National Service

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 November 1955.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Brigadier Sir Otho Prior-Palmer Brigadier Sir Otho Prior-Palmer , Worthing 12:00, 2 November 1955

I am very thankful to hear that, and I hope that it means that the number of people in the pipeline is or will be very considerably reduced. It should certainly relieve the shortage of men in our out stations.

In my view—and this has been said on both sides of the House—provided, and always provided, that we do not lower our guard the risk of a thermo-nuclear world war is practically negligible. That does not mean that we are not to have a far more difficult situation to face than we have now, because I am quite convinced by what I saw in Russia when I was there that Communist world domination is still the pillar of the Russians' foreign policy. The question for them is which is the shortest cut to it. There was a time when global war was considered to be the shortest cut, and that was when we were weak in Europe. Since the buildup of N.A.T.O. and the advent of the thermo-nuclear weapon, that danger has receded. If we lower our guard that danger will come again.

Always, however, there is the danger of a minor war, even a major minor war, on such a scale that the N.A.T.O. forces would have a very difficult problem in making up their mind whether or not it was large enough for the use of the thermo-nuclear weapon to prevent it from happening. It is for that sort of war, it is to deal with subversion in those Dependencies for which we are responsible, to which we are trying to bring self-government, that for a considerable time to come we shall need forces, and need to train men for them, as well as for the eventuality of a global war.

For the training of our men, especially for global war, we have our divisions in Germany, where they can practise normal training with heavy weapons, heavy armaments and all the equipment we knew in the last war. Here in England we want a big mobile reserve of men, trained in jungle warfare, trained in the use of light weapons, light artillery, light equipment, which can be transferred to any part of the globe at short notice.

I should like to see this sort of exercise carried out—two divisions flown from America, and two divisions flown from Britain, into a part of the desert of North Africa, for exercises for six weeks or so, and then flown back again. I think that would give pause to people who are thinking of making trouble in those areas.

It is for troubles of that sort we ought to be training, and I know from my own experience that with 80 per cent, or 60 per cent. of National Service men in a given unit, that unit cannot prepare and train if those National Service men are taken away from it in what are now the last six months of their training and service.

I have been talking, as others have, mainly of the Army. I want to make one constructive suggestion. In the Navy, National Service men are not relied upon to anything like the extent that they are relied upon in the Army. Almost all the men in the Navy are Regulars. I wonder whether, just as an experiment, the Minister of Defence would consider abolishing National Service in the Navy. It might be worth doing it. I believe that the Navy could probably carry on without the National Service men. It might be well worth thinking about also in connection with some elements of the Royal Air Force. Judging by what I have seen of the way in which the R.A.F. deals with part-time training, it might be as well to abolish it altogether in that connection.

As a start to the complete abolition of National Service I suggest, therefore, its abolition in the Navy and careful consideration of the question whether something should not be done about it in the R.A.F. as well. I hope and pray that we shall have an announcement very soon about pay, pensions and the re-engagement of soldiers in order that we may try to recruit a few more men into the Regular Forces. I admit that I am not optimistic about this, for the simple reason that the number who volunteer has remained apparently static since 1920, irrespective of unemployment or anything else.

Let us not have a niggling solution to this problem. It must be something really big. The difficulty of the problem is so great that the whole matter must be looked at with reason and without emotion. I find it difficult to make up my mind without the secret top-level knowledge which is at the disposal of the Cabinet and the Minister of Defence. I should like to see the secret reports that must be coming in from the Middle East before I began to suggest any reduction in the national burden. I support the Government in what they have done, but I shall continue to press for the reforms in the Services for which I have pressed in the past.

I plead with the Government that somebody should go round our training depots in Britain like an East wind and blow out what is wrong. Too many disquieting reports are coming in. These things do not occur in the good regiment. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with them. They happen in training depots. I believe that regiments, instead of sending their best men to the training depots, get rid of those whom they do not want by sending them there. That is a pernicious policy, and I hope that the Minister will do something about it.