HL Deb 13 June 1945 vol 136 cc578-81

2.41 p.m.

LORD WINSTERrose to ask His Majesty's Government, what is the position regarding imports of soft woods. The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the present moment our manufacturers are being exhorted and encouraged to do everything they possibly can to increase our export trade. It is very right and very proper that they should be exhorted in this manner, The object of my question, however, is to call attention to a certain handicap and disability under which manufacturers are suffering at the present moment owing to a great shortage in the supplies of soft woods. The work of a factory does not end with the manufacture of a certain article. After that article has been manufactured and produced, it has to be packed for dispatch. It has to be put into packing cases or into crates, and for this completely necessary purpose our manufacturers require adequate supplies of soft woods. Those supplies they have not got at the present moment. In fact, I find manufacturers of articles which are very important for the export trade who are reduced at the present moment to scraping round to get, for instance, old tea cases in order that they may extemporize some sort of packing for their goods, although I need hardly point out that old tea cases, which are rather flimsy and in any event are worn, are not very satisfactory for the purpose. Even so, they cannot get sufficient numbers of those old tea cases to meet their needs.

I assure your Lordships that this is really a matter of serious importance and of serious concern to certain manufacturers. I myself, in the course of the last four weeks, visited a very large factory. For reasons that will be understood I will not name the factory or the article that was being manufactured—it is better not to do so—but that article is of particular value to our export trade at the present time, and there happens to be a delegation in the country pressing for such articles. I went round the factory and I found that they had 8,000 units of their product stacked up, for which they were absolutely unable to obtain the necessary wood for packing. The result is that the firm has stopped production of that article because it is no use going on producing when it is impossible to get the wood in which to pack it and dispatch.

The net position is simply that that firm could, at the present moment, treble its production if it were able to get the soft woods necessary to pack these products. The thing goes further than that, because if the firm could treble its production it could obviously give very much more employment than it is giving at the present moment. The war contracts which this firm has had are running out and being discontinued. It could give a great deal of employment by getting on to its regular manufacture, but it is prevented from doing that because it cannot go into full production owing to the impossibility of getting the necessary wood to pack the products. Now this firm happens to employ literally thousands of men and women; in fact, in its particular area it is the chief source of employment, and consequently the well-being and the prosperity of that great neighbourhood depend very largely upon this firm being in full production. Yet the position at the present moment is that it cannot go into full production owing to the impossibility of getting the wood required to pack the products.

I do not want to press this matter at all by way of criticism. I am only calling attention to the facts. I am told that there is the possibility of some improvement in the near future in regard to our imports of soft woods. There were. certain difficulties immediately following the conclusion of the war with Germany, because obviously a certain amount of mine sweeping had to go on before traffic between the Baltic, the chief source of these soft woods which are required, and this country could be resumed. That mine-sweeping, however, has now been carried out, and I am given to understand that in the near future we may expect fairly substantial imports of soft woods.

But the matter does not entirely end there. When these larger imports of soft woods are received, they will, of course, quite properly, fall within the jurisdiction of the Timber Control, and the Timber Control, again very properly and very naturally, has allocated certain priorities in this matter. I am told that the priorities run somewhat as follows. First of all come war needs—none of us can quarrel with that. War needs, until the war with Japan is ended, must obviously come first, although I imagine that these war priorities may be rather a decreasing factor at the present moment. Second in the list of priorities come civilian necessities. Again, having regard to the necessities of our housing programme and rehousing our bombed-out population, nobody can quarrel with that. Third on the list of priorities with the Timber Control come the necessities of our manufacturers.

Now I would say that all those priorities are completely and absolutely reasonable, but it may possibly be the case—I hesitate to say so definitely because the Government are usually better informed than one is oneself; they have access to much more information—that the disability and handicap under which our manufacturers, anxious to increase their production for the export trade, are suffering at the present moment, may have been overlooked. The object of my question is to bring this need and necessity—to the attention of the Government, because once a need is recognized very often it is possible, by a little thought and a little scratching round, to improve the allocations.

I would like to impress upon the noble Earl who is going to be kind enough to reply that this is a real need and a real necessity, the lack of which at the present moment is impeding production and is also handicapping employment in this country. A great deal of redundant labour is now becoming available as war contracts run out, and unless we can put these people on to peace production they will have to suffer from unemployment, and a great deal of unemployment may be caused in this way. Therefore, without making any criticism whatsoever—I assure your Lordships I have not the least wish to do that—I would ask the noble Earl who is going to reply if lie feels that he can tell us that the situation will be reconsidered, and that the Timber Control will be asked to go into the matter again to see how far it is possible to effect further releases of the necessary wood to manufacturers in order that this handicap to production and employment may be remedied.

2.50 p.m.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER

My Lords, I think the House will be generally glad that the noble Lord opposite has brought this matter to the attention of your Lordships. In point of fact my noble friend is quite correct. It is the Government's policy to encourage manufacturers to export all they can, subject to certain essentials being left behind in this country, and anything that holds up or debars firms from exporting o their full extent is a matter naturally to be looked into. The position as I understand it, although it is somewhat distant from the Home Office to the Timber Control, is that the imports of soft woods are being maintained at the maximum quantities which are available to us from the present sources of supply. Unfortunately it is expected that a world-wide deficiency of these soft woods will last for at any rate the next two years during which time the reconstruction demands from this country, Russia and other European countries will be heavy indeed, whilst at the same time there is a shortage of labour and transport facilities which will restrict production.

Nevertheless I have been informed that the sources from which present supplies are being obtained will be augmented by the Baltic countries, and contracts have in fact already been placed with Sweden and Finland for substantial quantities of soft woods. In addition, as I think the noble Lord probably aware, a certain quantity of soft woods is already being obtained from the United States of America. The question of obtaining soft woods from Germany is one which has not been lost sight of, but I am not in a position to-day to give any information upon it to the noble Lord. I repeat that I am glad the noble Lord has brought this matter to our attention and I will certainly ask the Timber Control to look into it as a question of urgency. I think I am well aware of the firm to which the noble Lord referred in the course of his remarks.

LORD W1NSTER

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply, which I am certain will give very great satisfaction indeed to those manufacturers to whom I have referred who are suffering from disabilities at the present moment.