Clause 1. — (Liability to be called up for service.)

Part of Orders of the Day — National Service Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 7 May 1947.

Alert me about debates like this

and that they will accept the view of this House and do their best to make the scheme work in the interests of the defence of the country. I believe that we can so work this training scheme as to lose very little indeed in the value of the training which we otherwise would have got under the longer 18 months' period by this method of selection and the use of the men in their proper spheres. We shall do that to the very best of our ability, and make that drive all the way through. In the meantime, we can undoubtedly say that we shall be helped a very great deal in the general manpower situation, which we shall have to face in the next few years, if we are to recover our economic position. I repeat what I said this afternoon, and in the White Paper on Defence, that one of the roots of our defence policy must be the rehabilitation of our economic and social life.