HC Deb 01 February 1951 vol 483 c1061
38. Mr. G. Williams

asked the Minister of Labour what steps he is taking to find jobs for the many men and women unemployed in areas of Kent owing to the shortage of tinplate in canning factories.

Mr. Bevan

The normal machinery of the employment exchange service is available to any workers becoming redundant in the Kent canning factories if they register for employment, and the exchanges will give all possible help to them.

Mr. Williams

Does not the Minister consider that it would be far better to stop exporting tinplate so that he would not have to take action? We have had a coal crisis through exporting coal; now we are having a tin crisis.

Mr. Bevan

There would have been a very much smaller tin crisis in Great Britain if tin making plants had been built before the war.