HC Deb 28 May 1971 vol 818 cc819-32

3.39 p.m.

Mr. James Sillars (South Ayrshire)

Like other hon. Members who have taken part in these Adjournment debates, I wish to record my sincere thanks to you, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that it will not have gone unnoticed by the Chair that out of the seven debates today four have been initiated by Scottish Labour Members and two have been answered by a junior Minister at the Scottish Office. To my mind this shows the vigilance and dedication to duty that people North of the Border can expect from their elected representatives at Westminster.

I hope when the Under-Secretary comes to reply to my points he will give much more specific facts instead of the platitudes which he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone). It is not my intention——

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of House lapsed, with-out Question put.

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

Mr. Sillars

It is not my intention to recite the history of how the application by Chevron Oil for permission to locate a refinery at Portencross passed first to Ayr County Council, then to a public inquiry and finally into the hands of the Secretary of State. The Under-Secretary is an Ayrshire M.P., like me, and is aware of the history of this controversial issue.

It is my intention to examine the Secretary of State's handling of the application when it passed into his hands last June, the reasons he has given to Ayr County Council for refusing Chevron's proposed development, and the consequences for Ayrshire and for employment which arise out of his decision. When I made an application for an Adjournment debate almost two weeks ago I had a strong suspicion—I will not put it any higher than that—that the Secretary of State had already decided to veto Chevron.

On Tuesday of this week my suspicions were unfortunately confirmed. I must express my bitter disappointment. In my view the Secretary of State has made a stupid decision. That decision, the length of time he required to make it, his jumbled contradiction of reasons, letters and statements trying to justify his action, all demonstrate what many of us have privately feared for some time but refrained from saying—that the Secretary of State lacks the necessary political weight, political character and political backbone for the job he holds.

Mr. Iain Sproat (Aberdeen, South)

Rubbish.

Mr. Sillars

Whatever the right hon. Gentleman's attributes are as an ordinary person—and I quickly acknowledge that, like the Under-Secretary, he is a charming Tory gentleman—the fact is that in the world of politics people need sterner qualities than Tory charm. In the view of the majority of people in Ayrshire—and I am duty-bound to tell the Under-Secretary this, having made contacts all over the county this week—the Secretary of State is not fit for his job and we want him to resign.

The right hon. Gentleman has made must of his own statements about the need to exploit the unique potential of Hunterston/Portencross. In the 1969 August/September edition of New Scotland, which I believe is a Conservative publication, the right hon. Gentleman said that he was not opposed to development. He said: Of course the Labour Government are trying to misrepresent us as being opposed to the developments which are in prospect. Among these developments to which the Secretary of State referred was the possibility of the location of Chevron at Portencross. His next words were important. He said: Nothing could be further from the truth In the next paragraph he gets even bolder when he says: Our message is a different one. It is that we in Scotland should make the fullest use of this new asset, by being ready to respond to the demand from industries which will arise from it. Just to rub in how anxious he was to get a response to any industries which were interested he went further and said: One important way of responding is to have a more than adequate system for dealing effectively with proposals for projects as they arise. "Dealing effectively with proposals for projects as they arise" was a key phrase in that article. Within a year of writing it the right hon. Gentleman had become Secretary of State for Scotland and had the opportunity of doing just that—effectively dealing with the project which had arisen. I refer to Chevron Oil. Whatever high standards he may have set himself as "Shadow" Secretary of State, his performance fell well below them when he took office.

Instead of the swift execution of a decision, the right hon. Gentleman dithered like an old woman for month after month. I suspect that the real reason for the delay was not that he could not make up his mind; I think his mind was made up on Chevron at a very early stage of the Government's life. In my view, the delay was a tactic which he employed in trying to drive Chevron out of Portencross. He hoped that Chevron, frustrated by the long inquiry and the lengthy period of indecision thereafter, would simply give up and go elsewhere. Then the Secretary of State could claim that the company had just simply gone away and he would be relieved of the odium attached to a decision to send it away. That tactic failed. He was forced to a decision.

I turn to the Scottish Development Department's letter of 24th May conveying the decision to Ayr County Council. The Secretary of State claims in that letter that his decision had been conditioned by two factors: first, the view contained in the Scottish Development Department's letter to Ayr County Council dated 9th December; and, secondly, the alleged changed circumstances in the number and capacity of proposed new refinery projects since the Department of Trade and Industry intervened with a memorandum sent out earlier in the New Year.

The Secretary of State claims that since the publication of the memorandum three possible new projects have been announced. I ask the Under-Secretary of State—perhaps he cannot give the answer today, in which case no doubt he will write to me—whether the Government knew of these three possible developments when the Department of Trade and Industry issued its memorandum about Chevron at Portencross.

But, more important, I stress that the word used in the Scottish Development Department's letter of 24th May is "possible" when it mentions three proposed new projects. I have done some checking on these three possible new projects. I understand that B.P. at Grangemouth is only considering expansion. The project at Shellhaven does not yet have planning permission, although I concede that it will probably be forthcoming as it would simply be an extension of an existing site. The third one—Burmah-Total, at Cliff, on the south bank of the Thames—is a green field site proposal, as was Chevron's proposal at Portencross. No planning permission has been granted for the Burmah-Total development. Indeed, that proposal is likely to be subjected to a lengthy public inquiry.

Therefore, these three projects are only possible additions to the United Kingdom's refining capacity. Chevron's was not a "possible" development; it was a definite development. It is precisely definite developments that the Secretary of State does not want at Hunterston, and so he used the flimsy excuse about other proposed developments to kill off a much-needed job booster in the West of Scotland.

Mention of jobs brings me to my next point, which concerns sub-paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) on page 2 of the letter of 24th May. These are the reasons given by the Secretary of State for turnning down the Chevron application. In sub-paragraph (a) he complains that he wants to reserve Hunterston at Portencross for industries which require the unique facilities of the deep water there and the available flat land.

The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State are aware of the Metra-Weddle Report, published in January, 1969, which emphasised time and again that oil refining is one of a limited number of industries capable of exploiting the unique facilities at Hunterston. The report lists the industries which could use the deep water at Hunterston. The Metra section and the Weddle section deal with this matter in detail and make the important point that steel and oil are the only two projects able or likely to seek developments there in the foreseeable future.

The Secretary of State has turned down oil development because he says in the letter of 24th May that his decision is final. I may as well warn him that in compensation Ayr County Council, industrial Scotland, and certainly the Labour Party in the whole of Scotland, and particularly the Labour Party in Ayrshire, of which I am secretary, intend to carry him and his hon. Friends quite mercilessly till we get some tangible demonstration that the steel site and the oil terminal will be located at Hunterston-Portencross very shortly indeed.

According to the Glasgow Herald, a well informed newspaper, steel is a matter to which the right hon. Gentleman has obviously hitched his political star. Well, he had better get it. If not, he will find not only Ayrshire but the whole of Scotland will demand his resignation, because we all recognise the profound importance of that development for the future of Scotland. The Secretary of State will be well advised to give every practical assistance to the Clyde Port Authority to get the oil terminal under way. That project can be supported as a necessity irrespective of the central location of the steel works.

Perhaps I am straying somewhat from Chevron. I recognise that, and I want to return to Chevron and the Scottish Development Department's letter of which sub-paragraph (b) claims that the job loss due to the Secretary of State's decision numbers around 375, and it says that such a figure is not of major significance even in North Ayrshire—and the emphasis is mine. There will be several interesting reactions to that statement, and not only in North Ayrshire but in Central Ayrshire, and I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) will readily confirm that.

However, that figure of 375 is only half the true story. No mention is made of the 2,000 construction jobs which would have been forthcoming in the employment market, in which more and more men are being put out of work. Despite what the Under-Secretary said to my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals, the fact is that unemployment in the construction industry is rising. I asked a Question the other day about this, knowing that this Adjournment debate was coming up. I asked for the figures of construction workers unemployed in the West Central Scotland area. The Under-Secretary of State for Employment replied that in the Glasgow planning region in November, 1970, 10,867 in the construction industry were unemployed; the figure rose in April, 1971, to 14,405, and rose again in May this year to 14,575. So 2,000 jobs in construction work for Chevron at Portencross would have made a fairly significant bite into those unemployment figures.

No mention is made, either, in that letter, of the 700 permanent jobs which Ayr County Council, on expert advice, expected to be created indirectly because of the refinery's location at Portencross. The letter is significantly silent on the growth of petrochemical industries, the sort of industry we looked for in Ayrshire because of this development by Chevron. Not only North Ayrshire would have received a job spin-off but all Ayrshire stood to benefit from the petrochemical development.

I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire will recall that when he raised the petition in Ayrshire in favour of Ayr County Council's planning project he got thousands of signatures from miners in South Ayrshire, some of whom, like the trade union leaders, had read the Metra report. There could have been benefits even as far as New Cumnock. All these places would have benefited from the location of the refinery through job spin-off. This is not mere idle speculation or wishful thinking on the part of the miners whom I represent in this House.

The possibility of petro-chemical works arising out of the Chevron development was examined deeply in the Metra/ Weddle report, which on page 23 records Chevron's intention to acquire partners to engage in petro-chemical development. On page 29 the report notes that Chevron is orientated towards this type of activity and that there appear to be good possibilities of such a venture going ahead. On page 26, dealing with employment, the report notes the number of jobs on the refinery itself, mentions the additional indirect jobs to be created, thereby endorsing Ayr County Council's point of view, and says: Any petro-chemical development, however, is likely to boost these figures significantly Sub-paragraph (c) of the letter deals with the so-called "deleterious" effects of a refinery. On Wednesday of this week the Secretary of State for Scotland at Question Time said: … a combination of a refinery and a steel works can produce some of the worst atmospheric pollution, and therefore a refinery might be prejudicial to the steel development."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1971: Vol. 818, c. 371.] That is quite a statement for the right hon. Gentleman to make, and I question its validity. I shall pursue, with expert advice, the validity of that statement.

At the Hunterston inquiry the independent scientific evidence was to the effect that the proposed oil refinery at Portencross need not cause the pollution which the right hon. Gentleman suggested. That scientific evidence seemed to confirm the view attributed to Professor Weddle in the first pages of the Metra/Weddle Report—his views on those first pages can be confirmed in his own part of that Report—that his opposition to Chevron's location at Portencross was on grounds of visual intrusion, not pollution.

I want to turn to the effect that this decision has had on Scotland, on our external image—which the Under-Secretary of State was talking about 10 minutes ago—and on our people's morale. The Secretary of State has inflicted considerable damage on our credibility as a country anxious for new jobs and new industry. We simply cannot afford the sort of news comment which last Tuesday's decision received in those parts of the Press which help to form industrial opinion. What sort of impression do we give to industrial decision makers when they read the story in the Financial Times, headed: Scotland finally rejects plan for £50 million Chevron refinery and then go on to read in the news coverage that the decision comes as a bitter blow to the company which has waited nearly two years since its original application and has already made it clear that rejection could well lead it to seek an alternative site on the Continent? It will take more than the miserly sum allocated for the promotion of Scotland internationally to overcome the damage which the Government's decision on Chevron has inflicted on our reputation.

In Scotland, a country which is racked with unemployment, the rejection of Chevron has brought gloom everywhere—except to the selfish minority in North Ayrshire whose spiritual leader is that well-known radical and industrial visonary, Lord Glasgow, who even now, having tasted victory over Chevron, is out to kill the ore terminal and the steel works.

Yesterday at Question Time in column 573 of Hansard the Prime Minister claimed that the Chevron decision was widely welcomed in Scotland. There is not a shred of evidence to support his statement. It is as naked of objective fact and truth as the one the Prime Minister made on 16th June last year when he promised to reduce prices and unemployment at a stroke.

The Scottish T.U.C. has condemned the decision, the C.B.I, has condemned it, and the Lord Provost of Glasgow, who is not a member of the Labour Party, and the Convenor of Renfrewshire, who is also not a member of the Labour Party, have both condemned it. Ayr County Council, the members of which know more about the unemployment problems in our county than any member of the Government, has also condemned it by 52 votes to eight. Ayr County Council is Labour-controlled, but neither the Under-Secretary nor the Secretary of State will find any comfort in that. The 52 votes cast against the Government include the majority of Tories on Ayr County Council.

The Under-Secretary knows that I am genuinely angry about this decision. When he returns to Ayrshire this weekend he will find that my anger is nothing compared to the fury which has been aroused there this week over this issue. I speak on behalf of the County Convenor of Ayrshire when I say that we want this matter urgently reconsidered. The Secretary of State has, in our view, made a catastrophic error which he must correct immediately. It is essential that the Secretary of State should respond to the authentic voice of Scotland which demands reconsideration. I warn him that if he does not use his office on behalf of the Scottish people they will demand to remove him from office and will succeed. I hope that the Under-Secretary, who is not under any direct threat of resignation at the moment, will not be too "cocky" when he stands up to reply because his majority is much more risky than the one the Conservatives lost at Bromsgrove yesterday.

4.22 p.m.

Mr. Ian Sproat (Aberdeen, South)

I listened with great interest and respect to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars), but his speech was a little unrealistic. Surely the salient fact on this decision—and I speak with no constituency interest, but only with a Scottish interest—is that my right hon. Friend had to ensure that the unique resources of Hunterston were left clear of the possibility of an integrated steel works. I back my right hon. Friend on that decision.

On the point which was made about the refineries and capacity in Scotland, surely the Secretary of State could not have overturned the reporter's recommendation in this respect at the time. Indeed, the Department of Trade and Industry recommendations referred to the capacity of the United Kingdom as a whole. The hon. Gentleman was inclined to make little of the three announcements which have been made since then showing that the Secretary of State was entirely right not to regard this as evidence of substance——

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman should realise that the debate must end at 4.30.

Mr. Sproat

I have very little more to say, Mr. Speaker.

One should subtract from the 375 jobs that the hon. Gentleman mentioned the 130 agricultural. We still think that there is a possibility of some 8,000 to 12,000 jobs in prospect in the envisaged development. Surely this is much more important for the long-term employment position in Scotland. Therefore, surely the Secretary of State was right to keep open the unique possibilities of Hunterston in regard to an integrated steel works in which Scotland must participate for the development of the steel industry.

4.24 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office (Mr. George Younger)

I will try to answer as many of the points as I can, but I will answer one point in particular—and it may be the only one because I have not much time.

This relates to the intemperate nature of the hon. Gentleman's remarks about my right hon. Friend. It is, of course, quite in order for us to disagree on any matter, but it is unnecessary that, because we disagree with a particular decision, we should call in question a person's whole integrity. The fact is that my right hon. Friend went out of his way to disagree with the reporter on the original part of his decision about Hunterston to pave the way for the steel development there that everyone hopes may eventually come. It does not seem genuine to accuse my right hon. Friend of being against development when he went out of his way to do what I have described. It is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman should have said that.

What the hon. Gentleman does not realise is that the Secretary of State is well aware of the planning procedures. The hon. Gentleman forgets that his right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) some two years ago, after an exactly comparable length of inquiry and procedure, turned down another project of a similar kind, though one of less importance, which related to the Munro application in Renfrew.

Mr. Sillars

He was wrong, too.

Mr. Younger

When his right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock took that decision, I do not recall the hon. Gentleman calling for his resignation or describing him as being against development. Nobody would have been as stupid as to do that. The right hon. Member for Kilmarnock made his decision as best he could, as my right hon. Friend has done in this case. We would do better in this House to accept that in situations like this a genuine effort is made by Ministers to do the best they can with the jobs they must tackle.

The hon. Gentleman criticised the fact that the inquiry was not reopened, as was at one time proposed, to deal with the supplementary evidence by the Department of Trade and Industry. The reasons for not reopening the inquiry were set out in the decision letter of 24th May. I do not have the time—nor do I believe that it would be profitable for me to do so—to go into all the details of why my right hon. Friend made this decision, particularly as he has made crystal clear all the factors he took into account in making the decision.

On the question of employment, I assure the House that all the employment factors were carefully considered by my right hon. Friend. It was made clear on page 3 of the letter of 9th December that the indirect employment figure which would have come from the Chevron development was very much taken account in the taking of the decision.

The hon. Gentleman went on to make certain comments about Press reports on this subject. I suggest that he brushes up his reading of the Scottish Press. He said that he could find no evidence of any commentator taking a view different from his own. I can think of several newspapers that took a very different line and fully appreciated not only that there were several points of view but that the Secretary of State had done his best to reach the right decision in the interests of Scotland as a whole.

The hon. Gentleman complained about the delay in reaching this decision. It has taken almost exactly two years to reach it. I would not pretend that this is an ideal situation. Nor should it be the norm in cases of this kind. However, the Hunterston proposals were more far-reaching than any other set of proposals in the planning sphere that we have faced for some years. Other proposals to which I have referred have been comparatively small matters compared with the decisions that had to be taken about how the Hunterston peninsula should be used.

If one ignored all the planning Acts, the rights of minorities to express their views, the benefits to Scotland as a whole resulting from reaching the right decision and of how this part of Scotland in particular would be best used—whether for this purpose, as a refinery, as a steel complex and so on—one could certainly take a quick decision. In other words, the hon. Gentleman's complaints about delay do not hold water.

I come to what is by far the most important issue, which is the basic approach to the economic restructuring of West Central Scotland and the way in which that basic approach affects Hunterston. The hon. Gentleman suggested that it was inconceivable that my right hon. Friend could have decided against Chevron. Clearly, however, a great many people besides my right hon. Friend have been able to conceive without difficulty not only that he might decide against Chevron but that it would be right to do so. I am not speaking of people publicly committed in advance to the amenity interest, but of the responsible national Press.

I reiterate what my right hon. Friend has said publicly to the Chairman of the West Central Scotland Plan Steering Committee—that environmental quality is an economic resource because it can attract people to live, and then invest, in a region. Public concern about the quality of the environment is growing and I am sure that it will continue to do so. Any region which ignores that growing concern may appear to gain short-term economic advantages in consequence, but will certainly weaken its long-term competitive position against regions which allow for that concern.

This is more important in Scotland because the quality of the natural environment could be one of our major basic resources. We must husband that resource just as we do other resources. We must have employment, and to get it we must sometimes sacrifice some amenity. It is the job of the Secretary of State—this has applied to Secretaries of State of all parties—and the planning machinery to see that if such a sacrifice is made, it is done with discretion and in return for an economic gain that justifies the sacrifice. The argument turns very much on whether one's opinion is one way or the other on that.

My right hon. Friend's transactions on Hunterston have throughout been governed by these considerations. He made his policy clear in the letter of 9th December. He is convinced of the industrial potential of Hunterston and, hence, has zoned land for industry there going beyond the recommendations of the Reporter taking the inquiry. He made it clear in that letter that he would sacrifice the great amenity of Hunterston only for industry of special value to Scotland, which needs the unique facilities that are available at Hunterston.

It was suggested by the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend has capi- tulated to a privileged minority of objectors. That is nonsense. My right hon. Friend took the greatest care and caused considerable disquiet to those objectors in the first part of his decision. Whatever one's opinion on this issue, my right hon. Friend cannot be accused of doing anything other than taking account of the best interests of Scotland as a whole and of the best interests of the development of this part of Scotland in particular, a factor which is of the greatest importance.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock till Tuesday, 8th June, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.