Glass Container Industry (Hansard, 19 July 1983)

§ Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse (Pontefract and Castleford)

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, the crisis in the glass container industry.' In 1979, the United Kingdom demand for glass containers was 49.7 million gross. By the end of 1983 the market is likely to be 41 million gross, a projected decline of 18 per cent. This state of affairs has been met by redundancies on the part of management. Since 1979, this once highly profitable industry has steadily gone down hill and is now a huge loss-maker. The work force has been halved and their standard of living reduced.

The matter I raise is specific in that, for example, the Rockware Glass Company has reduced its work force from 5,000 in 1979 to 2,500 by the start of this year and the company is at present engaged in an exercise to reduce the number of jobs by a further 550, 350 at the firm's factory in my constituency.

The United Glass Company has reduced its work force in the glass container section from 6,251) in 1979 to 3,300 today. I was informed yesterday that the company is to close down completely its Castleford plant with a loss of 590 jobs. That makes a total loss of jobs in my constituency of 950 announced in the last fortnight.

The matter is indeed urgent when one considers that the United Glass Company is to transfer work from my constituency, which has an unemployment rate of 13.6 per cent., to an area of the southern part of the country with an unemployment rate of just over 11 per cent., 1 per cent. less than the national average. The decision cannot have been taken on the basis of social concern.

Considering that recently, with the aid, I understand, of a substantial Government grant, the Canning Town Glass Company introduced a modernised glass container furnace at its factory in the southern part of the country to increase the firm's production capacity—at a time when the glass container market is already overcrowded—one must ask whether it is Government policy, aided by their friends in industry, to move jobs to the southern part of the country at the expense of the north.

The matter I raise is urgent and the House should be given an opportunity to debate it. However, Mr. Speaker, you may feel unable to grant my request. If so, I give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.