HC Deb 05 February 1953 vol 510 cc2009-10
26. Mr. Anthony Greenwood

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any statement to make on the report on the British cotton industry by a productivity team from the United States of America, a copy of which has been sent to him.

Mr. P. Thorneycroft

I am consulting the Cotton Board and other organisations in the cotton industry about this report. It raises a number of questions relating to the British cotton industry on which I have been in close touch with the Cotton Board throughout the past year.

Mr. Greenwood

We are proud of the progress made by the cotton industry, or by the best firms in it, since the war, but is the President aware that this report does show that there is, as many hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, a great deal of leeway to be made up? Is he also aware that the Government's inadequate capital investment programme is seriously handicapping the industry, and could he say what action he is taking to encourage the re-equipment of industries like the cotton industry?

Mr. Thorneycroft

I am well aware that in the cotton industry, as in any other industry, there are firms who could make more progress towards the best in their particular industry. The particular problems dealt with in this report are well known both to me and to the industrialists, and, indeed, I referred to some of them in the speech which I made at Harrogate in October last year.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke

Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the leeway which undoubtedly exists in the case of some of these firms is due to the fact that, owing to the load of taxation which they have to bear, they have not the finance which is necessary for the capital investment required?

Mr. Thorneycroft

No doubt my hon. Friend will address that question to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. S. Silverman

Can the President say, whatever may have been the neglect to re-equip the industry during the last half century, whether the main and immediate difficulty of the cotton industry is not to sell the cotton and textiles which it produces now?

Mr. Thorneycroft

I would agree that considerable difficulty has occurred in the markets throughout the world, but it is also true to say that, if we are to hold these markets or expand them, everything possible must be done to increase the competitiveness of the cotton industry.