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i oe lll Moe _ a. ee lee he teat te! ons we: Sr ar re pes tates es x o To 2 herdy cal ho eee a _—a amar Pema j a _ . EM Ser eat es 2 a ’ ee eee es ee an VY . ie te me ep Oe eee ee ae re r _ po ec emee apele pen beg De ig = pile tegen eee leg Te ae ’ _ @ 4 * . Lo. . ip we me NS “we: 1505 = Former fetcign Office 7 NOVEMBER 1955 Officials..Pisappearonce 1506 i The responsibility for the security and personal and held that office, if Y remember rightly, reliability of the staffs serving under them, and instructions were issued in this sense. * . erase ’ shoes wee 1 Mr, R. HL & Crossinan (Coventry, East): May I ask the right hon. Gentle- ‘man one question on vetting? Did he -say that there was no vetting at the ‘Foreign Office before 1945; that is to j Say. between 1939 and 1945 officials were j not submitted to political vetting to which {other people who came into the Govern- ment service had to submit? *-- 0° 5 - | Mr, Macmillan: ¥ said it was of a Degative kind, Jt was merely said, “Have you got anything against this man?” and the point of the positive vetting is diligent research into the pre- vious records. In the old days, we should have been rather shocked at positive vetting, but we have had to accept it as one of the necessilies of present con- Gitions. bee ea Fe de OO ne ee I want to refer to a point to which I have scen some allusion made—recruit- ment for the Forcign Service. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is to raise the matier, because 3 saw something in one of the newspapers this morning which made me think that he might intend to Go so. It is said that recruitment is kept to a closed circle, and that its members are taken too narrowly from one social group. J think I should remind the House exactly what has hap- pened about the Foreign Service. There is 80 much going on that it is always | difficult to remember, and the public imemory is short... - SET: Ti pyun. During the war, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, then Foreign Secre- tary, gave great thought to the question of the future of the Foreign Service. He proposed a scheme to his colleagues in the Coalition Government on which much labour was spent, and this scheme made Certain radical changes. The scheme was et out in a White Paper, and certain arrangemenis under it required an Order in Council and a Bill. All this was under the Coalition Government in 1943. en - The Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Kir. Bevin, who subsequently became Foreign Secretary, held high positions in the Coalition Government. After the war, Mr. Bevin succeeded as Foreign Secretary bomen ME BP ee ee eee 2? FB a RI TE ee eS ET for five years, He was certainly not "TPL, man to be unduly impressed by the out- - ward semblance of things; he went to the inner core. He was not a defenders -of privilege, and, at the same time, was not a man to yield to prejudice. 11 fell _ to him to implement the scheme which bad been laid down by the Act of 1943... | Mf he had not been satisfied with it, F am sure that in his five years al the Foreign ~~ Office he would not have hesitated to pro- | - pose some amendment or alteration, Actually, he feli for the Foreign Service a loyalty and devotion which has bees - 7 amply rewarded by the respect and afleoe —-+- -. tion in which his name will always be held at the Foreign Office. 21's een -ta <>~:.- a Pe et er Ie may be worth emphasising what were the major points of the Eden-Bevin -- ~-- seforms, if I may call them that. First, the amalgamation of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service with the Consulag ~~ *° Service and the Commercial Diplomatic Service inte a single whole. That was tha © —---- first big point. Secondly, the reorganisa- tion of the arrangements for recruitment + and training with a view to opening the’ service to anyone with sufficient qualificas ~*~ tions. I ought io add, for there has been much misunderstanding on that the work of selecting recruits for all except the most junior grades of the Service has for a long time been in the ~- hands of the Civil Service Commissioners, ‘T want to emphasise this. The Forci Service is not a service renewing itself by _._ co-option. Its new members have for a Jong time been chosen by an outside body. | :~ It is sometimes said that the Foreign -= Service, like the rest of the Civil Service, is a sort of closed shop. that its failures — are protected and that there is no means © of getting rid of incompetent or unsuit- ‘able ple. out, that since the inivoduction of the — ~~ Foreign Service Act, 1943, members of - = — the Foreign Service have not enjoyed the ~~~ ~ ‘game degree of security as that of the rest .* of the Civil Service, for this Act intro- ‘duced arrangements more like those ‘af” ahe fighting Services, which -provide for ‘compulsory retirement of established © amembers who do not make sufficient prow —--.-- ress to justify heir retention or pro- ction. Fifty-nine officers have been retired under this Act in the jast ten years. The House will also observe that ‘the new scheme for the conduct of the Service and the amasgamation and other this point, ~~ 1 would, however, point . . ee =e eee woe ee ee Tee Fe ee a a a 4 ee ee at it ” oot _— oe PRE ERE EE MEE A ATT I Pe ee —_ ee 1 1 ETE eo EY Male anaes Aine .e : o.oo. s : - (ah ee cern A SO