SIXTH SCHEDULE.—(Provisions for Exchequer Assistance to Boards Administering Redundancy Schemes.) (Hansard, 6 July 1939)

§ Mr. Cross
I beg to move, in page 57, line 21, to leave out "first" and to insert "initial.".
All the Amendments to this Schedule, with the exception of the third, provide that the accounting period of all the redundancy schemes are to coincide. The object is to reduce to a minimum the number of journeys which the Government auditors will have to make in connection with the auditing of the accounts.

§ Mr. Cross
I beg to move, in page 58, line 1, to leave out "one month," and to insert "two months."
This Amendment provides a period of two months instead of one month between the end of the accounting period and the submission of the accounts of the redundancy schemes to the Board of Trade. This is in connection with the Amendment which I have just explained, and means that the accountancy work for the redundancy schemes in the different sections will probably all be done by the same staff.

§ Mr. Rhys Davies
I do not think the House of Commons should allow the Bill to pass through its final stage without saying a word of congratulation to the right hon. Gentleman and his deputy for the excellent manner in which they have piloted it through. I am sure I express the general opinion, even of those who disagree with some of the things that the Board of Trade does in the Bill. I have followed the Bill from the beginning and have taken a very keen interest in it. The one thing that has struck me about the Lancashire textile industry is that for over a century it never bothered Parliament at all. It went on its sweet way, capturing markets in every part of the world without assistance from Government. At long last, its trade gone from many markets, it has begun to think of what the Government might do. The main trouble was that the people engaged in this industry were always supposed to be so independent that you could not get them together to do anything to help themselves. Parliament has done one thing. Through the Board of Trade and the right hon. Gentleman and his Department, it has got the Lancashire textile employers in particular to come together to see whether, by joint action and Parliamentary effort, they can recover some of the trade that has been lost in the markets of the world. I think that I may say on behalf of the party to which I belong—because the workers of Lancashire have suffered as much as any working folk owing to the contraction of their staple industry—that if this Bill does anything to bring about a higher standard of living in the villages of Lancashire, where cotton mills used to hum and work at full blast, those who have taken the slightest part in shaping this Measure will be happy indeed.

§ Mr. Cross
I should like to express the gratitude of my right hon. Friend and myself to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) for the very kind and appreciative things he has said about us. I should not like, and the House would not wish me, to allow this occasion to go by without expressing congratulations, in which I think we would all feel willing to join, to the Joint Committee upon 1678 reaching what to them must be a stage in which they are nearing the completion of the monumental work on which they have spent years of effort. I want on my part also to express to them our gratitude for the spirit of give and take which they have exhibited on a number of very difficult occasions which has not always been reflected in the Committee upstairs or on the Report stage in this House. It has, perhaps, been rather more give than take. But, on the other hand, one ought to add to that the fact that the rayon interests and the Opposition and other interests have also shown themselves ready to give. They have not taken up a rigid opposition, and they have shown a spirit of compromise. This spirit of good will has extraordinarily facilitated the very difficult work—and it has been a very great deal of work—we have had to do in getting this Bill to its present stage.
I would also have the temerity to express the appreciation of myself and my right hon. Friend for the very kind and helpful interest which Members of all parties have taken in a really constructive, effort to make this Bill a better Bill. It must seldom occur that so much constructive effort is drawn from so many different quarters, and indeed from every quarter of the House, as has been the case on this occasion, and they have not all been by any means Lancashire Members. We must not also exclude the fact that those who have voiced the views of the Opposition and of the rayon interests have done some very important work in reconciling conflicting interests. In the early stages of the Bill, perhaps, it did not look as though that was going to happen. We are all thankful that, now that we have reached the end of the Bill in this House, many of those conflicting interests have been reconciled.
I am sure that hon. Members who do not sit for Lancashire seats will forgive me when I say that to many of us Lancashire Members this Bill means a great deal, because a great many of our hopes for our constituents are centred upon the use which may be made of this Measure. This Bill is a great and a new experiment, and it leaves this House with the earnest hope of us all that it may bring some relief to what is, perhaps, the most sorely depressed industrial section of the people of this country. I know that I shall carry with me all those who know them when I 1679 say that they are a people who have earned the profound respect of all who have been associated with them for the extraordinarily brave and uncomplaining fortitude with which they have faced a long period of great adversity.

§ Mr. Hammersley
Before we pass the final stage of the Bill to which the people of Lancashire are looking with great hope, I would like to add to what has come from the Front benches a word of hope that the Bill will be successful in retrieving some of Lancashire's lost fortunes.