CLASS II. (Hansard, 7 February 1940)

Mr. Creech Jones
I notice that in this Supplementary Estimate provision is made for an expansion of the Economic Department of the Colonial Office, and I should like the Secretary of State to give me a little information as to what his new extensions contemplate and what are the duties upon which that Department is actually engaged. A short time ago I put a Question in this House about the abolition, during the war period anyway, of the Empire Marketing Board, and I was told that its duties had been transferred 323 to the Economic Department. I should like to know whether this Department is bringing under review all the important economic problems which are associated with the Colonial Empire during the war. The economic organisation of the Empire is a matter of fundamental concern to the inhabitants of the various territories, and we want to feel that these economic problems are being satisfactorily handled during the war. The breakdown of the Empire Marketing Board is a matter of very grave importance, because at a time of disruption of communications and other economic difficulties it is vitally important that the products of the Empire should find a market.

§ The Deputy-Chairman
The hon. Member is getting very wide of the subjects which can be raised on this Supplementary Estimate. What he is saying would be in order upon the Colonial Office Vote as a whole, but discussions upon a Supplementary Estimate must be confined to the subject of the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Creech Jones
I understood that the expansion arose through war necessity, and I was drawing attention to the vital importance of economic organisation during the war. I am anxious to discover what are the duties which the Economic Department will undertake now that the Empire Marketing Board has ceased to exist, at a time when the needs of the Empire are greater than ever. Further, I should like to ask whether the labour problems are being considered, whether the Department is charged with the responsibility of the expansion of social services, native welfare work and other matters concerned with the growth of industrialisation in certain of the Colonies and the necessity of labour organisation to meet that growth.

§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald)
As the hon. Member has said, the advent of war has somewhat altered the work which was carried on in the Colonial Office with regard to economic questions affecting the Colonies. At the beginning of the war the work of the Colonial Marketing Board was suspended because the conditions under which Colonial products were sold in the markets of the world have been altered by the war. The Government have become the purchasers of many 324 Colonial products, such as sugar, cocoa, ground nuts, and Colonial wool, and in that connection a good deal more work has fallen upon the Economic Department, which is, of course, working in close consultation and co-operation with the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Shipping, the Treasury, and other Departments which are occasionally concerned. Although that is not the whole explanation of this enlargement of the Economic Department—because I should have proposed an enlargement in any case, on account of the great importance which I attach to the developing work of that Department—nevertheless the advent of war made an increase of officers in that division of the Colonial Office still more urgent. A good deal of the extra money required under Sub-head A is wanted for the salaries of extra officers in the Economic Department. I have appointed a new Assistant Under-Secretary of State, who will devote a great deal of his time to looking after these economic questions. I have added an additional principal to the Department and have increased a good deal the clerical staff.

§ Mr. George Griffiths
What is the salary of those two whom the right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned?

§ Mr. MacDonald
The total sum involved in my additions to that Department is something over £1,000; it is £1,300. Of course, the new assistant Under-Secretary of State is not a new officer. He was in the Economic Department before, and he has now received an increase in his salary because of his promotion to higher office in the Colonial Department.

§ Mr. Griffiths
It is a new post entirely?

§ Mr. MacDonald
Yes.

§ Mr. Griffiths
It being a new post, what is the salary of it?

§ Mr. MacDonald
The salary is the normal one attaching to such a post, namely £1,700. It is a new post, but the whole of the salary paid to the officer is not a new charge. The officer himself was in the Economic Department and has been promoted to the additional post created. The additional sum required for him, the new principal and the additional clerical staff in the Economic Department comes to £1,300.

§ Mr. Griffiths
Somebody else has the post now that he had before he was promoted; is that not so?

§ Mr. MacDonald
Another officer has been brought in from a Colonial post overseas and has taken his place as the head of the Economic Department. With regard to the other Question raised by the hon. Member, whether the Economic Department is concerning itself with labour questions and with the development of the social services in the Colonies, the answer is in the negative. Labour questions come under the General Department, and social services come under a different Department, the Social Services Department. Therefore, I am afraid that it would be out of order to deal with those questions under this particular heading.