§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
12.12 am§ Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside)My speech must begin with a letter sent to me on behalf of the Catharall brickyards work force at Buckley by the Transport and General Workers' Union branch secretary, Mr. Godfrey Catherall, who is no relation. Mr. Catherall is the senior shop steward. He has a record of loyal and lengthy service. His views are a reflection of the strength of feeling among the members of the work force who received their redundancy notices about three weeks ago. They were surprised. They are angry and bewildered. Their prospects for obtaining work are not good. They are fine men and, as a work force, they have a superb record. I want Her Majesty's Government to help my constituents.
Mr. Godfrey Catherall wrote:
On October 21st Hanson Trust, via Butterley Buildings, gave notice to 60 most loyal employees to terminate their employment at the brickmaking factory, known as Catharall's works, Buckley. Brickmaking has been continuous there since 1760 and now, after a period of 13 years of profit making, Hanson Trust close the site with all its assets intact, ready for sale. How do they treat their employees? They treat them ruthlessly, not with generosity or caring, as Hanson Trust representatives claim. They will not make ready their economic reasonings for closure, and the people involved are very angry. Redundancy payments are being made, but it is simply peanuts to men who have no possible opportunity of finding employment elsewhere. Redundancy—no"—says Mr. Catherall—retirement—yes, for all involved. Please bring notice to all people of our plight.That is the letter that the shop steward gave to me.Butterley Building Materials Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the massive food and industrial concern, the Hanson Trust. The Hanson Trust reported profits before tax for each of the past five years as follows: 1980, £39.1 million; 1981, £49.7 million; 1982, £60.4 million; 1983, £91.1 million; and 1984, £169.1 million. Butterley Brick's end of year financial statement for 1984 reports a record profit and that it is now the number one brick producer in the United Kingdom within its area. For 9 October 1985, Butterley reported increased profits and anticipated good results for the year. Hanson Brick profits, which is London Brick plus Butterley, in 1984 reported a profit of £32.6 million. That is the financial background to the redundancy notices given to my constituents in Buckley. Clearly, there is no financial crisis in the Hanson Trust, Butterley or Hanson Brick.
My constituents are perplexed to hear that the Hanson Trust is poised to make a
milestone in world takeover history.That was reported on Channel 4's "Money Programme" on Sunday 10 November. We learnt from the programme that the chairman of the Hanson Trust was in courtroom 36, United States district court, New York, making legal history in a takeover dog fight which would enable the Hanson Trust to expand in the United States. While the Hanson Trust told its subsidiary to close the brickyards at Buckley, Channel 4 revealed that $72 a share was being offered by the trust for its quarry in the United States.Some of my constituents at Buckley, soon to join one of Wales's longest dole queues, are sceptical about why the closure is being proposed. They, and their union officers, led by Mr. John Beard, JP—their district 394 officer, who has worked hard on the case—want access to the company's accounts and an economic breakdown of the closure. They have been informed that Hanson policy is that no information of that nature must ever be given to the work force. Will the Government ensure that the company accounts are revealed to the work force—not just information that the company may wish to give, but the full accounts which are presented for audit by law? I have asked the Secretary of State for Employment to assist the work force to that end, but so far I have had only an acknowledgement of my letter of 26 October. Will the Minister urge the company to assist in setting up a cooperative, if the work force expresses a wish to do so?
The Secretary of State for Wales, when I asked him in October to intervene on behalf of the work force, told me that the matter was for the commercial judgment of the company. His response has greatly disappointed my constituents. Will the Minister assist in preventing the closure and in helping the factory to an assured future?
There has never been a dispute at the site, and my people have done everything asked of them. They are a superb, experienced and loyal work force of male and female employees, who have brought only honour and profit to the owners. Their bitter conclusion is that it is clearly a disadvantage to be made redundant by a private enterprise company. Redundancy payments in the private sector are considerably lower than in the public sector. It could be that redundancy rates in the private sector in the south-east of England are higher than in Wales.
Clearly, if my constituents were employed by the Welsh water authority, the British Steel Corporation or the National Coal Board, they would be much better off. When some of my constituents leave Catharalls they will receive not so much redundancy, as early retirement. I am concerned about the cash paid by the private sector compared with that from the public sector.
Should the closure go ahead, there is seething resentment at the prospect of meagre redundancy payments. It has come to the notice of the work force that when the Hanson Trust closed the London Brick company, treble redundancy was paid and the balance of the 90-day notice, which is more than double what is proposed at Buckley.
My constituents are shrewd. They noted that Hanson took over the London Brick company last year. Now the Catharall brickyard is to be closed. They wonder whether the takeover and the closure are related. Are they?
In a recent "Whicker's World" programme Hanson executives were reported as saying they were ruthless but generous. My constituents say that they are ruthless; I say, let them be generous.
Five years after probably the largest industrial closure in modern-day western Europe jobs in north-east Wales are again vanishing. Although the numbers involved are smaller than in steelmaking at Shotton in 1980–81 when 8,000 jobs were lost, it is disturbing that new industries intended to replace steel are now shedding labour.
In April this year P D Can closed, with the loss of 80 jobs, only two years after setting up on the Deeside industrial park. The news that Deeside Titanium is to make 40 workers redundant after other natural wastage losses is another blow to Clwyd, particularly as the venture was by the first heavy manufacturing company to offer alternative jobs to steelmaking.
395 The latest figures for jobcentre areas reveal that at Mold 2,261 people are unemployed; at Shotton, 2,873; at Wrexham, 6,542; at Holywell, 1,405; and at Flint 1,328.
In the Deeside travel-to-work area 9,239 men—or 22.7 per cent.—are unemployed. The female rate is 15.7 per cent. In total 13,477 people are unemployed—19.9 per cent. In neighbouring Wrexham, over 8,000 people are out work—18 per cent. of more.
In Alyn and Deeside, 2,983 men are out of work, and 4,417 people are without jobs. In the Delyn local authority area, 3,206 men are out of work, and 4,589 in total. In Glyndwr, 1,750 people are jobless, and in Rhuddlan, 4,119.
In the county of Clwyd 24,982 people are jobless—18.6 per cent. That includes 16,996 men, representing 21.6 per cent. male unemployment. In Wales as a whole over 182,000 people are jobless. In Clwyd, 1,322 young people claiming benefit are jobless. Many of them live in Alyn and Deeside.
Notwithstanding the serious figures, I regret that on Deeside no advance factories between 1,500 sq ft and 10,000 sq ft are available to incoming industrialists. That means that Deeside is losing the vital inquiries made by industrialists prior to their location decisions. That is said by those whose business it is to obtain new projects. That does not happen in England. Therefore, we are at a disadvantage. We lose chances to make inroads into the large dole queues in north-east Wales. I am seriously concerned at the inability of the Government and the Welsh Development Agency to make available such advance factories as I have named, and Deeside clearly is neglected in that respect.
It is fair to say that modern manufacturing industries are a vital ingredient in regional development. No area recovering from industrial decline can succeed without a hardcore of jobs in that sector. Shotton cannot be transfonned into the City of London and seek its salvation by deindustrialisation. The service sector is important—it provides new jobs—but it cannot grow in a vacuum. Local authorities have imaginative plans for tourism projects in the Shotton new development zone, but they must he complementary to manufacturing, not alternatives.
The problem is severe because of the combination of growth in the number of young people seeking work and the reduction in employment in manufacturing. The job losses in industry reported recently are an alarming sign that the downward trend might resume. That demands positive action.
The answer to recession in the late 1970s affected the United Kingdom exceptionally, and within it areas such as Alyn and Deeside suffered even more. The worrying signs warn against inaction. It is that inaction of which I complain in the Government's economic policy as it affects Wales, especially Alyn and Deeside. What is required is a change of Government policy so that we can make true inroads into the large dole queues.
Although there are examples of new industry in Alyn and Deeside on fine industrial estates, it appears to be difficult to make real inroads into the unemployment total, notwithstanding the good work being done to attract new industries and jobs to the Deeside and Clwyd areas. It is sad that many men are doomed never to work again in north-east Wales, unless there is a major change in Government policy.
396 On the positive side, there is the superb prospect of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales opening the Shotton paper mill next month. But when we celebrate that great success, we should also understand that the loss of P. D. Can and the redundancies at Deeside Titanium and at the Catharall brickyard will wipe out the gains in jobs at the paper mill.
Many of the brickyard workers are young men with wives and children to support. Many of them have mortgages and considerable hire purchase commitments. The future is grim for that work force. I have met its representatives twice, and I can tell the House that their anger and dismay are genuine. They would be foolish not to be angry and not to ask the Government to give them assistance. They are to suffer an injustice, and they do not deserve that kick in the teeth.
I ask Ministers to open the accounts to leaders of the work force. If redundancies there must be, let them be on the very best terms. Hanson can afford to be generous. It is not being generous, yet its profits are huge. Its profits next year will be even larger. It is monstrous that that brickyard will close when thousands of Welsh houses are in need of repair and modernisation. There is also a pressing need for new homes for the elderly, the homeless and the handicapped. If that job were tackled, brickyards such as Catharalls would expand rather than close.
I hope that the Minister will give some helpful replies tonight to the members of a loyal work force who fear that, if they lose their jobs, they will remain unemployed for a very long time.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Mark Robinson)The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) has highlighted a specific problem, and I recognise the sincerity with which he has brought the matter to our attention in the calm of this Adjournment debate. He also raised broader issues about the employment situation in his constituency generally, and I shall, if time permits—and only a short time has been left to me—deal with the broader, as well as the narrow, issues that he raised.
In fairness to the hon. Gentleman, I shall deal first with the Catharall works, about which he spoke at considerable length. He explained not only his fears, but those of the work force, which is affected by these redundancies and the closure, which we greatly regret. He also referred to the role of the Hanson Trust, and I noted the points he made about that.
Nobody can be other than concerned when jobs are lost, but it must be for the companies concerned to determine the future of their plants in the light of all the circumstances before them. The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of financial information on the performance of the Catharall works and pointed out that the work force seemed not to have been given the full information for which it had been looking.
As the hon. Gentleman correctly said, the accounts of Butterley Building Materials Ltd. are available, the most recent being for the year to September 1984, but they do not identify separately the financial performance of the works at Buckley. Clearly, in situations such as this, a company should make available to its work force appropriate information relating to its decisions. This, however, under company law as it exists now, is a matter for the company's own judgment, and it is not a matter in 397 which the Government could, or would interfere. Having said that, on behalf of the hon. Gentleman, I urge the company to make the relevant information available.
Redundancy terms are for the work force to resolve with the management. If the members of the work force cannot obtain satisfactory terms in negotiation with their employers, they can make the relevant complaint to the local industrial tribunal. Other issues and possible solutions are obviously open to them, but the hon. Gentleman will agree that in this kind of situation it is important that the company concerned should be open with the work force and set in train a form of consultation to enable the employees to be fully in the picture and know where they stand and what the future holds for them. Although I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman some of the assurances that he sought—because they are not within my power to give—I hope that at least what I have said has been of some assistance to him and his constituents who have been affected.
We are here tonight to discuss also employment in Alyn and Deeside. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government should do more and spend more, which provides me with a valuable opportunity to set the record straight about the Government's public expenditure record as it relates to the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
While we accept that Alyn and Deeside, in common with many other parts of Wales, has high levels of unemployment, the Government have always recognised that the task is to assist in attracting new real jobs that offer a long-term future, rather than to try to buy short-term jobs that are destroyed nearly as quickly as they are created. We must look at the hon. Gentleman's constituency in the context of the overall travel-to-work area and the regional context of its location.
The travel-to-work area of which Alyn and Deeside is part is, of course, a development area qualifying for the highest available levels of regional industrial assistance which consists of automatic capital or job-related grants plus selective assistance. Between January 1984 and the end of October this year, 14 offers of selective assistance have been accepted by investors hoping to provide 1,326 jobs in the constituency. In the county of Clwyd as a whole, 46 such offers have been accepted, providing prospects for 2,996 jobs and safeguarding 1,296 existing ones in the same period.
The record of sound achievement by the WDA—the hon. Gentleman referred to the agency—gives equally impressive testimony to the efforts being put in. Since May 1979, 77 factory units providing 700,000 sq ft have been completed in the constituency by the WDA, and during the past nine months alone seven units have been allocated. All this is part of a factory programme for the travel-towork area which has provided a total of 140 factories since 1979, and for the county as a whole has provided 210 advance factory units comprising 1.5 million sq ft of floor space. I do not see any evidence here of a lack of commitment to investment.
It is worth looking more closely at one or two specific developments. For example, there is the United Paper Mills project at Shotton, where £100 million has been invested in a plant whose benefits to employment in the forestry industry go far beyond the 250 directly created jobs which are expected to arise.
398 At the Deeside industrial park, which in itself is one of the major industrial successes of Wales, Europe's first thin film disk manufacturing plant is expected to get into full-scale production next year and eventually to employ about 250 people. CWS's project at Deeside park, producing breakfast cereal, promises 150 jobs, and the very successful Iceland Frozen Foods is now hoping to provide another 100 new jobs by 1988. The Alyn and Deeside constituency also extends into the Wrexham travel-to-work area and includes Llay, where Sharp has been particularly successful, promising over 800 new jobs from its video recorder and microwave projects, which I am sure has an implication for the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The area therefore has already established a proven record of success, together with a clear potential. I remind the hon. Gentleman that there are other areas of the country which would be very glad of the successes that have been achieved in and around his constituency.
In that respect, north-east Clwyd has captured three major Japanese investments—Sharp, Brother and Hoya Lens. This is part of our overall achievement in inward investment, which has culminated in Wales obtaining one quarter of the inward investment into the United Kingdom for two years running.
This positive news is not limited to new companies or enterprises. What we must also recognise is the quite admirable efforts of the Shotton work force in recent times in transforming the performance of the works. Production records are constantly being broken—most recently on the colorcoat line where demand for the product has grown so dramatically. We look for similar achievements from the new Galvalume project, where an investment of £30 million is nearing completion.
In saying this, it would be wrong not to make reference to the Courtaulds closure, which has affected the whole area of north-east Clwyd, including the hon. Gentleman's constituency. As in all situations of this kind, the Government's response was prompt and generous. In June my right hon. Friend announced a range of measures to assist the area affected by the green field closure, covering both social and economic development, which could result in expenditure totalling over £6.5 million on schemes already identified. To this package the company has now, in agreement with the local authorities and in consultation with the Government, added its own comprehensive set of initiatives to assist its former employees wherever it can but including the free transfer of the green field site to the local authority. Alyn and Deeside will benefit from my right hon. Friend's package, and the council has been allocated additional urban programme assistance for 1985–86 amounting to £175,000 for two schemes under the supplementary allocation made in September. In saying that, I am glad of this opportunity to pay tribute to the tireless work of my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffen)—I am pleased to see him in the Chamber tonight—on behalf of his constituency in this matter.
During 1986–87 it is hoped to start work on the new road bridge over the Wrexham-Bidston railway, which is to receive substantial grant assistance. This will greatly improve the currently restricted access to the Shotton paper mill and open up sites on the western side of the railway for further industrial development.
It is important to recognise, too, the context of public expenditure in which we are working. The Government are attacked as being opposed to constructive public investment. If we were talking against a background of 399 notably low totals of investment in capital this might be justified, but in fact we are speaking against a background, particularly in Wales, of high levels of investment in programmes for factory building—over £300 million has been spent by the various agencies since 1979—through hospital construction—£250 million since 1979—to road building—over £600 million has been spent on trunk roads since 1979. In the county of Clwyd alone since 1979 well over £350 million of public funds has been invested by the Welsh Office and by the WDA. This includes the A55 improvement programme, which has seen the construction completed in September 1984 of the Hawarden bypass, which passes through the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
I would not wish to doubt the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman's concern for his constituency which is reflected in the specific case that he brought before the House. It is a simple fact, however, that the massive increases in present planned levels of public spending of the sort which the hon. Gentlemen has so fervently advocated, on this and many other occasions, could destroy jobs if used excessively. Such policies characterised the Labour Government.
400 I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider carefully what I have said tonight and acknowledge that his concern is shared by a Government who are backing their concern with concerted action. In Alyn and Deeside there are excellent prospects for attracting further industrial investment and growth. Major public investment, policies to attract industry, major promotional effort and, above all, a major record of sound achievement are bringing in new jobs to the hon. Gentleman's constituency and will continue to do so.
Clearly there is still far to go, but all that has been done has enabled Alyn and Deeside to establish a formidable record in creating new and successful enterprises and has made Alyn and Deeside one of the most outstanding attractive prospects anywhere in Wales for attracting industrial investment and growth. That is what—
§ The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at eighteen minutes to One o'clock.