HC Deb 26 September 1944 vol 403 cc31-2
59. Mr. Henderson Stewart

asked the Prime Minister, in view of President Roosevelt's declaration that some steps to liquidate war-time agencies and reconstruct the Government of the U.S.A. to its peace-time organisation might be taken when the fighting in Europe ends and, in view of the anxiety recently expressed by leaders of British industry as to the place Great Britain will occupy in the field of competitive foreign trade, if he will cause a statement of the Government's intentions regarding controls, raw materials, priorities and related matters affecting British industrial recovery after the European war, to be issued at the earliest possible moment.

The Prime Minister

The Government have already made known their intentions regarding some of the numerous aspects of economic policy which are bound together in the switch-over of industry from war to peace as, for example, in the White Paper on Employment Policy and in the White Paper on the Re-allocation of Man Power between the end of the German war and the end of the war with Japan. The detailed administrative arrangements necessary for carrying into effect the broad principles of the Government's industrial policy in the transition will be made public as circumstances suggest and war conditions permit.

Mr. Stewart

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware of the acute anxiety that exists in the minds of industrialists throughout this country about the activities on the other side of the Atlantic and the uncertainty of the Government's intentions here? Our foreign trade after the war will be in a state of uncertainty, and I beg of my right hon. Friend to make a statement.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member himself is making a statement.