter of a million, I make a conservative estimate, but I think a quarter of a million would be nearer. We have reached a stage where there are nearly two million working people in the nationalised industries which, as far as I can calculate, represents something like 11 per cent. of the insured working people of this country. In the Gracious Speech it is proposed to add the sugar refining factories and the Prime Minister said that this was a small thing. But that is the traditional excuse for anything of doubtful origin or repute.

The point I wish to make is that at present, with all the social implications of extensive nationalisation which I intend to mention, it seems to me that there is no case for putting one more man of family under this centralised system. The fact that the Government propose even this small addition to nationalisation would seem to suggest that they have completely failed to appreciate the social significance and the social implications which are flowing from extensive nationalisation. Several hon. Members on the other side of the House have talked about extensive monopolies and the evils which flow from them, but these great State monopolies exercise powers which are new to us in this country, and which give them a very peculiar control over the people who work in them.

Let us face the important fact that there are monopolies. There is only one boss, one set of conditions. I have opportunity in my constituency to observe. If a working man is discontented with his conditions a change from Edinburgh to Nottingham, or from the Lanarkshire coalfield to Nottingham, or from the railway centre of Carstairs to Bristol, makes not one jot of difference; he finds himself under the same boss and the same system. These conditions of uniformity existing in these great monopolies are, from my observation, creating a mass psychology which will, and is already beginning to lead to a mass reaction. In these monopolies what is the grievance of one is in a very literal sense the grievance of all.

I constantly find that a miner or railwayman who has a personal grievance finds it extremely difficult and a tedious tiresome business to bring that grievance to the person who can decide it; that between the grievance and a decision there is layer after layer of officialdom both in the unions and in these nationalised monopolies. When one finds this uniformity of conditions married to these difficulties of the individual, we are—I give the right hon. Gentleman this warning—getting into a situation in which there will be a great number of large strikes and widespread discontent arising out of small individual beginnings. The greatest act of political wisdom at this moment would be for the Government to review all the existing nationalisation schemes with a view to decentralisation. That would seem to me to be at any rate a beginning.

But I wish to build my plea for a standstill in nationalisation on still further social complications in these nationalised industries. What is to be the status of a State employee, and what are to be his rights? I am certain that when the miners entered so light-heartedly and after so much campaigning into a nationalized industry, they did not realise what nationalisation would turn out to be. They genuinely believed, as I believe hon. Members opposite genuinely believed, that when nationalisation was a fact, no one would have any real grievance and there would never be any need for a strike.

Mr. George Thomas (Cardiff, West)

They are better off than ever they were, and they know it.

Lord Dunglass

Unhappily no miner, certainly no railwayman, now has any illusions that there is any guarantee whatever that the State will be a good employer.

Mr. Thomas

Come Rhondda.

Lord Dunglass

At the moment we have rising costs, when it will be very difficult to hold down prices, we shall find the Government no longer an arbiter in the case of industrial disputes but in an interested position, an interested party. What is more, the Government will be interested in keeping down costs and therefore in keeping down wages. In those circumstances what are the rights and status of an individual, and how far will his legally constituted trade unions be able to represent his rights? All hon. Members have to face up to these questions if we are to have large nationalised monopolies in this country.

Mr. J. Jones

Will the noble Lord further his argument by telling the House how it was that at the last General Election, after the experience of nationalisation, particularly in the mining industry and in the railway industry, and after the promise of nationalisation in the steel industry, in every mining, railway and steel constituency in this country Labour candidates were returned to this House with increased majorities?

Lord Dunglass

Not in every constituency by any means.

I am trying to bring before the House a serious argument. It was natural that the miners, who have for 50 years campaigned for nationalisation, should still believe in it, certainly beyond the last election, but they are beginning to have doubts, as are the railwaymen. The reason is because, as I have explained, the individual members find it extraordinary difficult to get their grievances considered in any reasonable time. Further, they are beginning to doubt whether their trade union leaders can properly represent their needs and claims in a nationalised industry.

Let me present to hon. Members opposite the very real dilemma which already exists in the early days of nationalisation. We have the Trades Union Congress which is affiliated to a political party—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—perhaps affiliated is the wrong word, but it is at any rate closely connected with and respectably wedded to—that pleases hon. Members—the political party which happens to form the Government of the day. Individual miners and railwaymen are beginning to ask themselves whether, with their leaders as members of the executive, and with their leaders pledged to carry out the executive's policy, it is really possible for them properly to represent the needs and claims of the individual. They have been quick to see that in a nationalised industry it is quite possible that their elected trade union leaders may become Government "stooges."

There is one more point which all hon. Members should consider. So far, every strike that has arisen in a nationalised industry has, rather conveniently for the Socialist Government and hon. Members opposite, I am bound to confess, been written off as an unofficial strike inspired by the Communists. It needs no gift of prophecy to forecast that one of these days there will be a strike in which the claims have merit and in which there is substance in the grievance. We have to look forward. We must make up our minds on this point. How far, in those circumstances, can the Government of the day tolerate opposition from organised labour? It has not escaped the notice of the workpeople in the nationalised industries that the other day the Attorney-General, the first Law Officer of the Crown, was forced to double up the two positions of prosecutor and part-time owner.

I do not know the answer to the question whether organised labour can properly represent the individuals in the nationalised industry. I probably have a better chance of giving the answer than hon. Members opposite, because I have thought about it more. They have never thought about it, and were not ready or willing to think about it all this time. But we have to think about these things, and my plea is this. We do not know the answers, and it is just because we do not know the answers to these questions that I say to the right hon. Gentleman—and I hope he will give a reply on these points —that there is no justification for putting one more workman under the hazards of nationalisation, or one more family, until we have had time to assess the value of this great social experiment.

I have made my plea for a standstill and I now wish to say something I have been very anxious to say for some time. In passing, I would say there is one more method of this great build-up of power which is the central theme of what I am talking about, and that is the assumption of direct control which has been dealt with by other people. I would say this to hon. Gentlemen opposite, echoing the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft) who opened the Debate. Some controls there must be. The right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) said, I think yesterday, that the difference between the party on this side of the House and the party on the other side was that we believe in minimum control and hon. Gentlemen opposite believe in maximum control. If we are to have the maximum, if we are to have a totally planned economy, then hon. Members opposite must face the fact that we shall need direction of labour. Against that we take an absolute stand. We think that in peace-time that is absolutely inadmissible.

In these circumstances of political deadlock in which we find ourselves in this House, I believe that party government is on trial. I believe it will break and that democracy will immediately degenerate into some kind of one-party State, unless both parties agree to subscribe to certain basic principles. The first is the maintenance of the Constitution. The second, and it is the one to which I have given practically all my attention this evening, is the preservation of the right of personal freedom. Unless the maintenance of the Constitution and the right of personal freedom are genuinely accepted by hon. Gentlemen opposite and hon. Gentlemen on these benches, there is no basis for social progress; and there will be a breakdown in the party system and a degeneration of democracy.

I believe most sincerely that there is an obligation on hon. Members in this House, when any item of party doctrine encroaches on these basic principles, to see that there should be political compromise by consent. There is the example of the Steel Bill. We believe in private enterprise and we should like to see one hundred per cent. private enterprise. Hon. Gentlemen opposite believe in public control. They have stuck to their guns one hundred per cent. But we on this side have offered to compromise with a Government board to see that the steel industry under private enterprise acts for the public interest. There has to be some give and take in these matters. I know that hon. Members opposite are saying that they believe in these things, but too often, it seems to me, the voice is the voice of Jacob but the hand is the band of Esau. It is the acts of the Government that matter and it is the acts of Socialism, both through nationalisation and through direct control that always encroach on the narrowing field of individual freedom.

Therefore I make this plea to the right hon. Gentleman; first, that there should be a standstill in nationalisation until we see how this experiment, with all its social implications, works. Second, that the Government should limit the Measures which it brings in to those that will command the highest degree of common consent. Thirdly and lastly, that the Government, for the benefit of the people, should undertake a voluntary abdication in the use of power.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. Dryden Brook (Halifax)

I would like to relate what I have to say to that section of the Amendment which deals with control and public ownership and relate it to the industry in which I have spent many years of my working life, the wool textile industry. The hon. Member for Lanark (Lord Dunglass) will forgive me if I do not follow him in what he has said, except to say that all he had to put forward was a criticism of what he called the concentration of power and of control.

I would like to point out to hon. Members an industry which is now faced with very difficult problems, just because controls were over hastily removed. In the wool textile industry, as in other industries which have had to face problems regarding raw materials—and this applies not merely to raw materials, but also to foodstuffs—what is it that the producers of raw materials and foodstuffs must have over a long period? The basic condition on which they exist is that they must have, over a long period, stable prices; a stable price which will give them, first, the cost of production which they have put into it and, second, a margin to cover their own profit and remuneration.

Anyone who engages in the production of raw materials wants to know that when he has put his energy into the production he will be able to get a price sufficient to cover those basic factors. If we turn to the consumers of raw materials or foodstuffs, what do they require over a long period? They, too, require stable prices. In my own industry, the period between the two wars is full of the stories of firms who went out of existence, not because they were badly organised, not because their technical equipment was bad, not because their managerial capacity was inefficient, but simply because they were caught in one of the maelstroms of ups and downs in prices which simply swamped them out of existence.

There are now in existence two attitudes of mind towards the problem of what will give the two people mostly concerned, the producer and the consumer, this stability. This is not a problem for theorists: it is a problem which the people in the industry recognise. I have vivid recollections of being on Bradford Wool Exchange between the two wars and hearing a conversation between a great manufacturer and a great wool merchant. The manufacturer expressed his longing to get back to the old days of stable prices, and the wool merchant turned and said, "Stable prices be blowed. I want them in and out, like that." These are conditions which are in conflict in an industry.

What is the conflict between the two sides—I will call them "ours" and "theirs." On the opposite side of the House they look for a solution to what they call the workings of the price mechanism which, clothed in a new name, is our old friend the law of supply and demand. I ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to look at the history of the wool textile industry and see what the law of supply and demand has done to the stability of that industry. I have had nearly 50 years' experience in the raw material side of the industry. I remember two wool controls in two world wars, and I remember what happened after both of them.

Between 1919 and 1920 the price of raw wool went up like a rocket; between 1920 and 1921 it came down like a stone. Wools which I bought at roughly 16d. to 20d. a lb. in 1919, made 60d. a lb. in 1920. In 1921, they went down again to 1s. a lb. Throughout the period between the two wars fluctuations of that kind, though perhaps not quite so pronounced, continued. It was mentioned last week that wool values are about nine times pre-war. In crossbred wool, which I know very well, what was selling at 1s. in 1939 has fetched 112d. a lb. within the last two months.

In the first week of August, in my own business, I made a sale of New Zealand wools at an average of 60d. a lb. In the September sales in London the same wools fetched 116d. a lb. In the first week of the sale they fetched 116d.; in the second week the price had dropped by 1s.; and now it has gone back to roughly what it was during the first week. Do hon. and right hon. Gentlemen realise what that means to a manufacturing concern which has all its capital wrapped up in machinery and buildings? Think of what it means to a small manufacturing concern which uses, say, 30,000 lb. of wool a week and which, if it is to keep on an even keel, must keep in stock roughly two to three months' supply of raw materials. A variation in the price of raw materials of, say, 1s. a lb., means roughly, £15,000 to that small concern. We must face that problem.

Many solutions have been offered. It is easy to offer solutions when one goes on to a propaganda platform, or when one is speaking to people who do not know the conditions. Before the last election a well-known man, speaking against bulk buying, said that we should have lots of buyers and that competition between buyers would bring prices down. That may sound very well on the wireless but, as a business man and a social student, I should describe a person who made a statement like that as either a knave or a fool. But I do not like to describe the eminent gentleman who made that statement, who happens to be the present chairman of the Tory Party, by either of those names, because I do not believe that he is either a knave or a fool. However, it was he who said on the wireless that we should have plenty of buyers and that competition among buyers would bring prices down.

Neither is there any solution in the suggestion made last week by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett) who, in an interjection when Government bulk buying was being discussed, said that it should not be done by the Government. The implication was that he was in favour of bulk buying if it was done by large-scale private industry. History proves, in relation to that kind of buying, that once there is concentration of buying in private hands, in a large block of capital, that group of capitalists will use its power to exploit not only the consumer but the producer. That has been proved over and over again.

Mr. Watkinson (Woking)

I think the hon. Gentleman's point is that Government buying is really establishing a stable cost for the manufacturer. Before he finishes his remarks on this matter, could he explain how it was that in my industry the devaluation of the pound caused an overnight increase of 40 per cent. in the cost of our raw materials? That happened in many other industries as well.

Mr. Brook

I have heard the same charge made in the wool industry. It has been said that devaluation raised the price of wool, that it was responsible for the rapid increase in prices. The people who make that claim forget that the New Zealand and the Australian pound was devalued at the same time as our own.

Mr. Watkinson