HC Deb 25 March 1965 vol 709 cc1064-6

7.49 a.m.

Mr. R. W. Brown (Shoreditch and Finsbury)

I would like, if I may, to change the subject and I do so because there was an item on the notice relating to the new deep-water berths in British ports.

This seemed to me to be rather an important subject, and it is with great regret that I note that the hon. Member who put it down has failed to arrive at the House this morning to give us the benefit of his knowledge on these matters. I feel that I ought to have something to say about it, because it seems to me very clear that the interests of the nation as a whole depend very much upon the workings of our ports.

We have heard a lot about what is holding up traffic through the ports. We have heard people making allegations and getting no further than the staff who are working at the ports, when there is clear evidence from time to time that the whole concept of our port working is out of date.

I believe this to be a very important subject, especially since my right hon. Friend the First Secretary is doing everything humanly possible to get under way a climate in this country to ensure that we get the industrial expansion and the export drive going, so as to get us out of the difficulties which the nation found itself in after October of last year. Therefore, if, as seems clear, he is achieving this objective, inevitably the ports will have to be utilised to their maximum, so that this country is able to cope with the increase in exports we are hoping to Achieve.

Therefore, I think that it is a fair question now to ask my hon. Friend whether he can inform the House what has taken place since the Rochdale Committee reported on the conditions of our docks in September, 1962. I am one of those who believe that any report takes time to digest. It takes time to look at it in its broadest panorama and to see how it fits in with the issues at stake. Nevertheless, from September, 1962, is a long time to wait before we see any results of the investigation that was carried out.

That Committee's Report was welcomed by the Parliamentary Secretary at the time, on 6th March, 1963, and column 395 of HANSARD records how he welcomed this with great pleasure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) also, on 10th July, 1963, welcomed the Report and certainly gave one the impression that he would do something worth while about it. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) drew attention, on 10th July, to the shocking conditions in the ports and the very sorry state we have got into. The point was being made, of course, that up to 50 years ago, the ports were very well run, but what they began to indicate to us was that there has been a complete lack of development hereafter.

Paragraph 62 of the Rochdale Report sets out clearly the criteria for the selection of ports for development, and it says: One most important factor, as we have suggested in the previous paragraph, is the possibility of providing deep water berths. It goes on, in paragraph 63, to draw attention to the fact of how poorly off this country is compared with the Con- tinent, and it shows that, considering just limited depths over 15 feet, nearly half of the British ports are at the lower end of the scale. That is, if you take over 15 feet, but under 25 feet in depth, this country has over half, whereas such Continental ports as Rotterdam, Hamburg and Antwerp have only a quarter which are in that part of the scale.

It is significant, too, that paragraph 63 ends: Nevertheless it is our conviction that the provision of additional deep water dry cargo berths in Britain is one of our most pressing problems and some of the specific recommendations we make in Section VIII derive from it. The point I would like to make to the House is that the result of this Committee's Report clearly gave rise to the assumption that the Government of the day would do something about the deep-water berths.

I should like my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to tell me exactly what has been done since that Report was received. I am sure that he is seized of its importance for the standard of living of our people and for my right hon. Friend the First Secretary in being able to achieve his incomes and prices policy, to establish his regional councils, to get our whole economic situation under control and to expand exports, which means using our docks to the maximum.

I therefore hope that my hon. Friend will be able at least to give us an undertaking that even if nothing was done in the past, he will certainly see that something is done in the future.