Orders of the Day — Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 August 1947.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Woodrow Wyatt Mr Woodrow Wyatt , Birmingham Aston 12:00, 8 August 1947

If the hon. Member was not doing that, it is quite impossible for the House to know what on earth he was trying to do. The hon. Member also, in the course of his speech, suggested that we on this side of this House, at any rate on the back benches, were asking why we needed to have Armed Forces. He explained that the reasons for that was that the Foreign Secretary had staked his reputation on finding a solution to the Palestine problem, and had failed to do so. That may be as it is. I quite agree that that has a large part to play in the reasons for the extent of our Forces at the moment. But I think that the hon. Gentleman should remember that he has wholeheartedly pledged his support, over the last two years, to the general terms of the foreign policy which the Foreign Secretary has been pursuing. That foreign policy in itself is the major cause of the large Forces we have at present.

It is not inappropriate, on this Bill, particularly as it deals with the methods which are to be used, or the powers which can be used, to make the best use of our manpower, to consider for a few moments this whole question of the Armed Forces and their present size, because the effect of the maintenance of large Armed Forces on our home industries and overseas expenditure since the end of the war has been quite incalculable. Without a doubt they have been the largest single cause of our adverse balance of payments. One cannot, of course, estimate accurately how much they have been costing us in dollars, but it is reasonable to say that the cost, for instance, for Germany, has been about £80 million a year, and another £70 million in dollars for the Middle East, and another £30 million could quite reasonably be added for other overseas garrisons and the indirect expenditure which our Forces have incured on materials which must come from the United States. That gives a total of £180 million for the year. If the total for the first year was similar, as it may easily have been, then at a conservative estimate overseas expenditure on military Forces has been something of the order of £360 million in dollars, which by itself almost accounts for the gap which we face at present.

What is it that the Government have decided to do to meet this very serious situation? These very large Armed Forces, of course, are our greatest luxury. The Government tell us that in this very serious situation, we are going to cut food expenditure in the United States by some £150 million a year, but that we are going to cut the Armed Forces by only 80,000. That seems to me to be a very disproportionate cut to effect on the two items. Even by next March we shall still have in the Forces some one million men, of whom, as was clearly explained yesterday by the Chancellor, we shall have some 700,000 at home as against only 300,000 overseas. That is a most extraordinary proportion, and I think the House must have already realised that. Today we still have Armed Forces three times the size of our total prewar Forces. Even in March we are aiming to have 2½ times the size.

This question of the large size of the Armed Forces cannot be divorced from the very serious decision which was taken two years ago at the end of the war. It was a decision to this effect—that because the intentions of Russia could not be clearly defined, and because the Government felt that, perhaps, Russia might at some point be embarking upon a course of aggression, they would have to keep Armed Forces of a sufficient size to deter them from that aggression. If that had not been the case, our Armed Forces could have been reduced drastically. If one looks at the figures in relation to the whereabouts of these troops, one will see that the purpose for which they are in those areas is not so much to keep the population, say, in Germany, in order, but to provide a bulwark, a first line of defence, against the Russians. For in stance, at this very moment there are some 130,000 soldiers——