HC Deb 30 January 1963 vol 670 cc1092-102

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

10.54 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward (Tynemouth)

Some hon. Members may wonder why I have decided to address my remarks tonight on employment on the North-East Coast to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. I do so deliberately, because of all the Government Departments the Ministry of Labour has the greatest responsibility for ensuring that high level of employment which we think is so essential in all parts of the country as well as on the North-East Coast.

When one looks at the number of Ministers to whom one has to address Questions on the subject of employment, one realises that the Treasury, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Defence, the Service Ministers, or whoever it may be, do not have the major responsibility for employment. They look at all problems in relation to the responsibilities of their respective Departments, and sometimes those who are deeply interested in our part of the country feel that employment receives too slight a share of their consideration. I therefore thought that it would be more appropriate if I said what I wanted to say to my hon. Friend, because at all levels his Department is interested in employment. I hope that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend will ensure that when discussions are taking place about matters of policy which affect employment the Ministry of Labour is fully represented and that nobody dislodges it from the position it ought to have in the deliberations.

On behalf of the North-East Coast in general I repeat our appreciation of the appointment of Lord Hailsham. I would also like to say how glad I am that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set up a co-ordinating committee of the Cabinet to help Lord Hailsham in the job that he has undertaken. It takes a jolly long time to win Parliamentary battles, and I remember last year moving a Motion, which was passed by the House without demur, on co-ordination. I feel, perhaps quite curiously, that the passing of that Motion has had some effect at any rate in producing a co-ordinating committee to help my noble Friend the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science in the very responsible appointment which he has recently received.

Quite a lot of attention has been given in the North-East Coast to what is termed "crash programmes" for dealing with our, unfortunately, growing level of unemployment, and I hope that some of the suggestions which have been put forward which can be regarded in that category will be dealt with, but my object tonight is not to discuss crash programmes but to direct the attention of my hon. Friend to the need for a permanent programme to place the North-East Coast in a position to compete successfully with all other parts of the country in attracting industry which will give us permanent and satisfactory employment.

For the brief time that I shall address the House I want us to consider the need for a permanent policy, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to help us to consider what is right. I should emphasise that our problem is not merely one of temporary unemployment. A great many of our coal mines are working out. We are facing a decline in shipbuilding, shipping and in heavy engineering, and everybody says that the future for shipbuilding, and shipping in particular, and probably heavy engineering too, is one of permanent difficulty.

I see three things which are essential to help the North-East Coast—the introduction of new principal industries, which should also be permanent; the improvement of communications, and the assurance that the people of the North-East Coast shall have adequate training facilities. Although there are many other points I could raise, they are the chief ones.

I deal first with the question of the introduction of new industries. I very much regretted the rather casual Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty to my Question this afternoon about sharing out the work on the building of the Polaris submarines. If we are going into a new field of employment which would be suitable for our shipbuilding industry. now is the time for us to ensure that the North-East Coast gets it fair share. The same might be said for the development of nuclear marine propulsion.

The North-East Coast would be well suited to build these submarines and develop marine propulsion by nuclear power, because that has a future, and it is one in which the shipbuilding industry of the North-East Coast should share. I want to make it quite clear that although we have spent enormous sums of money on aircraft and on the building of submarines at Barrow-in-Furness, for the purpose of defence, little of that money has been spent in our area. I shall be bitterly disappointed if we do not have an opportunity of extending our shipbuilding activities into the new fields which are opening up.

The rumour has gone round that orders for some submarines will go to the Royal dockyards. I hope that we shall have an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that the existence of a high level of unemployment will be the major factor in the placing of new orders, and that dockyards where there is not a high level of unemployment will not be able to scoop the pool.

I now turn to the question of communications. There is a feeling among those on the North-East Coast that the major roads going through the Midlands to Scotland are tending further to isolate them. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is always so certain that everything is being done for the best in the best of all possible worlds, but it is difficult for the Northumberland and Durham County Councils and the people of the North-East Coast to find out what is happening. When I attended a deputation to the Northumberland County Council the other day to find out about the new Tyne Tunnel, which is making very good progress and will help our communications, I found it impossible to get any decision out of the Minister about the access roads. I gather that Lord Hailsham is to see the local authorities when he is in the North next week. The effort that has to be put in to try to extricate Ministerial decisions requires the attention of somebody as vital, virile, live and flexible as Lord Hailsham.

As for the question of training, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of Labour are trying their best to ensure that our part of the world benefits from more skilled labour. We welcome that, but I think that the effort being made is far too small. I do not believe that that is the fault of the Minister of Labour: it is the fault of the Treasury. It is always difficult to get at the Treasury.

It is necessary to train our labour to take up new skills and new techniques. We have the best labour in the world on the North-East Coast and I think that my hon. Friend should seek a great deal more assistance from the Treasury in order to be able to establish more Government training centres. I am sure that if the matter is properly handled, the trade unions and the employers will co-operate.

In the dark days of the depression in the 1930s, even in the days before the public conscience was stirred as much as it is today, we had much more assistance for our men. I remember the transfer from hand riveting to welding in the shipbuilding industry, and I think that a great deal more could be done in that direction.

I have been talking to the Minister of Defence about the Polaris submarines. My right hon. Friend is very charming, but I like to have things on paper, and I wish to give the Parliamentary Secretary as much opportunity as possible to tell us what the Government have in mind. Members of the Northern Conservative Group are to see Lord Hailsham tomorrow and we have a number of plans to put before him. If he is not crabbed by the Government I believe that we shall be able to find a permanent solution to the problems of the North-East. Everyone is looking for development in the right direction and I have great confidence that this will come. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue to press for our problems to be dealt with as soon as possible.

11.8 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour (Mr William Whitelaw)

I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) for informing me in advance of some of the points which she wished to raise. I am glad of this opportunity to reply to her, not only because I come from the North myself, but also because I have always admired her selfless determination to serve the interests of the North-East. She has spoken with her customary vigour and she has rightly, I might say almost inevitably, reminded me of her valuable Motion on co-ordination between Government Departments. In this connection she is entitled to claim some credit for the appointment of my noble Friend. I am very pleased to know that the appointment gives her satisfaction. I can assure her that my noble Friend will read her suggestions with great care.

If he had not done so already, I am sure that after their interview tomorrow he will take an early opportunity to do so.

In particular I have no doubt that he will note what she said about the Tyne Tunnel and its access roads. Clearly that is a matter for him and I do not think I should refer to it further. If I fail to deal with some of the points which have been raised by my hon. Friend I can promise her that they will be studied by my noble Friend and my right hon. Friend as well as by the Department. I shall write to her to convey any further information which she may wish to have. In this respect I am grateful to her for the powerful support which she is offering to my right hon. Friend on such matters as training, and I am sure that he will be very pleased to hear of it.

I am glad that my hon. Friend has chosen in this Adjournment Motion to call attention to employment on the North-East Coast rather than unemployment, for I am sure that this positive approach is the right one. None the less, I know that she will agree that it would be right for me to set out the relevant unemployment figures for the North-East. They provide the background against which action must be planned and taken. For this purpose I have assumed that the North-East Coast comprises Northumberland, Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire. In this area there were this month 78,790 unemployed, including about 15,000 temporarily stopped. This represents a rate of unemployment of 7.1 per cent. This is a considerable increase over the figures for the previous January, when there were 43,413 unemployed, or 3.8 per cent. These, I need not tell the House, are serious figures, and I certainly do not seek to escape their implications by blaming the weather. It must, however, be appreciated from the exceptionally high number of temporarily stopped that the January figures are somewhat distorted.

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

By how much?

Mr. Whitelaw

It would be difficult to give an exact estimate, but I think that the hon. Member, who is very fair in these matters, will agree that clearly there is some distortion. I seek to put it no higher than that.

I think, therefore, that for a realistic view of the size of the problem which the North-East faces we should look at the December figures. In December there were 60,524 unemployed, of whom about 4,000 were temporarily stopped, which gives a rate of unemployment of5.5 per cent. I think that the difference between the 4,000 temporarily stopped in December and the 15,000 temporarily stopped in January gives some measure of the effect of the weather. In the previous December there were 37,132 unemployed, or 3.2 per cent.

It is very easy to talk in percentages over a whole area, but I think that we are all very conscious that there are some individual, smaller places within these areas which have been hit even harder and have percentages higher than that which is general for the whole area. A study of the figures for recent years also reveals another important aspect of the problem which faces us: the deterioration in the position of the North-East is, in fact, a recent development. For example, if one looks at the figures for the northern region for 1960 or 1961 one sees that although they were always higher than the national average, they were at the same time always lower than those for Scotland and compared very favourably with those for Wales.

The fact is that this area has been adversely affected by two partly interrelated problems. It has, of course, shared in the increase in the level of unemployment which the country as a whole has been experiencing over recent months. Secondly—and I think that this would be accepted as the more important point for the purpose of our debate—the area has suffered from a marked fall in activity in the basic, heavy industries, on which it particularly depends, such as shipbuilding, ship repairing, heavy engineering, metal manufacturing, coal mining and also construction. This is the sort of problem which we face. I think that we all know very well that the situation involves considerable personal hardship and we all wish to do everything we can to remedy it. All hon. Members are at one about this.

Nevertheless, I think it would be unrealistic to assume that we are going, any of us, to find a simple overnight solution to all the problems of the area. What we must aim to do is to place the economic and social life of the North-East on a firm basis and to ensure that the new employment provided is stable. Here I so much agree with what my hon. Friend said about having a permanent policy for the future of the North-East.

So much, then, for the general problem. Now I want to set out some of the action which has already been taken to deal with it. First, there are the general expansion measures introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. These, as the House knows, include the easing of credit facilities and the reduction in the level of Purchase Tax. I think everyone recognises that a general expansion of the whole economy is a basic essential for improving conditions in the North-East, and, indeed, must provide the background against which the special long-term measures can be taken. Some of my right hon. Friend's measures, such as improved investment and depreciation allowances, are particularly aimed at the heavier sections of industry on which the North-East relies so much.

My hon. Friend rightly stressed that an improvement in shipbuilding would be of great value and of great benefit in the North-East. Here she appreciates, probably better than most, that we have to consider the problem against the fact that this industry is everywhere suffering from a world-wide excess of shipbuilding capacity over demand.

No doubt my hon. Friend will have seen that the First Lord of the Admiralty has recently announced that in order to provide help for employment in the shipbuilding industry the Admiralty intended to invite tenders for a new fleet replenishment ship and for another tanker, in addition to the two for which tenders are already being considered. These tenders will be open to competition from yards throughout the country, and no doubt the yards in the North-East will tender very keenly for these contracts.

The Admiralty, as my hon. Friend was quick to point out, has already announced that it is planning a programme for building Polaris-type nuclear submarines. My hon. Friend stressed particularly that she was determined to ensure that the North-East had a chance to build some of these nuclear submarines for the Admiralty.

This is certainly a possibility which I am sure the Admiralty will study with great care.

I share my hon. Friend's belief in the excellent workmanship and design shown by the yards in the North-East, but I think the fact is that, so far, the Admiralty has not ordered a sufficient number of these craft to allow them to be shared around all the yards which might be capable of building them. I think, therefore, that my hon. Friend will have to wait to see the results of a programme for building Polaris-type submarines which the Admiralty is at present undertaking. In the meantime, I have no doubt that what she has said will be noted by the Admiralty.

Dame Irene Ward

It had better be.

Mr. Whitelaw

I expected my hon. Friend would feel like that.

My hon. Friend made another extremely important point, with which I shall now seek to deal, about training. This, I think, is extremely important. We have to ensure that we have a proper supply of skilled labour. It is becoming increasingly clear everywhere that one of the most important factors of industrial growth and expansion is the existence of an adequate supply of skilled labour. Industry has a special responsibility here to see that it is providing training now for a sufficient number of young people to meet the demands in the years to come.

Last year in the North-East the number of boys entering apprenticeships increased by 593 over the figure for the previous year. In view of the difficulties the region has experienced this year, I think that this is an encouraging achievement. However difficult it may be, we must relate our training plans to an expanding economy. It would be tragic if in the future there should be a shortage of skilled labour in the North-East.

Mr. Paul Williams (Sunderland, South)

There is now.

Mr. Whitelaw

—however unlikely that may seem to some people now. My hon. Friend says there is even such a shortage now.

Mr. P. Williams

Yes, a terrible shortage.

Mr. Whitelaw

It has certainly been so in previous expansions. If it is true now, there is no doubt it may well happen again. I therefore hope that both employers and trade union leaders in the North-East will do everything in their power to help themselves and to co-operate on training for the long-term benefit of their whole area.

We in the Ministry of Labour are determined to play our part in helping with the training of the young and the re-training of adults whose existing skills are no longer required. At the Government Training Centre at Newcastle we are already providing training in a number of trades, including engineering and radio and television servicing for adults and first-year apprenticeship training in engineering and basic clerical work.

My right hon. Friend has recently announced a new traniing centre at Tursdale in County Durham as a contribution to offsetting the effects of the decline in coal mining there. We hope to start a class for apprentices who will not be sponsored by employers in the spring and classes for adults in the summer.

As the House also knows, my right hon. Friend has recently put forward major proposals on the general question of training and retraining. This is not the moment to elaborate on those, but I can assure the House that the Government are determined to play their full part in seeing that in implementing these plans the needs of the North-East are properly met.

As my hon. Friend has also said, an important contribution to maintaining skilled labour in the North-East is to ensure that skilled men do not drift away.

The best way of doing that is to provide sufficient local work for them. I do not propose to talk about jobs in prospect, for I know that there is a reluctance to accept the value of these figures.

Mr. Short

rose—

Mr. Whitelaw

I am sorry. I must get on. I have quite a few more things to say. I shall look instead at the industrial development which has been authorised in the area. During the 10 years beginning December, 1951, I.D.C.s were issued by the Board of Trade for projects in the northern region which were expected to give rise to about 63,000 jobs. A recent development of particular importance has been the decision to build a number of advance factories in the area. In addition to the factory at Jarrow, the Board of Trade is in the process of building seven additional advance factories—at Crook, Seaton Delavel, Aycliffe, Chester-le-Street, Hartlepools, Blaydon and Sunderland. We very much hope that, quite apart from the extra employment that these factories will provide themselves, they will serve to encourage further industrial expansion in the areas in which they are sited.

The North-East will also benefit from the very considerable increase in public expenditure this year which should provide a good deal of work for the construction industry—

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

Adjourned at twenty-four minutes past Eleven o'clock.

Back to