HC Deb 12 March 1959 vol 601 cc1450-1
48. Mr. S. Silverman

asked the Secretary to the Treasury in what circumstances the Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee had advanced £10,000 to assist in building a textile mill in Great Yarmouth; and what consideration was given in connection therewith to the empty mills and skilled craftsmen unemployed in the Nelson and Colne constituency and other parts of the North-East Lancashire Development Area.

Mr. Erroll

The offer by the Treasury last November, on the recommendation of the Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee, of a loan to facilitate the setting up of a silk weaving factory at Great Yarmouth was made under the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958. Great Yarmouth was the location chosen by the applicant and was one of the places for which assistance could be made available under the Act, whereas at the time the offer was made the other places referred to in the question were not.

Mr. Silverman

Is it the hon. Member's assertion to the House that the application was made before 1951? Is he not aware that North-East Lancashire has been a Development Area for seven or eight years, that there are hundreds of empty factories, some of them the best equipped in the country, and that there are many thousands of the highest skilled textile workers now unemployed all over this area? Is not it crazy planning, or the absence of planning, to spend a lot of public money in putting up a new textile mill when we have large numbers of efficient but empty mills already in the country?

Mr. Erroll

This application was for a loan and D.A.T.A.C. loan facilities were not at that time available in Development Areas except where specifically notified in the D.A.T.A.C. list. As for the setting up of a silk mill, and a small one at that, in Great Yarmouth, there is surely something to be said for diversification of employment in an area which is already suffering from a high degree of unemployment.

Mr. Silverman

Owing to the highly unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at a suitable opportunity.