KILWINNING INDUSTRIAL ESTATE (ADVANCE FACTORY) (Hansard, 21 November 1962)

§ Mr. Archie Manuel (Central Ayrshire)
This Adjournment debate is of considerable importance to many people in my constituency, and I very much regret that the President of the Board of Trade, or at least: the Minister of State, is not in his place.
The matter which I am raising concerns the integrity of the President of the Board of Trade. It concerns the provision of an advance factory at Kilwinning Industrial Estate in my constituency. Ever since I was returned to this House in 1950 I have been asking the Government, by means of Questions and in speeches, to complete the development of this industrial estate. Nearly £100,000 was spent in providing this industrial estate, but still only one factory has been built upon it—an advance factory which has since been occupied.
The Parliamentary Secretary will remember that the Secretary of State for Scotland made a statement in the House on Scottish economy, on 11th July, 1962, about the building of certain advance factories in Scotland. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to take note of what happened subsequently. In a Press notice, dated 26th July, 1962, the President of the Board of Trade mentioned the areas in which each factory would be built. The Press statement mentioned that in Scotland further advance factories would be built as follows: in Lanarkshire, at Whitburn; in the Larkhall-Lesmahagow-Douglas area; in Central West Fife; in Central Ayrshire; in the Sanquhar-Kirkconnel area, and in Stranraer.
This statement raised great hopes in my constituency, especially among certain local authorities who had got together to press the necessity for building advance factories and taking other measures to relieve unemployment in the area. The statement boosted the feelings of the hard-hit unemployed in the area 1362 around Kilwinning. During the Summer Recess, however, I began to hear persistent rumours that an advance factory was not going to be built in Central Ayrshire but would, instead, be built in the area of Cumnock, in South Ayrshire.
I am not opposed to South Ayrshire's having an advance factory. There will be some pit closures in that area in the future, and it will obviously need more than one advance factory. But the present high rate of unemployment in my constituency necessitates the fulfilment of the announcement made by the President of the Board of Trade that a factory would be built in Central Ayrshire.
As a result of these rumours I wrote to the President of the Board of Trade, on 28th September, 1962, saying: Dear President, Arising from the Secretary of State for Scotland's statement referring to building advance factories in Scotland and the subsequent information from your Department, widely circulated in the Scottish and local Press that one of these factories would be located in central Ayrshire where we have a Government Industrial Estate with only one factory. There are persistent rumours that there are now doubts about one of the above factories being built in Central Ayrshire constituency and that it may be built elsewhere. I would be most grateful if I could have your assurance that the factory promised in Central Ayrshire will still be built. On 15th October I received a letter signed by the President: Dear Manuel, you wrote to me on 28th September about the advance factory which we are proposing to build in Central Ayrshire. I can assure you that we have not changed our minds and we are in fact negotiating with the owner of the land which we believe to be suitable. This state of affairs seems to arise because an English Minister is dabbling with Scottish problems. Obviously, he does not know the locus, because he said he was negotiating for a site in Central Ayrshire where already we have an industrial estate where there is only one factory. I was immediately suspicious and so deliberately I did not give the contents of my letter and the reply I had received to the local Press. I did not wish to raise hope among the unemployed in the area that we might be getting a factory, even though the President had said in the Press statement of 26th July that we were getting one.
The position was further complicated by a reply on 9th November to a Written 1363 Parliamentary Question by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), who asked: … the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he had for erecting factories in South Ayrshire in the areas where increased unemployment is likely as a result of pit closures. The Answer by the President of the Board of Trade was: I announced on 26th July that an advance factory would be built in Ayrshire. A suitable site has been found in the area of Cumnock and New Cumnock, and I hope that negotiations for its purchase will shortly be concluded."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th November, 1962; Vol. 666, c. 111–12.] In the statement of 26th July the President did not say "in Ayrshire". He said "in Central Ayrshire". That is the point we wish to clear up.
On 15th November in reply to a supplementary question from my hon. Friend the Member for. Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), which arose out of Question No. 55 dealing with advance factory building in Scotland and in north-east England, we got a slightly different story. My hon. Friend asked: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the action he has taken for Scotland in no way matches the need? May I ask exactly what he proposes to do about unemployment in Ayrshire? If he has not already taken action, will he do so immediately, bearing in mind the additional tragic blow which came to Ayrshire recently, not only by the loss of life but also by the loss of over 1,000 men's jobs in the Barony colliery in Auchinleck? The President of the Board of Trade replied: I am not suggesting for a moment that the building of advance factories will solve the whole unemployment problem, but that it will make a contribution to doing so. As to Ayrshire, we announced in July that we were to put up a factory in Cumnock, in the south. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is for once notably silent during supplementary questions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th November, 1962; Vol. 667, c. 567.] On 26th July the President of the Board of Trade did not state that the Board was to put up a factory at Cumnock in South Ayrshire. He said that an advance factory would be built in the area of Central Ayrshire and reiterated that in a letter to me on 15th October.
I stress to the Parliamentary Secretary the need for development at Kilwinning Industrial Estate. We are ask- 1364 ing the President of the Board of Trade to carry out his promise to build one advance factory at Kilwinning. There is an urgent need in the Kilwinning area. It is the centre of an area of heavy unemployment. In the area Irvine to Ardrossan there is an unemployment figure of 6.5 per cent. It may be a little more now; that is the latest figure I was able to obtain. On the other side, only a few miles away, there are the towns of Dalry and Kilbirnie with an unemployment figure of 8.5 per cent., plus much short-time working not embodied in that 8.5 per cent. The Ayrshire unemployment figure is around 6,000, excluding disabled persons and it embodies nearly 500 young people under 18.
Kilwinning is the centre of this unemployment area. We have been promised a factory. Let the President of the Board of Trade honour his promise. There can be no backing out now. I want him to do something to restore confidence and to sweep away some of the misunderstanding that has been created because of these persistent rumours. Let him honour his promise in his letter to me and in the Press statement he made and end this chapter of errors which has created great despondency in my constituency.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price)
In attempting to reply to the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) I should make it clear that I am not as unfamiliar with the County of Ayrshire as he seems to think. I spent four and a half years at school at Alloway.

§ Mr. Manuel
I said that the mistake had arisen because we had English Ministers—I do not think the hon. Gentleman is in that category—who did not know the locus.

§ Mr. Price
We shall go into that. Later in my industrial life my duties took me to Ardeer, which is not all that far from Kilwinning. So I can assure the hon. Member—in spite of his rather superficial anger—that I do not view the affairs of Kilwinning entirely through the eyes of Whitehall. The hon. Member has deployed his argument with that forcefulness that the House has come to expect of him. Equally as a man of 1365 character the hon. Member will not I am sure take it amiss if I am guided in my reply by some advice from the Ayrshire bard: Don't let the awkward squad fire over me". I do not intend to let the awkward squad fire over me tonight.

§ Mr. Manuel
Keep to the facts.

§ Mr. Price
The hon. Member will get more facts than he bargained for. I should like to begin by acknowledging that a great deal of public money was spent after the war in clearing the Kilwinning Industrial Estate and that to date much of this expenditure has not borne fruit. I should like, however, briefly to put this in historical perspective. The hon. Member will know that the 28 acres which now constitute the Kilwinning estate were acquired as long ago as 1946 and more than £80,000 was spent on clearing land, building roads and preparing sites for factory building. Nevertheless, by 1951, only one factory covering 34,000 sq ft. of floor space had been built. The factory was, in fact, built in 1949. A 25,000 sq. ft. extension has just been completed, but, over the years, there has been no other development.
The fact that so little was done at Kilwinning in the late 1940s and early 1950s was to some extent a reflection of the relative prosperity of the area at that time. The employment position was worse in places like Lanarkshire and less attention was at the time given to Kilwinning. Then came the restrictions on Government expenditure on factory building, and there was room in the programme only for the most important and immediate development. However, determined efforts were made to sell part or all of the remaining land at Kilwinning estate for private industrial development.
In view of the employment position, which had recently deteriorated, Kilwinning, which was still in a development area, was made eligible for financial assistance, through the Development Areas Treasury Advisory Committee, under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958. The following year, unemployment in what is now the Ardrossan group of development districts—that is, Ardrossan, Stevenston, Irvine and Kilwinning—rose to 9 per cent. The area was, therefore, listed for assistance under 1366 the Local Employment Act, 1960, as being a place where a high rate of unemployment existed and was likely to persist.
I come now to the present employment situation. I think that I can give the hon. Member the current figures. The amount of assistance which has been given to the area under the present Act is substantial, and the Government need not feel in any way ashamed of what they have done to increase employment opportunities there. The number of wholly unemployed fell from 1,842 in October, 1959, to 1,440 in October, 1961. Since then, however, there has been an increase to 1,673. But though the present position is by no means one we can be happy about, it is still better than it was three years ago.

§ Mr. Manuel
That is excluding Dairy and Kilbirnie.

§ Mr. Price
We are dealing with the Ardrossan area. I am sorry that we cannot break these figures down, but we have to take them from the local employment exchange area from which they are returned.
Moreover, with this total the figure of male unemployment has fallen much more sharply from 1,178 in 1959 to 754 in 1961. Today, it has risen to 909, but it is still below the 1959 figure.

§ Mr. E. G. Willis (Edinburgh, East)
Still far too many.

§ Mr. Price
It is the employment of the breadwinner which counts most, as I am sure hon. Members will agree. This is not to say that a percentage of 6.4 wholly unemployed is one which we can regard with equanimity. Far from it. But what really matters is whether the present high level of unemployment is likely to persist.
To date, more than £600,000, including the cost of the 25,000 sq. ft. factory extension on the Kilwinning estate, has been offered by way of assistance under the 1960 Act to firms in the Ardrossan group.

§ Mr. Manuel
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Price
I have a lot to say. I am trying to answer the hon. Gentleman.
This is the result of the efforts made by the Board of Trade—

§ Mr. Manuel
Will the hon Gentleman deal with the Press statement of 26th July?

§ Mr. Price
I am coming to that.

§ Mr. Manuel
The hon. Gentleman is sticking to his brief.

§ Mr. Price
We are doing this quite logically. I thought that Scotsmen liked logic.
This has been the result of the efforts made by the Board of Trade and the local authorities to introduce new industry into the area. It is estimated that this assistance will provide approximately 700 new jobs within the next three years, and a total of approximately 900 within the next five years.

§ Mr. Manuel
Where?

§ Mr. Price
Other developments within the area should provide another 400 jobs, making a total of about 1,300 jobs in the next five years. Within this total there should be nearly as many male jobs as there are at present male unemployed. In addition, four applications for financial assistance to firms in the area are under consideration, and a further three preliminary applications for small amounts have been received.
On the debit side—that is, the possible reduction of existing employment opportunities—I am glad to say that the outlook seems reasonably good. The level of unemployment has increased very little since the early parts of the year. The area has, therefore, done rather better than some other parts of the country. Moreover, as far as we know, there is no threat of large-scale redundancies in local industry.

§ Mr. Manuel
That is all wrong.

§ Mr. Price
I have much to say. I cannot give way. The position in the small coal mining industry is reasonably steady——

§ Mr. Manuel
Really.

§ Mr. Price
—the dockyard is engaged on Admiralty repair work and——

§ Mr. Manuel
On a point of order. I must object to the House being terribly misled because the Parliamentary Secre- 1368 tary is dealing with only a part of the area and not the whole of it.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)
Order. What the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) says is not a point of order.

§ Mr. Price
As I was saying—and I was talking about possible redundancies —the position in the small coal mining industry is reasonably steady, the dockyard is engaged on Admiralty repair work and no great change is foreseen in the chemical industry.

§ Mr. Manuel
Be fair.

§ Mr. Price
I am trying to answer the hon. Member. The conclusion must be that, while the problems of the area are not going to be solved overnight, there are good grounds for believing that the measures which have been taken will bring about a substantial improvement in the position in the not too distant future.

§ Mr. Price
No. I will not give way. This account shows that the Board of Trade has not been lacking in diligence in introducing new industry to this part of Scotland.

§ Mr. Manuel
Deal with the whole area.

§ Mr. Price
The spotlight must now be moved elsewhere. This is not just a question of £ s. d. The Board of Trade is constantly looking for opportunities of providing new jobs in Scotland and there is practically no limit, within the bounds of commercial prudence, to expenditure for this purpose.
The problem of Kilwinning must also be looked at in the light of the situation elsewhere in Scotland and the rest of Great Britain. The Government have had considerable success in attracting new industries to Scotland in recent years and encouraging expansion in the "growth industries" there, but the rate of decline in the older industries, particularly coal mining——

§ Mr. Price
I have a considerable amount to say. I will not give way—has cancelled out much of the gain in jobs provided. Moreover, the number of applications for industrial development certificates has been running at a much lower level recently and, as a consequence, the number of firms which can be persuaded to look for new factory space in development districts has fallen off considerably.

§ Mr. Manuel
This is disgusting. Why will not the hon. Gentleman discuss the matter as a whole?

§ Mr. Price
All this has had two effects. Firstly, it has increased the need to direct the attention of firms which have expressed a willingness to move to those areas in which help is most needed and, secondly, it has led the Board to reconsider the position with regard to the building of factories in advance of demand. Experience has shown that most firms like to have a factory built to meet their own requirements, to enable them to fit the production lines between the existing roof supports without excessive waste or too great a constriction of space. When the demand for factory space was as much as could be met from the existing financial resources, the Board was, naturally, reluctant to build factories in advance of demand except as a special inducement to firms to go to remote areas which would otherwise be unlikely to attract industry.

§ Mr. Ross
Will the Parliamentary Secretary give way? This is most important.

§ Mr. Price
No.

§ Mr. Price
I must get on. In present circumstances, when new private investment in factory building is at a low ebb, the Government have thought it right to build a number of advance factories as a measure of assistance to places with the most persistent unemployment problems. In July the President of the Board of Trade announced that nine advance factories—including six in Scotland—would be built in more or less remote places likely to be affected by colliery closures and other special factors. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire made 1370 a great deal of play about my right hon. Friend's statement in those announcements. I actually have that statement with me. He referred to Central Ayrshire but not to the constituency of Central Ayrshire.

§ Mr. Manuel
I wrote to him about it.

§ Mr. Price
It is geographically Central Ayrshire and the hon. Member knows that.

§ Mr. Manuel
What?

§ Mr. Price
That it is a matter of nomenclature and that his constituency represents very largely North Ayrshire.

§ Mr. Manuel
As I said, the hon. Member does not know the area.

§ Mr. Ross
Will the Parliamentary Secretary give way?

§ Mr. Price
No.

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
Order. I hope that the House will use the remaining few minutes of this Adjournment debate in an orderly fashion.

§ Mr. Manuel
On this question of Central Ayrshire, will the Parliamentary Secretary give way?

§ Mr. Price
No. As I was saying, it is geographically in Central Ayrshire.

§ Mr. Ross
No.

§ Mr. Price
I do not intend to give a speech on geography but if hon. Members opposite will look at the map they will come to the same conclusion as I have.
Regarding the choice of locations, I was going to speak about the second round of advance factories. My right hon. Friend said on 8th November that four were in Scotland. The choice of location for the four was difficult and my right hon. Friend has said in the House that he recognises that there are other areas in Great Britain which are just as deserving as those selected. The claims of Kilwinning were very seriously considered. The Board of Trade would be only too pleased to take advantage of a good opportunity to develop the estate, but after detailed examination of present and future prospects it was decided to put the factories elsewhere.
1371 The limit on the number of factories is not financial. Advance factories are an exceptional form of assistance which would lose its value if used too much. If we build too many we shall have difficulty in letting them all. In this connection it should be borne in mind that under the programme announced this year the President of the Board of Trade has authorised the building of no less than 19 advance factories, 11 of which are in Scotland. In addition, the Board of Trade has 18 factories, totalling over half a million square feet, which are either empty or expected to become available for reletting shortly. Thirteen of these, totalling more than 300,000 square feet, are in Scotland. The Board expects to let all these factories in due course, but there is a risk that some of them will remain vacant for a considerable time, and it would be irresponsible of the Government to agree to put up an advance factory in every locality suffering from high unemployment.
This does not mean that the claims of Kilwinning for assistance under the Local Employment Act will be ignored. The Board of Trade has given substantial financial asisstance to firms in the area and will continue to show the sites on the Kilwinning Industrial Estate to firms which are willing to go there and are interested in having a factory built by the Board of Trade to their own requirements. Since 1st April, 1960, we have recommended the site to 13 firms and six have actually visited it. None so far has shown an interest in going there. We should also be wiling to sell land on the estate to firms who want to build for themselves.
Clearly the prospects for Kilwinning cannot be viewed in isolation. They are 1372 intimately associated with the prospects for the area as a whole, about which I have already spoken. With this in mind I should like to take this opportunity on behalf of my right hon. Friend of welcoming the recently formed North Ayrshire Joint Committee for Industrial Development. Joint action of this nature is more likely, in our opinion, to be productive of results than separate action by individual local authorities.
1 would say to the hon. Member, in conclusion, that I do not take as gloomy a view as he does about the long-term prospects for the area.

§ Mr. Manuel
I never mentioned the long-term aspect.

§ Mr. Price
The task of raising the growth potential of the North Ayrshire economy requires for success a joint and continuing effort of Government, local authorities, industry, trade unions and public opinion not only in Kilwinning but over the whole field.

§ Mr. Ross
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was in his present position when the first announcement was made and therefore he does not know much about it. He is just about as ignorant as he is arrogant as far as Ayrshire is concerned. The time he spent at school there was spent in the kindergarten. His arrogance came later, not from Ayrshire.