BOARD OF TRADE.

HC Deb 30 May 1940 vol 361 cc687-708

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £297,034, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1941, for the salaries and expenses of the office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade, and subordinate departments." [Note: £148,000 has been voted on account.]

3.54 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Andrew Duncan)

I am very conscious of the deep interest which hon. Members in all parts of the House have been taking in the development of the export trade, not only as a means for conserving and adding to our financial resources, but also as a means for laying a real foundation for the post-war activities of our industries. I think it would be wise that I should deal to-day with those aspects of the Board of Trade work which bear upon the export problem. Many of the economic activities which fall within the administrative functions of the Board of Trade in peace time are transferred to other and separate Departments in war time, but the closest liaison is maintained by the Board of Trade with these Departments so that, in any decisions that are taken, considerations that bear upon our overseas trade may be taken fully into account.

The Chairman

I rather expected to have a question addressed to me as to the other two Votes which are on the Order Paper to be taken to-day, and it seems, from the right hon. Gentleman's opening, that the Committee may think it advisable that the discussion on the Question which I have put from the Chair should be allowed to range over the other two Votes as well. That is not an uncommon practice, provided it receives the general assent of the Committee. [Hon. Members: "Agreed."]

Sir A. Duncan

On the Export Council, to which I shall refer later, we have representatives—highly placed officers—of six Government Departments. We have the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the Raw Materials Section of the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Shipping and the Economic Survey. Their contributions to our deliberations are of the greatest service to us. In addition, the Board of Trade are kept in the closest touch with the purchasing programmes of the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Supply, as well as with the purchases which the Ministry of Economic Warfare may make for pre-emptive purposes. In this way our buying power is brought to the aid of our export possibilities as fully as it can be within the limiting factors which are bound to surround these purchases in war-time. In present circumstances exchange and economic warfare questions enter so much into the field of trade agreements, which normally is in the province of the Board of Trade, that close inter-departmental contact with the Treasury and the Ministry of Economic Warfare is essential.

Whatever may be the exact nature or form of these trade agreements—and they cover a very wide field to-day—it is the duty and the function of the Board of Trade to see that sterling credits are earmarked to the fullest extent for expenditure in the United Kingdom and the sterling area, and that imports are, as far as possible, paid for by increased exports, visible or invisible. But our liaison arrangements go further still. We have the closest arrangement with the Ministry of Supply, particularly in regard to the raw material controls. These arrangements enable us to ensure that where necessary the raw material requirements of the export trade shall be given precedence over less important home civilian requirements, and indeed that export trade shall be given fair consideration in relation to Service requirements. There is a priority organisation to which we can appeal. Under these arrangements too, the Board of Trade are enabled to guide the raw materials into the more highly finished products for export. Processing and manufacturing add to the value of the raw materials, and in our exports our aim is to secure the highest possible exchange value. Inasmuch, too, as the Board of Trade administer both import and export licences, they are in close liaison with both the Ministry of Supply and the Food Ministry.

The Committee is aware of the general reasons for export and import licences. I do not propose to go into details on these to-day, but just to say that the main purpose of import restrictions is to conserve our resources of foreign exchange and shipping by restricting our purchases from overseas of non-essential and of luxury goods or goods of which we have sufficient supplies at home. It is our general policy to grant licences freely for raw materials or for goods which are being imported for the purpose of being processed or manufactured into the more highly finished goods for export and which cannot be obtained here. There has been throughout these liaison arrangements and in the work of the Department generally a constant preoccupation that our machinery should be so fashioned and adapted that we contribute to the utmost extent to the enlargement of the scope of opportunity for the export trade. We have made it equally our constant pre-occupation that we should maintain and develop that sympathy and understanding with the trading community without which it would be quite impossible for us to achieve the maximum of export trade; and in February last, as the Committee knows, we set up an Export Council. On that Export Council, besides the Departmental representation, we have industry, commerce, labour and banking all represented, and two of the textile controllers as well. The day-to-day work of the Council is carried on by an Executive Committee, consisting of the business members of the Council, who are giving their full time voluntarily to this service, and I take the opportunity of expressing high appreciation of the most valuable and public-spirited service which they are giving. Already we have 120 export groups, and added energy has been imparted to the conduct of the export trade, both in manufacturing and in merchanting.

Within the Board of Trade, the executive members of the Export Council have at their disposal the services of the Industrial Supplies Department, which my predecessor set up in November, and the Overseas Trade Department. In addition they have the services of Board of Trade representatives on the Area Supply Boards in the provinces; these representatives are also experienced business people who are giving their time voluntarily. The export groups form the channel of communication between individual firms in industry and the Export Council, and through them all problems relating to the allocation either of raw materials or of plant capacity are dealt with. They also consider in general the needs of any section of industry in relation to labour supply. But the sphere of usefulness of these export groups and the Export Council is not in any sense limited, and we have had many instances of recommendations being made through the export groups for modifications both in service and commercial specifications with a view to economising our use of raw materials where they are in short supply. Necessity makes for invention, and as an example I mention to the Committee a modification which in this way was very readily accepted by the Ministry of Supply in the specifications for Army boots. As a result of this modification, which did not affect the serviceability of the boots, raw material has been made available for export purposes, and the saving in this single instance alone will permit exports to the value of from £500,000 to £750,000 a year which would not otherwise have been possible. The groups have been of great assistance also in helping to concentrate the export of raw material in the form of more highly finished products rather than in the form of less manufactured products, and they have co-operated very fully indeed in directing production towards export rather than into the home market, even though the export trade has in some cases been, unhappily, much less profitable.

It is true to say that for the most part there are ample markets available in the export field, and we have had the fullest support of national trade organisations in urging upon the commercial community the need to quote firm prices wherever possible. It is recognised that in certain sections of industry the price element is becoming of growing importance and that concerted action will need to be taken—I refer in particular to the cotton industry—to assure the exploitation of markets to the fullest extent. This is a matter to which the executive members of the Export Council, along with the Cotton Board and the cotton industry, are giving immediate attention. The solution of commercial problems must vary from industry to industry, but I believe that in the machinery which we have evolved and are evolving appropriate remedies, bearing on what are essentially practical problems, can be found and will be found. From the series of visits which I have paid to the provincial centres, as well as from deputations which I have met there and in London, I feel very confident indeed that the trading community are keen to assist in this form of national service, and there is a determination to exhaust every possibility of finding business solutions for business questions. It is, in particular, recognised that if a proper foundation is to be laid for postwar trade, competitive efficiency and sales efficiency must be developed to the greatest possible extent.

To-day the Overseas Trade Department is working as an integral part of the Board of Trade organisation. With its contacts throughout the world and with the reports received at short intervals from its officers in every part of the world, it is able to keep the export groups in touch with broad general trends. It has also negotiated simpler procedure for facilitating visits of business men and commercial agents abroad from this country and to this country from abroad, and it has helped to reduce the delays in the censorship of business correspondence, catalogues and samples. The Department have taken the opportunity of the continuation of the New York World's Fair greatly to enlarge the exhibit of British products in that Fair, so that it now includes practically every product that is exported from this country to the United States.

In the sphere of financing export trade, the Export Credits Guarantee Department have enlarged the facilities available to the business community in respect of the greater risks that arise in war-time. A new transfer risks policy has been issued expressly covering the risk of non-payment owing to war or other catastrophe developing in the buyer's country. The proportion of the transfer risk which the Department guarantees is 90 per cent. Apart from risk of non-payment for goods delivered, there is, of course, the further risk that arises of loss to the exporter in respect of goods that are completed or partly completed and cannot be shipped because of some catastrophic development in the country that would have taken them, and here again it has been decided that a new form of policy shall be made available, as from to-morrow. With these pre-shipment risks covered, I think it can now be said that this far-reaching scheme of insurance should enable the exporters to accept export orders with every confidence, since practically every contingency arising outside the United Kingdom is covered.

There is another aspect of our policy to which I must refer. In April last the Board of Trade issued an Order restricting the quantities of cotton rayon and linen made-up goods and piece goods which could be supplied to the home market. The restriction was designed to help our export trade in those products by withdrawing raw materials from home purposes. Manufacturers of piece goods and makers-up of garments have co-operated, both individually and through their organisations, in making that scheme a success. This limitation Order was intended only as a beginning, and it has been generally recognised that restriction of other products would be necessary. The emergency which has now arisen makes it imperative that home consumption should be reduced further than would have been necessary by reason only of the increase in export trade, and in any further action now to be taken this aspect will be borne in mind.

As to trade figures, I will not dwell on what was or was not done during the period 1914–18. The circumstances were in any case in many essential respects different, but I will make this broad statement, that at no time in the four years did exports reach in volume, or approximate even in volume, to those of the immediately preceding pre-war year, and only in one year out of those four years did the exports even reach, in spite of the increase of prices, in value the prewar figure of 1913. Contrast with that the fact that for the first two months of this year our exports did reach in value to the same level that they had attained in the corresponding two months of last year, and in the months of March and April our export trade approximated to within 2 per cent. in volume of the export trade that had been done in March and April of last year. These are very encouraging figures, keeping in mind the fact that, owing to the extent to which the heavy industries are engaged in war work, the great metal groups of our exporting industries cannot play their normal part at the present time in the export field. It means that there must have been a very considerable speed-up in the export of other commodities. During April, in value, cotton goods reached their highest figures since 1937; woollen goods, other textiles, pottery and glass had higher exports than for at least 10 years; cutlery, hardware, electrical goods and apparatus, chemicals and drugs had higher exports than they had had for 20 years. I am not overlooking the gap between exports and imports. Even if allowance is made for the fact that the trade figures do not take into account the invisible exports, it is still very big indeed. But even so I think I am entitled to say that our exporting interests have, in March and April at least, made the beginning of a very creditable performance.

The Committee will no doubt have in mind the fact that the situation with which we are faced in the export field is not static. With the invasion of Norway and Denmark, and the consequent inaccessibility of the Baltic trading area, which includes Sweden and Finland, we lost markets which represented 10 per cent. of our normal exports. With the further invasion of Holland and Belgium, we have lost an additional 5 per cent. It is quite true that these same events afford us still greater opportunity in other markets, from which the invaded countries are themselves excluded, but the switch-over takes time, even if it can be done 100 per cent. Unfortunately, even more serious modifications and adjustments in our export position are called for by the necessity for the country to meet the fullest onslaught of the enemy now. What is appropriate to a long-term plan, when the maximum effort is to come at a later period in a long war, is not appropriate when you have a short-term policy, or when the maximum effort must be made immediately. Every resource must now be concentrated upon the immediate production of armaments, which are so urgently required. Just as there will be alterations of programme within the field of munition production itself, so we must be prepared to turn a great deal of the effort which is now engaged in the development of export trade into making munitions at home. On the other hand, efforts must be still more intensified in connection with exports where skill and capacity are specialised to a particular end and cannot be diverted to munitions, and also where we have raw materials under our own control, as in the case of coal. I hope that such steps as my hon. Friend will be able to take will result in such an increase in the production of coal that we shall be assured of developing the markets which we have had in the past, and which we hope still to hold.

The time has come when neither our capital resources nor exportable goods can be used for purchasing imports for home consumption beyond the absolute necessities of our population. Apart from the need for directing the present export drive to some extent into munitions production, we shall need to direct material and labour from the production of goods for unnecessary consumption at home into the production of goods for export. Fortunately for the orderly rearrangements which we need to make in the export drive, we have available the efficient and flexible machinery of the Export Council and the export groups. Full use will be made of that machinery, so that we may be sure that, however we may need to withdraw here and expand there for immediate war purposes, the ultimate expansion of our export trade all along the line will be assured both as a war measure and as a foundation for national recovery after the war. I make no apology, even in the situation of to-day, for emphasising still the need for concentrating on export trade, where that can be done without endangering our efforts in the war. I hope that as this Committee has given its support in the past, so it will now, to the development of our export trade, and that throughout the country the manufacturing and industrial community will realise that, in so far as they are not engaged in armament production the onus is placed upon them now no less than it has been hitherto of prosecuting our export trade to the utmost extent.

4.21 p.m.

Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, South)

It is my privilege to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, first, on the very clear exposition which he has given us to-day of the work of the Export Council, and, in addition, upon his maiden speech in this House. [Hon. Members: "No."] I was wrong. I have been misled by an organ of the Press, which said yesterday that this performance would be his maiden speech, and went on to hint that in that case I should have some statistics bearing on the fact. I have gone into the Statistics, and I find that one baby out of 100,000 babies that are born sits on the Front Bench, but that only one in 5,000,000 ever makes a maiden speech from that Box.

I am very grateful for the information which the right hon. Gentleman has given us about the work of the Export Council. I was also very interested in what he said about the revision of specifications. Hon. Members will be aware of the second report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, on which I am privileged to serve. In that report we devoted considerable attention to the importance of the Service Departments revising their specifications, so that when buying for war purposes they should buy those things that are more immediately available, so adapting themselves to war circumstances. In that report we were not concerned with export trade, but I am glad that the same principle is being adopted in connection with export trade. I would suggest the desirability of the Board of Trade linking up with supply officers in the various war Departments who are engaged in dealing with the problem of specifications. The right hon. Gentleman also made a reference to the limitation order in respect of supplies of goods for the home market. Here is a direction in which I would ask him to move with some care. The immediate effect of the announcement of the last order of that kind was a certain amount of panic buying. It is very important not to create in the minds of the public the idea that they will not be able to buy certain things in the future, because that will lead to a rush of people to the shops to buy such goods, to the prejudice of other members of the public.

The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to widen the picture contained in the Board of Trade Returns, by giving us some indication of the trade situation. I am grateful for that. On account of price variations, we are all in the dark as to the real situation. Frankly, I am doubtful whether we gain very much by having reduced the Board of Trade Returns from the bulky volume that we used to have to this tiny document. The object, of course, is to deprive the enemy of information. I wonder whether, as a matter of fact, there is much advantage in so doing when at the same time we deprive the whole trading community of this country of much of the information that they need to guide them in their trade policy. I have discussed this privately with the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know what his present state of mind is, but I think it would be helpful to the trading community if they were given more knowledge than they now have. We have not the faintest knowledge of whom we are trading with, or the amount of that trade. The enemy can derive a good deal of information from the study of the trade statistics of those countries which are neutral, although they will not get the information quite so promptly; but we are kept in the dark. If we are to test the efficiency of the policy of the Government, we ought to have the necessary knowledge, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider, with his advisers and, of course, the War Cabinet, whether we cannot have more detailed information, so that we ourselves may know where we are making advances and where we are not, and what we ought to do.

I have tried to obtain some picture of the volume of our trade. The only information that I have is the Board of Trade index numbers for wholesale prices, which are still published in the "Board of Trade Journal." I came to the conclusion that our exports in April, which amounted to just over £48,000,000 in value would, in the terms of prices of last year, have been worth about £35,000,000; so, roughly speaking, the exports in April this year were about the same in volume as those for April last year. I realise that the index number for home prices is different from that for our export trade, and that, therefore, my calculation is a crude one. Actually, I gather from the right hon. Gentleman's speech that the situation is rather better than my calculation would have led me to believe. Imports have gone up startlingly, from £70,000,000 in April last year to £110,000,000 in April this year. By my figure, which I know is not strictly accurate, they have gone up in quantity from £70,000,000 to the equivalent of about £80,000,000. The more detailed information at the disposal of the Board of Trade may give a more favourable picture. The quantity of goods represents our needs, but the value of the goods is what we have to pay for.

I note that there has been a disturbing increase in the adverse balance of visible trade. If you take the first four months of this year, the difference between the imports and the total exports comes to £235,000,000; while the figure for the first four months of last year was £115,000,000, so we are worse off to the extent of £120,000,000. On the other hand, the bulk of our invisibles are still there. In some cases, I think they will be larger. Rubber companies, tin companies and others are probably doing better as a result of this war; and profits from them constitute a large part of our invisible imports. The shipping figures also have shown some expansion. It is a difficult picture to follow, but I should think that on balance our invisible items are greater this year than they were last year, and that, therefore, the real increase in our adverse balance is something less than £120,000,000. Perhaps we may call it £100,000,000. Last year we were on an even keel; and, therefore, this represents £100,000,000 of credits that we have to get somewhere or other, either by disposing of our gold reserves or by selling our overseas securities. The great problem that the right hon. Gentleman has to face is that of relieving the Chancellor of the Exchequer of this terrible problem. In the meantime, we have to depend on our own resources.

The position is disturbed and made difficult to calculate by the fact that Scandinavia, Belgium and Holland are now no longer trading areas so far as we are concerned. They are countries from which we imported far more than they imported from us. Their elimination superficially improves our adverse trade balance, because it forces upon us that reduction in consumption about which the right hon. Gentleman was talking. Hitler has been far more influential in bringing about that result than appeals of right hon. Gentlemen, including my right hon. Friend opposite. If reduction in consumption is forced upon us in future, if, for example, we only have avail- able about one-third of the paper previously consumed, it is obviously unnecessary to make any appeals as the stuff will not be there, and that will be the end of the argument. I rather wonder whether these appeals to abstain from purchasing are always well conceived. I put to the Lord Chancellor, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, this question. That morning I had gone down Victoria Street, and having passed a shop advertising a lot of shirts for sale at reduced prices, and having abstained from taking advantage of that offer because I was in a hurry, I asked him in what way I had helped the export trade? I did not get an answer. I do not think there was an answer. If the exports had taken the place of things that were in short supply in this country, the consumer would not be able to buy. If things have been made and delivered to the shops, I do not think that we are serving any particular purpose in asking the public not to buy them. We ought to be clear in our minds when we start to give instructions to the public.

The Export Council seems to be getting to work vigorously. The President of the Board of Trade said that 120 groups are in being. I belong to one of the groups. They appointed an executive committee, of which, I am glad to say, I am not a member. I heard recently how they were getting on, and I wished them good luck. They are all filled with the right spirit. These export groups are not going to export anything themselves. We must not blind our eyes to the fact that we can only export when we get orders, which is the duty of traders. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade cannot do it, and his colleague the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department cannot do it, but they can both do something to create conditions favourable to manufacturers and merchants who have to get the orders. You cannot get orders unless the price is right. If we run up the price in this country too much we shall not be able to export.

I appeal to my right hon. Friend to keep an eye on his colleague the Minister of Labour, who is not yet a Member of this House. I say with the greatest possible respect to the Minister of Labour, and to the Minister for Aircraft Production, that, if they first of all destroy all the human beings in this country by depriving them of holidays and making them work week after week, Saturdays and Sundays, and all round the clock, all that production will come to naught. If this folly is persisted in too long—I speak in very plain terms because it is real folly—the effect of all this overtime will probably be that after the first enthusiasm has worn off there will certainly be no increase in production, and we shall be paying people twice as much for doing the same amount of work. In the munitions areas all checks on waste are now removed by the 100 per cent. Excess Profits Tax. We must not overlook the incredible economic disaster which may follow. Waste of every kind is now going to happen, and those whom the Government are supplying with unlimited funds to improve their output will be in a position to waste. They are not the people who are in the export trade.

The whole of our export trade push may be ruined by follies done in connection with other parts of the war effort. Therefore, I would in the strongest possible terms urge my right hon. Friend to represent to his colleagues that, in their great anxiety to get an increase in the production of munitions—in directions in which in my judgment, they will fail—they do not at the same time defeat the whole concern by which the war effort is to be sustained, namely, the export trade. Roughly speaking, under our existing system of taxation, for every pound that the Government spend on the war effort, they get about 6s. 8d. back in taxation, so that the net cost is 13s. 4d., which has to be found by all the people who are not engaged in the war effort. As they are taxed roughly in the same proportion, it means that two-thirds of the human beings in this country, unless we can sustain the war effort by borrowing, have to be engaged on work which has nothing to do with war.

That is an interesting thought. Not more than one-third of the population, as things are at the moment, and unless we can borrow from abroad to maintain the war effort, can serve in the Forces or be on munitions, and the other two-thirds have to be employed to supply their needs. People say to me, "I want to do something to help to win the war," and I ask them, "What are you doing?" They describe what they are doing, and I say, "The best thing that you can do is to get on with your job." In the war effort there ought to be the minimum of hindrances from Government Departments. I took the liberty on the day after Budget Day to make a brief speech and referred to the administrative methods now being pursued in all Government Departments and described them as a growing scandal. I think that that was a fair description.

A prominent industrialist came to see me yesterday and said, "When are you going to get on with the war effort?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "You ought to shoot nine civil servants." I said, "Why?" and he replied, "Because that is the magic number. Unless you shoot some of them and stop this incredible lunacy of Government administrative departments all our efforts will be diminished." That is violent language, but it is more or less true. My right hon. Friend, to my own knowledge, is working to the limit to cut out circumlocution. I know that to be the fact, and I pay him every tribute for it. I heard a very high tribute paid to him the other day from an officer in his Department. It is almost improper for me to say this, but I am not going to mention any names. I asked him, "How do you like your new President?" and he replied, "He is a splendid man. He answers letters even before he gets them." In a certain sense, if you say the right things in the right place people do not need to write letters. That is a great tribute from a member of the Department, who will no doubt reprove me for making this improper use of private conversation, but, as I say, I will not mention any names.

I am now going to mention two cases about which my right hon. Friend knows. They are not very important individually, but they both relate to the export trade. One relates to a gentleman who lives in my constituency and makes umbrellas. The bulk of his business is the export of umbrellas. He was held up because he could not get the ribs, which are made of steel. Steel, in the form of umbrella ribs, is a magnificent export. I know that it has a very high value per ton. It was my right hon. Friend himself who told me that, if you export steel in the form of umbrella ribs, you export it at the rate of £150 per ton. That is an ideal form of export at this moment. This man makes umbrellas for export, and he has to buy the steel ribs. As he could not get a supply of ribs I wrote to the Department of Overseas Trade on 28th February, and sent a reminder on 7th March. I received what I regarded as an ineffective reply on 12th March. I wrote a further letter to the Department on 12th April, and by chance I asked a supplementary Question of the Minister of Supply on 17th April, and on the same day wrote a letter to the Ministry of Supply, and I received a reply on 18th April, stating that the matter was one for the Board of Trade. On 19th April I wrote to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, and on 29th April I had the privilege of seeing him on a number of matters. He had in front of him a file containing details of this particular case. Things began to move. I afterwards thought I would find out from my constituent what was happening, and he told me that in the last three or four weeks the situation had been much better from the moment that I wrote to my right hon. Friend, and I pay him that tribute, but what about all the previous period from 28th February to 19th April, when the man who had plenty of export orders could not get the requisite permit for his steel? Even now, though the position is much better and he has the permit, he is not getting adequate deliveries.

Now a new problem arises. It is a specification problem. It is not that it is important in itself, but it illustrates the point. The same manufacturer is receiving inquiries from Uruguay for umbrellas to replace those hitherto bought from Germany. These have always been of a certain design and type and involve obtaining a section of rib which is different from the standard British section, and no one in this country is able to produce that kind of rib. Here is an opportunity for exporting umbrellas which involve a different design, or an extra special effort to induce the customer to change the nature of his demands. Though this is not a big order in itself, it illustrates a number of very important principles, and that is why I have taken a little time over it. It may only involve a few thousand pounds by itself.

The next case is a very curious one. It relates to a company with which I am personally connected. On 8th February the managing director of the company, of which I am the chairman but not a full-time executive, was lunching with me in this building when he told me that they were reluctantly throwing away every day a certain kind of hair which was of no use to them, as the cost of recovery was such that, economically, it was cheaper to throw it away than to save it. That is one of the difficulties of salvage. The cost of saving is often more than the value of what you save, although in these times it might be of vital importance to spend say £6 in getting an export worth only £5.

Lunching in the same room was the present Minister of Food, who was then Director-General of Stores and Equipment at the Ministry of Supply. I told him about this and he was at once interested, as I knew he would be. As one of the Treasury representatives on the Special Areas Committee he said that he was going to a Special Areas Committee that afternoon and would raise the matter, as the factory is on a Special Area trading estate. H we said that he would see what he could do, and no one could have been more expeditious, for at half-past nine the next morning someone called at the works in South Wales and said that something must be done. It was arranged that the necessary plant should be erected. The scheme involves the erection of a building by the South Wales and Monmouthshire Trading Estates, Limited, which is a Government company. Special facilities are necessary if the scheme is not to involve my company in loss. What has been happening? The details have been going round between the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Supply since then for the necessary permit in order that the factory can be erected. We want to export this hair and get all this delay since 8th February. My company do not care whether the job is done or not from their own selfish point of view, but from the point of view of the national interest it ought to be done. The job has been held up for four months. It is not good enough that we should have these incredible delays.

I do not know what the experience of other hon. Members is, but my experience is that, if you write a letter to a Government Department about any ordinary thing which we ourselves would answer by return of post, you do not receive an answer within three weeks. This sort of business ought to be stopped. Civil servants are working abnormal overtime, which is totally unnecessary, most of it, because it takes 10 people to make up the mind of one person. We can afford to allow a certain amount of this sort of thing to go on in peace-time, but it ought to be stopped in time of war. We must go a little further in mobilising our industrial effort.

There are still, or there were a month ago, at least 1,000,000 persons out of work in this country. I do not know whether my constituency can play its part in the export trade, though I hope it can. It is only a fortnight ago since I attended at the Town Hall in my constituency, a conference presided over by the Mayor, at which there were representatives of the building trades unions and of the master builders. They were in despair because they did not know in what way a large number of building trade operatives could be found employment. Croydon is typical of dozens of towns in the south-east part of England at this moment. Grave unemployment exists. I know the present Secretary of State for Scotland used to indulge in ingenious calculations which were really an analysis of figures designed to prove that not many were really out of work and always had the ardent support of the "Daily Telegraph." But that does not alter the facts. I have had people coming to see me, asking me to find them a job. Occasionally, if they were technical people I advised them to sign on at the Central Registry, that amazing department over which there ought to be the words "Abandon hope all ye who sign on here." It is the most incredible department which the State ever set up. I said three months ago that it was a scandal and ought to be put right. Whether anything has been done I do not know.

I had an interesting answer yesterday to a Question I recently put to the Minister of Labour. In the first eight months of the war period the number of entrants to unemployment insurance was 813,000. The figure for the corresponding period of the year before was 547,000, so that there has been an addition to our industrial strength of 266,000. That is apart from anything that may be shown from the drop in the live register of unemployment. We have drawn into the industrial machine more than 250,000 people over and above what we might normally have anticipated. That, I think, is an en- couraging fact, but I would say to the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary that there is still untouched a vast reservoir of employable people in this country. There is a vast army of women willing to work if there is any chance of work.

Three months ago the Prime Minister, who was then the First Lord of the Admiralty, went to Manchester and said, "We want 1,000,000 women in our factories." I think that was a deplorable statement to make at that moment. Although it was true it merely created entirely false hopes. Women crammed the Employment Exchanges and asked for jobs and the answer was that there were no jobs to be had. The other day the Minister of Aircraft Production, an old friend of mine, appealed for garage hands for aircraft work, and when there was an immediate response to that appeal there was nothing for them to do. Ministers must abstain from these emotional appeals and must be sure for what they want people before they issue their appeals. There must be organisation. After all, the function of Ministers doing their job is not self-advertisement. Lately there has been too much of people rushing to the microphone and making appeals for the war effort without taking precautions to see that if the appeal is responded to anything will happen. We shall want women in due course, but there must be organisation to prepare the way for their employment.

I have been a little nervous, Sir Dennis, that you might rule me out of order this afternoon. The practice in this House ever since I have been a Member is that if one wanted to discuss the problem of unemployment one did so on the Vote for the Ministry of Labour. Why? He has nothing to do with it. The Minister of Labour controls no policies which put people into work. He is merely a universal relieving officer and in addition has to do what he can to prevent the unfair exploitation of labour. He does not control the policy which creates employment. That is the duty of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and others concerned with economic matters, and I hope that in future when we want to discuss problems of unemployment we shall have the right Ministers on that Bench.

I hope I have not taken up too much of the time of the Committee. I would like once again to congratulate my right hon. Friend on his full statement with regard to the working of his Department. I can assure him that in the difficult times we are now facing some of us might, from time to time, indulge in a certain amount of violent criticism, as I have done of certain things, but our sole object is to help and not to hinder. If we are violent it is only our emotions which make us violent when we see hesitation and lack of drive. We wish the right hon. Gentleman all good luck in his task; and if there is anything we can do to help him we are always at his disposal.

4.50 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)

We are living in a strange world and a strange House of Commons, and one of the strangest of all things is that the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) should speak from this Box and that I should follow him. We have listened to him, as we usually do, with some pleasure, because he puts vigour into his speeches, whether they are from this Box or the benches opposite. I was very glad to find a new voice at this Box saying something that we have said for months past, without very much support from the hon. Member. Indeed, it was a joy to me to hear the hon. Member describe, as we used to describe, those magic figures which we used to get from the late Minister of Labour, but I also detected in his speech some touches of the old Victorian individualist spirit. I agree with him entirely in his plea that at a time like this quick decision and a grip on the job are essential. I believe that one of the things which has brought new confidence to the country in the last week or two is the clear evidence that the new Government are showing the grip which the old Government lacked so much. I take especial pride in this, because Members of my own party have contributed materially to that drive which has given that confidence to the country.

I pay tribute to the President of the Board of Trade for his plain, straight-forward and lucid statement, but we should do well to remember that we are discussing all these problems in a new setting. First of all, the setting of war, a war that sometimes bewilders us by the way territories change hands and areas which have been open become closed. The President of the Board of Trade was right, I think, in stressing the fact that export trade is not static but is apt to suffer interference. However, I think the main point is this: The country is beginning to realise fully that we are engaged in a conflict for our lives. Everyone wants to see the conflict waged until we win; defeat for all would be calamitous and to none more than to the members of the movement which we represent here. Wherever Nazism goes we are its first casualties. What we are fighting is not merely the German Army, Air Force or Navy; we are fighting a German nation which is completely converted into an armed camp. Every bit of German resources and every bit of the resources of every country they conquer is immediately made part of the war machine. Every man, every industry, all wealth and every aspect of life are directed towards their war effort. My view is that we cannot overcome such an enemy by mid-Victorian capitalism in this country. We can overcome it only if we mobilise the whole resources of this country into one great national effort. In that effort the export trade plays its part.

Germany has been in many spheres a most formidable enemy and competitor. She has organised everywhere with the ruthlessness that the world fully appreciates. The export trade of Germany is fitted into her four-year plan; it is a part of her general effort and general scheme and is handled and organised by the State. Behind it are put the whole resources of that vast Empire. Our export trade in the days, weeks and months ahead of us will not survive if it is left to fight its own battles. It, too, must have behind it the whole resources of this nation. When we had a Debate towards the end of last year on this problem my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) urged, as I urge now, that the problem of export trade cannot be considered as a problem of its own, unrelated to other problems. It is connected with all the activities of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke this afternoon. My hon. Friend pleaded then, as we plead now, that it is essential for us to develop the closest possible co-ordination of the whole of our economic effort and in the building-up of our general economic strategy. The whole of these problems must be considered in that light. When a White Paper was issued setting out the aims and policy of the export groups and the structure of the machinery, we welcomed it at the time, and we are glad this afternoon to learn that since the date when that policy was announced 140 export groups have been formed in the various industries in this country and that the right hon. Gentleman has satisfied himself that they are working successfully.

But the point that I would like to make is this: Is the central machinery working? What is the power that the Central Committee have over these various groups? Is their task simply that of receiving information of the needs of these groups for raw materials and so on; are they merely acting as a clearing-house for demands made by the various groups, or will they go further and develop some kind of general policy? Are they directing the groups and putting drive into them? Unless the Central Committee are given power to direct and control and make decisions in this quickly-changing world, they will not perform the task which they might for the nation, and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary, when he comes to reply, to tell us what powers the Central Committee have of a general directive co-ordinated character. Indeed, the President has told us that it is essential that we should not only maintain but expand as widely as possible our export trade.

Our export trade in these days has to be considered from three aspects, one of which the right hon. Gentleman stressed, and which, I think, has been very aptly described as a bread-and-butter aspect. It is essential for us to maintain and expand our export trade in order to be able to maintain the economic structure of the country. The central fact about the economic structure of this country is that it is so dependent on foreign goods. We cannot live on ourselves, we cannot sustain our own people; we must export or die. Therefore, our export trade is an essential part of the effort to keep this nation going while engaged in the struggle. It is desirable, in my opinion, that the needs of the export trade should be given a very high place in the scale of priorities. I know that the needs of the Services must come first and that everybody must be sacrificed in order that they, at any rate, shall be given the maximum amount of support in material that this country is capable of mobilising quickly. We all realise that the needs of the Services must come first and that the export trade and every other trade must play a secondary part. But with that reservation I maintain that the export trade must come high up in the list.

Unless we expand our export trade we are sure in the end to be defeated. I believe that we shall withstand and overcome this first rush of Hitler's, and when we have done that and the turn of the tide comes, then it is that our great resources, if properly mobilised, will come into play. Therefore, I urge the President of the Board of Trade to be planning and organising, as I am sure he will, to see that our export trade gets a high place in the priorities list after the needs of the Services have been met.

Let me proceed to the next point. The export trade has now its part to play in another Department which I am sure is closely linked up with the Board of Trade, and that is in the Department of Economic Welfare.