HC Deb 01 August 1946 vol 426 cc1345-56

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

10.35 p.m.

Mr. Harold Davies (Leek)

I wish to raise an issue this evening which is not, maybe, as atomic as that of oatmeal— which took about six hours—so far as Scotland is concerned, but as important to the people of North Staffordshire is the issue of new industry. Because there are other hon. Members from North Staffordshire present at the moment—the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Mack) and the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. A. E. Davies)—I mean to cut down my remarks to about ten minutes in order that the Minister may have twelve minutes in which to reply on this question.

Why should we, in the Potteries and the contiguous areas, raise this issue of new industry? It is obvious that in our area industry cannot be left to plan itself without guidance. The Government must realise that, besides maintaining an equitable demand for labour, they must face the problem of the character and location of industry. This must be done. I believe, to avoid the need for labour migrations of such a magnitude as would involve acute social disturbance. Do the Government realise this? We need 3. balanced system of full employment.. something better than just any sort of industry or the finding of any sort of job.

As a Welshman, imported to the Division of Leek, and being able to speak for North Staffordshire, I have seen in my constituency, in Kidsgrove, in the days of the depression, as much distress as I saw in the valleys of South Wales. In fact, at one period we had 90 per cent. of the population unemployed. In another part of my constituency—Biddulph—and in the city of Stoke-on-Trent we had this depression. We have two main industries. There is pottery, in the core of North Staffordshire, which employed 43 per cent. of the workers in 1939. Pottery also includes bricks and tiles, and it meant employment for 70,000 people. There is also coal, in which 15 per cent. of the workers, 25,000 people, are employed. In addition we had some iron and steel manufacture, and ultimately, some aluminium rolling. Superficially, the public outside North Staffordshire—outside this island of industry surrounded by a sea of agriculture—if they did not know it, would assume that we were prosperous, but the pottery industry is such that for genera- tions it has "cashed in" on cheap female labour. In fact, the average wage in the pottery industry in North Staffordshire, in its entirety, from 1935 to 1938, was 16s. 6d. per adult man lower than the average wage in Nottinghamshire or Leicestershire. We want to know what prospects we shall have in these areas, and it is because of that I have endeavoured to raise, for some weeks past, this issue here.

The type of industry we have in the Potteries employs women labour. In Leek, that queen of the moorlands and the mother of my constituency, the silk and textile industry also has a call on women labour. Now the people of Leek want a type of employment, such as light engineering, which will appeal to men and offer jobs to them as this new development in North Staffordshire unfolds. I have been informed by the Ministry of Supply, as a result of continuous approaches, that in Kidsgrove proper we are to be considered as a Development Area. I think that the Government would be justified in considering the entire area of North Staffordshire a Development Area. The pottery industry is backward: it needs mechanisation, and, in this connection, may I refer to the "Working Party Report on the Pottery Industry"? One of the defects of the Report is that there has been a tendency to cooperation with the pottery manufacturers rather than to a more concrete approach to the problem. I will give one typical example. It is on record that a manufacturer in one town in the district of the Potteries, in the depths of the depression, applied to the headmistress of a girls' school for girls to work in his factory before they had reached the school leaving age of 14. I do not want to see the Government encourage the double wage system, which sets off the wages of the women against the wages of the men. This has been done in North Staffordshire in the past.

May I now give some figures to explain what I have been saying? If one analyses the employment of women in the whole of Britain—and these are women between the ages of 16 and 64—it will be found that, in the years from 1935 to 1938, 39 out of 100 of the insurable women between those ages were in employment. But in North Staffordshire, including my own town of Leek and the towns of Biddulph, Kidsgrove and Stoke-on-Trent, we were employing 52 out of every 100 insurable women between those ages during those years. Maybe the system of family allowances, which is being introduced in the next few months, may alter this sort of thing.

Finally, I would like to point out a feature of this and similar depressed areas which strikes the casual visitor, namely, the extremely poor living and working conditions. On our derelict land we could house 20,000 people if we could have a proper housing scheme, and what I would appeal to the Government to do, is to cut out overlapping Government Departments in the settling of the housing problem. I have had to run from Ministry to Ministry to get an answer to a question. Where, I want to know, does the power of the Board of Trade begin? And where does it end? Whose is the responsibility for Development Area; whose is the responsibility for the royal ordnance factory at Swinnerton and Radway Green, and other factories in our area? Cannot we have something done under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1944, and under the Act of 1946, in order to have land acquired for development? The Engineer in the town of Leek told me over the telephone this week how difficult it is to get land for a manufacturer wishing to come into the district. The Town Clerk of Biddulph has written to me, and, in his letter, says: The need in Biddulph is for a Government sponsored factory where persons normally unemployable can be found suitable occupations. We feel that North Staffordshire has been neglected. We gave the country silk from Leek. We are helping in the export market, gaining dollars for the Government. We feel that more attention should be given by this House to this part of the country, and it is because of that fact that I have raised this matter in a general way. We would like to see the standard of living go up. The average person of this country only spent four shillings and seven pence per year on pottery prior to the war. I know that the general prosperity of the country would give us some prosperity in Stoke-on-Trent. I hope the two hon. Members to whom I referred will be able to raise a point or two. I leave it there, in the hope that we shall have some answer from the hon. Gentleman who is to reply which will give satisfaction to these areas in North Staffordshire.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Mack (Newcastle-under-Lyme)

I am very happy to be associated with my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) in furthering the interests of industry in North Staffordshire. I have had the pleasure of his support and loyal cooperation on a previous occasion, together with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem (Mr. A. E. Davies), when I visited the Board of Trade in connection with a factory at Newcastle-under-Lyme. The Members for North Staffordshire work as a team; they work together loyally, with a common object, in doing what they can for the furtherance of industry there. I have in my hand a letter written by Mr. Buckley, who is the secretary of a labour council group in the Halmer End-Audley area. This very human letter shows the grave concern which he and his colleagues feel about the state of industry there. He says: We are very much concerned about obtaining a means of livelihood for the people of our district. By 1939 it was really and truly a distressed area in every sense of the term. During the years of the war it became prosperous. Now that we are in postwar days people are asking the question: Are we going to drift back again to those dreadful prewar days? In that connection I have, on previous occasions, made several approaches to the Board of Trade. I have a letter written by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, in which he reminds me that on 18th January I wrote him enclosing a letter from the urban district council of Kidsgrove, part of which is in my constituency. On 31st January I asked if he would see a deputation of the Kidsgrove Council, together with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leek and myself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was not able to see his way to grant that request. As a matter of fact, he refused to see that deputation.

On nth February I asked a Question in the House about the stimulation and introduction of new industries into the Audley and Kidgrove districts. My right hon. Friend said there was no doubt that industry in the district of which Audley and Kidsgrove forms a part was in urgent need of modernisation and diversification in order to provide employment for the workers. Up to now all I understand we have had offered has been something in the nature of a pottery industry. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leek so rightly stressed, we want, if possible, light engineering works. We have a very fine class of worker in the district, diligent, hard working and very sincere, who has suffered tremendous unemployment. In my constituency there are villages like Halmer End, Audley, Talke, and Talke Pits, with a total population of about 10,000 people, who look with grave concern and apprehension at what might well happen in the next few years if this rot sets in. The President of the Board of Trade said they would do all they could to draw the attention of industrialists seeking new factory accommodation to the facilities available in the district, and help in securing licences for the establishing and erecting of factories. He points out that his Department cannot direct industry but only persuade it; and also adds that the claims of Kidsgrove for industrial projects are not being overlooked. Apart from the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend referred us to the regional controller, who has only got limited powers, it appears that nothing has actually been done. I fully recognise the many calls and claims upon the Board of Trade, and I know it is not possible to erect factories by magic in all parts of the country. However, I do appeal to the hon. Gentleman who is to reply to do all he can to give very special consideration to the most urgent needs of this part of the country.

It may be argued that we are each speaking for our own constituency. That, of course, is the right and proper thing to do. I think there is a special claim in the North Staffordshire area. I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Burslem will have something to say about his constituency, which is, in many respects, similar to my own. Finally, I do make an appeal to my hon. Friend not just merely to regard this as a Departmental matter, because we will go to him again. I believe that we must press this case if we are to get some consideration, and I trust, therefore, that this discussion will at least have brought to his notice more forcibly than correspondence can the needs and requirements of our areas.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. A. Edward Davies (Burslem)

In the few minutes remaining to me, because we wish to give adequate time to the Secretary for Overseas Trade to reply, I should like to underline the urgency of the matter we are discussing this evening. With the assistance of the Ministry of Labour, I have been taking out some figures relating to the unemployment position in North Staffordshire, and I find that at the period ending 17th June, 1946, there were some 4,552 men unemployed and 1,080 women, making a total of 6,632. The workers are spread over a variety of industries. Time does not permit an exhaustive examination of these figures, but in support of my appeal that some urgent attention be given to this matter I should say that, following up the figures the Minister gave to me when I asked for details of the unemployed in North Staffordshire for six months or more, the Minister of Labour informed me that on 17th June, 1946, there were 1,156 unemployed insured men and 284 unemployed women of over 18 years suitable for ordinary employment who had been unemployed for six months or more. I think, without going any further into the details of the nature of the industries concerned, those figures are sufficient to emphasise the urgent appeal we are making tonight.

Week by week we go back to our constituencies and we meet these decent, hard-working citizens, who keep asking us what the Labour Government are doing for them. The position could be fully explained to the House if there were time. It is a legacy of the turnover from wartime production to peacetime production, and in this connection it is interesting to notice that, of the figures of unemployed which I have quoted, some 1,125 men and women are connected with the engineering industry. So my hon. Friends tonight are quite right when they ask that light industries should have special attention, because during the war there have been training facilities for a great many men and women, and here we have semi-skilled and fully trained people, who could do much of the work which was previously done, but is no longer done, in Birmingham and the Midlands because of the shortage of manpower.

I do not wish to occupy the time of the House any longer, because we are most anxious to have as long a reply as possible from the Secretary for Overseas Trade, but the brief case that we are submitting is that the North Staffordshire area has had to depend on one or two major industries in the past. We are asking for a greater diversity of industry. We have the personnel trained, ready and waiting, but at the moment it is going to seed. It is an urgent matter, and we would have wished that the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Labour had been present to hear our case, as well as the hon. Gentleman who is going to reply. This is a matter in which there should be coordination of policy, as my hon. Friends have already indicated. I would wish that every expedition should be given to the establishment of training facilities, and to the introduction of new industries; and that some ready decision should be made in respect of those huge wartime factories which employed some 20,000 to 30,000 of our people in the war years. I will leave the matter there, and hope that, as a result of our raising the topic, we may have some early attention given to what is becoming a very urgent matter in North Staffordshire.

10.56 p.m.

Mr. Marquand(Secretary for Overseas Trade)

With a great deal of what the three hon. Members who have spoken have said, I, of course, entirely agree. The Government, like them, believe it is not sufficient to maintain the general level of employment throughout the country, but that this should be followed by obtaining a due balance of industry in every locality. I can assure the hon. Members who have spoken, and everyone in the Potteries district, that the Government wish to diversify the industrial structure of the area. We place the Potteries high on our list of areas which need attention in this respect. At the same time, I would like to suggest that the position may not, perhaps, be quite so bad as the hon. Members in their enthusiam—a natural and praiseworthy enthusiasm—for the well-being of the people whom they know so well, are inclined to depict it as being. Between the two wars, the average of unemployment in the Potteries district as a whole, I understand, was 21 per cent., or 33,000 persons; whereas today there are, as the hon. Member for Burslem (Mr. A. E. Davies) correctly says, round about 6,000 unemployed, which represents 4 per cent. of the insured population.

The whole area was heavily engaged during the war on munitions production, with the aid of labour provided by the concentration of the pottery and other industries in the district, and by the importation of labour. Now, naturally, the area is confronted by a very considerable problem of reconversion and readjustment. That applies particularly to the chief industry of the area—the pottery industry—where employment is still very much less than it was before the war. I recognise, of course, that before the war there was much short-time employment in the Potteries. I will not enter into the discussion which the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) mentioned briefly about wage levels in that industry. That does not specially concern the Board of Trade in any case, but that there was short-time employment in the industry, I have no doubt. Nevertheless, the total employment at present is very much less than it was before the war, and I should not have thought that the expansion of the labour force of that industry had reached its limit. It is now employing more than 30,000 people, and I am glad to say that between the middle of 1944 and the middle of 1945 employment increased by 4,000. There is much modernisation of the equipment of the industry going on, and there is a great deal of extension of existing factories, and even the building of. new factories in the industry. The ceramic section of the industry is very short of labour, and wishes to get more. It is a section of the industry which is due to develop with the many other developments going on in British industry at present. The consequence of this is, that at Stoke itself, I am told that at the last time for which figures were available, only 155 women were out of work. Admittedly there are much larger numbers of men out of work and the unemployment of men is a serious factor in the situation in the Potteries.

Three of the wartime Government factories in the area have been allocated or civilian production—factories formerly occupied by Rolls Royce at Newcastle-under-Lyme, by Rootes Securities at Stoke-on-Trent, and by British Thomson Houston at Newcastle-under-Lyme have been allocated to Rist's Wires & Cables, to the Simplex Electric Company, and to he British Thomson Houston Company or a different form of production. I am eliably informed that these firms estimate their potential employment at 5, 000; they are at present employing about 700 between them and they expect, if all goes well, to reach an employment level of 5,000, which goes a very long way to equal the present total unemployment in the area. I do not wish to suggest for one moment that these factories alone are sufficient to absorb all the unemployment in every part of the pottery district, but I do suggest that the employment they will give will be a substantial contribution to the welfare of the district and to its industrial diversification.

Mr. Mack

May I ask what particular attention my hon. Friend is paying to the more isolated areas?

Mr. Marquand

It is rather difficult in the very short time at my disposal to set the whole thing in its correct background and also to pay attention to particular districts, but here let me say just one word about the impression which hon. Members seem to have that the Government Departments are not properly coordinated in their plans for this type of district which needs diversification. Occasionally there may be conflicting information given by an official of one Department or another which does not exactly coincide with what may have been said by some other official. If it be true that some representative of the Ministry of Supply said that it was intended to make Kidsgrove a development area, he was speaking without the book, because the making of a development area would be the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Harold Davies

That is exactly the kind of thing I mean.

Mr. Marquand

There may be, here and there, remarks made by subordinate officials which are not perfectly true, but to draw from that the conclusion that there is no coordination between Government Departments would, I think, be a mistake. There is in every area a regional board on which the chief officials of all the Government Departments concerned in this kind of thing are represented, and I would suggest very seriously to my hon. Friends and to trades union leaders and others interested in these industrial problems that they should take them up with the regional boards, when they will receive authoritative pronouncements on which they can rely from senior officials of the Departments who are in touch with Government policy.

I would like now to refer to one or two of the districts particularly mentioned. Kidsgrove is one where we recognise that a serious problem exists. It is an area largely dependent upon coalmining, and the unemployment today, I am told, consists of some 319 men and 96 women, representing five per cent. of the total insured population. In that area there was placed during the war the great royal ordnance factory of Radway Green. My right hon. Friend is in consultation with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply as to the possibility of giving more employment in the Radway Green royal ordnance factory. It is at present engaged on work for the Ministry of Supply but it might be used a little more extensively on some of this civilian work which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply is undertaking on behalf of the Ministry of Works, and I should like to assure my hon. Friends that we are in close touch with the Ministry of Supply on this particular matter.

Reference was made to Audley, a district, which, I understand—though I must confess that I do not know the area in detail from personal knowledge—is very close to Newcastle-under-Lyme. I understand that during the war the factories placed in Newcastle-under-Lyme drew much of their labour from Audley. There are at present 151 men and 161 women unemployed in that area, but we hope that the two large factories allocated to Newcastle-under-Lyme to make fractional horsepower motors and commercial cables, and which are planning to employ between them some 4,000 people, will, as soon as they are built, solve this problem of reconversion and rehabilitation and be able to provide a satisfactory employment which will mop up unemployment in Audley.

It being Half an Hour after the conclusion of Business exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question, put, pursuant to the Standing Order, as modified for this Session by the Order made upon 16th August.

Adjourned accordingly at Four Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.