STATIONERY AND PRINTING. (Hansard, 11 February 1932)

§ Major ELLIOT
These sums arise directly out of the activities of this House and the earlier commencement of the autumn Session. We had to make a larger Estimate for Parliamentary publications, and with the various Acts which have been passed we have had to issue, as hon. Members know, a certain amount more stationery than we should otherwise have done. That is the reason for this Supplementary Estimate.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
The Estimate itself gives very little information, and I think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would do well to examine the possibility, in such a case as this, of supplying Members with more information. I should like to ask why the contracts handed out to private printers are in excess of the value of the contracts sent along to the Government's own printing works. That seems to me to be rather a sinister move, when we recall the reply which the Financial Secretary to the War Office gave with regard to the clothing factory. It seems to indicate a change in policy, and I think we are entitled to know why the Government printing works are being placed in a secondary position as compared with private printing works. We are not at all sure that this departure, if it be one, is either wise or economic, and we apprehend that ultimately the Estimate may be larger, especially if the employés have to receive the same emoluments as in the Government printing works.
Then I should like to ask whether, in view of the duties that are to be applied very shortly, and which will, of course, include duties on paper, when the 10 per cent. tariff is added to all the paper used by these printing works, the sum required 1085 in this Estimate will cover that excess. We ought to know whether we shall be called upon to deal with a further Supplementary Estimate as a result of the Bill with which we shall be dealing next week.

§ Major ELLIOT
In the first place, the Government printing works are still being kept fully employed, and the hon. Member will be relieved to hear that the ratio of public work to private contracts is substantially the same as it has been for several years, including the years when he was supporting the Government of the day. As for the possible consequences of any tariffs which may be put on, we consider that the Estimates will fully cover the necessary provision, and it is not likely that there will be any further Estimates.

§ Mr. T. WILLIAMS
Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman quite sure that the natural increase will be covered?

§ Major ELLIOT
We are sure that this Estimate will cover the expenditure.

§ Mr. TINKER
I understand that this extra sum of £85,000 has been caused largely by the fact that we met earlier in order to consider the economy campaign. That does not strike us as—

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member cannot discuss that point.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
As a member of the working-class, not in the habit of dealing with £85,000, I would like some explanation from the Minister. To my class, that looks a fabulous sum, and I should like the Minister to inform the House who is responsible for this miscalculation. When Ministers come before this House and ask for money with which to carry on the work that is necessary, they are supposed to be in a position to ask for enough; and to make a mistake in £1,000,000 of £45,000 for printing and £40,000 for paper is serious. If one of my class made a mistake like that, he would be chased. They would dispense with his services, and not only so, but if he was an ordinary member of the working-class and made such a bloomer as this, and then went to the Employment Exchange, he would find there that a note had arrived before him from the firm that had dispensed with his services, so that he would be disqualified for six 1086 weeks from receiving benefit. Therefore, I would like to know the name of the Minister who is responsible. Who is it that makes mistakes like this? Is this one of the men for whom we pay £5,000 a year? Is this one of the great brains, one of the outstanding men of this outstanding country of ours, who goes and makes a mistake like this? One of his colleagues just comes here, as they have always been in the habit of doing until representatives of the working-class arrived in this House to view things from a working-class point of view.
Think what £85,000 means. When I think of the poor folk throughout the length and breadth of Britain to-day, all the unemployed, all the semi-employed who are up against it, if they could just get £85,000 as easily as the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Major Elliot) is going to get it, for this Department to-night, I do not know what would happen. You would find all those benches opposite full. All the great young bloods of England, the Tory party, instead of not being here, would all be here to register their votes against the £85,000 going to the working-class. They would, if it was 85s. Whenever it is anything for the working-class, you can depend on them turning up in their cohorts to fight every penny of any grant that it is proposed to give to that class. Therefore, because this House deals so harshly, and is dealing more harshly every day, with the working-class, I am going to watch the Ministers and follow them, and hold them up, and pillory them to the best of my ability, just as tiny are doing at the moment by my class in every instance, just as we are going to oppose the Judges because of their harsh treatment of—

§ The CHAIRMAN
Order.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
I am just finishing. I want to know who is responsible for this mistake, for this discrepancy, to use what I think is the classic phraseology.

§ Major ELLIOT
I am sure the hon. Member is entitled to ask these questions, though I am sorry to hear that in his opinion neither the people who make paper nor the printers are members of the working-class. The whole of this money will go to members of the working-class, and hard-working members of the working-class at that.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD
I knew you would turn it round that way.

§ Major ELLIOT
If the hon. Member always said all that is in his mind instead of only half, I should not need to reply to his speeches at all. He asked who was responsible for this Estimate. He must realise that Parliament itself is responsible to some extent. These are new services for which Parliament has called during the run of the year's activities, and Ministers who were responsible for these Departments at the time are responsible for that expenditure. Extra expenditure, for instance, is required for the Ministry of Labour, and Miss Bondfield bears some responsibility for that. Extra expenditure is required for telephone directories, for instance, and the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) bears a certain amount of responsibility for that.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
It pays for itself.

§ Major ELLIOT
There is £3,500 a year for paper for telephone directories and £1,500 for printing these directories. The hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) reasonably asks why these things are being brought up. It is because, in the case of the telephone directories, the expansion of the London telephone directory necessitated larger directories being printed and the circulation of the larger books to an increased number of telephone subscribers in place of the smaller provincial directories with which they were formerly supplied. These things, totalled up over a large number of services, lead to the total of £40,000 extra for paper and £45,000 extra for printing. They do not arise from miscalculations in the original Estimates, but from additional work which had to be undertaken and which, as the hon. Member for Limehouse very properly pointed out, in a great many cases pays for itself.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has given us quite a different explanation from that which we had when he first explained this Estimate. He first said that the House had met earlier and that that had caused a great deal of expenditure. We now find sums mixed up with the Post Office commercial accounts. Really the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is not doing himself 1088 justice, because he is an economy Minister, and the general public think they are spending £85,000 extra here. I understood from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's first explanation that it was due to what we see here on the Paper, "Departmental forms and circulars, instructions, etc."

§ The CHAIRMAN
I ought strictly to have stopped the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when he was replying to a question about the original Estimate being increased. The question of Post Office telephone directories had to do, I understand, with the original Estimate, and that cannot be discussed to-day.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
I was dealing with the increase, and I gathered from the Financial Secretary that the increase is due to the increased size of the telephone directory. If that be so this addition is due to that.

§ Major ELLIOT
This contains an increase due to the additional cost of the telephone directory.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
It is unsatisfactory that we should have the Estimates presented in such a form that we cannot tell whether we are dealing with an expanding service like the telephone service, or the profligacy of some Government Department in sending out circulars. The particular point I want to put is that this is supposed to be an economy Government. The original Estimate was £1,726,982, and the additional sum now required is £85,000. There seems, however, to be no set-off due to the ruthless economy campaign which we understood was to run through all Departments. Are we to understand that there has been no cut in the expenditure on paper, envelopes, and so forth? It is easy to cut the wages and unemployment benefit of the working classes; the Government have made cuts on personnel, but not on materials. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tells me that the main part of the increase is taken up by the new telephone directories, that is a different matter, but, if it is due to printing for Parliamentary publications and the lavish use of stationery, it ought to be set out. I should like to hear whether there is any economy campaign at all in the use of stationery and paper.

§ Mr. KNIGHT
Surely the circumstances in which the additional amounts were required is in the recollection of the Committee. During the past year we have had considerable publications in connection with India and unemployment insurance, and a multitude of forms and instructions to local authorities issued in circumstances well within the recollection of the Committee. The additional sum in respect to Parliamentary publications arises owing to the publication of a considerable number of reports, and the hon. Gentleman was a distinguished member of a Government which was continually setting up inquiries, and that resulted in the issue of a large number of Papers.

§ Mr. ATTLEE
This expenditure is for the year ending March, 1932. The Labour Government ended in August, and since then we have had six months of an economy Government with apparently no economies made.

§ Mr. KNIGHT
The expenditure is also for the period beginning March, 1931, and the circumstances to which I have referred arose during that period.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
Is it true that this Supplementary Estimate is due to the Labour Government? As far as I can gather, it arises because of certain work that had to be done in connection with reports of Commissions. Did the present Government take any steps after they came into office to reduce the number of Commissions set up, or to bring the Commissions to an end; or did they allow those useless inquiries to go on, thus encouraging this additional expense? What steps did the Government take to safeguard the taxpayers' money in regard to the expenditure on stationery and printing arising from these Commissions? Can the Financial Secretary say what is the exact proportion of this additional Estimate which is due to the activities of the present Government? This sum of £85,000 is an extraordinary amount. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) is endeavouring to get ships started in his Division, and £85,000 would have been well spent in that direction. If the Financial Secretary can say that the Government spent it in order to keep printers in work rather than to give them unemployment benefit, I can appreciate it. If the Commissions were as useless as the right hon and 1090 gallant Gentleman used to say they were, why did he not stop them at once? Part of the Estimate deals with the Licensing Commission's report. Everybody knew when that Commission was set up nobody would act on its report. The Government which set it up knew it, but it was a way of sidetracking the subject.

§ The CHAIRMAN
If we pursued the hon. Gentleman's methods, there would be no end whatever to what might be discussed on this Supplementary Estimate, and I would ask him to help the Committee by keeping his remarks strictly in order.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
I have been here sufficiently long to know the Rules, and I was not discussing the Licensing Commission. This Commission, in the view of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, was a waste, and, as the Government was elected to stop waste, I am asking why they did not disband that Commission.

§ The CHAIRMAN
I must repeat my request to the hon. Gentleman to help the Committee by not discussing the issue whether the Licensing Commission should have been stopped.

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
I am asked to vote £85,000, part of which is due to that Commission. I say that we could have saved part of that amount if the Government had done their duty. That is all I am saying. I am not arguing the rightness or wrongness of the Commission; I am arguing that the Financial Secretary could have prevented this Supplementary Estimate being so large by disbanding the Commission and saving the cost of printing and stationery thereby. What was done to stop the great outburst of stationery? We have had six months of an economy Government, and I have never seen such a large increase as this. If we had had six months of alleged waste, I could understand it, but we have had six months of economy, and I would ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman if this Estimate could not have been curtailed and why the Government did not take action much earlier to stop this waste? If it was to prevent the printers being paid off, it was a very laudable object, but if it was just to print the report of a useless Commission, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is guilty of sheer waste in permitting such a shocking increase.

§ Major ELLIOT
I do not wish to impress myself again on the Committee, but I note that the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) considers that we should have been still more ruthless—

§ Mr. BUCHANAN
In that connection, yes.

§ Major ELLIOT
—in connection with the activities which he thinks are useless. I shall keep that in mind, and we shall do our best to administer more strictly in future. I think that a great deal of expenditure has been incurred, not for useless purposes, but inevitably incurred in connection with the actual balancing of the Budget and the obtaining of the taxation which was necessary. A considerable expenditure of a remunerative kind has been necessary in order to bring in revenue, and this is the expenditure which this Estimate largely covers. To use a homely proverb which my hon. Friend will no doubt recognise, it is a case of putting a little water in to make the pump draw.

§ Mr. LOGAN
I notice that in the printing of Parliamentary publications, £4,500 has been spent by contract and £4,500 at the Stationery Office Printing Works. That looks as though the printing were put out on a fifty-fifty basis. In the expenditure on departmental forms, etc., £20,000 was spent by contract and £16,000 at the Stationery Office. I take it that there has been no duplication in regard to these figures, but why "by contract," and why—

§ The CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is repeating a question which has been already asked and replied to.

§ Mr. LOGAN
I am sorry, but I was not in the Committee at the time. May I ask, then, why this is divided into two Departments, one by contract and one at the Stationery Office?

§ Major ELLIOT
It is purely fortuitous, and the practice is the same as that which has been maintained under many previous Governments, including the Labour Government.