I am sure we are, indebted to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) for having raised this matter. I cannot quite agree with him, however, that this hole-and-corner method is the only way he has of raising this matter. It has been raised often in the House and a great many speeches have been made about it. I would like to remind him that it was the Tories who closed it previously. I would also like to remind him that the fact that there is no graving dock on the Clyde is a comment on Tory administration in the past. Hon. Members opposite do not like the truth. They like to condemn the Government for what it is not doing conveniently forgetting of course, that these problems are not new problems

Having said that, I would like to support the plea that an early decision should be made about Rosyth. The arguments are familiar and the question is important in the minds of the Scottish people. Rosyth's natural advantages, which have been fully appreciated in two wars, are well known. The fact that it is probably the finest and most up-to-date dockyard in this country today is also well known and I do not think we should allow Rosyth once again to be closed down whilst a dockyard built hundreds of years ago, and completely out of date and unable to take a modern battleship, should be left. But, of course, we want for Rosyth something more than a mere dockyard. We want Rosyth as a manning port. The Admiralty says they have manning ports near London because London is a large recruiting area. That argument is good up to a point, but I think we have to remember that if we want to get the full interest of Scotland in the Navy, we have to get a manning port in Scotland, and we have not got that up to the present. One could say a great deal about the advantages of Rosyth, but I have time only to press the Government to make a decision early for these reasons.

There is a great deal of anxiety being felt by the people working in Rosyth as to their future. There is a great deal of anxiety in the district and locality concerning what is to be the future of Rosyth. The local authority is unable to plan ahead because it does not know what is going to happen. In fact, the whole of Scotland is concerned in this matter, and there is a limit to the period during which people and local authorities can be kept in suspense. Finally, might I urge this point? At the present juncture we are considering new cuts in the Services expenditure. Surely, it is time that a decision was arrived at quickly as to which docks are to be closed and which are not. It seems to me that in the present circumstances there is no argument at all for delay. The Admiralty knows the position of the docks; it knows the urgency of a graving dock on the Clyde; it knows that very rapidly there is to be a reduction in the Services and so the quicker a decision is made the better satisfied will be the people of Scotland.