After the crowded benches of yesterday and the rather highly-charged atmosphere, the House today seems almost unreal, but the situation which I wish to bring to the attention of the House, I can assure hon. Members, is far from being unreal. I wish to draw the attention of the House to what I consider the neglect and, in some cases, the shocking neglect of surplus Government property. I admit that the Government have had a very great task in the last two years, with the enormous quantities of property left on their hands.

My complaint falls into two classes. First, I complain that surplus Government property has been left in many cases, uncovered and unguarded, and allowed to go to rack, ruin and rust. Secondly, I complain that when it has been sold, it has been sold in some cases, in a most unsatisfactory way, which has left a very nasty taste in certain people's mouths, and there has been a suspicion of negligence and favouritism almost amounting to corruption. I hope to prove these two points. I want to ask the Government if we can have a thorough inquiry into this so that the facts may be known and where suspicions are unfounded they can be swept away. On 30th July, 1947, I asked Question No. 84, addressed to the Ministry of Works, and that Question was suggested to me by my own constituents because of what they had seen at the Kelstern Aerodrome. On that aerodrome there were tens if not hundreds of thousands of bedsteads, and the scandal was so widely known that the place was called Bedstead Alley and it was a great joke.