HL Deb 22 January 1946 vol 138 cc1026-8

6.57 p.m.

LORD DENHAM

My Lords, On behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Rankeillour, I beg to ask the question standing in his name.

[The question was as follows:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the co-ordinating control of the President of the Board of Trade over the disposal of surplus goods will extend to fixed assets and the liquidation of war contracts.]

LORD PAKENHAM

My Lords, arrangements for the disposal of fixed assets and the liquidation of war contracts are quite separate from the arrangements for the disposal of surplus goods over which the President of the Board of Trade has co-ordinating authority. There is no co-ordination of the disposal of all fixed assets, and none is necessary. The term "fixed assets" covers a wide variety of installations and the problems of disposal are widely different. There is one field, however, in which co-ordination is necessary—namely, factory buildings. Here the President is responsible for co-ordinating the disposal of all surplus Government factories and storage depots, with the exception of a small number of highly specialized raw material plants which are being sold as going concerns by the appropriate Department; that is to say, the Raw Materials Department of the Board of Trade or of the Ministry of Supply and of Aircraft Production, according to the material involved, and by the Light Alloys Control of the Ministry of Supply and of Aircraft Production. Apart from these specialized plants, the procedure is that the Board of Trade are informed of all other surplus Government factories as soon as the owning Department decides that it will no longer have a use for them. They are leased to tenants selected in accordance with published criteria of national importance, through the machinery of the Distribution-of-Industry-and-Regional Division of the Board of Trade.

The President has no co-ordinating responsibility for the liquidation of war contracts. These are dealt with primarily by the Contracting Departments concerned, for example, the Ministry of Supply and of Aircraft Production. Important matters of principle arising in this connexion are dealt with by the Contracts Co-ordination Committee, for which the Treasury provides the Chairman and which has two sub-committees to deal with day to day questions of machinery, etc. Most of the problems of liquidation have already been settled in principle, though naturally much remains to be done in the detailed clearance of contracts. When questions of the reconversion of industry to peace-time pro duction arise, the President's interest is served by the full consultation which takes place between contracting Departments and production Departments, normally through the Regional Board.