asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on whose authority, and for what reason, attempts have been made to blow up the concrete building in the Tiergarten, Berlin, originally intended as an anti-aircraft base and air-raid shelter, and more recently used to provide hospital accommodation.

This building must be demolished in order to comply with quadripartite decisions on the demilitarisation of Germany.

Does my hon. Friend not think it is time to have a quadripartite decision affecting a thing like this; and when there are already so many ruins is it not absolutely absurd to spend labour and material in blowing up this building in the Tiergarten, Berlin?

We will certainly bear that in mind. This particular building, however, is quite useless for the purposes of a hospital, or housing, or anything of that kind, in view of its very specialised construction.

My hon. Friend says the building is useless, but is he not aware that when I went round it it was serving its purpose very well as a hospital?

For a very short time it was used as a temporary hospital, but as the accommodation part of it has no windows whatever it obviously is not suitable for permanent use as a hospital.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that there is no such thing as a useless building in Berlin?

Or in England?

Is it not a fact that an attempt to blow up this shelter has not been very successful?

The lack of success in blowing it up was due largely to our concern not to damage surrounding buildings; we tried to use the minimum explosive charge possible.