INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT (ALFRETON-RIPLEY) (Hansard, 9 April 1968)

§ Mr. Raymond Fletcher (Ilkeston)

I find it a matter of regret that I have to welcome my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade, to the Dispatch Box at this unearthly hour of the morning. Nevertheless I do welcome him, for we have never exchanged angry words since we were both elected, and I hope that he will not have any angry words to say in replying to this debate.

1331 The subject for this Adjournment debate was, in a sense, chosen for me and, at first sight, it may appear rather parochial. I emphasise that I am not at this time raising the question of pit closures as such. If each pit closure were debated separately I am afraid there would be no time to debate anything else in this House. But there is a specific and particular problem which concerns my constituency and which relates to a much larger problem which concerns other constituencies. I want to define first the problem concerning my constituency.

In December, 1967, the Alfreton Colliery closed and 560 men lost their jobs. Later Denby Hall Colliery closed and 500 men lost their jobs. I prefer to use the term "lost their jobs" instead of using the word "displaced" because I think it is more accurate. Now we have had the announcement that the Swanwick Colliery will close in September, and this will cause another 770 men to lose their jobs.

Those of us who represent mining constituencies know quite well that as soon as the announcement is made that a colliery is going to be closed, a natural erosion takes place. Miners, or those who are fortunate enough, find other jobs within reasonable distances, and so the colliery tends to close earlier than the target date stated.

By September in this part of my constituency we shall have a problem of the size that I have mentioned. It fits into a larger problem and I think I can best outline the nature of the problem by referring to the evidence given by the Derbyshire County Council to the Hunt Committee. It is pointed out in this evidence that the Erewash Valley—that is a fancy way of describing my constituency—contained 22 collieries employing 17,000 miners in 1951, that by March 1967 there were six collieries employing 6,300, and that by 1970 there will be only two collieries employing about 2,000. This is a massive rundown of a major industry and it has created tremendous problems for all people living in the area.

As to the closures themselves and as to the precise action which has to be taken by the National Coal Board and by the Ministry of Power, I intend to offer no suggestion at this time. There is 1332 machinery in existence between the Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers, and I know that various suggestions are moving upwards through various pipelines to the Government at the moment concerning structural changes in two great nationalised industries.

I want to narrow my argument down to those matters which concern my hon. Friend the Minister of State. I recognise, as he is bound to point out to me, that the development areas must have a high priority—indeed, the highest priority—when the distribution of industry is on the agenda. I understand also that the industrial development certificate system must again be utilised to give top priority, as far as industrial development is concerned, to the development areas. But it has been recognised that even before the Hunt Committee reported, there have crept into Parliamentary language terms like "grey areas" and "intermediate areas", which demand special treatment. The precise form of the treatment I have been told many times, must await the Hunt Committee's report.

I suggest that action can be taken now. A few weeks ago I suggested to my hon. Friend's predecessor that it might be a good idea for the Board of Trade to begin to operate as a kind of location of industry bureau which would bring into effective and fruitful contact those industrialists who wanted to expand, who perhaps did not particularly want to go to a development area, who did not find the financial inducements sufficient to go to a development area but who could be guided in the direction of the grey areas. I suggested that fruitful liaison might be established by special machinery between firms which wanted to expand and local authorities which had prepared the ground for industrial expansion. The reply was to the effect that the regional offices of the Board of Trade can fulfil this function and are doing so.

I emphasise that, having visited the regional office of the Board of Trade at Birmingham, I have no complaints whatever about my, reception or about the degree of understanding which the officials in that office displayed of my constituency's problems. I merely suggest that they should be armed with greater powers to guide industry, if they cannot direct it, in the direction of the grey areas. They should be armed with 1333 powers even to advertise what the grey areas, and my constituency in particular, have done for themselves.

I represent four towns. They squabble quite a lot among themselves, but each of them has done a considerable amount of work on its own to prepare sites, to lay on water supplies, to develop a sewerage system, and to negotiate the necessary lines for other developments. Alfreton, in particular, recently bought a site of 60 acres. Three establishments have been granted i.d.cs for that industrial site. We are grateful to the Board of Trade for those i.d.cs and for that sanctioned development. When the last of these firms is in full operation, they will employ only 300 people. So, although we are grateful for what we have already received, we still require more to deal with the problem, which is on a scale that now begins to push our grey areas into areas that begin to look very black indeed.

Our local authorities have prepared the sites and they offer a great deal. They do not ask for a lot, but they can offer a great deal. They can offer sites. They can offer what we call, in the jargon of the House, an infra-structure. In my case, they can offer very easy communication with the Ml. They can offer the most valuable asset of all—highly adapable labour. "Labour" is a term that refers to personal friends of mine, people I know by name and whom I have known for a very long time. Mining labour is highly adaptable labour, and this has beer proved time and time again in many firms in the East Midlands, and spectacularly proved in perhaps the best known firm in the United Kingdom today, the firm of Rolls Royce.

These local authorities have these very tangible and very attractive assets to industrialists who wish to expand. Is it not possible for my hon. Friend, without going too closely into detail, to gear the work of the regional offices of the Board of Trade to providing the kind of link that I now demand between industrialists who want to expand and local authorities which offer facilities for expansion in areas affected by pit closures? This is a 'very modest request. It does not in any sense anticipate the possible findings of the Hunt Committee or any legislation which may flow from those findings.

1334 I make one final plea. As my hon. Friend will be well aware, because we have discussed this before, morale is very low. People are anxious and rumours are rife in the northern part of my constituency. I invite him to visit my constituency at an early date, so that he may see these problems on the spot, discuss what my local authorities have to offer to industrialists, and then take what they tell him back to his Department and transmit it to the regional offices concerned, generally giving the assurance, the living and visible assurance, to my constituents that what needs to be done will in fact be done. I appeal to my hon. Friend to come and look at the problem for himself.

§ The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Edmund Dell)

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) for his kind words. I am sure that there will be no angry words between us, though I express the hope that this, the first Adjournment debate which I have taken on behalf of the Board of Trade, is no guide to the sort of hour at which such debates regularly take place.

My hon. Friend has not stayed up only tonight to argue his constituents' case. He has done a great deal to make the problems of Alfreton and Ripley known to the Board of Trade. He has constantly pressed for the introduction of industry to the area. He has led deputations to see my predecessor as Minister of State, one deputation from Ripley in June, 1967 and one from Alfreton as recently as 7th March, 1968. We are grateful to him.

I listened with interest to what my hon. Friend had to say about his area tonight. This part of the Erewash Valley has already seen a considerable decline in coal mining. I can understand and sympathise with the concern of the local community when further pits close. However great the economic justification for closures in particular cases and the redeployment which follows, the effect on the individuals concerned is not something which we can ignore.

Alfreton is still heavily dependent on coal mining, with about a quarter of the insured population engaged in the industry. I join my hon. Friend straight 1335 away in paying tribute to the enterprise of the urban district council, which has itself purchased a site of 60 acres for industrial development and has an option from the National Coal Board for the purchase of a further 33 acres adjacent to that site. Facilities of this sort are an essential prerequisite of development and should be attractive to industrialists.

The urban district of Ripley falls partly in the Alfreton Ministry of Labour employment exchange area and partly in the Belper area, while it abuts on to the Heanor area. Belper is far less heavily dependent on coal mining than either Alfreton or Heanor, but Ripley has undoubtedly suffered from the decline in coal mining in recent years and, like Alfreton, is still heavily dependent on the industry.

As my hon. Friend said, Alfreton colliery, which is near the urban district of Alfreton, and Denby colliery, which is near Ripley, have both closed this year. I understand that of the 410 men affected at Denby just over 140 were made redundant, while at Alfreton some 120 became redundant out of a total of 530. Swan-wick pit, also near Alfreton, currently employs 785. This pit has been in jeopardy since August 1967, and I understand that the National Coal Board has recently announced the closure date of 28th September.

The Coal Board will, of course, try to offer alternative employment in coal mining to as many men as possible. In this connection, it must be remembered that there are about 20 other pits in operation within a 10-mile radius of Alfreton. In addition, there will be a number of men retained for a period on salvage work. I appreciate, however, that in spite of these efforts a number of men will become redundant. A high proportion of those made redundant will be 55 or over, most of whom, if not of retirement age, will benefit from the new scheme recently introduced by my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Power.

Under these arrangements, the men of 55 and over who become redundant will have their pay made up to 90 per cent. of their former take-home pay for three years, at the end of which time they will become eligible for their mine worker's pension straight away.

1336 I also agree with all my hon. Friend said about the adaptability of miners. That is no doubt one of the reasons why, despite the rundown in the coalmining industry, unemployment has not reached high rates in the area, though I can understand the concern. The average for Alfreton for 1967 was 2.2 per cent., while in Heanor it was 2.1 per cent., and in Be1per 1.5 per cent. There has been an increase recently, and in Alfreton the rate was 3.3 per cent. in March, compared with 2.4 per cent. in Heanor and 2.3 per cent. in Belper. These rates are not high compared with those of many colliery closure areas in development areas, where some places are very hard hit. Industrial development in the Erewash valley area and the proximity of such industrial towns as Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield have undoubtedly helped the area to cope with the colliery rundown and helped reduce the unemployment problem arising from it.

One of the solutions put forward to cope with the colliery rundown is that the area should be scheduled as a development area. My hon. Friend understands the priority that must be given to development areas. Even if the circumstances of Alfreton and Ripley were thought to be comparable with colliery closure areas in the development areas—and in our view they are not—we have moved away from the designation of small individual development districts to broader development areas, taking account of wider regional circumstances.

My hon. Friend also spoke about the problem of intermediate assistance. Here we must await the outcome of the deliberations of the Hunt Committee, which is examining the problem of the intermediate areas. Its report is expected this autumn. We could not make an exception in favour of one area and we do not think that it would be right to take action in advance of receiving the Committee's advice. The Committee has received evidence from the East Midlands Economic Planning Council and although this has not been published I can say that it pays particular attention to the problems of the East Midland colliery areas.

This does not, however, mean that there is nothing we can do for the area. While we must pay full attention to the needs of the development areas 1337 for new industry we can and do administer the industrial development control flexibly outside the development areas. From the beginning of 1965 to the end of February, 1968, 40 certificates were approved for projects in the three exchange areas of Alfreton, Heanor and Belper. The total area was 875,000 square feet, and the developers estimated their additional labour requirements at nearly 750, of which about 590 were for males. The action of Alfreton Urban District Council in providing land for industrial development should be of great help in attracting industry. While its efforts to do this have not so far been successful this task is essentially of a long-term nature, and I hope that it will continue and will be successful.

For our part, the development areas must continue to have first priority, but subject to this any project suited to the needs and resources of the AlfretonRipley area would be granted an industrial development certificate. I hope that this assurance helps my hon. Friend. We shall not lose sight of the problems which have been put forward so tenaciously and ably by him. I assure him that we shall operate a generous industrial development certificate policy 1338 throughout the area. I must also emphasise the need for the local councils to do their utmost to help themselves. That is why I particularly commended. as did my hon. Friend, Alfreton's action in buying land for development and advertising it widely. There is also the problem of clearing up dereliction, on which the older miners can perhaps be employed.

My hon. Friend referred to the desirability of the Board of Trade's becoming a kind of location of industry bureau. I am grateful for what he said about the Board of Trade regional office. I know that he and his local authorities have been active in drawing the attention of the Board of Trade's regional controller to industrial sites in the area and I am sure that the controller will likewise draw those sites to the attention of any suitable inquirers.

I shall take note of all my hon. Friend's suggestions and take an early opportunity of accepting his invitation to visit his constituency so that I can study the problem on the spot.