Manpower

HC Deb 17 July 1961 vol 644 cc870-3

26. Mr. Mason

asked the Minister of Power what progress has been made in halting the drift of manpower away from the coal-mining industry; and what success has been achieved in recruitment of young workers.

The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood)

Twenty-nine thousand men chose to leave the industry in the first twenty-six weeks of this year. Almost exactly the same number did so in the first half of 1960. Juvenile recruitment in this period was 6,367, compared with 5,888 last year.

Mr. Mason

Is the Minister not aware that 15,000 who left the industry in the past twelve months were men earning good wages and that it does not seem that we are having a successful campaign to bring them back? Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that because of the drift away in manpower, if we cannot get the mechanisation we need this will affect production?

Mr. Wood

The Chairman of the Board and myself are most concerned about the drift of manpower from the coal-mining industry. The Board is making strenuous efforts to recruit. Restriction on recruitment has entirely come to an end and recruitment should be going forward, but it depends very largely on the use that is made of existing manpower how quickly productivity can be increased so that the objectives which the noble Lord, Lord Robens, put before the industry and the mineworkers in his speech on 6th July can be realised.

Mr. Nabarro

Will my right hon. Friend make it perfectly clear that the Chairman of the Board has said that he is aiming for a manpower figure of 500,000 men to produce 200 million tons of coal at an output rate of 400 tons per man-year instead of the present level of just over 300 tons per man-year? Would we not, all of us on both sides of the House, be advised to support such an enlightened objective?

Mr. Wood

I think that that is a perfectly accurate description of Lord Roben's views.

Mr. Nabarro

I am grateful.

Mr. Gunter

Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that there is real significance in the fact that 60 per cent. of the men who left the pits in the first quarter of 1961 were under the age of 31? Does this not indicate a real sense of insecurity in that industry?

Mr. Wood

I think that there will continue to be insecurity until by the rapid advance of productivity, which I hope will take place in future, it becomes evident that the Chairman's objectives are very real possibilities for the industry to reach.

31. Mr. Wainwright

asked the Minister of Power if he will state the number of youths who have left their employment in the coal-mining industry for the years 1958, 1959, 1960 and up to the last available date in 1961.

Mr. Wood

The number of miners under 21 who left the industry in 1958 was 12,500; in 1959, 14,100; in 1960, 16,700; and in the first quarter of 1961, 3,800.

Mr. Wainwright

Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that these figures are rather depressing? Is not he aware that faith in the industry is slowly but surely diminishing? What efforts have been made, with the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers, to try to arrest this flow of boys leaving the industry?

Mr. Wood

I have already expressed my concern, and the concern of Lord Robens, about the drift from the pits; but even during the very difficult times in these past few years, and in spite of the restrictions placed on recruitment, considerably more boys and young men have come into the pits than have left. For the future, it seems to me that the kind of picture that Lord Robens recently painted of the industry of the future is enough to give perfectly reasonable confidence to any young man who wants to enter the industry that there are good prospects for him for the rest of his working life.

Mr. Blyton

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most of the thousands of young men who are leaving the pits are tradesmen—mechanics—and that if there is to be increased mechanisation they are most essential to it? How can we prevent them from leaving?

Mr. Wood

There is obviously no short answer to this. Very largely it is a question—and here I think I take the hon. Gentleman with me—of creating confidence in the future. I do not believe that that can be done by the methods frequently suggested by Opposition speakers in this House. It will be done much more by the methods Lord Robens suggested in his speech on the 6th July.

Miss Herbison

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House—particularly those from mining areas—will give the greatest support to the policy that has been put forward by Lord Robens? But is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that many of these manpower losses, and also the difficulty of recruitment, are due to the feeling that the Government have no fuel and power policy? These young people are scared that there is no future in the industry for them.

Mr. Wood

I have never been able to agree that a guarantee of a target of production for the industry would result in the confidence in the future of the industry which a great many hon. Members seem—wrongly, I think—to assume.