HC Deb 26 November 1951 vol 494 cc852-3
11. Lieut.-Colonel H. M. Hyde

asked the Minister of Supply why £240,000 worth of Royal Air Force shirts have recently been ordered from Italy; and why this order was not placed in Northern Ireland where there is unemployment at present in the shirt manufacturing industry.

Mr. Sandys

I am told that last June, wben these orders were placed, the material position was such that the order could not have been fulfilled in Northern Ireland in the time stipulated.

Lieut.-Colonel Hyde

Can my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that so long as there is unemployment in this industry in any part of the United Kingdom he will see that orders of this kind are placed here at home where work is wanted?

Mr. Sandys

I can tell my hon. and gallant Friend that last week I had a talk with Mr. McCleery, the Minister of Commerce for Northern Ireland, and gave him precisely that assurance, that we should do everything we could to place orders which were suitable in Northern Ireland to take up the unemployment which existed in that part of the country.

Mr. G. R. Strauss

While endorsing what the right hon. Gentleman has said, may I ask him if that has not in fact always been the case, that where orders have been able to be executed in Great Britain and Northern Ireland we have placed them there and nowhere else?

Mr. Sandys

The right hon. Gentleman is quite correct. The difficult unemployment situation did not exist to the same extent at the time when these orders were placed.

Mr. Walter Fletcher

Will my right hon. Friend make certain that these are not "black shirts" washed or dyed?