HC Deb 30 July 1943 vol 391 cc2048-56

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]

Mr. Rhys Davies (Westhoughton)

I want to raise once again a subject with which by this time the Minister of Labour will be fairly familiar.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Beechman.]

Mr. Davies

Although I have raised this issue on several previous occasions, I do not know what has gone wrong, because I do not seem to have made much, if any, impression at all on the Minister. I enter the fray once again in the hope that some good will transpire as the result of this present intervention. I am referring to the merciless denuding of the food shops of the country of their skilled staffs, and I would not be doing my duty if I did not raise my voice against what is happening. The position is something like this: The distributive trades of this country are, of course, the largest of all pools for recruiting for the Forces and for fife war industries. The distributive trades employ more people than five of the largest industries outside themselves. We have never been able to induce the Ministry of Labour to believe that serving food behind the counter of a shop is a skilled occupation. People have come to the conclusion apparently that anybody can serve behind a shop counter. I wish they would try it for a week; they would then find how difficult a task it is.

This is what has happened since the war began. Nearly every man of military age has been called up from food shops in the country, almost without any exception. I would not be surprised if about one-fourth or one-fifth of the men fighting in the Services to-day are from shops, warehouses and offices. I think that would be a fair estimate. But this is what has happened. As soon as the men were called up from the shops and the offices, women were brought in as substitutes, and, of course, they were trained. The branch managers, especially of co-operative societies, took pains to train these women, but as soon as they were trained to do the work they too were called up for other industries. Then, when those women were called up by the Ministry of Labour and other women engaged as substitutes, they were also called up as soon as they were trained. The result is that two, three or four sets of substitute women employed in food shops have been called up by the Ministry for the Services and other industries. The effect of all that is that the people at the head of affairs in some of the large grocery and provision shops are almost heartbroken.

If the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to listen he will be able to test what I am telling him, because the occupation statistics of some approved societies show the incidence of sickness among shop-workers has increased by 30 per cent. since the outbreak of hostilities, due in the main to this very serious staffing situation that, has arisen. I want to appeal therefore to the hon. Gentleman to put the brake on the officers of Employment Exchanges so that they will not be as reckless and merciless in this connection as in the past. I have an additional reason for bringing up this matter again because when the Minister of Labour decides compel young persons to work underground in coal mines the largest pool once again from which he can draw for that purpose is the distributive trades. Hon. Members, especially on this side of the House, know that co-operative societies are very strong in the mining and industrial areas generally. I am sure that among the first people to be drafted into the pits will be the youths employed in co-operative shops, especially in mining areas. And we shall have the problem aggravated by this process. I want, therefore, once again to appeal to the hon. Gentleman to see that something is done in this vital matter. There is a suspicion abroad about the shops policy of the Government. I am a lifelong cooperator and I would like to see the cooperative movement grow and flourish, as indeed it is growing and flourishing.

Mr. Beverley Baxter (Wood Green)

Too much so.

Mr. Davies

We will have an argument about that some other time.

Mr. Baxter

All right.

Mr. Davies

It is, however, growing and flourishing on a voluntary basis.

Dr. Morgan (Rochdale)

Not like the hon. Member's plays.

Mr. Davies

What I want to say is that I do not want any of these large food stores to grow in power and trade merely because the policy of the Government is directed towards closing down smaller foodshops. Since I raised this question first of all on the Floor of the House, I have had a very large number of letters from men and women owning small businesses, and one might almost imagine in reading them that we lived in Italy or Germany considering the tragedies that arise here. I will read the story of one man who has written to me. This is what he says: I am a butcher and cutter, 36 years of age, having been in business on my own account for nine-and-a-half years. In the early stages of the war my assistants were gradually taken from me, and latterly the only help I could obtain was through my wife, who is not too strong. I was reserved for a while, but finally I was called up for the Army on 1st April, 1943, and my shop, with 800 registered customers, had to be closed. I am not a champion of private trade, but I will champion the rights of the individual and the citizen. I object to any action taken by the Government to deprive a man of his livelihood in that fashion. It is not sufficient to tell rue that these men can come back and start their businesses over again. Many of them will not be able to do so; they will probably be killed and their families reduced to poverty as a result. I want once again to champion the right of these people to their livelihood, because I have learnt this much, that, next to murdering a man, you cannot do anything worse to him than deprive him of his livelihood. To deprive a man of his livelihood —and I do not think the people of this country have ever yet understood what it means—is as wicked as to deprive a man of his very life. I have received other letters too. This one affects shop assistants as well as their employers. This is from a woman and is an example of what is happening. She says: I keep a baker's and grocer's business taking £5,000 per annum, which is returned for Income Tax. It is run by myself, aged 47, and my sister, aged 31. The Minister of Labour has informed my sister, who has been acting as my manageress, that she has been transferred to the nursing profession, leaving myself alone to carry on the business which, I am afraid, I shall not be able to do. I do not believe for a moment that we as a nation have reached the stage when all this has to be done in what is called the war effort, and I am going to appeal to the hon. Gentleman to have a look at this problem anew. If he does not mind my saying so, I was here when the employment exchanges were being developed. I remember them being started, of course. The whole purpose of the Ministry of Labour was intended to assist the community, and they have done a great deal of good to my knowledge. I would not like them at this stage to behave in such a fashion that the community might begin to hate them and doubt the staffs employed therein. Quite frankly, some of the letters I get would seem to indicate that the people who go to employment exchanges are treated as if they were the errand boys of the employment exchange. In fact, I have heard it said, although I am not willing to accept this, that promotion in these exchanges is granted to officers according to the number of people they direct from pillar to post at the instance of the Minister.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. McCorquodale)

Absolutely untrue.

Mr. Davies

The Minister says "absolutely untrue," but unfortunately a Minister of State cannot keep track of all that is done in his name. I do not wish to speak too strongly on the main subject, but I know of women of 60 or 65 years of age who have to stand in one shop for half-an-hour and then stand in another for half-an-hour in order to get their rations. I have seen in Manchester, where I live, in the winter months, queues even outside shops in the rain and snow. I am unwilling to believe that the queues are there because there is a shortage of supplies; they are there in the main because the Ministry of Labour will not allow a sufficient number of skilled men and women to remain behind the counters. I am a little astonished that the Ministry of Food do not take this matter up with the Ministry of Labour. I can assure the Ministers who are on the Front Bench now that if they proceed to denude shops further of efficient staffs, they may have a problem very similar to that which has been created in connection with passenger traffic in Black pool and Fleetwood, where the police have been called out on several occasions to deal with the queues. I do not want that. I plead therefore with the House of Commons to understand that serving behind the counter of a shop is a very difficult task. Looking through a booklet issued by the Ministry of Food the other day, I counted nearly 1,000 separate articles that may be found on the shelves of a shop and almost 1,000 separate prices of course. I think I have now said enough to induce the Ministry of Labour to look at this problem once again, and I hope that my appeal will on this occasion have some effect on their administration.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden (Doncaster)

I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes, but I am deeply impressed by the arguments which have been used by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies). As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will recall, I began to challenge his right hon. Friend the Minister the other day as to whether the committees that were going into the question of combing out people from food shops, which, I understand, is to be the policy, were efficient enough to judge of the efficiency needed to supply consumers with the commodities they require. I challenge the Minister again on this very important issue. I would congratulate him nine times out of 10 on the way he has handled various trades and the problems connected with the calling-up of labour. But in handling the question of the food trades and the calling-up of our people—I speak as an old grocer of 20 years' standing—they are handling it in the most clumsy fashion possible. They have stripped us of our men. I shall be visiting a shop to-morrow where before the war there were something like go male workers, and there are just five left. In most of our towns you will find that about 60 per cent. of those left in the food stores are youngsters under 18, and I am assured that some of those are going to be taken away. There are older people in key positions who have had to be trained for months to do their jobs efficiently. Efficiency is important not because there are books written about it, or because we get its importance plugged by the American radio and magazines in peace-time, 'but because customers depend upon it for the purpose of getting the job done efficiently in the factories.

On Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings there are five, sometimes seven times as much absenteeism as at any other part of the week because of the scramble for tasty bits and rationed goods at the week-end. Local authorities may try as hard as they can to adapt and adjust and organise as they will, but they cannot devise ways and means of overcoming the problem of catering for the munition workers. Consequently the shops are congested beyond imagination. There are queues, not because there is a shortage of foodstuffs but because everyone, for some reason or other, it may be an industrial, a psychological or any other reason, will insist on shopping at the week-end. The shop workers are complaining bitterly. They undoubtedly make sacrifices, and they have contributed their hundreds of thousands to the Fighting Service. Distributive workers object to our people being taken out of the shops and directed into factories to produce luxury goods, like paper caps and other silly things. Furthermore, there are 100,000 small factories which have no canteens. These workers in the main have gone to increase the queues. The key workers in the distributive trades are undoubtedly getting anxious about what is to happen.

The small shopkeeper is being punished and has been punished for months past. If the Ministry takes him away and leaves perhaps his wife to carry on who is experienced in some branches but not all branches of the trade, it will increase the number of queues and the problems in the industrial towns in such a manner that we shall have an alarming situation created, which will cause representations to be made from different quarters of this House. I appeal to my hon. Friend to examine those who are to adjudicate on those who shall be called up and those who are to adjudicate on the question whether there shall be the right kind of staff left or not, and the needs of particular towns, relating the problem to the local food control committees, taking their representations into consideration and encouraging them also to make representations on behalf of those people who are suffering most from what I would call "queueitis," which can be avoided if the Ministry will help us with the labour problem.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry a Labour (Mr. Tomlinson)

This Debate has taken rather a different turn from that which I anticipated. The charge which my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) made with regard to the suspicion which has grown up was primarily the matter on which I have been concentrating. I did not anticipate that the wider appeal with regard to the withdrawal of workers from the food distributive trades would be the primary subject for Debate. I am not grumbling about that, except that I certainly think it would not be possible on an Adjournment Motion to discuss it in all its details. I would like to assure both hon. Gentlemen that we at the Ministry of Labour are not unmindful of the contribution that has been made by the distributive workers. It is a well known fact that because of their calling and their adaptability and because of the fact that they were available when the first call was made, they were not only the first to be called on, but I should not be surprised if we took the biggest slice from them in the first instance. We have not gone back a second time to see what they could spare in man-power without being conscious of the difficulties and of the problems that have been put before us again to-day. I am Chairman of the Factory Welfare Committee, on which one of the leading distributive workers (Mr. Hallsworth) sits in an advisory capacity; and he has never let us forget the importance of the distributive worker in contributing to the welfare of every other? section of workers by the service in the shops being efficient and being available, in order to prevent those things about which the hon. Members have spoken.

There is, however, an old saying, "Needs must when the devil drives." Last November in spite of the contributions that have been made by the distributive workers, a decision was taken by the Government that a further contribution had to be sought from the distributive trades. I am here to say that we knew when that decision was made that it meant making sacrifices, meant hitting again somebody who had been hit hard already, and we devised ways and means of meeting almost every suggestion made in order to lessen the blow. One or two things have been mentioned which I do not quite credit. I should like to know where distributive workers have been sent to other jobs which were less essential. I am not suggesting that it has not been done. We have done a lot of foolish things; we should be foolish not to admit it; but I do not think they have been done wittingly; and I do not think this would have been allowed to happen without being rectified if the circumstances were as suggested.

With regard to this suspicion—that is the thing I want to kill, if I can, or to clear up. I know that shops have been closed because of men being called up for military service. I know of men who have lost their occupations other than shops for the same reason. With a Military Service Act in operation there are times when that is almost inevitable. I know that a lot of small shops are closed, but the majority of them have not closed as a result of the action of the Ministry of Labour, but because of the scarcity of goods to sell. I have one myself that is almost closed; it is being used as an office at the moment. That is not because the Ministry of Labour called me up, but simply because, what used to be sold in the shop was no longer available. But wherever the six per cent. which it was decided to take from the distributive trades is being taken from the larger organisations—the cooperative shops and the multiple stores—it is done in consultation with the Ministry of Food in the area and always with their approval and their consent. They assist the Man-power Board in determining who are the key people, and we always listen to their representations.

The real difficulty arises with the one-man shop. I said the other day that it should be kept in mind that the hardships procedure is available to the one-man owner as it is available to the single assistant. If he can prove hardship to the Board, either on his own behalf as a personal affair, or if he can show that it will result in hardship for the individual who is the owner of the shop, by the closing of the shop, not only has he the right to come before the Board, but he has umpires' decisions on his side which in 9 cases out of 10 assist and help him. There are many instances similar to the one which my hon. Friend has raised. I have had a letter from the same individual. I recognised it immediately my hon. Friend began to read it.

The point is that the facilities that are available are not taken, and when the deferment has been granted for one or two years—I do not know whether they grow weary in well doing, or whether they think it is going to be just a matter of course—in many instances reapplication has not even been made. They have taken it for granted that the deferment was final. Some cases of that kind have arisen. I can assure my hon. Friend that what has been said in this Debate will not only be taken into consideration, but if we can alleviate the situation, it is more in the interests probably of the Ministry of Labour than of any other section that it should be done. We are not here to fight the distributive or any other section of the workers, but to assist them to the best of our ability. The trouble is that the call on man-power so often interferes with the other sections of our work.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.