HC Deb 12 December 1962 vol 669 cc530-46

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

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Edward Milne (Blyth)

The village of Cramlington in the county of Northumberland lies near the A.1 road. The villagers can hear the thunder of expresses on the main East Coast line between London and Scotland. It lies within easy reach of the Port of Blyth, and thus has easy access to Europe and all parts of the world on its eastern doorstep. Set in the midst of a shrinking coal field, it has made a major contribution to the country's economy. That is why the decision of the Board of Trade and the Government to site an advance factory at Cramlington is of major importance not only to my constituency but to the whole of south-east Northumberland and, in fact, to the north-east of England.

Centred near Cramlington is an area of 500 acres of industrial sites, and a working population of some 300,000 reside within eight miles with the town as a centre. It is the site of the first new town in Britain which is a product of private enterprise and local authority enterprise and development. The Northumberland County Council has made itself responsible for the industrial estate, for part of the housing and for the schools and other amenities. Private enterprise will provide the town centre and some of the houses.

The advance factory area, with the present population of 5,000 to 6,000, will in the course of time—I raise the subject of the industrial estate tonight because we want to know how long "the course of time" will be—grow to an area with a population of about 50,000. At the moment the proposals for the town as a whole have been the subject of a formal submission to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government so that the area may be treated as one of comprehensive development. The local authorities within the area and the Northumberland County Council are to be congratulated on not merely waiting for Government assistance but anticipating it, going far ahead of anything the Government have been able to do for them.

This is an area in a shrinking coal field, which makes the question of an advance factory one of major importance to Northumberland's jobless. I want to deal for a moment with the question of the impact an advance factory would have on the rising unemployment in my constituency. In this same period in 1951 there were only 618 people unemployed in the district. I say "only", but I am not in any way minimising the effect of their unemployment on these people. On 10th October, 1960, the number of jobless was 781, and the last available figure, on 12th November, showed a rise to 1,329.

However, it was not only the rise in the number of jobless that made this a major disaster. There was also the length of unemployment among the persons signing on at the labour exchanges. The last available figures show that 251 had been unemployed from eight to 26 weeks; 123 from three to six months; and 111 for more than 12 months. Yet, while unemployment was mounting, the volume of assistance in the provision of new jobs for the area was declining.

Since 1951, as the Parliamentary Secretary will know, about 1,900 industrial development certificates have been issued for the area, and this factor must be borne in mind against the background of the unemployment figures. Of these certificates, 170 have been given in the last few years. Yet the jobs in prospect for the immediate future—which I understand is taken as being about six to 12 months—is only 200.

This is not a question of an area or a people shouting "woe" or moaning or doing any of those things that hon. Members opposite have told us ought not to be done. This area is proud of its industry, proud of the ability of its people to adapt themselves to any new tasks, and we take rather badly to being lectured by people who themselves have mainly contributed to the present state of the area. It is no use telling us that cartoons depicting today's unemployment as something akin to the conditions of the 1920s and the 1930s should be wiped off our British newspapers. People want to extricate themselves from unemployment at the earliest possible moment.

It is no use the Leader of the House telling us that we went through the same phase in 1958–59 and that we finally emerged from the General Election with another Tory victory tucked under the belts of hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is possible that the reasons for that victory have contributed to the figures which I have just given.

My constituency and other parts of north-east England can shout their wares from the housetops. Our major shipyards have been re-equipped; selected coal mines have been reconstructed and new shafts have been sunk; a general trend of modernisation has been followed since the war by industries in the area. Heavy engineering firms have added to their plant and factory space and there have been major schemes of expansion in the iron and steel industry. Firms from the North-East have made their contribution to and are playing a leading part in the newer aspects of industry and in developments in the use of nuclear power and plastics and so on.

We are asking the Board of Trade to speed up the building of the advance factory in an area which has equipped itself and is prepared for meeting the challenge of the second half of the twentieth century and for making a major contribution to keeping Britain in the forefront of nations. Because of that modernisation of firms and the energies of local authorities and workpeople in the area, about 200 new firms and branches of firms have been established in the district since the war.

It is against that background that we seek information about the Board of Trade's decision to site an advance factory at Cramlington. On 14th December, 1961, two parts of my constituency, Blyth and Seaton Delaval, were scheduled as development districts, but the unemployment has not been arrested and the figures are rising, as I have shown. In a debate on 23rd July, about north-east unemployment, the President of the Board of Trade promised to site two new advance factories in Durham and Northumberland. We then discovered that that to be sited in Northumberland was to be in the village of Cramlington.

On 1st August, I had discussions at the Board of Trade and the following day I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman in these terms: I feel that my talks at the Board of Trade this morning were extremely useful but was disturbed to learn that the decision on siting may take some two to three months. Will you please give all the assistance you can in expediting this matter as I am afraid that a delay of some two to three months will be rather disappointing to the people in my area who are expecting some more urgent action than this. It is not merely a question of waiting from 23rd July for the siting of an advance factory, for the area has been scheduled since last December. Since then, we have had some guarded information from the Board of Trade, and I can understand its reluctance to give the maximum information on a matter involving the buying and selling of land.

I appreciate that there has to be, or that there may have to be, some degree of secrecy in this matter, but, as I pointed out to the Board of Trade on that occasion, the local authorities in my area have industrial sites ready and waiting for industrialists to move in, and it may be that some of these would have been easier of access than the actual site which was ultimately chosen for the factory.

The information which the district is awaiting with the keenest interest is the number of new jobs which this factory will provide. The size of the factory is important, and the number of jobs is, of course, of major importance. It is also important to know the type of job to be provided within the factory, because we have argued, and I think rightly, that not only is it a question of requiring more industry, but that in the past our industrial jobs have all been in one basket, and that what we need is diversity of industry. We believe that the siting of an advance factory can play a major part in tackling the unemployment problem in the area.

This affects not only my constituency, but the industrial prospects for the whole of south-east Northumberland, and, indeed, the whole of the North-East, because within the area of Northumberland, Durham and north Yorkshire, there is a population of about 2,800,000, with 1 million industrial workers. When I say that this area is larger than Wales, I am not talking in any disparaging way about Welsh Members on either side of the House.

I have shown the Parliamentary Secretary the manner in which the area has faced the challenge of the post-war period. Not only have we industrial prospects to offer, but the countryside and the area around these industrial areas is possibly amongst the nicest in Britain, and as an exiled Scot I know the beauty of hills and streams, of countryside and of beaches, and all the other things which Northumberland and the North-East can offer people who come into this area.

I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me than -when we can back up those things with one of the most adaptable labour forces in Britain we indeed have an area which is not shouting woe but is asking the Board of Trade to use this advance factory at Cramlington as a jumping off ground to abolish unemployment in the North-East not merely for a year or two, but for all time.

9.49 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price)

I am particularly happy to reply to this Adjournment debate about Cramlington because I had the good fortune to visit the town during my visit to the North-East in October. I was very much impressed with the energy and foresight with which responsible local people were approaching the exciting task of creating a new Cramlington, and I heartily endorse all that the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) has said about that enterprise.

As the hon. Gentleman said, Cramlington is a small town eight miles north of Newcastle and lies in the middle of a declining coalfield in the Seaton Delaval development district. Here the Northumberland County Council proposes to build a new town, first to endeavour to regenerate an old mining district, and, secondly, to rehouse people living in the more congested area of North Tyneside.

This is an ambitious scheme, which I have seen on the ground myself. It embraces the comprehensive development of between 5,000 and 6,000 acres of land under the Town and County Country Planning Acts. This plan has been approved by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. However, in fairness I should point out that although Cramlington is often referred to as Cramlington New Town, it has not been designated under the New Towns Act and therefore does not qualify for the benefits of that Act. As the hon. Member rightly pointed out, this venture is a happy partnership between the local authorities and private enterprise.

It is the aim of all concerned that Cramlington should become a focal point for economic and social growth in this part of Northumberland. I agree heartily with the hon. Member that Cramlington is geographically extremely well placed, lying between Newcastle and Blyth and, looked at nationally, close to the main arterial link from the Midlands to the South of Scotland.

Cramlington is part of the Seaton Delaval development district. Seaton Delaval was made a development district on 14th December, 1961, at the same time as the neighbouring district of Blyth—also in the hon. Member's constituency. At the November count this year the number of wholly unemployed in Seaton Delaval was relatively small— 293, of which 242 were males—but the percentage, at 8.6 per cent., was high. On the other hand, the number of wholly unemployed in the neighbouring district of Blyth was substantially higher, but the percentage was lower than that of Seaton Delaval, although slightly higher than the percentage for the north-east as a whole—4.8 per cent. as against 4.5 per cent. for what we classify as the North-East for statistical purposes.

Since December, 1961, the full range of assistance under the Local Employment Acts has been available to these two districts. I can assure the hon. Member that the Government are as anxious as he is to see the regeneration of the declining economy of south-east Northumberland, which has been experiencing the inevitable run-down of an old coalfield. That is why my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade chose a site in south-east Northumberland as one of the sites in his July programme of new advance factories. The House will recall that the July programme was designed primarily to help places likely to be hit by colliery closures and similar special local factors.

When my right hon. Friend made this announcement on 26th July he did not specify Cramlington, but described it more generally as a site in south-east Northumberland. The hon. Member may like to know why my right hon. Friend could not have been more specific in his description at that time. The Board of Trade was not then in possession of a site in this part of Northumberland, and we wished to avoid any mention of a specific place, in case we should raise false hopes, or encourage landowners to take advantage of the situation by holding out for a higher price than would normally be considered reasonable.

The House will be aware of the great difficulties that have arisen in the past when the Board of Trade has been publicly committed to building an advance factory in a particular place before acquiring the actual site. However, our preference all along has been for a site in the Seaton Delaval area, which has experienced a substantial reduction in the numbers employed in the mining industry. Most of these have retired, or have found other work, and the number of wholly unemployed has risen only from 187 in November, 1961, to 293 in November this year. The fact remains that the percentage has increased from 5.5 per cent. to 8.6 per cent., and most of those affected—

Mr. Milne

The hon. Gentleman will not ignore the fact that many people have had to leave the area because no other employment was available.

Mr. Price

I agree. I was going on to say that most of these men have families to support and are not single men, which obviously makes the position more serious. My right hon. Friend and I are deeply conscious of the decline in employment opportunities, apart from any actual unemployment, in the Seaton Delaval district. It is clearly a serious matter, and relief cannot immediately be found within the surrounding area. The hon. Member said that his constituents do not cry woe. I know that they do not. I recognise that the burden of his argument was that it was unrealistic to expect the area, as of now, to be able to generate all the new economic growth which is necessary to take the place of all the industry which has gone out.

It is our purpose that the advance factory at Cramlington should act as a catalyst for industrial development in the new town. The factory is to be of about 14,000 sq. ft. I have personally inspected the site with representatives of the local authorities and of the Industrial Estates Corporation for England which is responsible for building the factory. From what I saw the site seemed to me to be admirable, and I would agree entirely with what the hon. Member said about the attractiveness of Cramlington to industry. The hon. Member is anxious to know how many of his constituents will be employed there.

The factory, as I have said, is to be about 14,000 sq. ft. The number of people likely to be employed there will, of course, depend upon the type of manufacture which the ultimate tenant of the factory will wish to carry out. However, on past experience it would seem probable that a factory of this size will employ between 60 and 70 people. Because we want this factory to be the catalyst for economic growth in Cramlington, it is being designed like most other advance factories which we build with an eye to easy expansion in the future. Thus, if the tenant wished to expand the factory space we would be ready to build the necessary extension, and the initial factory is so designed. Furthermore, if a tenant can be found who wants a larger factory from the outset—before he goes into it—than the one which we are building, we shall, of course, be ready to build the necessary extension at once.

The hon. Member has made some mention of alleged delay in deciding upon the site for the factory which my right hon. Friend announced would be built in south-east Northumberland. The fact of the matter was this. The site which we had in mind in July when my right hon. Friend made his announcement was part of a much larger one which the Northumberland Council wished to purchase from a private landlord, and although arrangements have now been made to enable the Board of Trade to start work on the land, the position in the summer was quite different. I have already pointed out the difficulties and delays which can be caused when the Board of Trade has been publicly committed to a particular site before it has acquired the land. In these circumstances, we thought it advisable not to make a public announcement upon the precise site of the advance factory until the land transaction had been completed. This position was reached in early November and, accordingly, I informed the hon. Member on 8th November, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, that the factory would be built at Cramlington.

The hon. Member has argued that time has been wasted. Of course, four months is a long time to people who are waiting for the jobs which will be provided by this advance factory, but it would be quite wrong to assume that the intervening time has been wasted. The hon. Member will know that it is impossible for a factory of this kind to be put out to tender without any preparation. Soil tests have to be made to decide the strength of the foundations, the plan of the factory has to be prepared by the architects and bills of quantity have to be drawn up before the tenders can be put out.

Most of this work has been completed, and the Industrial Estates Management Corporation for England is now on the point of calling for tenders for the steel work to be used in the structure of the factory. It will not, of course, be possible to start building operations until the contracts have been let, but there has been no avoidable delay and everything will be done to ensure that the work starts as soon as possible. Present plans are that the factory will be ready for progressive occupation in August next year and will be fully completed by September. I explained to the hon. Member, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, on 27th November, that there have been no special difficulties in starting work on this factory, but we had to select and buy a suitable site and this was inevitably a fairly long and complicated process. The Northumberland County Council and the Management Corporation can in fact be congratulated on the progress which they have made to date.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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

Mr. Price

The hon. Member asked me, if not directly, at least by implication, whether we have found a tenant for the factory. The answer is that it is probably still too soon to expect industrialists to commit themselves to taking the Cramlington factory. We are taking active steps to draw the attention of industry to this advance factory, and indeed to all the other advance factories which we are constructing under the programmes announced this year. We have no reason to be discouraged because a tenant has not yet appeared, since the building has not actually started. But I am sure that this advance factory will make a useful contribution in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

We do not, of course, suggest that the factory will, of itself, revolutionise the whole economy of south-east Northumberland. But I believe that it will be a useful contribution to the area as a whole and particularly it will be an important first step towards attracting new industry to Cramlington and making it a worth-while growth point. In choosing Cramlington for an advance factory, the Government are practising what they preach. They want industry to go to Cramlington, and therefore we are setting an example by building an advance factory there, financed from public funds. We hope that industry will follow our example. I need not remind the House that any firm which decides to settle in Cramlington will be eligible for the full range of assistance under the Local Employment Act.

I end by wishing the Cramlington venture well. It is an imaginative concept which we in the Board of Trade are backing with deeds as well as words.

10.2 p.m.

Mr. Edward Short (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central)

I wish to add a few words to the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) that the Government should get a move on with this advance factory in Cramlington. I do so not only because I know the area extremely well, but because, as the Minister rightly said, this new urban area will take a great deal of the overspill population from Tyneside. It is, therefore, quite likely that ultimately thousands of my constituents will be rehoused in the Cramlington area, and so I have a real interest in the promotion of new industry in that area.

We in the North-East have a legitimate grievance against the Government for their almost total inactivity in the past in dealing with the problem which faces us. They are building a number of advance factories for which we are grateful. But the programme of advance factories looks small indeed when measured against the size of our problem. In the North, and largely in the North-East, there are 61,000 people without jobs. That is the highest figure since before the war. My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), has checked the number of vacancies and there are 10 unemployed people for every vacancy on the books—10 men for each job.

The basic trouble in the North-East is that we are still so over-dependent on a few heavy industries. Despite all the diversification of industry which has gone on since the beginning of the 1930s we still depend to a considerable extent on mining, quarrying, heavy engineering and so on. Almost 16 per cent. of the people are employed in mining and quarrying and 10 per cent. in the construction industry. The figure for heavy engineering is, I think, 7 or 8 per cent. and over 4 per cent.—almost 5 per cent.—are employed in shipbuilding and ship-repairing. We have more people employed by the railways than in most of the other regions. Because of this we were badly hit—probably hit harder than any other area except Northern Ireland—by the Government's credit restriction policy.

Throughout the past 10 years the Government have had to deal from time to time with bouts of inflation. This country can never be inflation proof. Whichever Government are in office, they must deal with the problem of inflation from time to time. Whenever inflation has occurred over the last 10 or 12 years the Government have gone to the "medicine chest" and fetched out one bottle only, which is labelled "credit squeeze". They have no other remedy than that of the credit squeeze. There may have been inflation in Birmingham, in the Midlands and in the South-East, but there has been no inflation in Cramlington, Blyth or Sunderland. Indeed, there has been the reverse, but we have had to take the medicine in the same way as more prosperous parts of the country.

It is rather like a mother with six children, one of whom has tummy ache, giving castor oil to all the children. We have had to take castor oil to cure inflation in Birmingham, the Midlands and the South. That has done terrible harm to the North-East. I have quoted, and could quote again, many examples of industrialists wishing to start enterprises in the area. In some cases able young scientists could start up useful small industries, but they are not able to get assistance from Local Employment Act. It do not pin as much faith to that Act as the Minister does. It has brought virtually nothing to the North-East.

Those young men have not been able to get assistance from the banks because the Government were operating one of their periodic credit squeezes. One young man wished to open a factory which would make electric pumps in the Cramlington area. I appealed to the President of the Board of Trade to give assistance to this young man, but no assistance was forthcoming.

We now have a state of affairs in the North-East in which, if B.O.T.A.C. turns down an application, a large insurance company is prepared to finance the project if it looks at all possible. In some cases the company has done so. The machinery of B.O.T.A.C. and the Local Employment Act needs reexamining. To the North-East it has brought less than £500,000 in the whole period in which it has been in operation. One project after another has been turned down.

B.O.T.A.C. consists almost entirely of businessmen—indeed, I believe entirely of businessmen—and too much weight is given to the criterion of viability. Social considerations and conditions in the North-East ought to be much more important factors when B.O.T.A.C. is considering applications by industrialists for assistance. The answer for the North-East is to be found in a Government which will pursue a less restrictionist and more expansionist policy, but we are stuck with the present Government for some time. In view of the recent by-elections, I am afraid that we are likely to have the present Government for at least another year.

There are, however, some things which the Government could do. We have been discussing one of them tonight. There are things the Government could do which would make an almost immediate difference in the North-East. They could divert more Government orders to the North-East. The Government are the largest purchaser of goods in the country. The Government buy everything from tanks to ladies' "undies", and we make the lot in the North-East, especially the tanks. Why cannot the Government get together the four or five Ministries concerned and agree to divert 10 per cent., or even 5 per cent., more orders to the North-East?

In the New Year the biggest industrial unit on Tyneside, and one of the most important—of which I shall give the Minister particulars if he wishes—wild pay off 200 to 300 men who have been working with that firm for 20, 25 or 30 years. They are some of the most highly-skilled and valuable men in the country. That firm relies very heavily on Government orders and it is not getting nearly enough. The Government could divert many more orders to the North-East. Secondly, they could give the North-East more public investment.

Newcastle has been crying out for a new large secondary school to replace some of the most horrible old secondary modern schools which make a mockery of the Education Act. We cannot get the Ministry of Education to give us this school. Such a school would mean building work for 200 or 300 men for many months. As I pointed out, 10 per cent. of the insured male population in the North-East is engaged in the construction industry. More public investment would make a tremendous impact on unemployment in the North-East, probably bigger than anything else.

Let me give another example of where the Government are not helping. Every local education authority in the North-East has been asked to submit a list of priorities for building projects to implement the Albemarle Report.

Mr. Price

indicated assent.

Mr. Short

I see the Parliamentary Secretary is nodding. He knows about them. Does he know what the Ministry of Education has allotted? Northumberland has been allotted one minor project for a youth club. Sunderland has been allowed nothing. The story is the same throughout the whole of the North-East. Are the Government on the level about trying to help us in the North-East? We need these schools. We need more houses and roads.

One of the greatest liabilities in the North-East is its poor communications. We need an urban motorway from the North, from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and the Northumberland industrial area, through the Tyneside conurbation, with a new crossing across the Tyne, not going down to the A.1 but going across to the Midlands. That is where our communications are required.

After that, we need better lateral communications. The Government are spoiling the lateral communications. They are closing the branch lines. The new additional road programme announced recently by the Minister of Transport is simply chickenfeed—one or two improvements at junctions here and there. That is not what we want in the North-East. We want something radical, not only to absorb unemployment but to give us an efficient system of communications.

Those are two things that the Government could do. There are many others. The provision of advance factories is certainly one of them. I forget how many are on the books now. I believe there are seven. But, of course, we have a number of factories empty. How are we going to get tenants for the seven? The Local Employment Act is an inadequate instrument to attract them. What is the good of building factories if we cannot get tenants for them? Complementary to this problem of building advance factories would be a new and better instrument, a revised Local Employment Act.

As I said a few weeks ago in the House I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that the direction of industry is the only possible way of rehabilitating these areas. Provided it is done intelligently, I see nothing wrong with it. We are directing labour now. I was recently preaching at a Wesleyan chapel in the village of Waterhouse in Durham. Afterwards I went to a miner's cottage for my tea. He told me of the hundreds of men moving out of the valley down to Nottingham and South Wales to get work. But they could not get houses. They were allowed passes back home every six weeks. Those valleys in Durham will be derelict. Tens of thousands of people are living there—whole communities dependent on the coal mines. What is going to happen to these people? If we are going to build advance factories, there must be some way of getting industry there.

Let us provide more fiscal inducements to the industrialists, spread over a period of years. If this appeals to Tory philosophy, I do not mind so long as it helps us. If it would encourage them to go to these areas, let us do this by all means. We need these areas not only, as my hon. Friend said, to take up the unemployment but, coming back to my first point, to diversify our industry. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the future of this country's economy is to make more sophisticated products. Every industrialised country can make tanks, tractors and things like that. The future of this country, if we are to have a decent standard of life in the years to come, requires that we make more sophisticated products, electronic computers, airliners and things of that kind where the return is greater. With their long tradition of skill, our workers can produce these things probably better than they can be produced anywhere else in the world. Herein lies our country's future, and this is another reason why we need far more of these factories.

We are extremely grateful for what is coming. I do not wish to be misunderstood about that. However, without the means to bring tenants, of course, the factories will not be very effective.

In Northumberland and Durham coalfield now we have a labour force of 116,000. By 1965 this will have dropped to between 65,000 and 75,000. Even allowing for natural wastage, this means that jobs must be found for 35,000 to 40,000 people from the mining industry alone in the next five or six years.

I am told that the mining industry has already almost reached saturation point in the absorption of redundant miners. It will be extremely difficult to place all these men in work in the future. We need far more training facilities, training facilities in a really big way not only for young people but especially for old people. The Government have made a start at the Brancepeth Camp near Durham which is now not needed for the Army. This is good, but what we need is training facilities for men from the coal industry and the shipyards who will become redundant in the next few years. It will be a colossal problem.

It is possible to calculate almost exactly the number of men who will leave jobs in coal mining, and, perhaps not so accurately though reasonably so, on the basis of the last two or three years, the number who will leave jobs in shipbuilding and several other industries. What we need in the North-East is a Government plan, worked out by the Government, by "Neddy" or any other body—we do not mind so long as it is effective—to equate the new jobs induced into the area with the number of redundancies which are coming. I suggest that there should be a ten-year plan worked out along those lines.

Each Monday, I fly down from Newcastle to London. The plane climbs up above Newcastle and, when it reaches a point above the Consett iron works belching out its orange smoke across the beautiful countryside, from about 10,000 ft. I can see the whole North Country spread out below me, from the sea and Sunderland with its shipyards and cranes right across to the jagged peaks of the Lake District. I can see the Tyne with its shipyards and the ships going up and down, the docks and the old industrial areas. I can see the rich agricultural land, the great sweep of moors and the fells across to the Lake District. This is one of the most perfectly balanced regions in the country.

Man does not live by bread alone. Important as industry is, we need more than that. In the North Country, we have one of the finest labour forces in the world. We have some of the finest factory sites in the world, and we have one of the best industrial areas in the world. We have some of the best people in the world, too, and we have one of the best industrial records in the world. Industrial relations in the North-East are second to none, and we are extremely proud of them.

As well as all that, we have in the North Country the moors, the great beaches of Northumberland, the quiet areas, the still lakes of the Lake District, the woods and the mountains. There is no better balanced area in the country in which to live.

I hope that the Government will give serious thought to this matter. Ours is one of the most clearly defined regions in the country, with the North Sea on the east, the Pennines on the west, and the Tees to the south and the Tweed to the north. In that oblong there are 2 million people. We are in great trouble now, and we look to the Government to help us.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes past Ten o'clock.