HC Deb 12 June 1958 vol 589 cc538-46

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Colonel J. H. Harrison.]

9.49 p.m.

Mr. Brian Harrison (Maldon)

I want to draw the attention of the House to the Customs facilities in some of our small ports on the East Coast and, in particular, to refer to two small ports in my constituency, one in the Borough of Maldon and that at Heybridge Basin. For a very long time those have been ports where cargoes have been imported from and exported to the Continent of Europe bust at present, owing to the inadequacy of the Customs facilities and the arrangements whereby the cargoes can be inspected, trade is almost at a standstill.

One or two things are, however, permitted to be brought into these ports. For instance, at Heybridge, most of the eels which eventually come as jellied eels into the shops still come in owing to a special arrangement that has been made, and in Maldon itself a certain amount of timber is cleared, again by special arrangement, and brought in to some of the big firms which operate in Maldon.

It is the desire of the Maldon Borough Council and also of Chelmer and Black-water Navigation, Ltd., which controls the Port of Heybridge, that the company should be able to use these ports to bring in more goods from Europe and also for exports. I think that it will be increasingly important, if, as most of us hope, the Free Trade Area negotiations go forward, that these small ports should be available and capable of being used for this kind of operation.

I have said that these ports have been used for this sort of thing for many years. In fact, Maldon, as far back as 1540, had its own Board of Admiralty and received certain concessions, largely because it had helped London when London was short of food and, at one time later, during the Black Death. There are still two bonded wharves and one free wharf, but these are difficult to use, as my hon. and learned Friend's Department does not make available sufficient personnel or adequate arrangements for cargoes to be inspected and cleared.

The chief goods which it is wished to import and export from these ports are some horticultural products and same food from the Continent of Europe. During the period of a shortage of potatoes in this country, which we are just getting over, there was a chance of bringing in small boats of up to 250 tons from the Continent with cargoes of potatoes, but they had to be diverted to other ports, so the small ports like Maldon and Heybridge missed the opportunity of keeping themselves alive and their facilities operating, as well as getting the benefit of that trade.

It is extremely important that these ports should be allowed to keep going and not fall into disuse and disrepair. It is important because these small towns are finding it difficult to induce industry and commerce to go there, which would help to keep the life of a small area like that from dying.

At the same time, there is a very strong reason, from the defence point of view, why these ports should be kept operating. If, and heaven forbid that it should happen, there is a nuclear war, there will be pockets of survival which it will be increasingly difficult to reach and to bring succour to those surviving if the present facilities, limited as they are now, are no longer in existence because of the policy of cutting down the number of Customs officers or the availability of such officers has led to the decay of these small ports. That is one of the things which this method of refusing Customs facilities has tended to create.

It has not been announced that it is the policy of the Government to close these small ports or to change the facilities for international trade. This has been a policy of refusing facilities to enable people to bring in goods to these areas.

There is another very important point. It is possible to bring certain types of goods to ports like Maldon much more economically than if they were landed in the Port of London. I have recently been given by a local firm some estimates of the comparative rates of delivering goods to London after having been cleared through the ports. Whereas a type of commodity such as potatoes, to which the firm was referring, could have been handled and delivered to the London markets for about 28s. 6d. a ton if they were landed at Maldon, had they come through the Port of London the cost would have been 51s. 1d. The possibility of enabling certain types of goods to arrive in this country more cheaply, or conversely to be exported more economically, should weigh very heavily with my hon. and learned Friend's Department when dealing with my plea for better Customs facilities in the area.

There is already a Customs officer in Maldon. I am at a loss to ascertain exactly what are the full duties of this officer and of the other representatives of the Treasury who look after these matters. As far as I can see, their job is primarily to prevent people from exporting and importing goods through these ports, whereas I should have thought it would be possible for them to use their time just as efficiently and much more productively by assisting people either to import or export.

At present the facilities at Maldon are not good. There are certain very definite objections to them, and I can understand the reluctance of the Department to grant increased facilities. But if the Department is prepared to put forward suggestions for the improvement of these facilities, whether by arranging for landings to be made at the Town Quay rather than at the present site, or by other means, the Maldon Borough Council will do everything in its power to meet the requirements of the Customs and Excise. Already, Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation Ltd. has provided weighing facilities and an office at Heybridge basin to facilitate the work that is being done there in connection with eels and one or two other things which occasionally are allowed in.

We feel that a valuable trade could be built up in this area with the Continent of Europe. We feel that such items as horticultural produce when there is a shortage in this country, timber on a larger scale, and possibly ballast, could be brought into Maldon and Heybridge with advantage. The export business which could be developed through these ports is of particular importance.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]

Mr. Harrison

Exports from the area are of particular importance to the agricultural community. For instance, there is a growing export trade in seed corn from Essex to the Continent, Essex, of course, being the leading agricultural seed growing area in the United Kingdom. This trade can be further developed.

There is, however, another rather interesting development. Some countries have been learning a little more about farm mechanisation. In East Anglia, farmers try to keep their plant up to date so that their farm production can be as economic as possible. Their turnover of machinery is largely dependent on their obtaining a good price for second-hand machinery, and a market has been developed on the Continent of Europe for second-hand agricultural machines. This has helped to sustain the price which farmers in Essex have been receiving for their second-hand machinery, which, in turn, has enabled them to buy the most modern plant necessary for farming their own acres.

My hon. and learned Friend may feel that the granting of increased facilities to some of the minor ports would lead to greatly increased costs. I doubt very much whether this need be so, particularly as there are fairly large Customs establishments in some of the other ports which cannot satisfactorily handle the cargo. With the use of motor-cycles for transport, it ought not to be difficult to have the necessary officers down to inspect and check the cargoes which it is desired to import or export.

I should be most grateful if my hon. and learned Friend would consider the points sympathetically. It would be a tragedy if some of these attractive minor ports on the East Coast became no more than tourist resorts or places that people just went to look at. They would slowly decay. At present, with their facilities, they are, or could be, an asset to the area, and I feel that it would be a great tragedy were we to allow this asset to deteriorate so that we were not able to take the advantages they offer in the importing and exporting of many locally valuable products.

10.4 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. E. S. Simon)

The last time I spoke in juxtaposition to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) was at the very beginning of this Parliament, during the debate on the Address, when he, a new Member of Parliament, was chosen to second the Address. All hon. Members will remember the very felicitous way in which he did it, and, in particular, will remember how his speech was obviously animated by pride for the ancient town which he had been chosen to represent. His speech today showed, if I may say so with respect, not only the same distinction but also the same zeal for the interests of his area and pride in the tradition of the town which is the centre of his constituency.

My hon. Friend asked me to look at this question sympathetically, and I think it would be difficult to do otherwise after the speech we have heard. However, there are conflicting interests here. On the one side my hon. Friend has put certain of the interests as well as they could be put. There is the interest of the local trader. His interest is obviously to have Customs facilities on his doorstep in so far as he is an individual trader. He wants to be able to move his goods to the nearest port, the nearest wharf, the nearest jetty, or to move his goods from those places into his own workshop. Equally, the individual consumer has the same interest. He wants the goods from abroad to be moved to the jetty and the wharf which is on his doorstep and, as I think my hon. Friend correctly said, the casts will then he lower, the transport costs will be less, and the goods will be cheaper.

Another matter which my hon. Friend mentioned also appealed to me very much. He said that it is important that small ports should not be allowed to fall into disuse and disrepair. That certainly appealed to everything that I hold at the centre of my political philosophy, namely, the preservation of a proper balance between town and country, between metropolis and provinces, and particularly the preservation of the ancient traditional life of the countryside. That side of the argument could not have been put better than it was put by my hon. Friend.

There is another side, however. I dealt with the interests of the individual trader, but he is, in fact, a member of the trading community. There his interests lie in the apposite direction. In so far as he is a member of the trading community, he is interested in the efficiency and economy of the Customs administration. He may be one of those traders whose trade is protected my import duties. It is to his interest that the dutiable goods which come into this country are properly examined and that there is no leakage so that the protective duty fails to perform its purpose. In particular, it is in his interest that there should be no leakage, no smuggling, so that the tax or revenue which the Customs duty is supposed to bring in is the less, because in so far as it is the less he as a trader and taxpayer has to pay more.

Finally, in so far as the trader is a citizen there is the disastrous moral effect, which I know my hon. Friend recognises, when the revenue system of a country is flouted. Therefore, as a member of the trading community and as a citizen he has an interest in the efficiency of the Customs system. Secondly, as a taxpayer he has an interest in its economy. Although it may be to his interest as an individual at Maldon to be able to move his goods to the nearest jetty or get his goods from the nearest jetty with a Customs officer specially for him sitting on the end of the jetty whose services are at his command, that is not in his interest as a taxpayer. As a taxpayer his interest is that the Customs administration should be properly deployed.

As is very common, I thought that my hon. Friend was showing a passion for economy in general, but when it came to a particular austerity that passion became very lukewarm and, indeed, a slight and platonic affection, if not, as I think it was in his case, a positive distaste for the economy that it demands. When one relates the interests of the individual traders in Maldon and Heybridge to the fact that they are all part of a vast trading community, one must remember that they, too, are genuinely interested in the efficiency, economy and proper deployment of the Customs' services.

It is for those reasons, against that background, that for many years the Customs have adopted a system of canalisation of trade. That goes back, certainly so far as Statute is concerned, to an Act of Queen Elizabeth I, and it has been adopted ever since. A system which has been tried and found satisfactory and preserved over so many years is likely to be one which has been proved by time. It was recently examined by the Select Committee on Estimates in 1956 as well as by a Government examination a few years earlier, and it was approved.

What that system of canalisation demands is that Customs facilities should be granted for the importation of goods—this applies to sea, air or land transport—only to sufficient ports to meet the genuine needs of the foreign trade of the locality without the extravagant use of official staff, and to those adequately equipped for dealing with the goods imported.

At the moment the total number of Customs staff dealing with the importation and exportation of goods at those ports is of the order of 4,000. That is a formidable number. Are we really prepared, at a moment when we are looking for Government economy, for purely local interests to contemplate an enormous increase in that branch of the Civil Service which is concerned with the Customs administration?

I have said that the matter was examined quite recently by a Government Committee. The Select Committee on Estimates of this House re-examined it in December, 1956, and found no evidence to suggest that an inadequate service was being provided in consequence of the system of canalisation. However, that system is by no means rigid. The Customs authorities are always prepared, within the general principles which I have tried to indicate, to look at new applications. In fact, although in the last two years they have rejected 16 applications for the approval of regular landing and shipping facilities on the ground that the cargoes contemplated could be conveniently handled at another place already approved and with staff available, they have during that time approved 35 seaports as well as some airports. I hope that this will satisfy my hon. Friend that the system is by no means rigid.

I turn now to the particular case mentioned by my hon. Friend, the port of Maldon and Heybridge Basin. My hon. Friend was prepared to agree that those places do not have good facilities. He put it mildly. In fact, neither Maldon nor Heybridge Basin possesses adequate facilities for the Customs control and check of dutiable fruit and vegetables. At Maldon, the wharf proposed for use was not enclosed in any way and was open to the public. At Heybridge, there are no sheds and no rail and very poor road communications.

Neither of those places, therefore, would have fulfilled the requirement of the security of the revenue. In so far as there was a leak of revenue, it would mean that the citizens of Maldon and Heybridge, equally with their fellow citizens throughout the country at large, would have to pay additional taxation to make up for the loss, quite apart from the damage that arises morally and socially where there is serious smuggling and pilfering in defiance of the Customs administration.

Secondly, the proposed importation would have involved a very wasteful use of the Customs' limited manpower. My hon. Friend said that there is a Customs officer at Maldon, and he asked what he does and whether he would not be better employed seeing that goods come in rather than preventing them. In point of fact he is a general station officer. He has very many Customs and Excise duties. He is primarily an Excise officer. The Customs and Excise are responsible for the administration of Purchase Tax as well as all the Excise and Customs duties. He could certainly not perform the tasks that my hon. Friend suggested without substantial reinforcement.

Finally, my hon. Friend mentioned the effect of the Free Trade Area upon these eastern ports. I think that the answer to that is that the Customs have never decided, and never purported or attempted to decide, where trade should go. Over the centuries their staff has followed the trade into the regular seaports. It was the seaports which were created, and the Customs staff followed. Wherever a new or growing demand can be sufficiently established, Customs staff is provided as necessary.

If there is a progressive reduction of Customs duties as a result of the setting up of a Free Trade Area, the trade interests concerned will have ample time to make out their case to the Customs for additional facilities in the loading and unloading of goods at small ports, and the Customs will have time to observe the actual and possible development and to consider any propositions put to them in the flexible and constructive manner that I have tried to indicate has animated their response to my hon. Friend's view.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. Charles Doughty (Surrey, East)

Having listened to the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) and my hon. and learned Friend the Finanical Secretary, all I can say is that I entirely agree with them both. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, who is a most assiduous advocate of the interests of his constituency, made a strong case for the ports of Maldon and Heybridge having a Customs officer to assist the local people in the import and export of the goods they wish to trade in, and the Financial Secretary explained why that could not be done. He failed, however, to say through which ports those goods could be exported and imported. He referred to their canalisation, without saying through which canals they were to go.

However, it is clear from what he said that if the people in the neighbourhood of Maldon and Heybridge had to send their goods a great distance it would hardly be fair to force them to do so on the ground of canalisation. Looking at the map, one finds that the smaller ports on the East Coast are faced across the North Sea by important ports on the Continent, and there is no reason as far as I can see why the trade from those Continental ports should be forced to go to the larger ports in this country, where there is certainly very great difficulty at the moment in dealing with cargoes.

I entirely agree with the Financial Secretary that to provide a Customs staff at ports which are not equipped to deal with these small amounts of foreign trade is an unnecessary extravagance, but I would ask him to collaborate with my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon in order that the ports can be put into a slightly better condition, when I am sure that he will be delighted to provide a small and suitable staff of Customs officers for the people of Maldon and Heybridge, who are so well represented by their Member.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes past Ten o'clock.