AUTOMATION

HC Deb 01 May 1959 vol 604 cc1685-704

3.0 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Lee (Newton)

I beg to move, That this House, recognising the need for British industry to keep abreast of modern productive methods, and the need to ensure that our workers are not inhibited in their acceptance of automation by fears of heavy unemployment, requests Her Majesty's Government to undertake an intensive study of the probable consequences of its introduction and to invite industry to co-operate in effecting the necessary changes with a minimum of hardship to its employees, being convinced that periodic reports to the public of the results of such study would be of material importance in obtaining maximum co-operation from all sections of the nation. The time factor makes it impossible for any of us to develop discussion of this very important subject as extensively as we would wish. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour for coming to the House. I hope he will feel that I have couched my Motion in no antagonistic sense, for we are all concerned that the necessary provisions for ensuring the transfer of our industrial processes to the new dispensation should take place with the minimum of suffering, if any there be.

May I point out that where my Motion refers to the need for reports and matters of that sort, it is fair to say that we in this country are somewhat backward in giving information to the public on such vital matters. I have received quite a number of publications of various types from the United States. I have one with me at the moment, produced by the United States Department of Labour as long ago as 5th August, 1956, entitled Automatic Technology and its Implication. It is a bibliography which lists 359 references to books, pamphlets, papers and speeches dealing with all manner of approaches to this problem of automation. One also finds listed in that publication material produced by the Bureau of Labour Division of Productivity and Technological Developments, the Department of Labour Library and the Scientific Library of the U.S. Patent Office.

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would agree that although we had a D.S.I.R. publication some time ago, and necessarily a limited one, we have now reached the stage where the Government, and particularly the right hon. Gentleman's Department, should consider doing more in the way of producing something in the nature of the report issued by the U.S. Department of Labour, to which I have just referred, in which there could be listed together publications of various types, so that industry could know the results of scientific thinking on this matter about which we are all extremely concerned.

Three years ago, I believe the nation was intensely interested in this subject, but not much information was given to the public about the development of automation. It seems to me that people in industry have now reached a point where some feel that their own jobs are not involved and so they have become bored with the subject, while others are rather frightened of the possible effects of the coming of automation on their positions. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there is a need to inform people on what is undoubtedly a great revolution in industrial production methods.

As to the trade unions, I know that A.S.S.E.T. produced a good pamphlet some time ago showing the approach of certain scientists to this matter, and I feel that that is a great improvement on anything which the trade unions produced up to that date.

On the 22nd April, in the House, the right hon. Gentleman answered Questions from some of my hon. Friends about legislation for the 40-hour week. I thoroughly agree with the right hon. Gentleman's Answer, in which he pointed out the limitations of legislation in this country in that respect. I ventured to ask him, in a supplementary question, whether he would agree that it may very well be that we were coming to a point where quite large numbers of trade unions were so concerned about this that it would be one of the considerations influencing their demand for the 40-hour week. I believe that the 40-hour week is overdue, but for other reasons. Nevertheless, in reply to that question, the right hon. Gentleman intimated that he felt that the introduction of automation could come without there being any doubt whatever of our ability to maintain a very high level of employment.

I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman if he means that, in normal conditions of industrial expansion, we are sufficiently resilient in our ability to change our industrial methods in order to encompass this change-over while maintaining a high level of employment; but it is hardly possible, I should have thought, to introduce such far-reaching changes as automation itself envisages if the economy is stagnant, or if a world recession is in progress, without some pretty heavy unemployment resulting.

I know that there is no agreed definition of automation, but I should have thought that what is certain is that continuous processing, electronic devices capable of memorising and storing knowledge, and the use of electronic controls and computers are part and parcel of what we loosely mean when we refer to automation. It is certain that in combination they enable man's labour to become vastly more productive and valuable.

The question, therefore, arises whether we can absorb this development into our industrial techniques without creating large-scale unemployment. I suppose that the answer, in the end, depends upon what I have been saying—on our ability constantly to expand the economy. It has been argued that the number of industries which could take advantage of new techniques is so limited that it would not make any great change in the numbers in employment; but the more one looks at the industries which we find are now introducing automation—such industries as chemicals, most branches of engineering, office work and railways—the more one realises that a goodly proportion of the employed population is in fact working at the moment in industries which, I should have thought, are bound to be affected.

For my part, I am very concerned that we should not allow panic to come to our people through ignorance of what is entailed. I know that at the moment we are drawing many inferences from what is happening in the United States of America. We all remember that there was a great recession which, officially, came to its conclusion about twelve months ago, and we then expected that unemployment, which was running at some 5½ million, would decline very rapidly.

The information which I can collect is that, despite the fact that the graph of American production is now back to something like the highest level ever achieved prior to the recession, there are still 4.7 million, or well over 6 per cent., of the working population of the United States unemployed. One reads that industry itself knows now that it can produce far more of the components which it is its business to produce with far fewer people than was the case before the recession. Indeed, if that were not so, it would be difficult to understand why American industrialists should try to introduce automation. This situation confronts us with some very unpleasant facts.

As the House knows, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. is the principal trade union organisation of the United States. I have here a copy of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. News which reports that Meeting in New York, 850 corporation executives attending an American Management Association conference indicated that stepped-up productivity will allow them to operate at pre-slump levels with their current working forces". That is the sort of problem which we face.

I am a student of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. News, which the American trade unions very kindly send to me. I shall not attempt to go into the detail I should like to have given, but I see quite spectacular headlines in these days. For instance, in the issue of 28th February this year, there is the heading: Labour mobilises Resources to combat Unemployment. Lists Top Priorities to end Stagnation". Representatives of American labour have been holding great rallies in Washington at which George Meaney and Walter Reuther, their leaders, have spoken. There have been very excited meetings of trade unionists, and demonstrations in the streets. They have now produced a charter which they have presented to Congress. As the House knows, in America there is more legislation for controlling the working week than we have here. They are, and have been for some time, working a 40-hour week. When one takes the actual hours of work, including overtime and all the rest, it works out at about 40 hours. Here, the national average—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—is about 47 hours, with overtime and so on.

The American trade unions have now asked Congress to agree to a 35-hour week. Also, they have asked Congress to keep a very sharp eye on industrial developments over there to ensure that, if necessary, the working week will become even shorter than that. Over here, we cannot look at the matter in that way, and I am not altogether sure that it would be desirable if we could. It is because of these developments, however, which are within the knowledge of a great many people in this country, that I feel that it would be good if the House had an opportunity to hear the right hon. Gentleman's views on this and related matters and to know whether the Government have any thoughts about the effect the coming of automation will have on British industrial life.

I know that the mentality of the American capitalist class, if I may call it that, demands changes in capital equipment at a pace far greater than we have in Britain. American industrialists think in terms of changing over, I think, every four or five years. For my part, I regard this as a very good thing. Our employers do not do that. In my view, they retain our machine tools far too long. Although I do not want to go into that, I think—this may sound peculiar—that our quality may suffer in this respect. Nevertheless, we shall inevitably reach a point where, if we are to maintain full employment or a very high level of employment, something will have to be done to meet the challenge which automation presents. Therefore, it cannot be, can it, that the things which have brought the United States to the present position must necessarily remain absent from our own economy?

I do not want to use the House simply to canvass the claims of my union, or the unions with which it is associated, but hon. Members will know that the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions is demanding a 40-hour week, in part on the basis of the problem that we are here discussing.

I feel that the Government should now be studying the effects of the displacement, which is inevitable, of large numbers of persons from their existing jobs, the training which may well have to be undertaken if those persons are to be fitted for new work, and, for a period at any rate, the compensation which ought to be paid such displaced workers. It is appropriate that we should be discussing this subject so soon after yesterday's debate, because, whatever else we disagreed about, we were all very much agreed on one rather important point. For twenty years the impression has been that the need for skill and craftsmanship in industry has been disappearing and that we were all becoming machine-minded. We are now all convinced that under the present dispensation the need for a vast increase in the ratio of craftsmen is one of the features which automation will bring with it, and that is a very good thing and I am pleased that we are all agreed on the necessity for it.

Therefore, we are confronted with the problem that many millions, I suppose, of middle-aged people who have done no other type of work during their working lives may find their jobs disappearing and themselves displaced. While it is fair to say that industry itself must do a great deal in the training of these people, I think it is very necessary that the Government and the Ministry of Labour should now be giving the most serious consideration to this subject and letting us know as soon as possible what policies they believe are necessary to meet the situation.

In the end, I suppose, the volume of world trade will decide whether we can continue with an expanding economy. I wonder whether the Minister would agree that it might be that the Ministry of Labour, which has such a deservedly high standing at the I.L.O.. could initiate discussions—at that level they would be tripartite discussions—possibly with other manufacturing nations such as ourselves, so that we could look at the international aspects of the problem.

Great changes will inevitably be necessary in the wage structures within our industries. In the last few years in this House the word "incentive" has been on everybody's lips. The effect will be that wage structures at present based on incentive bonuses and so on will become as dead as the dodo. Indeed, the ability of any wage structure under the new conditions to retain an incentive bonus would be proof of its obsolescence. The machines themselves will determine the pace of production, and the workers will have little influence over it. This is a burning issue which the right hon. Gentleman's N.J.C. might find it necessary to discuss.

We also have to face the fact that some industries will automate more rapidly than others, and that in those industries the value of men's labour will increase at a fantastic pace. What are we to do about all that? Are those who are fortunate enough to be working in industries in which the value of their labour increases rapidly to be able to cream off the whole of the increase in value, while others in other industries which will not automate readily have no advance in their living standards as a consequence?

That is quite unthinkable, but in our present wages structure there is no way in which we can adapt ourselves to these new and rather frightening conditions. For that reason, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is impressed with the need for the Government to take a lead in bringing industry together and in posing the problems, and with the need to keep the nation acquainted with the background of this problem. Upon our ability to educate our people on the importance of these matters will depend the success of what we are attempting to do.

I repeat that I see no dismay in the coming of these new methods and these new techniques in production. On the contrary, they offer us all the opportunity of vastly increased standards of living. Handled properly, they can be a great boon to us all. The trade union movement need have no fear that what is happening in the United States will happen here, if we can evolve a system requisite for the problems facing us. Because I wanted the opportunity to say this to the Minister, and to hear from him his reactions, I have moved this Motion today.

3.22 p.m.

Mr. G. A. Pargiter (Southall)

I beg to second the Motion.

It is with much pleasure that I support this Motion which has been moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee), who has spoken on a subject with which he is very well acquainted. Through lack of time, I do not propose to pursue the arguments involved for very long. The problems are tremendous. In industrial changes in structure and changes in outlook, changes in outlook are more important than changes in structure. If we have the right outlook, we can effect the changes in structure much more easily and much more rapidly.

Today, more attention is paid to changes in processes than was the case a century ago when the profit motive was the only recognised motive as a basis for any change. I would not accuse the controllers of modern industry of seeing profit as the sole motive, because they know that that in itself is a short-sighted outlook and because they know that they have to look far beyond profit. In modern society and in a democracy where people are able to exercise their views through their vote, sooner or later, if things done industrially do not accord with the national conscience, those things can be altered and upset.

Automation is a relatively new term, but automation is nothing new. That statement has been repeated from time to time and I need not pursue it now. In the last analysis, automation means the amount of horse-power behind the individual worker and the extent to which it is changed. It has changed less in this than in some other countries, but even in this country it has changed rapidly. The change has been to the use of power instead of brawn, as it were, in the production of goods.

The problem is how that can be done with the co-operation and good will of those concerned. It is no good telling the industrial worker that his job can be done by a machine and that he will be out of work. He will not welcome such a change. However, if he is told that the change means that he will work fewer hours and have an improved standard of living, and if that can be demonstrated as well as said, and if there are sufficient safeguards to give him that assurance, he will welcome the change.

Behind all this there is the whole question of restrictive practices, and not on one side. Many employers pursue restrictive practices because it is profitable to do so. Therefore, we must show that materially it will be profitable not to pursue those practices. If we establish that as a basis for the future in respect of automation we shall begin to make progress. This problem is largely one for industry, but it is essentially a matter for Government, because the question of overall employment and the country's ability to produce and compete is more and more in modern society becoming a matter for Governments rather than for individual employers or groups of employers. Individual employers and groups of employers must be told occasionally where they must fit into the scheme of things for the sake of the general prosperity of the country.

I hope that the Minister will apply his mind to these factors. Indeed, I know that personally he will do so, but I am not so sure that he can persuade the Government to do so to the extent that we would wish. If the right hon. Gentleman can say that the Government are in process of dealing with the problem in a way that will encourage automation or Vie more efficient production of goods and services, we shall welcome such a statement. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newton for having introduced this Motion.

3.26 p.m.

Mr. Austen Albu (Edmonton)

By the extraordinary chances of political life. I find myself speaking from the Dispatch Box in front of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) today whereas last night I was speaking from the benches behind him. We must congratulate him on his good luck and good sense in moving the Motion, though I think that the Minister would agree that there is hardly time to deal with the subject adequately today. Perhaps it is of some significance that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton, my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) and I are all members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which is extremely concerned with all aspects of this problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southall said that automation was very largely the substitution of power for brawn. It is certainly true that a large part of the things which come under the heading of this rather new and peculiar word are included in the development of mechanisation, a process which has been going on for almost 150 years and the latest forms of which are to be found in the transfer machines in our motor car factories and similar factories whereby components which are being machined are automatically moved from one station to another and put through a whole lot of processes without human intervention.

But the really significant change which has taken place in this century in substituting machines or instruments for human beings is not really so much in the substitution of power for brawn as in the substitution of machines or instruments which can think. The modern machines not only relieve man of physical toil but carry out many of the processes of perception. calculation and decision-making. These go very much wider and affect many more classes of workers than those machines which merely substitute machine power for human power.

This type of mechanisation, instrumentation and decision-making machinery, of course, has gone very much further in the process industries than it has in the industries handling heavy, solid articles such as the engineering industry. It has gone further in chemical plants and oil refineries, although it has certainly begun to make its impact felt in the engineering industry. In some cases, for instance in the manufacture of tin cans and some radio and motor oar components, we can almost see the solid articles flowing along as if they were liquid. Certainly very little human intervention seems to be needed to manufacture them.

One of the most interesting features of these new developments, and one which is a hopeful sign, is that they represent a reversal from the rather frightening developments of the last fifty years towards the man becoming the slave of the machine. Most of us remember the famous Charlie Chaplin film in which Chaplin himself became almost a part of the machine. Most of us who have seen or know anything about mass production industries are rather frightened of the type of work which goes on in them, where workers have to keep pace physically, and operate physically, with machines and in which there seems to be very little satisfaction in the work process itself. But where a large part of the work is completely automatic and where the worker is concerned not with operating the machine or keeping pace with it but in observing the machine, repairing it, keeping it going, making adjustments, and so on—or, if not a machine, perhaps the process—then life is not a bit the same.

The whole management structure may well change, has been demonstrated in a very interesting piece of research carried out by Miss Joan Woodward at the South-East Essex Technical College a few years ago and which has recently been reported. It appears that industrial relations are not then based on a lot of managers and foremen each pushing each other down from the top to the bottom on to a mass of workers, unskilled or semi-skilled, operating machines whose speed is sometimes varied according to the time of day. The relationship of managers, supervisors and foremen and those operating the processes becomes more related to the actual facts of the industrial process. Incidentally, this has restored to managers, supervisors and foremen the need for technical skills and knowledge and not just the bare capacity to get people to work harder. I believe that this will have good results on management and worker relations in the future.

These new developments are likely to have quite as much, if not more, effect on office employment as on industrial employment, although I do not think that these developments in this country compare yet with those in the United States. We have only begun to make the sort of progress which we can hope to see in the future in banks, insurance companies and so forth.

These new machines have already made a substantial improvement in the getting out of Government statistics of the census, of the industrial censuses, and so on. In fact, one could hope that in the future they will assist the Government even more in their economic planning, if they are willing to do any economic planning.

When we were discussing apprenticeship and training for jobs last night we did not, perhaps, pay sufficient attention —perhaps that was inevitable because of the importance of our industries—to the training for clerical jobs and occupations which may well change very substantially in the future with as much effect on employment in these jobs as on employment in our factories.

I wish to support my hon. Friends, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Newton who introduced the Motion, in their plea for some further study of the facts concerning all the technical changes that are taking place at the present time.

This study or analysis obviously must take place with the assistance and co-operation of both sides of industry. What is needed is a study of the effects of the changes which have taken place in particular areas, because some areas and industries will be more affected than others, and, secondly, a study of the changes in the jobs which people do. Some of the jobs which are at present done will go out of existence altogether, or change in nature. There is a danger that in our apprenticeship schemes we shall be training people for machine processes of the last century, when people being trained today will have in the next 15 or 20 years to operate processes and types of machinery which are very different.

The necessity for study in a particular area is borne out by the disastrous effects of increased productivity without an expansion of productive activities in. for example, Detroit; and the same danger nearly occurred and may occur again in Coventry or Dagenham. One would not expect to find similar effects in areas where large electrical equipment is made. One will find it in the mass-production industries and, therefore, it is an area problem just as it is a problem of particular jobs.

This debate emphasises the importance of the continual expansion of our education and training facilities and, as my hon. Friends pointed out, it emphasises the need for a properly planned economy. It is no use having increased productivity, and workers and managements will not accept substantial changes, unless they feel that they will derive benefit from them and will not suffer by losing their employment. I admit that this puts us in something of a dilemma, as is pointed out by Professor Galbraith in his admirable book, The Affluent Society. I do not think the dilemma he poses begins to affect us yet. No one pretends that the people of this country have all the goods and services which they would like or work for less hours than they would prefer to. There is need for an expanded consumption and increased leisure provided that we can make that compatible with our balance of payments, and that is a job for the Government.

Therefore, the necessity is increased, even as I believe also the power is increased to some extent by these new machines and new instruments, for greater planning of the economy. It it particularly urgent to plan the siting of new industries. We must look out for those industries in which these new processes will reduce employment so that other employment may be made available. These are matters to which my hon. Friends desire the Minister to address himself, and we shall listen with interest to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say.

3.39 p.m.

The Minister of Labour and National Service (Mr. fain Macleod)

If as an outsider I may be permitted to intervene in this "A.E.U. debate" for a few minutes, I shall be happy, first, to accept the Motion moved by the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee), and secondly, to take up some of the points which have been made.

One can never judge the importance of a debate in this Chamber from the length of time devoted to it, and this is a subject which I should like to see debated more fully on another occasion. Inevitably we have to crowd a lot into the time available to us this afternoon. The hon. Member for Newton said, and quite rightly, that there is no agreed definition of automation. I had proposed to start my speech with a definition, but, on reflection, I do not think I will do that. I will depend for this purpose on my favourite definition, which is that of Humpty Dumpty—" 'When I say a word,' said Humpty Dumpty in a scornful voice, 'It means what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less'."

To most people that may be the true meaning of automation. A country so dependent as this country on trade, and particularly the export trade, must welcome the developments and forms of technological change. We must, then, accept our responsibility to do what we can to help to meet the very natural fears that these changes create.

The whole of our industrial history has been a struggle to produce goods more efficiently, because the faster our productivity rises the faster our standard of living rises and the easier it becomes to carry on our export trade. There is one way in which special urgency is given to this process, and that is by the tremendous growth of population in some countries, and particularly the underdeveloped countries. There is an enormous leap forward in population in those countries. We certainly could not possibly ensure a rising standard of living—and not only for ourselves, because this is not only a problem of ourselves but a problem of our responsibility as the focal point of the Commonwealth in which so many of these countries are—unless we had an increased and increasing production.

The other point, upon which I do not want to dwell but mention only in passing, is to quote a phrase which I remember using myself in debate. It is, "Full employment must never mean frozen employment". In other words, it must never mean that people or employment are unchangeable. It is impossible for Governments to freeze that sort of pattern; changes in fashion alone mean that the demand for goods must change.

One other point in my introductory remarks is that I very much agree with the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) about the importance and the dignity of labour. I have seen many factories in this country and have watched the processes done by men and women. I have felt that it was almost shameful that those processes should be carried out by men and women. They were jobs to be done by machines. There can be no job satisfaction in spending days, weeks, months, and years in that dreary routine. There can be nothing about which one can go home and talk to one's family at the end of the day. Nothing happens to alter the monotony of the routine. The sort of world that we are moving into now will make a great difference to the job satisfaction of those who work in industry.

Let me come to the action taken by the Government and by the universities. This problem has been seen for some time. Before I became Minister of Labour, the Government arranged with the D.S.I.R. in 1954 to prepare a report. to which a number of references have been made. The report was essentially factual. It was taken in July, 1956, by myself as Minister to the National Joint Advisory Council, which expressed general agreement with the conclusions of the report.

I come to the point which, I suppose, more than any other, concerns people and that is whether the coming of automation means an increase in employment, as such. A very careful inquiry was carried out by the Board of Trade. The results are contained in the Board of Trade Journal for February, 1958. I recommend anybody who is particularly interested in this matter to study the results obtained.

The answers to the questionnaires were very illuminating. I will pick out one question. These firms were asked, "What effect is automation likely to have on the size and composition of the labour force?" This was the point on which the hon. Member for Newton concentrated today. The replies to the question agreed that the trend would be towards a decrease in the number of unskilled labourers and an increase in the number of skilled technicians of all sorts. This lends particular point to the very fine debate that we had in the Committee yesterday. Some firms expected to re- duce the size of their labour force, but others expected to increase it to keep pace with increasing production and the increasing demand for goods. With the great increase in the population of the world, particularly in some of the countries I referred to earlier, there is bound to be an increasing demand for goods, which we must hope to meet.

The conclusion was that the firms covered by the inquiry did not expect automation to lead to any severe reduction in the size of their labour force. They did think, first, that the labour force would be redeployed substantially within the factory, and, secondly, that the labour force, in many cases anyway, would be retained because of the generally increased level of activity that results from increased production. A number of industries, of which I mention oil refining, chemicals and iron and steel manufacture, expected their total labour force to increase with the expansion of the industry.

I want to come to the particular studies which have been done and to the particular point mentioned about the United States of America. From what I have read, and I confess myself a layman in this—I have not the expert knowledge of those hon. Members who have spoken —there seems to be a general agreement that the most serious problem in finding new employment is going to be among semi-skilled people. The skilled craftsman, partly by the nature of his craft training, although I quite agree in many cases that might have to be varied and adapted, by the mere fact that he is himself a skilled man, shows in the experience of the last year or so of the recession in world trade that the demand for his labour will remain high. But we may well need retraining for semi-skilled workers, perhaps of short duration and perhaps concerned with what may be rather specialised operations which they will have to perform on the job. Training of those men no doubt can be provided much more effectively by individual firms than by the Government.

I wish to say here to the hon. Member for Newton that I am not continuing yesterday's debate, but I thought he was getting on rather rocky ground in one part of his speech when he seemed to suggest that the Government, if I may put it that way, should go in a big way into the training of apprentices. I do not believe that is the right approach to this problem. I think that both in yesterday's debate and in today's debate it has been shown that the rôle of the Government must be to stimulate industry—I accept the criticisms that perhaps we do not stimulate enough—to do this job itself. I do not see how a Government can undertake wholesale training of apprentices, although, of course, there is important work we can do and do in the Government training centres.

Mr. Lee

What I was trying to argue last night was that there certainly are some industries which, by the nature of their structure, are incapable of training their own people.

Mr. Macleod

I got the impression last night that the hon. Member was arguing against his own convictions why we should have a Division at the end of the debate. I have been in that position myself, so I sympathise with him.

One question which I have not time to go into, but which was relevant, particularly to the winding-up speech of the debate last night by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Education. is the need for the supply of technicians and technologists. That is why there has been a great expansion in the opportunities for technical education which, of course, must continue.

On the question which the hon. Member for Edmonton raised about the responsibility of industry, I agree that this change will add to the importance of the work done by the supervisor and will make his work increasingly important and more responsible. I do not want to deal with the planning of the ordinary material side of automation.

I want to say a word about the human problems that arise in industry because the fear which, in a sense, we are concerned with, even though it be an unreal one, exists. It is a fear of the unknown, of the uncharted, and we are moving into an industrial world that we have not known before. These fears have not, in the short run been realised in this country. This fear is not only one of unemployment but, perhaps even more worrying, a fear that the skilled man might lose the skill and status and that his skill, so carefully acquired over the years. may become outmoded. That was the point that the hon. Member made when he said we may in effect be training people for the last Industrial Revolution instead of for the one that is upon us now.

It was suggested that we should take the initiative in this matter with the I.L.O. in Geneva. To some extent we have done that. It is pure coincidence, but this morning I was having a discussion with that great international civil servant whom so many people know, Mr. David Morse, the Director-General of I.L.O.; who is a very welcome visitor to this country. In 1957, he made one of the main themes of the Director-General's Report to the I.L.O. this problem of automation. I spoke on this subject, and we tried to contribute a lead. As the hon. Member for Newton knows, we have a very high standing in the I.L.O. and we make use of that platform a good deal.

This fear may spring in part from the lack of confidence in some firms between management and workers, and from a sense of insecurity. It is partly because of that, and partly to encourage what I call good employer policies, that I collected from a number of firms examples of what I regarded as good employer policies in this and many other fields and set them out in a book called "Positive Employment Policies", to which I tried to give the widest circulation.

Apart from the study being made by the D.S.I.R., a good deal of technical work is being done by the D.S.I.R. on the new processes and methods of applying them, both in D.S.I.R. establishments like the National Physical Laboratory and in the grant-aided Research Associations. In Liverpool University a study was made of the effect of technological change in a large steel firm. The hon. Member for Edmonton referred to a recently published study done by people from the South-East Essex Technical College, and similar work is being done in Edinburgh University. on managerial problems.

Work is also being done at Cambridge on the "Effect of the introduction of Automatic Control Principles on Social Attitudes and Group Relations in Industry". On the wider implications, a study financed by the D.S.I.R. on "Social Aspects of Developments towards Automation", which will be mainly concerned with social problems within industrial firms, is being carried out at Liverpool University. At University College, Cardiff, a study is being made of the implications of the introduction of the automatic steel plant at Margam on the "Industrial community relationship", and at Sheffield University a study is being made of the "Effects of Shift Work on Social and Domestic Life".

Although a good deal is being done, there is a good case for co-ordinating much of this rather more closely than it is and giving it more publicity than it has received. I have no desire to become Minister for Automation. We do not do things in that way in this country. So many Ministries are inevitably concerned in this—the Board of Trade, Education. Supply and the Treasury, as well as the nationalised industries —that there is a good deal of consultation to be done. Perhaps the best focal point is the N.J.A.C., over which I preside, which is already closely concerning itself with the problem. I will undertake to raise again with the N.J.A.C. the question whether more publicity would be appropriate.

I want to take up the point made about the United States and the argument that when production leaps ahead, partly because of the coming of technological change, there is a serious danger that unemployment will rise with it. With respect to him, I doubt whether the hon. Member for Newton is on a sound point here. The figures which we have been able to get over the past year or two, even in a time of particularly difficult trading conditions, which we hope are passing, do not seem to support that view. I must deal with this in only a moment or two, but I particularly commend to the hon. Member the Chart given on page 13 of the Economic Survey of 1959, showing the relationship between production and expanded employment. To give an example or two, in chemicals and allied industries production increased between 1956 and 1957 by 4 per cent but the numbers employed in those industries rose, too.

Mr. Lee

Is this for the United States?

Mr. Macleod

I am talking about this country. I will come to the United States in a moment. In the case which I have mentioned, there was little change in production or employment in 1958. In paper, printing and publishing, produc- tion increased in 1957 by 2½ per cent. and in 1958 by 2 per cent., but there was an increase in employment of 2 per cent, in 1957 and of ½ per cent, in 1958. I could go on adding to these examples, which I think prove the case.

We must remember that last year was a bad year for world trade. In the United States the average figure for unemployment was 4,680,000 or 6.8 per cent. At the same time production and efficiency in many ways were at their height—certainly technical efficiency. In 1937, however, the unemployment figure was 7,700,000 or 14.3per cent. Unemployment was then much higher, although technical efficiency and production were considerably lower than they are now. I do not think that there is the relationship between these figures which the hon. Member suggests. The only recent case of which I know in which technological change has led to increased local unemployment was in west south Wales, with the tinplate industry being replaced inevitably over the years by more efficient methods. That, of course, was a displacement in a part of the industry different from that in which the new technological methods were being introduced.

I have no time to make a peroration even if there were any point in making one. I will adopt the peroration intact, word for word as far as I can remember it, of the hon. Member for Newton, because I do not think that I could improve on it. I hope that at some time the House will be able to return to this immensely important subject and that we shall have an opportunity of dealing with it at rather greater length than we have had today, but I am grateful even for this short opportunity of dealing with some of the valuable points which have been made in the debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved. That this House, recognising the need for British industry to keep abreast of modern productive methods, and the need to ensure that our workers are not inhibited in their acceptance of automation by fears of heavy unemployment, requests Her Majesty's Government to undertake an intensive study of the probable consequences of its introduction and to invite industry to co-operate in effecting the necessary changes with a minimum of hardship to its employees, being convinced that periodic reports to the public of the results of such study would be of material importance in obtaining maximum co-operation from all sections of the nation.