HC Deb 21 January 1948 vol 446 cc336-46

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Snow.)

9.59 P.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Cooper (Middlesbrough, West)

Debates in this House since this Parliament assembled have necessarily, due to the heavy programme of Bills, been concentrated upon the subjects of the Bills themselves. I believe that insufficient attention has been devoted to the procedure that is required in order to implement those Bills. When a big change in policy takes place, whether in the country as a whole or in separate industrial organisations, it is generally recognised that it is necessary simultaneously to give the fullest consideration to the functioning of the machine which is going to implement that policy, and I believe that insufficient thought and attention have been given to the subject of implementation. The future prosperity of this country necessarily depends on our inventiveness, industrial progress and efficiency, and I believe that the industrial efficiency of this country is being impeded at the present time, according to such evidence as comes to me—

It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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

Mr. Cooper

I believe that the industrial efficiency of this country is being somewhat impeded by the way in which regulations are being carried out and the way in which Bills are being implemented. The Government machinery is creaking under the strain of the new conditions, and it seems to me that if more thought had been given to the way in which the machinery functions, a great number of the difficulties now experienced even by the Civil Service itself, would have been smoothed out.

I think nobody will seriously argue against the need for an overall economic plan for this country. I think it is now being widely accepted that this country has to be looked upon as an economic unit within the world economy. That has, of itself, necessitated the bringing into being of a central planning department, and it has also necessitated Cabinet Ministers using their influence to urge higher production and increased efficiency in industry so far as they can do it by exhortation. I believe myself that exhortation is not enough, and I think opportunity should be taken by Ministers to go further than that and think of methods by which increased efficiency could be obtained and place these methods clearly before both industrialists and employees.

I believe evidence comes forward to many hon. Members to show that there is an increasing frustration on the part of industrialists and employees in the feeling that they are being held back instead of being allowed to go forward with the energy, drive and initiative which they wish to express. I think we must be fully alive to the fact that the present sellers' market is quickly becoming a buyers' market, and that real difficulties, big difficulties, loom ahead for this country. If our present exports are restricted from going into the overseas markets owing to high prices occasioned by undue restrictions in this country, it means that the economic position of this country will be seriously worsened in a very short period ahead. I refer now particularly to those Departments and their functioning which are most closely associated with industry and commerce—the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the Ministries of Supply, Works, Fuel and Power, Transport, Civil Aviation and so forth.

Let me illustrate what I believe to be the lack of appreciation on the part of the personnel of these Departments, who really must be equal to their jobs. The first illustration which I will give concerns the Ministry of Supply and it applies to cement. A manufacturer of cement applied to the Ministry of Supply for sanction to obtain steel for repairing the kilns of his plant. He could not get sanction immediately, and made contact with the Department. It was suggested to him by the responsible official that he should use bricks instead of steel. If the official had had even a catalogue knowledge of his job, he would have realised that the kilns were revolving kilns, and that bricks were quite impossible of use. I hope the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will not think that I am trying to draw my picture too widely. I have, necessarily, only a very short time available in which to sketch the canvas somewhat widely in order to draw the conclusions I wish to make at the end. I hope that, in his reply, he will not use that as an argument against what I say.

I would like to refer to one instance closely associated with his Department. I believe the Financial Secretary is intimately responsible for the function of the Civil Service Commission. By the way they are carrying on their job, they themselves are introducing difficulties and bottlenecks into other Government Departments. The Ministry of Civil Aviation have wanted since the war to expand and to develop overseas airlines. For the overseas services there have, necessarily, to be meteorological officers along the routes. When demobilisation of such officers in the Air Force took place, it was necessary to have civilian meteorological officers. A man with the necessary qualifications who was in the Navy applied to the Civil Service Commission for a civil appointment when he was demobilised. The Commission were so long in notifying this man that he had obtained the appointment—it was something exceeding nine months—that, in desperation and not knowing whether he would get the job or not, he accepted a continuation of his naval commission. When, later on, he was notified that he had obtained the appointment, the naval authorities would not allow him to obtain his discharge.

That sort of thing is working right against the necessary peacetime development of an expanding new industry which, if it is given a chance to develop in the right and proper way, could, perhaps in a short time, be a means of earning foreign currency. That indicates a way in which my right hon. Friend could, by urging the Civil Service Commission to to their job more expeditiously, prevent such troubles from arising.

I would like to give one or two further illustrations. I refer to the way in which the Department responsible for manpower handles its work. We are given to understand that this country is short of essential manpower to the tune of some 500,000 men. We have looked all over the place to find the necessary manpower, and we have even gone to the length of obtaining displaced persons from the Continent to the figure of some 20,000—a mere drop in the bucket compared with the figure of 500,000 by which we are short. We are looking for productive manpower from those who are described as "drones." Efforts have been made to urge the responsible Ministers to reduce the numbers in the Services, and demobilisation is now just about completed to the lower limit it is intended to retain in the Forces.

I believe that every country, if it really gives an opportunity to its people to get into the jobs for which they are suited—if, in other words, the manpower is properly distributed—is sufficient to itself. I have paid visits to Scandinavian countries, to Holland and to Switzerland, and it seems that, in those countries, they have a less acute manpower shortage than we have in this country, that is to say it is not so aggravated as here. I believe those countries have taken steps to reduce their overhead absorption of manpower. I am referring here to the way in which manpower is absorbed into the Civil Service. If an industry is in difficulties, anybody coming in to advise how it should overcome those difficulties will look at the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, and will see to what extent the overheads are in excess of the productivity of that industry and, perhaps, how much they are out of proportion to what they should be. The Government should look into the use which they are making of manpower, and should see whether it is not vastly in excess of what it should be.

For instance, some time ago it was suggested, I think by the Prime Minister, that there should be a 10 per cent. reduction in all departments, and afterwards we heard that that suggestion was abandoned. Why was it abandoned? We ought to know. Before the Prime Minister abandons such a decision he himself should urge that a proper investigation be made, because otherwise he is only abandoning it on the advice of those who are affected. He is asking the departments to be judge and jury in their own case. He should have got outside people who understand industrial organisation to advise on whether or not perhaps something in excess of 10 per cent. might have been obtained. Moreover, I believe that when this Government came into office in 1945, concurrently with considering what its political strategy should be in the passing of Bills through the House, at the same time it should have initiated an investigation into the Government machine to see if, when the time came for those Bills to be implemented, that machine would be capable of coping with the work involved in a swift and straightforward manner. If that had been done, we should have found it possible to have implemented these Bills, not with the figure of something now over one million that there are at present, in the Civil Service, but something in the nature of the pre-war figure of 600,000.

I would like to refer to the bottleneck in industry which is being introduced in the carrying out of the steel control. Again, it shows that those in the departments are not fully conscious of their responsibilities and of the way in which they should carry out those responsibilities. I believe it is generally accepted that the allocations of steel were vastly in excess of the production. If the civil servants in the Department concerned had had any knowledge at all of things which are known in industry as budgetary control and material control, such a gross bungling of responsibilities would not have occurred. The Financial Secretary should urge, through the Civil Service Commission, that such matters as industrial efficiency and new methods of industrial organisation should be taught to the departments, and the fullest opportunity should be provided to the officials, when they find they have to do a new job which, perhaps, is quite different from what they have had to do before, to have close consultation within industry on industrial management to ensure that they are using the best methods.

Sir William Darling (Edinburgh, South)

The hon. Member said that the Government should see that the civil servants are taught. I would like to know by whom they should be taught. Who are to teach the civil servants?

Mr. Cooper

That is quite an interesting point. Obviously, one has to consider all the practical considerations involved. There are in this country well-recognised management organisations who have studied the best methods of industrial organisation, not only in this country but in America and elsewhere, and in conjunction with the Ministry of Education the facilities could easily have been laid on if there had been the desire to do so.

Sir W. Darling

The Sales Managers Association, for example, might teach the Board of Trade. Is that what the hon. Gentleman means?

Mr. Cooper

No doubt, a suggestion of that sort is quite worthy of consideration. There are other organisations such as the Institute of Industrial Administration, and there is the Government's own sponsored organisation, the British Institute of Management. The efforts to rectify this position of over-allocation which the Government Departments have created are having a serious effect on industry. I have had a case brought to my attention recently by a constituent of mine who is the managing director of an iron foundry and who requires supplies of pig iron. It is not a big foundry, but he is making parts for other manufacturers who are engaged on priority work. Yet this particular firm were not themselves given priority for pig iron and the effect of that, of course, is causing very serious trouble not only in this industry, but in the other industries depending upon it.

As a further example, in the production of steel, ingot moulds are required. If the supply of ingot moulds is not up to the requirements of the steel producers, production of steel will be reduced. A firm in my constituency which concentrates on making ingot moulds, seeing the need for an increase in steel output, is endeavouring to expand its ingot mould section. This means it requires the sanction of Government Departments to erect the necessary sheds and other equipment. It puts in an application to the Department. Immediately, the application is returned asking for all sorts of details—the sort of details required in a full specification if the job were to be carried out by an outside contractor. In point of fact, the firm could do the job themselves and simply need sanction to go ahead with the work right away. This introduced weeks and eventually months of delay. I suggest that is the sort of thing the Financial Secretary should look into, not as a matter for that single Department concerned, but in relation to the overall methods employed throughout the Civil Service. I believe there is not sufficient elasticity in the Departments. They are bound tightly by red tape when it would be far better if they were bound rather more with red elastic.

This same firm had an export order and required asbestos sheets for covering steel framework to supply an overseas order. They were given the necessary priority and then another Government Department, the Ministry of Works, came along and snaffled the asbestos sheets right from under the nose of the firm. The firm needed them for export and the Ministry required them only for home use.

Time is short and I shall have to reduce my number of illustrations, but I should like particularly to refer to the Prime Minister's list of priorities. The Prime Minister came into this picture because of the need for the highest possible level of authority to be given to certain firms to receive essential raw materials. These firms were given the priority but unfortunately—again I believe because of a defect in the machinery implementing the policy, which is sound in itself—officials failed to realise that the manufacturers making these priority items depended also on sub-contractors for certain supplies. The smaller contractors were not given the necessary priority in materials. For example, iron steps and gantries are required in power stations. The firms making these things were given no priorities and yet the firms making electrical equipment were given priorities. Thus we can get the equipment into the power stations, but the men cannot walk up and down in order to service the equipment properly.

I would like to close my remarks with a suggestion as to how this problem can be handled. I believe an organisation job can be done in two ways. I believe we can administer the Civil Service in the same way as one administers an industry. One can either build up a big bureaucracy, a big staff, in order to see that the policy of the Executive is carried out, or one can obtain the co-operation of those responsible for carrying out this actual policy and thus ensure that the job is done more efficiently, because the men on the spot know more about it than someone coming in from outside. I realise that something of that sort, now recognised as being required in industry, has resulted in the system of organisation which involves joint consultation understand from their public pronouncements that Ministers are completely in favour of the spread of joint consultation, in industry. Yet I have not seen a single example of Ministers themselves taking steps to ensure that joint consultation in its fullest form, takes place between Government Departments and industries. During the war the obvious need for this was clear, and the regional organisation of industry was perpetuated into peace; and yet it is not being given a chance to develop in the way it should in peacetime.

Finally, I ask the Financial Secretary if he could not give some assurance tonight that some investigation will be made into this matter. I know that some seven investigations have been made into the Civil Service for various purposes since the first World War. I do not want really to suggest another investigation just for the sake of it, but I do believe that the Civil Service has a particularly difficult job to do, and I think that that very fact should induce the Government to see the need for looking into this matter much more closely than they have up to the present time. The Organisation and Methods Division of the Civil Service, the Whitley Council system, and so forth, are not in themselves sufficient. They are only playing with the problem involved, which is vastly greater than they can manage. It needs to be tackled as a great reorganisation problem, and it is urgent at the present time.

10.21 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall)

I am sure that my hon. Friend will not expect me in nine minutes to answer a speech which has taken 22 minutes to make. When he reflects that the ground he has covered has included a number of Departments for which I have no responsibility, and that the complaints about those Departments, and the instances that he quoted about manufacturers who have dealt with them are matters of which I can know nothing, he will, perhaps, be content with such answer as I am able to give him in the time allotted to me. I think it emerged quite clearly that he did not think much of this Government.

Sir W. Darling

With very good reason, I thought.

Mr. Glenvil Hall

He condemned the way in which the present controls operate, and he said that firms were suffering from a sense of frustration and felt that they were being held back, that there should be far more consultation between the Departments concerned and the industries with which they deal than there is now. I could not help wondering, as I heard him speak, who briefs him, because there is in fact an enormous amount of consultation between industries and the Departments with which they work. In fact, many of the people running the controls in the Departments—in the Board of Trade, for example, in the Ministry of Supply, and in certain other Ministries—have actually come into those Departments from industry during the war, as an act of patriotism for little or no money, in order to assist the Government Departments in their relationships with the industries from which they came. Many of those men are still there. When my hon. Friend makes complaints about civil servants knowing nothing about industry he is really charging men who have themselves spent a lifetime in industry, and who are now working temporarily in the Government machine. In that capacity they now assist the industries to which they originally belonged, and to which presently, when we return to more normal times, they will return with the gratitude of the nation and of this Government. I hope that that may be soon and that many of these controls which are so irksome—I do not deny it—may soon be abolished. In the time I have left I shall not be able to elaborate that particular point, much as I should like to do so. My hon. Friend had some hard things to say about the Civil Service Commission, and he committed himself to the assertion that I was closely responsible for it. I assure him that that is not the case. It is true that in the old days, the Government and Members of Parliament had a good deal of influence over who should or should not be appointed to the Civil Service. Many people thought that was a bad system, and I think that today we agree that it would be bad for us to return to it. But it was thought by Parliament in its wisdom—and I agree with what was done—that an independent commission should be set up, and that entry to the Civil Service should be by open competition on an educational basis. This is the system which now prevails. The Civil Service Commission is an independent body over which I have no authority whatever, and it would be quite wrong if I had.

One thing my hon. Friend has forgotten is that at the present moment we are, under the authority of Parliament, passing through a reconstruction period. Men have been in the Services for many years, and have left their school days some years behind. Therefore, it has been decided that over a period, which has not yet come to an end, men shall enter the Civil Service on a shortened form of examination, coupled with certain other tests in order to ensure that the Civil Service obtains the best type of men.

Mr. Cooper

Was my right hon. Friend thinking I had suggested that there should be a reversion to the former method? I am well aware that the Civil Service Commission is an independent body, but surely, if defects are shown up, is it not right that those defects should be brought to their attention by my right hon. Friend?

Mr. Glenvil Hall

The Treasury is responsible, and works in close association with the Civil Service Commission in these matters, acting for Parliament. There is a White Paper—which I take it my hon. Friend has read—which lays down quite definitely, by the authority of Parliament—and I was here when the matter was debated—what should happen during this reconstruction period of the change over from war to peace. One of our troubles is that we want to keep some places open for men who are still serving their country, and who presently will want to find an outlet for their energies in the Civil Service.

My hon. Friend also suggested that the Government should go to outside organisations who might assist the Government to be more efficient in the way they manage their business. At the Treasury we have what is known as the Organisation and Methods Division. It may interest my hon. Friend to know that that division is extremely efficient. It is so well thought of that outside industries come to us for advice, which is, of course, freely given. It is quite wrong of him to imagine—and it would be grossly unfair to the Civil Service were it to go out to the world—that the Civil Service is inefficient and that we do not know anything about organisation and methods. We have not only a central organisation, but in 20 Departments they have now set up, with Treasury consent and in association with the Treasury, their own Organisation and Methods Divisions. In one direction alone, within the last month or two the number of items under control has been reduced from 94 to 23.

Therefore, I think I can say that my hon. Friend is not so well-informed on this matter as he would have us believe. If he cares to come along to the Treasury at any time, provided it does not take up too much of the valuable time we want for other things, we would be perfectly willing to show him what we are doing, and I am sure he would be surprised. My time is nearly up, so I cannot add anything further. I do assure my hon. Friend and the House that we are perfectly well aware that the Civil Service is not perfect. But it has a very hard job to perform, and we are very short of staff. Controls are there, and they are irksome to us all, and we shall be glad when they disappear. Meanwhile, we are doing the best we can with the machine we have, and it is not such a bad machine at all.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-nine Minutes past Ten o'Clock.