Civil Aviation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 December 1955.

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Photo of Mr Frederick Farey-Jones Mr Frederick Farey-Jones , Watford 12:00, 20 December 1955

Yes, but since then the stepping up of exports has become infinitely more important. The export of aircraft throughout the world is the first target for the United States, yet a man who undoubtedly has the mental capacity for the job—I refer to the present Chairman of B.O.A.C.—is devoting some of his unquestioned talents to thinking about car gears, when the roads of Great Britain are so cluttered up that no one who has not made the journey can imagine what a week-end trip between London and Brighton is like.

If we were able to secure that Airwork, Huntings, the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation and all the shipping companies and interests throughout the Empire had a vital interest with the Government in civil aviation, what kind of picture would the aircraft manufacturers have within three or four years? It would be a healthy, sound, happy, worth-while, optimistic picture compared with the present situation when, as a result of a B.O.A.C. decision, one aircraft manufacturer has to sell whatever he has left of a projected aircraft for scrap.

I should like to pay a great tribute both to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation and to his Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I know how hard they have worked since they took office, but I want to see every airline in the Commonwealth sending their executives at least once a year to plan ahead—and not for eight or ten aircraft for B.O.A.C. I can tell the House that in 1960 Empire airlines alone can use 460 large aircraft. That is at least 410 more aircraft than are likely to be ordered by B.O.A.C. in any one year for the next ten years at the present rate of showing.

The larger of all the world airlines are faced with the problem now of what aircraft they shall order for delivery between 1960 and 1965 which will set the pattern for the use of those airlines for the following fifteen years. That goes for aircraft engines and all the ancillary equipment. Therefore, the prize which we in Great Britain have to try for is something in export value so astronomical and so vital to the country's survival that both sides of the House have in some way to meet each other's point of view. We have to combine the work of national corporations with the driving force of private enterprise, particularly in the matter of civil aviation.

I want to bring forward another important point which was touched upon by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Captain Corfield), in a maiden speech. We have one of the finest airports in the world at London Airport. I will not say that the present Government by themselves were responsible for all of it. That would not be true. Some hon. and right hon. Members opposite were responsible as well. At the moment, however, we have no free Customs area at that airport. Unless we rapidly create one, that world air development will reach the stage at which an international airport for Europe will be established perhaps at Rotterdam or Frankfurt. Something will have to be done about it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to be brought into consideration of this matter, because our Customs will have to be completely reorientated.

It was a tragedy that yesterday, or the day before that, Airwork's air service across the North Atlantic was given up. I know that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary very carefully said that the word "suspended" meant suspended, and that the service might be put into operation again. These private, independent operators should have at least a fair crack of the whip, which they have never had up to now. They never had it even in the days before the war of the struggle between British Continental Airways and British Railways clearing house. Some hon. Members opposite will remember my lobbying them, and particularly how I lobbied the late Mr. Arthur Jenkins, of Pontypool, who helped us in our fight against the attempt of the railways to stop airline bookings.

If we approach this problem from the completely realistic Empire angle, we have to realise that we are not only looking for aircraft which will fly the North Atlantic. In British Guiana, the West Indies, South Africa, in the new kingdom of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, people are looking for little aeroplanes. Flying boats that will develop communication on the west coast of South America are also being sought. The opportunity given to the British aircraft industry is so vast that it cannot possibly be measured, but if anyone thinks that one can release the pioneering British spirit by keeping this whole, vast enterprise of the future in the hands of one board of directors they certainly deserve the failure which certainly is creeping upon us.

As a member of the Air League and of its council and executive for very many years, and also as a member of the Guild of Air Pilots of the British Empire, I tell the House that the creeping paralysis over British civil aviation since the war is appalling to anybody who cares to study it.