HC Deb 06 December 1974 vol 882 cc2210-1

3.55 p.m.

Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth (Thornaby)

I beg to move, That this House pays tribute to the contribution being made by the Northern Region of England in the extraction of North Sea oil and gas; and, recognising the benefits accruing to the whole nation from this contribution, calls upon the Government to ensure that the whole country benefits from the oil revenues, and in particular those areas which have suffered consistently from high levels of unemployment. If time had permitted, it was my intention to go into these matters in greater detail. However, perhaps I may make four points on the basis of my motion.

The first is that the oil in the North Sea must be regarded by the country as British. There are those hon. Members on the Opposition benches who frequently shout otherwise. But it is silly to squabble over it. Anyone who has read the Spectator this week will see a very good article explaining how silly it is to do that because, if the argument is extended far enough, we shall begin to argue whether the gas in the North Sea is Scottish or English, and whether any oil which may be found in the Celtic Sea is Welsh or Cornish. Arguments of this kind only inhibit and hold up the development of these valuable and vitally important assets, to the detriment of the whole country.

Secondly, I lay claim to the enormous contribution being made by the Northern Region to the development of North Sea oil.

Thirdly, I think that it is necessary to obtain for British manufacturing industry and servicing industry the greater possible market in the development of offshore oil.

Fourthly, I make the claim for all those regions, like the Northern Region, which have had consistently high unemployment, to get the benefit of North Sea oil revenues.

I have a constituency and regional interest in this matter, because on Tees-side we are building the oil rigs Gray-thorpe 1 and 2, and we hope that others are in the "pipeline". We have the Ekofisk oil pipeline coming. Research is going on in the region into these developments. A new dock is being built at Seaham, and a tank farm is being built at North Shields. Already, thousands of jobs have been created. In Cleveland county alone, one-fifth of the investment—about £200 million—has gone into the development of oil from the North Sea. A staggering amount of investment is going from the Northern Region into this industry.

On that basis, if on no other, it can fairly be claimed that the obtaining of the oil and the job of getting it ashore is being carried out by the whole of manufacturing industry, in which I include the backing of the research and the knowledge and skill of those who are putting their efforts and investment into this enormous task.

I shall not go through the Northern Region's unemployment figures over the past decade. However, they have been consistently higher than the average for the country and considerably higher than the levels in the other regions. If anyone is to get the benefit of revenues from North Sea oil, I hope that the one region which has had such a consistently high percentage of unemployment will benefit from it.

There is an enormous market for offshore developments——

It being Four o'clock, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER interrupted the business.

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