HC Deb 25 April 1947 vol 436 cc1464-74
Mr. Manningham-Buller

I take it, Mr. Speaker, that you are calling me to move the Amendment to page 2, line 32?

Mr. Speaker

Yes. I am calling the Amendment to line 32, at the top of the page.

Mr. R. S. Hudson

Do I understand that the Amendment to line 24 is not being called?

Mr. Speaker

No. That one does not make grammar, and, therefore, I did not call it.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

I beg to move, in page 2, line 32, at the end, to insert: Where a notice under subsection (2) of this section is served upon a person by a com petent authority to which the Board of Trade have delegated any of their functions, the notice shall state that it is served by the competent authority in the exercise of powers delegated to it by the Board of Trade. In the hope of assisting in the acceleration of progress, I will move this Amendment in a short space of time. It will be seen that, under Clause 3, the Board of Trade has very wide powers of delegation to other competent authorities, and it may be—one does not know—that these powers will be extensively used for the purpose of getting information for either the census of production or the census of distribution. This Amendment really covers much of the same point as the last, in the sense that the recipient of a notice from the competent authority, acting under powers delegated by the Board of Trade under this Clause, ought, we think, to be informed, so that he knows how it comes about that the Ministry of Works is acting for the Board of Trade, and also knows that the information is for one or other of the two censuses. It seems to me that, if that disclosure is made by the competent authority, we shall probably be able to get far more valuable statistics, because, when the forms are filled up by the undertakings concerned, they know the purpose for which they are being filled up, and, in a spirit of co-operation such as exists at this moment, they will probably be induced to give additional information which will be of great value.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre

I beg to second the Amendment.

Many cases will arise where it will be of the greatest importance that people in the industry concerned should know what is the purpose of the census and exactly what sort of information is desired. Very often, the Board of Trade desires to know something about industry, but the request for the information is not designed to help those who have to supply the information to understand the real purpose, and, if the President can accept this Amendment, it seems to me that he will be assisting considerably to achieve this purpose. As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, this ought to be a two-way movement of ideas between the Government and industry, which will do a great deal to help both sides and will assist the country in securing that stable level of employment in this country of which we read in the White Paper.

Mr. Belcher

In a desire to maintain this new-found spirit of co-operation and to assist the passage of this Bill, I would like to say that we are in full agreement with the principles behind this Amendment, but we feel that the exact wording is not quite as it should be. If the hon. and learned Gentleman is prepared to withdraw the Amendment, we are prepared to see that, in another place, an Amendment will be drafted to give effect to the principle which he has expressed.

Sir A. Salter

It is quite clear that, in relation to this Clause, the same problem arises whether the forms will lead to quite unnecessary duplication or excessive demands, I would again ask the President if he will consider the appointment of some officer, perhaps of the Central Statistical Office, who will be responsible —an appropriate Minister perhaps—to him, as he is the guardian of the general welfare of industry, for looking at all these demands that are made upon industry for a general purpose such as the census of production or the census of distribution, to see whether, regarded as a whole, they are suitable in form, are not duplicating any others, and are not excessive in their total burden. Perhaps the President will see that there is some single officer responsible to him and doing what has not been done up to now, that is, weighing the debits against the credits of any proposed new demands. I think that, if he did so, it would greatly relieve the anxieties of industry about these forms.

2.30 p.m.

Sir S. Cripps

It would be quite out of Order for me to deal with the general question raised by the right hon. Gentleman on an Amendment of this sort.

Mr. C. Williams

In order that I may help forward, to the best of my ability, the spirit of co-operation which appears to exist betwen the two Front Benches, and with all the sincerity that I can command, I wish to make one suggestion. So far as this Amendment is concerned, the Government have admitted that it is good, but they want slightly different words. We feel that it would accelerate things if, in such circumstances, they would come along in future and say, "This is an excellent principle; we accept it, but we think it ought to be worded in a different way. Here are the words which we suggest." If that were done, the new words could be put in straight away, and it would accelerate the business. It would be a very simple thing to do if only the Government were a shade more industrious.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

In view of what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, and in view of his assurance that the wording will be redrafted, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

I beg to move, in page 2, line 35, to leave out "two," and to insert "three."

In our view, this Amendment raises an important question on which, unfortunately, there was some misunderstanding on the Committee stage of the Bill, which arose from observations made by the Parliamentary Secretary in the Debate on Second Reading. It is obvious, I think, that the time at which undertakings will be working on the preparation of returns for the census, will be a time at which they will be hard pressed in balancing their accounts, and preparing Income Tax returns, and matters of that sort. That has been fully stressed, and I need not take up the time of the House by repeating the arguments. I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is familiar with them. The Parliamentary Secretary said: I am prepared to sentence them to three months."— he was being humorous— There is no reason why we should insist on two months, and if it is going to help trade and industry to have an extra month, as far as we are concerned, we are prepared to do that. I should like it to be noted, particularly for the benefit of the smaller industrialists, that the period has been lengthened by one month, or 50 per cent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1947; vol. 432, C. 149.] That was mistakenly understood to be a generous and a general concession and not one applying only to the particular year then involved. It was upon that basis, and in a spirit of some optimism, that the Amendment to alter two to three was put down during the Committee stage.

To the disappointment of hon. Members serving on that Committee, it was found that their belief, which was founded on the words used by the Parliamentary Secretary, was not warranted, and that the concession was limited to the first year of operations, whereas the arguments for extending the period from two months to three applied to any year, in the course of which the census was being taken. I hope that, in this new spirit of conciliation, the right hon and learned Gentleman will be able to meet us on this point, particularly having regard to the concluding observations of the Parliamentary Secretary when this matter was under discussion on the Committee stage. He then said: In view, however, of the appeal and the manner in which it was made, and of the recognition by the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends of the value of concluding the collecting of information as quickly as possible after the end of the year, I am prepared, if the Amendment is withdrawn, to discuss the possibilities of some compromise without, as he will realise, in any way committing myself to definite action at this moment. If the Amendment is withdrawn, I will undertake between now and the Report stage to go into it to see if some accommodation can be found."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 20th March, 1947; c. 55.] In view of that undertaking, the Amendment was withdrawn. We are still somewhat disappointed to see that the Government have not favourably reconsidered this matter. I hope that, even at this late stage, they will do so, because, while we agree that the speedy collection of statistics, the assessment of the value to be placed upon them, and their communication to industry are important, it is also important that, if we are to get returns which will be of real value, the undertaking concerned should have sufficient time to compile them. An increase from 60 to 90 days does not seem to be too much if the result is going to be that we shall get better statistics. We should bear in mind the time of year at which undertakings will be called upon to supply such information. I hope that, in view of all that has been said in the past from the Government side, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be prepared to accept the Amendment.

Mr. Erroll

I beg to second the Amendment.

During an earlier stage of the Bill we put forward a variety of reasons why the period should be extended from two to three months. We naturally drew the Committee's attention to the earlier undertakings which have been recapitulated by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller). But we also laid particular stress upon the difficulties with which industry is faced at the present time in compiling the elaborate returns which will, undoubtedly, be required by the provisions of this Bill. Two months is not a very long time for most engineering industries working a five-day week. In addition, there are a number of returns of a compulsory character which have to be rendered by the small and overworked clerical staffs of the engineering industry. I refer particularly to P.A.Y.E.

Periodically, the Minister of Labour requires returns to be made. Then there are all the miscellaneous forms which industry must complete, such as M.I. forms for steel, W.B.A. forms for urgently needed constructional materials, and others of a similar character. In addition, the returns called for under this Bill will probably relate to a financial year, and will, therefore, be required at a time when clerical staffs are already engaged in preparing the accounts for that year, which means that, in addition, they will be asked to complete a further dossier of information within the short period of two months.

I submit that the information received will be no worse for taking one month longer in preparation. In fact, it will be very much better, because firms will have that much more time in which to prepare the information, and to prepare it accurately. I am sure that no difference will be made in the survey of economic trends if the information comes in after three months, instead of two. But it makes a great deal of difference whether the infor- mation is accurate or not. I suggest that, by giving firms a reasonable time in which to produce the facts, it will enable them to produce much more reliable and accurate facts.

There is one further matter. We are getting such a congestion of demands by the various Government Departments for information that it is becoming a serious question as to which Departments shall go to the end of the queue. If a request for information is put at the end of the queue it may, inevitably, be there for two months or more, and a firm may incur the penalty of a Statutory infringement. I think it is high time the President of the Board of Trade realised that firms are reaching a limit in the amount of form-filling they have to carry out. While three months does not make it much better, it does at least give some alleviation at a time of the year which is a particularly congested and busy time for overworked clerical staffs.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I add my plea to the right hon. and learned Gentleman to reconsider this period. I also was not on the Committee, but I have studied the history of this matter and I must say that my impression would have been that some sort of undertaking was implied in the words used that this matter would in fact get more reasonable consideration than it appears to have had. After all, it is not a very curious thing to ask for; my hon. Friend behind me has mentioned 60 days, but as a matter of fact he is quite wrong, it is not a matter of 60 days, but of five-sevenths of 60 days, for the greater part of the engineering industry at least, and that in itself should be appreciated. Then I wonder whether, in fixing this term of two months, the Government had in mind that two months at one time of the year may be an entirely different matter from two months at another time. It is not just a question of the financial year and of the special work which has to be carried out at certain times; I thought we were being encouraged to spread holidays and do all sorts of things like that, and it is very easy for a firm of even larger than moderate size to get involved in all sorts of difficulties if a time limit which is too short is put on these requests for information. I think those two grounds alone would be very good reasons to ask for reconsideration.

Why is it that the longer time is put on the first year only? Is it because people will be supposed to have trained themselves, and to have had greater practice after a certain period, so that they will therefore be able to fill in forms more quickly? I cannot think of any other reason, but in actual fact of course things will work in exactly the opposite direction. Far from there being any sign of a diminishing demand for information, there is every sign that Government Departments will require more information of all sorts. We cannot apparently think only in terms of what the Board of Trade will want; all sorts of other people have to collect information, and the whole general tendency under the present Government, and maybe under other Governments, I cannot tell, is that more information is required. We must be able to plan further ahead, so we have to have our information further ahead; information must become more and more detailed, and the points we may want to bring out can only be brought out if we get information we have never had before; the whole thing is growing, under the free hand which has been given to the statisticians, and the whole tendency is that more and more will be put upon those who have to supply the information.

Therefore, and I beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman to recognise this, it is not only on the statistical, clerical or secretarial officers of companies that the strain will come. When information is asked for in a hurry, or at a greater speed than is convenient for a firm which is heavily engaged in production, that strain is passed down the line. Somebody has to be pulled out of another department, it may be costing or estimating, it may be this, that or the other, to help carry out the work. None of us are overstaffed these days with people who are really capable -of looking into a thing properly and giving correct information at the right time. We are not overstaffed, and the tendency is to become more and more understaffed with those who are really skilled. There are two reasons for that. As industries get back into production the demand for the higher skilled grades will become greater. Another reason why we shall be understaffed is that, owing to these breakdowns in the general course of production, everybody will do his best to cut down overheads, and so we should. With the lack of coal supplies, the cuts in fuel and power and anything else, the overheads in most industries, as the President of the Board of Trade knows very well, tend to rise to a very serious degree. For that reason everybody will be studying overheads, and after all all these people who carry out this form filling come under that general definition.

2.45 p.m.

I ask the President of the Board of Trade very seriously to reconsider this matter. It is not being put forward with any idea of being tiresome, or that because the Government say one thing we must say something else; far from it. It is being put forward from a perfectly practical point of view. The producer is faced with really terrific difficulties, and nobody knows and appreciates that better than the President of the Board of Trade himself. There are difficulties of supply, labour, and materials of all kinds; the producer has to adjust this and adjust that, and I beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman not to add to the industrialist's difficulties by insisting on a period which quite obviously will be gravely inconvenient.

Sir S. Cripps

In accordance with my hon. Friend's promise in Committee, we have gone into this again very carefully to see what we can do in order to assist industrialists, and I think it is important to note that this is not a maximum period of time; it is a minimum. That is to say, we cannot ask for returns in less than two months, but under the Bill we can give six months, or six years if we like, so long as we do not go below two months. It seems to me that the convenient way of considering this is to see what the circumstances in the country are at each census, and if then it is thought that a longer period should be allowed, to allow it. That is why my hon. Friend said that so far as the first census was concerned we would allow three months, because of the difficulties which surround industry at the present time. When the second census comes it may be that circumstances will be easier—they may be more difficult, one cannot tell—and we therefore feel that, provided industry is secured at least two months however favourable the circumstances are, the rest should be left to discussions with industry and to administrative decision as to what the convenient period is, always bearing in mind, of course, what several hon. Members opposite have emphasised, that if one leaves it too long the results become of no value to industry itself.

The point mentioned by the hon. Member for Altrincham (Mr. Erroll) about the queue is also relevant. If you leave it too long it goes to the bottom of the queue, and you get no answers at all. One must not have so long a period that after the form arrives people put it aside and say they will start looking at it in a couple of months' time. We want something on which people will start acting at once and then have a reasonable time to fill up the form. If the House will agree that there is this minimum period in the Bill, below which we cannot go, and leave it to administrative action in the circumstances of the case to give a further period if it is necessary, we now give the undertaking that for the first census at any rate we will give a period of three months.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

May I, with the leave of the House, ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether it will be for the Advisory Committee to advise whether, in a particular year, the period should be in excess of two months?

Sir S. Cripps

Quite frankly, I have not considered that matter, but we will consider it. The hon. Member knows that in a subsequent Amendment we propose to enlarge somewhat what the Advisory Committee should do, and it would be quite competent under those words to refer this matter to them for their advice

Mr. R. S. Hudson

I am sure that the President appreciates our following up the idea underlying our last Amendment which he was good enough to accept. The more we instil confidence into industry the better, and I am sure that industry would be encouraged if it were told that obviously this was one thing on which the Advisory Committee would be consulted if there were any doubt at all. It will go a long way to reassuring the people if the President were able to meet us.

Sir S. Cripps

I a[...] quite sure we will consult industry, but I am not sure that the Advisory Committee is the appropriate body to consult on the matter. We should consult some of the trade organisations. I would not like to say that we will consult the Advisory Committee but we should consult industry in the particular circumstances which may arise.

Mr. W. Shepherd

All I want to get now is an assurance from the President of the Board of Trade on the question of prosecutions. Are we to take it that no prosecution will be undertaken in respect of the failure to supply figures under this Bill until three months have elapsed?

Sir S. Cripps

In the first census.

Mr. W. Shepherd

In all subsequent censuses?

Sir S. Cripps

In all subsequent censuses we must depend upon what the circumstances are before deciding whether it is necessary to give a longer period. In fact, by the time the operation and the preliminary inquiries leading to a prosecution are undertaken it is extremely unlikely that the period will be less than three months, but that would be a legal matter.

Mr. C. Williams

I was a little disappointed in the right hon. Gentleman. When he got up with that smile on his face I hoped that he was going to give way. He very nearly gave way, and if I give him one or two little illustrations he may give way before we are finished. It seemed to us that this Amendment was perfectly and absolutely reasonable, and the right hon. Gentleman pointed out what I think was not a very strong argument, that they are giving three months on the first census but not on the second or third. It has to be remembered that the third, fourth and fifth censuses, far from being easier, will be far more difficult for industry to deal with, and for that reason there is a great deal of weight in the plea that has been made from this side of the House.

May I put another point to the right hon. Gentleman? Certain industries have been mentioned, and I should like the Government to say that, as far as the two industries in which I am interested are concerned, they will make an effort not to send out these papers at the most awkward time of the year. It makes no difference to the Civil Service whether they send them out in June, July, August, or January. We would appreciate it if the Government would inform the Civil Service that it is not a good thing to send out forms of this kind to the farming industry during the hay and corn harvest and during the times of threshing, ploughing and seeding. If they would give me an assurance on that point that would relieve my mind to a very great extent.

The other industry to which I refer is particularly concerned with my Division, for there is a large number of people living in my Division who are interested in it—the hotel industry. Could we have some assurance before anything further is dealt with in this manner that when that great industry is at the busiest visitor period, March to September-October, the Civil Service will not flood it with forms, nor will they send them out during Christmas and Easter. If we had an assurance of that kind it would bring some commonsense into the Bill as far as those two industries are concerned. I am giving the Government a month in which to send the forms so that they will not burden an important industry in its busiest time, because if they are sent during the season those people who come to the West Country for a holiday will suffer. I would hate it if the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade were having a holiday in the West Country that he would suffer because the hotel people had had to pay attention to some of these forms instead of attending to their guests. That would be just too bad and would very nearly break my heart.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, before asking leave of the House to withdraw this Amendment, I should like to appeal to him to consider in another place inserting an Amendment providing for consultation. As far as I can see from the Bill there is no provision in it to provide that the Advisory Committee, the Federation of British Industries or any other industrial association shall be consulted. It is a desirable thing that they should be consulted with regard to the period after the first year. I hope the President of the Board of Trade will consider that and, in the hope that he will do so, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Sir S. Cripps

I really cannot put every bit of administrative practice into the Bill. These things are all administrative practice and they are not really suitable.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.