INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT, SEAHAM HARBOUR (Hansard, 28 January 1955)

§ Mr. William Blyton (Houghton-le-Spring)
I raise this subject now because of its great importance to my constituents in Seaham Harbour and because of the strong sense of dissatisfaction and injustice which is felt by all in that area. Seaham Harbour is a large mining area. To all intents and purposes it is a one-industry town. It is this fact which has militated against industrialists being attracted to the area, as has been found time and time again by the local council in its efforts to persuade other industries to come into it. The only work which is really available for boys is mining, and nothing is available for females.
The strong sense of grievance which is felt at this state of affairs is further aggravated by the knowledge that in other parts of the country new Government factories are being built. It is felt that Seaham is being left out in the cold. Because of the attitude of the Board of Trade to the firm of Messrs. Barron Ltd., which is prepared to go to Seaham, the conviction is growing among my constituents that, despite all the sympathy which has been expressed in the matter, the Board of Trade wants to dissuade industry from entering the Seaham area. Whether or not that is correct, it is true that beyond the clearance of a derelict industrial site nothing whatever has been achieved by the Board of Trade in the bringing of new industries to Seaham.
656 Now, at last, when a very reputable firm is keen and anxious to come to Seaham, it is told that because it has proved to be a highly satisfactory tenant of a Government-financed factory at Team Valley, it cannot have a Government-financed factory at Seaham. At the same time, this firm has been offered a factory at Jarrow or Sunderland, to neither of which places it desires to go, for reasons that I shall give. I had always been under the impression that the existence of the Distribution of Industry Act was to encourage industrial developments in areas scheduled as Development Areas, but it seems that I have been wrong in this belief.
The history of this matter briefly is that this firm cannot get labour in Gateshead or Leeds. It contacted the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Supply in their North Regional Offices on 29th January, 1954. It stated that it could obtain all the labour it needed at Seaham. At the same time, the firm was asked to consider occupying a Government-financed factory on the Jarrow Bede Estate. The firm received confirmation about the labour situation in a letter dated 27th February, 1954, from the Ministry of Labour.
I do not think that there will be any dispute that over 300 women are unemployed in the area, and that the influx of school-leavers each year is sufficient to maintain the required labour force. On 24th February of last year this firm wrote to the North-East Trading Association, asking for a factory in order to expand its productive capacity, due to the decline in its labour force which had taken place in Leeds and Gateshead. The association supported the firm's application, in a letter dated 26th February, 1954.
The Board of Trade, in a letter dated 26th April, 1954, asked a number of questions, of which the two important ones were these. Why was the firm unable to build at Seaham? Second, why did it feel that the existing Government factory in Sunderland should not be considered? I should like the Minister to note that Government factories were being offered at Sunderland or Jarrow, but the Department told the firm that if it wanted to go to Seaham it must build itself. Why this discrimination against Seaham has taken place is what my constituents want to know.
657 This firm has an output of over £2 million per annum in value, and the capacity to which its factories are working is 70 per cent. in the case of Leeds and 80 per cent. in the Team Valley, which is due entirely to the inadequacy of labour in those two areas. During the recession of 1951–52, the firm maintained its personnel, in spite of the falling off in demand at that time. Had it not done that, the personnel position would have been much worse.
The next question asked by the Department was why the firm could not build. As the Minister knows, the firm has its own buildings in Leeds, and could employ between 200 and 300 more people if it could get the labour. Sufficient of its capital consistent with the size of the business is tied up in new buildings. It was also pointed out that any further capital outlay by the firm on the provision of buildings would prejudice its efficiency and profit-earning capacity.
I am given to understand that the factories offered to this firm have now been taken over by other firms in Sunderland. The reason this firm did not want to go to Sunderland is that there was no confidence in the availability of labour over a long-term period; and, second, it was felt that the Sunderland factory which was offered was more suitable to a firm with greater requirements for factory space and labour.
Why did the firm desire to go to Seaham? One reason was that there is no factory at all in that area which employs female labour. Further, there is sufficient labour there to meet its requirements, and there is available a good annual intake of children leaving school, which is an important factor in an industry like this. Also, Seaham is a Development Area, and the project would have been of great value to Seaham as well as the company, because it has given an undertaking that it can maintain a medium-sized unit for many years to come.
The first has now a hall in Seaham in which it is training young people as key workers, and I have great admiration for it, because, in spite of the heartbreaking difficulties which the Board of Trade created by the refusal of this factory, this firm is still continuing with this venture.
658 The decision was taken by the Department in May, 1954, that the Board of Trade would not build a factory at Seaham. What was the reason for this refusal? The main reason was that the firm was a tenant of the North-East Trading Association, and that in the opinion of the Board of Trade sufficient capital had been invested on its behalf. It seems to me that had this firm not been on the trading estate at Gateshead the Seaham Harbour project would have been considered. The firm was told that it should build its own factory, the Board of Trade completely ignoring how strained were the liquid resources of the company, a fact of which it was fully aware.
To my mind, these arguments are unrealistic. If the Board of Trade believed that, then why did it offer the company a Government factory at Sunderland and one at Jarrow, the one at Sunderland being much larger than it required? It is this history which has disgusted everyone in my area. This firm has been prejudiced, and no satisfaction has arisen from the fact that it has been a tenant on the Team Valley Estate since it first started in the late twenties. The fact that the firm has been a good tenant has prejudiced the Seaham Harbour project.
On 16th September last, I, together with others, met the Minister, and I thank him for meeting us in a most courteous way. But the Board of Trade did not alter its decision as a result of that meeting.
Mr. Sadler Forster recently stated that £2 million will be spent on development in the North-East, and he expressed great hopes about the future of the North-East. Is future capital outlay to be spent on speculative industry rather than on an essential one like that designed to come to Seaham? I have a very high regard for Mr. Sadler Forster. He has done great work for the North-East, for which we are all very grateful.
The North-East Trading Association is in favour of this project, and the only opposition to it comes from the Minister's Department. There is no opposition to it from the North. The idea seems to prevail in the Board of Trade that women and girls in mining villages around Sunderland ought to work in Sunderland, which is five mites away. It is wrong, in a large area like Seaham, Ryhope, 659 Dawdon, and Murton, that when a firm is willing to come there, miners' wives and daughters should have to go all the way to Sunderland when work can be provided for them in their own area.
I know that the Minister will say that the Board of Trade is not dissuading the firm from going to Seaham, but, in my opinion, it is. It has refused to build a factory with Government finance at Seaham, but has offered a Government-financed factory in Sunderland and Jarrow. In my opinion, that is tantamount to persuading the firm to leave Seaham alone and to go elsewhere.
As I have said, there is no Government factory in this area. The factory which we seek would give employment to 300 women in this large mining area. Surely, large mining townships are not to be ignored in the interest of towns like Sunderland. Here is a firm of high repute which is keen to come to us, but which cannot build a factory for itself for the reasons I have given. The factory would be a boon to the wives and daughters of miners in this mining district.
The council has come to regard Seaham as a forgotten town. It has heard nothing from the Board of Trade, and the Board of Trade has said "No" to this reputable firm as far as the factory is concerned. Seaham thinks that it has had a raw deal, and, on the facts, I am inclined to agree with it.
I trust that the Minister will give Seaham real hope. The Board's attitude seems to be, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter Seaham, of getting any help from the Board of Trade." I ask that the capital expenditure programme for the North-East should at least give Seaham a break. If not, we can come to no other conclusion than that Seaham is to be condemned to be a Development Area, just a mining area, to which no one is to be encouraged to come, and that women are to be forced to travel outside the area to work. I ask the Minister to reconsider the matter and give Seaham a ray of hope.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton (Brixton)
We are anxious to hear what the Minister has to say. I intervene because I happen to know this part of the County of Durham very well indeed. I spent most of my early life in Sunder- 660 land. In Seaham and Seaham Harbour there is absolutely no industry in which the women can engage. If they want to work they have to travel to Sunderland or to make a more awkward journey to the Team Valley Estate or to Jarrow. It seems unnecessary that young women and girls leaving school should be compelled to travel these long and inconvenient distances, sometimes at a period of the year when communication is difficult, when firms are willing to provide useful and productive occupation in the place where they reside.
It is most important that there should be something other than mining in the mining areas, to provide, particularly for the womenfolk, an opportunity of earning a livelihood. It is undesirable that they should be compelled to travel long distances, putting an extra burden on transport and getting in the way of people who, for other reasons, have to go to Sunderland, the Team Valley, Jarrow and elsewhere. I hope that the Board of Trade will give sympathetic consideration to the plea put forward by my hon. Friend for the provision of employment facilities in the Seaham district.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Henry Strauss)
The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) referred in his speech to a deputation from the local authority which he brought to see me in September, 1954. I then tried to explain to him some of the matters which puzzled him and the deputation.
My difficulty in answering him further today will be appreciated by him and by the House. The dealings between the Board of Trade and an individual applicant are confidential. It has therefore been the practice of previous Governments and of ourselves not to discuss or disclose the particulars of an individual application. I am sure the House will realise why, in the interests of the Development Areas themselves, we must strictly observe that policy.
I can, however, remove some of the misunderstandings which still persist. Let me deal at once with the suggestion that we are dissuading anybody from going to Seaham. The Board of Trade have statutory powers to dissuade, should they wish to do so, by the refusal of an industrial development certificate under the 661 Town and Country Planning Act, 1947. There has been no suggestion of doing anything of this kind in the case of Seaham. No application for an industrial development certificate has been refused. The only question that has arisen is whether a particular request for a new Government financed factory is one which should have been granted. That is a quite different question.
Perhaps I can also dispose of two matters mentioned by the hon. Member, who put the case of his constituency with characteristic ability and force. He said that there might be a question of a company not having sufficient funds available to build its own factory. That would not necessarily be a reason for the Government erecting a factory. He will find that the 1945 Distribution of Industry Act contains a provision by which an applicant in such a position can apply to the Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee for a loan. Factory building by the Government is not therefore the sole solution.
Then the hon. Member said, "But the attention of the applicants was called to some empty factories in Sunderland." That was because those factories were then empty. I am glad to say that they have since been disposed of, as the House knows from a previous debate which was initiated not long ago by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey).
Having said that, let me come to the point on which I am in complete agreement with the hon. Member. The Board of Trade share his desire for an industry in Seaham that would give more employment to women and girls. There is no difference between us on that point. We shall certainly not discourage it. It must not be assumed from the fact that a request for a Government-financed factory was not granted that we are unsympathetic to the desire that there should be more industry to give employment to women in Seaham. We agree with the hon. Member about that need. The total quantity of the unemployed may not be very high, but the proportion of women who desire employment compared to those employed is high in comparison with the figures for many areas.
Our funds for providing Government-financed factories are inevitably limited. It must be the Board of Trade policy 662 under any Government to make the best possible use of the funds available for new factories in the interests of the Development Area as a whole.
We cannot possibly guarantee to build a factory in every part. In this case, while we would welcome a factory such as I have described, it would be quite wrong to treat Seaham completely in isolation. It must be considered as part of Wearside. I realise to the full that we all prefer to work, where possible, near our homes, but Seaham is not the only place in the country where men and women have to travel some distance to their work. As long as there is a pressing need for more jobs for Seaham's women and girls, we shall certainly be prepared to consider on its merits any application that may be made to us for help under the Distribution of Industry Acts. We shall, of course, have regard to the figures at the time of the application, and the figures may be improved as a result of further employment for women and girls apart altogether from a new Government-financed factory.
We have, of course, no power to direct any industry to go anywhere, but we are conscious of the needs of this Development Area as a whole and not least of Seaham. It is not true that, because we pointed out that there were at the time of a particular application some vacant factories in Sunderland, out decision not to build a new factory in Seaham was wrong. Nor, as I explained earlier, if the difficulty is the difficulty of finance, does it necessarily follow that the building of a factory is the right remedy under the statutes. However, I prefer to conclude with the main point which I made—my point of agreement with the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring rather than with the points of difference.
My point of agreement with him is the need, which the Board of Trade recognise as much as he does, for further employment if possible for women and girls at Seaham. For the reasons which I have stated, I cannot discuss in greater detail the fate of a particular application. I know that the last thing the hon. Member would want me to do would be to disclose anything which by custom the Board of Trade, under all Governments, treats as confidential as between the Board and applicants. I am not, of course, saying anything whatsoever 663 against the company whose name the hon. Member mentioned. Nothing against the company is to be deduced from the fact that its application for help under the Acts was not granted.
I share the hon. Member's hope for some project which will diminish the unemployment among women and girls in the area. He is quite right in saying that the men are almost entirely provided for by a single industry. He is also quite right in saying, as did the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), that there is a lack in 664 Seaham itself of work for women and girls, but I assure the hon. Member that the fact that the Board of Trade acted, as I think quite rightly, in regard to this application does not mean any lack of sympathy on the question of the general need for new industry in his constituency giving employment to women and girls.