Mr Christopher Shawcross: I would like very shortly to put to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary certain questions and with his indulgence I would like to say I do not expect him to answer, because I have not given any notice of them. I knew nothing about this until I read the report and heard what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Leicester (Mr. Donovan) had to say. First, did the inspector take...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: If the hon. Gentleman will permit me. Is it not the practice that the inspector is always in consultation with the coroner in these cases in order that evidence may be co-ordinated?
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I would like to say at the start of my remarks that I am one of those who feel that these Debates on the Service Estimates ought to be entirely on a non-party basis. After all, on whichever side of the House one sits, we are all Members of the House of Commons, in whom reposes the responsibility for safeguarding the survival of this nation. I would say, therefore, that I welcome the several...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: Even the interruption of the hon. and gallant Member would tend to open controversy; I wish there were none. I would go so far as to support a proposal that there should be a joint committee, representative of all parties of the House, something in the nature of what there is in the United States Congress, where these Service matters are considered before the Estimates are published, so that...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I am perfectly serious about it, but although the hon. Member for West Fife has been sitting in his place all the time today, I do not know if he would be in favour of it. If he were, so much the better. After all, we have Committees upstairs on most Bills. I would like now to speak of some small points of detail, important however in themselves before coming to a broad issue. I would first...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: They ought to be here and they ought to deal with this point. I can assure the hon. Member that this is very strongly felt in the University, especially amongst those who gave such great assistance during the war, and they are just the type of people who could give good assistance now, especially in the N.I.D. and similar organisations. I suggest that members of the University might help with...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: There is one thing in the speech of the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) with which I, and I feel a great many of us on this side, must agree. We must all confess that during the election campaign we assured the electorate of two important things: the first was that only a Socialist Government could maintain friendship with Soviet Russia, the second was that only a Socialist foreign...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I mean precisely what I say. That is just the kind of interruption I thought the hon. and gallant Member opposite would make, and I refuse to give way any more, because this Debate, and the subject we are discussing, in my respectful opinion, is far too serious. Member after Member, and Members on the Front Bench on both sides of the House have pointed it out. Indeed, the right hon. Member...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: My hon. Friend the Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman) is to be congratulated on having raised this important matter, and I hope that when the Minister replies it will be seen that there is more smoke than fire—not in what my hon. Friend has said, but in the matters to which he referred—because so far as I am aware relations between the Minister and the industry are extremely close and...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I think the hon. Member for West Salford (Mr. Royle) has raised a very important subject. I want to deal with rather a different aspect of it. I apologise to the Parliamentary Secretary for doing so, because I have not given her any notice and had thought from the topic of the Debate that the rather broader aspect which I wish to raise would have been raised. It is the distribution of food in...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I apologise for having got the incorrect phrase. It means an extra allocation of food to those districts which, before the war had a certain percentage of unemployment. They get, I suppose, tinned foods, cooked, preserved meats, and that kind of thing to supplement the quantity of food which they would otherwise get; the quantity which they would otherwise get being based on the prewar...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: That is not what it is called, but it probably means that.
Mr Christopher Shawcross: Is not the hon. Member aware that most of the figures for which he asks have been published in HANSARD, and were given about six months ago?
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I was speaking of Trade Returns. The figures could be obtained by looking at the Trade Returns.
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I hope the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. Spence) will excuse me if I do not deal with all the points he made, particularly those which I am not capable of answering. I would, however, like to agree with him on two or three, particularly the last one he made about the importance of the conversion value of articles for export. I think that too little attention has been paid to that,...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: It is because political changes occur that this matter is so urgent at the moment. It could not be better demonstrated than by the result of the French elections last week. There we see the Socialist Party has been slightly strengthened. But another Party has grown up which, if it ever came into power, would not be regarded by anyone on any side of the House as representing a democracy. We...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the refusal of the Departments concerned to give any information, on security grounds, he will propose a Secret. Session of this House to discuss the allocation of steel and other materials in short supply to the construction of warships, armoured fighting vehicles, aircraft and other weapons and warlike equipment for the Armed Forces, and the...
Mr Christopher Shawcross: Will the Prime Minister say how this House can carry out its most important business of controlling expenditure and looking after our military and economic security when knowledge of these essential facts are denied to it?
Mr Christopher Shawcross: I beg to move, "That the Question be now put."
Mr Christopher Shawcross: This a matter of absolutely vital importance. My constituency is placarded with posters "We work or want"—but these posters are flanked on all four sides by others. One says "Join the Army"; another says "Join the Navy"; another says "Join the R.A.F.", and below it says, "Join the Palestine Police." That makes absolute nonsense of the Government's campaign which affects us all at present....
