HC Deb 04 December 1961 vol 650 cc1098-108

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

11.32 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

The reason I choose to raise the question of the future of Glenrothes is the evidence that I have received of the anxiety in the town consequent on the recent announcements of pit closures in the very near future, and in particular the effects of the announcement in respect of the Rothes pit for which the new town was originally designated.

The Rothes pit currently employs 849 men, and 400 will be declared redundant. The National Coal Board has given an undertaking that most of them will be placed in neighbouring pits, but the anxiety that arises is concerned with the uncertainty of the pits to which these men will go. The men are concerned about the future of Bowhill and King-lassie pits and even the Seafield pit. Men employed in these pits are concerned about their future. Those who live in Glenrothes are not currently employed at the Rothes pit, but at Bowhill, Kinglassie and elsewhere. If those pits are closed, I estimate that the future of 2,000 to 3,000 in Glenrothes may be adversely affected.

I was rather surprised, therefore when, in answer to a Question on 29th November, the Secretary of State said he was not aware of any general anxiety about the future of the town and that certainly none was felt for the future by the Development Corporation. I was glad to hear that, but I do not think that the Development Corporation can be in very close contact with the people at Glenrothes for it to have given that information to the right hon. Gentleman.

In any case, I want to examine the reason for that optimism in a little more detail. I think that it is based on two propositions—first, that the town is now concerned more with overspill from Glasgow, with which it entered into an agreement two years ago, and secondly, the stimulation of further industrial growth in the future. If we take the first proposition, that of overspill from Glasgow, the results so far do not give much ground for believing that this will solve the problem of Glenrothes or that of Glasgow. In paragraph 89 of the Development Corporation's Annual Report for the year ended 31st March, 1961, it is reported that only 51 families have been housed under the Overspill Agreement". That is not a very great contribution to the problems either of Glenrothes or of Glasgow.

The Report goes on to say that the future influx from Glasgow will depend on the securing of employment in Glenrothes and the surrounding area. The question which I want to put to the Under-Secretary of State is this: has the announcement about the future development of the mining industry in Fife had any adverse effect on the number of applications coming from Glasgow people who want to go to the Fife area? The Corporation's Annual Report says in paragraph 4: The Local Employment Act does not contain any benefits which have proved to be of material advantage to the securing of new industries in Glenrothes, despite the fact that the Act permits assistance to be given to places which have overspill agreements with development districts. Indeed, Glenrothes is at a disadvantage in this respect compared with other new towns and other development districts. In my view and that of the Corporation, Glenrothes should be able to compete with those areas on equal terms, and I think that this is more essential than ever now that the future of the mining industry is in the balance and when the effects of the Local Employment Act have been seen to have given very little impetus to industrial development in the town.

I want to be very careful not to cry stinking fish about the future of the town. I believe that it has a great deal to offer to industrialists. It has first-class sites, fully serviced, and it has top-quality labour, both male and female. I have talked to some of the managers of the American firms which have come there, and they have paid great compliments to the quality of the labour which they have found in Fife. They have extremely good access to surrounding areas. There are houses available for all classes of labour, the educational facilities are excellent, and when the Forth Road bridge is completed in 1963, I think that the transport facilities to the area will be even better than they are now.

On the other hand, as the Annual Report of the Corporation points out, there are difficulties in the way. It mentions, for instance, cost of land and cost of the purchase or rent of a factory as inducements to offer to industrialists to move to new towns.

The other question I would ask the hon. Gentleman is, what are the Government prepared to do towards helping to solve some of these difficulties? The Report said: The problem of inducements to industrialists is currently under examination by your Department. I should be glad if the Under-Secretary would give an answer to that question put in the Report, as to the consideration which the Government are giving to further inducements to industrialists to come to Glenrothes. I hope he will show more imagination than the Board of Trade has shown up to now. Whenever one asks questions of Ministers of that Department, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) did the other night in her Adjournment debate, one gets generalities, such as this which I got on 16th November, that the Board will continue to steer new industry to … any area in which high and persistent unemployment exists or is to be expected."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1961; Vol. 649, c. 79.] That phrase was used as an answer to my Question asking whether Glenrothes would be scheduled as a development district. Presumably it is thought that the rate of unemployment is not sufficiently high for it to be scheduled.

But the Toothill recommendations conflict with the view of the Board of Trade. The third recommendation in that Report says: The immediate relief of unemployment should not be the only factor in giving assistance. The build up of industrial complexes and centres which offer prospects of becoming zones of growth should be one of the principal aims of policy. It went, in page 154, paragraph 2008, to say: We recommend that the provisions"— of the Local Employment Act— should apply in full measure not only to the present development districts but also"— and I would ask the hon. Gentleman to note these words— to the new towns in Scotland and to all Glasgow overspill reception areas. In this way it would be possible to encourage expansion in promising centres previously eligible only on a restricted basis, and the overspill operation would be furthered more surely if with less apparent directness. On page 142 the suggestion is made that development corporations should have a freer hand in the negotiation of rents for factory space. It is true that temporary rent abatements have recently been authorised by the Government, and I hope this policy will be pursued with increasing vigour now that suddenly Glenrothes finds itself in somewhat more difficulty since the decision on the colliery was taken.

The Toothill Committee also had something to say about advance factories, and in paragraph 1814 said that the new towns have been successful in providing and letting advance factories. It went on to say that they have: a useful part to play in areas where other factors indicate a likelihood of industrial growth. In paragraph 20.30, the Committee said that a sound contribution can be made to regional development by the building of advance factories provided that they are located at promising points of growth likely to be attractive to industrialists. One would think that the Toothill Committee had been reading all the propaganda issued by the Labour Party over the last several years. The Toothill Committee, composed, as it was, mainly of industrialists, at least has been converted so far to our point of view. I believe that Glenrothes is one of those "promising points of growth" to which the Committee referred.

The Corporation says in its Report that the policy of building advance factories was vindicated in the town itself in 1960, because the fact that it had built an advance factory was the reason for the success in attracting a United States firm, Cessna Industrial Products, Ltd., a subsidiary of Cessna Aircraft Company, Ltd., of Hutchinson, Kansas. Forty men, I understand, are to be employed. There is 12,000 sq. ft. of production space and 3,000 sq. ft. of office accommodation. It is a small firm but, I believe, a progressive one. If we can get more firms like this with the help of the Government, everybody will be highly delighted.

The Development Corporation, I understand, has submitted a programme for advance building of standard factories. The first two units, of 13,000 and 21,000 sq. ft. are planned to start next June and they await the approval of the Department. I should be glad if the Under-Secretary would make a statement on this point also.

Despite the anxiety which has undoubtedly been generated by the pit closures, I do not want to be pessimistic about the future, nor am I; but it is now more imperative than ever for the Government to show more imagination, more energy and more initiative in tackling at one and the same time the problem of Glasgow's overspill and the problem of more speedy industrial development in Glenrothes.

I know that there are developers waiting to go ahead in the new town centre. They have seen me and have told me that they want to invest £¼ million in the centre of the new town, but they are hesitant and doubtful whether that would be a sound investment. I hope very much that the Under-Secretary, when he answers the debate, will say things tonight that will remove all doubt from their minds and from the minds of the people in the town.

11.48 p.m.

Mr. Harry Gourlay (Kirkcaldy Burghs)

In view of the time factor, my intervention will of necessity be extremely brief. I am, however, very much concerned, as the Member for the neighbouring constituency, that we should have a strong and healthy town in Glenrothes. The future of Glenrothes concerns the town of Kirkcaldy and the surrounding district very much.

In view of the fact that only yesterday one of the leading Scottish Sunday papers described today as "black Monday" because of the rail closures, I venture to suggest that if Rothes pit should eventually be closed we will have a black day in Fife. It is claimed that some of the men who are declared redundant will be employed in some of the neighbouring pits, some, perhaps in my constituency. Those pits may then well become uneconomic and be threatened because of the statement made by the Minister of Power some weeks ago. Therefore, we are very much concerned that something should be done by the Government to ensure the future prosperity of Glenrothes.

I should like to refer briefly to the stop-and-go policy which has been operating in Glenrothes for some time, largely at the Government's behest. In 1959 it was stated that between 1960 and 1964 Glenrothes would be building about 800 houses a year. Then in November, 1960, the estimate was revised, when it was declared that in view of a change of policy approximately 400 houses per year would be built. It was intended in the original estimate to build about 400 houses in each six-monthly period, but the facts are that in the six months to April this year only 110 houses were completed in Glenrothes against a programme of 400 for the full year, and in the first nine months of 1961 a total of only 202 houses have been completed, or considerably less than even the revised programme.

The result of all this has completely upset the calculations of the education authority in Fife, which has the proud record of being the only authority in the country to have provided new towns with full-time education. Though it has always provided schools in advance of growing populations in the new towns, a new primary school will be opened in August with only 100 primary pupils. Another planned school will not be started, and a high school which ought to have been required in 1962 according to the figures will now be required only in 1964 or even later.

Glenrothes, despite some of the announcements from Government sources, should not be regarded as the Cinderella of Britain's new towns. As paragraph 99 of the Report on new towns states: The difficulties under which the Corporation work in comparison with other areas, cannot, however, be too heavily stressed, and it is vital that some of these unnecessary handicaps be removed without delay. These are the handicaps to which my hon. Friend has referred. I support him strongly in his plea for an advance factory so that we may have a prosperous and healthy town in Glenrothes in the future.

11.52 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith)

When I first learned that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) wanted a debate on the future of Glenrothes I was a little surprised. Last Wednesday, as he pointed out, he asked a Question about Glenrothes in which he asked my right hon. Friend . .whether he will give an assurance that the future development of the town will not be retarded. In his reply my right hon. Friend said: There is thus no reason for expecting the pit closures to retard the development of the town."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November 1961, Vol. 650, c. 64–5.] That was a pretty definite answer and I cannot improve on the confidence which it has shown my right hon. Friend to possess in the future of the town. Our attitude is more than optimism—the word which the hon. Member for Fife, West used—it is confidence.

In the time that remains I will try to expand a little upon the reasons which have led us to take this confident view of the town's development. In doing so I hope I may remove any doubts or misunderstandings that may still exist about Glenrothes or its function as a general purpose new town.

The basic fact to get hold of, which may have become obscured, is that Glenrothes was never conceived of as being a purely mining town. Right from the beginning it was the Government's intention that the new town should have a varied industrial structure.

In Glenrothes the Government's aim has been to carry out on a small scale the policy of diversification of industry exemplified by the new developments at Bathgate, Ravenscraig and Linwood which have had a stimulating effect on the whole Scottish economy. It is perfectly true that at one time it was envisaged that in Glenrothes those engaged on mining work might amount to one person in every four or five of the total employed population. By 1959, however, it was clear, owing to the reorganisation of the coal industry in Fife, that there would be only a fairly small inward movement of miners into the new town from other parts of Scotland. The National Coal Board then stated that its total requirement for this purpose would not be more than about fifty houses per annum. Because of this decline—and it occurred two years ago—in the Coal Board's requirement, my right hon. Friend then wrote to the Chairman of the Development Corporation saying: I hope the new town will continue to make an increasingly important contribution to Glasgow's problems. He went on—and this is the really important part of the letter—to say: We are not contemplating that it should be necessary … to plan for any reduction in the ultimate scale of the housing and other developments which you have in mind. That was the position two years ago and it remains the position today.

My right hon. Friend is most anxious that it should be clearly understood that recent developments in the coal industry have made no difference to the planned future prospects of the town. Such change of emphasis as was necessary took place two years ago, and the course of events since 1959 has amply fulfilled the confidence my right hon. Friend then expressed in the town's growth potential.

It would, therefore, be a very great disservice, as the hon. Member himself recognised, not only to Glenrothes, but to the whole of Fife, if any suggestion were made that the new town was in danger of becoming a problem area because of pit closures. I hope that both the hon. Member for Fife, West and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Mr. Gourlay) will do their best to combat any inaccurate and ill-informed rumours of this sort. Of course we realise that the stoppage of operations at Rothes pit must have come as a great blow to those engaged in the mining industry, but the effect on Glenrothes itself is slight. Only 300 of the men working at Rothes actually live in Glenrothes and I understand that the majority of those affected by the stoppage of coal cutting will be found work at other pits.

I entirely appreciate that it is not enough to provide these men with work and that what those who are concerned with the healthy development of the new town want to know is whether other jobs will be coming to Glenrothes which will compensate for the loss of the mining jobs. What they want to know is whether there will be a net increase in the employment potential in the new town which will make Glenrothes a thriving industrial area.

I am glad to be able to say that the picture of industrial development is encouraging and that prospects are even better today than they were a year ago. At the moment more than 200 jobs are in prospect from new industrial building and several hundred other jobs will result if a number of firms go ahead with projects which they are now actively contemplating.

Hon. Members will note that these projects alone, quite apart from any new incoming developments, will by themselves more than make good the loss due to the contraction in the coal mining industry. But that is not all. The Development Corporation has received eleven inquiries from firms interested in the newly serviced south industrial area. The advance factories have not only been approved, but are in course of construction and inquiries about them are already being made.

All this is most encouraging and it would not justify the listing of Glenrothes itself as a development district under the Local Employment Act, which the hon. Member suggested might be a means of speeding development. An area can be listed as a development district only when there is a high level of unemployment. That does not apply to Glenrothes or to the area surrounding it. Although Glenrothes itself may not be a development district, firms which recruit a substantial number of their workers from a development district, either locally or from Glasgow, will get assistance in establishing themselves under the Local Employment Act, and to that extent Glenrothes benefits from the inducements which the hon. Member mentioned.

The hon. Member referred also to the Toothill Report. The Government have taken a great interest in the publication of this Report and are considering its recommendations. I cannot go further than that now.

The hon. Member also asked about housing and overspill. The number of houses built over the last couple of years has been between 300 and 350. With regard to overspill, the hon. Gentleman may not appreciate that that in a way is a technical category; but including the numbers housed in overspill, a total of 250 families from Glasgow, or a population in excess of about 1,000, have been housed. There is also evidence of an increase in the number of families moving from Glasgow, and the industrial selection machinery can recruit from Glasgow the skilled workers who are required for incoming industry.

The hon. Member asked about the prospects for the town centre. Again, the outlook is promising. The rents charged are in line with those which obtain at other new towns, and certainly in relation to the sums invested in the layout and servicing of the town centre, the rents being asked are modest.

The best advice that I can give the hon. Gentleman to pass on to his perhaps rather faint-hearted friends is the words of the well-known hymn: Come, labour on. Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear. For our part, looking ahead, we regard Glenrothes as an area of steady and perhaps even rapid growth. It has some of the finest industrial sites in Eastern Scotland. It is a pleasant and attractive town, with good housing and shopping facilities—as I know, because I have been there.

The Development Corporation has made itself known for the speed and efficiency with which it can erect factories, and can provide—with the cooperation of the local authorities—services required for industrialists. It has been particularly successful in attracting some of the new science-based industries from America. In addition to all this, there is the new Forth Road Bridge, which, when completed, will bring much improved road communication with the south.

Far from being gloomy, therefore, the outlook for Glenrothes is, I believe, bright. Its future has not depended, and does not depend, upon the fortunes of the coal-mining industry. That cannot be over-emphasised. What its future depends upon is the new scientific industries. Already success in attracting these is making Glenrothes a thriving community. Because it can call on skilled workers from Glasgow, through overspill and in other ways, the omens are good for the future development and prosperity of the town. In conclusion, I hope that in expanding upon what my right hon. Friend said in answer to the hon. Member's Question last Wednesday I have given good grounds for our confidence in the future of Glenrothes, and—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Monday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at two minutes past Twelve o'clock.