HC Deb 20 June 1960 vol 625 cc178-86

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

11.1 p.m.

Mr. John Wells (Maidstone)

In giving a title to this debate I embraced the whole paper industry rather than the small company and four individual ex-apprentices about whom I have written to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour on a number of occasions. Although it is my prime purpose this evening to deal with that specific case, I also hope to make slightly wider points covering this very important industry in my constituency and throughout Kent.

In the paper industry there is a very great tradition of thorough training for a worth-while career. The companies which operate many of the schemes of apprentice training in the Medway Valley are very old-established companies. The firm I want to deal with in particular this evening has been making the same high-quality papers since 1740. Whatman papers are synonymous with high quality. It is most essential that the thoroughgoing standard of training should be maintained.

These small companies have certain particular difficulties which do not come to the larger companies. In my constituency, and immediately outside it, is the great company of Albert E. Reid, which has a fine apprenticeship scheme and one of the finest schools in the paper industry, but it is not for companies like that that I make this plea tonight. It is for the smaller companies such as Turkey Mill or J. Barcham Green. Let us look for a moment at the business of J. Barcham Green, the only independent company today in this country making hand-made paper.

It is essential that if there are to be proper papermakers, in the technical sense of the term, available to continue these high-quality processes they should be allowed to stay at their places of employment without interruption when they leave their apprenticeship. The products of these high-quality companies are very substantially exported. Barcham Green exports 40 per cent. of its products. It is not only making hand-made papers which are exported all over the world; it is making high-quality speciality papers for the chemical industry. A company like that is so small that it has only 100 employees. It has three apprentices at present, but of the other 97 employees, many are ex-apprentices. I hope we shall have an assurance from my hon. Friend this evening that these apprentices and ex-apprentices will be left undisturbed wherever possible by the fag-end of National Service with which we are left.

Some hon. Members may have wondered why I have raised this matter so late in the history of National Service, but in the paper industry in Maidstone we are suffering—perhaps "suffering" is the wrong word; we are enjoying a great boom in orders, which means that we are suffering from a shortage of labour. This boom in orders is such that many mills have had to reorganise their production.

Messrs. W. & R. Balston Limited, the company principally involved in this problem, has recently gone on to three-shift working and has therefore had to reorganise its whole system. This, of course, is a bigger company. It has some 425 employees, and the men maintain a very long service with the company. At the present time, one man has been there for over fifty years, six others have served for over forty years, and there are nineteen men who have served apprenticeships with the company and are still there many years later. I mention that to show the sort of standing, and the good relationship there is between the management and the workers.

Over 60 per cent. of this company's products are exported. It supplies a large number of public departments. My hon. Friend has had the list sent to him, and I think that he will remember that the departments include the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Department of Biochemistry, the Department of Industrial Health, the Department of Mining, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Medical Research Council, the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Health, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, the Admiralty, the National Coal Board, the Royal Air Force, and so on.

The company is supplying all those public departments with high-quality scientific filter papers and high-quality papers used for the chemical industry. It has a certain sense of grievance in that it is looked on as a paper-making firm and not as a supplier to the chemical industry. If it is the Board of Trade that gives these classifications I hope that my bon. Friend will draw the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to the fact that this firm looks upon itself, in part at least, as a scientific instrument maker, and very much resents that the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, for instance, has to order its paper through the Stationery Office instead of getting it from laboratory suppliers. It feels that it is absurd that requisitions for a laboratory requisite should go through the Stationery Office.

I fully realise that this has nothing to do with apprenticeship and ex-apprentice call-up, but it is a matter of great importance in showing my hon. Friend the type of product that this company is making. It is in great danger of losing this high-quality business to Sweden and Germany and to overseas competition unless something can be done to enable it to retain these ex-apprentices in its employment.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour tried on 14th March to give some reassurance about the view taken by hardship tribunals when dealing with small firms. He said: The National Service Regulations indicate that exceptional hardship to an employer may give ground for postponement of call-up if the absence of the applicant would require new arrangements for carrying on the business or discontinuing it…—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th March, 1960; Vol. 619, c. 903.] This firm is in great danger of having to rearrange its business if these four men are to be called up, and I therefore think that that Answer furnishes a very good argument for their further deferment.

To deal briefly with their individual cases, Mr. Lindley is not actually involved in this new shift work that the firm is organising, but he is doing an important job, and the man who should have gone in his place when Mr. Lindley was called up is now employed on shift work and will not be able to do Mr. Lindley's job. That is one man whose call-up will cause the firm to reorganise its business.

Another man, Mr. Roland Crayford, is employed on an ancillary job. He is not on the main shift work but he is a reserve for the machines. He was in a position to replace a class of operative in the paper manufacturing trade who is called a beater man. If he is called up, he will not be able to do this work. Therefore, the company will have to reorganise its business. The other two, Mr. Egglesdon and Mr. Etherton, also are employed as beaters and are irreplaceable. Mr. Etherton is doing important laboratory test work and is certainly irreplaceable.

I cannot see how my right hon. Friend has been unable to postpone the call-up of these four young men if he really intended the reassurance that he gave on 14th March to apply to small firms. He gave an answer to a supplementary question on that day saying that hardship tribunals were well aware of the circumstances and the difficulties of small firms. We have seen no sign of the hardship tribunals at work in this matter yet.

Not only is the company of W. & R. Balston doing this great job of scientific paper making, but it is supplying a pool of highly-skilled trainees in the Maidstone area, and it will be a great loss to the industrial community in that area if these young men go away to the Services, get an aptitude for other work and are lost to our area and to paper making, as they may well be. It will be a great pity at this time when the paper-making industry is very much looking over its shoulder at developments overseas and wondering what its future will be.

I have already said that the industry is booming at present, but it is uncertain about the future, and it would be glad to be reassured and to be told that these young men can be left with the firm and that there will be no further disruption of its business.

11.13 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Peter Thomas)

Perhaps I might be permitted at the outset to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) for having presented so clearly and reasonably his case on behalf of high-quality paper makers and on behalf of the four ex-apprentices in his constituency. I certainly agree with him in what he said about the firm which is employing these men. Messrs. W. & R. Balston, Ltd. is a very old-established firm with an excellent reputation, and there is no doubt about the quality of the work that it does, and the value to the country of its products and of its considerable export trade.

As to the extent to which this quite large firm with its 425 workers, including 66 skilled paper makers, is dependent on these four ex-apprentices, I am not in a position properly to judge. There is no doubt that these men who are now skilled are of considerable value to their employers. But the same can be said of the many thousands of similar ex-apprentices who have already had deferment from National Service to complete their training and who form the majority of those who are to be called up in the remaining months of National Service. If value to an employer were to be a ground for release from National Service, we should certainly not be able to fulfil our obligations to the Services, and, in fairness to all those other ex-apprentices and their employers, I must say that it is not possible for my right hon. Friend to make an exception in the case of my hon. Friend's four constituents.

My hon. Friend has referred to the difficulties which would be faced by Messrs. Balston if these men were called up. Of course, National Service creates difficulties for industry, particularly when it is prosperous and expanding and in conditions of full employment. For many years, we have done all we can to minimise these difficulties. We have attempted to give adequate warning to young men and their employers of the groups which would be called up. This enables both the young men and the employers to make arrangements to meet the event.

My hon. Friend spoke both of deferment and of postponement. They are quite different. Before I reply to the specific points he made, it may, perhaps, be of assistance if I refer to our deferment arrangements in general. Since the introduction in 1947 of peace-time National Service, deferment on industrial grounds has been limited, for the most part, to young men in the coal mines and in agriculture. During this period, however, some indefinite deferment has been granted to men employed, for example, as scientists in Government establishments, as cadets in the police forces, and, since 1959, as school teachers. Deferment of this kind has been granted because a particular civilian employment has been regarded as essential. I am sure that no one would quarrel with this decision. Indeed. it has worked very well for many years. As these men do not usually become available for National Service, their numbers have had to be limited in order to provide sufficient men for the Armed Forces.

In addition to deferment on industrial grounds, there is deferment to enable young men to complete their training or education. This is something different since it is for a specific period and the men ultimately are required to serve. For instance, in the paper-making industry, apprentices have usually been called up soon after reaching the age of 21 instead of 18½ which was, until 1957, the normal call-up age. Deferment of this kind has been granted on a liberal scale, and the apprentices referred to tonight have all benefited from it.

As my hon. Friend will remember also, it was announced in 1957 that the Government intended to bring call-up to an end by this year. In the White Paper of May, 1957, it was clearly stated that the Government intended to rely, as far as practicable, on men who had enjoyed the advantage of having their call-up deferred to enable them to complete their training or studies, and this is what we are now doing. It was, however, found necessary to supplement these men by some younger men who had not been deferred.

In this matter we have done our best to make it quite clear as far in advance as possible which groups of men would be required, whether they have been deferred or not. Accordingly, men born in the fourth quarter of 1939 and those born in 1940, although they have a liability under the National Service Acts, have not been required to register. Also, as my right hon. Friend announced to the House on 14th December last year, men whose deferment for training or study ended on or after 1st June this year will not be called up. The effect of this announcement has been to leave undisturbed about 50,000 men who would otherwise have been available for call-up. These measures have enabled us to satisfy the manpower needs of the Services with the minimum disturbance of the civilian population.

I well understand, of course, that employers are reluctant to lose useful young workers, and we have always tried to consider their needs sympathetically. When application was made by my hon. Friend on behalf of Messrs. Balston, Ltd., in regard to the four ex-apprentices to whom he has referred tonight, and as soon as we heard from my hon. Friend and from the firm that these four men were about to be called up, my Department at once made arrangements to spread that call-up over as long a period as possible in order to minimise the disruption.

Mr. J. Wells

I hope my hon. Friend did not think that the firm or I were not extremely grateful for what was organised. We are extremely grateful for what has been done, but we hoped for rather more.

Mr. Thomas

I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend. I am glad it has been of some help to his constituents.

It is unfortunate that such a large proportion of this firm's apprentices, of whom I think there were nine, were all in roughly the same age group, spanning a period of less than seven months. I hope that the arrangements which we have made will ease the firm's difficulties, but I must repeat that it would not be possible to excuse these young men altogether, unless similar relaxations were granted to other firms and industries which, if I may say so, have equally strong reasons for wishing to keep their skilled men. Any concessions of this kind might mean that the Services would go short during the important period when they are reducing in size and changing over to a system of Regular recruitment. I would suggest to my hon. Friend and the House that that is a risk which we could not afford to take.

Broadly, the deferment arrangements have been devised to provide a reasonable compromise between Defence requirements for manpower on the one hand and industrial labour requirements on the other. Accordingly, as the manpower needs of the Services have declined, so the number of National Service men taken from civilian jobs has also fallen. In 1955, for instance, over 156,000 men were called up. In 1959 only 61,250 were called up, and this year the number will be over 10,000 less. On the other hand the number released this year will be over 30,000 more than will be called up.

Although I cannot say what the position is in Messrs. Balston, Ltd., or, indeed, in the paper-making industry generally, it is quite clear that industry as a whole this year is getting back from the Armed Forces considerably more than it is losing. Certainly, the average firm will be gaining more men than it will lose to National Service.

The paper-making industry in common with other industries has benefited from the system of apprenticeship deferment. Although I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a great tradition of training, I believe there is no formal scheme of training for apprentices covering this industry as a whole. Nevertheless, deferment is granted to paper mill and paper maintenance workers to allow them to complete five years' practical training so long as they are receiving planned, progressive training under skilled supervision.

This has been of use to the industry, I am sure, but in general it is not possible to extend this deferment beyond the apprenticeship period, and that is what my hon. Friend has been asking us to do—to extend the deferment beyond the apprenticeship period: in other words, he has asked for post-apprenticeship deferment. This form of deferment has always been limited to a comparatively small number of men employed on certain defined categories of engineering work important to defence and to the export trade. These categories have remained unchanged for many years, and we are certainly not in a position during the last months of National Service to alter them.

My hon. Friend raised the question of postponement, and in particular postponement of the call-up of these men, on the ground of exceptional hardship to the employer. The conditions for the grant of postponement are governed by statutory Regulations. The details of these conditions are sent to each man when he registers and the men are also reminded of these provisions when they are summoned for medical examination. I have made inquiries about this and I understand that none of the four men employed by Messrs. Balston has made application for postponement of call-up either on the ground of domestic hardship on his own part or on the ground that exceptional hardship would ensue to his employer, if he was called up for service.

My hon. Friend is quite right. The National Service Regulations indicate that exceptional hardship to the employer may give ground for postponement of call-up if the absence of the applicant would require new arrangements for carrying on the business, or discontinuing it, and if those arrangements were unreasonable or would require time to make. I cannot say, however, whether such applications would have succeeded in the case which my hon. Friend mentioned if they had been made.

During fifteen years of peace-time National Service, well over 2 million young men have been called up. The country has every reason to be grateful to all those who have co-operated in this achievement. I welcome the opportunity to acknowledge the resourcefulness and patience which employers have shown in adapting themselves to the temporary loss of useful workers with the least disruption to their productive programmes. I am sure that my hon. Friend's constituents and indeed all employers will continue to assist us by showing those same qualities during what my hon. Friend has described as the "fag-end" of National Service.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Eleven o'clock.