Commons Sitting of 4 April 1950

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  BOOTLE EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
  Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow.
  BURY EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
    ILFORD CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
      LUTON CORPORATION BILL (By Order)
      Second Reading deferred till Wednesday, 19th April.
  OLDHAM EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
  Read a Second time, and committed.
  SOUTH SHIELDS EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
    SUNDERLAND EXTENSION BILL (By Order)
    Second Reading deferred till Tomorrow.
  THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL (By Order)
  Read a Second time, and committed.
  AYCLIFFE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (DISTRICT HEATING) BILL
  Order [30th March]," That the Bill be read a Second time Tomorrow at Seven o'Clock," read, and discharged; Bill to be read a Second time upon Wednesday, 19th April.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BRITISH ARMY

    Married Quarters (Coal Deliveries)
    Brigadier Clarkeasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that the present method of delivering and selling coal without weighing it to Army families living in married quarters is out-of-date
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    and would make a civilian contractor doing the same thing subject to prosecution; and if he will remedy this practice.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Strachey): Coal is usually delivered in 80 lb. tubs; and Army families are charged for only 70 lbs., moreover, they are charged at cost to the War Department, which is usually lower than the retail price. At present I see no reason to alter this practice.
    Brigadier Clarke: Does the Secretary of State realise that this system is a relic of the days when men got a free issue of coal, and that then the amount they got was not so important, but that now that a man has to pay for his coal, with taxed allowances, he should get the proper weight? Under the existing system a man cannot tell whether he is getting 80 lbs. or 180 lbs.—or 40 lbs., which is more usual,
    Mr. Strachey: I am advised that the 80 lb. tub contains on an average 80 lbs. of coal. The man is charged for only 70 lbs., so I should have thought that he did fairly well.

    Poles
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for War whether the Polish Resettlement Corps, including all administrative staff, has now been completely disbanded; and what has happened to those who had not found employment at the time they left the Corps.
    Mr. Strachey: The Polish Resettlement Corps was completely disbanded on 30th September, 1949. Six hundred and forty-three members of the Corps were engaged by my Department as civilians, either to deal in Pay and Record Offices with residual financial questions affecting the Corps, or to perform administrative tasks in the offices and camps occupied by these clerical employees. The total number of these employees has now been reduced to 158, and it is estimated that it will have been further reduced to 15 by 30th June, 1950.
    With regard to the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my predecessor on 25th October, 1949. The number of Poles in receipt of the special ex gratia payments referred to in that reply has now been reduced from 2,049 to 240. Such

    979
    payments will have ceased by 6th June, 1950.

    Salaries and Housing, Singapore
    Mr. Gammansasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the growing dissatisfaction expressed by the Army Civil Service Union of Singapore regarding their claims for salary increases and housing allowances, and if he is yet in a position to make any further statement.
    Mr. Strachey: Certain increases in salary, referred to in my predecessor's reply to the hon. Member on 15th February, 1949, were authorised last year with a retrospective effect from August, 1947. I understand that certain further claims for salary increases are being considered in Singapore. A claim in respect of housing allowance is under consideration by my Department.
    Mr. Gammans: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when this business will be settled, as it has been going on for some time now?
    Mr. Strachey: Part of the claim is being dealt with locally in Singapore, and part, in respect of housing allowances, is being dealt with in the War Office in London. We shall try to get a decision early.

    Arrested Officer (Court Martial)
    Mr. Marloweasked the Secretary of State for War what progress has now been made in the trial by court-martial of Major E. James, 133973, at present held in arrest at British Army of the Rhine Release 6 Transit Centre.
    Mr. Strachey: Nine of the witnesses required at the taking of the summary of evidence are in the United Kingdom and it was, therefore, necessary to hold part of the summary of evidence in this country. This has now been completed, and Major James has been returned to Germany for the completion of the summary of evidence.
    Mr. Marlowe: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that there is something wrong with a system of justice which takes six weeks and a Question on the Order Paper before any action is
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    taken; and as this gentleman has now been in arrest for eight weeks and has still not been brought before a court-martial, does he not think that needs investigation?
    Mr. Strachey: The difficulty was that a good deal of the evidence necessary was in this country, and there had to be this delay. We are not sure, even now, whether the defence is ready, and that has to be considered.

    Discharge by Purchase
    Mr. Heathcoat Amoryasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will now remove the temporary ban on discharge by purchase for Army clerks.
    Mr. Strachey: I regret that since there is still an acute shortage of clerks in all arms, it is impossible to lift this ban at the present time.
    Mr. Amory: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that the continuance of this discriminatory ban on certain trades year after year is most unfair and not likely to be helpful to recruiting?
    Mr. Strachey: Certainly we would like to get rid of all these bans.

    Canal Zone (Family Accommodation)
    Major Tufton Beamishasked the Secretary of State for War how many married officers or other ranks in the Canal Zone who wish for a married quarter have not been allotted one; and what is the average time that these families have been waiting for a quarter.
    Mr. Strachey: I have called for this information from the Command concerned and will write to the hon. and gallant Member.
    Major Beamish: Is the Secretary of State not aware that I do not want a letter, but that I want it to appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT so that all hon. Members can see just how bad conditions are on the Canal; and is he further aware that many married men with families have to wait as long as 18 months to two years before getting quarters, by which time their tour of duty is finished?
    Mr. Strachey: The hon. and gallant Gentleman should put down another Question if he wants that information given.
    Earl Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor, the present Minister of Defence, said that he was horrified by housing conditions on the Canal; and will he give this matter his very particular attention and afford the information to the House at the very earliest opportunity?
    Mr. Strachey: Certainly, but the difficulty there is well known, of course. It has been a question of the temporary character of the accommodation, but I think that that difficulty can be gradually got over.
    Mr. Oliver Stanley: Why has my hon. and gallant Friend got to put down another Question? Why cannot the right hon. Gentleman give the answer to this Question by circulating the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT?
    Mr. Strachey: That could be done, but I thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman would prefer to put down another Question and have the answer given on the Floor of the House. It is just as he likes.
    Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for War what financial assistance is given to married officers who are unable to obtain quarters in the Canal Zone; what relation this financial assistance bears to the average cost of a small flat in Ismailia; and whether any further financial assistance will now be given.
    Mr. Strachey: These officers are granted unaccommodated rates of local overseas allowance, which vary from 27s. to 33s. a day, according to rank, and are designed to compensate officers for the extra cost of living in Egypt. The element for rent is based on the extra cost of accommodation in Egypt over the cost of accommodation in the United Kingdom, and was based on the average of the rents paid by officers in Ismailia, Suez and Port Said. My Department has received no representations that this allowance is inadequate.
    Major Beamish: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this question again? Is he not aware that the average rents to which he has referred are below the average which has to be paid; and that even a small bad flat at Ismailia costs £50 and £60 a month, which is far beyond the means of the average young field officer with a wife and family?
    Mr. Strachey: The allowances were revised in August, 1947, but I will certainly look at them again.
    Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Are the official married quarters concentrated at Fayid, or are they available in other parts of the Canal Zone as well?
    Mr. Strachey: I shall have to have notice of that question.

    Stores (Loss in Transit)
    Brigadier Clarkeasked the Secretary of State for War (1) how adjustment is carried out between his Department and nationalised railways for stores lost in transit;
    (2) what exact sum was credited to his Department for stores and supplies lost in transit on the nationalised railways in 1948.
    Mr. Strachey: Since 1945, losses of War Department stores on the railways have been paid for by means of a percentage rebate on the War Department's railway accounts. In the calendar year 1948, the rebate amounted to £11,895.
    Brigadier Clarke: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that that is quite different from the answer he gave me the other day, in which he said that both before and since nationalisation stores lost were charged to the railways? In point of fact, this is a concession, and there is no charge at all.
    Mr. Strachey: If I may say so, it is a different answer because it is a different question. However, it makes substantially the same point: that the cost of these lost stores falls on the railways and not on the War Department.

    Deserters
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Secretary of State for War the average number of men declared deserters per month, for the year 1938 for the Brigade of Guards, infantry, artillery and other arms, respectively; and if he will give the corresponding figures for 1948, showing soldiers serving Regular engagements and National Service men separately.
    Mr. Strachey: As the answer involves a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Hughes: Could the Secretary of State tell us whether these figures reveal that there is a higher rate of desertion from the Guards than from any other regiment; and will he conduct an inquiry into the causes?

    AVERAGE NUMBER OF MEN DECLARED DESERTERS PER MONTH

    —

    1938

    1948

    Total

    Regulars (including short-service)

    National Service Men

    Footguards (Brigade of Guards)

    …

    7

    9·5

    2·5

    12

    Infantry

    …

    …

    …

    …

    108

    58·5

    57·5

    116

    Royal Artillery

    …

    …

    …

    19·25

    21·75

    21·5

    43·25

    Other Arms

    …

    …

    …

    …

    33·75

    46·25

    93·5

    139·75

    TOTAL

    …

    …

    …

    168·0

    136·0

    175·0

    311·0

    The over-all annual percentage of deserters fell from 1.126 per cent. in 1938 to 0.9 per cent. in 1948. The annual percentage of National Service deserters in 1948 was 0.771 per cent. as against 1.114 per cent. for Regular soldiers.

    Income Tax, African Forces
    Brigadier Prior-Palmerasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will now look into the question of payment by officers and senior non-commissioned officers in the African Forces of British rates of Income Tax on their pay.
    Mr. Strachey: I am already looking into this question and will write to the hon. and gallant Member in due course.
    Brigadier Prior-Palmer: While the Secretary of State is looking into it, will he realise that this affects not only British officers going out from the British Isles, but also officers who have lived all their lives in these Colonies and have never been home to England?
    Mr. Strachey: I appreciate that point, and it is an important one. I will certainly take it into account.

  TERRITORIAL ARMY

    Units (Reorganisation)
    Brigadier Petoasked the Secretary of State for War why officers commanding Territorial Army units were not informed of the proposed reorganisation of
    Mr. Strachey: No, Sir. I think my hon. Friend had better wait and look at the table of figures.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the right hon. Gentleman also say how well the Brigade of Guards fought in the war?
    Following is the answer:
    their units until the day after the detailed plan had appeared in the Press; and whether he is aware that such treatment is bound to undermine the confidence of those who are giving voluntary service.
    Mr. Strachey: With the exceptions to which I am about to refer, officers commanding Territorial Army units were informed of the proposed reorganisation of their units before the plan appeared in the Press. The chief trouble was in one command where, as a result of a misunderstanding of verbal instructions, certain officers received the information through the Press just before the official notification. I regret that this should have occurred, and I take this opportunity again to express my sympathy with units which are being amalgamated, and to record my appreciation of the patriotic and broad-minded way in which the scheme as a whole has been received by the officers and men concerned.
    Brigadier Peto: Will the right hon. Gentleman not agree that it was extremely unfortunate, and that a verbal order of that sort was liable to be misinterpreted; and will he say whose order it was—whether it was from the War Office, his own Department, or from an Army Command?
    Mr. Strachey: The arrangement was made at a conference of the public relations officers of the commands concerned.
    Brigadier Peto: What a way to give an order!
    Mr. Strachey: Well, would not the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that the giving out of information first to the Press and to other officers concerned was a matter for these officers?
    Brigadier Peto: No, Sir.
    Mr. Strachey: A conference was held, and in the case of one command it was mistimed by a few hours.
    Mr. A. R. W. Low: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that when dealing with Territorial Army units in this way he must have much more regard to local feeling than has been had in this case; and is it not a fact that no commanding officer, no honorary colonel, no colonel commandant, and I believe no brigadier commanding a brigade or group, was consulted before this reorganisation plan was made, and is it not therefore likely that local considerations have been wholly swept aside?
    Mr. Speaker: That is very wide of this Question.
    Sir Ralph Glyn: Is the Secretary of State going to publish a final list of these alterations? There is nothing about them in the Vote Office. Is it his intention to publish a White Paper?
    Mr. Strachey: The scheme put forward is in the Library of the House, but that applies to the question just raised by the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Low). This is, after all, not a final scheme; the last modifications in it have not been made; modifications are being made, in consultation with the officers concerned, at this very moment, and we cannot put out a final list until finality has been reached in all these cases.
    Brigadier Peto: In view of the unsatisfactory reply, I give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Annual Camp
    Mr. Michael Astorasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider making travel concessions to wives and dependants of men attending the annual camp of the Territorial Services during the period of their yearly holiday.
    Mr. Strachey: This suggestion is being examined.

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

    New Town, Basildon
    Mr. Parkerasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning what progress has been made with the building of the new town at Basildon.
    The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Dalton): The site works in the first section of the industrial area will begin next month, and a first small housing scheme in the summer. The building of the first factories will begin in the autumn, and so will a second and larger housing scheme.

    Poultry Keeping
    Mr. Higgsasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning (1), the present position with regard to the re-enforcement of the ban on keeping poultry in gardens of a limited size;
    (2) what instructions have been given to town and country planning authorities with regard to the desirability of allowing all possible latitude to poultry keepers to erect new poultry appliances on their own land.
    Mr. Dalton: There is no ban on keeping poultry in gardens, though there is at present a limit on the size of poultry houses. I propose to remove this limit. There is no ban on movable poultry houses on farms. Fixed poultry houses need permission in certain cases, and I am considering, in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries whether some further relaxation should not be granted here in the interests of food production.
    Mr. Higgs: Will the right hon. Gentleman let us have this news as soon as possible?
    Mr. John Hay: Why is it only possible now to remove these restrictions? Why could not this have been done at least 12 months ago?
    Mr. Dalton: If the hon. Gentleman will read the answer, he will see that substantially there is no ban in either of the two cases mentioned in these two Questions.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE

    Cost of Living and Rent
    Major Guy Lloydasked the Minister of National Insurance what were the cost of living and rent bases on which social insurance payments were calculated; and to what degree these bases are still valid.
    The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill): I would refer the hon. Member to the explanations given by my predecessor on 6th February, 1946, on moving the Second Reading of the National Insurance Bill, to which I do not think I can usefully add.
    Major Lloyd: Does that mean that the Minister at that time and the Minister today admit that the social insurance payments have been cut since 1945?
    Dr. Summerskill: No, Sir. I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will recall that the duty was placed upon the Minister to make a periodical review, and that review has not yet taken place.

    Poles
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Minister of National Insurance what cash and other assistance is now being given to Poles transferred to her care from the Polish Resettlement Corps.
    Dr. Summerskill: Some of these Poles are renting rooms or being provided, against such payments as they are able to make, with board and lodging in hostels run by the National Assistance Board under the Polish Resettlement Act. Others are receiving assistance allowances in the ordinary way.
    Mr. Hynd: Is it quite clear that the system by which they received allowances on the basis of military rank which they formerly held has ceased?
    Dr. Summerskill: I think that is a question for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Does the right hon. Lady not realise that the Poles in these hostels are about to come under the local authorities who will be responsible for housing, and that if a hostel is in the area of one local authority that local authority may be responsible for housing the whole of the camp?
    Dr. Summerskill: I should like the hon. Gentleman to give me the details. The facts are these: Those Poles who are anxious to cater for themselves and to live in their own rooms instead of being catered for by the Board are able to do so, and they pay the Board rent for their accommodation in hostels. If the hon. Gentleman will tell me of any area in which the Poles have left the hostel where accommodation is provided and are demanding houses, I shall be only too pleased to look into it.

    Industrial Dermatitis
    Dr. BarnettStross asked the Minister of National Insurance (1) how many workers in Stoke-on-Trent have been certified to be suffering from industrial dermatitis since 5th July, 1948; and how many have had their claims for compensation rejected after receiving payments for six months;
    (2) how many workers in England and Wales who have been suffering from industrial dermatitis for six months or longer are assessed as having a loss of faculty of more than 20 per cent.; how many as having a loss of faculty of 20 per cent. or less; and what are the figures for Stoke-on-Trent;
    (3) what is the average period of time lost from work in cases of industrial dermatitis; and how many workers suffering from this disability return to their former occupations.
    Dr. Summerskill: I regret that statistics in the form asked for are not available. I hope, however, to be able to publish later in the year an analysis of claims for injury and disablement benefit which should give, in respect of the different regions, information on the incidence and duration of prescribed industrial diseases and the assessments made for loss of faculty. Information so far available indicates that the average period of time lost from work in cases of industrial dermatitis is about 10 weeks I have no information as to the number of workers suffering from this disability who return to their former occupations.
    Dr. Stross: While thanking the right hon. Lady for the answer and for the information which she proposes to give to the House later, may I ask whether she is aware of the fact that there is considerable irritation and confusion

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    among workers who are first certified to be suffering from industrial dermatitis and who receive compensation for six months, and then a second consultant six months later, on behalf of the Ministry, says that they never were so suffering; and will she do something about it and provide dermatological opinions in the first instance to avoid this confusion?
    Dr. Summerskill: I think that my hon. Friend will agree with me that it is very difficult to diagnose dermatitis. Often it is of an obscure origin, and it is then more difficult to arrive at a correct prognosis. He must also realise that there is a shortage of dermatologists. In order to overcome this, arrangements are made for the patient in the first instance to see the examining surgeon, and if the examining surgeon is not satisfied and should find it rather difficult to arrive at a diagnosis, we can then call in a dermatologist; and, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows, at the second stage when the patient is asking for disablement benefit he is then examined by a specialist.

    Widows' Earnings
    Mr. John E. Haireasked the Minister of National Insurance if she will now lift the ban on widows earning more than 30s. a week without loss of pension rights.
    Dr. Summerskill: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) on 14th March last.
    Mr. Haire: Does the right hon. Lady realise how discouraging this 30s. limit is to widows who are willing and able to earn more, but will not if it means loss of pension rights, and will she not grasp this opportunity of championing women's rights?
    Dr. Summerskill: I think that the hon. Gentleman has not considered this point: I believe that the intention behind this regulation was to discourage widows with children from taking full-time employment because the children had already been deprived of one parent and it was felt that they should have the guidance and care of the other parent for some time.
    Commander Maitland: Can the right hon. Lady say how much is saved by the Treasury by this extraordinarily mean arrangement?
    Dr. Summerskill: That is another question.

    Annual Report
    Mr. Douglas Houghtonasked the Minister of National Insurance when she expects to publish a report on the first year's working of the National Insurance and Industrial Injuries Schemes.
    Dr. Summerskill: Very shortly, Sir.

    National Assistance
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Minister of National Insurance how many old age pensioners in Scotland are in receipt of supplementary National Assistance; and if she will consider an immediate review of the whole situation.
    Mr. Carmichaelasked the Minister of National Insurance if she will consider increasing the National Assistance Board scales of payments to the aged and sick to meet the increased cost of living, and if so, when we may expect a report on the changes.
    Dr. Summerskill: On 28th February last, about 50,000 assistance grants were being paid in Scotland to old age or retirement pensioners. About 11,000 of these pensioners were married men whose wives were also receiving a pension. With regard to the other matters raised, I would ask my hon. Friend to await my statement at the end of Questions.
    Mr. Hamilton: While I appreciate all that the Labour Government have done for the old people, will the Minister and the Government treat the question of the old people with the utmost urgency and regard it as priority number one over all the wage demands that are being made?
    Dr. Summerskill: Perhaps my hon. Friend will wait for another half-hour.

    Married Women (Separation)
    Miss Baconasked the Minister of National Insurance if she is aware that a woman living apart from her husband is regarded as a married woman for the payment of benefits under the National Insurance Act; and, since this imposes hardship in many cases, if she will arrange for such women to be regarded as single unless adequately maintained by their husbands.
    Dr. Summerskill: Under the law as it stands a woman who is living apart from her husband receives the single woman's rate of benefit if she is unable to obtain any financial assistance from him. Any change in the position would require legislation, but I am watching carefully the application of the present rule to individual cases.
    Miss Bacon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in a case which I brought to her notice, the husband pays only 10s. a week to his wife, and yet that is considered as maintenance, and the wife receives the lower rate of sickness benefit?
    Dr. Summerskill: Yes, Sir.

    Offices, Scotland
    Sir William Darlingasked the Minister of National Insurance how many offices are in Scotland for the use of the Department; how many are manned with single clerks; and what use is made by the public of these offices.
    Dr. Summerskill: There are in Scotland 121 main local offices of the Ministry. In addition, there are 23 caller offices manned by single clerks giving limited service. The use made of these latter offices varies very widely according to the density of population and the location of the nearest main office.
    Sir W. Darling: Is the right hon. Lady aware that in one of these minor offices the number of persons who call in one week is not more than two, and in the circumstances does she think it desirable to maintain this somewhat expensive advisory service?
    Dr. Summerskill: I should remind the hon. Gentleman that these offices were established in the first place in order to help and guide his constituents, but now that the people of the country are becoming familiar with the regulations, the offices are becoming redundant, and we are closing them.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Building Workers
    Mr. Bossomasked the Minister of Labour what is the approximate yearly wastage of operatives in the building trades, in percentage or to the nearest thousand.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I regret that this information is not at present available.
    Mr. Bossom: If the Minister will inquire of the industry, I believe that he will find that it is about 5 per cent., or somewhere about 50,000 a year?
    Mr. Isaacs: I must admit I was not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman was asking. If he means by wastage those who leave by retirement and death, we know that figure. It is 4 per cent. If he means those who leave for all other reasons, it will require a good deal of investigation to provide the figure, but I think that he will find that it is considerably above the 5 per cent. which he has in mind.
    Mr. Bossomasked the Minister of Labour how many building trade operatives are now being trained to become mechanics in his various educational schemes for the building industry.
    Mr. Isaacs: I assume the hon. Member is referring to training schemes. There are 689 men, including 107 wood-machinists, in training for this industry in the Government training centres and 1,308 doing the second part of the training course in employers' establishments.
    Mr. Bossom: The Minister has just said that about 2,000 people are being trained under his training arrangements for the building industry, and he also said a minute or so ago that something in the nature of 60,000 to 70,000 people are going out of the industry every year. Will he speak to the Minister of Health and explain that the mechanics of the industry come from the small builders, and will he let them get on with the job?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am not sure how these matters are linked together, but, as far as the small number is concerned, that is because the industry said they had trained enough to meet their requirements. The total number trained under this scheme is just over 50,000.

    Chemists, Ministry of Supply
    Mr. Stanley Prescottasked the Minister of Labour how many persons due for call-up for National Service have accepted employment as chemists under the Ministry of Supply: what was their

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    average annual remuneration; and how many persons have refused the offer of such employment.
    Mr. Isaacs: Forty-two men who left the universities in 1949 and were liable for National Service accepted posts as chemists from the Ministry of Supply, and 24 refused such posts. The average initial salary offered was £312 per annum.
    Mr. Prescott: Is the Minister aware that the basic salary offered is £230 per annum? Does he think it adequate remuneration for a Bachelor of Science to be paid less than £5 a week?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am sorry that I cannot accept the suggestion. My advice is that the basic salary is £312.
    Mr. Prescott: Is the Minister aware that I have a letter in my possession from his Ministry offering one of my constituents a basic salary of £230 per annum? Does he think this is adequate?
    Mr. Isaacs: I was not aware of that, but if the hon. Member had drawn my attention to the letter earlier I could perhaps have helped him.

    Spennymoor, Sedgefield and Haverton Hill
    Mr. Slaterasked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed signing on at the following exchanges, Spennymoor, Sedgefield, Haverton Hill; and how these figures compare with the same period of last year.
    Mr. Isaacs: At 13th March the figures were 386 at Spennymoor, 34 at Sedgefield and 152 at Haverton Hill. The corresponding figures at 14th March, 1949, were 475, 21 and 134, respectively.
    Mr. Slaterasked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed miners by reason of disability caused through accident in the mines, are signing on the unemployed register at Spennymoor and Sedgefield exchanges.
    Mr. Isaacs: I regret that the information is not available. The records are not kept according to the employments in which the disability may have been incurred, and to obtain the information it would be necessary, not only to examine the individual particulars of
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    those who are miners now, but to identify those who have been in the mining industry at any time.
    Mr. Slater: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a certain amount of disquiet has been created because of the disabilities brought upon our people through accidents in the mining industry? Is anything being done to accommodate them in other employment?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, a great deal is. being done in the field of silicosis and in Remploy factories. The trouble is that a man may have been in the mining industry and have taken employment elsewhere, but gives his present employment as his occupation when he comes to register. We cannot, therefore, always check up whether or not he was a miner.

    Over 50 Men
    Mr. Porterasked the Minister of Labour if he will consult with employers with a view to securing that a fair percentage of men over 50 years of age shall be employed as vacancies in industry arise.
    Mr. Isaacs: As I told my hon. Friend the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton) on 28th March, the representative bodies in industry are well aware of the need to employ older people. They are sympathetic, but the real problem is to get individual employers to act and, as I said before, this takes time. The local offices of the Ministry have been instructed to take every opportunity of persuading employers to consider older men on their merits.
    Mr. Porter: Failing the opportunity to. introduce some scheme similar to that in regard to disabled persons, can my right hon. Friend help the situation by persuading those responsible for the nationalised industries to develop something along these lines as an inducement to other employers?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am afraid that would require legislation, which is outside my scope, but we do try, I think with some little success, although not with as much as we should like, to persuade employers to take some of these people.
    Mr. Osborne: Does not the Minister agree that most private employers keep

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    their workers at well over 50 years of age and employ as many as they possibly can?
    Mr. Isaacs: I am not dealing with those who keep their employees. I must say, however, that we have very great difficulty in finding employment for most people over 50 years of age who are quite capable of giving service. I hope that we can get the co-operation of the employers in this matter.

    Ex-Service Men
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Labour how many ex-Service men with no fixed abode have applied during the last 12 months, or other convenient period, to employment exchanges in England and Wales for work; how many have been placed in permanent and temporary employment, respectively; and what steps he is taking to deal with those for whom no employment is available, either in the district where they apply or in the foreseeable future elsewhere.
    Mr. Isaacs: The information asked for in the first and second parts of the Question is not available. As regards the third part, there are arrangements for liaison between employment exchanges and reception centres of the National Assistance Board designed to assist the resettlement of vagrants by finding them employment, either immediately or after industrial rehabilitation or vocational training when this is needed.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman distinguish between ex-Service men who have no fixed abode as a result of the war and those who have been vagrants for a long time? Will he also bear in mind that the instructions given to the National Assistance authorities

    Duration of unemployment

    Wisbech

    Ely

    Chatteris

    March

    2 weeks or less

    …

    …

    …

    …

    …

    31

    5

    37

    5

    Over 2 weeks and up to 4 weeks

    …

    …

    37

    20

    7

    2

    Over 4 weeks and up to 6 weeks

    …

    …

    16

    15

    10

    4

    Over 6 weeks and up to 8 weeks

    …

    …

    48

    39

    41

    8

    Over 8 weeks and up to 13 weeks

    …

    …

    36

    —

    61

    5

    Over 13 weeks and up to 26 weeks

    …

    …

    24

    28

    —

    2

    Over 26 weeks and up to 39 weeks

    …

    …

    6

    1

    —

    —

    Over 39 weeks and up to 52 weeks

    …

    …

    1

    —

    —

    1

    Over 52 weeks

    …

    …

    …

    …

    …

    —

    —

    —

    —

    and to his Ministry's authorities are that they should not encourage with help men in this category?
    Mr. Isaacs: That goes far beyond the original Question. We have a record of ex-Service and non-Service men, and when a man registers and gives an address we do not ask, "Is this your permanent address?" Therefore, we do not know whether he is a vagrant or not.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Is the Minister aware that a good many ex-Service men circulating in the Fens have no fixed abode and that no adequate assistance is being given to them by the Assistance Board? I hope he will do something about it.
    Mr. Isaacs: That does not come within my Department.

    Isle of Ely
    Major Legge-Bourkeasked the Minister of Labour how many unemployed men are on the books of employment exchanges in the Isle of Ely; what are the maximum and minimum periods in each place; what is the average period that these men have been unemployed; and how many of these men have no fixed abode.
    Mr. Isaacs: As the reply involves a table of figures, I will, with permission. circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The number of unemployed men on the registers of employment exchanges in the Isle of Ely at 13th March was 490. Figures are not available as to the maximum and minimum periods of unemployment or as to the average period, but the following is an analysis of the duration of unemployment Information is not available as to the number unemployed with no fixed abode.

    Coal Industry (Recruitment)
    Sir W. Darlingasked the Minister of Labour how many lads between the ages of 15 and 18 years have been recruited to the coal industry during the last 12 months; whether the number is on the increase; and how many copies of the publication, "Coalmining as a Career," have been issued, and with what results.
    Mr. Isaacs: During the 12 months ended 18th March, 1950, 14,207 boys aged 15 to 18 entered the coalmining industry, as compared with approximately 12,500 who were recruited during the preceding 12 months. Since May, 1948, about 130,000 copies of the leaflet "Coalmining as a Career" have been distributed, and I am of the opinion that this has been instrumental in increasing the flow of boys to the industry.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the pamphlet "Coalmining as a Career" circulated in Harrow and Eton?

    Factory Inspectors
    Mr. A. Edward Daviesasked the Minister of Labour what is being done to deal with the shortage of factory inspectors.
    Mr. Isaacs: Two open competitions for filling posts in the factory inspectorate will be held this year. After consultation with my Factory and Welfare Advisory Board steps have been taken to lower the age limit for recruiting from 23 to 21, so that younger graduates may be candidates, and to make these openings better known to interested candidates.
    Mr. Davies: Has any consideration been given to recruiting men who have grown up in the industry, as distinct from graduates, who may very well fill some of these vacancies?
    Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir; there are some of these men in the inspectorate.

  SCOTLAND

    Salmon Stocks (Report)
    Mr. Gerald Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if the Committee on Preserving Salmon Stocks, under the chairmanship of Sheriff Maconochie, has yet reported.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): Yes, Sir. The Committee's report is being printed and will be published very shortly.
    Mr. Williams: is the Secretary of State aware that in a recent case where a river had been poisoned with acid and 1,000 fish were claimed in one night, the fine imposed was £1. Does he realise that the poaching laws are entirely inadequate to deal with this sort of thing?
    Mr. Speaker: The Question is whether this Committee has reported, and not what is inside the report.

    Old People's Homes
    Mr. Carmichaelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the serious limitation in Scotland of residential accommodation for persons who by reason of age, infirmity or any other circumstances are in need of care and attention; what progress is being made by the local authorities, as directed under the National Assistance Act, 1948 (Part III), to remedy this state of affairs, and if he will, if necessary, present a comprehensive report on the position at a reasonably early date.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Miss Herbison): Since the National Assistance Act, 1948, came into operation, proposals by local authorities for the conversion of 26 large houses into homes for old people have been approved. Four of these homes have been opened, and work is being done on the other 22. The acquisition of other large houses is in hand. An account of the present position will be found in the Department's annual report which will be published shortly.
    Mr. Carmichael: Is the hon. Lady aware that many local authorities are being held up on this work because they must purchase houses on the basis of the district value, and consequently when they go into the market they are denied the opportunity of purchasing because of the higher prices offered by private enterprise?
    Miss Herbison: I am aware of that fact and we have to give consideration to it because of the necessity of finding places for these old people.

    Scotland-United Kingdom (Financial Relations)
    Mr. Henderson Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now make a statement on the proposal to inquire into and report upon the financial relations between Scotland and the United Kingdom Treasury; and the contributions which Scotland makes to the export drive of the United Kingdom.
    Miss Herbison: As regards the first part I am unable to add to the reply that my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Friend last week. As regards the second part the latest available information is included in the White Paper on Industry and Employment in Scotland which my right hon. Friend hopes to present to Parliament soon after the Easter Recess.
    Mr. Stewart: Will the hon. Lady convey to her right hon. Friend the information that though in Scotland we might be divided upon the question of Home Rule or not, there is unanimity as to the need for getting a clear statement of our financial relations with the United Kingdom?
    Miss Herbison: I shall certainly convey that.

    Hill Cattle Subsidy
    Mr. Snaddenasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many applications for payment of the hill cattle subsidy in respect of the year 1949 were refused.
    Mr. T. Fraser: To date, 306 applications have been refused and 12,667 have been approved.
    Mr. Snadden: In view of the large percentage of refusals, has not the time arrived when this scheme should be reviewed, with a view to making it more flexible?
    Mr. Fraser: I should think from the figures I have just given that the percentage of refusals is not at all large and is diminishing.
    Mr. Snaddenasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what were the numbers of cattle in respect of which hill cattle subsidy was paid for each year since the inception of the scheme.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Since 1947, when the statutory Hill Cattle (Scotland) Scheme came into operation, subsidy has been
    1000
    paid as follows: in 1947 on 91,668 cattle, in 1948, on 96,063 cattle; in 1949 (to date), on 102,679 cattle.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Henderson Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now make a statement on the results of his considerations of the plight of the Scottish fishing industry.
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will now make any further statement on the serious situation facing the Scottish inshore fishermen, owing to the high price of gear and the impending removal of the flat rate on the transport of fish
    Mr. T. Fraser: My right hon. Friend and other Ministers are now urgently considering the position of the fishing industry, both deep-sea and inshore, but it is not yet possible to make any statement.
    Mr. Stewart: Might one hope that the hon. Gentleman will be in a position to make a statement on Thursday?
    Mr. Fraser: I think one might hope.

    Unemployment (Shetland)
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in view of the Government's policy of full employment, he proposes to take any special steps to deal with the relatively high rate of unemployment in Shetland.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Unemployment in Shetland is to a large extent seasonal and casual, and a substantial proportion of the persons at present registered as. unemployed are fishermen. As the hon. Member is aware, the whole question of the fishing industry is under review.
    Mr. Grimond: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this high rate of unemployment has been continuing for some time and that there are certain schemes in preparation which, if put into operation, would considerably relieve the position?
    Mr. Fraser: Yes, Sir. Some schemes are going on just now and further schemes are under consideration. I agree that if we can put them under way it will relieve the position.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS (COMMUNISTS)
  Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the facts, information and names that have been sent to him, he will intensify the purge of Communists and fellow travellers in such branches of the Civil Service and other governmental organisations of national importance as deal with business where security is essential.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): It is the Government's policy to ensure that no one known to be a member of the Communist Party, or to be associated with it in such a way as to raise legitimate doubts about his reliability, is employed in connection with work the nature of which is vital to the security of the State. That policy is being and will be resolutely pursued.
  Sir W. Smithers: If I send the Prime Minister a book called, "British Socialism is Destroying British Freedom," by Cecil Palmer, will he undertake to read it? If he does, I think he will tighten up the regulations to stop Communists infiltrating into this country.
  The Prime Minister: The amount of time I can give to books of fiction is extremely limited.
  Mr. Martin Lindsay: Does not the Prime Minister think that the integrity of the teaching profession is vital to the future interests of the State? Does he really think it satisfactory that there should be over 2,000 members of the Communists employed as teachers?
  The Prime Minister: I understand that members of the teaching profession have always laid great stress on the point that whatever their views may be they should not interfere with their teaching.

  FRUIT AND VEGETABLES (CANNING)
  Mr. Bossomasked the Prime Minister if he will instruct the Minister of Food to provide sufficient sugar, and the Minister of Supply sufficient tin, well in advance, so that our farmers can be assured this year of their crops of fruit and vegetables being tinned at home, and so that the necessity of purchasing canned fruit and vegetables from other countries will to a much larger extent be avoided.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. Tinplate is extremely scarce, and I cannot hold out any hope of a further increase beyond that recently agreed with the canning industry. As to sugar, I would refer the hon. Member to the replies given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food on 13th March to the hon. and gallant Member for Norfolk, Central (Brigadier Medlicott) and on 20th March to the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. De la Bére).
  Mr. Bossom: Does not the Prime Minister realise that quite a number of British farmers are having to waste the food they grow while we are buying similar food, often with dollars, from other countries, and that if they had a little more tin and sugar we could use the food which we grow on our own soil?
  The Prime Minister: The production of tinned fruit in Great Britain in 1946 was 21,000 tons; in 1947, 43,000 tons; in 1948, 56,000 tons; and in 1949, 75,000 tons. The hon. Gentleman can be assured that we are all in accord with his views.
  Mr. Bossom: Does the Prime Minister not know that they use every bit of tin that they are allowed, and that they cannot produce any more tinned fruit because no more tin is allowed to them?
  The Prime Minister: One has to have regard to the seasonal production of fruit, too.
  Mr. Maclay: Is the Prime Minister satisfied that tinplate is not being exported to the Continent and returned to this country in the form of tinned fruit, because if that were the case the tin would be much more valuable if it were kept here and issued to our own people?
  The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence of that, perhaps he will put down a Question.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    British Honduras (Dollar Devaluation)
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what additional drain has been incurred on the sterling area dollar resources through extra provision of United States dollars to

    1003
    British Honduras following upon the devaluation of the British Honduras dollar, and the consequent unfavourable change in the terms of trade between Honduras and the dollar area.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): It is not desirable to publish estimates of the net deficits or surpluses of individual sterling area territories with the dollar area. In the case of British Honduras, it is in any event too early to judge whether the devaluation of the British Honduras dollar has succeeded in diminishing the calls which this Colony makes on the sterling area dollar resources.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Is the Chancellor aware that certainly in the initial stages following devalution, great hardship has been caused to British Honduras, and can he give any assurance that if this continues further resources will be made available for this Colony?
    Sir S. Cripps: I have said it is not possible so far to tell what is going to be the ultimate effect. Of course, we are keeping an eye on all these matters.

    Pound Notes (Sale, New York)
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer from what source the agency of Thomas Cook and Son in New York obtains pound notes to sell at a discount on the official pound-dollar parity rates.
    Sir S. Cripps: Mainly, no doubt, from Americans who have returned from this country to the United States.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Can the Chancellor of the Exchequer think of any worse effect on the credit of sterling than that an agency of the Government should pedal bank notes at black market rates in New York?
    Sir S. Cripps: This is not an agency of the Government, nor is it pedalling bank notes at black market rates. There is a normal market for bank notes in New York, and it is not a black market.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: In view of the fact that these notes are being sold at a discount on official parity rates, is it not a fact that Thomas Cook & Son,
    1004
    Limited, in New York, are a 100 per cent. owned subsidiary of the British Transport Commission?
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir, that would not be accurate, but if it were the Government would not be responsible for what Thomas Cook & Son, Limited, do in New York.

    Eastern Europe (Compensation Agreements)
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amounts of foreign currency or sterling accruing to this country as a result of agreements made by His Majesty's Government for the compensation of British interests nationalised or expropriated by Governments in Eastern Europe, and of this sum how much is transferable and convertible, respectively.
    Sir S. Cripps: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Agreement with Czechoslovakia dated 28th September, 1949 (Cmd. 7797) and to the Agreements with Yugoslavia dated 23rd December, 1948, and 26th December, 1949 (Cmd. 7600 and 7875). Under these agreements sums of £8 million and £4½ million are payable to His Majesty's Government by Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia respectively in sterling by instalments. These are spread over nine years in the case of Czechoslovakia and eight years in the case of Yugoslavia. The Agreement with Poland of 14th January, 1949, (Cmd. 7628), provides that until 1953 a proportion of Poland's sterling receipts from exports to this country shall be set aside and used in agreement with Poland for payment of compensation and other debts. It is expected that His Majesty's Government will receive about £5¾ million in this period.
    All these amounts are in sterling; the last part of the Question does not, therefore, arise.
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Can the Chancellor say whether the terms of these Command Papers to which he is referring are being carried out by the countries concerned?
    Sir S. Cripps: As far as I am aware, but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman has any information to the contrary, perhaps he will put a question down.

    Purchase Tax (Book Tallies)
    Mr. G. Williamsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the reason for the introduction of Purchase Tax on book tallies.
    Mr. Wyattasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why children's book tallies are subject to Purchase Tax.
    Sir S. Cripps: Under the group of the Purchase Tax Schedule which relates to pictures, prints, etc., tax is chargeable on a book tally according to its value as a pictorial article, excluding its exchange value and that value which represents a charge for trade services. Thus, for a book tally which costs 7½d. the wholesale value on which tax is charged is about 0.7d.
    Mr. Wyatt: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that this scheme is as very ingenious one by which children can be persuaded to save money in sixpences towards buying books for a larger total sum when they have saved sufficient, and that the putting of Purchase Tax on this scheme will prevent the children from doing something which in itself is of educational value?
    Sir S. Cripps: I do not think the tax on 7/10ths of a penny will have any marked effect.

    British Companies (Latin America)
    Mr. Peter Smithersasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will waive payment of United Kingdom taxes upon the profits of British companies operating in Latin America, so long as such profits are frozen in the countries in which they are earned.
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir, I could not adopt the hon. Members' suggestion. I should explain, however, that in cases of this nature it is the practice of the Inland Revenue authorities, where payment of the tax in question cannot be made at the due date without serious hardship, to allow payment to stand over until funds to meet it become available. If the hon. Member has a particular case in mind, I will have it examined if he will send me the facts.
    Mr. Smithers: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that
    1006
    there are outstanding hard cases, and unless they are settled fairly soon this. country may lose a permanent source of revenue? Has he seen the Press reports. to the effect that the United States Government have adopted the practice suggested in the Question, which would be much simpler.
    Sir S. Cripps: The United States have rather a different system, and they may often adopt methods different from us.
    Mr. Walter Fletcher: Is interest charged by the Government during the delay in paying?
    Sir S. Cripps: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down that question.

    Czech Miners' Contribution (Transfer)
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what objection he has made to the request of the Czech miners for permission to make a contribution to funds for maintaining dependants of relations killed in a British mining disaster.
    Sir S. Cripps: The matter of the transmission of funds from Czechoslovakia to this country is one for the Czechoslovak exchange control authorities. No request has been made to me and I have of course no objection to any such transfer.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the Communists in this country are making great play of this, and presenting to the miners, particularly in Scotland, a distorted view of the whole position?
    Sir S. Cripps: I am not at all surprised that they should present a distorted view of anything.

    Income Tax
    Major Guy Lloydasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the terms of the note regarding Income Tax liability which has been sent by his Department to the secretaries of Britain's lifeboat stations.
    Sir S. Cripps: I assume that the hon. and gallant Member is referring to a letter sent in November last to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which was to the effect that cases should be reported to the inspector of taxes where regular payments made to lifeboatmen amount to £50 or more in the year.
    Mr. Hollisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that in return for the writing of a screenplay for an American film company, Mr. R. C. Sherriff suggested to him that payment should be made by the American company not to him but directly to the British Society of Antiquaries for an important work of archaeological excavation; and why, in view of the fact that Mr. Sherriff did not propose to touch this money himself, he was told that Income Tax and Surtax would be chargeable on it.
    Sir S. Cripps: I regret I cannot reply to Questions concerning the tax liabilities of individual taxpayers.
    Brigadier Prior-Palmerasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasuray whether he is aware that the Pay-As-You-Earn department have been in the habit of issuing to hotels taxation cards for employees who have left the hotel concerned and who have made a proper return to this effect on Form P.45; and if he will take steps to prevent this waste of time and material.
    Mr. Jay: It is not the practice to issue tax deduction cards to employers for employees known to have left. If the hon. Member will be good enough to furnish me with particulars of the cases he has in mind, I will look further into the matter.

    Economic Survey (Estimates)
    Mr. Deedesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the large discrepancy in respect of the year 1948 between Table 20 in the Economic Survey of 1949 and Table 3 in the Economic Survey of 1950; and why a new set of figures has been substituted.
    Sir S. Cripps: The estimates for 1948 in the Economic Survey for 1949 were made at the beginning of March, 1949, and have now been revised in the light of fuller information which has since became available. These estimates are built up from such a wide variety of sources of private and public information that some amendments to the estimates are to be expected.
    Mr. Deedes: Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer not think that some explanation on these lines should have been included in the Economic Survey?
    Sir S. Cripps: I think it is generally understood now. It has been explained on several occasions.

    Tractors (Excise Licences)
    Mr. Vaneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the current rates for vehicle excise licences for tractors, in excess of seven tons, employed in forestry are much higher than for showmen's tractors of the equivalent weight employed in the amusement trade.
    Sir S. Cripps: Showmen's tractors have since 1926 enjoyed low preferential rates because of the extremely limited character and extent of their use on public roads.

    Government Departments (Women Cleaners)
    Mr. Mott-Radclyffeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has any statement to make regarding the claim put forward by women cleaners in Government Departments in Whitehall for payment at the rate of 2s. an hour.
    Mr. J. Hyndasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the London rate for Government office cleaners for a 30-hour week is only £2 14s. 5d. before deductions; and whether he will therefore give further consideration to their claim for a rate of 2s. per hour.
    Mr. John McKayasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that women cleaners in Government Departments have to commence work at 5 a.m. and only receive 1s. 10d. per hour; and why he is refusing to discuss a request for 2s. per hour.
    Sir S. Cripps: The current claim for 2s. an hour for women cleaners falls for consideration in the light of the Government's present wages policy. The effect of this policy in the Civil Service has been discussed with the Staff Side of the National Whitley Council and representations by the Staff Side to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister are now being considered. The London rate for women cleaners is 1s. 9¾d. an hour. This rate was fixed by the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal just under a year ago.
    Mr. Hynd: Are we to understand from that reply that my right hon. and learned Friend has not, in fact rejected further

    1009
    consideration of this claim, and will he give it sympathetic consideraton in view of the hard work that these women have to perform and the early hours at which they commence their duty?
    Sir S. Cripps: I think it would be better if this matter were dealt with in the ordinary way between the trade unions concerned rather than on the Floor of the House.
    Mr. Low: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make it quite clear that the question of reconsideration covers not only the people working in London but those working in Blackpool?
    Sir S. Cripps: Naturally, we deal with all civil servants wherever they are working.
    Mr. George Thomasasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the number of women cleaners employed in Government offices in Wales; and what would be the total cost involved if their application for a wage rate of 2s. an hour were granted.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Douglas Jay): There are no central records of the numbers of women cleaners in Wales. The figure may be of the order of 1,000. If so, the annual cost in Wales of the granting of the higher rate claimed would be of the order of £19,000 a year.

    Anglo-Israel Financial Agreement
    Mr. Manningham-Bullerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement with regard to the Anglo-Israel financial agreement, stating in particular the amount originally claimed from Israel.
    Sir S. Cripps: It would I think be misleading to quote certain figures only in isolation. If the hon. Member will therefore be good enough to await the publication of the White Paper giving details of the agreement, I will then do my best to give him any further information he may require.

    Imported Crab and Lobster
    Sir David Robertsonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will restrict the use of foreign currency for imports of canned crab paste, canned dressed crab, and canned lobster.
    Sir S. Cripps: These commodities may be imported freely by private importers from soft currency countries but no hard currencies have been, or will be, made available for the import of canned crab paste and canned dressed crab. In the case of canned lobster imports costing hard currencies are permitted under the token import scheme to a value not exceeding 20 per cent. of the value of such imports in the pre-war years.
    Sir D. Robertson: Is the Chancellor aware that the markets here in Britain are glutted with these unnecessary commodities and that thousands of inshore fishermen, crofters in Scotland, and the like throughout Great Britain, are suffering? Is he aware that many of the fishermen have had to stop fishing? Having regard to the fact that they carried on through the whole war period until now, may I ask why he does not prohibit the use of currency for the purpose referred to.
    Sir S. Cripps: It has been considered that it is desirable once again to permit importation freely by private enterprise.
    Mr. W. Fletcher: Is there not some dollar content, as in the case of oil, in all these tinned crustaceans?
    Sir S. Cripps: Not that I am aware of.

    Government Departments (Internal Payments)
    Mr. Turtonasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the fact that the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture for the years 1947–48, 1948 –49 and 1949 –50 inaccurately included as credits internal payments between one committee department and another, he will now draw the attention of all Government Departments to the necessity of excluding from estimated appropriations in aid such internal transfers.
    Mr. Jay: No, Sir. Standing instructions to this effect already exist.
    Mr. Turton: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman is satisfied that these standing instructions are working, when for three years these inaccuracies have occurred?
    Mr. Jay: I understand that my right hon. Friend is taking steps to see that these instructions are observed.

    Pool Betting Duty
    Mr. Gammansasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what was the monthly return from the totalisator tax on greyhound racecourses for the first three months of 1948, 1949 and 1950.
    Mr. Jay: As the reply includes a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The monthly figures of receipts of Pool Betting Duty from greyhound totalisators are as follows:

    —

    1948

    1949

    1950

    £

    £

    £

    January

    611,407

    643,774

    542,097

    February

    700,133

    582,727

    475,644

    March

    729,975

    705,999

    —

    I regret that the figure for March, 1950, is not yet available.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Finished Japanese Textiles
    Mr. Prescottasked the President of the Board of Trade what factors, irrespective of balance of payment reasons, prevent the importation into this country of finished Japanese textile products.
    The Secretary for Overseas Trade (Mr. Bottomley): As the importation of finished Japanese textile products for the United Kingdom market is completely prevented by balance of payments considerations alone, the need to consider other factors does not in practice arise at present. The question of what policy we should adopt towards such imports, were payments difficulties to disappear, is one which His Majesty's Government would have to decide in the light of all the circumstances then prevailing.
    Mr. Prescott: May I take it that His Majesty's Government will not allow this country once again to be flooded with finished Japanese textile products?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Bottomley: I thought the answer was contained in the latter part of my reply.

    Imported Mining Timber
    Mr. Turtonasked the President of the Board of Trade what imports of pit-wood during the year 1949–50 have been paid for in dollars.
    Mr. Bottomley: From 1st January, 1949, to the end of February, 1950, 165,477 fathoms of mining timber have been purchased for dollars. The landed value was £3,706,237, of which only the f.o.b. price was payable in dollars. These imports represent deliveries against contracts made in Eastern Canada and Newfoundland in 1948, and no more have been placed since then. Only a small outstanding balance remains to be supplied.

    Pottery Exports (South Africa)
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he has taken to enable South Africa to overcome the difficulties in obtaining supplies of pottery from Britain.
    Mr. Bottomley: I am not aware that South Africa has any serious difficulty in obtaining pottery from the United Kingdom. The suspension of imports by South Africa for six months last year has no doubt upset delivery schedules, but we should have no difficulty in shipping pottery against the small import quota available for this and other general merchandise.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Will my hon. Friend make investigations in order to ascertain whether what is stated in the Question is correct, and if so, consider what attitude to take?
    Mr. Bottomley: I understand that such a statement was made, but I have been given to understand that imports can now flow within the limits stated.

    Pottery Industry
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade what action it is proposed to take to safeguard the standards and trade of the pottery industry, in view of Japanese competition.
    Mr. Bottomley: I do not think that Japanese competition has reached such dimensions as to constitute any real threat to our pottery industry. The position is being carefully watched.
    Mr. Smith: While there are no immediate difficulties, may I ask whether my hon. Friend is aware that those of us who remember what took place between the two wars are bound to be concerned about this danger? Will he ask the President of the Board of Trade to take action to prevent a repetition?
    Mr. Bottomley: We always have this matter fully under consideration.
    Air-Commodore Harvey: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that he will watch all forms of Japanese competition and see that the workers of this country do not suffer from the undercutting of prices?
    Mr. Bottomley: We do, Sir.

    Export Licences (Communist Countries)
    Sir W. Smithersasked the President of the Board of Trade how many trading organisations and commercial houses in Britain have applied for export licenses to trade with countries under Communist government in the last 12 months.
    Mr. Bottomley: The information is not readily available and I fear that the time and labour involved in providing the information would hardly be justified.
    Sir W. Smithers: Out of the number of licences applied for, what percentage or proportion is actually granted?
    Mr. Bottomley: That would take equally long.

    Surplus Textiles (Disposal)
    Mr. Llewellynasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now adopt the same policy as that pursued by the Ministry of Supply with regard to the disposal of surplus textiles; why the Surplus Textiles Corporation enjoys a monopoly in the disposal of surplus textiles supplies through his Department; what has been the annual turnover in such goods; and what profits have been made annually by the Corporation.
    Mr. Bottomley: The Board of Trade does not dispose of surplus textiles, and the other parts of the Question do not therefore arise.

NATIONAL ASSISTANCE (INCREASED RATES)
The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill): I will, with permission, make a short statement. I am informed by the National Assistance Board that they will be sending me next week draft Regulations proposing increases in their current rates. I hope to be able to submit the necessary Regulations for the approval of the House shortly after the Recess. I understand that under these proposals the weekly rate for single householders will be increased from 24s. to 26s. and that for a married couple from 40s. to 43s. 6d., in both cases exclusive of rent, with corresponding increases in other rates. The additional cost of the proposals, allowing for attraction of new cases over a period, may be expected to approach £10 million in a full year.
Mr. R. S. Hudson: May I ask two questions? First, whether the increase fully covers the increased cost of living and the reduction in the value of money since the rates were first fixed? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Secondly, may I ask whether the £10 million referred to as the increased cost is included in the Civil Estimates which have just been published?
Dr. Summerskill: As to the first question, the Board took into consideration all the circumstances surrounding the lives of those on the subsistence level. This is the result of a periodical review. As to the second question, the figure is not included in the Estimates.
Mr. Mikardo: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the announcement she has just made represents a great act of social justice and that the £10 million could not have been spent in any other way to give so much benefit where it is most needed? May we take it that additional allowances such as special diets for some invalids will be unaffected by these new scales?
Dr. Summerskill: I shall have to give consideration to the second part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, but I think the position will remain the same.
Mr. Paton: Is it possible for my right hon. Friend to say at what date the new arrangements are likely to come into

1015
operation? Also, is she aware that her personal initiative and the sympathy she has shown in this matter merit the congratulations of every hon. Member in the House?
Dr. Summerskill: I thank my hon. Friend and would say how pleasant it is to bask in approval for the first time. The draft Regulations will be laid immediately after the Recess. Then they will have to be examined by a Select Committee, and I shall submit them to the House early in May. Without committing myself, I hope they will come into operation in the middle of June, but the people who are to have an increase in their rates—there will be 1,200,000—will receive it retrospectively from the appointed day even if they do not apply until after that date.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: When the right hon. Lady tables the Regulations, will she be good enough to table with them a calculation showing their purchasing power in terms of the cost of living at the time when the original rates were fixed?
Dr. Summerskill: I cannot commit myself.
Mr. Hubbard: How will this affect people who are drawing payments on the National Assistance scale?
Dr. Summerskill: These are National Assistance scales. This is an increase in the scales.
Mr. Osborne: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the increase from 24s. to 26s., if written back in true purchasing power as given to me by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, means that the new rate is worth only 21s. 6d.? If the Board have taken all considerations into account it means that they will be paying lower rates than before.
Mr. Carmichael: When she presents the Regulations, will my right hon. Friend have any knowledge of other Regulations or parts of other Regulations which will be amended, so that people will get the benefits all round? In many cases we find that if other Regulations are not amended the increases are not applied all round.
Dr. Summerskill: I do not quite follow my hon. Friend. Perhaps he will give
1016
me the details of the people about whom he is thinking.
Mr. Carmichael: What I want to know is whether the Regulations will be presented to the House in such a form that there will be no chance of officials saying that an applicant does not come within the Regulations?
Dr. Summerskill: Everybody in need will come within the Regulations.
Mr. Mikardo: In view of the misleading questions which have been asked, suggesting—
Hon. Members: Order!
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member really should not make provocative statements. It does no good on either side to debate this matter. We want to find the facts; we do not want to make party points.
Mr. Mikardo: May I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that what I was desiring to do was to make a correction on fact and figures? With your permission, may I ask the Minister whether she is aware that, whereas since the scales were fixed the cost-of-living index has gone up by less than 5 per cent., this increase represents rather more than 8 per cent.?

STERLING AREA (GOLD AND DOLLAR RESERVES)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Cripps): Mr. Speaker, I should like to give to the House, if I may, with your permission, the figures of our gold and dollar position for the first quarter of this year. During that period the sterling area earned a net gold and dollar surplus of 40 million dollars compared with a deficit of 31 million dollars in the fourth quarter of 1949, a deficit of 539 million dollars in the third quarter of 1949, and a deficit of 330 million dollars in the corresponding—that is, the first—quarter of 1949. We received assistance under the European Recovery Programme, largely in the form of reimbursement for expenditure already incurred by us, amounting to 229 million dollars and we also drew on the Canadian Credit to the extent of 27 million dollars.
Thus, the gold and dollar reserves rose by 296 million dollars during the quarter so that on 31st March, 1950, they stood at 1,984 million dollars compared with

1017
1,688 million dollars at 31st December, 1949, and 2,241 million dollars at 31st March, 1948, immediately before the European Recovery Programme was put into operation.
It is not possible so soon after the event to give a complete explanation of these changes in our position. In broad terms the various causes are known well enough, but their relative importance will not be able to be assessed until a good deal later. Looking at the position over the past six months since devaluation, and comparing it with the difficult situation we faced in the second and third quarters of 1949, I think it can be said that two main types of influence have been at work in bringing about an improvement in our affairs. The first type consists of those factors which are outside our own control and which cannot be relied upon to continue and the second is the result of policies which we have adopted to meet our difficulties and which may, we hope, have a more lasting effect.
Under the first heading, factors outside our control, which reversed tendencies that had worked so strongly against us last summer, I would refer to the two most important:
First, the renewal inflow of dollars and the resumption of buying which had been held up in anticipation of a possible devaluation.
Second, the increased demand from the dollar area for many sterling area goods. This followed a further expansion in industrial activity in the United States, and the rebuilding of their stocks of commodities. Its effect has been the more marked since it has coincided with the normal seasonal increase in dollar earnings from some of the major sterling area exports such as wool and cocoa.
Under the second category which covers the results of policy decisions, I mention the following as the most important:
First, the reduction in the United Kingdom's own expenditure on imports from the dollar area, bringing it now within the rate of 1,200 million dollars a year, which we have laid down in our programme, together with similar successful action by our partners in the sterling area, in accordance with the understandings reached at the Finance Ministers' meeting last July. This is a major
1018
achievement and a triumph of co-operative effort by Commonwealth countries of the sterling area. On its maintenance in the period immediately ahead of us depends much of our hope for the future balance of our payments with the dollar area.
Secondly, the improvement in our position with such hard currency countries as Belgium, Switzerland, and Persia, which has resulted mainly from our better competitive position following devaluation.
Thirdly, the substantial improvement of the position of the United Kingdom on invisible account, due in large measure to a reduction in expenditure over a wide range of transactions.
Finally, the recovery in our earnings from United Kingdom exports to the dollar area,
The explanations which I have given apply broadly to the whole period since devaluation. There have, of course, been changes within that period. In the early part, as I made clear in my statement on the results for the fourth quarter of 1949, the immediate and short-term effects of devaluation were particularly noticeable. Since then these more temporary effects have naturally declined in importance. But this decline has been offset, and indeed more than offset, in the first three months of this year by those other factors, which I have already mentioned, such as the increased demand for sterling area exports and the further reduction in our imports from the dollar area. Our net payments in gold and dollars to non-dollar countries and some of our payments on invisible account have recently been at a particularly low level.
The results of these last six months are undoubtedly gratifying. Whatever the results of a more detailed analysis, they reveal that we and the rest of the sterling area have made a further advance in our long and arduous campaign to close the dollar gap. But we must not be complacent as to these results or overestimate the progress which has been made. To the extent that the last quarter's results benefited by a seasonal increase in income, we must expect that a corresponding seasonal decline will affect adversely the results of the months immediately ahead of us.

1019
Some of the saving on dollar purchases throughout the sterling area may also have been seasonal, or temporary in character. To this extent it may be balanced by higher dollar imports later in the year. We have also still been enjoying some of the temporary aftereffects of devaluation, although latterly to a smaller extent than previously; these effects, unlike the more permanent benefits of devaluation, will quickly pass. Nor can we be certain that the present level of demand for exports from the rest of the sterling area to the dollar area will be indefinitely continued, or that their prices will be maintained.
In looking forward, we must bear in mind that the substantial gains over the last six months followed a period in which we lost nearly a third of our reserves of gold and dollars. Our policy is so to order our affairs that when the European Recovery Programme ends in the middle of 1952 we can stand on our own feet. without exceptional external aid. To that end we must maintain a rigorous economy in dollar expenditure and encourage the maximum dollar earning throughout the sterling area. We must conserve our strength and rebuild our resources until they are strong enough to withstand whatever strain the difficult and uncertain future may bring.
Mr. Oliver Stanley: I am sure the whole House are glad to hear—[HON. MEMBERS: "Look behind you."] I am sure the whole House are glad to hear—[Laughter.] The vast majority of the House—I except certain hon Members on the other side—are pleased to hear when something redounds to the benefit of the country and not merely to the benefit of their Government. I repeat, the whole House are glad to hear of the continued progress made now in the second quarter since we reached the dangerously low state of last autumn. If I may say so I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman put with conspicuous fairness the various factors in the situation, some of which may be temporary. though the majority, we hope, are permanent. As far as I am concerned, I prefer to leave to the Budget discussion any suggestions we can make as to improving those factors which are within our own control and which, of course, alone in the long run can decide the fate of the dollar gap.
Sir Herbert Williams: We have listened with interest to a statement 10 minutes long containing a lot of factual information, some of it controversial. I well remember many occasions in the past—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] I well remember many occasions—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] The Speaker will look after me. I well remember many occasions—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech "]—in the past when there are been protests against very long statements without the opportunity of subsequent Debate. It is absolutely wrong that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should read out a 10-minute speech—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech "]—on matters. some of them controversial, without the House subsequently having the opportunity of discussing some of the things he has put before the House.
Mr. David Griffiths: Mr. Speaker, is it in Order for right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to display as much joy as they have displayed this afternoon in view of the welcome news given by the Chancellor?
Mr. Walter Fletcher: Would it be possible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to show how much of the great improvement in the first quarter of this year, which gives it a plus of 40 million dollars, is due to exports from this country, and how much from the rest of the sterling block, and how much is in the previous quarter, because it is extremely important to enable one to judge of the real progress. Secondly, has the right hon. and learned Gentleman provided in his figures for the servicing in dollars of the interest and repayment of the first dollar loan which falls due at the end of this year?
Sir S. Cripps: These results are the factual results of the first quarter. We have not paid any interest on the loan in the first quarter so, obviously, we do not bring it into the accounts. As regards the other point, we shall in due course, when we have time to go into the details, publish as usual the full statement as regards the balance of payments.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: When giving for purposes of comparison figures for the quarters of 1949, did the right hon. and learned Gentleman re-value those

1021
figures in terms of current sterling rates in order to make the comparison a true one?
Sir S. Cripps: No, I gave them both in dollars so they do not require revaluing.
Mr. Osborne: Could the Chancellor inform the House whether he considers that the lower level of imports of dollar materials, which obviously forms an important factor in this welcome improvement, can be permanent or whether this is just a temporary phase?
Sir S. Cripps: Apart from seasonal factors which come in, the programme is the programme which we said last year we were adopting so far as this country is concerned—a programme of 1,200 million dollars a year. Of course part of that may come more in one part of the year than in another but, over the year, it is a final programme.
Mr. McAdden: In submitting to the House the more detailed review to which the Chancellor referred, would it be possible for him to set out how much of the progress and development of our export trade has occurred in industries which are privately owned and how much in those which are nationalised?
Sir S. Cripps: That would come in the ordinary statement made as regards exports and imports and not in the balance of payments.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Would my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that the workers in the country who produce the goods out of which these figures are earned will regard his statement as a great encouragement to them, and a great reward for their discipline
1022
and hard work and restraint in these difficult years?
Sir Waldron Smithers: Although our exports to dollar countries have, naturally, increased since the pound was devalued, may I ask the Chancellor if he has taken into consideration what will happen when we have to replace our stocks of raw materials, which we cannot produce in this country but which are vital to our export trade, in terms of devalued pounds? That is when the trouble will come.
Sir S. Cripps: I am not dealing here with any future state of affairs. I am giving the House the particulars of what has happened in the first quarter of this year.
Air-Commodore Harvey: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not agree that in congratulating the workers it is far better to congratulate the workers and managements, who have worked as a team to bring about this result?
Sir S. Cripps: I entirely agree. It has been due to the efforts which have been made by workers and managements not only in this country, but in the entire sterling area.

BILL PRESENTED
  ROYAL PATRIOTIC FUND CORPORATION BILL
  "to make further provision as respects the application of certain funds under the management of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation." presented by Mr. Strachey; supported by Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. Callaghan and Mr. Michael Stewart; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 11.]
ORDER OF THE DAY

  DISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRY BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.52 p.m.
  The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  This Bill is the first full legislative Measure on the distribution of industry and on the progress of the development areas since the 1945 Act was passed. Perhaps it might be worth while if I were to remind the House for a moment or two of the principal provisions of that Act. Firstly, it dealt with the provision of premises for industrial undertakings in the development areas. Secondly, it provided for financial assistance to trading estate companies or industrial estate companies and provided financial assistance for improving basic services in the development areas. Thirdly, it provided for special financial assistance to industrial undertakings in the development areas and it also provided for dealing with derelict land in those areas.
  It has often been said in this House, principally from these benches, that there was one major deficiency in the Act as it finally reached the Statute Book: that was the dropping of Clause 9, which provided for close control over industrial development outside the development areas. As the House knows, however, that Clause was reinstated in Section 14 (4) of the Town and Country Planning Act a year or two later and, of course, that Section is now in full operation.
  When the 1945 Bill was before the House my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning, then President of the Board of Trade, said that that Bill was not the last word in legislation on this subject. We have now had experience of over 4½ years of the operation of the Act, and undoubtedly, I think that the whole House will agree, that Act has achieved great things. The first three years of its operation were reviewed in the Distribution of Industry White Paper which I brought before the House in 1948. I think it is time now to take stock once again, and more particularly to see what new legislative provisions
  1024
  are required in order to supplement the work of the main Act. I stress the word "legislative," although of course, as I know the House will realise, a great amount can be done, and in fact already has been done, and a great amount more is going to be done, without the need for additional legislation.
  Before I come to the new Bill, it is right that we should see what has been achieved under the Act of 1945 and to consider what has been the transformation—because that is the right word—of many of these development areas as a result of that Act and of the policies which have been followed under it. First, let me deal with the factories that have been built. Some 1,359 factories, representing a total building cost of £92 million, have been licensed within the development areas since 1945. Of these, 986, or practically 1,000, have been completed, and 279 are under construction, including some of the larger iron and steel and chemical schemes, which, when they are complete, will do a great deal to increase employment in those areas. A further 94 are approved and ready to be started.
  Mr. Oliver Lyttelton: Would the right hon. Gentleman give us, or publish, some figures about the areas of the factories in square feet? Are they of an average of about 100,000 square feet each?
  Mr. Wilson: I will see that the right hon. Gentleman has those figures, but I have not got them with me at present. As I am sure he would be the first to agree, there are many figures which might be given—employment, footage, values or numbers—but I think he will recognise that the 279 under construction represent a much bigger average footage or employment potential than the 986 which have been already completed, because of the weight in them of the great oil. chemical and iron and steel schemes.
  Of the number of factories completed—almost 1,000—practically half, or 481, representing £ 20 million worth of building costs, have been Government financed schemes under the 1945 Act. If we take the estimated building costs—I think the same figures are borne out if we take the superficial area—rather more than one half of all the factories completed in Great Britain since the end of the war have

  1025
  been sited in the development areas. That is a remarkable fact, and contrasts very sharply with what happened in the 1930s, when the development areas received only about 7 per cent. of the number of factories erected, opened or extended in Great Britain. In fact, as I think the House knows, the number of new factories opened during those years before the war was barely sufficient to equal the number of factories which were closed in the development areas.
  Since the end of the war, in spite of shortages, in spite of the necessity of giving priority to industrial building which would directly affect our struggle to close the dollar gap, something like one-half of all the factories built or extended have been in the development areas.
  Air-Commodore Harvey: To be quite fair on this point, would the right hon. Gentleman say how many of these factories to which he has referred were either built or commenced in the years of the war?
  Mr. Wilson: These to which I am referring are all since 1945, under the 1945 Act. A considerable volume of employment was, of course, given both by factories built during the war for munitions purposes and later transferred to peace-time use, and also by some factories which had been built even before the war in the re-armament period and which were transferred to peace-time use afterwards.
  To turn the results of this policy, and of the policies that go along with it, into terms of unemployment, we have figures of unemployment for the development areas showing that there were 932,000 unemployed in the worst period of the history of the development areas—in July, 1932; 553,000 in July, 1938—a considerable improvement, but a very big problem still remaining to be solved; 200,000 in June, 1946, after unemployment had been almost removed during the war and had then risen again following the end of the war; and by June, 1949, the figure was 119,800, rather better than one-eighth of the worst figure in the development areas in the early 1930s.
  Since June, 1949, the development areas have shared in the seasonal increase in unemployment which has affected the whole country, and in February, 1950,
  1026
  the number of unemployed was 144,500, or 4 per cent. of the insured population in those areas. I am sure that the House while expressing and sharing in satisfaction for what has been achieved in the development areas, will agree that the figure of 4 per cent. in the development areas today is still too high.
  Since the end of the war the number of jobs provided by new factory development of one kind or another has been something like 200,000 of which 120,000 have been jobs for men, which is the biggest problem in the development areas. The new factories themselves account for 78,000 and surplus munition factories, referred to by the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Air-Commodore Harvey), account for a further 81,000.
  Mr. Edgar Granville: Is this the total number employed since 1945?
  Mr. Wilson: This is the number of new jobs created. The general effect has been to find additional work for a number of people in those areas. These figures may be arid, but behind them there lies a change in the fortunes of millions of our fellow countrymen. Anyone who doubts that has only to go to Cumberland, Dundee, many parts of the North-East coast, many parts of South Wales and South Lancashire, many parts of Scotland and the Wrexham development area. They will see in those areas, where once there was nothing to show but derelict surroundings, despair, complete frustration and utter hopelessness, thriving industrial communities. Where once there were thousands of men with no hope of ever having work again and nothing to do but stand about, they will find those men and their families employed in productive work, work which is making a real contribution to the industrial and economic recovery of this country.
  In many of these areas there has been a great success in diversifying industry and bringing new industries and new types of work and factories contributing their quotas of goods to the homes of this country, to the shops and investment, much needed investment, to our basic industries and to our export drive. From practically every one of the development areas there are goods going out into the export markets of the world capable of

  1027
  competing with anything which can be produced in any other country, goods produced by men and women who have learned a new industrial skill, very often in a matter of two or three months and who have disproved the view, so common before the war, that there was no future for some of these areas and no future for the people who lived in them.
  Brigadier Clarke: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what governs the scheduling of these areas, as there is more than 5 per cent. unemployment in Portsmouth? Will he say why nothing has been done there, since he is saying so many laudatory things about other places where he has provided this sort of thing?
  Mr. Wilson: I presume the hon. and gallant Member read the White Paper on Industry which was produced in 1948 and which laid down the principles which should determine the scheduling of new industrial areas. I have certainly been very much concerned about the position in Portsmouth, but, since Portsmouth is not itself a development area, I think I should be out of Order if I said very much about it. The hon. and gallant Member's predecessor whom we are all sorry not to see back in this House, was very active in bringing to my attention and to the attention of many of my hon. Friends the special position of Portsmouth. I told him and repeat to the hon. and gallant Member, that if the situation persists in Portsmouth and if I am satisfied that the problem cannot be solved except by the special aid given under the Distribution of Industry Act, I shall consider scheduling that and certain other areas which, I am certain, are troubling other hon. Members.
  Mr. Snow: My right hon. Friend said that to refer to areas which are not development areas might be out of Order. Do I understand that the Debate will be restricted to development areas? I raise the point because the principal Act covers the whole country.
  Mr. Speaker: I was not following very closely. If another hon. Member raises the question of a certain area I should like to consider it when it is raised and not to say that it is out of Order now, in advance.
  Mr Wilson: Until that moment arrives, I will relieve you of any anxiety about what I am going to deal with, Sir, by sticking closely to the development areas themselves.
  Returning from Portsmouth to Cumberland, to which I was referring, that is an area where we have seen the successful operation of the Act and where the problem is very largely solved. There are in Cumberland 1,100 persons unemployed, against 15,000 in 1932 and 8,200 in 1938, and the unemployment figure is 2.2 per cent. One can say that the problem there, apart from one or two individual areas, is well on the way to solution. In the South Lancashire area of Wigan and St. Helens the figure is 3,200 as against 39,600 in 1932 and 27,000 as recently as 1938, and the percentage is 2.4 per cent. The problem there is well on the way to solution. In Wrexham unemployment is about 1,300 against 8,900 in 1932.
  The House will realise that the job is very far from complete and that there are many areas about which we must feel great anxiety. For instance, in South Wales, while it is true to say that many parts are enjoying a prosperity they have not known for almost a generation, it is also true that in certain of the mining valleys of Glamorgan and in particular—I know I shall get into trouble with some hon. Friends if I single out special areas—Aberdare, the Rhondda and the old criminally despoiled anthracite areas of the west, are still in a state of some depression. No one can say that in those areas the problem has been solved or is near to being solved. Similarly, on the North-East Coast, where many areas show a great transformation, we see that Jarrow, the town which was murdered. lives again today, but there are still between 6 and 7 per cent. unemployed in that area.
  On the North-East Coast, and the same is true of Merseyside and Clydeside, we have the new problem of redundancy in the ship repairing industry, for which it is necessary to provide alternative employment. In Scotland once again, in Dundee particularly, and in parts of the southwest, the unemployment problem is down to very small proportions, but there are certain areas, for instance, the Greenock and Port Glasgow area, where unemployment is still high, and certain parts of

  1029
  Lanarkshire where the problem has been accentuated by the necessary closing of uneconomic pits.
  Hon. Members who represent Merseyside constituencies cannot feel that the problem has been solved there as unemployment is 28,000 as against 82,000 immediately before the war. That represents a great improvement in the fortunes of Merseyside, but Merseyside is in a particularly difficult position because it never had the factories before the war. The whole industrial and commercial system of Merseyside seemed to be based on the proposition of having a large body of unemployed dock workers at the dock gates.
  Merseyside was the latest area to be scheduled, apart from the Highland area of Scotland. It came very much later into the picture, largely, I am sorry to say, through the opposition to scheduling by the Liverpool City Council. That has meant that it has not had its fair share of new factories in the period of intense industrial development which followed immediately after the war.
  In the 12 or 18 months since the scheduling of Merseyside far fewer new factories have been established, and Merseyside has felt the full impact of the capital investment restrictions, which have meant that new factories cannot be built there or anywhere else unless they fulfil the export earning or import saving requirements of the capital investment programme.
  I think we can say, reviewing the 1945 Act, that the development areas are better off not merely in terms of the numbers employed as a result of the growth of industry in the past five years, but that they are more sure of remaining so. There is greater diversification of industry; there is greater hope that if any of them find a sudden blow dealt to their principal industries there will be other factories and industries capable of employing those who become redundant. The basic industries have been greatly strengthened and industrial structure of the areas has been greatly widened.
  In one respect the problem in the development areas can certainly be said to be solved; that is in the provision of work for women workers. In many districts a situation of a shortage of
  1030
  women workers is developing. There are at present in the development areas some 37,000 women unemployed, but the new factories already going up in those areas will require the employment of between 45,000 and 50,000 women, which means that in general the unemployment problem as it affects women in development areas should be wiped out by the present factory programme.
  Indeed large numbers of women hitherto unoccupied, women who never felt that it was worth while applying for work because there would be none, have been drawn into industrial work in the development areas, and the number of women in factory employment has increased by 60 per cent. since 1939. Further, there is always a steady flow of inquiries from industrialists engaged in the light industries wishing to set up in districts in which female labour is available.
  Our big problem is of course the provision of work for men who are unemployed, particularly men who have come from certain of the basic industries such as coalmining. In that respect I must say that the present programme of new factory construction under the 1945 Act is still not enough to provide hope of employment for all the men who are now unemployed in the development areas. As I have pointed out, in addition to finding work for the men who are now unemployed we have to provide against certain contingencies which are bound to happen in the course of the next few years or so.
  There is the fact to which I have referred, that the shipbuilding and the ship repairing industry is already discharging a number of its workers. A labour force of about 130,000 men is employed in the various shipyards of the country in maintaining the Mercantile Marine, in reconverting ships used for war purposes and meeting the needs of British and overseas shipowners for the replacement for vessels lost or worn out in the war years.
  A considerable part of that work must obviously come to an end. So far as reconversion of ships is concerned it is already coming to an end, and men are leaving the shipyards to seek work in the factories surrounding the ports. In that connection places like Sunderland,

  1031
  Greenock, Tyneside, Birkenhead and Liverpool are the areas which are likely to be the worst hit; and, of course, in the Northern Ireland development area, Belfast, and outside the development areas, Barrow. All these are areas which fill us with considerable concern.
  Work has also to be provided for the employment of some of the miners who have been made redundant by the closing of uneconomic pits in certain coal mining areas, particularly in North-West Durham and Lanarkshire. In Wales there is some danger of redundancies arising from the re-organisation in the tinplate and sheet steel industries as a result of the new strip mills. In South Wales, or more accurately in Wales as a whole there is, as many of my hon. Friends are only too well aware, the very special problem of disabled workers. This is mainly the case in South Wales but the problem is also extremely grave in certain areas of North Wales, particularly in the slate quarrying and mining areas.
  There are 66,000 disabled workers registered in Wales of whom 12,000 still remain unemployed. That means that the development of industry in Wales has provided employment for 54,000 of those registered as disabled. The National Coal Board and others are fully shouldering their responsibility in providing employment above ground for men who have become disabled underground. In addition to that there is the special scheme which will always be associated with the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell) for special factories for pneumoconiotic workers; there are the Remploy factories. etc.
  But the main hope of providing work for disabled workers in Wales and elsewhere must lie in new industrial development. As the tide of new employment sweeps up the valleys, as it has already done in some areas, we see the best hope of providing employment for those who are disabled and who, when employed, are proving to the satisfaction of their management and their employers and the whole country that they really can do a factory job on competitive terms. Indeed, we are now hearing reports of factories in South Wales, one of them under the Remploy scheme, a subsidiary of a factory in another part of the country, where
  1032
  they are finding that output in South Wales is at least as competitive as that of the production in their longer established factory.
  The need for this new Bill arises from the fact that industrial development is not merely a question of diverting factories from where they would otherwise want to go into the development areas. The mere exercise of Section 14 (4), the old unhappy Clause 9 of the 1945 Bill, is not enough to get the factories into the development areas. We have to pay, and do pay great attention to the question of industrial efficiency. There are many factories which can and must be built in particular areas, perhaps to be near to their source of raw material supply, perhaps to be near a parent factory, and for many other reasons. Those have to be built there and cannot be diverted or told to go to development areas. Also a high proportion of our new factory building is dictated by the export and import saving tests. That means that a considerable number of new factories are extensions of old ones and must be put up where the existing ones are, very often in the Midlands, the South, in Lancashire and in many other areas outside the development areas.
  But we have become aware of a desire on the part of certain industrialists, particularly when considering factory extension programmes, to move not only the new buildings but part of the existing works, to development areas. But the cost of uprooting part of their existing works, and perhaps the establishing of a new foundry or whatever it might be, in a development area, makes the project completely prohibitive to the individual manufacturer. It is necessary in those cases to provide finance to cover the abnormal and exceptional costs of removal to and resettlement in a development area. That is the main purpose of the new Bill.
  The House will have seen that the Bill also contains power to take over empty factories in development areas. I am quite sure that that power will not be opposed from any part of the House because the factories, particularly post-war factories, represent the expenditure of real resources, of building labour, of steel and other materials and of money. These resources are spared with very great difficulty, from other desirable uses, whether

  1033
  it be housing, education, or whatever it may be, for the purposes of factory building. Therefore, if there is any change in the contracts of a particular industrialist, if his hopes of overseas markets are disappointed, or for any reason he finds he cannot go on, it would be totally wrong that these factories should be left idle for a period when there are people needing work, and when there is important work to be done.
  It would also be wrong in the view of the Government that these factories should be disposed of to the highest bidder at black market prices; and perhaps disposed of to firms who would themselves never have satisfied the capital investment test, and would never have been allowed to build a factory under present conditions.
  Mr. Osborne: When the Minister says that it is proposed to subsidise, or to assist financially, firms being transferred from an old manufacturing area to a new area, and that he will give money for the transference and also in respect to resettlement, has he in mind any time limit for that resettlement help?
  Mr. Wilson: I will come to that point in a moment when I deal in detail with the Clauses of the Bill. Before I do that—and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that I should—I wish to stress this point. It may be felt, I am sure my hon. Friends will feel, that the powers asked for in this Bill are small in relation to the size of the problem still remaining. But what I am sure my hon. Friends will realise is that many of the things which are being done, and many of the things which still require to be done, can be done without legislation. For instance, the House is familiar with what has been done to favour development areas in the allocation of scarce controlled materials and the help given to firms in the development areas with uncontrolled materials.
  Besides that there is the question of Government contracts, which is also one of great importance. To deal with that we need no new legislation or powers. For some years now it has been the policy of the Government to see that, other things being equal, the purchasing departments should place their orders with firms in the development areas. This does not mean, however, that quotations from firms outside the development areas are
  1034
  considered less carefully than those from firms inside the development areas.
  Mr. Lyttelton: May I ask what the President means? Are contracts let to firms in the development areas at higher prices than quoted by other areas? If, on the other hand, the prices from firms in the development areas are lower, what is the point of his remarks? I cannot follow it.
  Mr. Wilson: I will deal with it in a little more detail in a moment. The right hon. Gentleman will have noticed that I said, "other things being equal," and the price is one of the things covered by that phrase. There has not been any question of giving contracts to firms in the development areas when their tender prices have been higher than the tender prices of firms in other areas. I am merely reciting what is the official Government policy, which was first announced in this House in 1934; and I am going on. to say—perhaps it will please the right hon. Gentleman—that we do not think that is enough, and that something more has to be done in this connection.
  Mr. A. Edward Davies: What is the objection to paying a higher price in a development area, if it has a social value which is good for the whole country?
  Mr. Wilson: I hope to deal with that point in a moment. I am merely describing the official Government policy since 1934. My hon. Friend can speak with great neutrality and impartiality since the constituency he represents is, I think, not in a development area.
  Recently, in order to ensure that this problem was dealt with adequately, the Board of Trade have been having discussions with a large number of Government contracting departments and also with the boards of the nationalised industries. They have now brought to the attention of the contracting departments and the nationalised industries lists of possible contractors which are marked to indicate which firms are in the development areas. In order to make easier the work of Government Departments, and in order to make certain that this long-established Government policy shall be carried out, the Board of Trade have, through their regional controllers in the development areas, written a letter to all

  1035
  firms in the development areas asking them, in their own interests, to ensure that when they put in tenders to Government Departments and to nationalised industries they clearly indicate in the tender that the goods offered will be made in a development area; so that, other things being equal, the preference can be given to the development area firm. Even so, the Government are not satisfied that firms in the development areas are, as yet, getting their full share of the contracts which, on economic and social grounds, would be desirable.
  There is a point which I am sure my hon. Friend has in mind, and that is that there are many firms outside the development areas who can get other work; whereas firms inside the development areas would be condemned to working below capacity, and their employees would be condemned to unemployment, if they did not obtain contracts. Therefore arrangements are being worked out now which will have the effect, once the competitive tender price for an item has been established, of allowing development area firms to be offered a share of the contract at the established competitive price. I am sure that should result in an increased proportion of the orders going to development areas without departing from the established procedure in the matter of settling a definite competitive price first.
  I wish to spend a few moments dealing with two or three of the principal Clauses in the Bill. Clause 1 (1) deals with the acquisition of existing factories. It may well be that the right hon. Gentleman will have some point to raise on that, in which case my hon. Friend will reply to it. Clause 1 (2) deals with the creation of easements. I ask the House to note that this does not involve the compulsory creation of easements but gives power to acquire easements by agreement, which occasionally proves desirable.
  The main Clause in the Bill is, I think, Clause 3 (1) dealing with grants and loans. This Clause is in very general terms. In each individual case assistance can be given, subject to approval by the Treasury, case by case. Perhaps it might help if I intimated the key purposes we have in mind. What I am about to say is not necessarily exhaustive, and certainly does
  1036
  not imply that every case which someone may claim falls into the category would automatically rank for financial assistance or grant.
  The operative phrase in the Bill is, "exceptional circumstances." This special assistance can only be given in exceptional circumstances and not in every case where a firm goes into a development area. It deals with circumstances resulting from the physical removal of plant and stock, as in the case I mentioned a few moments ago, and it deals with the period of time. No time is set in the Bill, so that we may need to work out some period of time required for bringing up labour to a reasonable standard of proficiency. There may be three, four, six or perhaps even more months during which the "green" labour involved brings a loss to the firm in question, and one of the ways in which the facilities under this Clause might be used would be to provide some financial recompense to an employer who is faced with a period of low productivity from the labour he recruits locally. This payment will be made by the Board of Trade as part of any general financial arrangement made with a firm in the removal and settlement. We should, of course, keep in touch with the Ministry of Labour in dealing with this matter.
  I would make it clear that the financial assistance envisaged in this Bill is not intended to be continuing. There is no question of a permanent subsidy or subsidies running year after year to firms in order to assist them. If I may coin a phrase well known to hon. Gentlemen opposite, this is intended to be a "once for all" arrangement.
  Mr. Frederick Willey: Would my right hon. Friend explain to the House—because it is puzzling some of us—why the Development Area Treasury Advisory Committee procedure could not have been followed in making grants in cases such as this?
  Mr. Wilson: We did consider that, but we thought it right not to have to bring the whole machinery into operation but to give a grant direct, subject to the approval of the Treasury, in an individual case. Very often a firm can make a case, but it might be proved that additional expense would be involved.

  1037
  I am sure the House will agree that this Bill is necessary and desirable. I am sure the House, while feeling great satisfaction with what has been achieved—satisfaction which all can share because of the contribution of all parties—at the same time must feel concern about the problem in some of the areas I have mentioned. I am sure that the House will agree that any additional power for which the Government ask in order to solve this problem should be granted. We have not asked for any sweeping or revolutionary powers in this connection. If I knew of any sweeping or revolutionary powers that would solve the problem, I should probably have come along and asked for them.
  It is easy to point to the gravity of the problem and much more difficult to suggest what additional powers the Government can take to solve it. The lines on which we are working are obviously the right ones. Nobody has disputed that. They have achieved great results, and the factories already going up will provide additional employment. The powers asked for in this Bill will help, in individual cases, to bring additional firms to these areas. I hope that in one or two major cases they will be firms which can offer a large amount of employment which might revolutionise the whole situation in the area to which they go. I therefore hope that the House will welcome this Bill and give it a Second Reading today.
  Mr. Collick: Before my right hon. Friend sits down, can he tell the House whether under Clause 4 it is intended to put any restriction on the grant, or is it merely a matter for negotiation and agreement between the firm concerned and the Board of Trade?
  Mr. Wilson: This is a question for negotiation and agreement between the Board of Trade and other Departments, including the Ministry of Labour, who are greatly concerned in any question of paying the cost of removal and resettlement of workers and dependants. So far there has been no decision as to any limit which will be applied, though of course the Treasury will have to approve each individual case. I have no doubt that this matter can be further elucidated during the Committee stage.
  4.33 p.m.
  Mr. Oliver Lyttelton: If I might begin upon a slightly personal note, I should like to say that the subject of the distribution of industry is one which is very seldom out of my working thoughts. As President of the Board of Trade in the Conservative Government of 1945, after the Labour Ministers had left the Coalition Government, I asked my colleagues to give the Distribution of Industry Bill, as it then was, the highest Parliamentary priority so that it should get on the Statute Book before the General Election. I mention this fact because, from the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, some new Members of the House of Commons might think that the Act was passed by the Labour Government, and that any successes achieved under it were entirely to be attributed to their action. It is fair to say that.
  I hasten to add that the original framework of the Bill was the work of the present Minister of Town and Country Planning when he was President of the Board of Trade in the Coalition Government. Nevertheless, I should like to remind new Members that that Bill was made into an Act by a Conservative Government when I was President of the Board of Trade. I have given the reasons why the Distribution of Industry Act was upon the Statute Book before the General Election. I wanted to get it through quickly at that time, because it is not an uncommon feature of new Governments that they find many pressing election pledges to fulfil and there is always a danger of delay.
  Except for a word or two rather grudgingly given at the end of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, his remarks mainly consisted of expressions of considerable complacency about what has been done, and also of some self-congratulation. Whoever is able to put before the House figures concerning the development areas which show a very sharp fall in unemployment, can congratulate himself, as far as I am concerned, as much as he likes. I do not seek to apportion the credit in any way. Of course, it is highly satisfactory to everybody that there should have been these great falls in unemployment in these areas.
  However, we must remember that comparisons of the efforts to solve the employment

  1039
  problem at a time of a world boom, are apt to be a little invidious when compared with efforts made in the same direction at the time of a world slump. That is a perfectly fair point. Most of the legislation dealing with these special areas was put on the Statute Book by Conservative Governments. I am sorry to have to mention this, but the President of the Board of Trade has given the Debate one of those Socialist twists—[Hon. MEMBERS: "No."] He has indeed, and he has made implications. He has used phrases like,. "murdered Jarrow." All people make mistakes. He made only a passing reference to the fact that the present Government have closed 173 pits. It is true that with the condition of insistent world demand it has been possible to place the men who were employed there mainly in other industries. I only hope that in another phase of the economic cycle all those men will continue in employment. I repeat it is not at all a good plan to try to make invidious comparisons between measures which have had to be applied in times of world slump with those which bring success in times of world boom.
  I want to refer to the other aspect. which is that which is called by economists "structural unemployment." I must say that I think that is a singularly foolish terms. One can hardly imagine a phrase which conveys to the ordinary reader or listener less of what it really means. I suppose that by the words "structural unemployment" economists mean unemployment above the characteristic over the country because the product of a particular area is, perhaps, subject to foreign competition or because what is produced is no longer in the fashion, and so on.
  By the words "structural unemployment" I mean unemployment which is fixed above the characteristic of the whole country at the time. This, of course, was one of the problems within the problem which faced the Governments before the war. The White Paper on the Distribution of Industry, published in October, 1948, said:
  "The basic industries and the Development Areas were dependent to an abnormal extent upon export markets. These industries were coalmining, iron and steel, shipbuilding, marine engineering. certain other kinds of engineering and tinplate."
  1040
  This feature against the main background of unemployment—the structural unemployment—has been a very great source of anxiety to all Governments. I do not think that we should feel that that problem has been solved for ever, because not only may other areas be affected—in which case they can be put into the schedule provided by the principal Act—but also the shift in world demand and increasing competition may again bring structural unemployment into the areas where we can now point to full employment. In this matter we must be unceasingly vigilant, and I think everybody in the House will agree with that.
  I should like to refer to the Special Areas Act, 1934, because I think it brings the picture into proper perspective. Under that Act, about £25 million was spent in the five years from 1934 to 1939, and, if we adjust the purchasing power of money, that is strictly comparable to the £50 million which I think has been spent by the President of the Board of Trade in the period between 1945 and 1950. Of course, there was also the Special Areas Reconstruction Association, and all hon. Members will remember the work done by the late Lord Portal in these areas and also the assistance which Lord Nuffield gave in what I might call special types of finance, in which the Treasury cannot, did not, or was unaccustomed to deal. I want to put these facts before the House and remind hon. Members that the Labour Government of 1929–31 found very great difficulty in trying to resolve this very obdurate problem at that time.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Can we get these things correct? I understood my right hon. Friend to say that £93 million had been spent since 1945.
  Mr. Lyttelton: The President will correct me if I am wrong, but much more than £50 million was spent by the private industrialists in these areas. Am I not right?
  Mr. H. Wilson: The total amount spent on all the factories, and there are 1,300 of them, is £92 million. Of the completed factories, 480 have been completed at Government expense, involving £20 million. A number of uncompleted factories have also involved Government expense.
  Mr. Lyttelton: There is really no confusion. The £93 million is the total amount of money spent, not by the Government alone, but the total of all the money spent. I think I am putting it too high when I say that the Government expenditure was £50 million, even when the factories are complete.
  Mr. Wilson: These figures exclude land.
  Mr. Lyttelton: Yes, the figures exclude land.
  I want to say, on this point, that I agree with the President when he declines, as far as possible, to use compulsory powers in this matter of the distribution of industry. At the time when I was at the Board of Trade, in 1945, I took the view, and I have not gone back on it since then, that there was a unique opportunity open to the Government and industry, working together, to steer industries into the development areas or into other desirable locations. The position that arose immediately after the war gave us numerous opportunities. The President must not mind my having interrupted him on the subject of Government contracts, because we must get this matter into perspective. It is very undesirable that damage should be done to other areas, where full employment may be hanging in the balance, by undue—I repeat, undue—favours being given to the development areas. That is the reason why I interrupted the right hon. Gentleman in his speech. We must be very careful not to damage other established industries, but, consistently with that point, I agree that we should try to get work into these areas.
  Let us look for a moment at the situation when the war finished. Many of our existing plants had been worked to death, and it is no exaggeration to say that. The production of certain industries was suppressed altogether, that of others was stimulated, and, at the same time, only the barest maintenance had been allowed in the interests of the war, while expansion to peace-time markets was rigorously suppressed all through the war by the Coalition Government. The export trade of the country had been smashed by two-thirds as a matter of policy, and very destructive forces had been at work, notably the President of the Board of Trade himself, who had concentrated many industries into
  1042
  designated plants and had shut down undesignated plants in order to make labour forces available to make weapons of destruction or to fill the ranks of the Armed Forces. That is what happened on the production side.
  On the consumption side, it did not require any very great business genius to realise that, when the shooting finished, there would be years of insistent demand and that our industrial capacity, changed, distorted and destroyed as it had been, would prove much too low to cope with the flood of inquiries which would press into this country from every side. I remember saying at the time, when I was at the Board of Trade, that no more acute famine than that in textiles had ever been known in the history of the business, and I always pooh-poohed the argument by well-known statisticians—and the President of the Board of Trade should not be included among them in this context—that it would take 11 years to work off the surplus stocks of wool. This famine in textiles went over all the world.
  Current production was far below current demand, and there were no stocks on which to fall back right across Europe, or in North America or India. Almost the same situation existed with regard to woollen textiles and many other industries. I only give this illustration to show that, over the whole range of manufacture, it was obvious to anyone who had studied these problems, even in the most cursory way, that we should have to have new industries, re-equip our old ones and put down new plant.
  These were the reasons why, in the Coalition Government White Paper on Full Employment, use was made of the words which have been quoted in another context, but of which I would remind the House. I am not now using them in the same context, but only pointing out the fluidity of the industrial situation. Let me make use of them again in this context:
  "There will, however, be no problem of general unemployment in the years immediately after the end of the war in Europe. In this transition period, our problems, though no less difficult, will be different. It will be a period of shortages. Though there will be risk of unemployment due to the dislocation involved in the gradual change from war to peace, the total manpower available will be insufficient to satisfy the total demand for goods and services."

  1043
  There were unique opportunities for re-siting industries, and the right hon. Gentleman has given an account encouraging to every hon. Member in the House, of what has been done with the powers which the 1945 Act conferred upon him. That will give every satisfaction, and my own satisfaction is only blurred by the fact that I do not believe that the problem has yet been solved, but think that we have to be ceaselessly vigilant if it is not to recur. I believe that to use compulsory powers is undesirable except as a second line of defence. I want to ask the President whether the bureau which I set up at the Board of Trade, and which gave industrial information and facts about local resources and made them available to industrialists has been kept in being? If not, I would like to ask that it should be reconstituted.
  Mr. Wilson: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that, not only has it been maintained, but it has been expanded, and that there is now a similar bureau, available in every region, by means of which industrialists can find out what they want to know.
  Mr. Lyttelton: I am delighted to hear that this infant of mine is now so lusty. I think it serves a very good purpose, because it makes available to our industrialists information which it would be difficult for them to obtain if they had to collect it themselves, and, in the long run, it greatly helps the re-siting of industry in these areas.
  It is necessary to say that the distribution of industry is an extremely complicated and delicate subject, and that we might quite easily do a great deal of damage by taking too rough-and-ready a view about it. I think that, first of all, the simplest part of a problem, and even that which is by no means simple, is that in regard to places where there is actual unemployment at this moment, such as on Merseyside or Clydeside. I think it is quite a straightforward proposition to found industry and build factories which will absorb that particular unemployment and which will give work to those who cannot find it for the moment in those areas. The only thing that we have to be very careful to do is to try, as far as possible, to select the type of industry to which the genius, aptitude, training, or bent of the population in these particular
  1044
  parts naturally fit them. That is not always quite an easy business.
  I think it is quite straightforward—although complicated problems do arise—to try and put industries which absorb female labour in areas where female labour has not hitherto been very much used. I have had some very encouraging personal experiences in the last four or five years in this connection. I have been concerned with the establishment of a radio valve factory in Sunderland which now employs some 2,000 girls. We will not find, either here or anywhere else, girls who are more readily adaptable to learning a new craft, who take to it with such enthusiasm, or who provide a force of such cheerful workers. The same applies to a factory with which I am connected in Motherwell, where we have started the production of electric meters and X-ray equipment.
  These cases are perfectly simple and straight-forward examples of how the development areas can be helped. In both cases of which I am speaking, there was very little light industry in the area, and there was a large force of girl labour to be drawn upon. Those girls are doing a splendid job today. That is only a small experience of my own, and I am only dragging in a personal reminiscence in order to tell the House that one cannot look anywhere for more intelligent and more quickly adaptable girls than on the north-east coast and in the Glasgow areas. Therefore, I do not feel that that sector of the problem is quite so difficult. But where the real difficulties begin is where there is already fairly full employment in an area, and where we wish to diversify it.
  I wish to say right away that I regard diversification as an object in itself. But in any case we have to be careful—I think mistakes have been made, but I am not saying this in any critical spirit—that we do not put down industries in an area where employment is high and where, by so doing, it would merely unbalance the labour situation and cause a tug away from the vital industries—which are often heavy ones—towards the light industries. At this stage of our capital investment programme we cannot afford to provide the industrial population with two sets of equipment, the one being the sort of subsidiary set which they could use if their main industry suffered from depression. Therefore, it is a particularly

  1045
  delicate matter to try to introduce diversification into a heavy industry area where, perhaps, we have not already the full amount of necessary labour available for the productions of that vital industry.
  I think that some of the warnings which I issued in 1945 have, perhaps, been overzealously followed, because we all thought—this is not a party matter—that we should be very careful in South Wales to try to set up industries which principally employ female labour, as, otherwise, we should be making an unnecessary tug upon the vital industries. If my information is correct, there would be some argument for saying that that has been overdone, and that now rather more factories are required for male labour. Perhaps we have gone too far in the direction of setting up industries employing only female labour. I hope that whoever replies to this Debate will devote a short part of his speech to that particular aspect of the subject.
  I will now turn for a short while to the Bill. I need hardly assure the President of the Board of Trade that its powers seem to us to be desirable, and that we shall not give him any trouble, except on small matters of detail, during its passage through this House. I do not want to raise any Committee points this afternoon, but there are three points upon which I shall just touch. The first is that under Clause 1 the Board of Trade can acquire industrial buildings and are only barred from doing so if it is shown to the satisfaction of the Board that certain conditions—set out at the top of page 2—are fulfilled.
  I think this is the wrong way round, and that the Board of Trade should provide some safeguard. The Clause ought either to be drawn so that the Board of Trade has to produce evidence to show that the industrial buildings are not used, and are not likely to be used, within three months, or that there should be some form of appeal to a body outside the Board of Trade. Generally speaking, we think it undesirable that a Government Department should be advocate and judge in its own cause. It is not a large point, and I think that very little alteration of the Clause would satisfy me.
  Then I am not quite happy about the new powers for housing which are asked for. We recognise at once, of course, the tied house principle to which the Government object so strongly in other contexts,
  1046
  though they approve it in this, but the Board of Trade are taking central powers over housing at a time when the local authorities have ample powers of their own. This gives me the opportunity of saying that it is my experience that in these development areas the local authorities have co-operated in the very fullest manner. That is my universal experience, and I have considerable experience in the matter. Indeed, I am a little doubtful whether these central housing powers are really necessary, but they may be for the key workers and for the managements. I hope that they will be rarely used, because all hon. Members now know that in industrial areas there are many cases where the only people who can afford to live in council houses are the key workers or those in the managerial class, and that the workers who cannot afford to live in them have to subsidise those houses in the rates. This is a sort of social service of which none of us, least of all hon. Members opposite, approve very much, and we do not want to see it perpetuated by large subsidies for this type of housing.
  There is a third point I wish to mention briefly. I think the President of the Board of Trade has already given me nearly all the assurances I want. The wording of Clause 3 has given rise to some anxiety that the Board of Trade could continue to subsidise operations carried on at a loss because the location of the industry had turned out to be such as to load the industry with, for example, undesirable transport costs. Personally, I do not read the Clause in that sense, but I think it would be better to introduce one or two words into it to make still clearer the intention which I understood from the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon, namely, that this power would be used only in exceptional circumstances, and only for dealing with the establishment or the transfer of an industry.
  We support the Bill and hope that it will make a contribution to dealing with what will always remain a serious problem. We shall never be able to put paid to this account; at no time can one sleep upon this matter. I believe that all modern industrial thought agrees that diversification is an end in itself, and perhaps the greatest living example of the value of diversification is to be found in the City

  1047
  of Birmingham. I believe it is true to say that the incidence of unemployment during the time of the world slump fell less hardly on Birmingham, with its almost myriad industries, than upon almost any other city of comparable size in this country or in the United States of America.
  I will conclude by saying that just as in the banking system of our own country branch banking has turned out to be a very great source of strength—because as one industry is depressed another may be prosperous—and just as the absence of branch banking in the United States was one of the causes of weakness in the American banking system, so, also, in industry, if we get diversification we are likely to be able to spread the risks of changing demand and fashion and not have to pay for these changes in terms of human suffering.
  I think we should all agree that diversification is an end in itself. But it must be pursued in such a way, and with such wisdom and sobriety, that the existing industries outside the development areas, upon which the bulk of the employment of our country depends, are not damaged by artificial measures and that we do not seek to grow exotic flowers in a soil where they cannot hope to flourish. While recognising these dangers, we should do our best to prevent districts from becoming too dependent upon one industry and to embroider and diversify the pattern of the industries they carry on.
  5.0 p.m.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: I have no desire to enter into a controversy with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) about the history of the development areas between the wars. The facts are too well established in the minds of the people of this country for us to need any further elucidation. If I may say so, the record of his party between the two wars has not yet been lived down. I hope I have shown myself to be sufficiently non-controversial on that matter.
  This Bill is one of a long succession of Measures brought before this House in the last 20 years to deal with development areas in this country. I think we can say that the policy of building factories and steering industries into
  1048
  these areas has been successful up to a point. This afternoon, the President of the Board of Trade has given us the number of factories set up and figures of the employment given since 1945. No one on any side of the House would wish to minimise the efforts made and the success that has been achieved. He told us that 200,000 new jobs had been provided in these factories. On the face of it that sounds quite a good figure, but when we measure it against the background of the problem in the special areas it is not nearly as good as it looks at first sight.
  The fact remains that, although much has been done, a good deal still remains to be done. This Bill has to be measured against the unemployment which still exists in these districts. The percentage of unemployment is still higher in all these areas than the average for the rest of the country. In Scotland it is 3.4, in the Northern Region 3.1 and in Wales, where the problem seems more intractable than anywhere else, 4.2 per cent. There are still 39,000 people out of work in the valleys of Wales. About 12,000 of them are disabled miners for whom special provision is being made and will have to be made. This is the position in the development areas at a time when we have full employment in this country. This is the position when we have a shortage of skilled miners, when we are unable to reach the manpower target for the mines, and at a time when we need to produce more and more coal not only for export but for our own industrial purposes.
  These are fair weather conditions, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot pointed out in his speech. But we do not know how long present conditions will continue. It was only last week that miners' leaders of 12 West European countries met in Marseilles and one of the most urgent matters on their agenda was to urge international action to avert a coal slump. They were greatly concerned at the report of the Economic Commission for Europe, which showed that Europe, as a whole, had the greatest coal glut since 1930, although there are certain countries which still have a shortage. The picture may be overdrawn, the figures may be exaggerated, but we are certainly moving towards that position rather than away from it. We are moving away from fair weather conditions, and we have to remember that most of these

  1049
  development areas are dependent upon coal.
  To begin with, therefore, we have to consider this Bill against that background But there is an additional reason why we should treat this question as a matter of urgency. If there is another recession, another slump, these very areas will be the first to be submerged. They will be the first to feel the full tide of unemployment. That is one of the reasons why we should drive on, without any delay, with the diversification of industries in these areas. The migration which has taken place from these areas in past years also makes it a question of extreme urgency. Six hundred thousand people moved from Scotland into England.
  Mr. Osborne: That is nothing new.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: That is nothing new, but it has never been carried through on such a scale before and it has never been compulsory migration. The Scots migrate of their own accord. They have migratory instincts, sometimes to our cost and sometimes to our advantage as a country and a Commonwealth. We must acknowledge our debt in that respect not only to the Scots but to other Celts.
  Something like 500,000 people left Wales in the years between the wars. The significant fact is that they are still migrating from Wales at the annual rate of 7,000. The trend has been arrested, and we are glad it has, but it certainly has not been stopped. This is a very serious business for the development areas of Wales because it has meant, and still means, that the virile young blood is leaving the Principality. That is true also of Scotland. There is a feeling in Wales that this aspect of the matter is not sufficiently appreciated in Whitehall. It is one of the matters which adds great force to the growing demand in the Principality that we should control our own affairs.
  These young people will continue to leave the development areas because they are sceptical. The impressionable years of their lives were spent in the atmosphere of a depressed and decaying area, which South Wales then was, and they are frightened. They say, "We are not going to stay here," not because they would not prefer to remain in their native country and find work in the valleys in which they have been born and bred, but because they are afraid of what the future may
  1050
  bring. They are afraid that they too, like their fathers, may be trapped in an unemployment area. Is this Bill going to give those people in this and other development areas the confidence to stay there and build their lives there? I ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he really thinks that this Bill will provide sufficient inducement to industrialists to move into these areas? Will it achieve the object which I am certain hon. Members in all parts of the House have at heart?
  I think we can measure to a large extent the scope of this Bill by its financial provisions. It is true that the President of the Board of Trade has said that no firm figure was put into the Bill but that it is anticipated that £100,000 will be spent in 1950–51. That is to be divided between all the development areas in the country. Does he really think that that will be adequate to meet their needs and to create conditions which will restore confidence to the people in those areas? I cannot believe that it will provide all these inducements, all the finance to purchase land, to assist industrialists, to give grants towards the cost of moving industries from more prosperous areas, and give grants to housing associations. The finance provided by this Bill will not cover all those requirements. It is not adequate for the purposes which the right hon. Gentleman sincerely has in mind.
  The right hon. Gentleman raised a point about assisting industries to remain in the development areas. I hope very much that he will give us more information on that point, or perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will do so. I hope we shall hear more about the steps to be taken to secure contracts for firms in those areas. After all, it is one thing to establish an industry in an unemployment area, but it is another thing to keep it going and make it prosperous so that it may continue to give employment. We all know of industries that have failed for lack of contracts in these areas, and we would therefore like to know a great deal more about the practical measures which the Government are going to take not only to steer industries but to steer contracts into those areas.
  We on these benches have felt for a long time that this policy of development areas, which selects certain parts of the country for intensive industrialisation and for special treatment, is far too rigid, too

  1051
  arbitrary and too exclusive. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) interrupted the President of the Board of Trade earlier in the Debate and raised the question of Portsmouth. He asked upon what basis the development areas were selected. We know the main conditions that must be fulfilled. First of all, there is the high rate of unemployment. But we do not know bow high that rate has got to be.
  There are areas, certainly in my constituency, and, I have no doubt, in constituencies of other hon. Members, where the rate of unemployment was at one time higher than it was in some of the worst distressed areas in this country. I have a town in my own constituency, Holy-head, where the rate of unemployment touched 40 per cent. at one time. I am glad to say that things are better there now. Members in many parts of the House have areas in their constituencies where the rate of unemployment is today higher than the rate inside the development areas.
  Could the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary define more clearly why some areas are included and others are excluded? It may be said that it is because a particular district is dependent upon one industry and that industry is in a state of depression. There are many hon. Members, of whom I am one, who have got areas in their constituencies that would qualify under that heading as well for special treatment, but they are not included in the schedule.
  The whole of this problem must be considered against a far wider national background. It is no good our continuing to put a ring fence round certain areas in the country. If we continue to do that we shall run the grave risk of drawing people in from the countryside to the development areas, and in fact we shall accentuate the problem and aggravate rural depopulation. That is a very serious problem. When we consider this Bill we not only have to take into account those areas which are at present unemployment areas, but we also have to consider the action which we shall take to prevent other areas from becoming unemployment areas.
  I should like in passing to make reference to those market towns of which we
  1052
  all know in various parts of the country, which are becoming dead ends as far as the provision of employment is concerned. I have four in my constituency. I will not mention them all, but the President of the Board of Trade knows them well. He can pronounce some of them, and others he cannot. There are Amlwch Llangefni, Beaumaris, and this is one which I defy him to pronounce—Llanerchymedd. There is the market town of Dolgelly which the right hon. Gentleman knows well. There is the small town to which he referred in his speech when he alluded to the disabled workers in the quarry district of Blaenau Ffestiniog. Those people have been promised assistance, but not a single stone of the factory which it was undertaken to provide has been laid. All these places had small industries in the old days, but they have not now. There is no doubt that the development area policy does not attempt to cope with this problem, and it is one which must be taken into consideration.
  When the President of the Board of Trade was speaking about schemes to employ the disabled quarrymen in North Wales, he was referring to the admirable Development Act of 1909 under which these men are to be provided for. The year 1909 was a very good vintage year for legislation, although right hon. and hon. Members above the Gangway sometimes found it a bit "heady." I would commend that Act to the President of the Board of Trade. It was passed by a Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer. Full use has not been made of that Act to provide for these areas which are in danger of becoming unemployment areas—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I think the noble Lady appreciates that this Bill is somewhat restricted, particularly so by the Money Resolution which will be considered in Committee. It is not permissible to argue that other areas should or might be included in the provisions of this Bill.
  Mr. Snow: Further to that point of Order. Before you came into the Chamber, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I raised that point with Mr. Speaker. At that time he said he had not been listening very carefully and that he would like to hear the course of the Debate before he gave a Ruling. Subsequently I had a word with him—and I do not know

  1053
  whether I shall be in Order in mentioning it—and he said that he thought that as the Bill makes reference on the last page to the principal Act, then by and large, it being Second Reading, we might introduce other matters.
  Mr. H. Wilson: I feel there is some argument for going rather wide, from this point of view: the Bill gives the power which can be applied to development areas. At any moment this House, together with the efforts of another place, can add, for instance, the areas which the hon. Lady mentioned to the Schedule of development areas. That being so, I should have thought it was desirable to consider whether existing powers, which can be used for those areas, are adequate.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am not clear what the intervention by the right hon. Gentleman indicated, but having listened to the Debate, it is quite clear to me that this Bill is in the main restricted to further provision for existing development areas. It may be proper to make a passing reference to other matters, but it would not be proper to go into detail, as the hon. Lady, if she will forgive me for saying so, rather seemed to be doing.
  Sir Jocelyn Lucas: I also had a word with Mr. Speaker on the matter and I asked him whether it would be in Order to raise the question of the inclusion of Portsmouth in the development areas. I understood him to say that there would be a certain latitude.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It all depends on how much latitude.
  Lady Megan Lloyd George: I do not wish to contravene your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. It seemed to me that as reference was made to the principal Act, and as in that Act it was perfectly competent to take certain areas out of the Schedule and to include other areas previously not in the Schedule, then it would be competent to discuss areas which might be included, and where higher unemployment exists. I shall not go into any detail, however. We agree that in the main priority must be given to all those areas which suffered chronic unemployment between the two wars and which still have a high rate, but—and this is the point I should like the President of the Board of Trade to consider—the moment has come when
  1054
  we must look at the picture of the country as a whole. If we are to have a balanced economy as between one area and another and as between town and country, we must have a coherent plan; and I believe that only by such a development can we hope to prevent people being driven from their homes in the way that has occurred in the past—driven from their counties and, above all, driven from their native country.
  5.23 p.m.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: My main purpose in speaking in this Debate on the Second Reading is to appeal for these facilities to be applied to other areas, to give credit where it is due, and also to deal with the background, as the President of the Board of Trade dealt with it in introducing the Bill. For many years I advocated that action should be taken first of all in the special areas and then in the distressed areas. As a result of the improved policy and of the action which has been taken, those areas are now known as the development areas.
  In my view, credit should be given where it is due, to those who were responsible for the new policy and to those who applied it. In particular I want to give credit this afternoon to the conscientious civil servants who worked so hard, without a word being said to their credit for many years, in applying the various special areas reports, then the distressed area reports and then the development area policy. Great credit is due to the planning department of the Board of Trade, and any hon. Member who has not seen the planning department should certainly go to see it, because it is an example of an excellent policy being applied.
  The areas with which we are mainly concerned are South Wales, West Durham, West Cumberland, parts of Scotland, and now Liverpool; and in my view there should also be included North Staffs and parts of Lancashire. In introducing the Bill the President of the Board of Trade gave some very encouraging figures. I understood him to say that approximately 1,000 new factories have been completed since 1945, that 1,359 were to be constructed and that 481 were Government-financed schemes, representing a total of approximate expenditure in the development areas since 1945 of

  1055
  £92 million. Since 1945 half of the factories which have been built in this country have been built in the development areas.
  My right hon. Friend also spoke about the increasing number of disabled miners and the need to provide for them. He said that in these areas in 1932 unemployment was 932,000, whereas at the present time it is 144,500. While he was giving these figures I recalled that the pre-war Opposition in this House always gave credit where it was due. Surely the time has arrived when in this House also, when figures of this character are given, at least credit should be given where it is due. The state of those areas was mainly the result of generations of neglect of the mining industries, of the concentration of industry in those areas and of the loss of our markets. In the main it is again the sad story of the treatment of the mining industry.
  That is 10 years ago, but, as the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) said, we now face a new situation. During the past 10 years development has taken place at a rate quicker than ever before in the history of the world, making pre-war conceptions out of date. We are in the 20th century, a century which demands national planning and large-scale organisation. The fundamental change in the development areas has been brought about, first of all by the many special area reports, secondly by the six years of war, and thirdly by the policy of the Labour Government and by their actions. We are now fighting for our very lives in this country and the introduction of a Bill such as this proves how out of date is our approach to these problems.
  Our people throughout the country are responding magnificently to our needs. We face a new economic situation and changed relations throughout the world, and we should be concentrating all our attention and all our resources upon, and should be legislating for, those industries which are providing the country with the best and the most immediate returns. If the House agrees with that reasoning, then the industries which, in my opinion, should be receiving the consideration of this House are in this order: first, coal; second, engineering; third, steel; and then cotton, pottery, transport and power.
  1056
  We should be legislating and then applying our policy in a planned way to enable us to obtain the maximum output from these industries.
  Mr. Osborne: What about agriculture?
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Agriculture is very important. Millions of capital have been sunk in agriculture during the last five years. If the same amount of capital had been sunk in the industries I have been speaking about, we should have got a bigger and better return from the industries. Before the war millions of capital were spent in a development area, but that development area in those days was London and the south.
  I am now pleading for attention to be given to applying the facilities contained in this Bill to the industries of North Staffordshire in particular. We require a 1950 conception of our needs, and not a 1930 conception such as lies behind the introduction of this limited Bill. Before the war, as the noble Lady has pointed out, in many parts of the House pleas were made for areas to be treated as what were known then as "distressed" areas. One was Kidsgrove, which had one of the largest percentages of unemployed of any part of the country. Therefore, today I am pleading that these facilities should be applied to the pottery industry in particular.
  This industry is making a mighty contribution to dollar earnings and to supplying the needs of the country. This industry requires reconstruction, encouragement, and modernisation. Of its raw materials, 90 per cent. are obtained at home. The whole world market lies at our feet. Before the war we had competitors throughout the world. Relatively speaking, we have now no competitors at all, and we are producing the finest pottery in the world, which is the admiration of all who see it.
  Before the war 300 factories in this area employed 60,000 people. They are still too small units of production, and it is for this reason that I am suggesting that the facilities contained in this Bill should be applied to extending and expanding those small units. We require more enterprise and modernisation in the industries that are making the mightiest contribution to Britain's economic recovery, and, therefore, I am asking that,

  1057
  when this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, the facilities should immediately be applied in the North Staffordshire area in order that we can plan and expand; build 10 modern large factories within four years, and build 20 large modern factories within six years in and around these areas, where the most highly skilled people of the kind have lived and developed one generation after another. I appeal to the President to call representatives of the industry together and to provide them with the facilities possible under the Bill, and to provide the capital to build the factories; and they will give the output.
  We find as a result of an examination of a Return in the Vote Office that almost £12 million was spent on services in development areas in 1949, and £6,250,000 in 1950. I am appealing to the President that some of that expenditure should be in the North Staffordshire area. The President said that he was faced in several mining areas with a hard and growing core of disabled miners and others. Anyone who knows these cases must agree that they are amongst the hardest cases we are now faced with. It is the intention of the President, I understand, not only to apply his policy inside the development areas but where it is necessary, just as he has on Merseyside, and in certain other areas.
  Therefore, I say that one of the areas most urgently requiring this kind of treatment is north Staffordshire where, as a result of the effects of the strata upon the miners, they are suffering from pneumoconiosis and other industrial diseases about which the right hon. Gentleman and the noble Lady have spoken already. I am appealing that the facilities contained in this Bill should be applied in that area also, in order that the disabled men may be trained, and so that we can also introduce more diversified industry. I plead that steps should be taken not only in the development areas, where we can give the credit that is due—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is now in the process of arguing what it is not permissible to argue, as I indicated, on this Bill. It is quite permissible to argue that, if and when other development areas are added, the provisions of the Bill should be extended, or that they are or are not adequate to
  1058
  the purpose; but it is not permissible to plead for the inclusion of other specific areas amongst the other development areas at present existing.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: I accept that, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I listened very carefully to your Ruling, but with respect I suggest that it is in order to suggest that the facilities that are proposed in this Bill should be applied in places where the President deems it is necessary.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sorry to differ from the hon. Member, but the Bill is perfectly clear that the facilities and moneys to be made available are for the benefit of existing areas. It may be—I do not know—that there may be future development areas; but it is not permissible to plead, in effect, for the inclusion of other areas as development areas.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: I am not doing that. I watched myself very carefully to keep in order. I am not pleading that other areas should be included. I should have liked to do so, but I reckoned that it would have been out of order. I am prepared to leave this matter now, but what I am asking is that the facilities contained in this Bill should be applied, within limits, to other centres where the President deems it necessary.
  I want to say what a pleasure it was to sit here listening to the account of the concrete results of Labour's policy applied during the past five years—what a pleasure it was compared to what we had to listen to here between the wars. I would remind the House that before the war, while we were critical of other Governments, we always gave credit where it was due, and surely the time has arrived when the Opposition should also be prepared to give credit where it is due.
  5.39 p.m.
  Mr. Niall Macpherson: If I understood your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it is that what we have to deal with here is not what areas should be development areas but what sort of powers the Government ought to have in regard to development areas. I think we have also to look at one other thing, and that is what the effect of the exercise of those powers will be not only upon the development areas but also upon the rest of the country. If every hon. Gentleman were to plead that his own

  1059
  particular area should be included amongst the development areas, then the whole country would be a development area.
  I felt inclined to ask the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) when he was speaking and inviting his right hon. Friend to provide numerous factories in his area, whether he was prepared to provide the labour for them, or whether we were to have a situation in which each hon. Member would urge that his own area should become a development area, and draw labour in from other areas. One of the things we have to watch in considering this Bill is that the measures taken do not conflict with the needs of export industries. As has been said, we want to make certain that the export industries get the labour they require, and I am rather frightened that this Bill may have an adverse effect by preventing labour going where it is required in order that we may develop those industries which will be of the greatest advantage to our exports.
  As I understand it, there are three main points in the Bill. In the first place, it is clear that in a development area new building should not be erected if existing industrial buildings are available for use. It is equally clear that industrial buildings should not be allowed to remain unoccupied, or under-occupied, if there is substantial unemployment in the area. The original Act only authorised the acquisition of land for the provision thereon of premises for meeting the requirements of industrial undertakings, or of means of access; but this Bill authorises acquisition not only of land but of premises, notwithstanding that no substantial adaptation of the buildings is necessary.
  If I understand the position correctly, this would allow—and may be it is intended to allow—the acquisition of premises carrying on business which has proved uneconomic, for the purpose of carrying on the same business in the same premises. I should like whoever replies to answer this. Is it intended to take over premises in which a business has not been particularly well carried on, or, shall we say, has not been economically or successfully carried on, and then to run the same type of business there? If that is so, it will give rise to an entirely
  1060
  new aspect of the management of industrial areas. As I see it, it would enable the Government to take over even shipyards in the event of there being no substantial business in the shipyards, or no prospect of business developing there over a certain period of time. The House is entitled to know whether that is the intention of the Government. If it is, who will run those industries?
  At the present time all that happens is that the Board of Trade manage the industrial estates through industrial estate companies, who in turn simply let the factories to private enterprise, and private enterprise carries on those undertakings with assistance from the Government. Is that now to change? Are we to have some different arrangement whereby, for example, some new Government-financed corporation may be formed to carry on the building of ships for which there may be no immediate demand, in order to keep the shipyards going? I am not saying that is right or wrong; but I am saying that the House is entitled to know what is the purpose behind this Bill.
  There is another question which affects my constituency and which I should like answered. My constituency contains a small part of a development area. It is an area which is, in a sense, derelict—the village of Wanlockhead, adjoining the Lanarkshire village of Leadhills. The area contains lead mines which, according to the report on mineral development, are not wholly worked out. It would appear that while under existing legislation that area could have been worked, the premises on it could not have been taken over by the Industrial Estate Company. Is that the sort of case which the right hon. Gentleman had in view in introducing this Bill? Here is an area which is entirely a one-industry area, and that industry has not been working for some time? Is it part of the purpose of this Bill to enable that industry to be got going again? There is adjoining this area a mining area where there are virtually no ancillary industries. It is true that hosiery manufacturers from Dumfries have come up and established small branch industries there, but there is no supporting industry. That is also a question which will need attention, and for my part I cannot see that this Bill will contribute to any great extent in helping to solve the problem.

  1061
  The general position of structural employment, to which reference has been made, is extremely important from this angle. There are occasions when an industry is adversely affected by temporary conditions, and there is no doubt that it would be wise to help it. If it had been badly managed there would be something to be said for seeing that it was kept going under new management, though the problem there is by no means confined to development areas. The danger is that there will be a temptation to keep alive an industry which is an anachronism, or which, as a result of permanently changed circumstances, should for economic reasons be discontinued or sited elsewhere. For that we shall want safeguarding, and I do not see that there are sufficient safeguards in the Bill. It seems to be left entirely to the discretion of the Board of Trade. We want to ensure that this power of taking over premises is used not only fairly and justly, but wisely and economically.
  That brings me to the second point in the grants to encourage industrial undertakings to transfer to development areas. In the same Clause there is provision for grants to housing associations. It seems to me that the whole problem of the development area, particularly in the postwar period, is that there are a lot of people with houses who do not want to go elsewhere for work. This Bill makes provision for grants to housing associations. Are those grants to be only for the key workers mentioned in the following Clause, or are they to be for the purpose of building houses for the workers in those industries as a whole? If it is to be the latter, there is not the slightest doubt that the tendency will be for labour to be drawn from non-development areas into the development areas in order to occupy the houses provided.
  The noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) referred to this question and indicated that it would mean, to a large extent, the further depopulation of rural areas. At the present time there are many men and women with work but with no houses, and obviously, if in these areas there are houses and work to go with them, the tendency will be for people to be attracted to that place. Let me give a concrete example from my own constituency.
  1062
  In Dumfries there is at present a very great shortage of labour, and the prospect of an even greater shortage. Yet even for the existing labour force there is a tremendous shortage of houses.
  That must apply almost all over the country, and if we are to give powers under this Bill to the industrial estate companies or to housing associations to borrow or obtain grants for the building of houses we shall draw labour away from other industries which are already short of labour and attract them to the development areas. It will be said, "Of course, in that case, you can transport the whole of the industry or part of the industry."
  Mr. Frederick Willey: Surely, the hon. Gentleman agrees that it would be better to provide houses for perhaps half-a-dozen key workers, which would ensure work for, possibly hundreds, rather than to prevent the hundreds from working for want of the key workers essential to that particular form of production?
  Mr. Macpherson: I absolutely agree, and that was why I asked whether the purpose of this Bill was to provide houses only for the key workers or houses for the workers at large; that is by no means clear from the drafting of this Clause. I agree that we must provide houses for key workers if we are to get new industries going, but I do not think that it is desirable to provide houses in this exceptional way for other workers as well, and so denude the rest of the country of labour.
  I come to my last point, and that is the transfer of whole factories or parts of factories to the development areas. In the past, there has been a very considerable pressure exercised on industrialists to go to the development areas. I do not see how this pressure can be exercised under this Clause in the future. It is very difficult to exercise pressure to transfer existing manufacturing activities, unless the policy is also to denude the present factories of labour and so force them to move. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will deal with that. It is one thing to give facilities and grants to encourage industrialists to transfer part of their activities to the development areas, but that does involve great difficulties in other respects. The President of the Board of

  1063
  Trade will not be in the same advantageous position as he was when a manufacturer came to him and said, "I want to start up an entirely new industry." In that case, he was more or less directed to a particular site.
  It is not going to be anything like so easy in regard to transfers. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be more specific than his right hon. Friend was in telling the House how he proposes to attack that particular problem and arrange for the transfer of industry from one part of the country, where in many cases there may be a shortage of labour, to the development areas, because it will not be easy to persuade it to move unless the shortage of labour is so acute as to make it practically impossible for it to carry on where it is.
  5.54 p.m.
  Mr. J. Hall: This is the first time I have had the honour to address this House, and I feel sure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you and other hon. Members will give me the same indulgence as has been accorded to other new Members when making their maiden speeches.
  I have been tempted to take part in this Debate because I have seen the result of the Distribution of Industries Act in an area of my constituency where more than 30,000 people have become employed in the neighbouring trading estate, many thousands of whom have become employed within the last 18 months. It as calculated that £7 million per year is paid out in wages on that trading estate, and a substantial amount of that money is spent in my constituency of Gateshead. That adds to the prosperity of the town. In the days of the depression, one-third of the bread-winners of this town were out of work, and most of the shopkeepers and business people were driven from business because of the lack of spending power of the unemployed population.
  While we have reason for satisfaction at the moment in making comparison with the pre-war period, we still think that there is room for improvement because there is still a higher percentage of unemployed in that area than there is in other parts of the country. There is also the fear of recession in the shipbuilding and ship repairing industry, and we naturally seek to improve our position against any tendency of further
  1064
  unemployment. For these reasons, we welcome the Bill. It does provide facilities to extend industrial undertakings in the development areas.
  Hon. Members opposite may be disposed to dislike certain aspects of the Bill, such as its compulsory powers. They would probably prefer the free play of private enterprise, but no one can deny that private enterprise did fail to provide employment in the distressed areas before the war. It has been the Distribution of Industries Act and the plans of the Government since that have brought much employment to the development areas. While we have a high proportion of people employed in the basic industries, there is always the danger of a slump and unemployment on a large scale. If there is a decline in the heavy industries, we also see an abnormal rise in the rate of unemployment. Therefore, this Bill, in my opinion, is very essential. It is very essential to have facilities for the establishment of alternative industries.
  I had the experience of finding that a new factory could not be started because of the difficulty of obtaining premises. I also have in mind the position of another employer who had to defer planning a new industry because he could not transfer his key workers through lack of houses. I think that we can welcome this Bill because it makes grants and loans to enable houses to be built in the development areas. I do not know whether it is the intention of the Minister to acquire premises in the shipyards. There are many ship repairers becoming redundant. Certainly, there is a need for alternative employment for such workers.
  While there is this need for finding alternative employment for redundant ship repairers, it would never do to take them away from the scene of their trade. We do not want to lose sight of them. If there is to be alternative employment for ship repairers, we ought to have that alternative employment on the spot, and we should not make the mistake which was made before the war of allowing our skilled tradesmen to drift out of their employment and become lost because of going to other industries. Perhaps the Minister will tell the House whether the Bill is intended to extend the facilities to provide alternative employment in the shipyard itself. The Government have proved that the drawbacks connected with

  1065
  the development areas and alternative employment are non-existent. It was argued that markets would be inaccessible, that wages would be high and there would be great industrial discontent if firms were moved to the development areas. We have found that this is not true, and that there is a greater harmony existing in the development areas between employers and employees. There is no sign of any industrial unrest.
  In my opinion, this Bill will give additional strength to the Distribution of Industries Act, 1945, making provision for factories to be sited in areas with only one or two basic industries, which has given new prospects of employment. In the height of the unemployment period, we found that in London there was only one-third of the unemployment to be found in districts with only one or two basic industries, such as mining and shipbuilding. This leads me to believe that the Government policy of encouraging new industries for the development areas is one of the surest safeguards against stagnation in these areas. I believe that this Bill is another step towards the realisation of full employment.
  6.2 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cuthbert Headlam: I should like to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. J. Hall) on his maiden speech. He comes from a town I know very well, and he spoke tonight with a knowledge of his subject and a deep appreciation of the difficulties with which that part of the world was faced in the past.
  I wish to emphasise the importance of the matters that are dealt with in the Bill to the North-Eastern Area. I do not honestly think that the Bill does very much for us, or makes any change in the present administration; it merely extends the powers of the Board of Trade contained in the existing law. I cannot see that it bring any immediate help to a district which is beginning to feel the effects of unemployment. It does not relate its proposals to the scale of the problem which may be before us before long. It is true that six new firms were approved in the North-East in 1949, but with the possibility of some 30,000 shipyard workers being redundant in the course of the next year or two it does
  1066
  not seem that this is a sufficient increase in the development of the area.
  People always forget that in the North-East Coast we are still dependent on basic heavy industries for our male labour, and cannot really be satisfied with industries that so often do not supply work for men. I have been personally associated with the bringing of new industries to the North-Eastern area for more years than I care to remember. I was one who strongly advocated the proposition in the period between the wars.
  There is no doubt about it that the origin of all that development came from the party to which I belong. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Members opposite must admit that to be the case. The more fair-minded of them have always maintained that we on this side of the House initiated the policy and that its development has been pursued by the Labour Party in the last five years. That is perfectly true, and I do not dispute it for one moment. I welcome the increased development in the North of England, but I resented the suggestion in the course of the General Election that we on this side of the House were entirely unmindful of the distress of the North of England in the past.
  I wish to ask a question in regard to Clause 1 about the taking over of factories. I do not understand what it means, when it is stated that the Board of Trade is to have power to acquire land under Section 1 of the principal Act, and there is to be an extension of these powers to include industrial buildings not in substantial use for industrial purposes. I doubt whether there are any factories of this kind in the North-East Development Area, and certainly not in places like West Durham.
  Another matter that is causing a great deal of uncertainty is how it is proposed under the Bill to bring new factories into the district more speedily than at the present time. We have found that it takes a long time to get factories going, and that the building of factories is not as quick as it ought to be. Is it intended to speed things up in any way under the Bill? If that is the case, the Bill will be doing a valuable piece of work. I welcome the Measure as the continuance of the policy on which we are all agreed. I cannot see, however, that much can be

  1067
  done speedily if only £100,000 is to be spent in the coming year.
  The policy of the development areas has so far proved successful, but I am inclined to think that it is not now being utilised to the fullest advantage of the country as a whole. In this connection, I agree with what the hon. Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) has said. I think the Bill will be welcomed by all industrialists in the North of England if more can be done to provide alternative employment for men than in the past. After all, it is a comparatively new thing in the North of England for women to go out to work. They no doubt benefit the household by increasing the amount of money coming in, though I remember very well in the early days how indignant miners were that their daughters were being paid more than themselves. What is required in the North of England, and on Tyneside in particular, is some alternative work for the shipbuilding people who are no longer required, and if any new firms can be brought into the area or new work can be developed in the shipbuilding yards, I should be happier about our ability to meet the difficulties when they come along.
  6.10 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Wiley: I listened with considerable interest to the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Sir C. Headlam). I thought at one stage he was going to tempt me to repeat many of the things I said during the Election but I was glad to notice that he finished on a moderate note with which I agreed. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) has been obliged to leave the Chamber because I wanted to tell him how gratified my constituents in the Ediswan factory at Pallion will be when they learn what he said about them. Although I should perhaps add that I am happily confident that those constituents will, when it comes to the day, prefer to put their trust in the President of the Board of Trade and the present Front Bench, than in the Opposition. Quite rightly, most of the people in the development areas regard these questions as being essentially political questions. but I
  1068
  wanted to speak on rather a different note tonight.
  I have a particular interest in the development areas, because I had the pleasure of being chairman of a subcommittee of the Select Committee on Estimates which reported on the administration of those areas. Re-reading that report is quite refreshing. Among our conclusions, for example, I find that we reported to the House that
  "all factory building schemes should be planned sufficiently far ahead—"
  Why did we say that they should be planned sufficiently far ahead?—
  "to enable the Estate Companies to make bulk purchases of the requisite supplies of the basic materials."
  It seems that there are occasions when bulk purchase ceases to be a political question.
  The major problem, as we saw it, was the administration of the development areas. We came to the conclusion that there were for all practical purposes only two alternatives. One was to place more direct responsibility upon the estate companies and the other was to transfer the whole of the administration to the Board of Trade. We came down on the side of the companies, and so did the Board of Trade. In their departmental reply, the Board of Trade indicated that they agreed that the administration should be simplified, and that it should not be done by transferring the administration to the Board of Trade.
  My experience has been that the President of the Board of Trade has gone a very long way towards implementing that recommendation, and in my opinion he has succeeded in improving the administration by strengthening the character of the companies and by giving greater direct responsibility to them. It has not been an easy matter from the administration point of view. I believe that the worst possible relationship that can exist when it comes to the expenditure of public money in vast developments is the relationship between a Government Department and a managing agency. A lot of the difficulties in the groundnut scheme arose from the agency relationship between the Ministry of Food and the United Africa Company. There is an element in this relationship which persists regarding the administration of the development areas and I think we have now reached the stage where we

  1069
  could go a step further. I should like my right hon. Friend to consider this suggestion. We might bring the seven existing trading estate companies together and co-ordinate them within a national industrial board.
  I am supported in that conclusion. In September of last year when he addressed the British Association, the full-time chairman of the North Eastern Trading Estates Company—I should like to say that he has done excellent work which is very much appreciated in the North-East—expressed the same point of view. If we took this step we would get a far better and clearer definition of responsibility than we have in the present set-up. I am sure every effort has been made to define this division of responsibility, but if we created a national board we would get a more clear cut definition of responsibility. We would get my right hon. Friend closer to the effective executive head within the administration, and, therefore, a clearer realisation of policy by those responsible for administering the trading estates.
  I also—and this is a personal axe I am grinding because it was a point made by the Select Committee, whose report in this respect has not yet been implemented—think it would possibly provide a formula whereby we could resort to the block grant system for the development areas. The advantage of that is that it will ensure national planning, and I believe that we should have a large measure of national planning when it comes to a question of industrial location. What is particularly important at the present moment if we take this step is that it would lead to a good deal of simplification and economy of manpower. For the past year or so the trading estate companies more and more have become companies managing properties rather than companies responsible for the construction of factory premises. A good deal of overlapping could be avoided if we centralised the administration to some extent. I said to some extent because I think it is still necessary to retain the local element in the administration.
  Mr. N. Macpherson: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting the setting up of a corporation similar to those in the nationalised industries, and does he also suggest such control, for example, for the Highland area as well as for non-Scottish areas?
  Mr. Willey: I shall come to that point in a moment. The final advantage would be that it would provide a more effective relationship with the industrialists seeking advice upon industrial location. It was after all the unanimous view of the Barlow Committee that a national authority to determine industrial location should be set up. Where the members of the Barlow Committee apparently differed was on the point raised by the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson)—the question of function. I think we should bypass the question of function by setting up such a parent body to the seven trading estate companies as I have proposed and allow the functions to evolve with experience. If we concentrate first of all on economy in administration and a more effective and simple control, at a later stage we could decide whether the function of such a body should be enlarged. I do not think I have the ingenuity to bring such provisions within the scope of the present Bill, but I hope during its progress through the House my right hon. Friend will seriously consider this matter and see whether something can be done on this cardinal question of administration.
  If we turn from administration to the development areas themselves, I believe we have got to change our attitude towards them and concentrate on particular industries and particular districts within the development areas. I can only speak from experience of my own development area. In our case, as my right hon. Friend has indicated, we must, in the first instance, concentrate upon the difficulties arising in the ship repair and shipbuilding industries. But if we look at the development area, what do we find? The North-East coast for all practical purposes is divided into three districts—the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees, If we look at the unemployment figures we find that whereas the Tyne and the Wear have unemployment running at about 4 to 5 per cent.—in such places as Jarrow, it runs up to 7 per cent.—on the Tees unemployment is well below 2 per cent.
  The working party set up by the Admiralty last year reported that in the ship repairing industry redundancy amounting to 2,300 could be expected by June of this year. They have discovered that that is an under-estimate.

  1071
  It is quite clear from the present figures that it is. A second working party has advised the Admiralty that a further 2,000 to 2,500 unemployed can be expected in the ship repairing industry by the end of the year or the beginning of 1951.
  These are matters which anyone living in the area anticipated. We all knew that this would happen because we happen to live in a development area and we knew that the first serious recession would come in ship repairing. How have we prepared for it? How does this tally with the development that is taking place in the north-east development area? We find when we look at the industrial projects approved that as much work is being provided for men on the Tees as is being provided for men on the Tyne. That is not running in parallel course with the unemployment problem in the area. It is for that reason that I believe that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will probably have to go further than he proposes to go in the Bill as it is at present drawn.
  I think it is clear that if we break down the development area and look at the problems arising out of it, we may have to ask for further powers to ensure that industry is not only located within a development area but that it is steered to those parts where it will have the greatest social benefit. In fact, we have the position in part of my own development area where there are today—not tomorrow—more jobs than men. It seems to me, from such experience as I have had, that the present powers of persuasion are not sufficiently effective in persuading an industrialist to go to that part of the development area which may be less attractive than another part. The size of the problem can be demonstrated by one figure alone. If the north-east shipbuilding and heavy engineering industries were to return to the 1939 employment figure, which was a high pre-war level, we should have to find jobs for 30,000 men. This is a matter in which we cannot delay. We have to deal with it as early as possible.
  In dealing with the problem, I have three suggestions to make to my right hon. Friend. We have to recognise that it is an extremely difficult problem to
  1072
  provide alternative work in the shipyards when space in those yards becomes redundant. However it can be done. On the Wear we already have a new firm in a shipyard which was sterilised before the war and was re-opened during the war and has since been closed. I believe that this problem should be tackled as far as possible with the greatest good will of the shipbuilding industry. We might do that by a formula which is already there. I understand that Shipbuilder's Securities, still take their levy from the shipbuilders. Discussions should be opened with Shipbuilders' Securities to see whether that money could be turned to a constructive use. It may need legislation, and if it does this is the opportunity. It would be as well to try to carry the shipbuilding industry in this experiment and it may be that the funds are there.
  If we turn from the building side of the industry to the shipping industry, I would say that the shipping industry also has to contribute to a solution of the problem. Apart from alternative work we have to use every device possible to maintain stable working in the shipyards. To do that we should again try to get the good will of the industry and get the industry to establish a replacement fund so that there would be a fund available to provide for the orderly replacement of obsolescent shipping, and thereby provide a means to ensure steady orders for the builders.
  Finally, coming closer to my right hon. Friend, I think it is clear that we are going out of one phase and into another, in development area policy. We should call a halt now to the present policy of building factories. Now we have to build specialised factories and, if necessary, integrated industrial units to cater for the particular skills of the workers who may become redundant. The present new factories have served a very useful purpose in the development areas, but we can now say that they have completed serving that purpose. If we are to provide work for redundant shipyard workers we must have specialised factories. That will produce a new problem. I do not know how we shall determine the rent of a factory built specially for a particular industry. We may have to change our rental policy. Moreover, the Government should go further and make it clear that if an industry is to expand in this country in

  1073
  the national interest then, all things being equal, it should expand only in a development area. Secondly, if it should be necessary to provide integrated industrial units in the development areas and if private enterprise does not respond, a State-sponsored non-profit making corporation should undertake the work.
  I have gone rather wide, I am afraid, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I now want to come to the specific provisions of the Bill and to deal only with two points which are affected by what I have said. In the first place, I think the Bill makes adequate provision but perhaps, even though this may seem rather contradictory, unnecessary provision—regarding the utilisation of industrial buildings not in substantial use. I said "unnecessary" because I believe it is quite unnecessary in regard to the typical development area at the moment. On the north-east coast we only have two building projects, at the site work stage. They cover 20,000 feet, yet the North-Eastern Trading Estate Company manages 4½ million square feet. As far as the other areas are concerned, there is no new building in a similar condition of site work only. As far as future projects are concerned, we have only one in the planning stage. That is the position on the building side. That is why I say that all this is rather unnecessary at the moment.
  Indeed on the building side, we should first of all reconsider the effect of the capital cuts upon the development areas and see whether it is necessary to prune so drastically our new building. I cannot make out a case at the moment, because when my right hon. Friend talks about premises not used, I would remind him that the Trading Estate Company has nine factories on its hand at present which are not used. We could dispose of them because, as the President of the Board of Trade knows, we have an active waiting list. The difficulty is that of getting the sponsorship of the production department. Therefore, I think that this provision in the Bill is at present largely unnecessary.
  If we have new factory space available we shall not persuade industrialists to take other space which, in any case, I am told is not available. But even if it were available there would be difficulties. I know this problem is not easy, but we have to
  1074
  tackle it realistically and do one of two things. If we cannot persuade private enterprise, we shall have to set up a State-sponsored corporation which will endeavour to expand our dollar exports. The only alternative is to say that we cannot afford this waste and that we shall have to relax the insistence of the production departments on these rigid tests.
  The other point I wished to raise was, the provision regarding the grants in respect of the expenses of transfer. I asked my right hon. Friend about D.A.T.A.C. because I should have thought this was a matter D.A.T.A.C. would have been advised to deal with. I accept the obvious conclusion that D.A.T.A.C. have not been so advised because it was thought that this should be the responsibility of the President of the Board of Trade. All this, however, does not avoid the difficulty of determining what the "exceptional circumstances" are. We want a much clearer definition of that than we have had so far. The matter is not even as simple as that. We must realise that this will upset a lot of the present tenants. We have at present the difficulty of revising rental policy, and the major difficulty is that of avoiding discriminating between tenants. That is bound to arise if we give assistance to some firms and not to others.
  As my right hon. Friend said, it is only once for all. I should have preferred trying to tackle the problem in a way which has been suggested on other occasions. I should have liked an examination again of the possibility of having differential freight rates. The right hon. and gallant Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North, will remember that before the war this was one of the matters very widely discussed regarding the depressed areas. It was felt that the areas were prejudiced as far as mass production went by being away from the markets and having to carry increased freight charges. I should have thought that it would have been far more attractive to the industrialists to provide a running subsidy and to say, "We will overcome the disadvantage you may feel in going to a new place for production."
  Having said all that, let me say at once that the experience that I have had of the administration of the development areas has convinced me that all concerned, whether in the estate companies,

  1075
  whether departmental officials or whether outside, have worked very hard through the past five years. They have a lot to show. As my right hon. Friend said, those areas have been transformed. Most of us who live in those areas believe that that transformation is not without political significance.
  6.32 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Thompson: I welcome the opportunity of speaking in this Debate and making my maiden incursion into the Debates of the House on this subject, because I represent a division in a development area—the newest or next to newest of the development areas, Merseyside. Before I speak about it, may I pay respectful tribute to the great kindness, courtesy and assistance that have been shown to me, in common with the other newcomers to this new assembly, by the officials of the House and by all in these historic buildings during the time we have been going through the difficult process of assimilation. I am sure I speak for all new hon. Members when I say how difficult our lives would have been had it not been for this kindliness and courtesy.
  The subject of the development areas, which is raised by the Bill, is one that has engaged the attention of this party in the past and the attention of the Liverpool City Council, to which the President of the Board of Trade referred in introducing the Bill. I feel that it would be a pity—I am sure he will agree with me—if any wrong impression were to be left upon hon. Members or the country as to the attitude of the Liverpool City Council to the proposals that Liverpool and Merseyside as a whole should be declared a development area.
  I was privileged, as a member of the City Council, to be concerned in the discussions which took place between 1945 and the declaration of the Merseyside area as a development area, and I felt that the President of the Board of Trade was in danger of misleading the House when he declared that the Liverpool City Council was opposed to and resisted the declaration of Merseyside as a development area. Our attitude was that Merseyside as a whole might perhaps benefit from being declared a development area but that Liverpool itself, as a city, had already, away back in the bad old days
  1076
  of the '30s, acquired, under a private Act, all the powers and authorities belonging to the Board of Trade as a result of the 1945 Act. When operating the provisions of that Act Liverpool had been highly successful in attracting industries to and in providing work in Liverpool.
  Some of us were a little disturbed at the circulation by the President of the Board of Trade, at a rather crucial stage in the General Election, of a memorandum described as, "The Employment Situation on Merseyside: Statement by Mr. Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade." I am bound to say that I admire his timing more than his strict regard for accuracy in some of the inferences that are made in the document. In the peculiarities of my position in delivering a maiden speech, I must resist the temptation to use language stronger than would be proper, and I am sure that he will sympathise with my very great difficulty in dealing with the matter.
  The document declared that in 1948 the Liverpool Council made it clear that, while they were themselves opposed to scheduling, they would not stand in the way of the other local authorities, such as Birkenhead, Bootle, and so on. The fact is that several times in the period immediately before the scheduling of Merseyside, different members of the Government, including the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, expressed—as recently as 1948—grave doubts as to whether any advantage could accrue from the scheduling of Merseyside as a development area. This might well go on record to avoid the possibility of any wrong impression being left by the President of the Board of Trade.
  In this new Bill we are concerned with furthering the provisions of the 1945 Act and making sure that the industrial resources of the country are as widely and as wisely used as possible, both now, when we need to call into our service all the assistance that we can from our industry and from the skills and aptitudes of our people to tide the country through the present difficult period and in future. If the Bill can contribute in any measure to that, I am sure that the Opposition will welcome it and endeavour to see that it is operated as successfully as possible. We are, however, concerned that any

  1077
  Measure such as this, which purports to assist in the scientific use of the resources of the country, should be applied on the broadest possible basis, taking into account all the different considerations that apply in any matter of national planning.
  The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. F. Willey) referred to the possibility that it might now be necessary to apply different considerations in operating the provisions of the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945. The Government might also bear in mind the various other claims which are made upon the resources of the country at present while they are considering putting into operation some of the provisions of the 1945 Act and this Bill. In Merseyside we have developed industrial estates. In Liverpool we have the great Speke estate, the estate at Fazackerley, and the new estate out at Kirby. Our problem is not one of attracting new industries to Liverpool but, as the President well knows, of building factories in the city to accommodate the industrialists who are anxious to come there and provide employment for the large reserve of mainly unskilled labour that exists on Merseyside. Since the end of the war more than 10,000 of our people moved from Liverpool in search of jobs in other parts of the country. Many have come back because of the impossibility of conducting a civilised life in "digs" in a Midland town while their wives and families were living in the City of Liverpool.
  The Liverpool problem is not only one of attracting the industrialists to the city, nor is it only the problem of building factories for the industrialists; it is also a problem of building factories and the houses for the people who live in the city and who can find work and employment and a full life in the new estates which the city is anxious to develop on its perimeter. The President of the Board of Trade is familiar with this problem; indeed, I think I am quoting him correctly when I say that he has pinned his political future to solving the problem of unemployment on Merseyside. No one would be more happy than I to see his political future secured at this price.
  However, I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that he has a responsibility in this matter that he can solve jointly with
  1078
  his colleague the Minister of Health. Out at Kirby the city owns some hundreds of acres which it is anxious to develop as an industrial estate surrounded by a great housing estate. Industries are wanting to come there. Men, and women too, are waiting for jobs in those factories. There is a long journey from the centre of the City of Liverpool to these industrial estates, and I know that these conditions apply to industrial estates on the perimeters of other cities. There is difficulty in attracting even unemployed labour from the city to the factory areas on the perimeter because of the time involved and the high weekly cost of fares. Also, it has to be considered that managements are compelled to take these factors into consideration in fixing wage rates on which their costs of production are, to some extent, based. The building of a housing estate alongside the building of the industrial estate would go a long way towards solving our problem in Liverpool and, in some part, the problem of the country in earning its revenue in the markets of the world.
  There is one other aspect of this matter. The Government are now really concerned with directing industries into the development areas. Indeed, in Liverpool we are not without appreciation of the help given by the Board of Trade in steering industries to the Liverpool area, both before it was declared a development area and since. In time, as world competition becomes keener and as our industries find a less ready market, the problem may be one of finding jobs, of creating new work, and it is to that aspect that I would direct the attention of the President and his colleagues now.
  The development areas are those areas which have had a heavy burden of unemployment in the years between the wars. We on this side of the House are as anxious as any member on the Government side to see that those conditions do not return. Indeed, this Bill stems from the White Paper on Employment Policy of 1944 and the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, to which hon. Members on this side of the House contributed not a little. In so far as the efforts of the President of the Board of Trade are directed to securing that end, we on this side will give the right hon. Gentleman our support.
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. Hoy: It falls to my lot to congratulate the hon. Member for Walton (Mr. K. Thompson) on having made his maiden speech in this House. The hon. Member made it with a fluency and confidence which many of us do not possess who have been here a little longer. I can assure him that in future discussions we shall look forward to hearing from him again.
  In the short time I intend to take—because I know many hon. Members want to take part in this Debate—may I say that I was interested to hear the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) pay a tribute to the skill of some workers in Motherwell. This bore out what was said by the chairman of the National Cash Register Company, Limited, who have developed a large works in Dundee and are now employing 2,500 people there. He said that he could not have chosen a better type of worker nor one with greater skill than those whom he was at present employing. He also paid tribute to the work of the Government of the day in making the facilities possible for them to develop their work in that area. It is true that the Development Act of 1945 has played a tremendous part, not only in Scotland but throughout all Great Britain, in bringing hope and inspiration to thousands of people whose lot was a dull one in the years prior to the war.
  I was also interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman and the President of the Board of Trade discuss the problem of the shipbuilding areas. Sometimes I think the smaller ports and shipbuilding areas, such as mine, are apt to be overlooked because their problem seems to be so small compared with the larger cities such as Glasgow and Merseyside. I ask my right hon. Friend to remember that these smaller ports have played a tremendous part in the fortunes of this country, and that their contribution during the war was an important one in making victory possible. The Port of Leith, which I represent, went through a most distressing time—I do not say this for a political purpose—in the inter-war years; so much so, that it was regarded as one of the blackest areas in the country.
  I want the President to remember that these areas require just as much attention as the larger ports, because poverty
  1080
  can be a terrible thing, whether it is in a large or a small community. I do not want to appear to be raising a series of complaints but while we in the industrial part of Scotland—in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Dundee and elsewhere—are grateful for what has been done, we feel that something further needs to be done, especially within our mining and shipbuilding areas. I hope it will be the privilege of one of my hon. Friends to say something in that respect.
  The Bill is admirable as far as it goes, but I believe it ought to go further. I have no complaint to make about what it contains except that it is far too tightly drawn. Its whole purpose is to direct more industries into the areas already designated as development areas, and beyond that, it would appear, it cannot go. No one will quarrel with the powers which the Government have taken to achieve this object, but we shall come up against one or two anomalies if the Bill is to be operated in its present form. In certain areas of Scotland the boundary of a development area is designated by a railway line, whilst the land which is. available for development happens to lie to the side of the railway line which is not included within the development area. I suggest, therefore, to my right hon. Friend that before the Committee stage he should give some thought to widening the terms of this Clause so that it may embrace adjacent areas of this nature.
  I should like to quote as a second example, my own constituency. I should be deluding myself and the House if I did not say that we were disappointed when we were not included in the original Act and designated a development area. I wondered how we came to be excluded, because the right hon. Gentleman who then represented Leith, was a member of the Government and a leading Minister for 14 years. I heard the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) say that the Bill was rushed through before the election, and I can only assume that in the rush, the constituency of his right hon. Friend who was then Member for Leith was omitted from the Act.
  Our position is rather overshadowed by the fact that we are included with the municipal area of Edinburgh. Generally speaking, Edinburgh is a fairly prosperous place, but in Leith we have

  1081
  peculiar and special problems of our own. I remember the Special Areas Commission of the Labour Party, which included my right hon. Friends the present Minister of Town and Country Planning and the former Secretary of State for Scotland, reporting that while special attention need not be given to the City of Edinburgh, they certainly thought that in view of the conditions which obtained in Leith its claims ought to receive special consideration and action when a Bill such as this came to be drawn up. In addition to the omission of Leith from the original Act, there does not appear to be anything in the present Bill which could come to our assistance. I suggest, therefore, if I may do so and yet remain within order, that the power or provisions of the Bill might be extended to include areas such as the two I have mentioned.
  My only other point concerns the money which is to be expended under the terms of the Bill. The estimated expenditure in 1950–51 of £100,000 does not alarm me or cause me to feel that the President is being profligate with the finances of the nation, but I should like to ask him this question. I know that it will take some time for the Act to come into full operation. May I take it that that £ 100,000 can be used for token expenditure in certain schemes all over the country, which means, of course, that the large amount of expenditure which would follow would be taken up in the succeeding year? Many Scottish Members could support me in saying that we could use this £ 100,000 with no difficulty whatever in the new development area which has been designated in the Highlands.
  In his speech this afternoon my right hon. Friend, in mentioning a particular port in England, said that if he felt that the only way to help that town was by designating it as a development area under the 1945 Act, he would not hesitate to follow that course. That is why I am encouraged to raise the cases which I have quoted. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give them that same attention and that he will seek to extend the provisions of the Bill, or to loosen its tightly drawn form, so that he may have a little more flexibility and make it possible for a somewhat larger section of the community to enjoy the prosperity which he hopes the Bill will bring to the country.
  6.56 p.m.
  Mr. John MacLeod: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy), because I hope to take the House a little further north than the industrial belt of the south of Scotland, to the depopulated areas of the Highlands. I, too, particularly welcome this opportunity because part of my constituency was designated as a development area. I think it is true to say that the scheduling of that area departed from the principle that there must be a certain amount of unemployment within an area before it could be designated as a development area. I had hoped that if that was the case—and I believe that it was—the Government had realised that it was in the national interest to take people away from the industrial belts and into the Highlands of Scotland, and thus help to relieve unemployment in the industrial belts. I had hoped that at last the Government had a policy for the Highlands, but I do not believe that they have.
  It was felt by certain sections of the rural area—this point was referred to by the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George)—that the designating of the area would draw away the people from the straths and glens, but it is interesting to find that in the area of Corpach, where certain aluminium works were established in comparatively recent times, more people have entered the area from the south than from the crofting townships. As far as I can see, however, there was no reason for the rural population to fear that people would be drawn away from the rural areas, because practically nothing has happened within that development area since it was scheduled. Surely, this could not have been merely a sop by the Government to the people in the Highlands; but it certainly appears that it was.
  I agree with the hon. Lady in saying that we want a national policy for the dispersal of industry throughout the whole country rather than the designation of particular areas. A policy of this kind certainly is necessary in the vast area of the Highlands. I rather agree also with the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton), that there must be light industries within an area where there are heavy industries, but I think that that policy

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  can be carried a little further in the vast region of the Highlands, where we must always maintain our basic industries of agriculture, fishing and forestry. To fit in with these three, I should like to see the setting up of light industries. I should welcome the establishment of light industries at the foot of the glens, as it were, where there would be happy communities making component parts for a central industry in a larger area. On 14th March I asked the President of the Board of Trade how many industries had come into the Invergordon, Cromarty Firth area since it was designated as a development area last April. The answer was, "One" I happen to know that that was a knackery employing two skilled men, who, incidentally, came into the area. If there is any credit, it is due to the local authority, whereas no credit is due to the Board of Trade.
  The Bill seeks to provide further financial assistance to encourage the establishment of undertakings in these areas. I hope there will be more encouragement than was given to one of my constituents who wanted to start a worsted mill in that area. I wrote to the Parliamentary Secretary saying that I would raise this matter. I hope it is not true that the Board of Trade refused to back this project because they felt that this man had no personal relationship with the woollen industry, and because they doubted whether his finances were sound. No businessman has ever made a success of anything without taking risks and I do not see why this should be frowned upon by the Government. Here, I must divulge to the House, as is customary, that I manufacture in a very small way within this development area. I have heard it said that the Board of Trade do not like to give financial assistance to any firm starting business unless that firm can show, or is likely to show, a profit. If that is the case, I think it is deplorable. Perhaps I ought to welcome the recognition by Socialists that the profit motive is not wrong.
  Under the 1945 Act and this Measure the Government appear to be treating this area rather in the same manner as the Catering Wages Act. They fail to realise the economic and geographical differences between the Highlands of Scotland and the industrial areas, and treat all areas in the same manner. The Highland area is
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  in direct competition with Clydeside and Dundee, which is quite wrong if we are to have a real distribution of industry.
  While I welcome the Bill as it gives further financial assistance to firms to, come into the area, it seems rather ironical that we should be discussing a Bill to do that when in this very region the Government are making cuts in basic services which are of vital importance if any industry is to be carried on in that area. Why should an industrialist go into the Highland area unless he is to be given special advantages? At the moment there are no advantages in going into the Highlands. I can assure the House of that. Transport and communications are deplorable, our roads are shocking and there is no housing, although it is hoped to provide housing under this Bill. All the costs of production in that area are higher than in any other region of Great Britain. Freight charges are appallingly high. It is certainly a deterrent for an industrialist to go into that region. It appears that charges are to be raised further although I am glad to know that there is a little doubt in the mind of the Minister of Transport as to whether it will be wise to raise the rates. It will be most unwise to do that in the Highlands.
  In the matter of hydro-electric power why should industrialists in this area not get preferential treatment? I understand that there is likely to be a uniform rate. If that is so, all fair competition will be lost at once. Would it not be possible for the Hydro-Electric Board to make a surcharge to industrialists in the south and lower the rate to industrialists who come to the north? After all, we in the north do not get our coal less freight charges, and it is the same principle. I know the difficulties which the Hydro-Electric Board are facing, and that the hopes of attracting electro-chemical or electro-metallurgical industries are very slight because the costs of construction of hydro-electric schemes are becoming so high that they do not even know themselves what the rate is to be when the schemes are finished.
  We should put first things first in regard to the Highlands and encourage what we have already there. Is full encouragement being given at present? If, within a development area, there is an industrial estate there are advantages in that estate,

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  because we are trying to attract industrialists to go into it. But, across the road there may be a small industry which is prospering and wants to develop. When the proprietor tries to add to his present building, if he is lucky enough to get a licence, a development charge is clamped down, which immediately stultifies his endeavours. Yet he might not find it economical to go across the road into the industrial estate. I wish to ask the Board of Trade what is the answer, because, unless the costs of going over are to be paid, it would be very uneconomical.
  If the basic services are available, and the question of freight charges is tackled realistically and social amenities are provided, we can attract firms to the Highlands, but, I repeat, the mere scheduling of the Highland area as a development area on the same basis as other development areas is not enough. The Highlands can play a very important part in the economic life of the nation provided the Government have a policy which is bold and has vision and imagination. I ask the President of the Board of Trade, as I will ask other Departments when I have the opportunity, what is the policy of the Government as far as the Highlands are concerned?
  7.10 p.m.
  Mr. Iorwerth Thomas: May I crave the indulgence of the House, being the last maiden speaker from Wales. There may be a certain traditional reason why I am the last, but I doubt it very much, because the tradition in Nonconformist Wales has been that they generally kept their best preacher until the last. The text at my disposal is one which Welshmen particularly can exploit to full advantage and to which they can apply their natural eloquence. While I am conscious of the fact that in making my maiden speech in this House, I have the protection of the traditional privileges accorded to a Member on such an occasion, I have no desire whatever to exploit that protected position by inflicting myself upon the House. I am in rather a dilemma. I have no desire to arouse the displeasure of hon. Members opposite, and I have no conscious desire to embarrass Measures on this side of the House.
  I wish to focus the attention of the House on the question of the distribution of industry as it affects my constituency.
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  The name of Rhondda is not new to this House. The Rhondda is synonymous with conflict, gloom and despair, and, as the House knows, Rhondda has been, in our industrial history in the past 25 years, a twin community with Jarrow, which suffered in those terrible years of depression. Rhondda was at one time one-sided in its economy and that one-sided economy became a victim of the industrial depression—I refer to the coal mining industry. The manpower engaged in that industry in the Rhondda fell, in 25 years, from 50,000 to 14,000. During those years we lost 50,000 of our population, 50,000 of our most fertile groups, whom we exported to other parts of the country to be used as manpower there.
  We in Rhondda are very grateful for what has flowed from the operation of the 1945 Act. The effect of that Act has been to bring 21 new factories into Rhondda since the end of the war. That has brought about a great transformation, not only in the physical appearance of Rhondda but in the outlook and the expectation of our people. While I appreciated the benefits which have been bestowed on Rhondda as a result of the operation of the 1945 Act, it is my duty to call the attention of the House to what remains a persistently obstinate problem there.
  I will sum up, briefly, in a few statistics, the progress made during the operation of the 1945 Act. I would stress the importance that we attach to male employment in our mining valleys. We feel quite satisfied that provision has been made which will in a very short time absorb all the available female labour, but the obstinate problem is the absorption of the male unemployed. Progress to date in terms of factory absorption is that we have employed in all in these new factories, 1,952 male persons.
  I do not wish to discredit what has been achieved, but it is only proper that the facts should be well known. Of that 1,952, three firms which were established in the Rhondda before the war employ 473. The two Remploy factories employ 148 and the Grenfell factories—I will return to this point in a moment—are employing only 136. That reduces the net total of male personnel employed in these new factories

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  from 1,952 to 1,195. That is the net result in terms of the absorption of the unemployed in the Rhondda, in so far as the Government have relied upon the normal processes of rehabilitation in this mining valley.
  But the position is more serious than that. We are now in 1950, and the post-war honeymoon is over. We hear a great deal of criticism about the existence of queues, but queues are disappearing from the doorstep of the Board of Trade. I think the Minister will admit that already his Department are conscious of the fact that the position is hardening and resistance is now being shown by industrialists towards taking factory space in development areas. The faith we all had in the Grenfell factories has, I am afraid, been severely shattered by an examination of the results. Let me briefly remind the House of what the effect of the Grenfell factories has meant towards the solution of the problem in my constituency. We have three Grenfell factories. The first of these at Llwynypia, which is near Tonypandy, was the first Grenfell factory to be completed in South Wales. It employs at present, after two years, 68 males and two females.
  Another Grenfell factory is occupied by the Bramba Engineering Company. This firm went into production on 5th October, 1949. On 1st January, 1950, it employed 61 males, and on 31st March, 1950, it employed 68 males. There is another Grenfell factory at Ferndale. This factory at present, after a year's operation, is employing only 14 males and three females. In this mining constituency there is a fourth Grenfell factory situated at Ferndale which was completed on 4th February, 1949. A period of 14 months has now elapsed since its completion and the factory has still not been let. People living in the mining communities had great expectations that this strong instrument forged by the Government would focus attention particularly upon the solution of the unemployment problem as it affects disabled persons. But it has worked out in a very disappointing manner.
  What, therefore, is the hard core of the problem which now exists in our valleys? In 1948, the total unemployment figure
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  in the Rhondda was 3,974. In February, 1950, the figures are 3,502 so that, despite all the efforts made to solve the problem in these communities—where a hard core of unemployment still persists despite the passing of two years—we have a credit of only 472 persons less on the register. But this is the core of the problem. I will take the December figures of 1949 and deal specifically with the total number of male persons registered—2,591. We have 1,441 disabled persons and of that figure 60 per cent. are over 51 years of age. Of the 1,150 able-bodied persons registered, over 34 per cent. are above the age of 51. Furthermore, of the total males registered 1,523, that is, 60 per cent., have been idle for more than 26 weeks. The number of disabled persons idle for 26 weeks is 1,042. That is to say, of the disabled persons in these areas where we have these pockets of unemployment, so stubbornly resisting any approach being made at present to solve them, 68 per cent. are disabled, and have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks.
  I wish to ask the Minister this question: What contribution will this further Measure make to deal with this specific problem? It may be argued that as a supplementary to the efforts of the Grenfell factories these disabled persons will be automatically and normally absorbed into the ordinary factories when they get into full production. But can we expect a private employer to saddle himself with the responsibility of solving of what is, after all, a social problem? I know that we have in our valleys good types of employers in these new factories; men who set out to build up their manpower with the best of intentions. They are grand humanitarians. But there is still the danger that if they load their factories with too high a percentage of disabled persons it will have the result of pulling out even the able-bodied persons employed in those factories; because they will have to stand up to competition from other parts of the country. I ask the Minister whether he is prepared later to consider whether certain Clauses in the Bill can be so strengthened as to bring some hope to our valleys that this is a substantial contribution.
  I would warn the Minister against one thing. I have heard pleas this afternoon for the extension and increase of the

  1089
  number of scheduled areas under the Bill. That is dangerous. I remember when Rhondda was known as a distressed area. Then it became known as a special area, and then as a development area. The effect of that refinement has been that, by bringing Cardiff and Newport within the development areas, the mining communities in the South Wales area were deprived of the benefits of the Act of 1945. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will resist any attempt to rope in more areas and further that possibility. I would plead with my right hon. Friend to realise that we cannot generalise on the question of unemployment. We have to discriminate between area and area and I invite him in the future to discriminate, and to see whether something can be done. Employers will handpick their employees, and the possibility of persons between the ages of 51 and 65, whether disabled or able-bodied, obtaining a job are very remote indeed.
  If we are to recruit for the mining industry of the future the manpower for the pits, we must dissipate the fears in the minds of the young men in these valleys. If they see a high percentage of disabled men—who are the physical rejects from the pits—without any prospect of a job, what encouragement will that be to those young men in our valleys? Last week we discussed dirty coal. I want the House to consider today that we are discussing the man with dirty lungs, the man whose lungs are punctured with minute particles of silica rock and whose chest is clogged with coal dust. I hope that, if possible, the Minister will strengthen this Bill to give the people of our valleys brighter prospects for the future.
  7.30 p.m.
  Sir Ralph Glyn: It is always extremely difficult, no matter how long one may have been in this House, to follow a new Member who comes from Wales and who has the natural gift of oratory which that country produces, especially when, in addition, the speaker has an intimate knowledge of his subject. Hon. Members may doubt whether I am justified in calling the hon. Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Iorwerth Thomas) a new Member, because he showed such confidence and ability. I am delighted to follow him and to have the very
  1090
  pleasant task of congratulating him not only upon what he said but on the extremely attractive language which he employed. I am sure that all of us will remember his speech.
  It brought back to my mind those dreadful days when in this House we discussed what we then foolishly called the distressed areas and we used to hear stories like those which he recalled. Now we have arrived at something which is far better and more full of hope. I should like to follow the hon. Member in what he said, because in discussing development area problems we are always in a little danger of thinking only of floor space and factories and people who are to be transferred, and not of the skill of the men whom we want to employ.
  In the mining industry we have these men who have been wounded during their labour which was of national importance. I have often thought that while we talk about the importance to the children of secondary industries in these areas, we might occasionally think of secondary industries specially suited to men with disabilities. There are all sorts of difficulties. Recently I have had personal contact with the Board of Trade and other Departments on the question a factory extensions. All the officials have been most helpful. They have done all within their power to enable us to get the extensions carried through.
  I have also been in touch with the President of the Board of Trade on the question of shipbuilding and ship repairing, about which I have a little knowledge. I am afraid that it is only natural, if one is interested in a firm which is now suffering unemployment because of the falling off of ship repairs, that one should have the dreadful thought that the Government will use all their endeavours to divert orders to the development areas, and that they will create another distressed area because we are not able to get the orders. That is an important point to remember when considering development areas. Much depends upon the amount of trade and business to be done and how it is to be distributed fairly. There are certain conditions to be borne in mind. There are the questions of freight and transport in addition to strategic considerations.

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  The most urgent matter is that if we have a highly skilled man who is a shipbuilder, he will be wanted in that job if a state of emergency arises. A great deal of valuable work was done during the war in the small shipyards when the enemy were bombarding for all they were worth to try to prevent us building to replace ships sunk by their submarines. Some of these small shipbuilding yards are now finding that orders are going elsewhere and that there is no alternative employment for the men. I beg the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Labour to ensure that where a skilled man is diverted to work in another factory which may be established in a development area, a tag should be kept on him so that in time of emergency we can ask him to come back to his work in the shipyards, Otherwise, in an emergency we shall be short of skilled men.
  I think it was the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) who said he hoped that more ships would be built. He hoped that the shipowners would take it upon themselves to build more ships. A wonderful job has been done by the Government Department concerned in absorbing all the war-time shipping. That presented a difficult problem. Shipowners have gone in for new tonnage, and vessels have been launched which are superior in every way to their predecessors.
  However, there are two points to which I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will pay attention. The first is the extraordinary fact that since the war a freighter with the most modern cargo handling appliances and with a faster speed than pre-war, may spend more time in port than it does at sea. The consequence is that not so many ships are needed. They cannot be used because the wharves are congested. It would be most interesting if the Ministry of Transport or the Board of Trade could tell us the average time that a vessel is at sea using her engines and all the capital invested in her in travelling from one port to another and collecting cargo, compared to time spent in harbour.
  In the development areas there is great capacity for the building of new ships, but new ships will not be built unless there is a demand for them. Therefore, we come back to the point that, in considering problems of employment, we
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  should do all we can to make sure that a skilled man can follow his own type of skilled work. Anything less than his own skilled job is really a matter of temporary necessity—a sad necessity because I do not believe that any skilled man likes to give up the work in which he is interested. He does not like to be diverted to other work which may enable him to find employment in time of depression. We must remember that, far more than the money investments of the country, it is the natural skill of our workers which forms our wealth. I beg hon. Members never to lose sight of that fact when considering development areas. There ought to be some opportunity for skilled men to go back for refresher courses in their former employment, so that they might be able to continue their proper occupation when necessary.
  There is one other point which I should like to mention in connection with this Bill. It is absolutely essential that there should be some direction in regard to what industries may go to these places, but I do not think it ought to be compulsory. I think it must be done by other means, but I am very often astonished, in discussing these matters, to find that people do not appreciate the fact that, if a section of an industry is asked to move a long way to occupy one of these factories, it adds enormously to its overhead costs, because it might be involved in extra freight costs and increased costs of supervision and administration, all of which may make it impossible for the transfer to be successful in that particular line of production.
  Therefore, I feel that, in this movement into the development areas, we ought to take into account what the hon. Member for Rhondda, West, said just now—the type of people going into that area and the sort of work which they are most suited to do. including the question of the disabled men. We must also take into account the fact that, as far as possible, we ought to move a complete industry or sections of an industry, and not just bits and pieces of industries, because it is really bad for the foremen, the workmen and everybody else concerned if they do not see the production flowing through in an orderly manner and also realise their own chances of promotion depend on a proper scheme of production.
  I believe that there are many other things which we have not yet tackled in

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  regard to fresh lines which will become available as we get more horsepower, and this is, I believe, a question of more power and the most modern machines. I know that the unions concerned are adopting a different attitude to that which they used to adopt, and I hope they will always insist, as do the American unions, that if a firm goes into new production in a development area, it shall not only have power but the most modern type of machines on which men can work. I believe there is also a great field for experimenting in how far these modern machines can be fitted to suit the men, instead of always assuming that the machine tool, as it is produced, is suitable for a man of any shape or size to work. It should be possible to have adaptations of any machines today to fit men who are broad, tall or short. All these things speed production. I should like to see the development areas having all the most modern equipment and all the power that is necessary.
  Finally, there is this to be said, and I am sorry to say it, though I think I must, and I hope hon. Members will forgive me if they find that I hurt some of their feelings. The old story of the "distressed" areas, the "special" areas or the "development" areas dies hard. If people go on repeating what was said during those bitter years, it will not help the recovery of those districts today, because people will hold back and say "That is a district where there is always industrial unrest, and I am not going there." Those who are employers and leaders of industry and who were in this House at that time have learnt their lesson, but let us urge that all employers and leaders of industry should also learn it.
  We learned our lesson because we made our mistake here in this House, and, having learned that lesson, let us not go on talking about those evil days, but try to forget those bitter things, and remember the demand which the country makes for skilled people and modern machinery. Let us do everything we can, in the fierce competition in the world today, to forget all these hard sayings, and, instead encourage everybody to co-operate to create a new and happier life for the people.
  7.45 p.m.
  Mr. A. J. Irvine: I have noticed on one or two occasions since I came into this House
  1094
  that the hon. Baronet the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) expresses views and reveals an outlook which, if I may say so, arouse a good deal of sympathy and understanding on this side of the House, and this occasion is no exception. We have all been extremely interested in the contribution which the hon. Baronet has just made.
  I represent a division in the Merseyside development area, and I am naturally concerned particularly with the effect of this legislation upon Merseyside. I have no hesitation whatever in saying that I welcome the extension of powers which this Bill provides. There are few extensions, but they may prove to be quite important ones. Coming, as I do, from a development area, I am deeply grateful, as are many of my colleagues, to the Government and to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade for the work they have done in making Merseyside a development area and in the year that has passed since. We are particularly grateful for the work of my right hon. Friend the President, who, I venture to think, regards this question of the location and distribution of industry as one of special interest. If in what I am going to say I appear to be seeking for more and not to be satisfied with what we have already received, I hope it will not be taken as meaning that I am not extremely grateful for the services already rendered by the Government and my right hon. Friend in this connection.
  There are four matters to which I should like to refer. I am sure that easily the most effective practical method of steering industry towards the development areas is by means of the use of the powers which exist in the Town and Country Planning Act for the control of the location of industry. I should be very grateful if we could have from my hon. Friend who is to reply some indication of how far and by what methods the use of the powers of the President of the Board of Trade under the Town and Country Planning Act is married up with development area policy. So far as many of us are concerned, it is true to say that we have received very little indication whether the powers of steering industry by means of the President's certificates under that Act are, in fact, put into operation, and we should regard it as valuable if we could be given a clear indication on

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  that point. I would have hoped that the use of these powers by the President might be exercised in a way which would have the most tremendously valuable effect upon the employment situation in the development areas.
  Let me give one example. As is the case in other parts of the country, we now have in my division the problem of unemployment in the shipbuilding and ship repairing yards. As matters are developing, unemployment in that industry is of particular concern at the moment to the finishing trades, that is to say, electricians, carpenters and painters. I should very much hope that, when those classes of workmen and tradesmen are out of work in such large numbers in particular areas, the President of the Board of Trade could impose a virtual veto, exerting his powers under the Town and Country Planning Act, against the setting up, anywhere else than in development areas, of any industrial development which would employ a high proportion of men in these particular trades. I very much hope that the powers which my right hon. Friend possesses in this connection are being used to the full, and I hope to receive his confirmation that they are.
  The second point to which I wish to refer is the question of the sufficiency of the scale of the action which has been taken. On Merseyside, as my right hon. Friend knows very well—no one knows it better—we have very high hopes of the activities of the North-Western Industrial Estates Company. But Merseyside, when all is said and done, has been scheduled as a development area for over a year now and in that year, I am informed, negotiations have been completed for acquiring only two sites. At least, that was true until quite recently.
  Several rather important negotiations are in progress, but I reckon that, taking into account all the factories which will be built on sites the acquiring of which has been negotiated or is in process of negotiation, those factories will not employ substantially more than 850 workers. That represents the result of negotiations which have occupied a year, and the first year from which so much was hoped. It would be a disappointment to many of us—we must be frank about these things—if that scale of activity were not improved upon
  1096
  because, the situation being what it is, the prospect of adding another 850 jobs in Merseyside, although a step in the right direction, is not sufficient in relation to the size of the problem which exists.
  The third matter to which I think it right to refer is the effect of this legislation upon housing. I note the provisions of Clause 3 of the Bill and that the housing question is being kept in mind. But I hope that my right hon. Friend fully recognises the supreme importance in this policy of the location and distribution of industry of keeping the housing question most closely and carefully in view. Unemployment is a great social evil, but the overcrowded conditions in housing which now exist in Merseyside are an equally great social evil. There is very little to choose between them.
  Suppose under this Bill when it becomes law that there is an extension of a factory in a development area which will have the consequence of bringing in, let us say, 100 workers. Unless grants of money and extra allocations of building materials are made to provide the houses for those 100 workers, then, quite frankly, as far as I am concerned, the whole project is not an attractive one, even if its consequence is that another 100 persons now out of work in the development area are, as a consequence of the change, given work. I say this because the benefit gained from the easing of the unemployment situation will be neutralised by the aggravation which will occur in the housing situation.
  My fourth and last point raises, I think, a matter of quite overriding importance. I am anxious to know—and I should be grateful if my hon. Friend who is to reply could give some indication of the position in this respect—how the development area policy is married up with the overall economic policy of the Government. We want some indication as to that. In some cases, no doubt, these two policies will conflict because it may well be that the consequence of steering industries and factory extensions into the development areas will have the result of raising costs which will handicap the overall economic policy of the Government designed to deal with our balance of payments. I shall expect to hear that in a situation of that kind the overall economic needs of the country would have precedence and priority.

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  What I should like to have examined more fully than has, so far as I know, so far been examined is the converse proposition that in certain instances development area policy and the overall economic policy of the Government to stimulate our exports and to reduce the costs of production may run parallel and may complement each other. I should like to be told that that possibility is being worked out and investigated in a practical manner. There must be many instances where the consequence of bringing particularly selected industries into development areas can positively help to stimulate and improve the prospects of those industries in the export drive by reducing costs and thus assisting the country's economic situation as a whole.
  After all, in the development area with which I am particularly concerned, there is, first of all, the great advantage of a large reservoir of labour, a good deal of it skilled and trained labour. In that area also—and the same applies to a great many other areas—there will surely be, from the point of view of our export drive and our trading policy, considerable advantages to be derived from the saving on freights due to the nearness of the docks.
  I only hope that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues are investigating these points and particularly the last matter of a development area policy which is integrated with the economic policy of the country and its effort to bridge the dollar gap. I am sure that these two matters can be made complementary to each other to the common advantage of the country as a whole and the development areas in particular. I hope these plans are being made. I dare say they are, but we are left in some doubt. It is like when war comes along, we all hope that the general staffs have magnificent plans ready for every contingency. We have no idea, of course, on these occasions what the plans are, but we hope they exist. Unfortunately we have too often been disappointed in the event in military matters when the emergency arose. I am only expressing the hope that no such criticism will ever be fairly made of my right hon. Friend and his Department and that he has the plans ready which will be equal to the contingency.
  7.59 p.m.
  Captain Duncan: The hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) asked the President of the Board of Trade four questions. I do not propose to attempt to answer them, but I wish to underline one of the questions he asked—the question of the relation between the provision of factories and the provision of houses for the workers in them. If we get that out of relation, it seems to me that we shall have greater difficulties in the development areas than we have already. I have lived with this problem even since I was elected to this House in 1931. I remember—before we got out of the industrial depression in 1933—the late Captain Euan Wallace going up to Durham and writing that remarkable report on his experiences there.
  There came from that report the Special Areas Act, the Distressed Areas Reports and now this Bill. I only mention that because this question has been with Parliament and with Members of all parties for a long time now. This is its latest manifestation and credit should not go more to one side than to the other for anything that may have been achieved. The credit should go to all sides of this House, because in the last 20 years from time to time all sides have had to take an interest in this problem.
  The powers in the original 1945 Act were for the provision by agreement or by compulsory purchase of land for the erection of buildings, the erection of the buildings, loans to trading or industrial estate companies to induce them to establish or extend factories in those areas, and financial assistance by grant or loan for the provision and improvement of basic services and so on. These powers in the original Act were substantial powers and I congratulate the Government on the way they have operated them. The Act was passed by the Caretaker Government and it has been operated successfully by a Socialist Government.
  Now we have another Bill before us today, slightly extending those powers. The Bill enables His Majesty's Government to acquire existing buildings where before they could only acquire sites. It also gives them the power to transfer existing undertakings and the key workers. These are substantial powers and, together with all the other powers which the President of the Board

  1099
  of Trade dealt with this afternoon, they offer substantial inducements to industry to go to what used to be called distressed areas. This Bill, therefore, is really not rightly named the Distribution of Industry Bill. It is really a continuation of that old—I should almost call it age-long—policy of assisting areas where there has been, or where there is likely to be, special distress and unemployment. It really ought to be called a Special Areas Assistance Bill rather than a real Distribution of Industry Bill.
  I want to deal with this matter from the point of view of one who represents a constituency adjoining a development area. I want to deal with the case of Dundee. I have a notion that the inducements to go into these areas have been great. I shall show from the case of Dundee how successful these inducements have been, combined with the fact that there has been, broadly speaking, full employment since the war, for reasons other than this Bill. A large number of industries have gone into Dundee. The area was suffering from a lack of diversity of industry. That has come to an end. There is ample diversification of industry in Dundee now.
  Nor is there in fact real unemployment. Although last Friday there was a total of 2,744 men, women and children unemployed, it is important to realise the meaning of that figure. There is a turnover of 600 a week through the employment exchange. Five hundred of the men were disabled and the hard core of the unemployed is really completely insignificant. On the other hand, compared with the figure of 2,744, there were 855 vacancies at the employment exchange which could not be filled last Friday. These were vacancies for 160 men, 300 women, 75 boys and 320 girls.
  One might say that thanks to full employment and the effects of the previous Distribution of Industry Act there is no unemployment and, for the time being at any rate, the reason for continued assistance for Dundee has come to an end. This was admitted in fact by the Board of Trade last autumn when they issued a declaration that in view of the labour position in the area no further new industries would be directed there for the time being. Since then the Dundee
  1100
  Chamber of Commerce and the Engineering and Allied Employers' Dundee and District Association have both protested to the Board of Trade about the transfer of a business from Brighton to Dundee. The business is of an engineering character and, according to them, is going to intensify the existing difficulties of obtaining engineering labour in Dundee itself. The Chamber of Commerce says:
  "This Chamber, while it has welcomed the establishment of numerous new industries as being essential to the economic wellbeing of the area, has formed the definite opinion that from a labour point of view the programme has already passed the danger point"
  The Engineering and Allied Employers' Dundee and District Association say:
  "There has been a most serious drain on skilled fitters, turners, tool-setters, tool-room workers, maintenance engineers, and draughtsmen. Most of these men have been given employment with the National Cash Register Company, and other new industries."
  The real need is in the jute trade and in the shipbuilding trade. What is happening is that engineering labour, technically trained labour, is being attracted into the new industries and the staple industries—jute and shipbuilding and so on—are finding the utmost difficulty in keeping their own key men so that they can keep their factories going.
  I therefore plead with the Board of Trade for a halt to be called at a certain stage in dealing with these development areas. I give them that example of Dundee, although I am not going to attempt to argue whether the Dundee Chamber of Commerce and the Engineering and Allied Employers' Association are right. I give it as an example, particularly, of what may happen if we try by inducements to pack too much industry into a development area so as to strain beyond the safety limit the employment position for the old industries that have been in the district for a very long time.
  There must come a time when a stop must be put to the over-development of a development area. I am not prepared to say what that limit should be. The original idea of the old special areas was that they should be developed up to a stage where unemployment virtually disappeared, but that one should not go on expanding a development area beyond that limit. Under this Bill we

  1101
  are pumping more labour, admittedly only key labour, into an area which already has full employment. We should be very careful lest we overdevelop the scheme and give rise to cases like Dundee to which I have referred, in which we get the over-expansion of a town with all the dangers of mass unemployment and economic ups and downs.
  I want to make a plea from the point of view of a man outside a development area. At present hundreds of people are living in my constituency and in others, going into Dundee to work, in addition to all the people who live in Dundee and work there also. Those people are leaving the rural areas, not only the countryside but the small towns as well. What is the attraction of an industry in a small town in the countryside? First of all, there is the homely, friendly atmosphere of the small town as against the impersonal feeling of a vast metropolis like Glasgow or Birmingham.
  There is fresh air, and there is space with beautiful surroundings. One can get out of these places quickly and enjoy a game of golf or a little bit of trout fishing in the burn during the week end. How difficult it is to get out of a place like London and do the same sort of thing. With cinemas, dance halls and so on there is ample entertainment in most of these small towns. There is also a better chance of getting a decent house and a garden in which to work in the evenings.
  These are the advantages of encouraging, or at any rate not discouraging, industry from staying in the small towns. In addition, from the point of view of the employer there is the contentment of labour which comes from working under contented conditions. Transport is easy. It does not arise. Most men can walk to their work, or if they do not walk they may have to bicycle a mile. In my part of the world people are going by bus 20 miles to work in Dundee, and 20 miles home again at night. That cannot be good either for the man who arrives tired at work, or for his wife who has to deal with him when he gets back in the evening tired from his work.
  Let us not exaggerate this development area policy too much. What limit have the Government set upon the
  1102
  development of a development area? If when this development has reached a certain stage they will stop it—and there is provision in the 1945 Act to do so—I believe that in areas like South Wales and other areas where unemployment is much more likely to be a more intractable problem than in Dundee, this Bill can do a great deal of good.
  I should like to add one other plea. Is it strategically wise to concentrate industry and population more than they are already concentrated? We are living in the atomic age. I do not know anything about bombs, atom or H bombs, but I am told that if one of these bombs dropped on a town the town would be obliterated. Therefore, is it not wiser with such a Bill as this to try to separate the industries out into the countryside where there are stable living conditions, decent country surroundings, fresh air and recreation, and at the same time decentralise so that in case one of these horrible things did drop we should lose not the whole of an industry in one big town but part of an industry in a small town? I say to the Government: do not drive the people away from the country towns or from the countryside to these great centres of population where, if things go wrong, even with the diversification of industry that we have got, unemployment will be of the mass variety and impossible to tackle.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Timmons: I had intended to apologise for being parochial in my speech, but after hearing other speakers I do not think I need apologise because all the speeches which have been made tonight have been more or less parochial.
  I welcome the Bill as far as it goes, but it is certainly a long way off from what is required to strengthen the position of the Board of Trade in regard to the development areas. I represent a constituency in the heart of Lanarkshire which has the greatest development area in the whole of Great Britain. At the same time, it has the highest unemployment figure in the whole of Scotland. The unemployment figure for Lanarkshire, with the exception of one employment exchange area, is over 10 per cent. of the insurable population. Many factories have been built in my division, but

  1103
  they have not served the purposes for which they were intended.
  There is one thing I am glad to note, and that is that Clause 1 of this Bill gives power to the Board of Trade to rectify the mistakes that have been made in the past in the allocation of factory space to firms who have failed to make any reasonable contribution towards increased employment. To give one instance, in my own division we have the Chapelhall Estate which is within 200 or 300 yards from where I live. In 1948 3,000 people were employed on that estate. The estate has been doubled since 1948, and scarcely 300 people are employed in the factory today. Our problem is not factory space. Our problem is to get the right employers in the factories to provide employment for our people. Certain people are coming in under false pretences. Certain assurances have to be given that they will employ a certain number of people. What check have the Board of Trade upon them?
  A firm by the name of Square Grip came from the Newcastle area. They were getting allocations of steel, presumably for the factory in Chapelhall. We found that the steel was being taken away from Chapelhall railway station in lorries to Newcastle. That has been going on for two and a half years, and there are not more than 20 people employed in the factory. It is only recently that the Ministry of Labour officials investigated the position, and the labour force was increased from 20 to about 35. About a year and a half ago I was raising the question continually with my right hon. Friend about the factories which were not being used to their full capacity. The former Parliamentary Secretary came to visit some of the factories and he saw some large ones where two-thirds of factory space was not being used. That is not very encouraging.
  I appeal to my right hon. Friend to give considerable and immediate attention to this problem. We do not need to wait until this Bill is on the Statute Book before improvements can be made. The factories are already there. Let the Board of Trade and the Government utilise these factories to the fullest extent or, if not, let them see that the people now in possession implement
  1104
  the promises they have made. At Bells-hill, in the heart of my constituency, there is a big factory with approximately two million square feet of factory space, yet the only time we have been able to say that we have a policy of full employment in this area is when there has been a war. We have never at any time been able to say that we could look forward in peace to a time when there would be full employment.
  At the moment we have 10 per cent. of the insured population unemployed. That is the average throughout that area. That is bad enough, but I cannot forget the years up to 1939 when 48 per cent. of the insured population in that area were unemployed. We cannot sit quietly by and allow such a state of affairs to continue. Something must be done immediately. We need not wait until new factories are built; factories already exist. Many of these factories have provided jobs for people who in ordinary circumstances would have been signing on at the employment exchange. For instance, there is Smith's factory at Carlin; Vactric at Newhouse and Salts of Saltaire.
  Much more can be done and I hope that when the Board of Trade let these factories they will ensure that they will provide employment for some of our men folk. We have solved the problem to a great extent so far as women are concerned. In the past we had to export our women folk from Lanarkshire; many had to travel long distances and long hours in order to get to work. To a great extent the Development of Industry Act has solved that problem, but I wonder what we shall do for our men.
  One aspect which gives me a great deal of concern is that of the miners. My right hon. Friend mentioned disabled miners. I am in sympathy with disabled miners in their problems, but I am also concerned about the fate of miners who are not disabled, because in parts of Lanarkshire the policy of the National Coal Board for the past two years has been to close down pits. What is to happen? Where are we to put the miners? What will be done with them? We have transferred approximately 5,000 families to new coal areas, but there is the type of man—40 to 50 or 5, and even up to 60 years of age—who has been the backbone of the mining industry but who has

  1105
  to stay in his present area because of his family. Some of his family may be in the professions and some of the younger ones pursuing higher education. These men are not mobile and cannot be shifted to new coal areas. What is to become of them?
  I should like to quote from a letter from an ex-miner, 52 years of age, who was working in the naval stores at Carfin. He was paid off, for the naval stores are closing down. He was paid off with a number of others. A friend of his tried to get him a job in another factory on the Carfin industrial estate. He turned up for the job and had to complete a form. He is a very fit, able-bodied man who spent six years in the first world war and four years in the last war. At 52 years of age he is a fairly fit man. When they discovered his age they said there was no job for him. He asked why and the reply was, "You are too old." He said, "Am I too old at 52?" and the reply was, "Anyone over 45 is not accepted." He said, "Does that mean that I have to continue for 13 years drawing unemployment benefit, until such time as I qualify for the 26s. a week pension?" What a prospect for that man.
  Unfortunately, that is the apprehension felt by all ex-miners in Lanarkshire and something must be done about it. About six pits have been closed in my division in the past two years. These men are walking into the Ministry of Labour exchange and signing the register without a hope of finding anything at all. It is quite true that we have young men signing the register at the labour exchange, and obviously employers of labour will not accept older men so long as they can obtain young men. That state of affairs cannot be permitted to continue and there is not the slightest doubt that the Government must do something about it.
  I want to say a word or two on the question of "passing the buck." Since I came to Westminster in 1945 I have discovered that when one goes to a Department to raise a problem they pass the buck to some other Minister, and so it continues. I do not want the Government to pass the buck in this instance. I want the various Ministers and Departments to got together and to realise that in Lanarkshire we have a human problem. The Minister of Labour can be brought into
  1106
  this as well as the Minister of Supply and the President of the Board of Trade.
  I am satisfied that something can be done even if it means the Minister of Supply taking over one of these factories and setting up some industry which will absorb all those people about whom we are so apprehensive at the moment. At the present time there is no hope for those people and I ask the Minister and the Government, what have I to say to the people in my division and in Lanarkshire generally? We must have an answer. I appeal to the Government to bring the various Departments together and to get down to this question to see what can be done to absorb the vast amount of unemployment in Lanarkshire.
  8.27 p.m.
  Mr. Henderson Stewart: I am glad that a section of this Debate has been allotted, as it were, to the Scottish case because in many ways our problem is unique, and it deserves, I think, our special attention. If I may I will take up the main theme of the speech of the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. Timmons) in a moment, but I should like first to associate myself completely, if I may, with the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Angus, South (Captain Duncan). My constituency also borders Dundee and what he has found in Angus, is, I know, happening and has been happening for a long time in Fife. I will give just one example—the town of Tayport. It is an old town, adequately equipped with harbour and railway facilities, and in proximity to other districts, which in by-gone days was a very prosperous place, providing a living for a great many first-class Scottish men and women. What has been happening recently? In the last 10 or 15 years the harbour and its amenities have been greatly neglected by those in authority. The council has done its best, but the movement of people has constantly been out of Tayport, in recent years into Dundee where new—one might almost say ersatz—industries have been recently established.
  I cannot believe that it is good Scottish policy to draw away as it were, the blood of a fine old borough of that kind, which has all the social and economic amenities to make it once again a flourishing town. When we are talking about the distribution of industry it is wrong to concentrate

  1107
  only upon those old special areas and neglect entirely the other parts of the country. If we continue to neglect them they will turn into special areas, with all the trouble and anxiety associated with that.
  There are more towns in my division in Fife in which people move or from which people are moved 10, 20 or 30 miles a day. Something ought to be done about that. The linoleum town of Newburgh in East Fife draws something like 200 men and women a day from other parts of the country, and from as far away as Kirkcaldy. If distribution of industry is wanted, encouragement should be given to flourishing concerns by assisting in the provision of housing for the people who would naturally work there. What applies to these towns, applies with greater force to the fishing areas, a subject on which I hope to speak on the Adjournment on Thursday.
  All around our coasts, and particularly the Fife coast, we are seeing the gradual depression of the fishing industry. If distribution of industry is wanted, then we should go to these distressed towns and villages and put one or two light industries there for the benefit of the people who are feeling the effects of this depression. Under present provisions I cannot, nor can the local authorities or industrial concerns in Fife, take any action at all to encourage new industries into these fishing villages. On the contrary, we are faced with obstacles at every turn. That seems to me to be madness. I ask the President of the Board of Trade to consider this wider problem rather than the intensification of industries in one or two selected areas.
  I now come to the speech of the hon. Member for Bothwell. Lanarkshire and Fife are closely associated economically. Fife contains the richest coal seam in Scotland and one of the richest in Great Britain. Soon, Fife will contain the greater part of all Scottish working coal mines. Great new pits are being opened. How are they to be operated for the good of the nation? Only by a mass transfer of miners and their families from other parts of West Scotland where the coal mining industry is gradually declining.
  1108
  The hon. Member for Bothwell said that 5,000 had already moved from Lanarkshire into other parts, not all to Fife, but we are faced in Fife with a big problem. I do not ask that it should be declared a special or development area. That would not suit our purpose, but the fact is that at present we are bringing in those miners from Lanarkshire. There is work for the men, but there is not always work for their families. The Under Secretary of State for Scotland knows all about the case, because he met our people during the summer—
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Thomas Fraser): I thought the contrary was the fact.
  Mr. Stewart: I have not said anything, so I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means when he refers to "the fact." Let me complete my sentence. The hon. Member knows that the whole of the political parties in Fife, without exception, as well as the local authorities and the industrial concerns, are united in believing that if the present system goes. on, by which miners are imported and nothing is done to provide employment for their daughters and their sons, Fife will ultimately find itself in precisely the same position as Lanarkshire, from which it is drawing this new labour.
  It is no use the Under-Secretary denying it, because I have a record here of an eloquent speech which he made when he came to Fife in June last, and met a most representative deputation from all parts of the county and drawn from all political parties. The hon. Gentleman, having listened courteously to the deputation, as, indeed, he always does, made these remarks. He spoke of
  "having in mind the concern of those who are responsible for local government in those new developing areas—their areas will not become Lanarkshires in 40, 50. 60 or 100 years' time. I do assure you that we have these things in mind, and I think our discussion this afternoon will have served the purpose of imprinting even more clearly upon our minds your resolve that Fife shall not be denied the ancillary industries necessary for you to build up a sane economic life in your communities in Fife."
  That speech made us in Fife believe that it was the intention of the Government to help us to provide those ancillary industries which we regard as vital if the

  1109
  balance of trade in that great industrial county is to be maintained.
  I looked forward to the Bill in the hope that it would contain, as well as its present provisions, other provisions to deal with the new and unique problem of co-ordinating industrial development in Scotland, but there is nothing of that kind in the Bill. On the other hand, the obstructions with which all the counties of Scotland, including Fife, are confronted are still there.
  Mr. T. Fraser: What are they?
  Mr. Stewart: I do not want to read the whole of the evidence of the meeting which the hon. Gentleman attended. If he has forgotten it, I shall be very pleased to let him have the typescript. They are known to many hon. Members on the other side of the Chamber.[HON MEMBERS: "No."] I beg the hon. Gentleman to refresh his memory about the case that was presented to him by his own political friends in Fife. I see at least one of them among the hon. Gentlemen opposite. They all supported the county councils in this matter.
  Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Would the hon. Member tell us what the obstructions are?
  Mr. Stewart: Perhaps I may take up that point. We desired to set up a trading estate in Leven, to give one example. That proposal has been turned down by the Government. We are not permitted to do it, although we regard it as necessary. We are prohibited. That is the obstacle. I do not want to quarrel about this; it is not a matter that we should quarrel about.
  Mr. T. Fraser: The hon. Gentleman said "We"—meaning "We in Fife," I suppose—"want to build a trading estate and the Government will not let us." That is not so. Some people in Fife want the Government to build an industrial estate in Leven and the Government have said that the time is not yet, because employers of labour in Leven are complaining that they cannot get labour to man existing factories in Leven and say that it would be madness to create additional employment. The hon. Member said that he entirely supported his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Angus, South (Captain Duncan), who
  1110
  said that we should not put any new industry in, if the sole result was to take away employment from existing industries. That is what would happen if we established an industrial estate in Leven.
  Mr. Stewart: That statement confirms what I said. The Government have refused to allow us to do what we think is right. As to the reasons that the hon. Gentleman gave, let me give him this reply, in which I speak for all the local authorities and political parties in Fife. We have the experience of the opening of a new, small factory, which we did on our own in Leven. A very large number of women workers appeared, seeking employment. They were on no employment exchange list at all. I assure the hon. Members that our case is well worth consideration.
  The County of Fife, with its peculiar, developing conditions should be regarded as a new type of area deserving the attention of the Government. It is what I would call a developing area and not a development area, that is to say, an area of the kind which we all know and where the Government are trying to develop all the resources of the nation. It is clear that in such a developing area conditions exist which are not found elsewhere. Those peculiar conditions demand the introduction, gradually—I do not ask for them at once because there is a lot in what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I ask for them in principle—of special measures after rather special consideration.
  Mr. Hamilton: Will the hon. Member say whether, in his opinion, Fife as a county is better off now than it was when his party was in office; and will he give us evidence of any unemployment among these Lanark imports, particularly among the wives and daughters of the miners who are being imported?
  Mr. Stewart: The hon. Member is trying to import party politics into this matter. I am trying deliberately to avoid them. This is not a matter of party politics. The Under-Secretary and I have been into this matter, and I am not really disagreeing with him tonight. I am inviting the Board of Trade to consider a new idea, that this kind of area is unlike any other, being neither a development area nor a non-development area

  1111
  but a developing area, which needs special plans.
  When the Under-Secretary was invited to Fife he made a concession in saying that he would supply to the Fife planning authority facts which they did not then possess. I am not sure that they possess them now, but I am not authorised to speak about that. He wanted Fife to have the figures so that Fife could plan. It is impossible for a local authority of that importance to plan unless there is behind it the recognition of the Government that special developing conditions exist there. I hope that when the hon. Gentleman replies he will treat that suggestion as a constructive one and, I think, a friendly one, and that if he is not able to accept it tonight he will at least give me the assurance—I speak for a very great industrial community—that he will give it his very careful consideration.
  8.42 p.m.
  Mr. Snow: It is a pity that we had some carping comments from the back benches opposite this afternoon when my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade gave his record of the administration of the 1945 Act. The nation as a whole will welcome this very fine achievement in the provision of more employment and more industry in the development areas. However, I must admit that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) swallowed the bait or, should I say, rose rather swiftly to the dry fly cast in his direction by the President of the Board of Trade in connection with his implication that it was the result of a Labour policy and of Socialist propaganda over the years that there should be rationalisation.
  The right hon. Gentleman was wrong in resenting that implication by my right hon. Friend. I have listened to quite a lot of the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aldershot during the last five years and, normally, he is very fair in his comments on industrial matters, but when he resented the remarks of my right hon. Friend I think he should have remembered that year after year Socialists up and down the country were advocating that there should be encouragement for industry to go to areas where
  1112
  it did not exist but ought to exist. We claim, I think quite rightly, that the results of the 1945 Act, for which the right hon. Gentleman claims some sort of God-parentage, show that the Act has achieved what we advocated year after year.
  Mr. Lyttelton: "Resentment" was far too strong a word. I thought it a little ungracious of the right hon. Gentleman not to mention the fact that the 1945 Bill was made into an Act of Parliament by the Conservative Party. Actually, it was I who got it through the House of Commons.
  Mr. Snow: While conceding the technical correctitude of that remark, if it had not been for the stimulus of the Labour element in the Coalition Government, that Bill would never have been brought forward. Indeed, as I understood the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, it seemed that he was arguing that the old distressed areas resulted from world trade recession. I think that is wrong. The old distressed areas, now called development areas, are a monument to the rigidity of Conservative economic doctrines.
  The hon. Baronet the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) said, in his persuasive way, that it was not profitable to keep on reminding the public of the bad old days when these distressed areas were permitted or when they grew. The. hon. Baronet is always courteous and has more than his fair share of charm. He nearly had me for a moment, but I remembered how, day after day, in the "Daily Express" there is a little column entitled "Planners at Work". That column always picks out some irritating little stupidity that crops up due, they allege, to the official mind. Yet the record that my right hon. Friend gave this afternoon was the result of planning, was the result of that very doctrine which is decried by the Tory propagandists. The nation will welcome the news and the record that my right hon. Friend gave this afternoon, and will understand that there is merit in industrial planning.
  Now I turn to rather new ground, the administration at regional level of the Department of my right hon. Friend. I realise that the scope of this Debate has been rather limited by yourself, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and other occupants of the Chair. I will do my best to keep in order, and in so far as the administration

  1113
  and the system of administration at regional level in the Board of Trade is the same, whether it is in a development area or outside, I think I can keep in order. As I see it, the only difference is that in the development areas there are commissioners who are responsible to the regional board of industry and the regional controller of industry.
  I have had some experience in trying to stimulate industry in Portsmouth during the past few years. My recollection is that the organisation at regional level, not only at the Board of Trade but in the Departments related to the Board of Trade, was getting top-heavy. I still have that impression. Looking at the official publication, "Notes on Government Organisation" I see a list of the kind of committees which exist at regional level. I do not wish to be indelicate, but there seems to be a sort of administrative constipation. There is a Labour Preference Committee, a Distribution of Industry Panel, a Physical Planning Committee, a Regional Board for Industry, and several others. They are all very fine, but they were designed more for the economy of war, when there was a great shortage of raw materials, than for the situation which is developing now, where we want far greater flexibility in the stimulus of industry than is necessary outside the development areas.
  We have the situation now where the President of the Board of Trade has informed the English National Council of Development Committees that in his view the scope for development boards or associations or committees should be aligned with the regional areas which are administered by his Department. I think that is wrong, because it does not appear to me to be illogical to suppose that the people at local level have a better mental picture of what is needed to maintain a high level of prosperity in a given local area.
  I believe that the Board of Trade, through its regional offices, carves up the regions into so-called economic survey areas. These, I believe, are, broadly speaking, the catchment areas for employment figures. If that is so, why is it not possible to reconsider the administrative set-up which is the present state of affairs and to have aligned with the economic survey areas bodies which represent the local authorities, the trades unions and
  1114
  the industrial interests of those areas? I believe that many of the officials at regional level could be cut out and more direct contact be made with the Board of Trade at national level.
  I do not wish to associate myself with Tory Press propaganda about "hordes of officials." On the contrary, I have received very great help indeed from regional controllers, both in the south of England, in region No. 6, and in the Birmingham area. But we all know what goes on in these committees, whether it is a committee which embraces representatives of the trades unions, industrialists and the Ministry, or whether it is a committee composed only of officials. A speech by an hon. colleague of mine just now drew attention to the "passing of the buck," as he described it, between the various ministries, one of whom has to be nailed with the responsibility of sponsoring a project. The fact is that if we could simplify the regional set-up and provide more simplicity, bearing in mind the national investment problem, at the economic survey area level I believe we should get a far greater and more colourful development and extension of trade.
  I have been looking at the 1950 Estimates for the Department of my right hon. Friend and I see that the cost of his regional organisation has been dropped from the 1949 figure of £514,418, to an estimated figure of £386,700. That is a very welcome drop, but I believe that a still further reduction in administrative expense at regional level is both desirable and possible.
  It is not just a question of officials or the Government having a plan in their minds about the development or expansion of industry in any given locality. Many other people—shopkeepers, providers of transport and other services—want to know what the regional office has in mind. I think that not enough information is issued as to the sort of development that a regional office has in mind.
  Let me give the House an example. In the Rugeley Armitage area, in South Staffordshire, there is a coal pit—it is at Brereton—which has an anticipated life of only four years. With some difficulty I have found that, if additional borings give the necessary favourable indications, the National Coal Board have a plan to sink another shaft in the locality which will increase the employment level in the

  1115
  coalmining industry there. With any luck, if everything goes well and the new borings turn out in the manner hoped for, in four years' time, as the old pit dies out, so the new pit will come into operation.
  I have a letter from my right hon. Friend saying that in that very area he would give encouragement to the setting up of industry which would provide employment for women. I suppose that there is some overall plan for this economic survey area. In Command Paper 7540 reference is made to regional research units. If there is a regional research unit in this area, they should consider the publication—I give this example because I think it is applicable over the whole country—of who they have in mind so as to give the people who could provide retail distribution points or other services some idea of what they can do or what they should think of doing when these plans mature. Wage levels which exist in that area will be affected because, as my right hon. Friend knows, certain employers virtually have a monopoly of employment in the area at present. I think it will be very helpful indeed to provide a little more competitoin between employers.
  I should not like anything I have said to be construed as a criticism of my right hon. Friend's administration, but I do say that the administration at regional level needs reconsideration. In my view it needs to provide a good deal more scope for consultation between local authorities, trade unions and industrialists at a local level.
  8.56 p.m.
  Mr. Chetwynd: In the few minutes remaining, I should like to bring the Debate back to the broad general principles underlying this very modest Bill, bearing in mind its relation to the more important Measure, the Distribution of Industry Act. In my view there are four main reasons why we need this Measure today. First, we have still to solve the deep rooted social problem which arises from the fact that the development areas as we know them are often tied to one or two basic heavy industries. There is still the need to give a more diverse and varied industrial employment in those areas. The second reason is to remove certain impediments
  1116
  to the working of the 1945 Act which have hindered development in the past five years. It is quite clear that after the first post-war rush of new industrial projects into the development areas they are now coming forward much more slowly and much more inducement is needed to get them to take their places in the development areas.
  Thirdly, there is still the great overriding economic necessity of bringing all the people who can make a useful contribution to our economic life into production today. In the development areas, as everyone has testified, we have a very adaptable labour force which can give of its best at this time and help that increased production which alone will see us through our difficulties. Fourthly, this lies a little ahead in some places, but already on the Tyne and other shipyard areas this has become of great importance, we have to meet a possible recession in the basic industries of shipbuilding and ship repairing. We also have to think of what industries can take the place, to some extent, of the mining industry, where, for one reason or another pits are closed down.
  A great work has been done in the last five years and there is great work to be done as there are still one or two substantial pockets of unemployment which all our efforts have failed to solve. This is aggravated by the fact that it is the elderly, or more elderly, part of the male population which is out of work today. Prolonged unemployment is more prevalent in the development areas among people who are more than 40 years of age. More than 74 per cent. of those who have been out of work for more than six months in the development areas are more than 40 years of age and that creates a tremendous problem. In addition to the age factor, we have to take into account the fact that many of the men are only capable of light employment through industrial disability of one kind of another.
  The record of progress made since June, 1945, in the north-east development area, with which I am most familiar, has been truly remarkable. There has been an absolute transformation of the scene. Some 285 new factories have been completed, 84 are still under construction, and 436 are approved; 10,400 men and 11,600 women are at work in these new

  1117
  factories and a further 33,000 jobs will be provided when all the factories under construction are completed. A further 26,000 people have been found work either by converting war factories or ordnance factories to industrial estates. All that is to the great credit of the Administration, of the industrialists and all those people who have pulled together to make this policy such a success. But even so we cannot be complacent about these results. There is still the problem of this hard core of unemployed to meet and there is the possibility facing us in the future of an extension of further unemployment in the basic industries.
  The real teeth in this new Bill are in both subsections of Clause 3. One of these empowers the Board of Trade to make grants in "exceptional circumstances" towards the losses incurred in establishing a new industry or transferring an old industry to a development area. We should all like to have more information as to what the President of the Board of Trade means by "exceptional circumstances." The figure of £100,000, which is the proposed expenditure in the first year, if spread over all the development areas, can easily be absorbed by the transferring of one or two major industries. We shall have to use some caution and tact in how we make use of the term "exceptional circumstances."
  I should like to see whole factories move from an over-developed area into a development area because it is much more economic in the long run to do that provided allowance is made for the expenses of disruption, etc. Where there is a branch factory in a development area and a parent factory in London or another part of the country, the overheads in running both those places are enormous. If there should be any sign of a recession the subsidiary in the development area would be the first to be shut down, and the other factory in the over-developed area would carry on. I should like to see more attention paid, and I think that is probably the purpose of this Bill, to the transporting and transferring of industries as a whole into these areas.
  The other important provision is Clause 3 (2), which empowers the making of grants or loans to housing associations:
  1118
  "where the Board are satisfied that the grants or loans will further the provision in a development area of dwellings for persons employed or to be employed in the area."
  If this wide Clause is used properly and fully it should enable us to do an enormous amount of transferring of workers into development areas and from one part of a development area to another part. Local authorities are certain to be somewhat worried by this provision. They will wish to know what is the scope of it and why they themselves cannot be entrusted with this job of building houses instead of it being given to special housing associations. They will also wish to be satisfied that any houses granted under this provision will be additional to their quota under the normal Ministry of Health procedure. My hon. Friend would do well if tonight he gave us some further indication of what use of that Clause is in mind.
  We are faced with the administration of the Act in addition to this Bill, and there are certain things which can be done now which will give a stimulus to the development area policy while awaiting the provisions of this Bill to take effect. The first to give more encouragement to the trading estate companies. They are already offering great enducements to industrialists to establish themselves there and they are being and can be a valuable source of advice and encouragement to industrialists who have established themselves in development areas or wish to do so. Not only that, we must encourage the old-established firms in the development areas because we have so far only touched the fringe of the problem, and if the basic old-established industries were to falter then with the best' will in the world developments since 1945 would not help to hold the situation.
  There must be a drive with renewed vigour to finish all those factories which are now at some stage of development and construction. Finally, if with these new inducements and with all the inducements and priorities for raw materials and Government contracts which exist under the old scheme, we still cannot get private industrialists to take over factories and work them to reduce this hard core of unemployment, I urge the Government to be prepared to step in themselves

  1119
  to bring in the right kind of industries and do the job if other people are unwilling to do it.
  Sir William Darling: Before the hon. Member sits down, may I ask him if it is his view that all that can be done for £100,000?
  Mr. Chetwynd: No. If the hon. Gentleman had been listening more carefully he would know that I said that while we are waiting for this Bill and the time in which the £100,000 may be expended, all these things can be done under the provisions of the main Act.
  9.6 p.m.
  Mr. Erroll: The Debate today has been notable for the absence of rancour on the part of hon. Members opposite. Some of us on this side of the House feared that they might indulge in long diatribes against the action taken during the inter-war years. However, it seems that with the passing of the years hon. Members opposite are coming to recognise the honest and sincere efforts made by previous Conservative Governments to cope during the pre-war years with the difficulties and urgent problems of the special areas. If my records are right, this is the first Bill relating to what are now called the development areas to be introduced by a Labour Government, all previous legislation having been passed by Conservative Administrations. We are indeed glad that the last Labour Government made full use of the foundations which were laid, and developed those areas as successfully as they did.
  We all particularly appreciate the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn), who urged us to forget the labels which can be attached to the past histories of certain towns as they served only to perpetuate old memories, and did no good to those towns or to the industries which might be attracted to those locations. There is, naturally, a difference of emphasis between the two sides of the House. There is a tendency for hon. Members opposite to bring to bear, from their past experience, their own solutions to the difficulties; whereas we on this side of the House are more concerned to see an expanded economy in which there will be more prosperity, rather than merely to
  1120
  buttress up certain areas from a possible depression in the future.
  This small and modest Bill is really only an extension of the 1945 Act. Several hon. Members, some on this side of the House—for example the hon. Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George)—complained that the Bill did not do anything like enough. It seemed to me that the hon. Lady had not studied the 1945 Act, because this Bill is virtually only an extra Clause to that existing Act. It seeks to give the Government power to do certain things which the previous Act did not permit them to do. As I see it, there are three new purposes achieved by the new Bill. First, the Government, or the Department, is given power to take over factories in development areas which may be unused and unoccupied. But the Bill, and the speech of the Minister for that matter, are silent on what is to happen to those factories after the Board of Trade have taken them over. I hope very much that they will be transferred to other private enterprises and not used for the purpose of setting up State factories to operate in those areas.
  Mr. Collick: Why not?
  Mr. Erroll: The hon. Member asks, "Why not?" For the very good reason that we on this side of the House have had enough experience of the extravagance of State enterprises already not to wish for more. Second, the Bill enables additional provision to be made for transferring key workers. It is to be hoped that hon. Members in all parts of the House will play their part in persuading key workers, and other workers, to move to new parts of the country. We can only overcome the special problems of the development areas if there is a reasonable mobility among the people who must move to man the new factories.
  Third, the Bill gives the Board of Trade power to pay compensation for the cost of the transfer of plant from existing factories to new factories in the development areas. This is a non-recurring cost and it certainly seems reasonable that it should be met out of public funds. Although the cost of the transfer may be paid from public funds, I hope that the concerns transferring their plant will be free to use whatever form of transport

  1121
  they like and that there will be no restrictive provision written into any undertaking given by the Department that, for example, they must use the railways or the road services provided by the British Transport Commission. If any such restrictive covenant is introduced, it will merely mean that the amount of the subsidy will be greater than it would be if the firm was free to use private hauliers or, better still, their own transport operating under a "C" licence.
  The areas themselves are extremely diverse, and that has helped to provide diversification in this Debate. We are apt to complicate the issue by thinking that all development areas are of the same nature. It is essential to distinguish between those areas where the main industry is heavy engineering or shipbuilding—industries which are of great importance to our export drive and for which the main markets are overseas—and the coal mining areas, in which the predominant industry is an extractive industry. The engineering area may well expect to continue for 100 years or more with periods of prosperity and periods which are not so prospersous, but all those areas in which an extractive industry is predominant, must ultimately undergo a major change as the natural resources of the region are used up.
  There are also the special problems of the Highlands which have been referred to by several Scottish Members, and the particular difficulty of one area in South Wales where the older tinplate works will become unusable because of the natural development of the tinplate industry and especially because of the vast new works which are being erected by the Steel Company of Wales. During the Debates on the Iron and Steel Bill, in the last Parliament, there was much argument about the allocation of steel plants and whether new, efficient plants should be put up regardless of the effect upon old, well-established and perhaps less efficient plants, or whether the older plants should be subsidised by the new.
  We have now had, in the opening speech of the Minister, an inkling of the Government's decisions in the matter. It is apparently the intention of the Government to provide alternative work in those areas where the older tinplate factories will ultimately be closed, because they
  1122
  will not be able to compete with the new works of the Steel Company of Wales. This redistribution of industry cannot be undertaken in one or two areas or in a spurt of enthusiasm by any Government, of whatever political party or colour. Full redistribution must take something like a generation. There are problems of skill, traditions, supplies and markets.
  All these matters take time to arrange and to secure. The first and most important task is to study the nature of the people who are to be employed in the factories authorised under the Bill. The problem as it affects women appears to be approaching solution. My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) referred to the excellent results achieved by installing a factory in Sunderland and another in Motherwell almost exclusively for the employment of women workers. He bore testimony to the excellent quality of these workers, and I, too, in visiting development area factories, have noticed the same excellent quality of the female labour which has been attracted to this work. Here, indeed, the problem seems well on the way to solution.
  It is, however, very much more difficult in the case of the employment of men. In those areas which are engaged in the manufacture of capital goods, such as engineering goods mainly for export, the problem is to provide alternative employment for the men during periods of contraction of the normal market for their production. There is thus the temptation to set up in the development areas factories which will not be fully occupied during periods of boom, but will be a kind of stand-by or reserve of capital production equipment for the lean times in the staple industries of the area. We are thus in danger of seeing a kind of double-banking of capital equipment in these areas, and, while that may be desirable, its great cost in terms of the resources of this country cannot be ignored.
  The problem is rather easier now in those areas in which the extractive industries predominate, because, within broad limits, it is possible to estimate the life of the mines and make good provision well in advance for alternative industries when the mines are no longer paying propositions. Indeed, the initial steps to be taken are seen already in the present

  1123
  use of factories for disabled mineworkers, which would form the spearhead of a new industrial development in these particular areas. It was interesting to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart) said about the establishment of secondary industries to take the place of coalmining, which is undergoing such rapid development in that part of the country. That is, indeed, looking far ahead, but Scots folk do that, and we are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his vision.
  We must also look at the amount of employment which is being provided in the new factories in these areas. The employment is not so very great, considered numerically. In fact, it might even be judged really disappointing in terms of numbers of men and women for whom employment has been found. It is not unnatural that there should be a temptation to concentrate upon that production which employs most people, regardless of whether it is the most suitable for the area or not. But the indications so far are that that temptation has been resisted. We have, instead, a very high capital cost per job created, compared with the rest of the country. Nevertheless, that exceptionally high capital cost is probably justified in view of the special and exceptional circumstances.
  In the matter of the transfer of workers, we are up against a real difficulty. Workers are finding it particularly difficult to get homes in the development areas, and it is, therefore, excellent that there should be in the Bill some provision for houses for meeting the needs of the workers who are to be transferred to the development areas. Nevertheless, the problem of providing additional employment in the development areas is aggravated by the impossibility of transferring willing but unemployed workers to other areas which have not sufficient workers at present. If only there were more houses, we should see quite a number of willing workers voluntarily transferring to areas where there are jobs waiting for them; but, of course, were they to move, they would go to the bottom of the long housing lists and would have no chance of ever having homes of their own. In this way does one problem aggravate another. If only there
  1124
  could be more houses, the development area problem would be eased quite considerably.
  I want now to turn to a particular group of workers who have very special problems surrounding their transfer, namely, the managers for the new factories, particularly where those works are extensions of existing factories in other parts of the country. It is not just a question of unwillingness on the part of managers to transfer, but of very real physical difficulties which they are up against. They may be offered a substantial rise in salary as an inducement, but when that has been taxed at the full rate it leaves little enough additional reward. Then there are other problems which a manager has to face, such as schooling for his children. In addition, he has often greater difficulty in obtaining a suitable house because council housing lists are barred to him—however willing he might be—and because other forms of housing are impossible to obtain except at very high rates. If a little more flexibility could be provided so that managers willing to transfer might be allowed to build homes for themselves, there might be less reluctance on their part to transfer.
  Even if a firm does pay the additional salary which is the minimum reward that a manager requires, and pays for the new house which is needed, and, possibly, any other additional expenses, those things still represent overheads and an additional charge upon the efficiency of the new factory in the development area. Some may disapprove of managers taking up this attitude, but the fact remains that they do, and it is something which cannot be left out of account. In large part it springs from discriminatory Government policy over the last four years.
  From the transfer of men, I now pass to the transfer of the factories themselves. It is, as the President of the Board of Trade pointed out, comparatively easy to set up a brand new factory with a brand new works in a development area. But, as he added, such a company and such an undertaking might not, in fact, qualify for preferential treatment in a development area. It is understandable therefore, that the Board of Trade should have tried to encourage firms in other areas to set up extensions in development areas. This, of course, is a particularly difficult task. I hope that the President

  1125
  of the Board of Trade will not be influenced by the advice given to him by the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine), who suggested that no extensions should be allowed outside the development areas and that all firms wishing to extend should be compelled to go to development areas sites. That, of course, would be the worst possible policy.
  Mr. Irvine: I desire to make it abundantly plain that I only made that recommendation in the very special circumstance of industries with a very high proportion of workers equivalent to the number of workers unemployed in the development area.
  Mr. Erroll: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that further explanation, but, nevertheless, the position is a delicate one and calls not only for discretion, but for a complete understanding of the manufacturer's position.
  I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and his officials will always be prepared to meet the reasonable objections and difficulties, particularly of reputable firms. They know the difficulties involved in splitting into two locations when, hitherto, they have been in one. I have in mind a particular works in West London which has specialised in the manufacture of delicate scientific and engineering equipment, and which, desiring to expand in order to meet a new and lucrative North-American dollar market, was told that if they wished to expand they must go to Newcastle or South Wales. It is quite impracticable for them to do this; doubtless they will win through in the end, but only after 18 months or two years of delay while the case is argued out.
  Not only will it involve extreme difficulty in the transfer of staff, but they do not have the managers readily available to double up on management and provide a competent works manager both in London and in South Wales or wherever the other place is to be. Inevitably, what would be involved would be a great deal of travelling by the existing executives so that their efficiency would be lowered considerably by reason of spending long hours every week in the train travelling between the London works and, say, the Newcastle works. That is an important factor to consider, particularly where a firm is engaged in the export industry.
  1126
  Such a firm might, however, be able to transfer to a location near at hand, for example to Portsmouth. Some reference has been made to Portsmouth by hon. Members on both sides of the House. That would have the added advantage, from the point of view of the Government, that such a transfer would not have to be subsidised in any way out of public funds
  Mr. Manuel: In the earlier part of his speech the hon. Gentleman indicated that available new factories should be handed over to private enterprise. He is now making out a case that private enterprise should not be asked to go to the development areas. Would he not agree that if private enterprise will not go into these factories the State should use them to solve unemployment in the development areas?
  Mr. Erroll: I am not suggesting that they should not be asked to go. I am saying that they should not be forced to go. In any case, it would be unwise to build factories before there is a firm agreement that they would be occupied.
  Now I want to come to the reference by the President of the Board of Trade to the competitive position. He suggested that it had been Government policy for a number of years that the orders of Government Departments should be directed to factories in development areas, "other things being equal." I presume that that means that there will be a state of free competition between all the factories producing a similar article, whether they are in the development areas or outside. If that is to be the case then it would be automatic for a Government to place an order with the person who sub-milted the lowest tender. However, I feel that there may be some preference shown to development areas even where "other things are not equal."
  There has, however, been a consideraable extension. The practice is no longer confined to Government's Departments. All nationalised boards have been instructed to direct their orders similarly to development areas. If that is to be done let us hope that a fully competitive position is preserved between the development area factory and a factory in another area. If that is truly preserved maybe no harm can come of the arrangement. We cannot afford to see nationalised industries, supposed to be maintaining themselves

  1127
  in an efficient state, having to contribute by means of a hidden subsidy to factories in the development areas.,
  Some reference has been made to subsidies. The whole of the 1945 Act is, of course, a subsidy, as is the Bill which we are discussing tonight. But the important thing is, as the President said, that there should be no continuing subsidies to the factories once they are established. That is why I hope the House will not agree to suggestions made that there should be preferential transport rates for firms in the development areas and, as one hon. Member suggested, special low rates for electric power to factories established in the Highlands development area.
  Mr. J. MacLeod: Will the hon. Gentleman say why he does not think that that should be so?
  Mr. Erroll: Because it is essential that such factories should remain fully competitive in home and overseas markets.
  I now come to the problem of diversification in development areas. This, indeed, is the greatest problem of all. We have to secure diversity in types of employment, between skilled and unskilled, and between men and women. We have to secure diversification in markets, home or export, and in the types of goods made, whether for capital works or for consumption. Success in such a problem can only be achieved with the full co-operation of the directors and the managers of the firms concerned. Many hon. Members have referred to areas which were near development areas, and suggested that they should be accorded favourable treatment under this Bill or under an extension to it.
  Of course, we are all liable to think of the next slump, if it comes, taking much the same pattern as the last slump. But that does not follow at all. The pattern of the next trade depression, should it come, may be entirely different. At such a time we might find a temptation to extend development areas so as to cover the entire country, so that we would all be subsidising industry wherever there was a moderate degree of unemployment. All Britain, indeed, in such circumstances might become a development area in its special meaning which we use in connection with this Bill. Britain, however, can become, instead, a developing area, in
  1128
  which the whole of Britain is one great prosperity area. We can become a prosperity area if—and this must be the wish of us all—the qualities of enterprise, thrift, hard work and good government are applied for the benefit of all.
  9.32 p.m.
  The Secretary for Overseas Trade (Mr. Bottomley): The Debate has been interesting and, if somewhat wide, certainly useful. I should like to join with the other hon. Members who have already referred to the maiden speeches which have been made today. Those of my hon. Friends the Members for Gateshead, West (Mr. J. Hall) and Rhondda, West (Mr. Iorwerth Thomas) showed that they had great practical knowledge and experience, and their speeches have been of value to us all. The hon. Member for Walton (Mr. K. Thompson) spoke with much fluency. I agree with him that his speech was non-controversial, but I am afraid that I could not exactly agree with his line of thought. Nevertheless, it was a worthy contribution, and I am sure he will forgive me if I say that he at least showed that under the 1936 Act, the Liverpool Council did not do so well in tackling unemployment as we have been able to do with the development area scheme.
  There has been an absence of rancour in the Debate, and I am glad of that. Speeches which have been made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn), not only this afternoon but in the past, have been noteworthy in this connection. However I am bound to join in feeling with many of my colleagues, for I suffered as they did during the inter-war years when there were many months and years of unemployment, either through the lack of policy or, if there was a policy, the misguided use of it by the party opposite.
  I want at once to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Lyttelton) who certainly made a worthy contribution in promoting the Measure in the earlier stages which have now led to the presentation of this Bill. But I am bound to say—and I am sure he will agree—that he has not always been supported by his colleagues in his noble endeavour. If I might refer to the 1945 Measure, I would say that he certainly was not able to retain Clause 9 which many of my hon. Friends thought was

  1129
  so important. Indeed, one distinguished Member on the Conservative side of the House, in talking about the Bill at the time, said it was democracy and Socialism run mad, so hon. Members opposite can scarcely claim that they have been in accord with the principles which we on this side of the House have desired to follow. It was Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, then Member for Kidderminster, who said that.
  This afternoon my right hon. Friend was challenged on several points. I should like to pick up some of them and I think I ought to make one correction at once. The right hon. Member for Aldershot suggested that my right hon. Friend had said that he deprecated compulsion. My right hon. Friend did not quite say that; what he said was that the problem could not be solved by compulsion alone. He said that the right course was to steer industry, and I think we have been successful in that. Indeed, it is of interest to know that as a result of that policy many excellent schemes are already contributing to the success of the distribution of industry. I could refer to many of them, but time will not permit of more than two being mentioned.
  In one development area in Scotland we were able to persuade the subsidiary of an American firm to come along and, as a result of the work they are doing, we are now saving dollars because we do not have to import the goods they make and, equally, they are now manufacturing articles which are being exported to earn us the currency we require. In another case a factory in the East End of London, which was bombed, is now making detergents which are vital for our export trade and for our own internal use. At the moment that factory will this year have a larger output in value than the whole of the area of the Cumberland coalfields to which we looked at one time for help in order to assist these distressed areas.
  Some of the points raised in the Debate are general and I shall deal with them later in my speech. I should like to make particular reference to the right hon. Member for Aldershot, who talked about the process of diversification of industry and said it should be done in such a way that we do not introduce too much light industry so as to over-employ
  1130
  on the female side at the expense of male employment. Clause 3 (1) of the Bill is designed to enable the Board of Trade to offer inducements to firms to go to the development areas, with a view, especially, to employing male labour. There is, of course, nothing to stop them going there at the moment and we are sorry that more male employing factories are not established. It is hoped that by this Measure more of that sort of industry will be encouraged to go into these areas.
  Another point put to me was whether Clause 3 (1) would enable the Board of Trade to subsidise firms. I want to say right away that there is no suggestion of a subsidy. We regard the Bill as clearly indicating the exceptional nature of cases and provision of limited scope to cover the removal and incidental costs—a once-for-all payment, as my right hon. Friend put it. I was asked about the administration of Clause 4. The amounts to be paid under Clause 4 will follow the lines of the present scheme of grants and allowances administered by the Ministry of Labour under the Employment and Training Act. This scheme, as the House knows, provides for the payment of fares, household removal expenses and lodging allowances where appropriate; and the Minister of Labour himself decides the individual cases which qualify for assistance and the payments are to be made by the Ministry to the individual worker.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) asked what practical steps the Government would take by way of contracts to steer firms to development areas and also to keep them there. In that connection my right hon. Friend said earlier that he was not satisfied that firms in the development areas were as yet getting the full share of the contracts which, on economic and social grounds, would be justified. Arrangements are therefore being worked out which will have the effect, once a competitive tender price for an item has been established, of allowing development area firms to be offered a share of the contracts at the established competitive price. It is hoped by that means to cover that matter.
  The hon. Lady also asked if the financial provisions were adequate for the purposes which the Bill is designed to meet. Many other hon. Members also

  1131
  raised this point. The figure of £100,000 for the financial year 1950–51 is only an estimate. We cannot be sure how many firms are going to take advantage of the facilities offered. The period will merely cover the initial stages of the process, and possibly the figure may later go beyond £100,000. As a result of experience gained of this matter this year, we shall be able to get ready for the next financial year, when proper provision can be made to procure the money necessary for these developments.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. F. Willey), who has done such exceptionally good work as a member of the North Eastern Estates Company, made a useful speech. He talked about estate company organisation and suggested a national corporation. This, of course, raises very large and important organisational questions. We are all the time keeping under close review the whole of the administration of development area policy with a view to improving our methods of work in every way possible. The work of the estate companies, the relationship between them, and the responsibility of the central Government in general policy decisions is most important. My right hon. Friend and I are continuing to give all the thought we can to this problem, and if my hon. Friend has any specific suggestions to make we shall be delighted to have them and give them full consideration.
  My hon. Friend also wanted to know about the north-east coast position and how we were going to find jobs for the 30,000 men from the shipyards. He suggested that we might find alternative work for the shipyards and that there should be a replacement fund. He suggested also specialised factories and integrated industrial units. We will consider this and shall get in touch with the Admiralty and the 'Ministry of Transport to see what can be done. As regards the first point, steps have already been taken, and Departments are in consultation. On his third point, this can be done under existing powers if it should be needed, and it probably could be done to meet the needs of such firms as are dealt with in Clause 3 of the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) wanted to know what
  1132
  was the position if a factory wanted to develop in an area already overdeveloped. Had we any power to prevent that, and to direct it to a development area? There are powers in existence already. If we think that a factory is going to an over-developed area, we can refuse to give an Industrial Development certificate, and by that means the firm concerned would understand that it could more easily develop in one of those areas about which we have been talking during this Debate in the House today.
  The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) talked about the need to see that the buildings which are purchased are controlled in a way which will give the best possible results. He also wanted them controlled in a fair manner. Existing buildings which may be taken over will be dealt with in the same way as new buildings. They will be transferred to the industrial estate company and they will be available either to private enterprise or to public enterprise, according to the demands by either, in accordance with the employment potential and the social value to the community.
  There were general appeals for special consideration. One hon. Member observed that we might finish up by making the whole of the country into a development area. We must look at each case. In response to the many appeals that have been made I can only say that, in the case of Stoke-on-Trent, which was raised by my hon. Friend for that constituency (Mr. Ellis Smith), in the case of Leith, raised by the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) and in many other cases that have been mentioned, including the Medway area with which I am connected and where we have our problems, all may be considered at the time if the circumstances warrant it. If the unemployment situation is acute it will be looked at and, in the context of development area policy, it can be scheduled. I am certain that none of these districts can be compared with the old distressed areas, because today we find a development which is adding to the wellbeing, joy and contentment of millions of our countrymen.
  The Distribution of Industry Act in 1945 was passed at a time when industrial and economic conditions in the country, and especially in the development areas, had undergone great changes due to the war. The Board of Trade established a research and intelligence organisation

  1133
  not only at the headquarters level but the regional level where we have been working closely in co-operation with the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, and, in the case of Scotland, with the Department of Health at regional headquarters. An attempt is made by the research workers to look at the local aspect of problems and to fit it in with national aspects. It gives to the Government of the day and to employers generally an insight into the trend of employment in those localities. It has been able to assist in the drive for increased production in textiles and other industries. It has been able to help us in concentrating on the need to export and to produce essential goods at home. We have dealt not only with the short-term position but we have made provision for our long-term policy.
  A committee has been established under Sir Henry Clay to study the whole problem. It is sitting with university representatives and representatives from Government Departments considering the problem of the development areas and of the country as a whole. We must know what internal industrial and economic changes are taking place. It is with that end in view the Bill is linked with our general full employment policy without which all these methods would be just attempting to deal piece-meal with the situation, as indeed was the case before the war and in the inter-war years.
  I can only say finally that it will be our endeavour to study continually and to make sure that we provide, as the Bill does, remedies for dealing with the special problems such as the hard core of the development areas at the moment. By introducing Bills in this House I am sure that we can look forward to a continuing policy of trying to solve this terrible problem about which we are all concerned. If we had all been as much concerned about it in the past as we ace today we should not have such an acute problem at present. I think we can say that, with the Bill given its Second Reading, we can look forward to it going to Committee where, I am sure, many of the other points already contributed can be further considered, with, I hope, complete satisfaction.
  Mr. J. MacLeod: Not one word has been said about the Highlands of Scotland, an area which was designated as a
  1134
  development area. No development whatever has taken place in that area since it was designated, and I should like to know the reason why. I have put that point to the Minister.
  Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman did send us a letter, which is receiving attention. It deals with a particular case which I do not think it is necessary to debate in the House. On the general question, there is less than three per cent. unemployment, and he knows that the policy followed as the result of the Act means that we cannot schedule it as a development area.
  Mr. MacLeod: It is scheduled as a development area.
  Mr. Bottomley: Yes, but although it is scheduled as a development area we cannot deal with it in the way we can the other areas. In connection with Lanarkshire, to which special reference has been made, the hon. Gentleman knows that there is a demand for labour there and not a shortage, and, therefore, to bring any further industry would only compete with the already existing shortage of labour, and for that reason it is not necessary to pursue it further. My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland dealt specially with Scotland, and if the hon. Gentleman had been here to listen to his speech he would know that an answer was given.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow.

  DISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRY [MONEY]
  Considered in Committee of the Whole House under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[King's Recommendation signified.]
  [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]
  Resolved:
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session (hereinafter referred to as 'the new Act') to make further provision for the acquisition of land, creation of easements and carrying out of work in development areas; to authorise the Board of Trade to make grants in connection with the establishment

  1135
  in or transfer to development areas of industrial undertakings, and to make grants or loans to housing associations; and to extend the provisions of section five of the Employment and Training Act, 1948, it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, being an increase attributable to expenditure by the Board of Trade under the new Act in—

  (i) the acquisition of land,

  (ii) the creation of easements,

  (iii) the carrying out of work,

  (iv) the making of grants in connection with the establishment in or transfer to development areas of industrial undertakings, and

  (v) the making of grants or loans to housing associations;

  (b) the payment into the Exchequer of any increase in the moneys so payable under the said Act of 1945, being an increase attributable to the provisions of the new Act;

  (c) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the provisions of the new Act in the sums payable out of such moneys under the Employment and Training Act, 1948."—[Mr. Douglas Jay.]

  Resolution to be reported Tomorrow.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE CLAIMS
  9.54 p.m.
  Sir Herbert Williams: I beg, to move,
  "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Regulations, dated 7th March, 1950, entitled the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Amendment Regulations, 1950 (S.I. 1950, No. 297), a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th March, be annulled."
  I want to make it quite clear at the outset that I do not desire these Regulations to be annulled. For the benefit of new Members may I say that the only way to obtain a Debate on these Regulations is to move that they be annulled. If they came into the category of affirmative Resolutions, the Government would have to move them and then we should be free to have a Debate. The reason why I do not desire these Regulations to be annulled is that they represent a slight improvement on the existing situation, which has certain novel features about it. I should think that in the last eight or nine years I have probably looked at—I will not say studied—more Statutory
  1136
  Rules and Orders, as they used to be called, Statutory Instruments as they are now called, than any other right hon. or hon. Member. I should think I have looked at some 20,000.
  If hon. Members have a copy of the Regulations they will see, on the second page, a Schedule on which I would congratulate the right hon. Lady if she is to be praised—though I do not think she is. I think it was her predecessor, because she had been in office only about four days when she signed it. It says what Regulation 11 will be as amended, and that makes it much more convenient for hon. Members taking part in this Debate than if that Schedule had not been reprinted as amended.
  However, I am still not clear whether it is as amended or as hereinbefore amended, because paragraph 2 says:
  "Paragraph (2) of regulation 11 of the principal regulations as amended shall be amended in accordance with the next following paragraph."
  I think it really means that what appears on page 2 is as further amended. I am not quite clear about that, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) will deal with that later.
  My real reason for moving this Prayer is that under the National Insurance Act unless a person applies for benefit within a prescribed period of time he will lose it. The State exists under strict regulations. There is a gentleman called "The Comptroller and Auditor-General." If any Minister makes any payment which is outside the scope of Parliament or of a Regulation made under an Act of Parliament, then some very rude words are said and repeated to the Public Accounts Committee of this House. Accordingly, the State is harsh of necessity because of our financial procedure in dealing with claims.
  It happens that I am a director of an insurance company. Any hon. Members who are insured against anything will know that when they get their policy there are dozens of paragraphs printed in small type which none of us ever read, all designed to deal with the people who try, in some way or another, to defraud the insurance company. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] Certainly, that is why they are all put in. Everybody knows that. It is obvious. A policy is started at the

  1137
  first stage, then somebody finds some fraudulent way of getting round it and, therefore, a new paragraph is put in next time it is printed. However, a board of directors have a free discretion and, accordingly, if they get an honest, straight-forward claim, they never take advantage of these numerous clauses. [Laughter.] Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite can giggle, but if they will supply me with a single example where any decent insurance company has tried to get out of its obligations in that way, they will be entitled to giggle.
  I have been a director of an insurance company for nine years. I cannot remember one case—and I have taken an opportunity of checking up for this Debate—where we have ever tried to evade our obligations through a technicality. I am not blaming the Minister; she is tied by the strict terms of the Act. She cannot expend one pennyworth of benefit outside the scope of the Act or the Regulations made under the Act. The instrument we are discussing makes the situation rather better, though I must say that the words are difficult to understand. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford will explain what is meant by the following:
  "(b) after sub-paragraph (g), there shall be added the following sub-paragraph:—
  (h) in the case of an increase, in respect of a child or adult dependant, of unemployment benefit, or sickness benefit, the period of one month from the date on which, apart from satisfying the condition of making a claim, the claimant becomes entitled thereto, subject to the qualification that if, in the case of the benefit of which that increase is claimed, the prescribed time is extended in accordance with the proviso to this paragraph, the period of one month shall (subject to the condition contained in the next succeeding paragraph) be increased by a period equal to the period commencing on the said date and ending on the date on which the claim for the said benefit was made:'"
  I do not understand that, and I do not suppose that the right hon. Lady does, although I have not the slightest doubt a very intelligent brief has been prepared for her by her friends in Newcastle. Quite honestly, as far as I understand it—which, I must admit, is in a limited way—I think that these Regulations make the situation a little better. I hope that as a result of tonight's Debate, the right hon. Lady—and she knows from the conversation we had the other day that I am not opposing
  1138
  them—will examine the whole position with regard to these time limits.
  My attention was attracted to this question as long ago as 28th October last year, when a lady who is now one of my constituents, and was then one of the optimists who thought she would become one of my constituents, wrote to me about a particular case. I will not read the whole letter, for that would be an abuse of the patience of the House. This lady said:
  "For a period of 22 years I have regularly subscribed to the National Health Insurance Scheme."
  She, like many other people, had not realised that when the Act about which we are now talking was introduced, the approved societies vanished; and she wrote to her approved society. That was the wrong source of information. It is my regret that I have to pay contributions under the Act. I do not claim any benefits, and if I did, quite frankly I do not know how to set about it. That is probably true of the majority of hon. Members in this House, many of whom are now compulsorily insured.
  Mr. Shurmer: Not on this side of the House. We know all about it.
  Sir H. Williams: If the hon. Gentleman thinks he represents the greater part of Birmingham, I should—in passing—be inclined to doubt his statement.
  Mr. Shurmer: Many of us have been insured all our lives.
  Sir H. Williams: The most up-to-date form of the scheme was only introduced in 1925, when I first became a Member of this House. The Lloyd George Scheme was introduced in 1912, but the hon. Member does not look much older than that, so I do not think he can have subscribed to it.
  This lady of whom I am speaking made an application to her approved society, which was the wrong course to adopt—she did not know. She had paid her contributions for 22 years. She did not know the procedure, and I cannot blame her. By the time her application reached the right Department it was out of date, and although she had been ill for a month she was denied her four weeks' sickness benefit. I think that that is quite monstrous. She had paid into the scheme, was entitled to the benefit, and ought to have

  1139
  had it. If she had been insured with any kind of private insurance company she would have got her benefit.
  By the time she wrote to me things had gone some distance. She went to the tribunal. I think that that is the right description of the people who say "No" after the official of the Ministry has said "No." She was turned down, and then I wrote a letter to the right hon. Lady's predecessor. Although I was not then in Parliament, he and I were, on personal grounds, good friends. He wrote back to me in due course, and said:
  "I am very sorry, but I have no power."
  The right hon. Lady can, no doubt, get a copy of the letter which her predecessor wrote to me. If she cannot find a copy in her records, I think I have it in my office.
  Her predecessor said to me that he had no power to pay this lady the pension, which on every kind of ground she was entitled to receive. This seems to me quite wrong. The State is always the worst landlord—it is in duty bound to extract the last penny. The State is the worst granter of pensions, because one cannot go outside the terms of the Act of Parliament, and it is the worst granter of health benefits, because the Act of Parliament restricts the Minister absolutely—there is not the slightest doubt about it. Therefore, when Regulations of this kind are produced, they ought to have a wide scope so that the Minister has a reasonable measure of discretion, so that people are not deprived of benefits in the way that this particular lady in my constituency has been deprived of benefit; and I am certain that that must be true of very large numbers of others.
  When her predecessor writes to me and says, "I am very sorry, but I have no power," I want the right hon. Lady so to frame her Regulations that when a case of this kind happens she will have discretionary power, so that when a perfectly honest person applies he or she may get the benefit. For that reason, I am moving the Prayer so that the matter may be debated and the House may realise the disabilities which now exist. I hope that as a result of the Debate the right hon. Lady will look into the problem, which is a grave problem and may affect tens of thousands
  1140
  of citizens whom we represent in this House. I hope that my hon. Friend will explain those parts of the Regulations which I do not understand.
  10.6 p.m.
  Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: I beg to second the Motion moved with such characteristic force by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon. East (Sir H. Williams).
  I think I should make clear at the start that, in spite of the burden of explanation which my hon. Friend seeks to lay upon me, I am very far from claiming any of that share of omniscience to which the hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Shurmer) laid claim in one of his characteristically sedentary contributions. I second the Motion in the same spirit as that in which my hon. Friend moved it, not at all in a spirit of hostility or controversy, but merely in a spirit of interrogation. What we seek, in fact, if not in form, is not the annulment of the Regulations, but merely a reassurance in regard to their working.
  I want to add to what fell from my hon. Friend in regard to procedure that it would be a very good thing—I hope I am in Order in saying this—if the procedure of this House allowed the House to take into consideration Regulations without necessarily having a Motion to annul them. As it is, one is obliged to put down the Motion for annulment in order to ventilate a subject at all. Therefore, on this occasion the right hon. Lady will, I hope, acquit us of any intention of trailing our coats and, if she be in a sufficiently historic and imaginative mood, she may visualise my hon. Friend and myself in the somewhat unlikely role of two Sir Walter Raleighs putting down our coats the better to facilitate her progress in explaining these regulations. I am glad that the imagination of the House did not find that too difficult.
  My hon. Friend has laid upon me a burden of explanation which, I think the House will agree, properly belongs to the Minister and not to me. The House will appreciate that this is an Amendment and a comparatively small Amendment of the principal Regulations referred to in these Regulations, that is to say, the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Regulations of 1948. They deal with provisions

  1141
  as to claims and payments in respect of sickness, unemployment and other matters. The House will be at one in considering that people in the unfortunate state of requiring sickness or unemployment benefit are fully entitled to all the reasonable consideration that this House is able to give them.
  Regulation 11, which is the Regulation dealt with by this amending Regulation, deals with the period within which benefits must be claimed if the applicants are not to be disqualified. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, these amending Regulations increase the period in certain limited cases. My hon. Friend read out the amendment by way of the addition of paragraph 8 and invited me to explain its effect to the House. With great respect to my hon. Friend, I do not think it is as difficult as perhaps he made it sound when he read it out to the House just now. All that sub-paragraph (a) means—I speak subject to correction by the right hon. Lady—is that in this special category of cases, where an increase is claimed in respect of a child or adult dependant for unemployment or sickness benefit, there shall be this period of one month. The second half of the sub-paragraph, which is perhaps the part which sounded a little difficult, simply means that the month shall be added to any extension of time given under the proviso referred to in Regulation 11. The right hon. Lady will no doubt say whether that is the correct interpretation of the Regulation.
  As my hon. Friend has said, that is a good amendment because it is an extension of time, albeit in a narrow class of case. But the question as to whether it is a good enough amendment depends on how far the general provisos in regard to the extension of time given in Regulation 11 works out in practice. It is right for me to say that those two provisos give the right in certain circumstances, to an extension of time. As my hon. Friend did not read them it would perhaps be convenient if I read them to the House. The first proviso under Regulation 11 (1) reads:
  "Provided that, subject to the condition contained in paragraph (3) of this regulation, if in any case the claimant proves—
  (i) that on a date earlier than the date on which the claim was made, apart from satisfying the condition of making a claim, he was entitled to the benefit;"—
  1142
  I think that is clear—
  "and
  (ii) that throughout the period between the earlier date and the date on which the claim was made there was good cause for delay in making such a claim; he shall not be disqualified under this paragraph for receiving any benefit to which he would have been entitled if the claim had been made on the said earlier date."
  Then in subsection (2) of that Regulation there is this further proviso:
  "Provided that, subject to the condition contained in the next succeeding paragraph, if the claimant proves that there was good cause for the failure to make the claim before the date on which it was made, the prescribed time shall be extended to the date on which the claim is made."
  The House will agree that the wording of these two provisos is not unreasonable, but the House will also be quick to see that the whole effect of them depends on the interpretation in practice of the phrase "good cause" as contained in the provisos, and of which, so far as I can see, there is no statutory definition contained in the regulations or elsewhere. As I understand the matter, the interpretation of "good cause" in any particular case presumably rests in the first instance with the insurance officer under Regulation 10 of the principal regulations, the National Insurance (Claims and Payments) Regulations. I take it also that Regulation 11 gives the right of appeal from the insurance officer to the local tribunal constituted for the hearing of appeals? That, I understand from my study of the regulations to be the practice in regard to the interpretation of what is "good cause" in any particular case.
  The right hon. Lady alone has the necessary knowledge and experience to inform the House how in practice the phrase "good cause" is and has been interpreted since these Regulations of 1948 came into effect. I should like to ask her, and I think hon. Members in all quarters of the House will be interested to know, how this phrase "good cause" is interpreted and whether it follows that broad path of humanity and good sense which my hon. Friend has indicated has been the practice of the best private insurance companies.
  Does this interpretation allow for human oversight and human ignorance; because after all we are concerned here with people who are in a state wherein

  1143
  they are qualified for sickness or unemployment benefit, and they are entitled to consideration in that regard. If they do not take account of these things I hope that the Minister will be able to say that they will be taken account of in future. I hope that the Minister, in her reply, will be able to reassure the House on this point I have raised. I do not apologise for seconding my hon. Friend in this matter, even if there is no intention of seeking an annulment of this Regulation, because of the importance of this subject to a large number of the community. It is in that spirit and for that reason that I have much pleasure in seconding this Motion.
  10.17 p.m.
  Mr. Daines: The hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), in moving this Prayer rightly called the attention of the House to the fact that the Regulations are an extension and therefore will not be opposed. In brief, they extend—and I think quite rightly—the time of notification for dependants if there has been a clerical oversight in the original claim. The hon. Member for Croydon, East, in presenting his Prayer, compared it with what he called the good practices of the past private insurance companies. He knows very well, as I know, that the operation of this type of sickness insurance is an entirely different thing from a policy with specified diseases which is renewable yearly at the option of the company. I have never yet heard of a policy which can be carried on indefinitely solely at the wish of the policy holder, and the hon. Member knows very well that that is no true basis of comparison.
  Sir H. Williams: I was thinking not in terms of sickness insurance, but of any kind of insurance whatsoever.
  Mr. Daines: It is quite obvious that we are dealing with sickness insurance or contingencies which arise there from. The true basis of comparison is not a yearly policy of the type I have outlined, and to which he called attention in rather a vague way, but the old National Health Insurance. I think the House should compare the conditions under which benefit is granted today with the old National Health Insurance with the approved societies. At least on this side of the
  1144
  House, we know that the Regulations governing the National Health Insurance in the old days were very rigid; and if notification of sickness was not given within three days benefit was only paid from the time the certificate was adopted.
  It is perfectly true, of course, that with the approved societies attached to the large insurance offices, the industrial insurance offices, many agents, for a variety of reasons, sometimes marked their certificate that they received it on a certain date if that would help their clients—particularly if the client had industrial insurance. But I can assure the House and the hon. Gentleman that the approved societies did rigidly stick to the notification and only paid benefit from the time when the certificate was received. I had a wide experience, with many of my hon. Friends, of what happened in the old days.
  What is the different position today? On the occasion of the first notification, in practice the local office accepts the certificate up to 10 days. That is nearly three times as long as it was under the old method. After that, on the occasion of the second certification a further period can be allowed if there is an appeal. If it occurs again, the matter can go to a committee established under the Act where a case may be stated. I have very little knowledge of any comparable procedure under the old system. I submit that not only the Regulations themselves but the humane, and I think overgenerous, way in which they are put into operation today show a different picture from that painted by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  I call attention to what would happen if the relaxation which they propose occurred. The argument is that a person can make a sick claim at any time. A person could have his month or two-month period of sickness and, if the wishes of hon. Gentlemen opposite were granted, he would be able to put in a claim when the sickness period was completed. I do not doubt that the Minister will tell us that there is always a high proportion of cases where, when the person is faced with a demand to go before the regional medical officer, he immediately backs out and goes to work. In practice the fact is that we would have no check at all upon this matter.

  1145
  I would say to the Minister that we want a speed-up in administration. We want sick visiting made as efficient as it was under the old approved society system. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear"] I do not see any reason for excitement. We want the system to run efficiently. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have asked for something which would mean the abolition of efficiency. I suggest that if the ideas of hon. Gentlemen opposite were put into operation either by regulation or administration, it would render the whole system completely inefficient. It would cause a complete breakdown in administration. What is needed is not the relaxation for which they have asked, but proper organisation to prevent malingering.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman wishes to be fair and that he will have appreciated from the speech I made that I did not suggest any amendment of the Regulations, at any rate at this stage. What I asked was that the Minister should give an account of how the phrase "good cause" in the proviso is interpreted.
  Mr. Daines: I agree. I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I thought that he was acting in the rôle of legal adviser to his hon. Friend and that he did not know much about National Insurance.
  10.25 p.m.
  The Minister of National Insurance (Dr. Edith Summerskill): I confess that I was surprised to learn that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), proposed to pray against a Regulation which I considered was of a highly beneficial character—
  Sir H. Williams: I said that.
  Dr. Summerskill: —and which would commend itself to both sides of the House. Now he honestly tells us that he has prayed against this Regulation to secure an opportunity to pursue an argument which he hoped would convince me that it was necessary for me to introduce another Regulation, or to amend this one, so that those who claim personal benefit would secure the advantage of the provisions included in this Regulation. I think that you and I, Mr. Speaker, have seen many Prayers in this House, and I have answered many Prayers in the last
  1146
  few years I thought by now that the House knows that a Debate on a Prayer is very limited, and I thought that the hon. Member for East Croydon, if he will forgive my saying so, tonight displayed his characteristic Parliamentary wiliness in managing to pursue his argument without interruption from you, Mr. Speaker—
  Sir H. Williams: Why should I have been interrupted?
  Dr. Summerskill: —and successfully end it and sit down without any interruption. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will not call me to order if I answer the hon. Gentleman, although I know that, in answering him, I shall have to go outside this Regulation, and, therefore, I believe that I shall be infringing the Rules of the House.
  The hon. Gentleman expressed the view that I was not responsible for the conception of this particular Regulation. I agree that I was not there when it was conceived, but I was there at the delivery, and I am proud of the child and hope that the whole House is. With all respect to the hon. Gentlemen who have moved and seconded this Prayer, their speeches were a little confusing both to hon. Gentlemen opposite and hon. Gentlemen behind me. May I say that I understood what they were asking for, but I think they are not perhaps quite clear in their own minds what the effect of this demand would be?
  The object of this Regulation is to extend the time limit during which claims for dependants of an applicant for sickness or unemployment benefit may be made, and the two hon. Gentlemen opposite have asked that this concession should be extended to the applicant applying for personal benefit. Hitherto, there has been no time limit prescribed for claiming for the dependants of the applicant, and it has been accepted that the application for benefit for the dependants should be subject to the time limit for personal benefit. Now we have extended that in order that the dependant's benefit may be claimed within a month of the claim for personal benefit. We have also made it quite clear that if good cause can be proved this period shall be further extended, and, in this connection, I have been asked to define "good cause." We believe that it was right and proper

  1147
  to allow the Statutory authorities to exercise their discretion in this matter.
  I am quite prepared to give the House two illustrations in order to prove that these Regulations are being administered in a humane manner and not in the harsh way which the hon. Member for Croydon, East, quite unfairly suggested.
  Sir H. Williams rose—
  Dr. Summerskill: I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman, and he himself must exercise patience.
  Mr. Daines: On a point of Order. The House must have heard the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) say that the Minister was "going to get it in the neck." Is that a Parliamentary expression?
  Mr. Speaker: I never heard it; it never reached me.
  Dr. Barnett Stross: I distinctly heard the hon. Gentleman say that you were going to get it in the neck, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: I do not know what hon. Gentlemen there heard, but I heard nothing here.
  Dr. Summerskill: I think you and I are quite capable of defending ourselves, Mr. Speaker. We must present a united front to the hon. Gentleman if he tries to "give it to us in the neck."
  The hon. Gentleman wanted me to define what "good cause" may mean. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill) present. Perhaps with his medical knowledge he would agree that what we consider a good cause would be considered a good cause from the medical point of view. If, for example, an applicant had an injury to the skull as a result of which he had developed some neurosis, we might consider he was not fit to make an application. I consider that would be fair and humane. Furthermore, if a husband who is suffering from some illness wishes to make an application for benefit and is unable to do so and asks his wife to fill up the form, she may not be able to understand forms and may not fill it up properly. Again the statutory authorities would exercise their discretion and might agree that because the husband was ill and unfit to
  1148
  make application, the claim should be allowed. The hon. Gentleman will agree that these two definitions should be regarded as fair and just.
  The hon. Member for Croydon, East, believes that he is raising a new point, but does he realise that the applicant for personal benefit can give notice during the first three days and can establish his claim during the ten days? "Notice" does not mean that he has to fill up a certificate. He can simply write on a piece of paper, "I am ill," sign it and see it is sent to the appropriate office. During the ten days he has an opportunity to establish his claim. I know the hon. Gentleman was in this House with me 10 or 12 years ago. Did he have any applications from people like Miss May, in his constituency, who felt aggrieved because their claims had not been recognised? Did he have any similar applications then?
  Sir H. Williams: No.
  Dr. Summerskill: That is exactly the answer I want. Does the hon. Gentleman know that similar time limits have been effective for the last 30 years? The hon. Gentleman gives me my case. We have, of course, adopted these time limits from the old National Health Insurance scheme which has operated for the last 30 years. The hon. Gentleman comes here tonight and quite fairly says this Miss May is aggrieved, but he has only had one Miss May in 30 years who has felt aggrieved, and he comes here and asks my Department to remedy what he believes is a universal grievance. That is not so.
  I am not advancing the argument that because these Regulations have been operating for a long period that is in itself an argument for not changing them. The hon. Gentleman may well say I have not served long enough in my Department to know whether there is a genuine grievance or not. Though I have been only two or three weeks in my present Department, I served for 20 years in a consulting room and sick room. The hon. Gentleman will agree with me that in this matter it is perhaps in the consulting room and in the sick room where one can judge the validity of the hon. Gentleman's claims.
  The House must recognise that my Department must exercise effective control in the administration of these great

  1149
  insurance schemes. They must realise there is no evidence so far as we know to support the hon. Gentleman's claim, and furthermore, my duty is to hold the balance between too lax an administration and too rigid an administration. How can we, after all, check up whether a patient is suffering from some genuine sickness or feels that he or she would like a little holiday over a period of two or three weeks? It can only be done by a personal scrutiny of the application, and, as one of my hon. Friends suggests, by asking for a second opinion from the regional officer and by certain routine checks to which my Department is accustomed.
  It would be quite impossible if we accepted the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Croydon, East, tonight that those who are claiming for personal benefits should be given a period of at least a month before making the claim. It would be impossible to check up on these people, who perhaps have abused the scheme so far as they have indulged in taking short periods off too frequently. It is clear that if a person is sick or falls ill tomorrow and does not make the claim within a month my Department is hamstrung so far as making any investigation is concerned.
  I think the hon. Member would be the first to say it would be quite wrong to ask us to introduce regulations which would prevent my Department from doing its duty. I want to assure the House that we are very much alive to the fact that these time limits should not be too rigid, and in order to prove we can take this matter seriously I want to remind the hon. Gentleman that recently we have extended the time limits for maternity benefits.
  Sir H. Williams: It does not affect me.
  Dr. Summerskill: The time has now been extended for nearly a year and—I think this will satisfy him—because we are now considering the case of people in hospital, where this general control which must be exercised is not necessary, I am prepared to consider extending the time during which they can claim for personal benefit. And, Miss May will be glad to hear of this. The hon. Gentleman said Miss May knew nothing about forms, knew nothing about our regulations. She was sick for the first time and
  1150
  was told she could not obtain the benefit because she had not made the claim in time. I am prepared to consider this.
  I think the hon. Gentleman should be pleased to know I am considering a concession, but I must confess it was before this Prayer that the matter was first considered. I will consider whether those people who claim for the first time should have the period extended during which they could claim. I think it is the fair and right approach. I do not want the House to ask me to commit myself to it tonight. I recognize that in the initial stages of a great scheme there are people who find forms a little confusing and I am prepared to consider this. Furthermore, I should like the House to know that full publicity will be given to the Order and to any changes we are prepared to make in the time limit. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to reconsider the whole matter and withdraw the Prayer.
  Sir H. Williams: In view of the concession made rather late and after a most ungracious speech by the right hon. Lady, I beg to ask leave to withdraw.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  VIET NAM (RECOGNITION)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Popplewell.]
  10.40 p.m.
  Mr. Driberg: There is, I gather, a prospect that we shall, shortly after the Easter Recess, have a further foreign affairs Debate devoted to the subject of Asia and the Far East, and South-East Asia in particular. I hope it is the case; certainly it ought to be, because it may well be argued that that part of the world at the present time is more important than Europe. Since that is probably to be so, I shall try during this brief period tonight to devote myself to what is in some ways the most tragic and is now potentially the most dangerous of the secondary conflicts that arose after the end of the war in the Far East in 1945, with particular reference to the recent recognition by His Majesty's Government of the régime of Bao Dai in Indo-China.

  1151
  We were involved in this, as in Indonesia and in some other parts of South-East Asia, partly because it was our troops who, under the direction of the Supreme Allied Commander, went in to liberate prisoners of war. From the moment of our arrival there this problem—a problem, as in Burma and Indonesia, of emergent nationalism—was handled, I am afraid, with less than wisdom by the French, especially by the French locally in Saigon. I regret to have to say this about our allies and neighbours, for whom we have so warm a regard, but it is none the less true that it was the French who, at a moment of great tension in Saigon, double-crossed the British Commander on the spot and started the shooting war.
  It is the French who have obstinately refused to realise that, of all the imperialist régimes in Asia, theirs in Indo-China is the most hated and the most deservedly hated—corrupt and backward as it was, and administered by men 90 per cent. of whom sided with Vichy during the war and the occupation. It is the French who not long ago restored the Emperor Bao Dai, apparently at the instigation of the Americans, a man of whom one may say, in pity rather than with opprobrium, that he is "a reed shaken by the wind," a man who as late as 7th March, 1945, was speaking in terms of moving affection of the French and saying of France that her destiny was "intimately tied to that of our country"; but who, just four days later, when the Japanese forces had brushed aside the Vichy administration, proclaimed that the Empire of Annam had denounced the Franco-Annamite protectorate and would" collaborate with all its strength with Japan."
  This is, then, the puppet Emperor whom we have just recognised. On 13th March my hon. Friend the Minister of State, said that the Foreign Secretary was
  "satisfied that the status of this régime justifies the action taken."—[OFFICLAL REPORT, 13th March, 1950; Vol. 472, c. 747]
  That is, of course, the main point at issue. If the Foreign Secretary is really so satisfied, he must be one of the very few people in this country or in Asia who are. I will just quote one opinion from among many that could be cited from responsible commentators, the editorial in the "Manchester Guardian" which said:
  1152
  "It can hardly be denied that Viet-Nam at least does not satisfy the legal conditions on the fulfilment of which the recognition of a new régime is normally made to rest."
  The "Manchester Guardian" further added that
  "the recognition of Bao Dai may have done lasting harm to East-West understanding."
  I believe and fear that that may be true, although I hope that it is not.
  No doubt this decision was regarded as a conventional move in the cold war against Communism. If so, it was a singularly inept move. It was obviously calculated, as we now see, first, to drive Ho Chi Minh, the Nationalist leader, more closely into alliance with the victorious Chinese Communists, whose help he would not have welcomed so eagerly if there had been a wise and progressive policy during the last five years. Secondly, it was calculated to strengthen still further Ho Chi Minh's influence with the mass of the Annamese people; for, let me emphasise, the overwhelming majority of the people, although they are not pro-Communist, are bitterly and intransigently anti-French.
  The testimony of every impartial observer on the spot—of Indian diplomatic representatives, of every responsible correspondent from the West, from "The Times" and the "Observer" and the "New York Herald-Tribune" and from French Conservative newspapers themselves—is that Bao Dai would not last for a single day if the French forces were withdrawn. It is the opinion of these people on the spot that we have recognised a Government which controls less than one-third of its nominal territory, and is supported by far fewer than one-third of the people who live there.
  In fact, Bao Dai can hardly get anyone to join his Government, or to stay in it. He cannot even persuade his prewar Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem to join it—Ngo Dinh Diem who is the outstanding leader of the two million Catholics in Viet Nam. That is an interesting point: hon. Members should not, if I may say so, run away with the idea that this is a simple conflict of the Communists versus the rest. The Viet Nam Catholics, too, like the rest of the people, are overwhelmingly in support of the movement and the administration

  1153
  led by Ho Chi Minh; or, at the very least—and this applies to the three bishops there, since the Vatican recognition—they are "neutral against" Bao Dai. As I have said, Ngo Dinh Diem, the former Prime Minister, refused a year ago to enter the Cabinet, and is still steadily refusing to do so. Less than two weeks ago three Ministers in Bao Dai's Government resigned, and as recently as 30th March—last Thursday—the Prime Minister, unable to fill these vacancies issued a most extraordinary decree, taking power to "requisition" potential Ministers or civil servants for the public service. So unpopular in the country and in Saigon itself is this régime, which can indeed be said to be regarded by the overwhelming majority of the people as a kind of quisling régime.
  I would like to refer my hon. Friend to an extremely interesting and, I think, fair and objective article last Saturday in the European edition of the "New York Herald-Tribune," which, I have no doubt, he studies as devoutly as the rest of us, by their Saigon correspondent. He says:
  "During the past month I have spent here I have often had occasion to compare this régime to the ill-fated Chiang Kai-shek Government in China. The conclusion is nearly inescapable that, in all but one respect, the Bao Dai Government is probably weaker than Chiang's was, say, at the close of 1947 when the latter had perhaps already lost the Chinese civil war. It has less popular support, less tradition of authority, a lower percentage of the nation's good men working for it, and less heart for the struggle. … The only respect in which Bao Dai's Government is clearly stronger is that it is protected by French troops and guided by French administrators. But this strength is probably also a fatal weakness—it seems most unlikely that Bao Dai can ever be popular while French troops are on Viet Namese soil."
  That is the situation and that, by all reputable and impartial testimony, is the régime which we have now recognised in a manner strangely incongruous with our very sensible recognition of the Chinese Communist régime. At least that was a recognition of an existing fact, which this is not.
  Meanwhile, the economic reconstruction and welfare of this unhappy country are neglected—except, indeed, in that very large section of it controlled by Ho Chi Minh, who has set up what appears to be quite an advanced and flourishing Socialist welfare state. The Emperor is tiger-hunting at his mountain reserve three
  1154
  hundred miles away from Saigon. The French demand more practical assistance from ourselves and the Americans, since it is estimated that it would take them half-a-million men and 165,000,000 dollars to secure victory, and the French have already, unfortunately, lost 30,000 men killed in this colonial war and are spending £150,000,000 a year upon it. The State Department wonders how many dollars it can send. Our friends in the Commonwealth in Asia are aghast and dismayed by our folly in recognising Bao Dai. Ho Chi Minh has arms factories on the outskirts of Saigon; he can shell American warships in Saigon harbour; and thousands of his supporters can demonstrate in the very streets of Saigon itself. Not that this is any token of freedom of speech, for they get shot down and killed when they do so; but it shows how far Bao Dai is from having any kind of popular support even in the cities, where his régime is said to be strongest.
  This, in fact, is the hottest sector of the cold war. This is not primarily a war between the French and the Nationalists or the Communists. It is a war between the Americans and the Russians, and we ought not to get drawn into it any further. I hope my hon. Friend can, at least, assure us that no British troops will in any circumstances be sent to Indo-China. I suppose I cannot ask him to unrecognise a régime that we have so recently recognised; but I hope, at least, that the Foreign Office may be beginning to learn from this perilous and bloody fiasco in Saigon that the whole of our policy in Asia needs re-thinking out integrally, anew, afresh, and that it was the most lamentable of errors to allow ourselves to be deceived by our just admiration and affection for our French allies into recognising this gimcrack, bogus, cellophane-wrapped gang of their financiers' feeblest stooges.
  10.54 p.m.
  Mr. Wyatt: I do not want to detain the House long because I know the Minister will want to make a full reply to the remarkable case unfolded by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), a case which was at any rate wholly convincing on the recognition of Bao Dai being a mistake as far as ordinary international practice is concerned. I think it was also a very bad mistake from our point of view,

  1155
  because our record in that part of the world has been so very excellent since the end of the war. It is because we have cleanly stood by nationalist movements in South-East Asia that Britain's prestige in South-East Asia today is higher than ever before, and it is because of that reason that we, more than any other Western Power, are able to exercise a democratic influence in South-East Asia.
  Everyone in South-East Asia knows that the Bao Dai régime is not a régime which has any sort of control over the country it purports to rule. Everybody knows that it is the tail-end of a very long, sordid French imperialist adventure which should never have been started but which has been running since the end of the war. It was a pity to endorse that kind of adventure in Indo-China when we did not endorse the Dutch adventure in Indonesia. In fact, our record in Indonesia was quite the opposite of this sort of thing and it makes many millions of people in South-East Asia wonder if we have really been sincere about our treatment of them since the end of the war.
  Nor is it the best way of stopping Communism. I do not share my hon. Friend's view that Ho Chi Minh may not be quite as bad as the French paint him. I believe he is a Communist and he is probably in close contact with the Chinese Communists. I think it is going to be extremely difficult from now on in Indo-China because of his connection with the Chinese Communists. But to set up a puppet régime in the country to oppose him is really to play the Russian game. This is the sort of thing the Russians have done behind what we call the Iron Curtain—the anti-democratic practice of setting up a régime against the will of the people there.
  Now that we have made this mistake, the only thing we can do is to make the best of a bad job. I think our best course now, having done this, would be to press the French to make it a genuine independence because we have undertaken the recognition of a country which is not independent. Of course, it is not independent; it does not even begin to be independent. It does not control either its Army or a great part of its own domestic legislation; nor does it control its foreign affairs. If we have been
  1156
  gulled by the French into recognising this country, we had better see that it becomes independent. I hope the Foreign Office will use our considerable influence in that part of the world to see that it really does become independent.
  They might begin by suggesting to the French that the head of the new State should be allowed to live in the Governor's House, at present occupied, I believe, by the French Governor. If, in this process of increasing independence, the Bao Dai Government were to fall, that would be just too bad. If the Bao Dai régime is so weak and so lacks popular support that it cannot stand up without French support, then some time it must fall, because the French cannot keep their troops there indefinitely: they cannot afford to. We will not stop Communism in that part of the world by propping up this backward-looking régime, when everyone else in that area is going in a different direction.
  This miserable story of French Indo-China is the great illustration of the correctness of our attitude towards Burma. These people who say that the situation in Burma is not satisfactory forget that if we had done the same as the French in Indo-China, the situation in Burma today would be one hundred times worse. We are now being called upon to endorse a French mistake in Indo-China. If we are to be pilloried for our decision in South-East Asia, we have the right to insist that the French conform to our sort of policy in South-East Asia.
  11.0 p.m.
  The Minister of State (Mr. Younger): My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) has indeed painted an exceedingly black picture of what is going on in Indo-China. I expected he would, and of course all of us are worried about the situation there. Indeed, we are worried about the situation not only there, but in many parts of South-East Asia. I would not dissent from my hon. Friend when he says—I cannot remember his exact words—that this is perhaps, of all the areas in South-East Asia, the most critical.
  Therefore, I make no complaint about his having shown what we all feel—a serious sense of anxiety about what is happening. Nevertheless, I think that, particularly at the end of his remarks he used rather intemperate language. He

  1157
  was only painting one side of the picture. After all, in any area where there are civil disorders involving violence, by picking out suitable examples, one can always make it appear that what is in fact going on only in limited areas and to a limited extent is quite general. My hon. Friend omitted the other side of the picture.
  As regards the future development, that is to say, the possibility of rapid establishment of the régime which is now in force there, and of which the head is the Emperor Bao Dai, there are, of course, varied opinions. Only one side of those opinions was referred to by my hon. Friend, but I can assure him that there have been many responsible and well-informed persons visiting Indo-China and inquiring into the situation there who do not by any means share the entirely uniformly gloomy point of view he takes. Representatives of ours, representatives of the United States and other persons with no other interest but that of discovering what is the truth, have come back painting, if not an optimistic picture, a very much less pessimistic picture than that painted by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Wyatt: Recently?
  Mr. Younger: Yes, very recently indeed.
  Mr. Driberg: If my hon. Friend is referring to Dr. Jessup, does he recall that when Dr. Jessup talked the Siamese into recognition, the Siamese Foreign Minister resigned?
  Mr. Younger: I am not going to speak of Dr. Jessup's relations with Siam. He is only one of the persons who took a very much more balanced view of the situation than is apparently taken by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend said in one part of his speech that we appeared to have recognised this régime—again, I am not quoting his exact words—on grounds quite contrary to normal international practice. I maintain exactly the reverse, and the first point I want to make is that on the grounds of the status which we are satisfied that this régime does in fact enjoy and of the extent of the control which it in fact exercises, it was normal international practice—I put it no higher than that—to grant recognition.
  1158
  The fact is that Viet Nam was recognised as an associate State of the French: Union by us early this year. That was as a result primarily of an agreement between President Auriol and Bao Dai in March, 1949, and of subsequent agreements in December, 1949. I would point out that similar agreements granting similar status were entered into in respect not only of Viet Nam but of the other States, Laos and Cambodia. In neither of those cases, so far as I am aware, has there been any criticism. Of course, one can distinguish between those States and the State of Viet Nam on the ground that there is civil trouble going on in Viet Nam; but from the point of view of their status and of the degree of independence which they enjoy, there can, I think, be no substantial distinction made. Therefore, so far as their status is concerned, I think we are quite justified in having accorded recognition.
  There were very long negotiations preceding the grant of recognition, and the States are now independent members of the French Union. If I have time, I will say a word on what that implies. It does not imply Dominion status in our sense of the word, but it implies a very great advance upon their previous position as French Protectorates which were internationally recognised as such. We have recognised their new status, and I think that we are doing no more than is implied by the term. We are not by any means alone in this. I think that there are now 19 States, including ourselves, who have granted recognition and among them are many members of the British Commonwealth.
  Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: What about India?
  Mr. Younger: It was said that our Asian friends were aghast. That is intemperate language. They have not themselves recognised the State, but is the hon. Gentleman aware that when the admission of the Indo-Chinese régime to the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East came up at Singapore the line taken by our Indian friends was extremely moderate? It is true that they wished to have both parties—the Viet Minh and the Bao Dai régimes—accepted, but they did not suggest on that occasion that the régime of Viet Nam was not worthy of being admitted to the Economic Commission. That hardly suggests the extreme

  1159
  view attributed to them in that Matter by my hon. Friend.
  As regards the factual position, I do not know where my hon. Friend gets the figure that only one-third of the country is under the Bao Dai régime. My information is that it controls a great deal more than that. It is quite clear that this is the only settled form of régime at all. Although there may be considerable areas, largely in the less inhabited parts of the country, which are within the control of Viet Minh, we are quite unable to say it is a largely developed welfare state. We do not know of any State in existence. We know that there are areas where a guerilla organisation exists with presumably some kind of civil organisation which enables life to go on.
  But supposing we wished to consider the recognition of Viet Minh, we have no knowledge of where we should find it, of what sort of administration it possesses, And it has, as far as we know, no capital city. For that reason, if for no other, I am on safe ground in saying that although there may be an area not controlled by Bao Dai, he has no other rival
  1160
  who has any claim whatever to recognition.
  Mr. Wyatt: Would the régime stand up if the French withdrew?
  Mr. Younger: I do not quarrel with the remark of my hon. Friend the Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt) that we should press the French to develop the present state of considerable independence into a state of full independence. We believe that the French fully recognise this, and as far as our recognition can be taken to endorse one form of policy against another—and I am not suggesting that it should, since it is a question of recognition of fact—it is an endorsement of recent French action in granting this very great advance in constitutional independence. We should like to see that process developed as rapidly as possible.
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Ten Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.