Sitting of 5 November 1969

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  The Glasgow Corporation Order Confirmation Bill was, according to Order, read the Third time and passed.
PETITION

  Orpington Hospital (Nursing Establishment)
  Mr. Lubbock: Mr. Speaker, I beg to ask leave to present the humble Petition of the Orpington Nurses and Citizens Association and residents of Orpington and other places, the Orpington Nurses and Citizens Association being an ad hoc organisation formed by nurses and citizens to ensure that the high standards of nursing care which have always been maintained at Orpington Hospital are not jeopardised by the establishment polices of the Regional Hospital Board.
  The Petition showeth:
  Our hospital requires an increase in nurses' establishment and an assurance that staff cuts will not be made in future.
  Wherefore your petitioners pray that a general inquiry into nurses' establishment at Orpington Hospital be conducted by your honourable House and that the findings of such an inquiry published at the earliest possible time.
  And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
  To lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Sheep
    Mr. Stodartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why the size of the sheep flock continues to fall; and what steps he proposes to take to reverse this trend.
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by what amount home sheep production has fallen in the past four years; and what new steps he is taking to arrest the decline.
    Mr. Joplingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to restore the reduction of sheep numbers in the country during the last year.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes): In recent years the sheep flock has fallen. This reduction has been accentuated this year by losses due to bad weather. Output was 22,000 tons lower in 1968–69 than in 1964–65. Our objective is to check and offset the decline in production.
    Mr. Stodart: Does the Minister recall his advocacy of shifting the sheep flock back to the hills? Is he aware that there is considerable anxiety in the farming community about hill farms being taken over for afforestation? Is not this making a complete nonsense of his whole policy?
    Mr. Hughes: The afforestation policy is quite another matter. If the hon. Gentleman will table a Question on that matter, I will answer it. The aim is for some longer-term shift to upland areas where sheep are good users of grazing. We are anxious to see the sheep flock maintained at a reasonable level, above the present level.
    Mr. Farr: Was the statement made last month in New Zealand by the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry that we had no intention of expanding home production authorised by the Minister?
    Mr. Hughes: The Permanent Secretary was setting out the basis of the

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    selective expansion programme announced last November. The hon. Gentleman is not right to assume that this means that we do not want to make up sheep losses since the selective expansion programme was announced.
    >Mr. Jopling: Does the Minister recall that the breeding flock has been reducing since 1965 and that the "Little Neddy" warned the Minister that this was happening and said that expansion should take place? Have not the Minister's measures at the last Price Review been shown to be totally inadequate?
    Mr. Hughes: The measures at the two last reviews were reasonable ones. The industry's needs will require to be carefully examined at the next Review in view of the losses of the recent winter.
    Mr. Godber: Arising out of Minister's second supplementary answer, will he make it clear that he is not placing any ceiling on production of sheep in Britain? It would be monstrous if he were seeking to do that, but that is the impression I gained from his reply.
    Mr. Hughes: There was no intention to fix a rigid ceiling. The selective expansion programme did not envisage an increase in mutton and lamb production. As I said before, the position is now different, because we are below last year's production level.
    Mr. Manuel: Is it not much more economic to consider upland areas, where a very large acreage indeed is necessary to sustain any reasonable growth of sheep, for forestry purposes?
    Mr. Hughes: This is an arguable question. I repeat that a Question should be tabled on the question of forestry, because that is a separate issue. There should be no conflict between the needs of forestry and those of agriculture in upland areas. We have achieved a position where there is an understanding between the industry and the Forestry Commission.
    Mr. Farr: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I will seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Harvest
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his latest estimate of the 1969 harvest in the South-West and in the country as a whole.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Anderson) on 4th November.
    In the South-West the situation has been broadly similar to that in the country generally, with a particularly marked increase in cereal yields.
    Mr. Digby: Will the Minister bear in mind that in the South-West we have suffered from a succession of pretty bad harvests, and that although this year's is more favourable to us we have great problems in cereal production in that part of the world?
    Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that the drop in cereal acreage in the South-West should be more than offset by the increased yields of cereals. In his own county of Dorset, for example, barley yields are well up on last year. But I accept that individuals have suffered not only in his county but perhaps more so in other parts of the country, and I think that the 1970 Price Review is the right place to consider the position.

    Imports Substitution
    Sir G. Nabarroasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what additional output of British food during the last 12 months, measured in millions of pounds, has contributed to the balance of payments compared with the preceding 12 months; and what is the result to date of the policy of imports substitution.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): These figures are not yet available for the past farm year. Our expansion programme aims to take up the major part of the increase in demand. Comparison of production with imports of temperate foods shows that this is being achieved.
    Sir G. Nabarro: From what source can we prove the efficacy of the Minister's policy in view of the much vaunted

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    claims by Government spokesmen that import substitution in agriculture is succeeding so wildly?
    Mr. Mackie: If I may offer the hon. Gentleman some advice, he should take not one year as a criterion but several years, which is the only way to do it in agriculture. Taking 1964–65 to 1967–68, he will find that food production has risen by 2½ per cent. against the rise in imports of 1 per cent.

    Apples
    4. Sir G. Nabarroasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of large supplies of unsold British apples from the 1969 harvest and the glut of foreign supplies, what steps he is making to help apple growers in Worcestershire and elsewhere in Great Britain.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): The 1969 apple crop has been a good deal higher than the small crops of 1967 and 1968. As a result, prices are lower and more apples will be stored for sale after Christmas. There is no glut of supplies from the non-sterling area since these are regulated by quota and are at present fetching prices significantly higher than those for home-grown apples.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Has not the hon. Gentleman's market intelligence informed him that large quantities of the highest quality Worcestershire apples, well graded and well packed—for example, Sunset Cox's—are commanding prices of only 2d. a lb. in his own constituency, due to the glut of foreign apples which preceded the close season, thereby destroying the market possibilities for our home growers? Will the hon. Gentleman not put a ban on foreign apples after Christmas?
    Mr. Hoy: The hon. Gentleman has only just told me about the price obtained in my constituency and I would want the facts so that I could look into them. We must get the question of imports in perspective. The current six months' quota for imports, at 15,200 tons, is no greater than in previous years, and the home crop is nearly 18 times greater than that.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Will my hon. Friend resist the blandishments of the garrulous enemy of the consumer from South Worcestershire? Is he aware that the housewife is very satisfied with the reasonable prices she is paying for her apples in the market?
    Mr. Hoy: I have certainly received no protests from British housewives, who are getting a very good quality British apple much cheaper than they could buy last year.
    Mr. Crouchasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what steps he proposes to take to protect the British apple grower against unfair competition from abroad;
    (2) if he will reduce the quota at present in force for imported apples in view of the exceptionally heavy British crop this year.
    Mr. Hoy: There are already quota restrictions which apply to all imports of apples from outside the sterling area. The quota for January/June 1970 is now under consideration and my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade, who is responsible for the licensing of imports, will make an announcement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Crouch: I am sure the House is pleased to hear that the Parliamentary Secretary is prepared to consider with the Board of Trade the question of import quotas after Christmas. Will my hon. Friend, as the Minister responsible for the production of apples, bear in mind that because of the exceptionally good weather this autumn the storage qualities may not be as good in the future and that some special protection through the licences granted for imports will be necessary?
    Mr. Hoy: Yes, we want to do all we can for the home producer. It is true, as I said in reply to an earlier Question, that the crop this year is much greater than last year, when, in fact, it was small. But I also took the opportunity of pointing out that the import quota of 15,200 tons has not varied over a number of years and our own production is 18 times greater than that.
    Mr. Gardner: Leaving aside the present situation, has my hon. Friend seen the forecast about the growth of apple

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    production in Southern Europe, which is climatically very favourable? Will he beware of taking future action which might not be in the interests of the British consumer or the long-term interests of the industry?
    Mr. Hoy: We are bound to take all that into consideration. When the import quota was fixed, as it was, at 15,200 tons, we took into account what producers in Southern Europe were producing, and what protection we ought to give to our home producers, as well as the selection that would be available to housewives and the prices they would have to pay.
    Sir Clive Bossom: What quantity of apples does the hon. Gentleman expect to be imported from now until Christmas? This is going to be the difficult time.
    Mr. Hoy: As I said, the six months' quota is 15,200 tons, and it is usually in the second half that imports are greater; but in total they cannot exceed 15,200 tons.
    Later—
    Sir G. Nabarro: On a Point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory replies to the Questions about apples, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is a little late.

    Non-Pasteurised Milk
    5. Dr. Summerskillasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will introduce legislation to make the sale of non-pasteurised milk illegal.
    Mr. Hoy: No, Sir. About 97 Percent. of our fresh milk is already pasteurised. There is a specific consumer demand for untreated milk, and in some remote rural areas the delivery of heat-treated milk could not be assured.
    Dr. Summerskill: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that people drinking non-pasteurised milk risk developing brucellosis, which can be fatal, and other milk-borne diseases? How can be justify the sale of that remaining 3 per cent. of milk which can cause people's deaths?
    Mr. Hoy: I can justify it by saying that there are certain areas where if people did not get this milk they would not have a milk supply at all. My hon. Friend should not exaggerate too much, because cases of milk-borne disease often come from careless and unhygienic handling of milk after the sale has taken place. While we do not minimise the danger, we should keep it in its proper perspective.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Will the hon. Gentleman state the quantity of unpasteurised milk as well as the percentage?
    Mr. Hoy: I could perhaps let the hon. and learned Gentleman have the figures. I do not have details of the actual quantity here. I thought it better to give the percentages so that the House would be able to measure what was involved in this question.

    European Economic Community
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to publish information on the effects on the cost of living of Great Britain's entry into the Common Market.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I would refer my hon. Friend to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in reply to the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) on 16th October.—[Vol. 788. c. 604.]
    Mr. Hamilton: I have read what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on Woman's Hour on the B.B.C. the other day. Is my right hon. Friend aware that I am very much a pro-Common Marketeer and hope that we shall obtain the right conditions to enter, but that nevertheless the housewife is rightly very much concerned about this problem, and that it should be made plain to her what the consequences of our entry will be?
    Mr. Hughes: We have always recognised that the difference in food prices is one of the most important issues in our approach to the European Economic Community, and there certainly would have to be a period of adjustment. But we should now wait for the figures that my right hon. Friend has promised will be produced shortly.
    Mr. Godber: May I reinforce the point the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) made. After what the Prime Minister is reported as having said yesterday, surely we must be told the facts about this, particularly as the Prime Minister has attempted from time to time to say that this cost is low whereas the cost of Conservative policy is very high. The Minister must know that the cost of joining the Continent would be at least three times as much as anything we have ever proposed. Will he tell his right hon. Friend that?
    Mr. Hughes: We must now await the figures my right hon. Friend has promised. But none of us was ever satisfied with the figures produced by the Opposition on the cost of Conservative Party policy, which we know would put the price of food up without our entering the Common Market.
    Mr. Turton: When shall we get the figures? The right hon. Gentleman gave the 1967 figure. Since then the Prime Minister has said that there will be a very steep rise and warned the housewives of Britain. Surely it is the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility to publish without delay how much those 1967 estimates are out of date.
    Mr. Hughes: Figures involving a number of Departments are concerned. My right hon. Friend has promised to publish them as soon as possible, and this will be done.

    Bank Loans (Interest Rates)
    Miss Quennellasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what he estimates to be the cost of the recent decision of banks to raise their lending rates by ½ per cent. in a full year to the agricultural industry.
    Mr. John Mackie: The extra cost in a full year on bank loans to agriculture would be about £.2·6 million. About £1·6 million of this relates to current farming purposes, of which some £1·2 million is in respect of Review products.
    Miss Quennell: Will this additional cost factor be taken into account in the forthcoming Price Review?
    Mr. Mackie: The £1·2 million I mentioned certainly will be.
    Mr. Peter Mills: Is the Minister aware that it is not only the high interest rates
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    which are a very real burden to the industry but the fact that British agriculture is having to borrow more and more to keep itself afloat? What is needed is a better end price, so that there is a little fat left.
    Mr. Mackie: Members of the Opposition will need to make up their minds. The complaint we often receive from hon. Members opposite is that the industry cannot borrow enough. Now the hon. Gentleman argues that it is borrowing more and more. Hon. Members opposite will have to make up their minds which it is.

    Fireblight
    Miss Quennellasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many outbreaks of fireblight were notified to his Department in the past year; how this compares with previous years; and how many apple and pear trees have been affected.
    Mr. Hoy: Fireblight was recorded by my Department on 100 farms and nursery holdings in 1969. This compared with 142, 164 and 140 in 1966, 1967 and 1968 respectively. In 1969 approximately 2,250 apple and 600 pear trees were
    affected.
    Miss Quennell: In view of the persistence of this nasty disease, will the Minister tell the House two things? First, what has become of his Department's pamphlet "Fire-blight in Britain", which I understand has been withdrawn for revision and has not reappeared? Second, will he undertake some form of publicity so that the ordinary gardener can identify this bacterial disease among the flowering shrubs which may be hosts to it?
    Mr. Hoy: We have been revising the literature dealing with the disease. The hon. Member will know that it is a very difficult disease to deal with. We have through our publicity section and the N.A.A.S. service attempted to convey to everyone concerned just what is involved in the disease. We are doing our utmost to warn people of its dangers.

    Fish (Deep-Sea Oceanography)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now make a further statement on

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    his investigations into the effect of deep-sea oceanography on the lives, increase, decrease and health of the fish in the North Sea fishing grounds and those further North.
    Mr. Hoy: I have nothing to add to the statement I made in answer to a Question from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 22nd October.—[Vol. 788, c. 236.]
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Does my hon. Friend not realise that that is a very unsatisfactory answer? Is he aware that the science of oceanography—a horrible word—has added need at present for two very good reasons; one, an increase in the world's fish-consuming population and, two, the need to increase our exports of fish?
    Mr. Hoy: I think the first part of that supplementary question had been prepared before my hon. and learned Friend heard the answer. No method of investigation of oceanographic research has any significant effect on fish.

    White Fish (General Levy)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has received from the Federation of British Port Wholesale Fish Merchants' Association their letter of protest against the White Fish Authority's proposal to seek approval for an increase in its general levy; if he will state his plans and the answer he has sent, including details of the result of his official meeting with the objectors in England and Wales on Wednesday, 29th October as part of the process of consideration; and if he will state his consequent plans for future action.
    Mr. Hoy: On 29th October our officials met the representatives of the Federation and other objectors to the General Levy Regulations made by the Authority on 23rd September, 1969, and took careful note of the points made. All these objections will be taken into account by my right hon. Friend in considering whether to confirm the regulations, but I cannot anticipate the result of that consideration.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Does my hon. Friend realise that that is a much more
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    helpful and satisfactory answer than his previous one? Does he realise that this is a very important and representative association whose views should be treated with the utmost respect and in a constructive way?
    Mr. Hoy: I am very grateful for that supplementary question. I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that we pay particular attention to the views of not only this organisation, but every section of the fishing industry.

    Glasshouse Industry
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on his plans for the future of the glasshouse industry.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The glasshouse industry is making rapid progress helped by assistance under the Horticulture Improvement Scheme and other measures. I expect it to continue to play its full part in the selective expansion programme.
    Mr. Hastings: Did the Minister notice that there was a responsible assertion the other day that increased costs to the glasshouse sector were as much as 16 per cent. for the single year 1967–68 and that growers at present cannot face this sort of increase and the credit squeeze with no margin left to cope? Will he agree that the time has come to change the present system of specific tariffs, which is right out of date, if we are to give growers a chance of a reasonable return on investment?
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I think the tariff system has given the industry very good protection. I ask the hon. Member to look at the other side of the coin. Since the "Little Neddy" examined agriculture's import savings rôle in England and Wales the glasshouse acreage is up by 294 acres, tomato acreage up by 103 acres and winter lettuce acreage up by 184 acres. This represents very good progress indeed.

    Monosodium-glutamate
    Mrs. Joyce Butlerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the most recent advice from his Advisory Committee about the use of monosodium-glutamate in food; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: This is a substance formed when natural protein foods such as beef and cheese are digested. I have asked the Food Additives and Contaminants Committee to advise on its use as a food additive and will consider the committee's recommendations as soon as I have them.
    Mrs. Butler: Can my right hon. Friend give any indication when these recommendations will be received? In the meantime, will he look at the labelling regulations to enable mothers of small children and people with special health conditions such as kidney complaints to assess how much is too much when they eat combinations of foods containing monosodium-glutamate either at home or in Chinese restaurants?
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: We must give the experts an opportunity to look at this problem properly. I cannot indicate the precise date for their report. As to baby foods, at least one manufacturer does not use monosodium-glutamate, and others have said that they will not use it in the future. Labels of all foods which carry a declaration of ingredients will state the presence of added M.S.G. in the form "monosodium-glutamate".

    Lambs (Intensive Rearing Trials)
    Mr. Huntasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the recent trials which have taken place at Government-run experimental farms on the intensive rearing of lambs.
    Mr. John Mackie: Trials on the rearing of lambs with, and without, their mothers and the rearing of one lamb of a twin are being undertaken on three of the Ministry's experimental husbandry farms.
    The results so far obtained do not seem to have much commercial significance yet.
    Mr. Hunt: Although we can be grateful for that reply, is the hon. Gentleman aware that the thought of lambs being enclosed in indoor pens from birth until slaughter 13 or 14 weeks later is repugnant to most British people? Is it not particularly unfortunate that the Government themselves appear to be a party to this kind of inhumanity?
    Mr. Mackie: The hon. Gentleman is making gross exaggerations. I would almost commend to him a cartoon in Punch where a passer-by was shown looking at shepherds pulling dead sheep out of a snowdrift and the caption was, "Have you not a nice warm battery to put them in?". When one thinks of the appalling loss of ewes and lambs last winter, any alternative method of rearing lambs is worth investigation, if nothing else.

    Selective Expansion Programme
    Mr. Joplingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is satisfied with the progress of the selective expansion programme for agriculture; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: In the last 18 months bad weather has caused considerable setbacks to agricultural production, particularly of cereals and sheep. But the good cereals harvest has brought a significant recovery.
    Cattle numbers are expanding well and beef production is increasing. Progress on pigs, though slower, is also satisfactory, and home bacon production is appreciably up on last year.
    The progress of the selective expansion programme, which covers four years, is reasonably satisfactory.
    Mr. Jopling: Taking one example, cereals, is it not true that this season's harvest will still be below the 1967–68 figure? Is it not true that we are now lamentably behind the Minister's selective expansion programme and it is very doubtful that we shall get the £160 million increase in import saving by 1972–73?
    Mr. Hughes: It is true that this year's harvest will be below the 1967 harvest, but it will be nearly 1 million tons above last year's harvest. I think this news will cheer the hon. Member. He must remember that the selective expansion programme runs to 1972–73. We must always remember that we are looking at a four-year period, and the whole point of these guide lines is that the industry can plan for more than one year at a time. It is not particularly helpful to read the entrails every week for political reasons.

    Brucellosis
    Mr. Kitsonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many farms have now joined the Brucellosis Eradication Scheme; if he is satisfied with the progress being made; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the progress of the Brucellosis Eradication Scheme.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Up to the end of October, some 5,800 herds in Great Britain had been registered as accredited and a further 7,000 herds were undergoing qualifying tests. The number of herds in the scheme represents about 6 per cent. of the total herds or 13 per cent. of the total cattle in Great Britain. We are currently getting fresh applications at the rate of about 130 a week.
    I regard this as encouraging, but I am keeping the scheme under constant review.
    Mr. Kitson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some areas the incidence of brucellosis has risen since the eradication scheme was introduced? Why when a restocking programme followed the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Cheshire did not the Ministry suggest that people should buy brucella-free cattle, as this would have been a golden opportunity to get a brucella-free area?
    Mr. Hughes: This was a matter for the farmers concerned. Our advisory services are constantly at their disposal. There is a very good relationship between our advisory officers in the field and farmers in the area.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a tremendous amount of good will between the farming community and this House to make the scheme a success? Will he do two things; first try to arrest the spread of the disease by control of reactors, and second, approach it on an area-by-area basis to give the farming industry more confidence in ultimate success?
    Mr. Hughes: I should like to look at the area-by-area question, but I believe we must first build up a reservoir
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    of known disease-free stock for replacement purposes. while the scheme is progressing vaccinal reators will be culled naturally. What we cannot do at present is to undertake a move to total eradication. About 14 per cent. of cows would react, many because they have been vaccinated, and to slaughter all those animals would be costly, wasteful and unnecessary at present. We are anxious to make as much progress as we can.
    Mr. Godber: While I am grateful for that answer, I think that the majority of farmers are getting more and more impatient. Will the right hon. Gentleman look carefully at the two suggestions put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), especially at the possibility of area eradication? I was surprised when the right hon. Gentleman that he would have to look at that. I had assumed that he must have considered the possibilities in the past. I hope that he will make an effort to get this started.
    Mr. Hughes: I am extremely interested in area eradication. There was great pressure for my own constituency of Anglesey to be treated as a county where this could take place, because it is an island. I have had to resist that pressure because I believe that my experts have given me the right advice about the need first to get a reservoir of brucellafree herds.
    Mr. Kitson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek an early opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Sugar Consumption (Ban on Cyclamates)
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what he estimates will be the extra amount of sugar consumed annually in this country as a result of the ban on cyclamates; and what proportion of this additional amount he expects to be supplied from nations who are signatories of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement.
    Mr. Hoy: Recent usage of cyclamates has been equivalent in sweetening power to something like 15,000 tons of sugar per year, but I expect only part of this

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    to be replaced by sugar. The sugar refiners have for many years undertaken to use Commonwealth sugar for the home trade, in preference to non-Commonwealth sugar, provided it is offered competitively.
    Mr. Farr: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the benefits to this country of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement are once again driven home now that sugar prices are starting to climb as a result of the ban on cyclamates?
    Mr. Hoy: The House knows my view on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, of which I have been a loyal supporter, and which is the policy of the Government.
    Mr. Stodart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that home-produced sugar is now competitive in price with that produced elsewhere? Will he bear in mind that Scotland is a member of the Commonwealth and that any increased consumption of sugar would be welcome at the Cupar factory?
    Mr. Hoy: I thought that I would get that question about Cupar. But I have made it clear that Commonwealth sugar will make up the difference, if necessary.

    Wild Life Diseases (Danger to Man)
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will carry out an investigation into the possible dangers to livestock health from diseases associated with the recent death of some thousands of sea birds and other recent similar epidemics affecting wild animals; and if he will consult the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security on steps to minimise any dangers.
    Mr. John Mackie: My Department is co-operating in the investigation being conducted into the death of these birds which is being co-ordinated by the Natural Environment Research Council. This investigation is not complete, but so far there has been no evidence of death from disease.
    Mr. Roberts: In view of the increasing number of problems involving the side-effects of chemicals and common factors in plants, birds, fish, animals and humans, would not my hon. Friend accept that
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    there is scope for a permanent departmental liaison committee in order to further research generally and look at each natural disaster which occurs?
    Mr. Mackie: I take my hon. Friend's point, but I think that we should await the report of the Natural Environmental Research Council I imagine that it will recommend some such permanent body if the situation should warrant it.

    British Standard Time
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now conduct a survey of the costs to agriculture of the continuance of British Standard Time.
    Mr. John Mackie: Yes, Sir. After consultation with employers' and workers' organisations, and as part of the comprehensive review by the Government, my Department intends to carry out in December a study of the economic effects of British Standard Time on agriculture.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I am grateful for that reply. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the introduction of B.S.T. generally has been against the interests of the farming community, and can he assure us that when the review takes place next spring his Department will give the industry every support in presenting its views?
    Mr. Mackie: Of course we will give it every support, and its views will be welcomed. However, I do not entirely agree with the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.
    Mr. Rankin: Now that so many of the animals of which we are thinking are confined for the greater part of their lives under the system of intensive farming, how can any change in the time affect them when they seldom see the sun?
    Mr. Mackie: That is an ingenious method of putting a supplementary question on a subject very dear to my hon. Friend's heart.

    Undeveloped Land, Twyford (Weeds)
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make an Order under the Weeds Act 1959 in respect of

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    undeveloped land between Malvern Way and the Bath Road at Twyford.
    Mr. John Mackie: I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the hon. Member on 22nd October, 1969.—[Vol. 788, c. 233.]
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Was not that answer given last Session, and did it not hinge upon the fact that it was allegedly not dealing with agricultural land? The point is that there are weeds. The hon. Gentleman is responsible for them. Should not he act?
    Mr. Mackie: I am sorry, I am not responsible for weeds, except on my own land, and only if they happen to be designated injurious weeds, of which there are five. We are responsible for weeds injurious to agricultural land. Any further action that should be taken is legal action. It does not lie with us.

    Grain Imports (Levy Registration Fee)
    Mr. Costainasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) whether he will now increase the levy registration fee on import contracts for grain;
    (2) whether he will issue a separate schedule of minimum import prices, and average import prices actually ruling, for barley of high diastatic power used in the whisky industry.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: In general, the minimum import price arrangements are working satisfactorily, but I am at present reviewing certain aspects of the scheme.
    Mr. Costain: Is the Minister aware that if anyone registers before six o'clock on a night when it looks as if the price is to be altered, he can have a free gamble for 3d. a ton? Does the Minister want to encourage that sort of gambling? Does not he appreciate the difference between the price of barley for whisky and that used for other products?
    Mr. Hughes: I am against gambling, and I am looking at this now.
    Mr. Stodart: If the right hon. Gentleman is considering the high diastatic power of barley, should not the makers of whisky be advised that they would be doing a great service by using more barley and less maize?
    Mr. Hughes: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is capable of passing on that message himself.

    Rabies
    Sir Richard Glynasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take steps to vaccinate with Flurry vaccine the dogs in house arrest in Camberley and also those now in quarantine kennels.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: No, Sir. No vaccine currently used in the field will give absolute protection. Vaccine has a very real place in the control of rabies where the disease is endemic, but it is not appropriate for this country where the disease is not endemic.
    Sir Richard Glyn: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is the third occasion on which a dog in Britain has developed rabies after undergoing six months' quarantine? Is he aware that all these cases could have been prevented if the dogs had been suitably vaccinated with a modern vaccine at the beginning of the quarantine period? If he is not willing to consider vaccine in ordinary circumstances, will he do so at least for dogs which are placed in quarantine? To prevent further outbreaks and allay public anxiety, will he institute a public inquiry into the circumstances of the present outbreak and take evidence as to the effect of quarantine over long periods, and the good effect of vaccination in other countries?
    Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that I have already instituted an inquiry into the cause of the outbreak. It is true that our quarantine kennels often contain a fair proportion of dogs which have been vaccinated. It is also true that as recently as last year a dog which had twice been vaccinated against rabies died of the disease in one of our quarantine kennels. The vaccine in which I know the hon. Gentleman is interested unquestionably has a real place in the control of rabies where the disease is endemic, and experience suggests that it can give a high measure of immunity. There is no experience of its use in a non-endemic situation.
    Mr. Onslow: Is the Minister aware that most of the dogs concerned are owned by Service officers who are likely

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    to be posted from Camberley in two or three months' time? Is there any assistance which his Department can give owners in maintaining quarantine arrangements for their dogs when they have to move away?
    Mr. Hughes: I regret the inconvenience which has been caused to the owners of the dogs, and I have great sympathy. I am prepared to consider what can be done to help. If the hon. Gentleman has any suggestion, I will be glad to consider it.
    Sir Richard Glynasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of the cost of vaccinating with Flurry vaccine the dogs now in house arrest in Camberley and also those now in quarantine kennels.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: None, Sir. Cost is not a factor that would influence a decision whether to vaccinate.
    Sir Richard Glyn: Is the Minister aware that the efficient Flurry vaccine, which could not have been used in the case of the dog which was vaccinated twice and subsequently died, is extremely inexpensive to administer?
    Mr. Hughes: As I have indicated before, the Flurry vaccine, as a live vaccine, is open to the possible objection that it might lead to symptom-less carriers. Hence, its use cannot be recommended in a rabies-free area. I have considered this carefully with my advisers and, on the weight of available evidence, this is the conclusion which we have reached.
    Mr. Godber: Can the Minister give any information as to when we may expect the results of the inquiry, and will he be publishing them?
    Mr. Hughes: The report of the inquiry should be available within a reasonably short time, possibly two or three weeks. If the right hon. Gentleman and the House agree that this would be acceptable I will place copies in the Library.
    Sir Richard Glyn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the replies. I give notice that I shall try to raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what
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    reply he has sent to the request of the Medical Practitioners Union and the Veterinarians Union for a committee of inquiry to review the question of the control of diseases, including rabies, which can be spread from animals to man; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I have not received a request from either union.
    Mr. Dalyell: Ought we not then to establish some definite criteria on which intervention, as at Camberley, can be based?
    Mr. Hughes: I think the hon. Gentleman is referring to a message which he believes I received from the unions in question. As I said, I have received no message from them and no request to institute any sort of inquiry. Obviously, if I receive a request from the unions I shall take it into account very carefully.

    Ploughing Grants (Amenity Considerations)
    Mr. Carol Johnsonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food which statutory and other organisations he consults when considering the effect of Section 11 of the Countryside Act, 1968, on applications to him for ploughing grants.
    Mr. John Mackie: There is no provision for such consultation. But our officials personally inspect all land in respect of which such application is made and satisfy themselves about the amenity aspect before the application is approved and work is begun.
    Mr. Johnson: Would my hon. Friend reconsider that answer and study carefully the Section of the Act to which I have referred, in view of the firm assurances which were given during the passage of that Measure that this was an important matter to which the Minister would give serious attention? Having regard to the fact that the ploughing of moorland may well have an effect on the amenity of the area, should not there be some regular system of consultation with the interested parties
    Mr. Mackie: I will give thought to the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman. A farmer can plough without a grant if he wishes. There are safeguards in the Countryside Act for areas of

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    special amenity interest. We have consultations with the amenity interests and I will bear in mind what my hon. Friend says.

    Bee Keeping
    Mr. Sharplesasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he has for encouraging the keeping of bees for the production of honey.
    Mr. Hoy: We have no new proposals for the bee-keeping industry. Government assistance to bee keepers will continue to be based on research, education, advice and the control of disease.
    Mr. Sharples: I am sure bee keepers will be illuminated by that Answer. Can the hon. Gentleman say why his Department is increasing by 500 per cent. the cost of keeping hives on land managed by the Forestry Commission.
    Mr. Hoy: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a reply off the cuff. If that was the question he wanted to ask, he should have put it on the Order Paper.
    Mr. Maclennan: Can my hon. Friend say whether the Department has given thought to the possibilities of import substitution on honey?
    Mr. Hoy: We import a considerable amount of honey, and it is true that it is cheaper than our own. But the Question asked what advice and help we were giving to the bee-keeping industry, and all I replied to was the Question which the hon. Gentleman put on the Order Paper.

  PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS

    Ancient Monuments (Admission Charges)
    Mr. Sharplesasked the Minister of Public Building and Works if he will make a statement about the increase in charges for visitors to ancient monuments in his care.
    The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. John Silkin): At 51 of the monuments in my care charges will be raised, mostly from 6d. to 1s., owing to
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    the increased cost of upkeep. However, at the more expensive ones charges will be reduced during the winter and charges for children and old-age pensioners will be limited to 1s. at all times. In addition, charges will be reduced or removed altogether at 10 monuments, and the price of the season ticket will remain at 15s.
    Mr. Sharples: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why it has been considered necessary to double the charge for admission to the major monuments such as the Tower of London and Stonehenge?
    Mr. Silkin: The hon. Gentleman played a very distinguished part in the display of our monuments during his period of office. I think that I shall carry him with me when I say that there are two considerations which one must take into account—first, that a reasonable price for admission should be charged, and second, that there should be sufficient funds to preserve and, one hopes, increase the standards of the ancient monuments. The difference between expenditure and receipts is so great that it must partially be met by an increase in charges.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Whilst appreciating the observations of my right hon. Friend, I must say that I feel that the increased charges will prove a burden to the family. It is all very well saying—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is Question Time. The hon. Member must ask a question.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Is my right hon. friend aware that mothers and fathers who take their children along to these places will find that they have to pay a greatly increased amount? These are supposed to be for the public.
    Mr. Silkin: I do not take quite as serious a view of this as my hon. Friend does. Indeed, we have endeavoured to preserve the low cost of admission for children. That is one of the basic facts. However, if I may put in a small commercial about the services of my Ministry with regard to ancient monuments, it families intend to visit a number of ancient monuments the season ticket is very reasonably priced at 15s.

  SCOTLAND

    Water Supplies
    Mr. John Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what proposals he has received from the Lower Clyde Water Board to meet the needs of water consumers in the Paisley area and to prevent a recurring water shortage; and what action he proposes to take;
    (2) on what date he expects the Loch Lomond water scheme to be operational.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): I have approved preliminary proposals by the board to lay new mains to augment supplies to Paisley from Loch Katrine pending completion of the Loch Lomond Scheme by the summer of 1971.
    Mr. Robertson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, unless there is an exceptional period of rainfall between now and this time next year, there will be another water shortage in the Paisley area next summer with the consequential laying off of work-people and loss of production in the area? Does not my right hon. Friend think that he might have taken the advice that Paisley Corporation gave six years ago to build a new reservoir in the area?
    Mr. Ross: With all due respect, I was not in office six years ago to take advice from Paisley. My hon. Friend will appreciate that the Loch Lomond scheme was considerably held up, but I will spare my hon. Friend's blushes by not giving a list of the local authorities that objected to it.
    Mr. Gordon Campbell: Will the Secretary of State comment on today's warning by a Scottish water board of continuing shortage over a wide area of Scotland for some time to come?
    Mr. Ross: That is true. We have been faced with two remarkably dry summers and a very dry winter. In the particular area which we are discussing, we have had so far this year only 60 per cent. of the average rainfall. Obviously, there is a difficulty. It is a help, now that we have regionalisation, that we can to a considerable extent take water from one area to another—as has been done to the advantage the advantage of some areas in this period.
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    But we are alerted to the position and will take all possible steps.
    Mr. Robertson: In view of the nature of the replies, I beg to give notice that I shall wish to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Gaming
    Mr. Gordon Campbellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the Gaming Board recommended that certain forms of gaming should be confined to three places only in Scotland.
    Mr. Ross: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Campbell: Did the Government previously tell the Gaming Board that these forms of gaming should be geographically restricted?
    Mr. Ross: No, Sir; we left it to the good sense of the Gaming Board to operate the Act of Parliament on the basis of the principles accepted therein.
    Mr. Dalyell: In view of the traffic congestion involved at the entrances to both Glasgow and Edinburgh, is there not a case for one centre in central Scotland, such as Bathgate or Falkirk?
    Mr. Ross: The representations which I have received on this matter have been duly considered. So far, although I am quite open-minded about extending the number of areas, they have not justified to me the need for an extension.

    Brucellosis
    Mr. James Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make illegal in Scotland the sale, except for slaughter, of cattle which are confirmed brucellosis reactors.
    Mr. Ross: No, Sir. Restrictions on the sale of reactors would have little effect on the incidence of brucellosis in the national herd.
    Mr. Davidson: Does the Secretary of State realise that, because of the nature of this disease, it is now impossible for farmers purchasing cattle in the market to know whether they are buying infected or diseased cattle, and that, far from building up a reservoir of disease-free herds in the country, the present system is spreading the disease into herds previously free of it?
    Mr. Ross: I cannot accept that as true. The scheme has made a reasonable start. From a veterinary point of view, it was considerably held up in England and Wales by the troubles last year with foot-and-mouth disease. In Scotland, there are over 3,000 herds involved in the scheme, and I believe that we have already about 820 accredited herds. It is a slow business—I appreciate that—but it is the only way by which we can move, in stages, towards a proper eradication scheme.
    Mr. Stodart: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that I regret having to say that I found his answer somewhat complacent when he said that he did not accept what the hon. Gentleman had said? Does he not agree that the sale of reactors is endangering those who are already in the scheme, and losing their good will, which is a very important matter?
    Mr. Ross: I appreciate the difficulties here, just as the hon. Gentleman himself will understand the complexities. One of the difficulties in vaccination is that most of the animals will react. This is why it is so difficult at the present stage to proceed to eradication. In my opinion, we must be patient as regards the building up of accredited herds.
    Mr. James Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to introduce a compulsory brucellosis eradication and compensation scheme in Scotland on an area by area basis.
    Mr. Ross: I cannot yet say when it will be possible to introduce eradication area by area, but meanwhile progress is being made under the Brucellosis (Accredited Herds) Scheme.
    Mr. Davidson: Is the Secretary of State aware that, in the opinion of many farmers, experts and veterinary surgeons, the Government are showing unwarranted complacency about this whole issue? Will he take it that a veterinary surgeon whom I have known for 14 years and who practises in my area says that in many parts of the United Kingdom brucellosis is now at what amounts to epidemic proportions and that the longer the disease is left under the present complacent method of eradication instead of an all-out method, the eventual cost of
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    eradication will be a great deal higher than it would be if the Government grasped the nettle now?
    Mr. Ross: We, too, have our veterinary advisers. The hon. Gentleman should not think that this is a simple matter. It took us 25 years to eradicate, or to make good progress in relation to, bovine tuberculosis. The position as regards brucellosis is much more complex, and it is complicated by measures taken hitherto.

    Housing Development, Glasgow
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the amount which has been invested from public funds, to the nearest convenient date, in the housing development at Mansewood, giving the contribution made by Glasgow Corporation; what are the final estimated costs and how they will be shared between the Government and the corporation; and how many houses will be available for occupancy.
    Mr. Ross: I assume that my hon. Friend's Question relates to the development at Hillpark, which comprises 509 houses. The cost as put to me for approval was £2,923,368. I cannot say what the corporation has spent so far, or what the final cost will be. I estimate that the Government's contribution by way of subsidy will be equivalent in capital terms to a little less than half of the cost. There may also be an indirect contribution through the resources element of rate support grant.
    Mr. Rankin: To those of us who live in this area, Hillpark and Mansewood are the same place. In view of the price of these houses, which were designed originally to relieve the waiting list of 90,000 at the time in Glasgow, has it been accepted that they are still to be devoted to that purpose, and will my right hon. Friend say what would be the subsidy for the rents paid by working-class people who happened to obtain one of these houses?
    Mr. Ross: What the Government pay in subsidy is fixed by Statute, and is related to the approved cost for subsidy. What the corporation itself does as regards tenancies is a matter for the corporation. I do not know whether it has taken decision in this respect. I

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    have heard the suggestion of a proposal, but the last time I made inquiries about it it was still only a proposal.

    Police Manpower
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total manpower available to police forces in Scotland in September, 1963, 1965, 1967 and 1969.
    Mr. Ross: Respectively, 10,717; 11,311; 11,617; and 12,016.
    Mr. Manuel: I am delighted at the substantial increase in the strength of the force, but could my right hon. Friend tell us the amount spent in recent years on mechanical aids used by the police for the prevention and detection of crime?
    Mr. Ross: The figures I gave apply to total manpower—police, traffic wardens, civilian clerical and civilian technical staff. Total expenditure on equipment and maintenance of vehicles since 1964–65 up to the estimate for the current year has risen from £678,000 to £1,327,000.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Will the Secretary of State agree that increased civilianisation and more traffic wardens are not in themselves an answer to the serious shortage of manpower in the police force? In the year to date, has there been a net increase or decrease in the number of police officers in Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman will recall that I answered that question to him just the other day. I think that the figure was a loss of 12. I notice that he carefully missed out 1966 in his selective statistics, which would have given him a slightly different overall picture. As regards Glasgow, I think that there was a increase of 14. I appreciate that these are manpower figures, but I take it that the hon. Gentleman does not suggest that releasing policemen from office and traffic duties does not in itself give us more men to deal with the more serious aspect of crime.
    Mr. MacArthur: What is the shortage in the regular police strength today, and what steps is the Secretary of State taking to bridge the gap?
    Mr. Ross: The shortage in relation to establishment is at present about 900. What we have done to bridge the gap has been to try to make the conditions of service in the police as well as pay much more attractive, to improve relations between police and public and to secure their co-operation. I think that we are succeeding in that way.

NATIONAL SUPERANNUATION SCHEME (PARTIAL CONTRACTING-OUT)
The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Richard Crossman): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement.
I would start by apologising to you and to the House for the length of the statement I have to make, but I would say that the subject is not exactly a simple one to deal with.
Today, I am laying before Parliament a White Paper setting out the terms on which provision for partial contracting-out will be made in the Bill introducing the national superannuation scheme. Copies of the Paper—Command Paper No. 4195—are now available in the Vote Office.
Mr. Barnett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Copies are not available, and we have been told that they will not be available until my right hon. Friend has finished speaking.
Mr. Crossman: I should have said that they will be available at the conclusion of my statement.
The Government attach great importance to the rôle of occupational schemes as partners with the State scheme; and before deciding on the contracting-out terms we consulted the T.U.C., the C.B.I., and a wide range of organisations with a special interest in occupational pension matters. These consultations gave us a comprehensive view of all the relevant issues, and I am greatly indebted to those who took part.
The purpose of having contracting-out facilities is to offer occupational schemes the opportunity of taking over responsibility for part of the State scheme pension and in this way to limit the extent to which occupational schemes may need to cut back both in contributions and benefits when the enlarged scheme is introduced.

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As to the scale of the contracting-out provision, our initial suggestion was that the annual rate of pension for which contracted-out schemes would take over responsibility might be set at around 0·8 per cent. of the earnings on which the employee contributed to the State scheme. It was represented to us, however, that occupational schemes would find it helpful to take over responsibility for a rather bigger share of pension; and we decided, with a wide measure of support from those we consulted, that, for men, the annual amount of pension for which the occupational scheme would take over responsibility as a condition for contracting-out should be 1 per cent. of the employee's reckonable earnings. For women, who have a lower pension age than men, the equivalent figure is 0·55 per cent.
We sought the advice of the Government Actuary on what deduction from State scheme contributions would correspond to these deductions from the State scheme pension. The Actuary advised that, on a strict actuarial calculation, a contribution abatement for the employee amounting to 1·25 per cent. of his reckonable earnings, with an equal deduction from the employer's contribution, would be fair for the average occupational scheme. Most of those we consulted wished to have a bigger contribution abatement, and although we could not go as far as they wished without being unfair to employees not contracted-out, we have decided to go beyond the strictly actuarial terms based on averages and to abate the contributions for contracted-out employees by 1·3 per cent. aside of their reckonable earnings. The Government Actuary has advised that this improvement in the terms should be sufficient to make them financially acceptable to a further number of schemes covering an appreciable number of employees.
I now turn to matters affecting public service pension schemes for which responsibility lies also with other of my right hon. Friends and, in particular, my noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal. The Government have a special responsibility for the public service schemes, and in view of the misunderstandings that have been voiced in recent months about our intentions towards these schemes I
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should like to make the following points clear.
First, we have no intention whatever, as has been alleged, of dismantling public service pension schemes. Members of the public services take a pride in their occupational schemes, and the Government understand and share these feelings. It should not be forgotten that occupational pension schemes were pioneered in Government service.
Secondly, whatever changes in present occupational schemes may be necessary after the introduction of the new State scheme, we do not intend that benefits earned by previous service in existing schemes should be subject to retrospective change.
Thirdly, anxieties about the retiring age have been expressed on behalf of the police and fire services and other groups which, because of the special nature of their duties, cannot continue in their present employments until the age at which the State retirement pension comes into payment. There is no intention of making any change in their retiring ages.
Fourthly, where the Government are the employers, any necessary changes in occupational pension arrangements will be fully discussed with staff representatives, as I have no doubt other employers in the public services, and I hope elsewhere, will be doing. Indeed, in many areas such consultations have already begun. We have no intention of acting precipitately, or without full consultation with staff interests.
It is not in question that changes are necessary in public service pension schemes. One of the disadvantages of pioneer schemes is that if they are not periodically reviewed they get out of date. In the Civil Service, for example, we are all aware that despite the many improvements that have been made in recent years, the arrangements for preserving or transferring the pensions of those who leave for other work are still not nearly as comprehensive as we should like to make them. In another field, the Government are already pledged to seek better ways than the series of Pension (Increase) Acts of reviewing the level of pensions already in payment—or, as we call it, uprating.
But it would make no sense at all to reshape occupational schemes to deal with these and other points without at the

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same time taking into account the important part to be played by the new State scheme. The pensioner is concerned with his total pension benefits and careful co-ordination is essential to ensure that he gets the right benefits from the two schemes, State and occupational, taken together, without avoidable gaps or duplication. This is the way to ensure that the member does not have to pay too much in contributions, and that he gets value for money. Clearly, any adjustments that may be needed to take account of the State retirement pension will apply only when the individual is old enough to receive it. Those who retire on pension before the State pension age will still receive an immediate pension as good as that which they would now receive; necessary adjustments to take account of the State retirement pension will apply only at the State pension age.
This is the background against which we shall be discussing changes with staff representatives. The discussions will cover not only any changes needed to take account of the new State scheme and whether the public service schemes should make use of the partial contracting out facility, but also any proposals that staff representatives themselves wish to put forward.
The Armed Forces are in a special position, but my right hon. Friend has asked me to say that the same general approach will be adopted in considering what changes may be necessary in their present arrangements.
I have been dealing with those schemes for which the Government have a special responsibility. In setting up occupational pensions schemes, the nationalised industries, also, have exercised a pioneering rôle. Their schemes may also need io be adjusted in the light of the proposals for the new earnings-related State pension scheme. I am, however, confident that, taking the State and occupational pension scheme arrangements as a whole, there will be better provision for future pensioners and their families throughout public sector industry generally, as there will be for public service pensioners.
Lord Balniel: The House will be indebted to the Secretary of State by reason of the fact that at very long last some of the crucial figures have been disclosed about his pensions scheme: a
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scheme which is totally incomprehensible to the mass of the public; a scheme which is vastly complicated even for professional experts; and a scheme which now, throughout the length and breadth of the country, is looked on with the utmost of suspicion—the more particularly because, after this long delay, it is being brought into operation after and not before the election.
I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman two specific questions and one rather general question. It is widely held by virtually all experts that if there is to be a pensions abatement of 1 per cent., a contribution abatement of 1·3 per cent., which the Secretary of State has now chosen, will involve a cut-back in occupational pensions schemes, and that it is absolute eyewash to pretend anything else. Words like "modification", "adaptation" and "adjustment" quite simply means a cut-back. Is it not clear that the fears of occupational pensioners about the future build-up of their benefits are amply justified?
I personally was not reassured by the statement of the Secretary of State, when referring to public service pensioners, that there will be no retrospective changes for them. It is the future growth of public service pensions which matters. [HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] This is a vastly complex subject. What estimate has been made of the loss of savings in, for instance, the first five years of the scheme as people are being shifted from pension schemes based on savings to pension schemes based on taxation in the shape of contributions which will give them less good benefits?
I come now to my second question. Why do the Government link the review of existing pensions and, overwhelmingly, for pensions of those who will be retiring in five, 10 or 15 years' time, to the cost-of-living index, but revalue the younger workers' earnings and link them to the index of national earnings? In effect, the Government have deliberately chosen to treat the pensions of the old of today and of those who will be retiring in 10 years' time less generously than they are to treat the young people. Quite simply, why have the Government chosen to do this?
My last and general question is this: what is the Government's message, in their plan, for the elderly and the vulnerable of today? Is it not that the Government

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are building up commitments on higher benefits for the higher income groups to be paid for by our children, but are doing nothing for the over-80s. of today, and virtually nothing for the civilian disabled who are not in the National Insurance scheme? Would it not be much better to encourage our younger generation to save for better benefits themselves in occupational pension schemes and use the resources of the State to concentrate on the vulnerable and unfortunate of today rather than in 20 years' time?
Mr. Crossman: I thank the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) for his comprehensive expression of his views. Perhaps I can detect from his speech what I think were the questions. I thought that I detected three or four of them. I will start at the end and work backwards.
What message have I for the old of today? It is that their pensions are going up this week and that the pensions they will be receiving this week are worth one-fifth more than the pensions the Tories were giving them when they were in power.
Secondly—still working backwards—the hon. Gentleman asked about the young and the old. It was a surprising question, because I have heard it suggested that we are penalising the young for the sake of the middle-aged and the old, but never that we are helping the young at the expense of the old. The system under which we have a 20-year maturity—so that a person, in 20 years from the age of 45, can earn the same as a young person of 19 can in 40 years—does not seem to me to be against the old. On the contrary, we are looking here particularly for the middle-aged and the elderly, although I must point out that neither question asked by the hon. Gentleman on this point had any relation to the statement I made about abatement of public pensions.
When the hon. Gentleman did relate himself to public pensions, he asked whether I had in mind a loss of savings in the first five years of the scheme. There will be no loss of savings in the first five years, but there will be a reduction in the curve of increase of savings, which is not the same thing. I expect there to be a slowing-down of savings
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in that period. We shall be cutting down on a certain amount of the future, but none of the existing savings will go in any way.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the cut-back. He asked whether it was not the case that the pension experts, such as the brokers and actuaries, urged 1·5. It is true that they did urge 1·5, but I did not agree. We went to the Government Actuary and asked him, as an objective person who advises us and many other pension schemes, what he thought would be a fair ratio. He said that it should be 1·25. However, we chose 1·3, because I was persuaded that some of the smaller schemes which will be marginally affected will be able to contract-out. To go further would be against the Government's Actuary's advice, but also would be to take money from the contributors and pay it out to people outside the scheme, which would not be justified.
The hon. Gentleman asked me whether I do not think the scheme complicated. The answer is: yes, I do. But perhaps he has not read the many private pension schemes. Pension schemes tend to be difficult to read. If the hon. Gentleman reads the scheme of the local government workers, for example, he will find that ours is no more complicated. This happens to be an abstruse and difficult subject which he and I, as amateurs, have to cope with as best we may.
The hon. Gentleman complained about what he called the long delay inpresenting the scheme. I delayed my statement so that I could have a long period of discussion with the pension interests and I am surprised that he should have felt that I ought to have cut them short. I certainly had no intention of doing so.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the business of the day. Questions must be brief.
Mr. Barnes: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is hard to understand why the scheme cannot be given a warmer welcome by the Opposition in view of aspects like the generous benefits for widows and the very important inflation-proofing, which are rarely found in occupational schemes and from which everyone will benefit?
Mr. Crossman: If my hon. Friend is asking me to suggest why that should be so, then I think that right hon. and hon. Members opposite are reluctant to feel that they completely failed to tackle the pensions problem when they grafted an absurd small graduated scheme on to the flat rate and called it a solution. We have had to make good very late in the day for Britain by doing what has been done in virtually every other modern country in Europe.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in respect of the Civil Service and Armed Forces, whose occupational pensions are noncontributory, there is any question of cutting back those pension rights to replace them with contributory pensions under his scheme?
Before we come to the Bill, may we have an assurance that the House will be informed in full of the cut-backs on the public service schemes for which his colleagues are responsible, so that, when we come to vote, we shall know exactly what we are doing for our constituents?
Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I can give him the assurance that the Government have no intention of cutting back on these schemes or substituting a contributory scheme for the present Civil Service or Armed Forces schemes.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that a review of Civil Service pensions is being made. That review will now take account of the new scheme as well. The Government would not dream of making an announcement without full consultation with the unions, which is still taking place. It is only after these consultations that we shall inform the House. In some cases, legislation is needed and in others Orders in Council.
The House will have plenty of opportunity to consider the matter. I shall ensure that these things get the fullest ventilation so that everyone will understand that this is not being done behind the scenes, but in full discussion with those concerned.
Mr. Houghton: Would my right hon. Friend say whether his proposals this afternoon involve any revision of the estimates of income and outgo which were published in the original White
1020
Paper? In particular. will it be necessary to increase contributions earlier than was originally expected to cover the loss of contribution revenue involved in the increase in the remission to 1·3 per cent.?
Mr. Crossman: As my right hon. Friend will remember, in the White Paper we estimated a 15-year period of surplus because we had no contracting-out and we knew that we budgeted there for contracting-out. Assuming that the amount of contracting-out done under these provisions is the same as now—I do not mean the same people, but the same total—the period is reduced from 15 years to five plus. If what the insurance industry demanded. 1·5 per cent., had been agreed, we would have come perilously near to having to increase contributions before we started.
Sir B. Rhys Williams: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what steps he has in mind to protect the existing rights of the beneficiaries of private schemes which were obliged to wind up as a result of these terms?
Mr. Crossman: I made a statement about the public schemes which was laughed at by the Opposition Front Bench—I appreciate why, because it seems absurd to have to say that no existing rights will be jeopardised. Such a statement seemed unnecessary, except that public servants had been anxiously writing about it.
The same applies to private schemes. Private schemes which are funded have rights and provisions to pay out. There could be no conceivable justification for those rights being jeopardised by the introduction of the new State scheme. Private schemes, however, may reconstitute or reorganise themselves in some way, but that reorganisation cannot jeopardise existing rights.
Mr. Molloy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many existing occupational pension schemes are wholly out of date and poverty-stricken? Is he further aware that nearly 12 million working people for the first time will be able to look forward to a State pension which is commensurate with conditions when they retire and that the real "long last" is that at long last Britain is being brought up to date in this respect by my right hon. Friend?
Mr. Crossman: I thank my hon. Friend. He is right to remind the House that when we talk of occupational schemes we have to remember that there are 65,000 of them—very good, good, indifferent and very bad. He is right to remind us that half of those now in receipt of an occupational pension are receiving less than £3 a week. So it is no good thinking of occupational schemes as a wonderful alternative to the State scheme.
However, occupational schemes have pioneered earnings-related pensions, especially those in Government service and nationalised industries. I pay tribute to the good schemes while reminding the House how many are ineffective. Roughly speaking, today we are half and half between those in and those out and we must make sure that those outside occupational schemes and likely to remain so have a chance of an earnings-related pension. That is all that the Bill will provide.
Mr. Pardoe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on the Liberal bench have not had our suspicions removed—that this is the Tory swindle Mk II? Will he say which of the organisations he mentioned in his statement, if any, advised him that it would be better to stick to flat-rate benefits for the State? Will he answer the question he was asked by the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) about the net effect on total private savings in the next five years?
Mr. Grossman: I am grateful to the hon. Member for asking that, because that was a part of the speech which I forgot was a question. I thought that I had made it clear that the effect on savings could be only estimated. I said that there would be no effect of cutting savings, but that there would be a slowing down in the rate of increase. What the degree of slowing down is will depend on the degree of contracting-out on the one side and, secondly, on the number of schemes which wind up or decide to reduce their activities.
This is something at which it is difficult to do more than guess. I will give my own guess for what it is worth. I think that, under our scheme, to begin with we shall get rather more people contracting-out than at present. If this is so, I hazard a repeition of my affirmative statement about the effect on savings.
Mr. Carol Johnson: Can my right hon. Friend say when he hopes to present the Bill? He made several references to discussions with representatives of occupational schemes. We have not seen the White Paper, but do I understand that these discussions will be on the terms of the White Paper, or do these represent conclusions so that the only discussions will be about their implementation?
Mr. Crossman: We hope to present the Bill in a few weeks. May I make it clear that my discussions were limited to the narrow issue of fixing the abatement ratio, the ratio between how much pension entitlement could be taken over by an occupational scheme and what contribution abatement that would attract? That is the only thing which has been fixed. I fixed the figures for this on the earnest request of the occupational pension schemes, which said that they could not start their discussions about the scheme until these figures had been written into the Bill. Serious discussions can start only when those figures are known.
Mr. Jennings: On retrospection, can the Secretary of State make it clear how the new schemes will affect existing vocational pensioners and what will happen to the lump sum?
Mr. Crossman: There will be no effect on existing vocational pensioners. The lump sum is a difficult matter. Each pension scheme has the right to revise itself. We have carefully made our scheme of a sort which does not compete with the lump-sum provisions of the occupational schemes. For instance, we are giving full widow's rights. For the first time, a widow will get the full pension of her husband. We are giving no lump sum. The result is that the two together will give the best of both worlds—a lump sum and for the first time a full guarantee for the widow. There is no reason why lump sums should be affected or reduced by our scheme.
Mr. Bidwell: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that savings should be appreciated and not depreciated, as most individuals save to ensure security in old age, while his scheme will mean that employers will make a heavier contribution?
Mr. Crossman: That is a fair point. It is undoubtedly an increased burden, but if we want better old-age provisions we have to pay for them. We have tried to make a fair distribution of the burden.
Mr. Dean: The right hon. Gentleman said that there would be a cut-back in the rate of the increase of savings. Does he not realise that in our view this is the worst possible thing that could happen for the build-up of both the State scheme and occupational schemes? Can he answer one simple question: have the organisations with which he has been negotiating agreed his proposals or not?
Mr. Crossman: I thought that I had made it clear that the proposals strongly urged on me by the pension interests were for a contribution abatement of 1·5 per cent. I made the movement from 1·25 to 1·3 per cent. This is already a large concession, but we felt that to go an inch beyond that point would be to concede to those outside the scheme many millions at the cost of those in the scheme. The pension interests wanted 1·5 per cent. and we decided on 1·3 per cent. The discussions did not take the form of formal negotiation. Before deciding what to do, I decided to discuss it with various interests. Having taken their point of view and noting that they wanted 1·5 per cent., I did not feel able to meet them in that regard.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the business of the House.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

  Friday 21st November 1969
  The following Members were successful in the Ballot—
  Mr. Robert Sheldon.
  Mr. A. P. Costain.
  Mr. Tony Gardner.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  LOCAL EMPLOYMENT BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.0 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Technology (Mr. Eric Varley): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  This Bill is designed to carry one stage further the policies of regional development to which the Government attach so much importance. I believe that there is no better subject with which to open the legislative programme of the present Session.
  The Bill was foreshadowed in the announcement made on 25th June by my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Economic Affairs when outlining the Government's final proposals following its consideration of the report by Sir Joseph Hunt's Committee on Intermediate Areas.
  The Bill has since been prepared by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning when President of the Board of Trade. It falls to me, following the Government reorganisation and the assumption by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology of responsibility for the regional distribution of industry, to present the Bill.
  Regional policy, to be successful, must reflect the changing economic and industrial structure both of the regions and of the country as a whole. It must also respond to its own successes. The success of regional policies in recent years is one main reason for the present Bill. It is partly because present policies are doing so much to revitalise the industrial structure of the development areas that there has been growing pressure to provide assistance to certain areas which, although their problems may not be as severe as those of the development areas, nevertheless face real economic difficulties.
  The Industrial Development Act 1966, which introduced investment grants in place of the former investment allowances, provided for the creation of broad development areas in place of the former

  1025
  relatively narrow development districts. Development districts were designated solely on the basis of unemployment levels. In designating development areas, we can take account of other factors as well, such as migration, depopulation, levels and rate of growth of incomes, and activity rates.
  A further step in the development of regional policy was the introduction of the regional employment premium in September, 1967. This provided a weekly payment to firms in manufacturing industry only in the development areas of 30s. a week for each male employee, with lower rates for women, boys and girls. Thus R.E.P. is labour-related, and counterbalances those other measures of assistance to development areas which are linked to capital investment, such as the 40 per cent. development area rate of investment grant and the assistance given to the provision of buildings under the Local Employment Acts.
  In November, 1967, an additional decision was taken to introduce special development areas. These are areas which, in the absence of special measures, were expected to face high and persistent unemployment as a result of colliery closures. And these areas qualified for certain additional measures of assistance over and above development area benefits. Therefore, the introduction of the Bill and of intermediate areas is the latest step forward in developing a more flexible policy, tailored to the differing needs of individual areas.
  Although the development area package remains, and must remain, the main instrument for promoting a better distribution of industry throughout the country, the creation of special development areas and intermediate areas reflects the view that, for certain areas whose troubles are different in degree from those of the main body of development areas, a greater or lesser degree of flexibility now exists and is appropriate. Of course, we need to beware of creating too complex a structure. If industry is to respond to the various benefits available they need to be comprehensible. The structure of intermediate areas, development areas and special development areas, with the differing scales of assistance, will be readily understood by industry.
  1026
  I have no doubt that the impact of the present measures and the new ones proposed in the Bill will prove to be flexible and effective. If we examine the figures, the margin of preferential assistance to the development areas rose from over £40 million in 1964–65 to nearly £155 million in 1967–68 and to over £265 million in 1968–69.
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that those figures include the free depreciation allowance, and also the investment allowance, as opposed to the investment grant, which, of course, was a charge on taxation?
  Mr. Varley: On the first point, the answer is yes, but I should appreciate it if the hon. Gentleman could wait for a more detailed reply until the winding-up speech. Free depreciation is included, although these figures are substantially larger than the figures going to development districts, as they were then, when free depreciation was in operation.
  Of course, here are many indicators which show the contribution which these measures are making to the growing prosperity of the development areas. Taking factory building, for example, between 1967 and 1968, the amount of factory space approved through the I.D.C. control for the development areas rose from nearly 29 million sq. ft. to nearly 38 million sq. ft., and we shall do our best to maintain this high level in 1969. The rate of approvals this year has been very substantial, and considerably higher than in 1967.
  Jobs expected by the applicants to arise from all projects covered by I.D.C. approvals since the beginning of 1967 exceed 175,000, including about 115,000 jobs for men. Some of these jobs will have arisen already. Unemployment is still too high in the development areas, and I want to make this absolutely plain. But an improvement in relation to the rest of the country has been achieved. In 1966, unemployment in the development areas was more or less double the national rate: over the past year or two there has been some narrowing of the gap, and in September, 1969, the development area rate for wholly unemployed was 4·1 per cent. as compared with 2·3 per cent. for the country as a whole. Although this improvement may not seem

  1027
  large, it must be set against major job losses which have occurred during the period in question in certain traditional industries such as coal mining and shipbuilding which are heavily concentrated in the development areas.
  Unemployment is not, however, the only criterion by which to judge distribution of industry policies. They have other important objectives. There is the need to diversify the industrial structure of areas over-dependent on a narrow range of industry. There is the need to reduce heavy net outward migration from certain parts of the country, to improve the productivity and competitiveness of development area firms, to restrain the growth of congestion in the more prosperous parts of the country and to achieve a more balanced use of resources throughout the nation.
  Mr. Derek Page: Does my hon. Friend accept that another criterion should be the low earnings for the same job in some parts of the country compared with other parts?
  Mr. Varley: I take my hon. Friend's point. There are acute problems concerning low earnings in North Norfolk. That goes for many other old agricultural areas.
  Mr. George Jeger: My hon. Friend has given the local unemployment percentages in the special development areas, but would not he agree that percentages are misleading because they relate only to the people registered at the local employment exchanges? With a shift of population, the percentages can vary. Do not the figures tell a totally different story? On 24th June we were told—and this appears in column 254 of HANSARD for that date—that in April, 1966, there were 6,847 unemployed males and in April, 1969, there were 15,576 unemployed males in the special development areas.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have speeches disguised as interventions.
  Mr. Varley: All the factors must be taken into account. I understand my hon. Friend's point. I should like to give one particular example concerning the development, restructuring and revitalising of the older industrial areas. In 1959, nearly 25 per cent. of all the
  1028
  male employees in Durham were engaged in the coalmining industry. Today, the figure is only about 13½ per cent. The development areas are now stronger than ever before and are more able to withstand changes in the national economic climate. When one considers the changes which have taken place in Durham, one can readily appreciate this.
  I turn to the need to assist the intermediate areas.
  Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne rose—
  Mr. Varley: I want to get on.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the question of the development areas—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is obviously not giving way.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Varley: I turn to the need to assist the intermediate areas. Any system of discrimination between one part of the country and another in respect of assistance for industrial development leads to criticism from those areas which just fail to qualify—and the greater the differential between the development areas and the rest of the country, the greater the criticism tends to be. The criticism is sharpest in those parts of the country bordering the development areas, who claim that they have difficulty in attracting new industry and retaining their existing industry against, in some cases, the drawing power of the development areas.
  In addition, changes in industrial structure, notably the closure or the impending closure of a number of collieries in South Yorkshire and the Notts/Derby coalfield and the continuing run-down of the cotton textile industry in North-East Lancashire, have led to a loss of job opportunities concentrated in certain areas outside the development areas which could not readily have been foreseen in 1966.
  At the same time, the Government have had to ensure that, at a time when the supply of mobile industry is limited, help to the intermediate areas is not provided at the cost of a serious setback to the development areas. I appreciate that,

  1029
  understandably, there is concern in the development areas about the loss of the selective employment additional premium and about the competition from intermediate areas. But, as the Government have already made clear, we are convinced that it is necessary to retain for the development areas and special development areas a large margin of preference in assistance to industry, and that as a result of the Bill the right degree of balance between the various parts of the country, in particular, need of new industrial investment will be achieved.
  The Hunt Committee made four main recommendations which I shall summarise briefly. First, it said that the whole of the Yorkshire and Humberside and the North-West Regions should qualify for a 25 per cent. building grant not linked to the creation of new jobs. Secondly, that in these two regions and in the Notts/Derby and North Staffordshire planning sub-divisions there should be an 85 per cent. grant for derelict land clearance, as in the development areas. Thirdly, that the cost of these proposals should be met by descheduling Merseyside as a development area and treating it on the same basis as the rest of the North-West. Probably the most controversial proposal which the committee made was that there should be a relaxation of the I.D.C. control.
  The Government appreciate the very careful analysis which went into the Hunt Committee's Report. When we have dissented from Hunt's recommendations, we have done so only after very careful study and thought. The main aspects on which the Government's proposals differ from Hunt are as follows.
  First, we do not propose to give direct financial assistance to industry throughout the North-West and Yorkshire and Humberside regions, which include a number of relatively prosperous places. I think of places like Leeds and Manchester. I know that they have their problems, but compared with some of the coal-mining areas of Yorkshire and some of the textile areas in Lancashire they are relatively prosperous. We thought that it would be better to concentrate assistance on special areas, both within the two regions and outside them, and in those which are most in need of help.
  Mr. Charles Mapp: My hon. Friend referred to the Manchester area. Is he aware that from 1961 to 1966 the Salford area had a greater migration rate, namely, 9 per cent., than anywhere else in the North?
  Mr. Varley: My hon. Friend is emphasising the difficulty and complexities of this problem. What I am getting at is this. If blanket assistance were to be made available throughout the two regions, as proposed by the Hunt Committee, it would be spread very thinly indeed if it were not to draw substantial amounts of industry away from the congested areas. If it were spread thickly there would be the possibility of its drawing industry away from the development areas, which still must have top priority.
  The intermediate areas have been determined on the basis of strict criteria of need, notably the level and character of unemployment and numbers of unemployed, the incidence of high net outward migration and the real scope for economic growth.
  Secondly, our assistance for factory building in the intermediate areas will be linked to the provision of jobs. We cannot overlook the fact that a lack of job opportunities in modern industries—whether reflected in high unemployment or heavy net outward migration—is at the core of many of the most pressing economic problems of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Nor could we easily abandon the employment link in the intermediate areas while retaining it in the development areas.
  Thirdly, the Government do not accept the Hunt Committee's proposals that new factory buildings or extensions below 10,000 sq. ft. throughout the country should be exempted from the industrial development certificate control. We believe—and Professor A. J. Brown, who served on the Hunt Committee also took this view—that there are many schemes below this level which could well be undertaken in development areas and in intermediate areas.
  Again, the Government could not accept the proposal that Merseyside should be descheduled. It is our aim, and it must be our aim, to encourage sufficient industrial growth on Merseyside that in due course, as elsewhere, development area benefits are no longer needed;

  1031
  but there is still a shortage of jobs on Merseyside and we feel that it is not yet ripe for descheduling.
  The Government agree with the emphasis laid by the Hunt Committee on the clearance of derelict land, and we intend to provide for new derelict land clearance grants, not just in the intermediate areas but also in those other areas recommended by Hunt for this form of assistance.
  It is, then, against this background that we have prepared the Local Employment Bill which we are debating today. I think that it is a Measure which hon. Members will find to be a logical extension of earlier legislation in this field. I can briefly and quickly go through the Bill.
  Clause 1 gives the Minister of Technology the power to specify intermediate areas by order, the same procedure which is adopted in relation to development areas. The criterion for specification as an intermediate area is that while the economic problems of a locality may not be as acute as those of a development area, nevertheless, in the opinion of the Minister of Technology, special measures are necessary to encourage the growth and proper distribution of industry.
  If Parliament gives its approval to the Bill the Government will, as announced by my right hon. Friend on 25th June, specify 54 employment exchange areas in seven intermediate areas: broadly. North-East Lancashire, the Yorkshire coalfield, north Humberside, the Notts-Derby coalfield, South-East Wales, Plymouth, and Leith. It may help if I tell the House that copies of maps of these areas showing both the development areas and the proposed intermediate areas have been placed in the Library of the House for the information of hon. Members.
  The selection of areas was based on an assessment of both present and future economic prospects of the areas in question, and we have discussed them with the regional economic planning councils. Although the Government will keep the circumstances of all areas under the most careful review, it is our intention to avoid at this stage the uncertainty which frequent modification of the coverage of intermediate areas would bring.
  1032
  In addition, Clause 1 allows the Minister of Technology and his colleagues to exercise in intermediate areas certain functions which at present he is able to exercise in relation to development areas. Briefly, these functions are the payment of building grants, the provision of Government-built factories, both custom-built and advance factories, and, on the same basis as the development areas, payments for the resettlement of key workers and their families, financial assistance for the improvement of basic services, and the payment of grants to local authorities towards the cost of clearing derelict land.
  Hon. Members will notice that, because of the importance which the Government attach to maintaining a significant margin of preference for the development areas, it is not proposed to seek powers such as exist under Section 4 of the Local Employment Act, 1960, to make loans and grants for the general purposes of an undertaking, nor will the intermediate areas enjoy the higher rate of investment grant provided in development areas, or the regional employment premium.
  Clauses 2 and 4 of the Bill would give the Minister of Technology the power to designate by order derelict land clearance areas in which the powers available in Section 20 of the Industrial Development Act would be exercisable. As the House will recall, these powers allow the Minister of Housing and the Secretarys of State for Scotland and Wales to make grants to local authorities towards the cost of acquiring and improving derelict land where this would be appropriate, with a view to contributing to the development of industry within a locality. They also allow the Minister of Technology to acquire derelict land and carry out works on it for the same purpose.
  This is, of course, a sector in which the Minister of Technology and I will be working in particularly close co-operation with the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and the Secretarys of State for Scotland and Wales, and we shall interpret "contributing to the development of industry" in the same broad sense in relation to the intermediate areas as has been done in the development areas.

  1033
  The areas which it is intended to designate as derelict land clearance areas are those which were identified by the Hunt Committee as needing special assistance in speeding the clearance of dereliction. As announced by my right hon. Friend on 24th April, again these are the areas I have already mentioned, the North-West and the Yorkshire and Humberside Regions, and the north Staffs and Notts-Derby planning sub-divisions.
  It is also our intention to apply the same level of assistance for derelict land clearance schemes in both the clearance areas and in the intermediate areas. Again, although we intend to give a capital grant at the very substantial level of 75 per cent. we have thought it right to maintain a margin of preference for the development areas.
  The House will remember that in his statement of 25th June my right hon. Friend, when Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, explained that the cost of the various measures of assistance to the intermediate areas would be met out of the very substantial and growing sums being spent on assistance to industry in the development areas and that the savings required would be obtained by the withdrawal of the selective employment additional payment of 7s. 6d. a week presently payable in the development areas. The Hunt Committee suggested that this sort of aid to intermediate areas might be paid for by descheduling Merseyside.
  Clause 7 provides for the withdrawal of this part of the selective employment premium as from 6th April, 1970, but here I must emphasise, as my right hon. Friend did in his statement last June, when saying that there would be this withdrawal of additional payment, that it would in no way affect the payment in the development areas of the regional employment premium of 30s. a week. This remains part of the very substantial margin of preference which the development areas enjoy over all other parts of the country and I think that it is right.
  The Bill is not a long one, but I think that it can be seen as a significant Measure to promote a better economic balance throughout the country. Development area priority, if it is to be maintained, must also recognise that other areas have their problems, too, and this is what we
  1034
  are trying to do. The important recent changes in Government structure male for the operation of a sound distribution of industry policy. The Ministry of Technology's close links with all sectors of industry throughout Britain will introduce a new dimension into the operation of this policy and will help us to continue to give encouragement to the growth of industry away from congested areas to those with unused resources.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology is absolutely determined, along with his Department, along with other members of the Government who have regional responsibilities to direct our energies towards achieving the twin objectives of overall national industrial proficiency and the opportunity for all the people in all regions to participate fully in this.
  Mr. Speaker: When the general debate begins after the Front Bench interventions, there will be many hon. Members with good local reasons for wanting to take part in the debate, and I hope that those who are called will be brief.
  Mr. W. A. Wilkins: I rarely, if ever, submit my name. because I do not believe in it. Does that mean, Mr. Speaker, that unless hon. Members have advised you that they wish to speak because of a local interest—
  Mr. Speaker: There is no necessity whatever for an hon. Member to advise Mr. Speaker in writing that he wishes to speak. Mr. Speaker can see when hon. Members try to catch his eye. It does help, though.
  4.30 p.m.
  Sir Keith Joseph: May I start with three short personal points. First, we on this side of the House would like to congratulate the Minister of State. This is, I believe, after some service in the Government, his first performance from the Dispatch Box. We found it lucid and courteous, although I shall have some omissions and problems to point out to him. We are glad to welcome him to this area of government.
  May I, at the same time, welcome the co-operation with me of my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who has played such an active part in so many debates, and

  1035
  whom I am now lucky enough to have as an immediate colleague.
  The last of my personal points is that I shall from time to time during my speech refer to the importance of road building. It so happens that the firm with which I am associated merged with a road building firm about a year ago, but I have argued for road building acceleration since long before that.
  The problem with which the Bill deals is a difficult one for any Government, particularly in the light of the accelerated rate of change in some of our basic industries, the even more rapid decline of coal and of employment in steel, textiles and shipbuilding, and in agriculture over the last few years. The Minister of State was absolutely right to admit that, against this background, the problems of the Government have been made worse by the lack of supply of mobile industry during the last few years.
  It is difficult for any Government to find the right balance in dealing with these changes in industrial movement between enabling areas to survive, particularly those areas which have been associated predominantly with one particular industry and, on the other hand, freezing the pattern of employment, which makes no sense for the future of the country.
  We think that the creation of special development areas for the run-down of the coal industry was a sensible step. We wish the Government well in handling this problem, and we share with them the desire to increase the prosperity of the development areas. Our interest throughout is to see these objectives achieved with minimum damage to the prospering parts of the country. It is the small supply of mobile industry resulting from the Government's general economic policies that has exacerbated the problem of the grey areas with which the Bill is intended to deal.
  The figures, which I have not chosen particularly selectively, are startling. During the last six years of the Tory Administrations the industrial production of the country grew by an average of 4·2 per cent. a year. During the last four years until the end of 1968 the industrial production in the country grew by just over half that amount, by 2·5 per cent. a year. That is a measure of
  1036
  the reduction in the growth in industry, that growth on which grey, development, special development and all other areas depend to cope with the rising population.
  Not only has mobile industry dwindled over the last few years, but, because of the general policies of the Government, employment has fallen sharply and, since the Prime Minister's assurance in July, 1966, that he saw no reason to expect any rise in unemployment, employment all over the country has sunk. In the development areas it has dwindled, despite in Scotland a sharp net outward migration, and it has dwindled in the grey areas. One can translate this into another form by saying that all over the country, and particularly in the development and grey areas, the activity rates have fallen, unemployment has risen and employment has dwindled. It is true that for a while it looked as though the ratio between unemployment in the development areas and in the nation as a whole was sharply improving, but even that improvement has now been cut back. We accept that the Government have a difficult task to deal with the accelerated run-down in the basic industries, and we have that in mind in all the comments which we make.
  The grey areas do not need to be defined at length by us. It is common ground what makes an area grey, and the Hunt Committee encapsulates a vivid description of the different combinations of factors relating to each individual grey area. What stands out from the Hunt Committee's Report is not just the present position in the grey areas, but that Sir Joseph Hunt and his colleagues have warned the country and the Government that the problem in the grey areas is likely to get definitely worse over the next few years, because there is a latent trend to falling activity in the grey areas which will, unless something is done by the Government, make them far nearer the development areas in their employment position than they are now.
  What led the Government two years ago to set up the Hunt Committee? Was it, as the Minister of State told the House, that the development area policies were being so successful that other areas wanted a share? It may be that the presentation of Government policy did stimulate demands for similar treatment

  1037
  from elsewhere. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay), who was President of the Board of Trade at the time, although the committee was set up by the First Secretary of State, said in an article in the Financial Times in June of last year that it was the increase of outright subsidies to the development areas that provoked the grey areas to demand similar subsidies. We think that it was the deterioration in the grey areas and the rising crescendo of complaints from the grey areas that led the Government at last to act by setting up a committee.
  Had the Government not, by the Industrial Development Act 1966, removed the powers that we gave Government in the 1960 Local Employment Act to take just such steps, or most of them, as the Hunt Committee recommends outside the development areas, they would have been able to act, either in 1967, had they so wished, or as soon as the Hunt Committee had reported, without taking this legislation through the House. The Government disarmed themselves by the 1966 Industrial Development Act from doing anything outside the development areas, and they now have to add to the delay of two years in dealing with the grey areas a further delay while they legislate. That shows that they were wrong to reduce the flexibility of the instrument of government which they inherited from us.
  We admire the hard work of the distinguished committee under Sir Joseph Hunt; we think that it provides a valuable analysis. We accept the underlying thesis that there should be no freezing of the economic pattern, but that areas of vitality and of potential vitality should be opened up for growth, mainly by improved communications, better environment, better infrastructure and more training. We echo the Hunt Committee's emphasis on the importance of the Government reviewing the effectiveness and coherence of all their policies in this area, but there are certain points in the Hunt proposals which we do not accept.
  There is no doubt that the Hunt Committee disappointed some areas in the country. The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Derek Page) has already intervened, and I know that many of my hon. Friends who represent other parts of the country were disappointed by the
  1038
  Hunt Committee's recommendations; but that was nothing like the disappointment that greeted the Government's almost instantaneous rejection of the main part of the Hunt Report and most of its recommendations. There was a general feeling on both sides of the House and in the Press that, with some exceptions, the Government had given very cavalier treatment to the Hunt Committee.
  We want to know—and I hope that the Minister will tell us in winding up the debate—whether the Government disagree with the bulk of the Hunt thesis—I am not asking for agreement on every part of it—or whether they have not the scope, because of lack of cash, to do other than reject most of the Hunt recommendations. The Government seem to have shown no interest in the analysis by the Hunt Committee. I feel that the Hunt Committee was treated rather like the committee chaired by the late much-regretted Sir Milner Holland, who died last week, who chaired the powerful Committee on Housing in Greater London which produced a remarkable report only to find that the present Government ignored its main recommendations.
  As far as it goes, in general we welcome the Bill. It switches some money from what we regard as a wasteful use, the selective employment premium, to the grey areas. We do not mourn the passing of the selective employment premium. We understand very well that those who received it, enjoyed receiving it, and that it is always painful to lose that which one has been given. But our message to the Government—and I am sure that it is also the message of the grey areas—is that they will not be enabled to improve their prospects by the short-term tinkering embodied in the Bill.
  The first key to a successful treatment of this complex inter-related set of problems is the growth of jobs. I am sure that the Government will agree academically with that. We maintain that their economic policies over the years have gravely reduced the supply of jobs and that the trouble in the grey areas has been much increased by that general failure. Let me try to explain why we think that the Government could not have accepted more of the Hunt Committee's views, even if they had wanted to accept them. We believe that they have

  1039
  tied up so much money in their development policy that they can spare no more, and they are obstinate in defending each part of their development policy even where there is a manifest waste of money.
  We do not think that the regional employment premium was a good idea. We acknowledge that the Government have committed themselves to seven years of the premium, but we think it a great shame that they have so shackled their hands. There was much talk, when the premium was introduced, of its magic quality. Here, it was said, was money which could be spent, but which need not be raised ih taxation because, the argument was, it would be used almost entirely in areas where there was relatively high unemployment and there would be no increase of pressure on the resources of the country. We hear less of that argument now. The Minister of State did not mention it.
  If that argument were true of the regional employment premium, presumably it was also true of the selective employment premium. Yet here we have the Government changing the fairy gold of selective employment premium, which, they argued, made no demand on resources when it was in the development areas, into real gold in the grey areas, where it is certainly intended to make a demand on resources. May we take it—and we shall so take it unless the Minister wishes to argue otherwise—that the theory that S.E.P. and R.E.P. could be spent with no consequent burden on the taxpayer has been buried?
  In any case, we welcome the disappearance of S.E.P. but we maintain that the finest instrument which the Government have to help grey areas and development areas alike is the Local Employment Act. We accept that this is a discretionary weapon and we do not normally like discretionary weapons. On the other hand, we hate waste, and with indiscriminate subsidies one is apt to have waste. We would rather have some discretion and less waste.
  We share with the Government their disagreement with the Hunt Committee's recommendations that there should be building grants not linked with jobs. We tend to agree although we are open to argument, and many of my hon. Friends may argue otherwise—with the minority report of Sir Sadler Forster and Mr.
  1040
  Hutton-Wilson. But our main thesis about the Government and their redeployment of resources is this: had they been free to re-examine R.E.P. and were they to look seriously at the waste inherent in the automatic investment grant to capital intensive industry in the development areas, they would have more resources either in the taxpayer's pocket or to improve the infrastructure, communications and training in the development areas and the grey areas alike.
  This is no longer a thesis heard only from the Conservative benches. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) made a very powerful speech in the same sense on Monday. It is true that his conclusion was different. He wants more nationalised industry. But his diagnosis is the same as ours, and the diagnosis is that very articulately put by Professor A. J. Brown, who is certainly not a passionate supporter of these benches, in the minority report. It was put by the same author in an issue last year of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in which they discussed regional policy.
  Is it too late for the Government to look again at the waste in the capital-intensive automatic grants in the development areas? These are grants which go with the minimum of benefit in jobs. Many of the grants, to the tune of scores of millions of pounds, go to projects which would have gone to the development areas in any case, for logistic reasons. Is it too much to ask the Government, in the interests of development areas and grey areas alike, to look at this sector of their policy? I hope that the Minister will make some comments on that possibility.
  I thought that the Minister of State repeated his colleagues' distortion of the comparison of the performance of the two Governments in the development areas. He under-stated the help which we gave to the development areas, and he did so by omitting the investment allowances. If I were to dismiss from the Government's credit an allowance which they had made simply because it did not appear in the tax tables, the hon. Member who chairs the Finance Committee of the Labour Party would be on me like a ton of bricks. Yet Ministers fail to take account of an investment allowance which in 1964 added tens of millions

  1041
  of pounds to the help which went to the development areas.
  In addition, the Minister of State overstated the help which the Government are providing for development areas because he took full credit for the full investment grant when one-third of the grant merely offsets the loss of depreciation allowance to a business when it takes an investment grant. I fear that we have got used to this kind of general distortion.
  Mr. Leslie Hockfield: What are the figures?
  Sir K. Joseph: They are still in favour of the present Government—about £60 million against £200 million, instead of about £30 million against £300 million. It is a difference, although I agree that it does not remove the general argument. But if the general thesis is good enough, why should the Government exaggerate it?
  The Bill multiplies the problems. The introduction of a new type of area increases the borders at which industry complains of distortion. The Hunt Committee is strong in analysing the effects of distortion. No doubt there are some. There is a movement of industry across borders for no other reason than to qualify for subsidy. This cannot make good economic sense. The number of areas which fall between the stools has been increased. There are now special development areas, development areas, intermediate areas and all those unnamed areas which are inter-intermediate areas. At each border there is another complex set of pulls and pushes.
  There are a number of omissions which are not dealt with by the Bill. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to ask the Government why nothing is proposed for the rest of the North-West. Why has the wool textile area been totally omitted? Why cannot the spine road in the South-West be accelerated? Why has East Anglia received no attention from the Government?
  I want to put several questions to the Government. First, is there or is there not to be a review by the Government, with the results published? The Minister without Portfolio first dismissed a review but later, under questioning on 25th June, accepted that there should be a serious
  1042
  appraisal as soon as possible of the Government's policy. Does this mean that there will be a serious appraisal soon, and, if so, will it be published?
  Secondly, why do the Government refuse to give an explanation of the criteria on which their I.D.C. policy is conducted? We do not agree with the Hunt recommendation that I.D.C.s should be automatic up to 10,000 ft. because we think that there is a lot of valuable industry, expanding or built below that level, which should at least be told about opportunities in development areas. But it is the essence of our case that industrialists should know as far as possible where they stand and what their prospects are so that they should not be deterred from making application when there might be a good case for the granting of I.D.C.s.
  We believe that there are many expansions and building operations, small and large, which can take place elsewhere, on the one hand, or which could sensibly take place on existing sites, on the other. We believe that the next sensible step for the Government is to set out the criteria lying behind I.D.C. policy and we ask them to tell us whether they have any intention of doing so. Again, the Minister without Portfolio, under questioning, said that he and one of his right hon. Friends were discussing this with the C.B.I. Have they reached any conclusion?
  Do the I.D.C. changes mean anything? The Minister without Portfolio announced that the grey areas will be treated in future for I.D.C.s as development areas are treated. The Minister of State today used the odd phrase that the Government were satisfied that the change in policy would avoid severe damage to the development areas. Is he implying by that that there will be damage to development areas, but no severe damage? What will the change in I.D.C. policy mean both for grey areas and development areas?
  We welcome the Government's proposal on dereliction. We hope that real progress will be made. But we want to be told whether, at the same time as the clearing up of the derelict legacies of the past is taking place, coal mines will be allowed to continue creating derelict land. That would be absurd. I

  1043
  hope I am wrong, but it is a suspicion that I have.
  We welcome the Government's willingness to put extra resources into training and want to know whether, in the North-West, in particular, dilutees are now being accepted more into the work force when they have been trained.
  Why have the Government not taken up the Hunt recommendation that they should try to encourage innovators in grey areas? The Hunt Committee remarked that, compared with the Midlands and the South-East, and, by implication, some of the development areas, some of the grey areas tend to lack entrepreneurs running small research-oriented businesses. The Hunt Committee recommended that some small business centres be set up and it picked out for special praise, which I echo, the Small Business Centre at Aston. Here is an activity which the universities should well be able to carry out on a fee basis with no expense to the taxpayer. Have the Government discarded this altogether or are they still willing to consider it?
  How will the House be told about the degree and timing and location of the acceleration of housing and communications and other infrastructure improvements? We gather from a Parliamentary Answer that some of the money saved by cancelling the selective employment premium will be available for infrastructure acceleration. How will the House be told? Where will the acceleration be and when will it occur?
  My last question arises out of a suspicion. I cannot really believe that this suspicion is justified, because the Minister of State did not mention the subject. Is it right to interpret Clause 1(3) of the Bill as really removing from private enterprise any grant for industrial building? In a development area, if a business wishes to rent or commission a factory built either by itself or by a private enterprise estate developer, the grant is available. It appears from the wording of Clause 1(3) as if the special grant proposed for the grey areas will not be available if the building work is undertaken by or on behalf of the applicant. I do not fully understand what is proposed here. This is too big a matter to be left to a Committee discussion.
  Mr. Ted Leadbitter: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will press this aspect, because the provision has given most of us some considerable concern. There are two interpretations—the one which the right hon. Gentleman is pursuing and the other, on the full reading of the context, that the qualification is determined by the date alone. Perhaps the Government can give an early indication of the true meaning.
  Sir K. Joseph: I am grateful for that alliance and I hope that the Government will clarify the situation.
  I hope that I have not asked too many questions. I do not think that the reply need be a philosophical review of the subject, but we need more light on the Bill. Our policy, by phasing out the regional employment premium, with account taken of the Government statements, and by cutting downwards indiscriminate grants to capital intensive projects, will shift resources to improve communications, infrastructure and training in development and grey areas. We shall seek power to use the Local Employment Act in areas needed. Finally, in our view, the Government would be freer to act more as they should act in the grey areas if only they had not adopted such a wasteful set of policies in the development areas themselves.
  4.58 p.m.
  Mr. George Brown: I hope that the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) will be pleased if I say that he and I have clashed many times in the past and that he always has the grace to look as though he is more pained than anyone else by the speeches he is making. I always think, when watching him, that he has every reason to be. In the same avuncular mood, I would say to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, as the first Derbyshire Member to speak in the debate, how delighted we are at his promotion. Not only did he do well today, but we are encouraged to know that he is there and wish him well.
  Just before you came into the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Mr. Speaker asked us to be brief because many hon. Members wish to speak and he thought that many of us want to speak about local issues. I shall be very brief, I hope that I shall be practical and I assure you that I shall be wholly parochial.

  1045
  I like the Bill because I think that it carries on the philosophy, which the Opposition opposed when we changed their approach in the 1966 Act, whereby we moved from very small to broad areas in which we could develop a new kind of society. We decided that there should not just be growth points for factories, but broad areas to which people would be encouraged to move and where they could live a happy and prosperous life. That was a great break through.
  One of the things that the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends will not get hold of is that it is not just a matter of moving factory workers into factories out of London, or Edinburgh, or where-ever it may be, but of encouraging women and children to go to live in new areas where things have to happen more vital than mere factories. That is what they do not understand.
  I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has already gone—he has not stayed very long. He did not want a philosophical wind-up, but apparently he does not even want a philosophical follow-up, either. The right hon. Gentleman cannot get hold of the difference in philosophy between trying to change the pattern of life in Britain and just trying to move a few factories around.
  We took up that policy, and I am glad to see on the Front Bench my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore), who is now the Secretary of State for—
  The Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning (Mr. Anthony Crosland): Civilisation.
  Mr. Brown: And if I may say so, if I were giving him a title I could not give him a better.
  My right hon. Friend is, of course, the Minister without Portfolio. He was active with me in the early days when we brought out this policy. It was one of the things that led us to decide that there was a great difference between setting off allowances against tax, and making grants and actual cash payments. The Opposition have never yet grasped that setting off allowances against tax gives no new job opportunities. The only thing that brings new people and new things is actual grant and actual cash.
  That was the big change, and that is why we did so very much more, and it
  1046
  is no good their saying, "Oh, yes, there is a sharp improvement". There is more than a sharp improvement. The look of the North-East, of Scotland and of Merseyside is totally different in 1969 from what it was in 1966, so do not let anyone be silly about that. That is why we did it.
  But it was always my view that, having acted in this rather powerful and heavy way, we would move as soon as we sensibly could from the black and white to the grey, and to the greyer. This the Bill gives the Government the power to do, and I am happy about the Bill as it stands so long as—and I do not want to join in the suspicions of the right hon. Gentleman—the Government stay with the Bill.
  Sir Joseph Hunt is a long-time friend of mine. I bear the responsibility of appointing him chairman of the Midland Regional Economic Planning Council. But I think that he has produced just about the most disappointing report that anyone could have produced if he had tried very hard. It is a very miserable lost opportunity. I have never so far had the temerity to tell Sir Joseph this to his face, but I have certainly told some of the members to their faces. A more lost opportunity I cannot think of. They failed, I think, to get hold of the issues on which which one should depart from the black and white to the grey and the greyer. They failed, I suppose, because they were afraid of offending interests. They failed to advise the Government of the issues that the Government should now take into account.
  As the Bill stands the Government can make up their own minds as they go along. They have already moved. This is where I shall get into trouble, I am sure, and the right hon. Gentleman forecast it. I have no doubt that there were some civil servants in the Department of Economic Affairs—which I trust one day an enlightened Government will resuscitate, and thereby frustrate the knavish activities of the Treasury—who said to my right hon. Friend, now the Minister without Portfolio, whom I am delighted to congratulate on being the Deputy leader of the House, "If you move at all, someone like Brown will try to push you a little further, so please do not move." In fact, my right hon. Friend said, "To hell

  1047
  with that. I shall now establish the Erewash Valley". This is where I get into trouble, because it happens to be true that in delineating the Erewash Valley my right hon. Friend has not created new problems but has highlighted existing problems.
  What I want my right hon. Friend to do is not just to send a note to the chairmen of the economic councils asking them to have a meeting, but to consult them effectively on the kind of areas which we recognise are grey, where there are real problems, and discuss what should be done about them.
  I can relate this only to my own experience in Derbyshire. I am not really trying to be parochial, but it is better to talk of what one really knows. In Derbyshire, we have dying collieries. When I was elected to the House in 1945 there were, perhaps, 20 collieries in the whole of my constituency. There is now only one. I have slag heaps by the hundred. I have clay holes by the hundred. It is ugly.
  So the previous President of the Board of Trade generously said, "I will make I.D.C.s freely available in your area." He has done so. But an industrialist, shown that area, knows that if he goes 20 or 30 miles or just a little further north he gets into nice green level country where he can have a custom-built shed and get a 40 per cent. grant of the cost. The same offer in my country is not all that attractive. It was impossible to attract him without the offer, but it is not all that attractive even with the offer.
  George Deering, who was so good as chairman of the East Midlands Board, is dead. I do not know the new chairman so well, but he knows the area extremely well. He would say that this area is something more than the Erewash Valley, and that what we now call the Notts-Derby coalfield, and a large slice of Eastern Derbyshire, is now living through all the miseries of the earlier Industrial Revolution. In the days when those in the party opposite did not care tuppence, my predecessor in the division milked it. He took the profits. He took the profits of the coal mines and he took the profits of the clay works, and he personally left me with the slag heaps and the clay holes. The chairman told us that this is an area which will die if we leave it as it is.
  1048
  It is all very well for Sir Joseph to say that the pull from Derby and the pull from Nottingham can take care of it. I grew up in London and I am quite used to travelling 15 or 20 miles to work every day, but people in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are not. Younger people are going away and I am being left with a miserable, ugly-looking part of the country which ought to be beautiful, and with an ageing population. Let us draw the areas differently. This Bill gives power to do so. The Government can take some money away from the black areas. There are parts of the North-East which are now better off and above the national average. The intention was to take away from them some assistance which they no longer require and use it for areas such as mine which now require it.
  We have derelict areas which are losing our young people. I pray, therefore, that the Government will be neither handcuffed by Hunt nor shackled by Shore. If I receive that promise, I shall be content.
  5.12 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) had at the Department of Economic Affairs a Minister of State in the person of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu). When he left that office, which was very concerned with regional development, the hon. Member for Edmonton delivered a speech attacking the regional policy of the Government. In his view the positive planning steps taken were wasteful and ineffective. The only method of industrial regional planning which he advocated was the old negative method of I.D.C.s. Now history has repeated itself. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) has left the Government and, within a few days or weeks of his leaving the Government and the very centre, the powerhouse, of regional planning, he has delivered a slashing attack on the policy which previously he supported.
  We had expected this afternoon that the Minister of State, who introduced the Bill so agreeably, would have allowed himself the opportunity to reply to the damaging attacks of his two hon. Friends, particularly that of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West, who delivered a bitter attack 48 hours ago.
  Mr. John Mendelson: In view of the fact that the hon. and learned Member is now quoting at length the views of two ex-Ministers of State who have criticised the policy they previously supported, will he not pay some small tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown), who has just made a brilliant speech in defence of the policy?
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: It is unusal to find am ex-Minister defending the policy of the Government. If I thought it was an unqualified defence I would pay the tribute which the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) suggests, but I am not quite sure that it is as unqualified as that. It struck me that the right hon. Gentleman was regretting—to put it no higher—that the area either north or south of the Erewash Valley had not been given quite the same good treatment as some parts of the North-East were receiving.
  Mr. George Brown: I had better defend myself; usually it is better that way. One goes east and west of the Erewash Valley; if one went north or south one would get into an enormous amount of trouble. I was defending the Bill and defending the Government on the Bill. I was rather less enthusiastic about Sir Joseph Hunt. That is all.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I think I understand what the right hon. Gentleman was saying and I would support a great deal of what he said, particularly on the importance of cleaning up the derelict areas and improving the quality of life, because his constituency suffers in much the same way as mine.
  What I was saying before I was diverted by the rather clever diversionary operation of the hon. Member for Penistone was that the Government have not answered in any way the attack made by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West, who gave it as his opinion—coming straight from the seat of this policy—that to create jobs in these areas has cost something like £20,000 per job. If that is wrong, surely it should be answered straight away. This is the ideal opportunity to do so.
  The hon. Member said:
  "The most expensive component of development area assistance is the investment grant
  1050
  differential which accounts for over 40 per cent. of the total development area assistance. In many cases the effect of this indiscriminate hand-out, given without any test of the number of jobs created, is actually to reduce employment in the development areas."
  So far, in his view, from it being a help and a good weapon, it is positively a boomerang. He gave some examples of reduction which I should have thought the Government were more qualified than anyone to rebut. He said:
  "The Government development area subsidy to create one job at one particular plant often runs at well over £20,000 per job created. And even then this often calls for the closure of other plants, actually destroying jobs. It would be cheaper to invest the money and pension off the workers to live in the South of France, taking into account foreign exchange costs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd November, 1969; Vol. 790, c. 720–21.]
  I should have thought that exaggerated language, but when it is said with the authority of an ex-Minister so recently on the Government Front Bench, at least the House and the country, which is spending the money, demands a rebuttal at the earliest possible moment.
  Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the £20,000 to which he has referred is in prospect of being vastly exceeded and that there are projects in prospect in Scotland now which might involve job subsidies up to £70,000 for each created?
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: That makes it all the worse and all the more necessary, if it be true, that before we part with this Bill—which in other ways is estimable—to have some, shall I say, philosophic defence of this vast expenditure.
  Mr. Varley: It had not escaped our attention that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) had made these claims. We do not accept them nor do we accept the statement of the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne). We all thought that it should be rebutted in this debate. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Minister of State. That in winding up he should refer to this point. I assure the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) that it will be rebutted.
  Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I am glad to hear that because we would be labouring under a certain unreality if we thought the

  1051
  statement would not be rebutted in some detail today.
  This Bill, which benefits my constituency considerably, is, I suppose, an improvement on the old black-and-white division of the country, but, as the Minister of State so rightly indicated, it complicates the administration. We must face this fact now.
  We now have four different categories of areas. There are the development areas, the special development areas, the intermediate areas, and the other areas where I.D.C.s are granted more freely than in the remainder of the country. There is almost a spectrum of advantage or disadvantage dotted about the country in what appears on a map to disadvantage such Lancashire towns as Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton and other places on the edge of my constituency but, I am glad to say, not the boroughs of Darwen or Blackburn.
  I suggest that it will accentuate the danger of the magnetic pull of the areas which are advantaged. They are dotted about to such an extent that anyone who has fixed on any county, certainly in the industrial areas outside London and the Midlands, almost inevitably will come into an intermediate area or a development area, and those which are not so designated will get less of what is going than ever before. I suppose that I should not complain about that as the hon. Member for Darwen, but it is a matter which the Government will have to consider carefully very soon.
  It was because of the magnetic quality of the development areas that the Hunt Committee was set up and we now have this Bill. However, in attempting to get rid of the greater magnetism of the development area and level out the degree of attraction in the development area, the Government are creating new little magnets all over the place. Whether that can receive a philosophic answer from the Minister who is to wind up the debate, I do not know, but it should be attempted. Does he foresee the danger of creating these little magnets, often in isolated parts of the country, with none of the old broad sweep of the development area, about which the right hon. Member for Belper was so lyrical in his opening remarks? I think that these little magnets in many ways will be more dangerous.
  1052
  The real advantage of the Bill lies in the fact that the derelict land grant is to be made not merely to the intermediate areas but to a much wider area all over the country. That strikes me as being a tremendous step forward. But I do not understand why it has to be put down 10 per cent. underneath the development areas and why it could not be the full 85 per cent. It looks as if there was an almost theological insistence upon preference for the development areas in a sphere where such preferences are out of place.
  Many parts of the intermediate and non-intermediate areas look far worse than Wales, the north-east or the southwest of England and where the problems of urban renewal are greater. Development areas are so designated not on account of their appearance or their need for urban renewal but because of their unemployment ratio, which is quite different. It is in places such as Belper and Darwen, which do not look as good as they should and which repel new industries because of it, that the higher rate for the removal of dereliction and tips is most wanted. I do not understand why development areas should still retain this 10 per cent. advantage in the matter of grant.
  It may come as no surprise to the Government to know that the North-West Industrial Development Association thinks that the building grants ought to be given not linked directly to job opportunities, as the Bill insists, but in the way that the Hunt Committee suggested, for the purposes of urban renewal. I have always thought that the grey areas are rightly so called. What is wrong with them as much as anything is their appearance. That is their fundamental problem, although there is an unemployment problem as well. In my view they should be given building grant irrespective of the creation of job opportunities. It is their appearance which needs attention, and that is what the Hunt Committee recommended.
  I would like to ask one question which has not been touched on by the Minister of State but which fits in with the importance of enhancing the quality of life in the intermediate areas, and I believe that that is the chief object of the exercise upon which we are engaged.

  1053
  The Hunt Committee's Report lays immense emphasis on air pollution. It considers that under recent legislation the Government now have immense powers. It recommends in paragraph 41:
  "As in the case of derelict land, we think the Government should take a stronger line with local authorities in the 'black areas' who have been slow in tackling air pollution. The recent Clean Air Act, 1968, enables the Minister of Housing and Local Government, where he thinks fit, to direct a local authority to draw up and carry out a clean air programme for their area. We recommend that the Minister should be ready to use these powers in appropriate cases."
  I have no doubt that we are on very sensitive ground when we talk about directions to local authorities. I will not pile upon the Treasury Bench any more dangers of being considered dictators to local authorities, because it is in grave trouble on other matters already. However, we would like to know whether the Government accept that paragraph unreservedly, and whether they propose to implement it. We have not yet been told.
  I have always held the view that the importance of clean air cannot be overestimated. Everyone who has to take a decision as to the location of industry is affected by it as much as by financial inducements. He has to decide whether it is a good place to bring up a family and whether senior executives, foremen and those upon whose shoulders the responsibility for running a new plant or mill will fall can be induced to move to that part of the country. If they come there and find it smoky and begrimed, all the financial inducement in the world is not enough. Such places must be cleaned up. I support that paragraph of the Hunt Committee's recommendations to the utmost.
  In terms of the regional policy that we are discussing, do the Government propose to extend development status to the new towns? I am not thinking of existing new towns, although it would be interesting to know what the Government have to say about Corby, which the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) raised so sharply in the debate on the Gracious Speech. I am greatly concerned, however, with Chorley-Leyland new town in Lancashire. Into which category is that to be slotted? I do not think that it will be given special develop-
  1054
  ment status. Possibly it will get development area status. I think that inevitably it will get intermediate area status, though the Government may be considering non-intermediate status for it. We must know this in North-East Lancashire. It is only seven miles from the borders of my constituency, and, until we know that, we cannot assess the value of the advantage that we have been given under this Bill because all that advantage will be taken away or most of it except for the derelict land advantage, if something with a more magnetic quality—that is to say, a new town with development area status—is to be placed on our doorstep.
  Therefore, although I welcome the Bill, because particularly in the matters that I have mentioned it will give the opportunity enormously to improve the face of my constituency, nevertheless I do not think this advantage will be worth very much in terms of finance or grants or anything else unless we know whether or not the new town of Chorley-Leyland is to get even better treatment. If it is to get better treatment, all this improvement in my constituency is worth much less. But, of course, if Chorley-Leyland does not get development area status, it is difficult to see how it can get off the ground or be built at all. The Government are in a dilemma there.
  This brings me back to where I started. There are limits to this business of the country being dotted with little magnets because those little magnets will draw the blood and iron filings from the deserving areas and the result in the end will be worse than when we began. I hope we shall get answers to the philosophic problem but, more important, I hope we shall get answers to the very serious criticisms from the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West. I shall look forward to 9.30 this evening to hear whether a satisfactory reply is given.
  5.32 p.m.
  Mr. John Golding: I am pleased and proud to succeed Stephen Swingler as the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Stephen was very much-loved and respected, a very fine Minister and a very hard worker, and his name will always be associated with the Transport Bill. In Newcastle-under-Lyme he is remembered not only as a Minister, but primarily as a good

  1055
  constituency Member of Parliament. He always took very great pains indeed over individual cases and was a very great friend of the under-privileged.
  Like his illustrious predecessor, Josiah Wedgwood, Stephen Swingler always spoke for Newcastle-under-Lyme and for North Staffordshire in general. It is for this reason that I think he would have wanted to speak in this debate this afternoon. He would have wanted to congratulate the Government and to have expressed some feeling of disappointment, because Newcastle-under-Lyme is one of those areas which face the problem of derelict land. It is also an area which is characterised by low pay rather than by unemployment. This low pay has arisen partly from a dependence on the traditional industries of pottery, coal mining and agriculture.
  We are very pleased in Newcastle-under-Lyme that grants will be given to clear derelict land. Our countryside has been devastated in the past by industrialisation and it really is time that improvements were made to clear up that land. I have found during the last few months that young people in particular are very concerned to live in an attractive environment rather than an ugly one. For them this clearance of derelict land is very important indeed.
  I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) that the problem of air pollution is one that the Government should tackle. We are disappointed that North Staffordshire has not been designated an intermediate area. To remove the evil of low pay in North Staffordshire, as in other areas, we need either to have a national minimum wage or to introduce modern technical industries into the area. But employers will not modernise and pay higher wages without being faced with competition, and in areas such as North Staffordshire, where there is a great reliance on traditional industries—industries not responsive to change—it is most important that they have new technical industries.
  There are other reasons for the need for modern technical industry in the intermediate areas and those areas which we believe ought to be designated as intermediate. Year by year young people are receiving better education.
  1056
  They are becoming more and more independent. They have better career prospects, and they will not be satisfied with low pay or with jobs in industries which they find unexciting. There is a great need to attract exciting as well as better paid industries. Without the influx of new industry we are likely to see in areas like North Staffordshire the migration of the young and then we shall have to face the problem of an ageing population.
  Our area should become either an intermediate or a special area. For these reasons I want the Minister of State to reconsider the principles on which intermediate areas have been designated. I hope that the Government will think again and that they will take account not only of the level of unemployment, but also the low pay in particular areas. This would certainly bring great relief to my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
  5.36 p.m.
  Dame Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devon-port): It is a great honour to congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) on his excellent speech. He showed great courage in speaking to the House so soon after coming here, on a question which obviously moves him deeply. With him, I am sure we all regret that Mr. Swingler had such an early decease. He was one of the best Ministers in the present Government. He was energetic and always courteous and helpful. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and I have one thing in common at least—we are both very interested in the lower-paid worker. I hope that the hon. Member will have as much success as Mr. Swingler did in his future career in this House.
  This Bill is of great importance to my constituency. Plymouth was included in the Local Employment Act, 1960, and benefited enormously during that period I must be grateful to the Government. The Hunt Report "killed" Plymouth. It was a mistake of the Hunt Committee not to consider the many reports which were produced by local authorities in the area, of which I have copies and which were submitted but which the committee does not seem to have considered.

  1057
  I wish to refer particularly to Clause 1 of the Bill:
  "…special measures are necessary for the purpose of encouraging the growth and proper distribution of industry therein …"
  Our great difficulty in Plymouth arises from the actions of the Ministry of Defence. I hope that in future the Government will see that the new Ministry of Technology and the Ministry of Defence work hand in hand.
  As will be seen from paragraph 499 of the Hunt Report:
  "We consider that Plymouth's main problem is essentially one of remoteness …"
  It goes on to say:
  "… with, thanks to the Dockyard, a supply of labour with a wide range of engineering skills. Provided that there is not a sudden sharp contraction in the Dockyard's activities…".
  That is what we are always frightened of, that there will be a contraction I do not say that it will be sudden, but there will be a reduction of 2,500 in the number of work-places available for men in the future, and this will make a tremendous difference to us. If the Ministry of Defence could work out a long-term policy, it would be of great advantage to us. We should not have such troublesome ups and downs in the economy of the City of Plymouth.
  On his recent visit to the dockyard, the Minister of Defence for Equipment said that Devonport had a secure future I must point out, however, that since 1964 there has been a loss of jobs for men in Plymouth totalling 4,941, although, admittedly the number of jobs for women has risen slightly, by 1,330.
  In a statement on 21st August, 1969, unemployment in Plymouth was shown as having risen by 13 per cent. and in the West Country as a whole by 15 per cent. Plymouth now has a total of 3,395 unemployed, whereas last year the figure was 2,240.
  I shall be grateful, too, if we can have a definite answer to one question which worries some firms in my area. I gather that the date of operation of the Bill when it becomes law is to be 1st February, 1970—[Interruption.] Do we not know the date?
  Mr. Varley: Subject to passage of the Bill, Orders can be laid in seven days after the Royal Assent.
  Dame Joan Vickers: Perhaps I am anticipating, but that is what we have understood.
  It was announced that building grant would be payable in respect of work started after 25th June, 1969, but not finished or occupied before the legislation was passed. In expectation of the legislation being passed before Christmas—I am not sure why, but many people had that expectation—some firms have taken action. One firm I know has added to its buildings to the extent of £150,000 and it is expecting to receive a grant of about £40,000. It will employ an additional 150 workers.
  I want to know whether that grant will be made or whether that firm—and others in a similar position—will now have to stop completion of the building and not have it opened until after February. Perhaps we could be told at the end of the debate whether one can complete the building and still receive the grant, or whether one will have to wait until the Bill becomes an Act before obtaining the grant.
  I want to know, also—this was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph)—what the effect is of Clause 1(3)(a) with reference to the withholding of grant from firms which prefer to build their own factories. Several firms in my area have built their own factories, and some industrial estates do the same. We should be told what the situation will be in that respect.
  In his original statement, the Minister said that
  "There would be some additional expenditure on roads in selected areas, and proposals for the provision of new housing associated with industrialised growth will be encouraged."
  In paragraph 499 of its report, the Hunt Committee points out that Plymouth's main difficulty lies in its remoteness. Will the proposals in the Bill go hand in hand with the proposals made in the Hunt Report?
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) spoke of migration and the difficulty of inducing families to leave certain areas. Regrettably, migration is all too common in the South-West. Plymouth alone has had heavy migration, particularly in the age group between 15 to 44. Between mid-1963 and 1967, the number of males in

  1059
  employment fell by over 6,000—that is, 8 per cent.—while the unemployment register showed an increase of less than 750. Thus, there were 5,250 unaccounted for. They had left the district. According to the 1966 census, the net outflow of males aged between 15 and 44 was 780 and of females 730 between 1965 and 1966.
  One of the central reasons for including Plymouth in an intermediate area—I do not like the term "grey area", because Plymouth is certainly not grey to look at—is its high level of migration.
  Mr. Wilkins: It has been going on for a long time.
  Dame Joan Vickers: It is still going on, and to a serious extent.
  Mr. Wilkins: Even long before the war there was always migration for employment from Plymouth.
  Dame Joan Vickers: Yes, and that is what we are out to stop. Other parts of the country are becoming congested—
  Mr. Wilkins: The Tory Government did not stop it.
  Dame Joan Vickers: We did something about it. Our Local Employment Act reduced Plymouth's unemployment from 3·9 per cent. to below the national average, but then we were taken out and did not come into one of the new development areas.
  A glance at the map shows that we now are virtually surrounded by a development area—we are right on the edge—and this has been detrimental to us. Industry has been drawn into Cornwall and Wales and away from the city. It was agreed both in the Hunt Report and in previous reports that Plymouth should be a growth point for the South-West. That is one of the reasons why I stress that there must be co-operation in future between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Technology.
  Plymouth itself has been successful in bringing firms to the area. Ten engineering firms have come, and it is estimated that they have brought in £¼ million by their spending in the 38 small towns and villages round about. This has been of great benefit, and it has been done by Plymouth itself.
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  We now need to have better co-operation and greater help, and also increased spending on the spine road which is essential because of the remoteness of the area. In that way, we could be completely self-supporting in the not too distant future. At the same time, it is vital to bear in mind that young people are leaving the area, and that we are coming to have an ageing population.
  Now, the question of the Services. We shall always, I hope, have the Services in Plymouth. They are particularly good for the city. They bring a great deal of money to our various retail traders. But they do not bring further employment. This is one of the factors which must be realised: they bring money to the city, though they do not employ a great number of civilians. If they are moved away, the loss of the money which they spend and of the employment which they do offer will be highly detrimental to Plymouth.
  I remind the Government that the Ministry of Public Building and Works has moved a great many of its people out of the city. We hope that the various Ministries will co-operate. It is no good one Ministry making Plymouth an intermediate area if, at the same time, other Ministries take their people away, the Ministry of Defence pulls out troops, and runs the dockyard down, the Ministry of Public Building and Works moves its headquarters, and so on. That does not help. One Ministry is playing against the other. Co-operation between Departments would be of great benefit to the future of the town.
  5.48 p.m.
  Mr. George Darling: I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) will forgive me if I do not comment on the problems of Plymouth which she has put to us. I, too, wish to be parochial, and brief. At the outset, however, I have two pleasant things to say. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) on an excellent constructive contribution to our debate. If I may say so, it was the kind of contribution which his predecessor would have made. We all remember Stephen Swingler with great affection. He had no enemies in the House, only

  1061
  friends. We were sorry when we heard about his death.
  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister of State on his well-earned promotion, and on his good fortune in beginning his Ministerial legislative career with a Bill that aims at dealing with matters that he thoroughly understands from personal experience. I shall have a few suggestions to make in a moment which I hope will endear him to hon. Members who are somewhat critical of the Bill.
  I want to begin by making a few remarks about the Hunt Report. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) that the Hunt Report was a great disappointment. The Hunt Committee was set up to try to define for us, if we needed any definition, the so-called grew areas that require special help to get over their problems of unemployment, loss of jobs, declining industries, low earnings, and so on, and to make practical suggestions.
  I had the regrettable task from time to time of telling some of my hon. Friends who wanted to see something done in their so-called grey areas that they must wait for Hunt. As the months went by, it seemed clear to me that the Hunt Committee was going over facts and figures which were already available in the then Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade, and on which decisions could have been taken and constructive proposals made.
  The committee was dealing with matters in such a way that it would clearly not lead to the constructive proposals that we wanted. Not only was all the information needed to take decisions already in the Government Departments concerned, but officials and Ministers were taking decisions on that information almost daily. How were applications for industrial development certificates decided except on that kind of information?
  As it turned out, the recommendations in the Hunt Report contained nothing new. Every proposal had been examined in the appropriate Government Departments and freely discussed here in the House and in deputations to the appropriate Ministers. If we ever become involved in this kind of exercise again, if it is believed necessary to have matters such as were presented to the Hunt Com-
  1062
  mittee widely examined so that constructive and practical proposals emerge, it will be far better to set up a Select Committee of right hon. and hon. Members, who, I think, are better informed than the Hunt Committee were even at the end of the exercise, and who would have discharged their job with a proper sense of urgency, which seemed to be lacking in the Hunt Committee. I am sorry to be so critical, but two years have been wasted during which action could and should have been taken to deal with many of the problems in the grey areas.
  I am very glad that the Minister of State gave us a lucid explanation of the Bill, because when I read it I thought it one of the most complicated and tortuous pieces of work I had seen for some time. As I understand, Clause 1 gives the Minister power to make grants for industrial buildings in locations outside development areas which he may specify, provided the work started after 25th June this year. I agree with one of my hon. Friends that this is what the whole of that tortuous Clause means, and that in specifying the areas the Minister should take account of the level, or prospective level, of unemployment and other factors. Why not put that in the Clause just like that?
  Clauses 2 and 4, taken together, say, I believe, that the Minister may also provide financial assistance to local authorities in specified areas for the clearance of derelict, neglected, or unsightly land for industrial development. If that is what they mean, why do they not say so? Why do we have all the cross-references to previous Acts? When I had finished reading the Bill, I wondered whether the Minister had any powers to do anything at all, because he seemed so hedged in with all these cross-references. I am not volunteering for the Standing Committee, but I wonder whether it would be possible to move in Committee that all the relevant Clauses I have mentioned should be withdrawn and replaced by clear, precise Clauses which explain what they mean.
  I am not blaming either of the Ministers of State. To a certain extent they have inherited this nonsense—certainly, my hon. Friend who opened the debate has. We will do all we can—I should say that I think those hon. Members who serve on the Standing Committee will do

  1063
  all they can—to help my hon. Friend put things right.
  I welcome the Bill as far as it goes, but after two years of waiting it is quite inadequate and should be strengthened. I do not want to detail too much how it should be strengthened, but I want to draw attention to some of the weaknesses of its application. This is where I shall be completely parochial, because we must take the Bill in relation to the areas which my right hon. Friend the present Minister without Portfolio gave the House some months ago.
  In considering what the proposals mean, taking the building grants first, we must consider the kind of firms that may be attracted to a grey area, firms that I should think want to expand more or less in the industrial area where they are now, or close to it, and which have very good, cogent and compelling reasons for not wanting to go to a development area, and which should not go.
  My parochial interest is in South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire, in the coalfield area and the steel and engineering works in that part of the country. I and other hon. Members know from experience that many firms in the more prosperous areas of the North Midlands and Yorkshire are eager to move into the grey areas because the labour they want and the opportunities for expansion are there, provided they can have some assistance in clearing areas for industrial estates and assistance with factory building. Therefore, I welcome the proposals in the Bill for building grants, which I agree should be tied to jobs rather than spread widely, as was suggested by the Hunt Committee, and I also welcome the proposals for clearing derelict areas.
  But I, too, question whether it is quite right for the Government to make a distinction in the rate of the grant between the intermediate areas and the development areas. The problem is just as acute in the intermediate areas, and the 85 per cent. grant should be given in both cases.
  The firms I am talking about are often prevented or dissuaded—and sometimes frustrated—from going into the places they would like to be in because there are no industrial sites available. The
  1064
  local authorities must take a certain amount of the blame. They have not been as aggressive and enterprising as they should be in dealing with the problems of unemployment that have arisen, or were likely to arise, and in getting some land cleared. They did have some Government assistance—noth enough, I agree—to clear sites and have industrial estates laid out.
  But they can be greatly encouraged now, and I hope that, in the area I am talking about, the local authorities will wish to work together so that they can agree on the sites of industrial estates on land that is being cleared from dereliction, and that the firms which wish to move a short distance and expand in that area will be encouraged to do so and provide new job opportunities for the people there.
  What worries me, and a number of other hon. Members, is the boundaries of the intermediate areas. I can sympathise with the Government on this. I had for a while the unenviable task of defending in the House and elsewhere certain development area boundaries which I knew made no sense. I am afraid that my right hon. and hon. Friends will have the same sort of regrettable experience if they do not take the advice which is to be offered to them about the boundaries announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio.
  For instance, my right hon. Friend decided, quite rightly, to include Rotherham in the South Yorkshire-North Derbyshire intermediate area, but, wrongly, to leave Sheffield out, which, when one comes to think of how the boundary runs and of what is now going to happen, is plain daft. We now have a Minister who knows all about it. He knows that the boundary runs straight through a steel works, which will not be helpful to that part which is on the wrong side if anyone wants to take a bit of derelict land lying behind the steelworks, clear it and go in for industrial building.
  We have quite a few areas like that, where the boundary runs right across what we consider now to be derelict land. It is quite possible that the clearance area will not be the same or precisely the same as the intermediate area. I pose this as a question. It is quite likely, therefore, that on both sides

  1065
  of the boundary the land will be cleared, but that on one side of the line there will be industrial development, because it is, say, in the Borough of Rotherham, while the rest will be left idle because it happens to be in Sheffield. That would be nonsense. I am not blaming the Minister of State for it. I am relying on his local knowledge and his great common sense to ensure that the nonsense is cleared up.
  I come now to what my hon. Friend will know as the Mosborough problem. It highlights the kind of difficulties we shall be in unless these boundaries are put right. A few years ago, the then Minister of Housing and Local Government agreed to the City of Sheffield taking within its boundary a slice of North Derbyshire to allow room that was desperately needed for residential expansion and also for a measure of industrial development, particularly for firms in Sheffield which, because of the congestion in the centre, were being planned out, as it was called, and other firms which happened to be located in or near slum clearance areas and which had to go when those areas were cleared of slums. Here was the opportunity presented to get them established in good conditions in the area of Derbyshire taken within the city limits.
  Strict conditions were laid down by the Minister and eagerly accepted. There had to be a green belt between the city proper and the new communities which were to be built. The residential and industrial areas were clearly defined. All that wise and careful planning is now destroyed by the decision to exclude this part of what should be the intermediate area from the intermediate area itself, even though it is clearly part of the North Derbyshire coalfield and itself has suffered from mining closures.
  The balanced development of residential estates and neighbouring industries which the Minister of Housing and Local Government rightly insisted on is now no longer possible. It may be argued, although I hope it will not, that the people who are to be housed in this new area—over 50,000 eventually—can easily travel eight or 10 miles into Sheffield to work, but that would defeat the purpose of the well-planned schemes which are designed in part to ease firms and work-people out of the congested parts of
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  Sheffield and out of the slum areas into better surroundings—a process which must go on.
  The slum areas, for pressing social reasons, must quickly be cleared and the firms located there must be cleared as well. But we have to have somewhere for them to go. One might say that they should stay in Sheffield, but what is the point of going to this new area where the industrial estates can be laid out when, if these firms go a few miles further on, they reach the Erewash Valley area and get the whole of the benefits now being considered in the Bill?
  Nonsense is made of the wise and careful planning, on which the city council and other local authorities concerned have agreed under the auspices of one Department, by a decision taken in another. I repeat my tribute to the common sense of my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and I hope that they will do all they can to see that the boundaries about which I have been speaking are redrawn.
  Mr. George Jeger: My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) has talked about a travel-to-work area as being considered to be eight or 10 miles from Sheffield. I have had correspondence with the Board of Trade recently in which it refers to a travel-to-work area as being 30 miles.
  Mr. Darling: I was not in any way suggesting what a travel-to-work area should be. I was pointing out that Moss-borough is eight or 10 miles from the centre of Sheffield. I was not arguing about how far people should travel to work in the circumstances to which my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. George Jeger) refers.
  I welcome the Bill as far as it goes. Those who have the good fortune to serve on the Standing Committee will, I know, do all they can to improve it, and I will play my part in providing them with the suggestions that I know they should be putting forward.
  6.9 p.m.
  Mr. John H. Osborn: So far this has been a discouraging debate to me. Indeed, it has been a debate of despair. The Bill is an anticlimax. Possibly this is a monument to the confusion amongst the planners of the last five years. The right hon.

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  Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) has outlined his difficulties when he had the responsibility and he also summarised some of the present difficulties of the Government. We have had reference to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) who has criticised the Government and Government policy yet who was in the Ministry which is proposing this Bill.
  The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) spoke about the regions being in the wrong place. Yet he surely has not forgotten that those from the Sheffield and immediate area of South Yorkshire, North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire beseeched him to form a sub-region embracing that area. When he was the Minister responsible he failed to listen to these overtures. I well remember our defeat on the matter.
  The right hon. Member for Belper said that Sir Joseph Hunt was a great friend of his. Presumably, he was a man whom he trusted. But both the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Hillsborough criticised Sir Joseph Hunt Report, which I regard as a monumental work by busy people who faced up to and were aware of the problems of encouraging those with money available for investment in industry to invest it in the areas which are causing hon. Members opposite so much concern. This Committee knew what steps would be necessary to bring wealth and prosperity to the development and intermediate areas.
  I should not like to go further without congratulating the Prime Minister on appointing a Member from Derbyshire, the North, as a Minister of State. I refer to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley). I am aware of the problems that must be facing him. At least he knows what we have to face in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire, and at least he is sensitive to the difficulties. I do not want to make his problems any greater. Some years ago, he was in the privileged position of being a poacher, as we are who are in Opposition, but now, after a time in the Private Office at No. 10, he has turned gamekeeper and he will learn how difficult are the tasks facing people in his position.
  I do not want to refer to the Bill until the end of my speech. I have been in
  1068
  despair about industrial growth in intermediate areas while I have been preparing my notes for this debate. I have asked myself the question, what is the Bill all about? For decades we have been concerned in the House of Commons at times of recession or rising unemployment about the hardship, uncertainty and poverty of certain areas in the provinces—the South-West, the North-West, the North and the North-East. This concern is shared by many in the provinces. Sir Joseph Hunt referred to business centres and our lack of ability to attract entrepreneurs into the so-called intermediate, or development, or provincial, areas. I well understand the despair which must have confronted his Committee.
  I have discussed this matter with a number of people throughout the country, but I find it difficult to put my finger on exactly what is happening. It is my impression that at present the South and the South-East are strong. There are many advanced industries and there may be activities which benefit from the boom in invisible trade with other countries. Devaluation may have brought a boom to the retail trades of the South and South-East. Devaluation has brought people from the Continent with their shopping bags and if there have been boom conditions in the shops and commercial premises, in the South and South-East, they are conditions which have been denied to people in the North.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) tried to quantify this impression. It is puzzling many people. We have seen other changes. Changes have been occurring over the centuries, but they seem to have been more important in the last five years. Admittedly, the traditional woollen trade of Yorkshire and to a certain extent the textile trade in Lancashire have been altered because our wool comes from overseas now and we can make synthetic fibres in this country. But industries based on coal and iron now have to face vast and newer sources of energy and newer sources of raw materials—iron ore coming to the country from outside. For many decades the power source has been coal, but that is being replaced by nuclear energy and other sources. This wealth has emanated from our own resources at home, but other areas, such as Bristol and other

  1069
  ports, have been affected because our merchant venturers used to trade in materials brought from outside. All this seems to have been changed.
  Another trend is the growth of national and even international trading and manufacturing companies. The process of rationalisation, which both sides of the House have advocated and which hon. Members who support the Government have endeavoured to encourage, has meant that the provincial company, the small company, has been mopped up and has become a subsidiary in a large conglomerate. Admittedly, this may have meant more employment in development and intermediate areas as a result, but no longer do the funds come from local bank managers. The large companies have their headquarters in London and if managers want finance, they go to the joint stock banks in London, or to the merchant banks in the City. There is even discussion of the possibility of provincial stock exchanges becoming part of the London Stock Exchange.
  I suggest to hon. Members opposite that never has industrial and commercial power drained so quickly and so much from the provinces, the intermediate and development areas, to London as in the last five years, and it is now being concentrated in London.
  Mr. Darling: No.
  Mr. Osborn: Hon. Members may dispute this and they will have the chance to make their contributions. I am advancing this as my view of the background of the debate.
  Mr. Leadbitter: If the hon. Member is to make statements of that kind, he ought to quantify them and give us the facts.
  Mr. Osborn: They are hard to quantify. This is an impression, but it is the impression of many people who are concerned with stagnation in the Provinces. Hon. Members may dispute it and may have factual evidence to support their arguments, but these are certainly the implications of certain sections of the Hunt Committee's Report.
  I am not blaming the Socialist Party, although if the process had happened under a Conservative Government, hon. Members opposite would have heavily criticised the Conservatives. There is an
  1070
  inevitability about the growth of power, and the creation of wealth that goes with it, in capital cities. It is happening in the United States of America and throughout Europe where the trends are comparable. The strength of commercial and industrial organisations residing in or near London is increasing particularly it these organisations have an international flavour.
  There is a tendency as a result of direct Socialist policy—and I blame hon. Members opposite for this—for more power over the future of industry to concentrate in Whitehall, for instance, with the distribution of investment grants. The drastic extension of nationalisation has meant that the headquarters of the nationalised companies, where the power resides, have moved from individual steelworks, for instance, in the provinces to London—we debated this when we discussed the Steel Bill. Organisations such as the I.R.C. are naturally based in London and the know-how and the consultancy associated with their work must emanate from London.
  Hon. Members may dispute this, but some of the symptoms cannot be denied. Overtime, and therefore take-home pay, in the North is down. I have asked Questions of the Board of Trade and I have questioned chambers of trade and other sources, and I am told that retail sales are down in the provinces because of the diminution of the purchasing power of wages. Numbers in employment are undoubtedly down. The percentage of the employed male population aged 15 and over fell by ·2 per cent. for the country as a whole between 1964 and 1968, but by 2·6 per cent. in the North-West and by 3·6 per cent. in Yorkshire and Humberside. The fall in employment was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his Brighton speech. In the Northern Region there are 66,000 fewer jobs, while in the Yorkshire and Humberside Region there are 106,000 fewer jobs.
  The figures for unemployment show that something is happening. In the Yorkshire coalfield area, in October, 1964, the unemployment rate was 1·6 per cent. On 11th August, it was 4·8 per cent. In Castleford, Knottingley, Normanton and Pontefract, it has risen to 4·2 per cent. In the Mexborough-Goldthorpe area it was 2·9 per cent. in 1964 and is 6·5 per cent. now. In

  1071
  Dinnington and Hemsworth, it was 1 per cent. in 1964 and is 5·3 per cent. now.
  Therefore, it is necessary to inquire a stage further. In these areas, where the credit squeeze has been felt most, I asked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the rate of windings up, bankruptcies and liquidations, and his Answer will be in HANSARD tomorrow. We should like to know where it is that those in small business are finding it most difficult to stay. This information is not readily available, so far as I know.
  All this confirms the view of Sir Joseph Hunt that the outlook for the grey and intermediate areas is indeed grim. We must face this. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough referred to Sheffield and Yorkshire. He outlined the Sheffield problem, but what is remarkable are the delegations that the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs received. There is a delegation from the Socialist controlled Council in Sheffield coming to point out to whichever Minister meets it the difficulties of setting up this new residential and industrial area in Mosborough if it remains outside the intermediate areas. They will ask for intermediate area status.
  Sheffield has labour-intensive industries, but they are now becoming capital-intensive. In the last few years, employment has dropped from 39,800 to 34,800 in the metal and engineering industries. There is under-employment, which is eliminating effective overtime. There is the additional problem in Sheffield that many working in the city live outside, in the intermediate areas.
  To be positive, I welcome the fact that, in the Yorkshire region, the second Drax station is to be coal-fired, and I have raised with the Minister of Power and with the Electricity Board the virtues and the opportunities arising from this. I hope that the new Minister of State will make certain, now that the Minister of Technology is responsible for power, that those industries with large special requirements near these power stations may have the benefits which have been offered to the aluminium, chemical and other industries. I have recently been shown some statistics which suggest that the price of electricity to many industries in this area is well above that available to
  1072
  the aluminium smelting industry. What more can be done in an area like this?
  As for communications, Sheffield still has no airport. Possibly this is just as well, but how can people travel in and out of that area? The city still has the slowest major inter-city service between London and any provincial centre. It still has the worst rolling stock. I hope that the Minister can do something about this. Many of the east-west road links are unsatisfactory. There has been pressure for a motorway across the Pennines to Manchester and Liverpool. This is the type of infrastructure improvement which will help this area.
  If I may be negative, one of the difficulties facing the Minister of State is the very existence of the Maud Report and the confusion which it is causing in local government in the industrial regions. I hope that the Minister will comment on this.
  There is another point in which I am interested, and on which I have asked a Parliamentary Question. Many industrialists have asked me to explain simply the advantages and disadvantages of what the Government can offer for development in special development areas, intermediate areas, development areas and the ordinary white areas. What are the differences? I wrote to the Board of Trade a few weeks ago and was given the standard document on development areas and the standard document on investment grants. This is not good enough. I hope that, after the passage of the Bill, the Ministers of State will make available to industrialists a simple ABC of what they have done, in this and previous Bills, so that those wanting this information can obtain it easily.
  One last drafting point. On pages 1 and 2 of the Bill the phrase occurs,
  "the Minister is of opinion".
  Is this not an unduly arbitrary power to put in a Minister's hands? Is it not possible to be more definite? Either something is or is not granted to areas in a Bill. In the case of dereliction grants for derelict land and clearance areas, either one is entitled to them or one is not. Could the Minister be more specific in the Bill's drafting in Committee?
  6.27 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Howarth: I welcome the Bill, which has been long-awaited, as another development in this Government's proposals to help to rejuvenate the older industrial areas, but I am also extremely disappointed that the County Borough of Bolton, of which my constituency is part, has been excluded from what I regard as the first instalment, as outlined in the explanatory notes issued by the Ministry to show the areas which were to be included. Bolton had high hopes of being included, following the Hunt Committee's Report, because this Report at least brought together conveniently, although they were already known, the available facts, and illustrated the special problems of the older areas. I am talking now of the North-West and Lancashire, which has the problem of the declining cotton textile industry, and of coal mining.
  As the Report said, the North-West Region has, in certain important respects, been falling behind many other regions since the war, and, I suspect, probably since the First World War. It has been falling behind in terms of the rise in employment. In fact, there has been a fall in employment in the North-West outside development areas. The growth of incomes has been slower in the North-West than in most other regions. The introduction of new industries, shops and offices has been slower in the North-West, and the level of unemployment has been higher than in the more prosperous regions of the Midlands and the South.
  We have other similar problems of large areas of dereliction, certainly in the south of Lancashire, where, in the coal mining areas, great slag heaps disfigure the landscape for many square miles.
  The Hunt Report makes a point about which we are only too well aware, namely, the lack of suitable vacancies for young people who gain higher educational awards. This is a serious matter because it means that the best educated young people of the North-West tend to look for job opportunities away from the area. This has contributed to the migration from many parts of the North-West.
  That is the general problem of the North-West. I now wish to mention the specific problems of the County Borough of Bolton, part of which I represent. I
  1074
  compare it with the problems of Blackburn and Burnley, because the first instalment in implementing the Hunt Report as proposed by the Government includes the County Boroughs of Blackburn and Burnley. It is probably rough justice that the new East Lancashire intermediate area includes the constituencies of two Conservative Members and two Labour Members. In that sense, the balance has been fairly kept. But, as someone who represents a constituency unsuccessfully adjoining the boundaries of the area, I feel aggrieved.
  The percentage of unemployed in the two major towns in the new intermediate area of East Lancashire, Blackburn and Burnley, is considerably better than it is in the County Borough of Bolton. The decline in the percentage of population in these towns has been greater than in Bolton. The problems of emigration from these towns and of replacing the jobs lost in the cotton textile industry are as severe in Bolton as they are in Blackburn and Burnley. All three towns share the special problem of the textile belt in Lancashire of which old industrial buildings are a feature. We have been able to attract to some extent replacement industries for the declining cotton textile industry, but many of them have gone into very old buildings.
  It is a startling fact that in the County Borough of Bolton about 80 per cent. of existing buildings were constructed before 1914 and about 38 per cent. were constructed before 1875. It is reckoned that nearly 15 million sq. ft. of industrial premises are over 90 years old. This is one of the problems in an area such as mine. It is also estimated that about 15,000 people are employed in pre-1875 buildings. These are probably staggering figures for anyone who represents a constituency in the salubrious South of England or the Home Counties, but they are not unusual in the older industrial areas.
  I have detailed the problems and expressed the disappointment of my constituents at not being included in the first instalment of implementation of the Hunt Report. But there is another side of the picture. In the last five years, the Government have given massive help to the older industrial regions. It is certainly massive compared with that given by the Tories in the 1950s and 1960s.

  1075
  The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) admitted that, taking 1964 and 1969, Tory aid to the development areas amounted to about £60 million and that the aid given by this Government amounted to over £200 million. An increase of that magnitude is of considerable importance and only goes to show the wasted opportunities of the last decade.
  Members of the Opposition Front Bench take every opportunity to tell us that we should cut public expenditure but usually decline to say where the cuts should be made. I am afraid that if they were to regain power we should have a repetition of their attitude in the 1950s when they developed the South and the Midlands to the detriment of the older industrial North.
  Lancashire in general and Bolton in particular are changing very rapidly. There are signs everywhere of the great road building programme. One cannot drive on a main road in my constituency without seeing signs of the big new road programme. I suppose that this is because we are fortunately placed in relation to the building of the M61 and the M62.
  The same is true of housing. The clearance of slums has been going on apace in my constituency. Great areas have been cleared and people rehoused in new housing. It is remarkable how this Government's new housing Act was ignored by the Opposition spokesmen both yesterday and today. That Act is particularly important to industrial towns like Bolton. It will enable large areas to be dealt with without pulling down the houses and rebuilding them.
  Many new schools, particularly primary schools, are in evidence in Lancashire and certainly in my constituency. Education is vital and the basis for it has been laid. We look forward to further progress. A fine new institute of technology costing many millions of pounds was recently opened in my area, there is a further development in the pipeline, a college offering degree courses. This is a further example of the changes being made in Lancashire, much to the credit of the present Government.
  The Government have been helping the older industrial areas in many other ways—for example, with rate support and rent
  1076
  relief schemes. We even had talk last week in my constituency for the first time of the prospect of having a large indoor sports centre. It is significant that the Tory-controlled council said that it would have to go to the Sports Council to see what its opinion was, obviously hoping that support for the project would be forthcoming.
  The picture is the same on the cultural side in my constituency. We now have a brand new theatre, the Octagon Theatre, which is a great acquisition to the town. It was built not only from the proceeds of private donations but is supported by a grant from the Arts Council.
  This is the sort of thing which is happening in Lancashire and which makes the prospect for our young people so much better as a result of the Government's programme.
  Despite the absence of assistance as given to the development areas, we have been able, in the main, to make good the losses of jobs in the cotton textile industry. This is due to a combination of self-help by the local council and Government assistance by means of industrial development certificates and in other ways. Only two months ago the Ministry of Technology placed with a local machine tool concern an order worth over £1 million which will assist that company in developing an advanced machine which has great potential domestically and in the export market.
  I could go on listing other ways in which Lancashire has been assisted. To add to this long catalogue of help I would mention that we shall have the pleasure next week of the opening of a new general post office in the centre of the town. There really is no limit to the help which has already been given. One has details here of the proposals of Lancashire County Council to take advantage of the new derelict land grants which will enable thousands of acres of the most detestable legacy from the Industrial Revolution to be cleared within the foreseeable future. I would suggest, in criticising the Government for not including my constituency in the first instalment of the implementation of Hunt, recognition should be given, both in this House and locally, to the great assistance which has come the way of Lancashire and my constituency in the last five years.

  1077
  I should like to conclude with a number of questions to the Minister who will be replying. We know, of course, already that the liberal policy of the issuing of I.D.C.s is to be continued. My constituency would like an assurance that existing industries will not be encouraged to move. This would be a savage blow to the progress which we have been making. It would not make economic sense to lift industry from, say, Bolton and move it either to a development area or to an intermediate area, and one would hope that the Board of Trade would in no way try to help such an unfortunate development. We had a problem earlier this year, which was not as a result of prodding by the Board of Trade, and we overcame it, but it is one which, as long as we are outside areas of special assistance is, I suppose, a potential menace, and I hope that the Board of Trade will look at this most carefully.
  Mr. J. H. Osborn: Does the hon. Member mean the Board of Trade—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I again point out that interventions prolong speeches, and that many Members wish to speak.
  Mr. Howarth: Yes, in the old sense.
  Two final questions. Would the Minister ask his right hon. Friend to look again at the timing of the proposed central Lancashire new town? The point has already been made by a previous speaker, but those of us who are very close to the area of the proposed new town are concerned about its effects on the existing, older industrial towns. I do not think we question having the new town or argue exactly where it should be, but we are certainly concerned about the time scale, and one would hope that, till the problems of the older industrial towns are well on the way to solution, the actual start on this new town would be postponed. I would like to hear the Minister's assurance on this point.
  Finally, could we have an assurance that, on the basis that this is a piecemeal approach by the Government to the implementation of many of the proposals of Hunt, the position will be reviewed, say, 12 months after the start of the operation of the measures in the Bill, and that those of us who were not fortunate in the first instalment may come out on the second occasion?
  1078
  We do have problems, but we are confident that the changes which have already been made in Lancashire and in my own constituency are certainly in the right direction, and the quality of life is already beginning to improve. We look forward to assistance from the Government in the future on the basis of the proposals in this Bill.
  6.44 p.m.
  Sir Frank Pearson: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth), and not only because he is another Member from Lancashire and, therefore, quite clearly, thoroughly understands the problems of Lancashire and also his own area. In the earlier part of his speech I was developing a very great deal of sympathy with him, because I have always felt that the delineation of the somewhat artificial intermediate areas must necessarily mean that probably serious injustice would be done to the neighbouring areas, and I had always believed that the hon. Member's area at Bolton, and Rossendale, were probably two areas where injustice had been done, but by the time I had listened to the rest of his speech I began to have serious doubts whether that sympathy altogether was well placed.
  This Bill has, in general terms, been welcomed on both sides of the House, and I would certainly welcome it, but I must say that I can give it only a very limited welcome. Anybody who has been in touch with this problem of the grey areas from the very start of the debate at the end of 1966 and the beginning of 1967 must feel a certain amount of disappointment at what is actually in the Bill as it is now before the House I remember, and we all knew, in those years what the problems of the grey areas were. One of the main problems of the grey areas was that, having unemployment, and also population drift and dereliction, their position was becoming almost intolerable as, year by year, the assistance given to the development areas got larger and larger.
  It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) to argue that this Bill is the mere extension of the Government's development districts policy. Of course it is nothing of the sort. The

  1079
  Government have been forced to produce this Bill because of the campaign which has been waged over the last two and a half years by Members representing grey areas and in particular Members representing North-East Lancashire, and if the hon. Member for Bolton, East wants to know the reason why his area is excluded and my area is not, let him look at the number of Cabinet Ministers who have constituencies in the area. But that is a minor point. But that was the basis of the whole of this argument and why we have the Bill before us today. Quite apart from the question of grey area status, North-East Lancashire, and Bolton, faced the possibility of Preston new town, with the effects it was likely to produce for us, and we had a very serious position.
  It was for this reason that we argued the case for special measures. We were delighted when the Government accepted our arguments and set up Sir Joseph Hunt's Committee with a number of very distinguished members. Sir Joseph did a magnificent job, and I was very sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper criticising the Report in the way he did. Sir Joseph produced a brillant report and he produced it very rapidly, and I was terribly disappointed when, literally within hours of the report being published, the Minister came to that Box and more or less turned it down out of hand. I think it would have been only fair to the gentlemen of that Committee first to have given full consideration to these problems; the Committee had written an excellent report and the Government ought to have given more consideration to it than they did.
  The central proposals of Hunt were really two, and relatively simple ones. One of the most important recommendations was the conclusion which the Committee came to, after considering the question of the development areas, that there was a real case for a cost-effective study as to how assistance to development districts was operating. When one recognises that today it may cost up to £20,000 to produce one new job in a development area one must say that, prima facie, there is at any rate a case for Sir Joseph Hunt's recommendation that there should be a cost-effective study. I am perfectly pre-
  1080
  pared to accept that we cannot deal with the problem of the grey areas unless somehow or another we find the resources, and with the pressure which there is today on our national resources I believe that the only way to find the resources to tackle the grey areas is to make our assistance to the development districts a great deal more efficient than it is today. That could be done. I therefore welcome the proposal for a cost-effective study.
  The second important point in the Hunt Committee's Report is the concept that the old industrial areas of the North, primarily of Lancashire and Yorkshire, have to be dealt with as a whole. If assistance were to be concentrated on communications and urban renewal I doubt whether much additional help would be needed. I believe that there is a vital spark for expansion and prosperity, but what is lacking is the physical condition in which industry can operate.
  The Government were unfortunately unable to accept either of those two main concepts, and that is why I can give the Bill only a lukewarm welcome. It will ultimately do some good, but not immediately. It is early days, and I am the first to admit that the provisions of the Bill will not have full effect until the economy as a whole surges forward in a more expansive atmosphere. Already in North-East Lancashire there have been some results. We have had 47 inquiries about building grants. A significant fact is that practically none of the inquiries has come from outside the area. One of the main objects of the Bill is to draw new industry in. Local industry has said that it wishes to expand, but that will not perform the function that those of us who argued the case for the grey areas hoped would be performed.
  A matter of particular importance to us in North-East Lancashire, affecting Oldham, Bolton and the old cotton belt, is the tariff protection award to the textile industry based on the recommendations of the Textile Council. In the old Lancashire cotton belt alone, probably 300 small firms will be closing down in the next year or two as a result of the new tariff protection measures. The hon. Member for Bolton, East may say that that is not so, but that is the assessment which has been made by the Lancashire and Merseyside Industrial Commission. I think that this will happen, and may

  1081
  well happen earlier than 1975 when it is expected. This will undoubtedly place a serious burden on the old textile areas which will not be assisted by the terms of the Bill.
  If a firm wishes to extend its works and to put in new machinery to make it viable under present conditions, to get assistance under the Bill it must show that it will provide more employment. Textile firms are up against keener competition than ever before, and are having to install new machinery and adopt new techniques. This does not mean that they will employ more people. The money will be spent on equipment, and the expanded factories will be run with fewer people. If firms do not provide any new employment they will not receive grants under the Bill. If the Bill is to be of assistance to the old textile areas of Lancashire, an assurance must be given that where extensions are made to make a textile mill viable, the grant will not be conditional upon the employment of more people.
  Will the Goverment say when it is proposed to start on the Calder Valley motorway? This is one of the most important factors for East Lancashire, and I know that I have the support of the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) on this. I hope that the motorway will link up with the Yorkshire network of roads. Unless there is a free-running artery road through East Lancashire to the Yorkshire network and into Hull, we shall not be able to compete with the Preston new town and North-East Lancashire will die.
  I give the Bill a critical and rather lukewarm welcome. I hope that it will do good to North-East Lancashire, but I am doubtful that it will until the economy of the country as a whole shows a more energetic expansion than we see today.
  6.58 p.m.
  Mr. Derek Page: Our attitude to the Bill should be determined by two considerations; how it fits into the general pattern of regional policy, whether it advances it or retards it, and how it will be administered. The Bill looks innocuous, but it empowers the Minister to decide which areas shall and which areas shall not get help, and that decision will be the subject of bitter debate for some time to come.
  1082
  I was very interested, as were most other hon. Members, in the recent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), and I look forward to hearing the Government reply to the allegations made. The wisdom of over £200 million going into development areas was criticised in that speech. Although I realise that taxes are not raised specifically from one area or another, this has meant an increase in taxation of £20 per family per year, including those families in my own area. This is a matter of extreme concern to me, because our main problem is miserably low earnings. After the five years of pressure that I have constantly exerted, particularly on the late lamented Department of Economic Affairs, I am appalled that it still does not appear to be accepted that low earnings can be every bit as great a burden as unemployment. It is imperative that this criterion be accepted.
  I wish to bring a few figures to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister of State. In the East Anglian Study comparison is made in Table 36 of earnings in the regions. These are broken down and the table gives the key figures for hourly earnings of males. The average for United Kingdom is 111d. per hour. In the Northern area, which is largely a development area, it is 108d. In Yorkshire and Humberside area, which is getting help under the new proposals, it is 104d. In the East Midlands it is 108d., in the South-East 114d. and in the South-West, which again is largely a development area, it is 103d. In Wales, which is entirely a development area, it is 112d., in Scotland 108d., and in East Anglia 101d. In other words, it is 10 per cent. below the national average and Norfolk is 5 per cent. below the East Anglian average, making it 15 per cent. below that for the country as a whole. This is the burden under which the area suffers. The burden on families is every bit as great as a substantial level of unemployment and it should be recognised as a criterion for regional aid.
  Apart from the raw figures I have given, the trend in earnings has not been favourable. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Haworth) said that the position in Lancashire with regard to earnings was getting worse. This is not substantiated by figures in the

  1083
  Hunt Report, for in Appendix D earnings for the North-West in 1964 are given as 96 per cent. of the national average at that time and in 1966–67 that had gone up to 97·4 per cent. That does not substantiate the idea that the North-West is getting worse. In East Anglia the position is getting worse. It started at 91·7 per cent. and has been going down steadily every year, to 91·5 per cent. and then 91 per cent.
  Apart from starting at a miserably low level, it is getting worse. Is this a matter of structure, the fact that it is a rural area and that everyone works in agriculture? Of course that is not so. Only 9·9 per cent. of the workers in East Anglia are employed in agriculture. In the East Anglia Report, in Table 37 there is a very interesting comparison of pay rates in job groups. The earnings in East Anglia are compared with earnings in the rest of the country for doing the same jobs. In 18 of 27 groups the earnings were substantially lower than those which men would get for doing the same jobs in other parts of the country. This is intolerable. If we take Mr. Average, Norfolk, a lad starting work at 15 and looking forward to 50 years' earning and compare his average earnings with what the same lad could expect in the rest of Britain, we find that he would be £9,000 worse off. That is his expectation in lower earnings with the regional differential. This poverty penalty of the region has every bit as much claim to assistance as a 5 per cent. level of unemployment.
  Our criticisms are particularly hard when we realise that substantial payments are made to development areas which not only have vastly higher earnings but low unemployment levels. Over the whole area the average is 5 per cent. Some areas are much worse and our sympathy goes out to them, but in other areas there is not substantially low unemployment yet there are high earnings. It is not justice that poor people in East Anglia should be expected to contribute to the massive help for those who have higher earnings. This is Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the comparatively poor to help the comparatively better off. This will not do.
  I had a continuing argument with the first Secretary of State of the D.E.A. over several years. It ended with a letter
  1084
  I had from him two days before he moved to a different job. In the letter he said:
  "Differences in earnings between one area and another result mainly from differences in the industrial structure …"
  He was referring to a question I had raised about lower earnings. Yet his own Department set up the East Anglian Regional Council, whose report he should have known stated categorically that one-third of the differential was due to different industrial structure and two-thirds was due to lower earnings for the same jobs. In spite of five years' pressure, that point has apparently not got across. It is not with regret that I see the responsibility coming under a new Department because this might give the chance of a fresh look at the matter. I have spoken moderately today because I want to give the new Minister the chance to look at this question afresh. The discussion I had with him a few days ago gave me some ground for hope that this factor had at last got across.
  I believe the Hunt Report was a disgrace for East Anglia. I was terribly shocked when I saw it. It recommended considerable public expenditure to help areas where employment in coal-mining has declined. It pointed out that in the Yorkshire and Humberside area the drop in coal-mining jobs resulted in a 4 per cent. deficit in employment from that cause alone. In East Anglia the drop in jobs in agriculture over the same period worked out at precisely the same figure. Yet for the coalfields of Yorkshire and Humberside help was recommended and for East Anglia this shallow report said that it is good for the overall economy of the country that this drift should take place. What is good for the industrial goose is good for the rural gander. We absolutely demand that we should have equality of opportunity and equality of recognition of our problems.
  My attitude to this Bill will depend very largely on the summing-up speech tonight. I ask my hon. Friend who will reply to the debate to state categorically whether or not it is now accepted that earnings which are substantially below the national average should now count as a criterion for regional assistance. If he accepts this, as he indicated in answer to an intervention by me might be possible, what is he to do about it?
  8.8 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Shaw: I have a great deal of sympathy for the case put forward by the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Derek Page).
  I wish to deal with the argument that the Minister of State put forward in his opening speech. He claimed that it was the very success of the Government's regional policies that had created the special problems at the solution of which this Bill is aimed. In a way he was right because the Government's policies changed the policies of the previous Government in that they gave benefits over a large area giving help to blanket areas. Therefore, the pull of those very large regions became greater, pulling industry away from the grey areas.
  But in another sense he is wrong, because the real problem facing not only the development areas but the grey areas is the continued lack of expansion in the country's economy. It is significant, certainly in the North-East where my constituency is, that what the Government have done is to produce benefits which have often resulted, certainly in my constituency, in the position being only held rather than improved. In areas where mining is coming to an end or is being drastically reduced the position would have been very much worse, of course, without this help, but the danger has been that over the last few years, because the economy has not been expanding fast, the economically weaker parts of the country have been only able to hold their positions, even with help, and not improve it.
  The Minister of State said that criticism of the present position seemed to be strongest on the boundaries of development areas. I think that he is right. The attraction must be greatest on the boundaries. When a person has to choose between going to a development area or a grey area with only a few miles in it, he will clearly always take the area that gives him the most financial advantage. What was significant was that the Minister said that the suggested new boundaries would leave a wide band which was neither in a development area nor in an area which would benefit from the Bill. Such an area will stretch across Yorkshire right through Lancashire.
  1086
  I accept that some parts of that area are very prosperous, but that is certainly not true of the whole area. If a development area of this blanket size has proved an attraction, to the disadvantage of areas just outside development areas, how much greater will be that disadvantage for an area between the development area in the north and the new areas for assistance in the south? The attraction will be both the north and south and this will make the situation for many parts of Yorkshire which will not be helped even more difficult.
  Some areas do not need particular help for new jobs and particular help for dealing with dereliction, and I welcome the approach which will give more selectivity in the help to be given. In some areas it will be sufficient to get rid of the dereliction, of the very old early textile mills and some of the old slums surrounding them, in certain parts of the heavy woollen district, for example. On the other hand, in Bridlington, which is outside a development area and which will not be assisted under the Bill, help with communications and trading estates would help to attract industry to that isolated part of the coast. At present, there is no doubt that the attraction is either to the north or the south, leaving Bridlington isolated.
  What must be our objective in considering legislation of this sort? If the areas to which special help is to be given begin to regard it as a permanent feature, we shall be saddling ourselves with a heavy encumbrance and, what is worse, endangering those areas themselves. The object of our assistance must be to give help in such a way that eventually these areas are able to stand on their own feet and compete on equal terms with the rest of the country in standard of living, job opportunity and the normally expected social amenities.
  The form of the help must be such that those attracted to set up industries in these areas are given help to start but not to carry on once established, except in exceptional circumstances. If once it has been set up and is on its feet a firm cannot compete successfully, sooner or later it will go to the wall, and that is not the sort of firm we want to encourage. We want firms which, once they have set up their organisation and have fully trained men working, will be

  1087
  able to compete successfully and so become a viable and valuable unit in the economy of the region. Of course there are exceptions, and shipbuilding is one. It had to have special help in special circumstances.
  I have often wondered what was the true purpose and the true benefit of R.E.P. I am glad that the Bill does not suggest that R.E.P. should be extended to the grey areas, but I wonder why. I think that the answer is that experience has shown that R.E.P. does not attract new industry to an area. Every industrialist knows that it is only temporary and any industrialist moving into a new area wants to be sure that once he has set up his plant, it will not become less profitable in the years ahead.
  R.E.P. often has a bad effect, because it merely slows down the inevitable for those firms which cannot compete and which have little chance of competing on equal terms. However, it also has a good effect. In previous slumps or difficult periods of trade, it has been the habit of some firms with more than one branch to withdraw their activities from development areas and to concentrate work in their main establishments in the South or in the Midlands. R.E.P. has had the effect of making firms consider whether they might not be better advised to maintain their works in the development areas.
  But the overall cost of R.E.P. has been out of all proportion to its benefits and I am glad that the S.E.P., on which no commitment had been given, is being withdrawn. The money can be more effectively used in the grey areas. The kind of help we are discussing is usually applicable to both the grey areas and the development areas, and it always seems to me to be a pity that we cannot give that help in such a way that we are, in effect, assisting companies to stand on their own feet. We give help by cash or by tax allowances, as the case may be: what we have never tried to do is to give firms in this type of area assistance in times of credit squeeze.
  We seem to have been living through nothing else but credit squeeze in the last few years, and it is in this sort of area that trade becomes more difficult. That is why we have a Bill of this kind. We have some people going out of busi
  1088
  ness, and others in difficulties because of other firms going out of business, so that the credit position is there at its most difficult.
  But although special arrangements are made on export grounds for firms to get special exemptions from the credit squeeze, there are no special arrangements to give easement from the credit squeeze to firms in the development areas and in the grey areas. That could be done at no cost to the economy. It would only require the banks to be assured of the soundness of the firms concerned. Risks would still have to be undertaken by those firms, but it would encourage them to go on with their work, and they would not be under such pressure to restrict their activities in order to keep within bank limits, and so on. If such a scheme could be devised, it would be of real benefit to such firms and a very real advantage to the areas.
  I welcome the fact that the Bill indicates a return to the greater flexibility that we showed when in office in our approach to helping industry in these areas. I hope that with this new approach we may have before very long a return of confidence and an expansion in our economy. At the end of the day, whatever help we give it will be largely unavailing unless there is confidence, and unless there is continued expansion. Without those, no industrialist will ever make any effort to expand his business.
  7.24 p.m.
  Mr. John Forrester: I hope that the House will allow me just a moment or two to associate myself with the kind word spoken from both sides of our late friend and colleague, Stephen Swingler. I know that his ability and integrity were admired in all parts of the House and by all sections of the community in his constituency. His death was a severe blow to us all who knew him for a number of years.
  At the same time, I welcome my new neighbour the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), and I congratulate him on his maiden speech. From what we have heard this afternoon, and from what I have heard and seen in his constituency recently, I am sure that he will be a worthy successor to Stephen Swingler.
  I am tempted to temper my congratulations somewhat when I look at the list

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  of North Staffordshire topics with which he dealt. I find that he put his finger on nearly all the problems common to both his constituency and Stoke-on-Trent, and has left me with a number of items with which I need not take up a great deal of the time of the House.
  At one stage I was tempted to apologise for being parochial, but as so many distinguished right hon. and hon. Members have been parochial I feel that I am in rather good company, and will, therefore, dispense with the apology.
  Many of our problems are shared by other areas, but the problems of dereliction and rejuvenation that we face in Stoke-on-Trent are worrying us particularly at the moment. We have the somewhat doubtful privilege of having the highest acreage of dereliction of any of our towns and cities. This problem seemed insoluble for many years. In 1945, we had about 2,400 acres of derelict land. By 1950, we had reduced it to 2,000 acres; by 1961, to 1,606 acres and today the figure is 1,760 acres. In the next few years, as a result of further factory rationalisations and colliery closures, we expect the dereliction area to go beyond the 2,000 acres again. In other words, we shall be back to 1950, and beyond.
  I gather that this problem is not peculiar to us, but we feel it particularly. It seemed that wherever the city turned, whether to the Government to encourage overspill or to new industry, the answers were always discouraging. We seemed to get nowhere. We despaired of a solution in the reasonably near future. We could not even start the jigsaw, let alone put it together. It is against that background that I welcome the Bill, because at least it attempts to deal with the first part of the problem.
  I am tempted to go along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) and the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) in asking why we cannot have 85 per cent. for clearance of dereliction, as in a development area, as Hunt recommended. One could make out an exceedingly good case for doing just that. But I remember that in 1948 a report to Parliament named nine areas which had special needs, and when it came to it all three of the areas were
  1090
  omitted—and one of them was North Staffordshire.
  I therefore feel that after waiting for 21 years for something to happen, it would be a little inappropriate for me to emulate Oliver Twist now and ask for more. With due respect, and without wishing to be ungenerous to previous legislation, this is the first Bill that has recognised that a sustained drive must be made to clear up the decay and neglect of former years.
  It has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), and repeated by others in the past, that the grey areas of today are very much in danger of becoming the development areas of tomorrow. The Bill, which deals with dereliction, should be a first step towards avoiding this in some of the older industrial areas. It lays the foundations of progress, but it must not rest there. The Government have to be more positive in their approach as the results of the reclamation of land begin to show.
  For a 10-year programme to clear up dereliction in Stoke-on-Trent alone, the city estimates an expenditure of £3½ million or £4 million. That is a lot of money. It means that annual charges of £1 million have to be met by the ratepayers. This is a continuing burden which this generation and future generations must bear to repair the neglect, decay and greed of bygone years. They have to bear this burden unless the reclaimed land can be put to some good use in the future. I am sure that my hon. Friend does not wish to see all the reclaimed sites used for amenity purposes, much as some of them are needed for those purposes. I am sure that he wishes to see them used for housing and industry.
  But if we move people from one housing estate to another, and move industry to new estates, we are creating even more dereliction, and are not solving the problem. I hope that alongside the reclamation scheme the Government will adopt a positive policy towards directing overspill population and new industries into the older cities which are capable of accommodating them. For a long time it has struck me as the height of folly to propose to build a new town on the outskirts of a conurbation and, at the

  1091
  same time, to leave the centre derelict, short of population and with inadequate industry.
  The Maud Report proposes that we should have wider city regions. This may mean a different allocation approach for industrial development certificates. It may mean greater flexibility within such a wide city region. But if the present arrangements are continued, we shall have a poor inner borough being the main administration centre of a prosperous outer area, and that would not be in the best interests of the community. The dynamism should come from the centre and should radiate outwards, and not the reverse. Our cities can provide this kind of dynamism provided they have the right encouragement from the Government.
  People leave our cities for a variety of reasons. They may leave them because the job prospects in the old industries have declined, because the surroundings have deteriorated, because the amenities are non-existent, or because there is a lack of suitable new employment in the area. In this age of increasing educational prospects, with the acquisition of new skills and knowledge, often the old industries are unable to offer the necessary opportunities for this new-found ability in our cities. If the new science-based industries are not attracted to these areas or are discouraged by the Board of Trade from going to these areas, population will drift away and seek opportunities elsewhere. This creates a problem of overcrowding in the areas to which the people are attracted which is as great as the problem of depopulation of the areas which they have left.
  We are not proud of our inheritance in Stoke-on-Trent of having the highest acreage of derelict land. With the assistance of the Bill we hope to remedy that quickly. But it would be a waste of the economic potential of the city if in a decade or two we were known as the city which had the highest acreage of public open space. The Bill gives us great hopes for the future. It gives cities such as Stoke-on-Trent and others the chance of getting out of the maze into which they have been driven by circumstances beyond their control and from which for a long time they have thought there was no possible way out.
  1092
  I see the Bill as a first step—and I hope that for the Government it will be a first step—to ending the economic and social stagnation which has slowly been strangling the life and growth of our old cities. For that reason, I welcome the Bill.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. David Waddington: I listened with great attention to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) and, in particular, to what he said about the problem of dereliction. Like him, I attach the greatest importance to that problem and to the need to improve the environment in grey areas. Although the problem in Nelson and Colne is not as great as it appears to be in such places as Stoke-on-Trent, it remains a problem which has to be tackled.
  May I revert to a point made by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling). I echo his strictures on the way in which the Bill is drafted. I do not put this forward as a criticism of the Government, except that the Government have undoubtedly put great pressure on the parliamentary draftsmen, but it seems to me that it is a great pity if a Bill which is presented to the House is quite incomprehensible unless one goes to the Library and looks up another Act of Parliament to see what is intended by the Bill. Presumably it will not be easy to do much about it now, but it is right that hon. Members should make their protest against legislation by reference to other Statutes in every case where that can be avoided.
  Although coming from one of the intermediate areas, I can give only a muted welcome to the Bill. I am certainly not in the habit of looking gift horses in the mouth and, like my constituents, I was relieved when the Minister made his announcement in April. But there are three points which should be made at the outset. First, it must be made plain to people that what the Government propose for North-East Lancashire is rather less than that which the Hunt Committee proposed ought to be done for Lancashire as a whole. Hunt suggested 85 per cent. dereliction grants for Lancashire as a whole. The Government propose a 75 per cent. dereliction grant. Hunt suggested that there should be factory building grants not linked to

  1093
  new employment. The Government propose factory building grants tied to new employment.
  Secondly, I ought to point out that these proposals fall far short of the recommendations made by the North-West Industrial Development Association, who wanted, among other things, development area status for North-East Lancashire, because of its very special problems, and something akin to the new intermediate status for the rest of the county.
  Mr. Arthur Davidson: Does the hon. Member agree that if the Government had accepted the Hunt Committee's proposals, as apparently he wishes, his constituency and mine would have got far less than they are now to get?
  Mr. Waddington: I do not agree. The Hunt Committee proposed 85 per cent. dereliction grants for the whole county, including North-East Lancashire. The Hunt Committee proposed for the whole of Lancashire, including North-East Lancashire, factory building grants which should not be tied to new employment. The Hunt Committee's proposals are better than the present proposals for North-East Lancashire. I know that the hon. Member is relieved by the Government's proposals, because I remember how disconsolate he was in the days following the Minister's announcement in April in case Accrington did not get in on the act at all. I am sure he is relieved by what the Government have done. But it is right to point out that the Hunt proposals in certain aspects at least, would have resulted in greater help for North-East Lancashire.
  Thirdly, I very much agree with the right hon. Member for Hillsborough in pointing out that two years have been lost, in that for two years we waited for the Hunt Committee's proposals to be brought forward. They were then brought forward and promptly rejected by the Government. The proposals which the Government now invite the House to accept could well have been brought before the House in October, 1967, before the Government set up the Hunt Committee.
  It hardly needs saying that North-East Lancashire faces many problems.
  1094
  Anyone coming from the area is bound to wonder whether the present proposals are enough. The Hunt Committee pointed out that time is not on our side, and certain replies to Questions recently show the drift of population away from North-East Lancashire in recent years, evidenced by the marked decline in the number of people employed in the area as distinct from the number who are unemployed. In June, 1966. there were 213,000 people employed in the North-East Lancashire sub-region. By June, 1967, the figure had sunk to 201,000, and by June, 1968, to 197,000. I hope that the figures for the last year will not prove as dismal. They are not yet available. There are hopeful signs in that more I.D.C.s were granted last year. There are further hopeful signs in the shape of inquiries from people in the area about factory premises.
  Mr. George Lawson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the last three years over the whole country there has been a severe contraction in the number of working people? The labour force has been contracting, due to a dip in the birth rate in the early 1950s.
  Mr. Waddington: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not the explanation for the figures that I have just quoted. The drift of population from North-East Lancashire is well documented, and I can quote many figures to substantiate what I say. However, the figures which I have produced sufficiently prove the point. I do not think that it is seriously disputed that there has been a significant drift of population from the area. It was one of the matters mentioned by the Secretary of State in his statement in April of this year.
  As I say, there are some hopeful signs in that new inquiries for factory premises have been made in the last month or two, and more I.D.C.s have been granted. However, against that position, one must set the likely consequences of the setting up of the new town in the Chorley-Leyland-Preston area and the number of people employed in the textile industry in North-East Lancashire, taking into account also the number likely to be employed in that industry by the year 1975, judging by the Textile Council's report.

  1095
  Dealing with the new town, I would remind the House that in their report on its impact on North-East Lancashire, the consultants said:
  "Even without the New Town, North-East Lancashire will still tend to lose over half its natural growth of population by migration, and with the New Town there will be an additional migration movement of about 10,000–15,000 people out of the region over a 20-year period."
  The Textile Council's report forecasts for the industry as a whole that another 46,000 jobs will be lost by 1975, on top of the 200,000 jobs which have disappeared since 1953. It must be remembered that North-East Lancashire is still very much dependent on the textile industry.
  I now wish to make one or two comments on the Government's specific proposals. In spite of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), I regret that building grants are to be linked to the provision of additional employment. Modernisation of the whole environment is essential if North-East Lancashire is to remain an area of industrial strength. But though modernisation is of the greatest value to an area, very often it does not bring new jobs with it. In North-East Lancashire. for instance, a great deal has been done in recent years to utilise old cotton mills for engineering purposes. One would think that no use could be made of some of the old weaving sheds, yet they have been turned to other useful industrial purposes. The fact remains, however, that if the idea is to improve the whole environment and attract into areas like North-East Lancashire new industry which pays good wages, it is essential to provide new factory premises. We will not get the new factory premises that we want in North-East Lancashire if the Government say that the grant will not be payable unless proof can be presented to the Board of Trade that new jobs will be provided as a result.
  It is a great pity that the Government are not prepared to accept the Hunt recommendations to the extent of providing an 85 per cent. dereliction grant. Like other hon. Members, I find it difficult to understand why the Government are being so cheeseparing. I do not know the estimate of the saving in cost.
  1096
  If there are figures available on which to make such an estimate, I invite the Minister of State to say what it is.
  I find quite incomprehensible the Government's rejection of one of the most fundamental proposals in the Hunt Report, namely, that there should be a complete review of development area policies
  "… to determine the effectiveness of existing measures."
  I cannot understand how it can be argued that the taxpayer is getting value for money when he pays a subsidy of 30s. a week to Ford's at Halewood in respect of each of its workers. The company was not attracted to Halewood by the subsidy, since it was there already, and it would not leave even if it was in the power of the Government to withdraw the regional employment premium tomorrow.
  It appears that money is being wasted in the development areas, and resources could be made available for what is really needed in the grey areas. I have in mind some real improvement in the environment and, while the pilot scheme for urban renewal in Nelson is a start, it is not enough. I have in mind more public investment in the area, there being a marked disparity in terms of public investment per head of the population between the North-West and other regions.
  I have in mind better communications. I remember clearly that at the time of the Nelson and Colne by-election, a great song and dance was made about a new motorway link between North-East Lancashire and the M6. As the months have passed, that promise gradually has been watered down. The latest information is that the Government may have in mind only improvements in the existing roads between North-East Lancashire and the motorway. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman can throw any light on that. It may be unfair to ask him, because it is not really his province. But there is the greatest anxiety in North-East Lancashire about the Government's plans for communications and, like other hon. Members, I feel that there is no better way of resuscitating a declining area than the provision of improved communications.
  I hope that the Bill will do some good. If new life is to be brought to our part of the world, very much more will have

  1097
  to be done, and the Government will have to show rather more urgency than they have in recent years.
  7.50 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Mapp: May I, first, sincerely compliment my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Technology, on his maiden speech, as it were, at the Dispatch Box this afternoon. His delivery was excellent, although in a few moments I shall have to differ from him on some of the things he said. At least, I was delighted to see another North Countryman, the Minister of State, sitting alongside him. I should like to see more of this kind of provincial force in government, and less government of either party dominated by this great city.
  That enables me to pick up a contribution from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn), which met with some disagreement on this side of the House. He postulated that there was a considerable growth of movement of industry in its higher echelons from the provinces, from the point where goods are made, to this city. The only difference that I have with the hon. Member is that he implied that it had been taking place during the last four or five years. It would be wrong if we failed to notice that it has been taking place over a period of more than five years and that it is continuing.
  I want to turn to the problem of the Hunt Report and the Government's recommendations. I belonged to the Lancashire Development Association long before the word "grey" had the connotation that it has today. I was then interested in trying to find out what was happening and why. Long before Hunt and long before other regions awoke to the problems of decay, we in the North-West felt that there was an obvious decline in our primary industries. Secondly, we could see that our social and industrial dereliction was acute because of historical reasons. Thirdly, there was clear evidence that even from 1960, when I made my maiden speech on the Local Employment Bill, what we now know as the development areas were sucking away what growth there might have been, not from the Midlands but from the adjacent areas.
  1098
  The Development Association, with the good will of its members drawn from local government, both sides of industry and both sides of this House, began to evolve certain attitudes of mind. The grey area was born in Lancashire. Some of us quickly realised that its implications were nearly as strong in Yorkshire. I remember the Prime Minister of the then Tory Government seeing the first deputation on this issue about 1962 or 1963. I admit that the answer was not very promising, but at least he recognised what was happening.
  In 1964–65, it was clear that these tendencies in the North-West and in Yorkshire, although less acute, were being accentuated. Strong representations were made through this House and elsewhere for an inquiry. That inquiry was the Hunt Committee which made a very careful analysis and appraisement which, apart from one feature which I did not like, was generally fair, although some of its conclusions were not what I would have liked.
  Let me say candidly why I think that some of its data was wrong. It lumped together—and the Government are so doing—such a place as the Manchester employment area or the Liverpool-Merseyside employment area. This is nearly as bad as talking about the London employment area. When one considers that the Manchester employment area extends from the westernmost part of the hills Saddleworth right across to Leigh, somewhere short of Rossendale, out to Alderley Edge, one appreciates how false such a picture can be when the types and nature of industry have changed throughout. To a great degree that applies equally in the Merseyside area.
  It may be a useful description, but if one wants to understand economically the Manchester area or the Merseyside region, one should not use employment figures, in the Manchester case, relating to one and a quarter million metalworkers. That is "not on". The Hunt Committee did this, and for this reason I believe false conclusions were drawn.
  On 24th April the Minister said that the Government were considering the selection of areas to be given assistance,

  1099
  and it is in this that I am particularly interested. He said:
  "The Government consider that the selection of areas to be given assistance to industry must be governed strictly by criteria of need, especially the level and character of unemployment and numbers of unemployed, the incidence of high net outward migration and the real scope for industrial growth."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th April 1969; Vol. 782, c. 669.]
  I have acted as a link between some 50 Labour Members and the North-West, and so I began to look at this statement with great care. I found that the criteria set out do not sustain the conclusions which the Government have reached. I asked a Question on 9th June and I found from the Answer that if I selected North-East Lancashire's net internal migration the position from 1961 to 1966 represented a loss of 2 per cent. If I looked at my own area of Oldham I found a loss of 5 per cent. The figure for Manchester and Salford gave a loss of 9 per cent.
  If people cannot discern in the Manchester area certain seeds of the older engineering industry, and if they cannot recognise that we have got to regear ourselves to the future, they fail to see the real economic factors. The Government are conceding the case for North-East Lancashire that existed two years ago, but the rate of unemployment and migration and the rate of new industries coming into North Lancashire in the last two years is no worse, and indeed is somewhat better, than in that belt of Lancashire running across from Wigan and the hills. It is that area in which I am substantially interested.
  The case for places like Oldham is made if I use the criterion that the Minister himself used. I noticed that he introduced a new criterion, namely, remoteness. If that is to be a criterion in order to justify some unusual conclusions, that is something that I cannot do. I took the view at the time, and I take it now—I believe it to be true of Hunt and of the Government—that the North-West should not be looked at in this context in terms of industrial help alone.
  The problem in the North-West is decay—generally speaking, environmental, social and economic decay—in the industrial region as a whole. Not until the
  1100
  Government and Hunt are prepared to consider that kind of problem shall we find the right answers. I should have liked to have seen the highest possible figures for dereliction grants for the towns that I have been talking about, including my own.
  But Oldham happens to be the third highest rated borough in the country, with a rate of 18s. in the £. It has helped to furnish itself with welfare services, and has new roads now under construction, that probably has relatively the most acute problem of clearing unfit houses of any borough or town. Our problem is not so much derelict land as environmental dereliction, with ugly old mills. We cannot house people without knocking down unfit property. In the main, we do not have land that has been scarred waiting to be brought into use. Our main problem is clearing away from our scenery old buildings that are now unused, are only partly used, or have only the basement in use.
  Are we to assume that "land" includes buildings? I have a Ministry letter which tells me that in the Ministry's view it does, and I hope that this is the case, though the Bill does not say so. If we assume that it does, how does a local authority manage to get clearance in respect of dereliction? If it comes across an awkward landlord of either land or buildings—and there are awkward industrial landlords across the county; I shall not mention individuals, but one can think of half a dozen at a moment's notice—how does a local authority obtain compulsory powers to deal with ugly environmental decay? There are no powers, apart from those related to buildings which are dangerous by their nature, assuming that the danger is not to trespassers alone, or are unfit because of public health risks.
  We have introduced legislation to deal with unfit residential property, legislation accepted on both sides and refined from time to time. But as far as I know there is no basic legislation giving a local authority, subject to acceptable criteria—even primary criteria, the ability to demonstrate professionally the essential facts about the building decaying, its lack of use and so on, so that they may compulsorily remove it and reclaim the site.
  I may be right and I may be wrong, but I have had some correspondence about

  1101
  this that leaves me quite undecided on whether the legislation quoted in it is adequate. I would not like to vie with the Minister on knowledge of the Yorkshire towns, but I have some knowledge of many of the Lancashire towns. We had a valuable contribution a few minutes ago from my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester). I know Stoke fairly well. Is it a fact that our local authorities are paralysed when dealing with an unwilling landlord, when everyone in the area believes that it is both industrially and socially desirable that buildings or land should be reclaimed for the benefit of the town? If that is so, the Bill should be improved, though there must be fair criteria.
  I hope that the area list that has been published so far is not the final one. I have wondered more and more in the past few months whether our existing machinery for channelling financial help to the development areas is the best that can be devised. I have grave doubt about it. In our debate last week I quoted two firms, and another has been mentioned today. No one will convince me that that great glass firm at St. Helen's and I.C.I. in the North-East are in any way influenced by the grants in respect of development areas. No one will convince me that in preserving the development area status of Merseyside there is any case for affording that concession to the Cheshire side of the river, where there is an area of oil growth and prosperity. We must be a little more discerning.
  Therefore, the Government could well reappraise, without losing sight of the objectives, whether the very costly means now employed could be better and more profitably employed in another form of machinery. If that is done, I think that the problem of the areas between what are now development areas and the more healthy areas can more easily be recognised and helped.
  I close on a note of criticism. Although I welcome the Bill, as it is capable of great improvement, the Government must make up their mind on this problem. For three or four years we have heard of the benefits of blanket development regions—all Scotland, all Wales, all the South-West. If any of us thought about restricting them to the
  1102
  existing industrial areas of those regions, it was alleged that the blanket treatment was better, more flexible, and so on.
  It was not wholly convincing, but if it is considered a convincing argument for the development areas why is not the blanket treatment adopted for the intermediate areas? I do not think that one can sustain the argument on one and then, by criteria that some of us cannot understand, selectively pick out parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire to try to deal with this problem. The policy fails to deal with the position in the great Lancashire belt from Wigan up to the hills, it identifies certain proper areas in Yorkshire, rather than the whole.
  The time is right for us to recognise that if we are to have blanket arguments we cannot at the same time argue selectivity for the intermediate areas. I think that generally the business world, with which I mix unpolitically on problems of this kind across the North West, does not like this selectivity.
  I would like to close by quoting from a document I received in my post this morning from an industrial body, paragraph 6 of which says:
  "The form of assistance proposed for North East Lancashire, whilst welcome in principle, is not particularly appropriate to the problems which that area faces."
  The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) may be interested. I should say that the association which sent this document is non-political, but covers local government, trade unions, the lot, working through a very able director. The document continues:
  "Whilst it is too early to make a final judgment, enquiries received by the association"—
  which deals with thousands of inquiries every year, because it is a focal point for all sorts of industries to make every conceivable inquiry before going to the Ministry—
  "indicate that building grants should not be tied to providing additional employment. Many companies in North East Lancashire are ready to modernise and extend their premises, and need to in order to survive, but only in a few cases will this lead to the extra employment required to qualify for a grant."
  Courtaulds, one of the major firms in the textile industry, argues that in the modernisation of firms in that industry there will be fewer but better-paid jobs, and that there is still a need for the

  1103
  modernisation of mills, and so on. It is an argument to which I and the unions subscribe.
  If there are to be fewer jobs, what incentive is there, even for such firms? What about the 45,000 jobs which we fear will become redundant in the next four or five years? Perhaps the Minister will be able to confirm that the larger proportion of those jobs will not be in the weaving section—which has already suffered loss—but that the biggest danger will lie in the spinning section. That means precisely the area—Bolton, Rochdale, Bury and Oldham—where so far the Government have denied us the possibilities of retraining facilities to deal with the problem.
  I welcome the Bill as a skeleton. The real issue will lie on the Orders-in-Council. I hope that the Government will think about the number of constructive suggestions made from both sides of the House in this debate and that progress will be made with the Bill in Committee.
  8.11 p.m.
  Mr. R. W. Elliott: I have listened with great respect, as always, to the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp) and agree with a great deal of what he says. It is strange in a sense that, when I sat on the Government back benches, I sat where he sits now and stood where he has just been standing and made the sort of speech he has just made, particularly about the doubtful effect of blanket aid to the areas of high unemployment. It is salutary to have heard such a speech from the Government back benches at this time.
  I agree that there are big firms in certain areas which are not influenced at all by development area policy as we have it. The hon. Gentleman mentioned I.C.I. This is the second time that I.C.I. has been mentioned on the benches opposite this week. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) is not here, so I apologise to him in his absence for not being able to give him notice that I would refer to him. I had not intended to mention him. He suggested earlier this week that the great I.C.I. complex in the North-East—where we are glad to have such a big employer—was wasting a good deal of the money forced on it by the Government's policy.
  1104
  It is our contention, certainly mine, coming as I do from a development area, that a great deal of money—and, as the the hon. Gentleman has just said, it is a great deal of money—being poured into development areas might be poured into them to much greater employment effect than it is at present. That is one of our main criticisms of the Government's development area policy. We contend that it has been ineffective as far as the provision of employment is concerned.
  The debates which have anything to do with local employment essentially become parochial. Many hon. Members on both sides have spoken about their own areas. We have just heard a strong and earnest appeal for Oldham. I have taken part in a number of debates over the years on the problems of local employment with particular reference to the North-East. I have said already that I believe Government policy for the development areas to be ineffective at present, and in support of my contention I will quote the present unemployment situation in the North-East.
  In October, there were 61,727 people unemployed in the Northern Region—twice the national average. The North-East is still carrying 9·9 per cent. of our national unemployment although it has only 6 per cent. of the population. There can be no quicker or greater condemnation of the five years of Labour Government development area policy than these hard figures, which are of the greatest concern to all of us with responsibility in the North-East.
  The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) has had to leave, but I told him that I would refer to his speech. It was, as usual, forceful. He referred to the North-East, as well he might. When I was sitting opposite, I remember how often we were told that our measures were ineffective and that we did not plan—which was the greatest criticism from the then Opposition.
  The right hon. Member for Belper, on taking office, headed a new Department of State the recent demise of which is not mourned on this side of the House. And he was responsible for some time for development area policy. He mentioned the North-East, in his usual flowing style and said "that it looks different today." But, swinging round as

  1105
  he said that, his eye fell upon the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. Leadbitter), and he added, "in places", as indeed he might. The hon. Member for The Hartlepools, a conscientious Member, had been waiting to speak in the debate and no doubt, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will catch your eye in due course and might well tell the right hon. Gentleman that there certainly are places in the North-East, including The Hartle-pools, which are considerably concerned at the high and persistent level of unemployment.
  If one were to be ultra-parochial, coming from a development area where the level of unemployment remains at twice the national average, one would have misgivings about the Bill, but I suggest that those of us who do come from development areas with these persistent problems should try to see the picture as a national one and to find out and determine what it is that is causing our high level of unemployment.
  First, I suggest that it is, of course, the failure of the Government to obtain economic growth. If any easing up of the I.D.C. policy is going to aid growth. then let us have it. I would add to what was sensibly stated by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) that the grey areas of today may well become the development areas of tomorrow, and therefore I welcome the Bill, despite the problems which remain in my area.
  There is an obvious great danger to the development areas in themselves by an over-emphasis on them, and if the economy of the country can be improved as a whole and strengthened by assistance to areas, especially those lying on the borders of development areas, then let us have liberalisation of I.D.C. policy.
  I believe that blanket aid is wrong and always has been wrong. I agree with those who have bemoaned the fact that we have too much in the way of "areas". We have development areas, grey areas and intermediate areas. But whether we have grey or development or intermediate or any other sort of areas, let such aid as is available be given where it is most needed. That is no new policy. It is what we advocated when we were on the other side of the House. When we had high unemployment in the North-East
  1106
  it was our policy, based on the sensible suggestions of the Hailsham Report, to concentrate aid where it was most needed. The spreading of the jam thinly has not worked, and it is encouraging to realise that the Government are at last seeing the error of their ways and are gradually, all too slowly, moving towards the encouragement of industry where it is willing to be encouraged.
  I will refer, as have others, to the Hunt Report. Why not have a complete review of development area policy? It has not worked for the past five years. Why should the Hunt recommendation that there should be a complete review not have been accepted? Why not deschedule Merseyside if its problems have been met and overcome? I like to think that I may stand in the House on a future occasion and ask why Tyneside should not be descheduled when its problems have been overcome. If the problems of Merseyside have been overcome, let us have it descheduled.
  In other words, the appeal which I make with the utmost strength at my command is that from now on we should be more realistic, more intelligent and more sensible in our approach to development aid policy. Let us give such aid as is available where it is most needed.
  8.21 p.m.
  Mr. Ted Leadbitter (The Hartle-pools): I am glad to have the opportunity of following the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott). To substantiate a remark which he wanted to make, he referred to the Hunt Report. He did so having declared earlier that Government development area policy had not worked. Paragraph 102 of the report says:
  "We were greatly impressed by the contribution that the government's building of factories has made to renewing the dynamism of the development areas. Many firms who had started in a small way have expanded considerably and there are now several on the estates in England, Wales and Scotland who are each employing many thousands of workpeople."
  That clearly refutes the hon. Gentleman's argument.
  Paragraph 103 says:
  "At the same time as new industry is being attracted to these areas, work is going ahead as rapidly as possible to improve the physical fabric, in particular houses and roads, and to remove dereliction."

  1107
  That, too, supports my argument. These are not my words. They are the words of a carefully thought out and highly responsible report produced after much examination by a body not influenced by any political pressures.
  Finally, to deal with the argument of the hon. Member, I refer to paragraph 104 which says:
  "There are tangible signs of progress. On the basis of the criteria examined in Chapter experience in the development areas appears to have been improving relatively to the rest of the country. Whereas for most of the 1960s total unemployment in the development areas as a whole was at least double the national rate, by mid-December 1968 it stood at 4·1 per cent., compared with 2·3 per cent. for Great Britain. And the 1,000 i.d.c.s approved in 1968 for projects in the development areas were expected to provide 72,000 more jobs in the coming years."
  That makes the point quite clear.
  The hon. Member will agree with me that a Bill of this kind should be examined without the use of the language of the hustings. We must ask ourselves objectively whether the Bill provides an adequate answer, or, if not adequate, the best answer possible within the terms of the country's resources. For decades in the North, in Scotland, on Merseyside, in the greater part of Wales and in the greater part of Cornwall—all now described as development areas—it has been the struggle of Government after Government to resolve the problem of the decay in the basic industries and rising unemployment.
  It has not been the problem just of the Labour Government; it has been the problem of every Government. In the latter 1920s, culminating in the early 1930s, the problem continued, and there is no finality in any kind of solution that may be humanly devised. All we can do is to apply our philosophies to the available material means. I regret that the hon. Member should have expected hon. Members like myself to forget that after many years of power the Conservative Government failed to deal with the problem to any extent.
  Mr. Elliott: I have already quoted the unemployment figure in the Northern Region when we left office. I compared it with the present unemployment figure. How does the hon. Gentleman relate the two to what he has just said?
  Mr. Leadbitter:The answer is simple. The hon. Gentleman referred to the October figure of 61,227. To apply some rationale to the problem, I remind the House that in the last three or four years 37,700 miners have lost their jobs because of pit closures. This is the problem.
  It is the problem of keeping pace in the North-East, of injecting new industries at such a level as to match the decline in the basic industries and at some point to overtake it, to close the gap. It is dishonest to say to the people in the North-East, or in any other development area, "Here is an unemployment figure", and not go beyond that. The figure is what it is because during the last few years we have been dealing, more pertinently than before, with the basic problems of how best to inject new industries to mop up the slack, the unemployed labour, much of which has to be trained, which has resulted from the decline in the basic industries.
  Everyone would agree that we have long since learned that it is not good economics to keep uneconomic pits open. It is good economics to contract the industry to a viable point, so that those left in it have better working conditions and wages structure.
  What have the Government done? Having posed the problem and implied the rate of improvement since the Government took control, I merely have to say that, when we reflect on the rate of decline in the basic industries, which is the main concern in the development areas, we can see that we still have considerably fewer unfilled vacancies than unemployed. So the lesson is that we cannot risk reducing the level of aid. Indeed, if we had the resources, there is a need to increase it. So we should make clear what this aid means.
  With this Bill before us there is the worry that some of our aid to development areas might be creamed off to help the intermediate areas. If we fell into that trap, obviously it would create divisions between development and intermediate areas. If we do not want to create that division, let us put the record straight. The number of advance factories which have been placed in the Northern Region is 75, 59 of which have been made available since the Government came in. The number of job prospects arising from the programme of total

  1109
  aid and advance factories is about 42,300 in the next four years. That is a substantial amount of employment.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Could the hon. Gentleman tell us how many jobs have been produced to date in the advance factories to which he referred, since 1964?
  Mr. Leadbitter: The number of jobs produced in my region from the Government's programme, so far as I can estimate—I am open to correction—is about 78,000 over the last five years.
  The total outlay on industrial inducements in the North to help industry to come in has risen from £78 million in 1967–68 to £105 million in the financial year 1968–69. Here, I agree with the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North and others. It is right that this kind of aid should be examined to see whether we are getting the best value for our money. I agree that there is no finality about the order of the aid. I dispute. however, any argument that aid is not necessary and that we should not rely on Government intervention to resuscitate the general economic life of these areas and, as a consequence, the social life.
  In the Northern Region, I am glad to be able to say that, during the next financial year, the amount of aid for road works alone is about £50 million. Indeed, the present amount of aid for roads in the region is about 20 per cent. of the total public investment.
  I have tried to pinpoint the problem and briefly indicate some of the levels of the aid. I have tried to point out that it is not a good philosophy to introduce arguments which might induce the people in the intermediate areas and those in the development areas to believe that their interests are in conflict. What is important is that we must think in terms of the national prosperity across the board. We have to be elastic in our thinking. We must be able to say that we can shift from one problem to another when we have settled a problem in one area.
  In Hartlepool, we had 12½ per cent. unemployment in 1963–64. It is now about 5 to 5·4 per cent. In real terms, we had over 4,000 people out of work, which is one out of every eight of the working population. Now, that position is different. Indeed, Hartlepool is unique,
  1110
  because the aid and Government support which we have been able to get has placed us, as a town with 100,000 people, with the four sources of power in it, and, more recently, a nuclear power station with a total constructional employment capacity of 2,400 people.
  That, briefly, shows that the Government's policy has been successful. It is a damned sight better than the record of the Conservative Party.
  8.35 p.m.
  Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: Most of the speeches have naturally been made by hon. Members representing the grey areas. More recently we have heard from the hon. Member for The Hartle-pools (Mr. Leadbitter) and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) who, like me, come from development areas. It is right and proper that we should consider the Bill in the light of what it might do for the so-called grey areas and of its possible effect on the areas which have enjoyed the privileges of development area status.
  I wish to raise three points and then to return to what the hon. Member for The Hartlepools said about the general philosophy of regional development. First, I wish to say a few words about something in the Bill, secondly about something which should be in the Bill and then deal briefly with the general philosophy behind the Bill.
  As to what is in the Bill, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds. North-East (Sir K. Joseph), I welcome the decision to abolish the selective employment premium in the development areas. I regard the selective employment tax as an abomination, and anything which is done to diminish it is to be welcomed. But there is one aspect of the application of the selective employment premium in an area which has benefited which is overlooked, and that is the appallingly distorting effect of the pyramid of subsidies which are given on a poll basis to those industries which happen to have attracted the blessing and favour of Kaldor and denied to those which did not receive that blessing and favour.
  In an area like mine, the incidence of the regional employment premium, of the S.E.T. repayment and S.E.T. premium in one firm which happens to be just

  1111
  over the line and therefore for some obscure reason regarded as a manufacturing industry when compared with another firm which may be doing virtually the same thing—I think, for instance, of the baker's shop which bakes its own bread and the baker's shop which does not—one finds the most fantastic distortions which vitiate all good economic sense. Therefore, anything done to reduce these distortions is to be welcomed very much. As one who represents a development area, I entirely endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East said on that aspect of the Bill.
  Secondly, I wish to refer to the rejection of the Hunt Committee's recommendation that the bottom limit on industrial development certificates should go up to 10,000 sq. ft. This was justified by the Government on the ground that it was an essential safeguard for the development areas. I question that. When the right hon. Gentleman who is now Minister without Portfolio was approached by the chambers of commerce in July about the Government's decision to reject the Hunt Committee's recommendation, he wrote back on 8th July saying that the Government
  "did not 'summarily reject' the Hunt Committee's views on the industrial development certificate control. We gave very careful consideration to these views and we have made some changes in the arrangements".
  The Hunt Report was published on 24th April. On that day the Minister announced that the Committee's recommendation about lifting the ceiling on I.D.C.s had been rejected. The implication of the decision to reject the recommendation is defensible only on the ground that there are many small firms with factories of between 5,000 and 10,000 sq. ft. which could be expected to move to a development area if they were subjected to I.D.C. control but would stay put if they were not. I find this very hard to believe indeed. The scale of factory we are talking about is not, I would submit, of a type very likely to move from, say, the South of England or the Midlands to Scotland or the North of England at all. The factories which would be affected by I.D.C.s, to move to a development area, are the much bigger ones which would not be affected by the change in the system of
  1112
  control which the Hunt Committee recommended.
  Furthermore, any of us who talk with businessmen up and down the country, in development areas and outside development areas, would not easily accept the Government's argument that the I.D.C. system of control is always applied in a flexible manner. I was talking to a businessman the other day who had to operate his enterprise and try to make a profit by running four small factories in a region of 10 square miles because he could not get I.D.C. permission to bring them together to make a viable unit of them. This is the sort of thing which brings the whole I.D.C. system into contempt, and I am very dubious about the basic proposition of the I.D.C. system, which is that, in the last analysis, the gentleman in Whitehall knows best.
  Finally, I want to say a word about the whole philosophy of development area policy. The Hunt Committee recommended time and again that the Government should conduct a thorough-going review of the whole system of development area assistance, and it is high time that the Government agreed to do this, because there is accumulating evidence that we are misdirecting our efforts and wasting our funds. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have laid great stress on the progress which has been achieved in the development areas. I was seeking to intervene in the Minister of State's speech to point out—because I do not know whether he is really aware of it—that over the past four years of this system there has been a net loss of 60,000 male jobs in Scotland alone. A net loss, and this is the result of all the money which has been poured into development area assistance over these years.
  Of course, it may be argued—it is argued, and it will be argued—that this loss would have been greater without these forms of assistance. I am not altogether convinced that even this is true, because the first thing which any incoming firm looks for, and one knows this because it comes out from one questionnaire after another, is the availability of labour. This is the fundamental point, and more important than the assistance which the firm is offered, or an advance factory. The first thing the firm wants to know is whether the labour is there. Fortunately, in my area we have not had a significant

  1113
  level of unemployment over the years, and the fact that we have been turned into a development area has not brought one single additional firm which was not there when we were outwith the former development district.
  Furthermore, we ought to look very seriously at the extent to which the various systems of development assistance have been concentrated on the capital-intensive industries. The Minister of State knows quite well, of course, of Professor Brown's comment on this in the Hunt Report, and I think it deserves serious study. I am waiting with great interest to hear how he replies to the points made by his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) the other evening, because I think they are of great significance. I interrupted my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) to point out that we in Scotland are in prospect of an allocation of investment grants amounting, perhaps, to a sum in excess of £70,000 for every job created. This is in the instance of the petro-chemical plant which Grampian Chemicals apparently intend to build at Invergordon.
  I have no doubt that the Minister of State will say that there will be ancillary industries coming in to improve the ratio between the jobs created and the investment grants involved. This is extremely doubtful in a petro-chemical plant, and the Minister is under an obligation to explain much more clearly to the House than has been done to date how the Government expect to justify expenditure on this scale which, if no less than three petro-chemical plants are established in Scotland in the next few years, as is now suggested, will involve investment grants of £50 million or more and create perhaps 1,000 jobs, if we are lucky. This is expenditure gone absolutely mad and it is vitally necessary to look once more at the whole system of development area incentives. My own preference, as I have said before, is for a simple system of a regionally differentiated payroll tax. If we had that, I would be in favour of the abolition of the entire system of investment grants, which is now becoming almost an abuse. We certainly need a thorough-going review and should not regard the Bill as a substitute for that.
  8.48 p.m.
  Mr. George Lawson: The hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) always strikes me as a strange representative to come from that area. One would almost think that he had another idea of where the Invergordon development should take place. When representatives from that area came here urging such a development, did he then oppose it? One cannot talk about forms of development in terms of how much it costs to produce a job. One certainly cannot think about the development in Invergordon in terms of how much it takes to produce a job there. One has to think in terms of what the nation requires. The nation requires the product that will come from Ivergordon. It is a very expensive product to produce and the decision had to be taken where the development should go. This development would not have taken place without intervention by the Government, and it was therefore sensible for the Government to decide where it should be, not just in terms of how many jobs it produced but whether it was sensible in the interests of the nation.
  It is a mistake to talk about development policy in the terms in which much of the argument has been conducted today. It is not a question, as my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Derek Page) said, of poor areas helping not so poor areas, but of making the best use of the nation's resources, and by doing so to see that too many people do not pack themselves into the overcrowded parts of the country.
  The hon. Member for South Angus sneeringly spoke about the gentleman from Whitehall knowing best. What has led to the shaping of the location of industry? It certainly has not been the gentleman from Whitehall who pulled so much industry down to the South-East and the Midlands.
  The problems with which we are dealing were not generated by the gentleman in Whitehall. It is the gentleman in Whitehall, acting for the House, who is trying to find an answer to problems which have been produced as a result of leaving industry to do as industry felt best. The derelict areas are products of industry being left to do as it pleased. This is the kind of difficulty which has confronted us all our lives. The area

  1115
  from which I came and the area which I represent would have been derelict if industry had been left to itself. The area depended almost wholly on coal and steel. The coal industry has virtually disappeared. Two or three pits are left. This was a great centre of the coal-producing industry in Scotland. Had it not been for Government intervention the steel industry in my area would have been in a very bad way.
  Had it not been for industry coming into Lanarkshire—to a large extent American industry—attracted by the policies which for a long time we have been advocating from this side of the House, and which we have been carrying out from this side of the House, this would have been a dreary and desolate area. As it is, the area is alive. It has not solved all its problems, but it is on the way to becoming once again one of the most important industrial areas in the United Kingdom and of benefit to the United Kingdom as a whole.
  But it could not and would not have happened had it been left to the private enterprise people of whom the hon. Member for South Angus has such a high opinion. It required and requires the gentleman from Whitehall. We should be very thankful indeed, and Scotland should be very thankful indeed, for the intervention by the Government from London, because if Scotland had been left to the Scots—and I am a Scot, although I doubt whether the hon. Member for South Angus is a Scot—it would have been a poor lookout indeed for us. We are benefiting from this type of intervention.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I assure the hon. Member that I am a Scot.
  Mr. Lawson: The hon. Member does not talk like a Scot. I do not think he has spent much of his life in Scotland. But that is by the way.
  May I ask him what would have been the position of Dundee if immediately after the war the first Labour Government had not actively pursued a policy of encouraging industry into the area? What would Dundee have done without the modern industries which are there now as a result of the action of the gentlemen from Whitehall or the Government from London? Where would the
  1116
  jute industry be today? Where would Dundee be if it had only the jute industry? Indeed, it would not have had the jute industry. Where would South Angus be with virtually a desolate Dundee?
  The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Michael Shaw) was much more moderate in his approach. I remind him that we are engaged—not we alone, because this is true of most industrial countries, who all have the same kind of problem—in dealing with the difficulty which arises from the fact that certain areas are more attractive to private enterprise than are other areas and that if we left private enterprise to its own devices, it would move only to the attractive areas.
  This is true of Italy, of the United States and of other countries to a greater or lesser degree. It is only within the last few years that Governments have begun to work out policies to meet this kind of problem and if we have not found the exact answer, if we have not the refinement of selectivity which perhaps we need, that is not to be wondered at, because these are new policies for Governments—and not just the British Government—which involve intervening in this way.
  We are thankful that it has developed. No one except the hon. Member for South Angus challenges the conception that Governments have a responsibility for the location of industry. I do not argue that all these actions are right. I argue that the principle must be applied. I support the Bill, because I was afraid that there would be too much pressure, even from my hon. Friends, to give away too much.
  An hon. Member who comes from the grey areas will naturally argue from the point of view of the grey areas, but the development has been such that peripheral areas have suffered most. Industry has been sucked into the centre. Bits and pieces near the centre need assistance. If assistance is taken too far, the same pattern can be seen over the whole scene and then areas nearer the centre will benefit most from a low- or medium-pitched policy. We must be discriminating. We must weigh the odds. Certain areas, not because of any deficiency in their people, but because of their distance from big population centres at this time,

  1117
  need something to be loaded in their favour, in the nation's interests.
  The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) said that the policy has not succeeded. I say that it is succeeding. I am critical of some aspects of my own Government's activities, but on this aspect I give them full support. They have done much that has transformed areas which otherwise would become increasingly derelict. There is now new life in such areas. If we were to let up now, the situation would quickly revert to that from which we wish to escape.
  Job opportunities for boys was a yardstick which my colleagues and I applied when we were in Opposition to show how our areas were being treated less favourably than other areas. In 1959, for every 100 boys out of work in the South-East there were 205 registered unfilled vacancies. In the Midlands there were 250 unfilled vacancies for every 100 boys out of work. In Scotland there were 17 vacancies for every 100 boys out of work. The situation has changed since then, but Scotland is still not in the favourable position that applies in London and the South-East. In April of this year, for every 100 boys out of work in Scotland there were 95 unfilled vacancies. There is still a great gap between the areas. if we were to let up on this policy now, the real gains which have been made might be dissipated. The changes that are being wrought in those areas are quite outstanding, and they are being wrought because of Government action. Speaking as a Scot, born, bred and reared in the area, I say that we must be very grateful to a Government based on London for pursuing policies which are now so beneficial to those areas that I and many of my colleagues represent.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I should like to add my humble congratulations to the Minister of State on finding himself for the first time dealing with these matters from the Treasury Bench, and on his speech this afternoon. It is an equally pleasant duty to congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) on his maiden speech. It is immensely brave of him to venture into the fray in his first week, and I know that his constituents will appreciate that quality of cour-
  1118
  age he has shown. We were all impressed by what we heard, and it will be a pleasure to the House to hear him on future occasions.
  To some extent I am a maiden, at least in relation to this present subject, although I must confess to being considerably tarnished in relation to speaking from this Front Bench. I hope that I will be forgiven for not having spent many years studying the background legislation and history of the subject.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) adjured us not to have a philosophical wind-up. I will do my best to avoid that, though I feel that one must be extremely careful about winding up anything on the 5th of November. It is a dangerous day in this place. So, if I stray into the philosophical, I hope that I may be forgiven.
  The Bill has received a general if rather lukewarm welcome in most quarters of the House. It seems to have grown out of development area boundary policy in the past. It was because boundaries were drawn that boundaries problems arose which have had to be tackled, though belatedly. It has already been shown that drawing new boundaries for these new areas will cause more problems in the future, because as soon as we draw up one boundary we set up a further problem just over it. The hon. Members for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth) and for King's Lynn (Mr. Derek Page) have already expressed disappointment at not being included, and I believe that Sheffield and the south-west of England are also aggrieved at being left out of the Measure's benefits.
  There is a danger, if we go on like this, of ending with a map so covered with shades varying from black to mid-grey and pale grey, and of such a complicated pattern, that no one will know to what they are entitled in which area, and which areas are getting whiter, and which darker. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) was right to draw attention to this aspect. We already have special development areas, development areas, intermediate areas and areas where grant can be claimed for derelict land. I wonder how many more there will be in 10 years' time?

  1119
  My hon. and learned Friend illustrated the point in what one might call a physical rather than a geographical way. He said that we already have a larger number of magnets pulling employment, factories and people in different directions, and that if we go on we will need to add more magnets in order to counteract the pull of those already existing. We are setting up such a complicated pattern of firms, employment and industry being pulled in all sorts of directions, that one wonders whether we shall not get into the position where we need to simplify the whole thing and make it more flexible.
  It is a source of some small credit to my right hon. Friend's that the powers in this Bill are very much based on the sort of Local Employment Act, 1960, powers which they brought in and which have proved their worth anyway in terms of value for money. It is interesting that in the extension of the policy it is the sort of Tory measures of 1960 which have been brought forward and the measures which the Government tried themselves, such as the selective employment premium, which have been rescinded for the measures in this Bill. There is room for more progress on that promising road which we hope to encourage the Government to tread.
  It is only fair to congratulate the Government on bringing in a Bill which ostensibly will save £10 million a year, according to the Financial Memorandum. That must be a unique event and one that we are glad about. I do not intend to talk about Committee points because we shall come to them in Committee on the Bill, but we should like to have an explanation from the Minister of State as to what Clause 1(3) means. Several hon. Members have asked about that. It would be useful if the hon. Gentleman could give his reasoning why the Government have not accepted the Hunt recommendation that grants should not be tied to jobs. It would be useful if the hon. Gentleman would spend a few minutes on that.
  As to industrial development certificates, it is only fair to put the other side of the equation. There is growing concern in the Midlands and south of London as to the effect that the present system of using industrial development certificates is having there. Interesting work
  1120
  has been done of a reputable character pointing out the sort of anomalies where-by firms have to rebuild on their own site because their factories are worn out and out of date. They need to get industrial development certificates to do so, but in many cases they are not granted. Many firms feel that they have to stay in the Midlands conurbation, but they can do so only by purchasing another business and purchasing the plant arising therefrom.
  There is also a growing problem because in many parts of the country there are ambitious development plans which are not being matched by the granting of industrial development certificates. To quote a parochial example, the town of Cirencester has grown since the war from a population of 8,000 to 13,000 and is expected to reach 20,000 by 1981. It has all its development plans approved at all levels and 3,600 new jobs will be needed, but we cannot get an industrial development certificate by hook or by crook. It does not make sense to plan to double large towns in the South and the Midlands if industrial development certificates are not forthcoming. One or other of those two policies must give if there is to be success.
  It might be wrong to raise the ceiling for I.D.C. approvals from 5,000 to 10,000 sq. ft. and there are obviously many firms which can easily be detached from the Midlands conurbation and sent to other parts of the country, but the counterpart of accepting that is that the policy must be operated much more flexibly so that in those cases where it makes no industrial sense at all to detach an industry, that industry is not detached.
  I return to my right hon. Friend's point that it is necessary for firms to have a better knowledge of the sort of considerations which govern the granting of I.D.C.s. It is very difficult for a firm to know whether to stay put and expand, to move to a development district, to go out of business altogether, or to move to a foreign country, unless it has a reasonable means of telling whether an I.D.C. will be granted. It would be of the greatest help to the Midlands and the South-East—which are the areas making the sacrifices in order to make the policy work—to have more carefully laid down criteria by which I.D.C.s are granted.

  1121
  So far as there is a charge against the Government, it rests on the proposition that in their development area policy they have been spending money wastefully in many directions while neglecting to expand some parts of their programme which would be highly beneficial. We have not been getting value for money. The fact came out in a number of speeches, some of them from the benches opposite, that there has been no analysis of what the policy is costing. It is all very well for the Government to say that it is difficult to estimate what is the cost per job and what expenditures are attributable to which jobs. We must have more analysis.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) asked some very pertinent questions about the capital account. What is the capital cost per job of some of these more expensive schemes? I have estimated that the total expenditure on investment grants, on average, runs at about £2,000 or £2,500 per job. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) has been the eminence grise throughout the debate, and I was delighted to see him in the Chamber just now. He has been saying that in his area the figure of £20,000 is reached from time to time. My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) spoke of a possible figure of £70,000 per job in Invergordon. Clearly such figures are uneconomic. Public money should not be spent on a scale like that. The argument of Professor Brown and many others that we are beginning to subsidise indiscriminately the highly capital-intensive industries without any knowledge of the effect that they will have on employment has to be taken to heart.
  The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West made the other point that many of these capital projects will take place, anyway. Quite often, they are unattractive to the environment in that they pollute the atmosphere and spoil the amenities. An oil refinery or a chemical works is extremely unpleasant to have to live near. Very often, a highly capital-intensive investment will replace previously existing jobs by causing other plants to close.
  It should not be part of development area policy to seek to attract the most
  1122
  highly capital-intensive plants, for all the reasons that I have given plus the overwhelming one that it will provide the least number of jobs. We want modern growing industries which are not all that capital-intensive, which are expanding and which use a large labour force, concerned with commodities like motor cars, aero engines, electronics, computers and so on, and what I have said underlines the need for a more flexible approach, rather than using this blanket weapon of the 40 per cent. investment allowance right across the board.
  If we take it further—and it was not I who first took it further—one goes beyond considering industry and cost per job. The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) talked about changing the philosophy of life. I thought he was trying to bring in the life and the soul, about which the Labour Party now boasts. He was trying to change the soul of Belper, and not just the life. All these things are relevant. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West has talked about bringing in universities in the North. Roads are also very vital. The most vital thing of all is communications. There are airports, cultural facilities—all sorts of things which go beyond industry per se.
  I thought that perhaps the most important point of all was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn). He said that what is really retarding the feeling of growth and independence is often the fact that no decisions of any importance are taken in the development areas and that more and more the decisions are taken in London, so that people who are ambitious, who want to get on and operate the levers of power gravitate to London because that is where the decisions speak. This argument is very powerful. The only answer to it is that we must devolve and cease to have a society where all the decisions are taken at the centre, and have such things as capital markets so that people can take capital decisions in relation to the market and not in relation to the Department of Economic Affairs and its successor. The only answer is to get away from Socialism, State planning and central control. It is a serious accusation that the movement towards Socialism has caused the centralisation of decision

  1123
  taking which in its turn has weakened the regions as a whole.
  The Government made a fatal mistake. They found that the subsidy through Government grants was tending to encourage capital-intensive industry and so, instead of correcting that, they decided to subsidise wages as well. They set up the regional employment premium. It is really a case of throwing good money after bad. The effects of it have been discussed very much in the debate today.
  I should like to make one comment about the way in which this decision was handled. It was brought forward in a Green Paper which was discussed by all and sundry, debated at length and condemned almost universally. Very few bodies supported the regional employment premium. The condemnation in this House—I sat through the debate and was not able to catch your predecessor's eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker—was pretty severe and universal. Nevertheless, they went ahead and brought it in for seven years. So, they have only themselves to blame, and there really is no getting away from the fact that this has been one of the biggest wastes of money, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Michael Shaw) said, that we have had for a long time.
  If I may be excused for doing so, I have taken the average wage, which is now about £23 10s., and worked out what are the overheads or subsidies on labour at the present time. In a service industry they are working out at a 15 per cent. tax; that is, National Insurance, industrial training, redundancy and the selective employment contribution. In a manufacturing industry not in a development area the tax is about 7 per cent. on an average wage. In a manufacturing industry in a development area it is a subsidy of 1·5 per cent. After this Bill has become law and the 7s. 6d. disappears, it will go up to a tax of 1·6 per cent. because of the 7s. 6d. disappearing.
  I say this to the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Derek Page) who complains that he gets no benefit from the Bill in East Anglia and that his is already a low-wage area: most of the employees in the South-West and East Anglia tend to be in service industries. There is not very much manufacturing capacity in
  1124
  these regions. So low-wage people are asked to pay a tax of 15 per cent. on wages in order to subsidise areas in which, very often, there is considerable manufacturing capacity. This is an added grievance which, I think, the hon. Gentleman could have expressed over and above his complaint that there are no measures of special assistance for him.
  Mr. George Brown: The hon. Gentleman said that low-wage people have to pay an added tax of 15 per cent. That is not true. He is trying to prove that manufacturers have to pay. But low-wage people do not pay an added tax of 15 per cent., and it is stupid to say so.
  Mr. Ridley: I accept the right hon. Gentleman's correction. I meant to refer to employers of low-wage people.
  Mr. Brown: Quite different, is it not?
  Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing out that I made a slip in words, though I think that the point was clear and not even he could believe that I thought that the tax was paid by the employee.
  Mr. Darling: But that was the impression.
  Mr. Ridley: It was not at all the impression which I wished to create, though it may have been the impression which some hon. Members hoped that I might be thought to wish to create.
  It cannot be escaped that employers of labour in the low-wage areas are being taxed up to 15 per cent. on their wage bills in order to subsidise areas where wages are much better. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] The regional employment premium has several undesirable effects. It costs £100 million a year. It benefits a large number of industries and businesses which probably do not need it, and a lot of it probably finds its way into dividends and share prices as a result. It has as one effect the keeping of businesses and industries going which in many cases will probably never be viable again. There is, as it were, an industrial pension effect about it which is most unsatisfactory.
  There is a problem here which the next Government, whoever it may be, will have to face. There are quite a number of businesses now which probably would not be in existence in their present form and doing what they are doing if it were

  1125
  not for the regional employment premium. As my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby said, these continuing blanket subsidies will only store up trouble for the future, and there is a great deal to be said for using the money in a more selective and flexible fashion.
  Why do firms go to a particular development area or grey area? Apparently, not because of low wages. If it were so, they would flock to East Anglia, the South-West and other areas where low wages might be payable. It appears not to be due to the capital subsidies, the investment grants of 40 per cent. Many of these projects would take place anyway. We have, perhaps, created some bias whereby these firms are moving to development areas, but the help in employment terms is not great.
  Clearly, the availability of labour is one of the main factors. As my hon. Friends have argued, and as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) himself said, where labour becomes available it is easy to attract new industries. So one can discern that this may well be one of the major considerations in the mind of firms looking for somewhere to go or to expand.
  Second, communications. The present Government have expanded communications. They could be expanded still further. They are vital for attracting new industry, and we shall push ahead with that work.
  Third, environment. My hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Clitheroe (Sir Frank Pearson), were explicit on the need to improve the appearance of the regions, to remove dereliction and old pit heaps, to tidy up the scars of the Industrial Revolution. This may well be as important as, if not more important than, the sort of blanket subsidies which we have been discussing.
  Mr. Darling: But the Tories did nothing about that.
  Mr. Ridley: We believe that there should be a study of the effects of these big subsidies, to see what is causing improvements and what are the bottlenecks holding up improvements. We are not alone in thinking this. The Hunt Committee advocated without any doubt the need to do a cost-benefit study
  1126
  into the results of all the policies which are at work. The British Industry Week of 24th October had an article on the subject which was not very favourable to either side of the House, but it was absolutely adamant that it is necessary now to pause and discover the effect of the various subsidies and policies we are employing. The present Minister without Portfolio on 25th June seemed to go some way towards acknowledging the need for an investigation into the cost-benefit ratio of all these different elements of subsidy.
  So again I press the Minister to tell us that he will agree to set up inquiries into the cost-benefit of each of the various forms of subsidy we have, and to make certain that we do not go on spreading the money thickly everywhere in the hope that some of it is in the right place, and that we find means of identifying more carefully what we need to do, what is the best value for money, and how we should proceed.
  I have been studying Labour's "Economic Strategy". I wish I could give the document a great deal of publicity, because it would be the greatest possible help to my party. I find in the document a proposal for
  "… new public enterprise as an instrument of regional development policy. This figured prominently in 'Signposts for Scotland', which stressed that if private concerns are not prepared to go where they are needed public undertakings will be established."
  Hon. Members:Hear, hear.
  Mr. Ridley: Hon. Gentlemen opposite may well cheer, but it is not in the Queen's Speech, it is not in the Bill, and as far as I know it is not in the Government's programme. I want to ask the Minister an innocent question or two about it. When are we to have the proposals to set up a public corporation or State holding company to go into the development regions and set up factories for the sake of providing employment? How much are they expected to lose in the process? How will they find the capital to finance these operations? Can we be told how much taxes will rise to pay both for those losses and the capital investment to be made in them? Is it the proposal that the State should start manufacturing all sorts of things in the development regions, whether or not it pays to do so? Will it be done at a

  1127
  loss for the sake of providing employment, and is it the idea that these factories should be subsidised by the consumers or the taxpayer?
  This element of the policy of the party opposite has always been hanging around in the background, but it never crystallises and comes into any firm form. We should be grateful if the Minister would tell us why not.
  The Bill is generally to be welcomed, although there are many points which will need to be raised in debate. We have had a good, wide-ranging debate over the whole of the policy for employment in the regions, and the House has contributed in a thoughtful mood to improving the policy that the Government are pursuing.
  9.29 p.m.
  The Minister of State (Mr. T. W. Urwin): With my close personal involvement in regional affairs over the past 19 months, I can reasonably claim to know something about the less prosperous areas of this country. The problems of unemployment, slow growth, high outward migration and environmental decay and dereliction are not confined to the development areas, although their economic problems are still the more severe. This is why they will continue to enjoy a large margin of preference over other areas in the matter of assistance to industry.
  These are questions of which I have had first-hand experience. I know that areas outside the development areas must face the consequences of older industries in decline and live with the physical legacies of the first Industrial Revolution I am delighted, therefore, to be replying to a debate on a Bill to provide assistance to such areas.
  Hon. Members have ranged widely during the debate on such subjects as air pollution, new towns, housing, transport and defence establishments, all of which I accept are of keen regional interest. But I trust that the House will understand if I address myself to the issues which hon. Members have raised concerning this very important Bill.
  Some hon. Members have questioned the basis on which the Government have selected the areas proposed for intermediate assistance. As my hon. Friend
  1128
  the Minister of State said earlier, the Government decided against spreading limited resources over the whole of the North-West and Yorkshire and Humberside Regions and decided, instead, that it would be right to concentrate assistance to industry on a strictly limited number of smaller areas.
  The selection of these areas was governed strictly by criteria of need, especially the level and character of unemployment and of the numbers of unemployed, the incidence of high net outward migration and the real scope for industrial growth. There are, of course, other indicators of the economic circumstances of an area. One of these is low earnings, to which my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Derek Page) referred. But I must emphasise that the Government look at the prospects and needs of a locality as a whole. We are concerned with priorities.
  Mr. George Brown: Is my hon. Friend saying that areas announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister without Portfolio when he was Secretary of State for Economic Affairs are enshrined—that they are not changeable?
  Mr. Urwin: I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown) will allow me to deal with that point later.
  Hon. Members have asked whether we can give reassurance that the proposed coverage of intermediate areas will be reviewed in, say, a year's time. I do not think that it would be a good idea to give such an assurance since it would tend to lead firms to delay decisions as the review date was approaching. Nevertheless, I most certainly assure the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper that we shall keep the list of areas already announced—indeed, all areas—under the closest scrutiny.
  Many hon. Members, have drawn attention to the problems of those areas outside development and intermediate areas which have particular problems yet for which no additional direct assistance to industry is proposed. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn forcefully presented the problems of rural areas such as North Norfolk. There is, as the Hunt Committee noted, a real problem in the question of low earnings

  1129
  in that area, as in others. Here I would join in the tributes paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) on his very attractive maiden speech. He, too, referred to the problem of low earnings.
  In the North Norfolk area, the root problem there, as in others, is the decline in the number of people employed in agriculture. I assure the House that the Government will keep a close watch on these problems, but we are bound to agree with the Hunt Committee that it would not be realistic to try to reverse population trends in these areas by a major diversion of industry there. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology will continue to operate a liberal I.D.C. policy in those areas for projects which are not steerable to development areas, intermediate areas or overspill areas.
  In relation to the future development of rural areas, the Government agree with the East Anglian Economic Planning Council and the Hunt Committee that their problems can best be overcome by the concentration of resources and opportunities in a few well-chosen locations.
  Other hon. Members have drawn attention to the problems of areas which are near development or intermediate areas, but on the wrong side of the boundary. My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper was the first to do so. The Government fully recognise that there are problems and that some localities suffer from this shadow effect. But in any pattern of regionally differentiated assistance boundary problems will inevitably occur and it is our belief that the introduction of intermediate and derelict land clearance areas will achieve some mitigation of the problems which arose with a sharper distinction between assisted and non-assisted areas.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth) asked for an assurance that the Ministry of Technology would not seek to persuade firms in areas near to intermediate and development areas to move from their present locations. It will not be the Ministry of Technology's policy, and nor was it the policy of the Board of Trade before, to encourage such movement, but if firms wish to move in that way the Govern-
  1130
  ment will give them such advice and financial assistance as are appropriate. This we would be bound to do under the terms of the legislation.
  Mr. Mapp: The Minister of State said that in the preliminary advice by the Department to industrialists seeking alternative areas and premises there will be no encouragement to go to intermediate areas. Are they not first encouraged to go to the development areas and, in the North-West, if they do not take the advice need they go? Will not the Department be encouraging firms in one part of Lancashire to go to other parts of Lancashire?
  Mr. Urwin: I have already said specifically that it will not be the responsibility or practice of the Ministry of Technology to encourage firms to move from one side of a boundary to another to gain access to the benefits which will be made available, but one cannot stop them.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is obviously not giving way.
  Mr. Urwin: I have dealt with the points fairly.
  Mention has also been made of the problem of individual localities within more prosperous areas.
  Mr. Darling: On a point of order. I am sorry to raise this, but the Minister of State has said that it has been the practice to do certain things in regard to the distribution of industrial development certificates, and so on. I know from my experience that this is not entirely true and I should be very glad if the Minister would explain just what he is doing.
  Mr. Speaker: That is most ingenious, but it is not a point of order.
  Mr. Urwin: I have already referred to the policy which is being and will be pursued by the Ministry of Technology and which was pursued by the Board of Trade, and I do not retract one word of what I have said; it is absolutely true.
  Hon. Members have mentioned the problems of individual localities within the more prosperous areas, localities which, for one reason or another, do not share in the prosperity of the surrounding locality. The Government recognise the variety of conditions even within regions

  1131
  which, overall, must be said to be highly buoyant, but in the last resort we are concerned with priorities. The supply of new employment is not unlimited, as the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) acknowledged. For the present, therefore, we have to give top priority to the development areas which, taken as a whole, have the most pressing need for new jobs.
  Now we have recognised a variety of other areas which, while their problems are not as severe as those of the development areas, do nevertheless give some cause for concern. We now accord a degree of priority to these, but if we are to correct the regional imbalances which have so long existed in the country, we cannot spread the incentives too widely without loss of impact in areas of greatest need.
  A number of hon. Members tonight have expressed concern about the effect of intermediate areas on the development areas and at the loss by development area firms of part of the selective employment premium. Let me say right away that I understand this concern: indeed, as Minister with special responsibilities for the Northern Region, I know all too well the problems which development areas face and the anxieties that there should be no slackening in the rate of progress which has already been achieved.
  The Government have, however, made it clear that they intend to maintain a large margin of preference in assistance to industry in the development areas. The value of this preferential assistance is currently running at about £265 million a year. Equally, we are resolved to maintain pressure on firms in the congested areas to locate expansions where there are unused resources, and I am confident that this policy will ensure continuing progress in the development areas. But it has to be recognised that, since 1966, the decline of employment in traditional industries has hit areas outside the development areas and that problems, for instance, high net outward migration, have manifested themselves in those areas.
  It was because we believed it right to avoid spreading limited resources too widely that we felt unable to accept the Hunt Committee's recommendation of automatic assistance over new broad
  1132
  areas. Instead, we felt it right to concentrate assistance on the places of greatest need and, although their problems might be different, to apply the same measures in all of them.
  The Government believe that the availability in the intermediate areas of certain of the development area measures of assistance will maintain the right balance as between the development and intermediate areas, yet avoid a complex pattern of assistance that would be confusing to industry.
  A good deal has been said today about the employment link and cost per job I must make it clear that it is only the assistance given under Local Employment Acts to firms in the development areas which is employment-related. Under these Acts, the Minister of Technology is required to have regard to the relation between the expenditure involved and the employment likely to be provided. The Bill applies this provision to the exercise of the Minister's powers in the new intermediate areas.
  A ceiling is set on the value of the Local Employment Act assistance which may be given for each job expected to result. These limits on the maximum—
  Mr. R. W. Elliott: Will the hon. Gentleman recognise that what he has just announced means that, so far as the amelioration of the situation in East Lancashire, consequent on the closure of many cotton mills, is concerned, the Bill will be practically valueless.
  Mr. Urwin: I cannot possibly accept what the hon. Gentleman says.
  These limits on the maximum cost per job of employment-linked assistance are confidential; to publish them might encourage applicants in borderline cases to inflate their estimates of the additional employment to be provided by a project and thus make the task of assessing the reliability of these estimates more difficult.
  But I must emphasise that figures in the range of £20,000 a job are quite unrealistic. Assistance under the Local Employment Acts between 1st April, 1960, and 31st March, 1969, excluding offers declined, involved an average commitment of £637 for each job expected to be created. The corresponding average for 1968–69 alone was £731.
  Dr. Jeremy Bray: Would my hon. Friend make it clear—
  Mr. Urwin: When I have finished this. My hon. Friend has attempted to intervene, and understandably so.
  I want to address myself to the references made to my hon. Friend's remarks in the debate on Monday night. He was then talking about investment grants. The figures which I have quoted relate to the Local Employment Act and are the only ones which are directly job related. But investment grants to development areas at the rate of 40 per cent. are not specifically linked to employment. That is not to say that they do not assist in the provision of new jobs. Quite clearly, they do; they must. But the industrialist is not required to undertake to provide a given number of jobs before he qualifies for grant in the same way as he is required to do in terms of the Local Employment Act assistance.
  Investment grants are given at 40 per cent. in development areas to encourage new investment in those areas and to improve the productivity and competitiveness of development area firms. The development areas need new jobs; that is beyond dispute. Even the Opposition Front Bench spokesmen acknowledge this fact. But they need them quickly. They also need their share of modern science-based industry, much of whose investment is capital-intensive.
  There is some inconsistency among hon. Members opposite who criticise the automatic nature of investment grants in development areas and yet, at the same time, want the Government to give automatic building grants in the intermediate areas regardless of the jobs which might or might not be created and might even be reduced.
  I have been asked by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East—
  Mr. Ridley: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the question of the capital cost per job, he has not denied that it is possible that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) is right when he says that some jobs have been provided at £20,000 apiece due to the automatic operation of investment grants. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that figure as likely to be right?
  Mr. Urwin: I cannot accept that it is right if only because it does not take into account the creation of an asset held in perpetuity which will continue to provide jobs long after the initial expenditure has been made.
  Dr. Bray: Would my hon. Friend give way, since he has flatly denied my point? I can quote a number of specific instances—the Monsanto plant, the No. 5 Olefine plant, at Wilton, and the Grampian Chemical plant, in Scotland, among them—in which the cost per job is well over £20,000.
  Mr. Urwin: I have already said that the asset is created and is held in perpetuity and continues to generate new jobs for long after the initial investment is made.
  I have been asked about building grants. There has been a reference to Clause 1(3). There has been some misunderstanding of the purpose of the Clause. It provides that building grants shall not be payable to an applicant who has started work on the site of his building before the announcement of the Secretary of State of 25th June. It does not prevent the payment of grant to a firm buying a new factory from a developer after the legislation has come into force, even though the building was begun before 25th June or completed before the legislation was enacted. The need for this Clause is that an industrialist who started building after the proposed intermediate areas were named and has been able to bring the new building into use before the Bill is passed must be regarded as ineligible for grant.
  This is simply because he will have provided the building in a locality which was at the time not designated by an Order laid before Parliament as an intermediate area, and, indeed, such an Order can only be laid after the Bill has come into force, and the Minister cannot anticipate his powers or apply them retrospectively unless Parliament specifically modifies the powers to that effect. It would be difficult, if we were to accept any degree of retrospection, to know where we could draw the line without treating some potential claimants inequitably.
  It was also suggested by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East that

  1135
  Clause 1(3) might mean that private enterprise firms would not be eligible for building grants in intermediate areas. I can reassure him that this is not so. Private enterprise firms will be eligible for grants, as will nationalised industries in respect of activities in which they are in competition with the private sector.
  I have also been asked what action the Government are taking to implement the Hunt Committee's recommendation that studies should be set in hand of the effects and implications of the existing measures of assistance to the development areas. I fully accept that it is desirable to have as exact an assessment as possible of the costs and benefits of development area policy. The technical and conceptual difficulties are quite formidable, however, and the Hunt Committee did not suggest how they might be overcome. We know the budgetary costs of measures of assistance, but we do not know what the outcome would have been if these measures had not been applied. We hope, however, to make progress in this field. The effects of investment grants continue to be examined by the Government, and although it is too early yet to make any useful assessment of the effects of the regional employment premium, ways in which this might be done are under consideration.
  Among other relevant projects the research staff of the Ministry of Technology will shortly complete a major inquiry into location attitudes and experience. This inquiry, which has involved detailed consultation with several hundreds of firms over a period of 18 months, will throw valuable light on the reasons which have led firms to site new projects either within assisted areas or outside them, and their subsequent experience. We shall continue to study the scope for applying the most modern analytical techniques to straightforward, and it would not be right for me to lead the House to expect definitive answers within a short space of time.
  I was asked also whether we proposed to undertake a major review of development areas as recommended by the Hunt Committee. The major policy changes introduced by the Government, the wider development areas, investment grants, regional employment premiums, have only been in force for a matter of two or three years, and it is still too soon
  1136
  to make a clear assessment of their impact. None the less, we are continuing to keep a very careful watch on progress in the development areas.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, North-East again asked about withdrawal of selective employment premium. Paying for assistance to intermediate areas by withdrawing additional selective employment premium payments in no way invalidates the resource-cost argument about R.E.P. The fact is that it does not. The fact remains that this assistance must be paid for, obviously, in money, and the Government are committed to an overall restraint on the growth of public expenditure, which is, of course, designed to achieve a broad balance between demand and resources in the economy as a whole.
  I know that I am speaking here about industrial development certificates and that they are outside the scope of this debate, but several hon. Members have expressed concern about the operation of this control. Some have argued that the control frustrates the growth of go-ahead firms in the Midlands and in the South-East, while others have argued that, to provide jobs on the scale required in the development and the proposed intermediate areas, we must be even tougher in operating the control in the more prosperous areas of the country.
  There are, if I may say so, some misconceptions also about this control, and I would like, therefore, to take this opportunity to remind the House of the aims of the control. These are to limit the demand on resources, especially labour, in the more congested parts of the country, and, at the same time, to influence firms to undertake projects in the development and intermediate areas where resources are available.
  The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East asked whether the Government proposed to publish the criteria for granting or refusing I.D.C's. The general principles on which we work are well known, but we are considering whether more can be said. Discussions are currently taking place with the C.B.I. and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce.
  References have been made to derelict land clearance and to the work still to be done. Naturally, we all want to see faster progress, but when hearing some

  1137
  critics I had the feeling that they believe that dereliction is a new problem. It is not by any means new; it is a problem which stretches back to the Industrial Revolution. There is certainly no room for complacency, but the Government have tackled the problem of derelict land with great energy.
  Under the Industrial Development Act 1966, local authorities can now get a grant of 85 per cent., and throughout the country a grant of 50 per cent. is payable under the Local Government Act, 1966. Clearance schemes obviously take time to prepare, and the full impact of these Measures has yet to be felt.
  Under the powers sought in the Bill before the House, it is our intention that a 75 per cent. grant should be payable. References have been made to the differential of 10 per cent. in the development areas, but we have preserved this margin and, despite this, there should be a considerable amount of benefit accruing to the rest of the country.
  The hon. Member for Clitheroe (Sir Frank Pearson) criticised the Government's rejection of the Hunt Report without proper consideration. This simply is not true. First, the Government did not reject the Hunt Report, although we do not accept all its recommendations. Secondly, although the Government announced their decisions on the day of public issue, we were aware of the general lines of Sir Joseph Hunt's thinking, and we made an early announcement to avoid the possibility of uncertainty in industry.
  Sir Frank Pearson rose—
  Mr. Urwin: I am sorry, I cannot give way.
  My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Technology, referred in his opening remarks to the hierarchy of intermediate areas, development areas and special development areas, with differing scales of assistance. With the introduction of intermediate areas—the third level of special assistance—we have added greatly to the flexibility of our regional policies. This is a very important step in the evolution of these policies.
  We live in an age of rapid industrial change as older industries decline and new ones develop. The prosperity of particular areas is likely to fluctuate with the changing industrial pattern, and the aim
  1138
  of regional planning must be to anticipate these changes so that we can deal with the problems that arise before they become acute. This is what we are doing in the Bill.
  In conclusion, the recent changes in Government structure, by placing under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning responsibility for the Government's regional policy as a whole, and by bringing under my right hon. Friend the Minister of Technology responsibility for distribution of industry matters, has opened up better opportunities for bringing together economic and physical planning, and this, in turn, should help to ensure a better balance between the various parts of the country, both economically and in environmental terms.
  The Bill will help us to exploit these opportunities and I strongly commend it to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  LOCAL EMPLOYMENT [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the exercise, in relation to intermediate areas, of certain of the functions under the Local Employment Acts, 1960 to 1966 of the Minister of Technology and other persons and, in relation to derelict land clearance areas, of the powers conferred by section 20 of the Industrial Development Act, 1966, it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of—

  (i) any expenses incurred by the Minister of Technology in carrying out, on land acquired by him by virtue of any provision of the said Act of the present Session, work appearing to him to be expedient to be carried out for the purpose of enabling so much of the land as appears to him to be derelict, neglected or unsightly to be brought into use or of improving its appearance;

  (ii) any expenses of the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Secretary of State in making, to local authorities, grants towards costs incurred

  1139
  by them in connection with the bringing into use, or the improvement of the appearance of, derelict, neglected or unsightly land; and

  (iii) any expenses which, by virtue of the said Act of the present Session, are incurred under any other enactment by a Government department;

  (b) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums which, by virtue of the said Act of the present Session, are received under any other enactment by a Government department.—[Mr. Varley.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That the Proceedings on the Expiring Laws Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Harper.]

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
  Read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Harper.]
  Committee Tomorrow.

  EXPIRING LAWS [MONEY]
  Queen's recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make permanent certain expiring laws and continue others, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such expenses as may be occasioned by the continuance of Part I of, and Schedule 1 to, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1962 till the end of December, 1970 and of Part VII of the Licensing Act, 1964 till the end of March, 1971, being expenses which, under any Act, are to be paid out of moneys so provided.—[Mr. Harper.]

  PUBLICATION OF PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT
  So much of the Lords Message [4th November] as communicates the Resolution. That it is desirable that a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament be appointed to consider and report whether any and, if so, what changes in the law of defamation and of Parliamentary Privilege are desirable in relation to
  1140
  the publication of the proceedings in Parliament, to be considered forthwith.—[Mr. Harper.]
  Lords Message considered accordingly.
  Resolved, That this House doth concur with the Lords in the said Resolution.—[Mr. Harper.]
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.

  OVERSEAS AID
  Mr. James Davidson discharged from the Select Committee; Mr. David Steel added.—[Mr. Harper.]
  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
  Mr. Kenneth Baker, Mr. Michael Barnes, Mr. Joel Barnett, Mr. Boyd-Carpenter, Mr. Edwin Brooks, Sir Douglas Glover, Mr. Philip Holland, Mr. Frank Hooley, Mr. Kevin McNamara, Mr. Charles Mapp, Mr. Robert Sheldon, Mr. Keith Speed, Mr. Dick Taverne, Sir John Vaughan-Morgan and Mr. James Wellbeloved nominated members of the Committee.—[Mr. Harper.]

  SCOTTISH AFFAIRS
  Select Committee appointed to consider Scottish Affairs:
  Committee to consist of Sixteen Members:
  Mr. John Brewis, Mr. Donald Dewar, Mr. Alex Eadie, Mrs. Winifred Ewing, Sir John Gilmour, Mr. William Hannan, Mr. Adam Hunter, Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison, Mr. Russell Johnston, Mr. George Lawson, Mr. John P. Mackintosh, Mr. Robert Maclennan, Mr. John Robertson, Mr. Thomas Steele, Mr. Esmond Wright and Mr. George Younger:
  Committee to have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place and to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order; to report from time to time, and to report Minutes of Evidence from time to time.
  Eight to be the Quorum;
  Committee to have power to appoint persons with expert knowledge for the purpose of particular inquiries, either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the Committee's order of reference.
  Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs in the last

  1141
  Session of Parliament together with Memoranda to be referred to the Committee.
  Committee to have power to appoint two Sub-Committees each consisting of not more than six Members and to refer to such Sub-Committees any of the matters referred to the Committee:
  Every such Sub-Committee to have power to send for persons, papers and records: to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House; to adjourn from place to place; to report to the Committee from time to time; and to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order;
  Committee to have power to report from time to time the Minutes of Evidence taken before such Sub-Committees and reported by them to the Committee:
  Three to be the Quorum of every such Sub-Committee.—[Mr. Harper.]

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
  Mr. John Ellis and Mr. Joe Ashton discharged from the Select Committee. Mr. John Golding and Mr. Arthur Latham added.—[Mr. Harper.]

  ROAD COMMUNICATIONS, EAST RIDING
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Harper.]
  10.4 p.m.
  Mr. Paul Bryan: It is about a year since I first applied for this debate. The delay may prove an advantage, for I have every expectation that the Minister will be able to give the House a more helpful forecast and progress report than he would have been able to do a year ago.
  May I start straight away with the approach roads to Hull which cross the county to round the Humber Estuary and take the port's cargo to various inland centres of population. This situation is well known and was most recently stated in the Humberside Feasibility Study.
  Hull owes its position as the third port in Britain to its deep water and its convenient situation for trade with the European market. Its development was originally supported by an admirable network of railways. The railway age has passed, but successive Governments have failed to replace rail with trunk roads. No one knows the extent to which the development of Hull is now being throttled by the ludicrously ele-
  1142
  mentary road system, if system it can, in fact, be called.
  Plans exist for an adequate system. My purpose tonight is to discover when plans will become roads and motorways. The feasibility study takes the complacent view that a good road system will exist by about the 1980s in time to cope with its fairly far-fetched plans for the importation of a vast new population into the area. Meanwhile, my constituents have to live in Gilberdyke and Newport and the other villages strung out along the crowded main road—the A63—from Hull to Leeds, the West Riding and the Midlands.
  I invite the Minister to stand with me one day on the road in Newport when the children are crossing the road to school, as the huge articulated container lorries rush by in ever-increasing numbers. The Port of Hull is developing the container traffic. The Minister is not developing the roads to take it. I warn the Government that, unless quick action is taken, they will find themselves as shamed by the accident rate as they will be embarrassed by the economic effects on the area. A vehicle survey taken at Welton showed that in the last four years total vehicles have increased by 16 per cent. and that heavy vehicles have increased by 59 per cent. Five thousand heavy lorries per 16-hour day pass down this road—about 300 vehicles per hour.
  No major roadworks can be carried out until the Minister so decides. In relation to trunk roads, the county council is therefore merely an agent. Even when, at last, the Minister decides to give the go-ahead, every project seems endlessly protracted. Work began this week on the Elloughton bypass. It should be finished by October, 1971, but it was in 1961 that the Ministry gave approval for the project. So 10 years have wearily passed by in frustrating discussions on the line to be followed, in dealing with objections, and in complying with the meticulous requirements of the Ministry regarding engineering details. This is far too long for any proposal for which the need has been obvious for at least 30 years.
  Can the Minister give any assurance that this dreary process can be speeded up when approval comes through for the various urgently-awaited schemes.
  May I now ask for news of individual road sores which have festered in my

  1143
  constituency for far too long. The notorious wooden Selby Toll Bridge, built in 1790, continues to groan under the weight of the heavy traffic on the Hull-Leeds-Liverpool trunk road, the A63. It has been a source of complaint for 60 years. Complaints are getting louder as temporary closures of the bridge become more frequent due to the increasing number of river craft which collide with and damage the bridge. I am delighted to hear that plans for a new Selby bridge and bypass are now in the preparation pool. The Minister will make headlines in the papers tomorrow if only he will give us a date for the start of this work.
  Can the Minister, at the same time, give me a progress report on the M62? This is now designed to finish at Gilberdyke, but surely the traffic capacity of any main road should increase as it gets nearer to the terminal town of the road. Has the Minister any plans for the extension of the M62 into and beyond Hull? Can he also give a forecast of when we may see the motorway connected on the M62 to join the A1?
  The bypass at Howden has long been a pressing necessity, but still awaits programming.
  The proposed Humber bridge will not be in my constituency, but it obviously affects it. The bridge was orginally conceived by the then Minister during the Hull by-election. Now, the Humber Bridge Board has apparently been told by the Government that if it can find the money, estimated to be at least f13 million, it will be allowed to build the bridge, but that there will be no contribution from central funds. No one can understand why the Government are not prepared to treat the bridge as a trunk road project. Sir Roger Stevens, the Chairman of the Economic Planning Council whose report recommended the building of the bridge, has recently publicly said that he thought that the bridge was part of the road programme and would receive a grant. Perhaps the Minister would shed some light on this question.
  Leaving the subject of the Humber and the approaches to Hull, may I now ask the Minister for news of a bypass for the great city of York? This scheme is now in the preparation pool and much of the preliminary work has already been done by the East Riding County Council
  1144
  but, again, no indication has been given of when work may be expected to start.
  More urgently still from the point of view of my constituency is the much needed Malton bypass. The queue of cars which worms its way through Malton and Norton during the summer months finds it tail often enough as much as one or two miles down the York road. In terms of size of project, this is surely not something which will cripple the road programme. I press the Minister to take heed of the many representations that have been made by me over the last 15 years and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) for at least twice as long.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall) has asked me to raise the question of the Beverley southwest trunk road bypass. Plans were first agreed in 1962, and the Minister is still asking for alternative routes to be examined. As a non-event, this project is locally being classed as a second Selby Bridge. The Humber bridge will generate a fresh flow of traffic through Beverley, and this makes the bypass even more important. My hon. Friend has also asked me to say that though he is grateful for a number of improvements in recent years, he still looks forward to the much needed reconstruction of the main roads between Hull and Hornsea and Hull and Withernsea, which have become the only means of communication since the closure of the railways to these two towns.
  From my speech, Mr. Speaker, you will conclude that people in the East Riding can be forgiven for regarding their home county as a forgotten region in respect of modern roads. I hope that the Minister now will be able to prove them wrong.
  10.13 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) for raising the question of the time taken to prepare trunk road schemes from the first go-ahead to the start of works I need hardly say that this is a matter to which we attach the utmost importance, conscious as we are of the urgent need for the relief of congestion and the development of a modern and adequate road network, and of the very considerable

  1145
  benefits to the community which this entails.
  The hon. Member has mentioned a number of individual schemes, some of which were approved for preparation a long while ago and others much more recently. He is understandably anxious that these schemes which are still at an early stage of preparation should be pushed ahead with all speed and should not be subject to any avoidable delays; and he evidently feels that experience on the older projects gives some cause for concern.
  I will deal later in more detail with the position on the individual schemes which have been mentioned but, first, I should like to make some general remarks about the system as a whole, and about the changes that have been made in it in recent years with a view to minimising the incidence of delays, which, in the past, have certainly been a serious problem.
  It hardly needs saying that there is a vast amount of work involved in the preparation of a major road scheme from initial approval to the point at which work can begin. The engineering work begins with a study of the alternative ways, often numerous, in which the provision of, for example, a road from A to B, or a bypass of C, can be achieved. Each of these alternatives will have advantages and disadvantages in terms of cost, of benefit to traffic, of effects on property and on amenity and in many other ways.
  Once the alternative which appears to offer the best balance of advantage has been selected, there follows the job of detailed design, frequently involving many complex structures to carry the road over or under other roads, railways and other natural or man-made obstacles, or to provide multi-level junctions. And finally the drawing up of detailed contract documents, invitations to tender and the letting of contracts.
  In parallel with this march the statutory procedures must also march. As the hon. Member well knows, every major scheme of new trunk road construction involves the three stages of fixing the line, fixing the necessary alterations to and stopping up of side roads and making a compulsory purchase order for the acquisition of the necessary land.
  1146
  Each of these stages involves the advertisement of proposals which are often open to objection for statutory periods, and the proper consideration of these objections may in many instances involve the introduction of modifications to the scheme, or the holding of public inquiries and consideration of the inspectors' reports; all of which is perfectly right and proper, but it inevitably increases the time taken in preparation.
  I need not go into more detail on the host of matters which may have to be dealt with, of which what I have said merely gives an outline indication. I will turn now to what we have done to improve the position.
  First of all, in the matter of programming procedures. Formerly schemes were taken straight into the forward programme without any preparatory work having necessarily been done. This meant that there could be no accurate estimate of their cost or benefits or of the year in which it would really prove desirable and, more important, practicable to begin work. Programme years allocated in this way, as for the Elloughton and Malton by-passes, often proved unattainable.
  We now have the two-stage procedure of inclusion first in the preparation pool to enable the alternative ways of tackling a scheme to be adequately and systematically studied, and the selected alternative to be prepared in sufficient detail for its cost and benefits to be accurately assessed, before a decision on its inclusion in the firm programme for a specific year is taken. This procedure deliberately postpones the fixing of a starting year until a later stage than hitherto. But it means that when the decision is made it is an informed one and that there is a much greater likelihood that the target will be met.
  Next I turn to the statutory procedures. Here we have adopted as the rule what was formerly the exception, that there should be a degree of concurrence in the three stages I have described. We now aim generally at publishing either the proposed line and side road modifications, or the proposed side road modifications and compulsory purchase order, simultaneously, instead of handling each stage consecutively. In suitable cases we may even publish proposals for all three stages concurrently.

  1147
  This procedure may substantially reduce the total time consumed by the statutory procedures and at the same time be of positive advantage to those affected, since they can appreciate more readily the total effect of our proposals.
  Thirdly, there is the question of manpower and organisation. We have established, following negotiations with the County Councils Association, six road construction units to handle the preparation and supervision of major trunk road schemes including motorways, throughout England.
  Each road construction unit consists of a relatively small headquarters and a number of sub-units. This organisation, manned predominantly by officials on full-time loan from the counties where the units and sub-units are situated, but working as an integral part of the Ministry, makes for greater efficiency by enabling us to concentrate scarce engineering manpower resources into large units for which a stable long term programme of work can be foreseen, and to delegate maximum engineering and administrative responsibility to those in immediate control of the work.
  Finally, on the question of management, we now apply critical path techniques to all major trunk road schemes, both those handled by the road construction units and the smaller ones which continue to be dealt with under the system of preparation by local authorities—generally county councils—as our agents. Full-time project planners are employed, whose job it is to construct and monitor critical path networks for each scheme to ensure that the multifarious processes involved in its preparation are co-ordinated and progressed efficiently and that the attention of everyone is focused on the target dates for completion of his particular part of the exercise which must be achieved if work is to start on schedule.
  I am, of course, not claiming that the effect of these measures is to make everything go through automatically on a predetermined time scale. I wish that I could claim this. There are large variations not only in the size and the inherent difficulties of schemes approved for preparation, but also in the number and complexity of associated problems which arise during the course of preparation, for
  1148
  example as a result of the statutory procedures, which cannot be accurately foreseen and must be faced as they arise. What I do say is that our machine is now much better geared to cope with all these problems in an efficient way and to achieve an eventual result which, while it may in some cases fall short of the original hopes, is nevertheless the best that can be achieved in the circumstances as they have developed.
  I would now like to turn to the individual schemes which the hon. Member has mentioned. Two of them were programmed under the old procedures, Elloughton bypass and Malton bypass. Of Elloughton bypass, I am pleased to say that work has in fact now begun, as he said. It has indeed been a long time in preparation since a scheme—originally envisaged as an improvement of the existing road and subsequently as a bypass—was included in the programme not in 1961, as he said, but in 1960; much of this time was spent in the preliminary stage of investigating possible lines, and draft proposals were not published until 1967.
  Both those proposals and the subsequent side road proposals led to substantial objections. But now that the job has been started I am sure that the hon. Member will not wish me to delve in detail into the timetable of preparation of this scheme when in view of the general changes in our procedures which I have described, no useful lessons are likely to be learned by doing so. Had these arrangements been in operation in 1960, I am sure we should have seen a much earlier start of works on this scheme.
  The Malton bypass has had an even more chequered history. Plans for this bypass were made even before the war, but it was not until 1962 that we were able to include the scheme in our forward programme. Because of limitations of funds, we envisaged tackling the bypass in two stages, constructing the shorter section from A64 east of Norton to A169 first and the remainder later. But this plan fell foul of objections based on the unsuitability of the A169 between Old Malton and Malton to carry the extra traffic that would be temporarily thrown on to it, and in 1966 following the report of an inspector on a public inquiry into the proposed compulsory

  1149
  purchase order, we came to the conclusion that the plan would have to be abandoned.
  A fresh start was made in 1967 when the complete bypass was included in the preparation pool; and since then we have progressed to the point at which the scheme is now being considered for a place in the firm programme I hope that a decision on that will not be long delayed.
  Mr. Bryan: Would the hon. Gentleman tell us what his fondest hope is in this case? What is the earliest that we may hear a date?
  Mr. Brown: We are pressed in Adjournment and other debates to give firm dates, and then later we have another Adjournment debate when we are slated for not keeping to the dates. Therefore, I am not prepared to hazard a guess on a date this evening.
  Of the remaining schemes mentioned by the hon. Member, only the extension of the M62 motorway eastwards from the A1 to Gilberdyke has been under preparation for any length of time. This was included in the first preparation pool announcement in February, 1967, and, although about 20 miles of motorway is involved, we have made excellent progress, to the point at which we can foresee the publication of draft orders by the middle of next year.
  The improvement of the A63 beyond the end of the proposed motorway, including the provision of dual carriageways on the Caves bypass and the bypasses of York and Selby, were announced for preparation only as recently as July of this year and it is, of course, too early to expect substantial progress to have been made. But I can assure the hon. Member that, although we cannot yet attempt to determine a year for start of works, these schemes will all be pushed ahead vigorously at all stages of preparation.
  It will, I am sure, not have escaped the hon. Member's notice that both the route between Leeds and Hull and the A64 from Leeds to Scarborough, on which most of the schemes he has mentioned are situated, were included in the proposed strategic network of inter-urban routes published in the Green Paper
  1150
  "Roads for the Future" by my right hon. Friend's predecessor earlier this year. All these routes are intended to be built or comprehensively improved to a high standard. This indicates our agreement with the hon. Member's views as to the importance of the two routes in question.
  A bypass of Howden on the A63 would be a smaller scheme than the others that have been mentioned. The county council has, in fact, been authorised, as recently as September, to prepare a scheme for such a bypass to the point at which it can be considered for inclusion in the divisional programme of schemes costing less than £¼ million. The A63 will, of course, gain very substantial relief from the construction of the M62 motorway, and the justification for a bypass of Howden in the light of forecast residual traffic flows is an aspect which will require careful consideration.
  Finally, I will refer briefly to the hon. Member's remarks about the financing of the Humber Bridge. The Government envisage that this project should be financed by loan and should be tolled. We have had some discussion of the details with officials of the Humber Bridge Board and we expect to resume this discussion when the board has obtained further relevant information I cannot say more than this at present, but I will, of course, bear in mind all that the hon. Member has said.
  Mr. Bryan: Will the hon. Gentleman devote the remaining three or four minutes at his disposal to the Selby Bridge, quite the biggest problem which I have raised this evening, but to which he has given no time whatever.
  Mr. Brown: A promise to consider separately what could be done to improve conditions at the Selby Bridge, where the trunk road crosses that antique privately-owned toll swing bridge, was made in 1967 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) when, as Minister, she announced her decision on the Humberside road network. As a result of that consideration, a scheme was included in the third preparation pool which was announced in July. A preliminary report is expected next year, and I understand that the estimated cost will be in the region of £1 million.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Pepper
  Pepper
  Flood Prevention
  Flood Prevention
  Beef (Nutritional Values)
  Beef (Nutritional Values)
  North Sea (Fish Spawning Beds)
  North Sea (Fish Spawning Beds)
  Selective Agricultural Expansion Programme
  Selective Agricultural Expansion Programme
  Enzymes
  Enzymes
  Rabies
  Rabies
PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS
  Kew Palace (Visitors)
  Kew Palace (Visitors)
SCOTLAND
  Forestry Workers
  Forestry Workers
  Eggs (Marketing)
  Eggs (Marketing)
  Schoolchildren (Work Experience Schemes)
  Schoolchildren (Work Experience Schemes)
  South Glasgow(Flooding)
  South Glasgow(Flooding)
  Schools (Hamilton)
  Schools (Hamilton)
  School Building Programmes
  School Building Programmes
  Young Chronic Sick and Disabled People
  Young Chronic Sick and Disabled People
  School Dinners
  School Dinners
  Nursery Schools (Charges)
  Nursery Schools (Charges)
  New Town Development Corporations
  New Town Development Corporations
  Guest Committee
  Guest Committee
  Teachers (Registration)
  Teachers (Registration)
  Depopulation
  Depopulation
  North-East Scotland
  North-East Scotland
  National Mod
  National Mod
AVIATION
  Aircraft Engines(Atmospheric Pollution)
  Aircraft Engines(Atmospheric Pollution)
  Edwards Committee (Report)
  Edwards Committee (Report)
BOARD OF TRADE
  Private and Public Companies (Liquidations)
  Private and Public Companies (Liquidations)
  Foodstuffs(Imports)
  Foodstuffs(Imports)
  Barley
  Barley
  World Trade
  World Trade
  Jungle Fowl Feathers
  Jungle Fowl Feathers
  North-East Scotland
  North-East Scotland
SHIPPING
  Rochdale Committee of Inquiry
  Rochdale Committee of Inquiry
  Aberdeen and Scandinavia(Sea Communications)
  Aberdeen and Scandinavia(Sea Communications)
DEFENCE
  Portsmouth Dockyard
  Portsmouth Dockyard
  Auxiliary Security Force
  Auxiliary Security Force
  Hebrides Rocket Range
  Hebrides Rocket Range
  Aden (Casualties)
  Aden (Casualties)
  Rugby Match (Oxford University v. South Africa)
  Rugby Match (Oxford University v. South Africa)
  Infantry and Armoured Units (Amalgamation or Disbandment)
  Infantry and Armoured Units (Amalgamation or Disbandment)
  Persian Gulf
  Persian Gulf
  Singapore
  Singapore
TECHNOLOGY
  Advance Factory, Sunderland
  Advance Factory, Sunderland
  Ministry of Technology Factories, Sunderland (Employees)
  Ministry of Technology Factories, Sunderland (Employees)
  Factories (Applications for Assistance)
  Factories (Applications for Assistance)
  Expenditure (Wales)
  Expenditure (Wales)
  Development Areas
  Development Areas
  Advance Factories
  Advance Factories
  Pit Closures
  Pit Closures
  Reflective Garments (Schoolchildren)
  Reflective Garments (Schoolchildren)
  Isotope-Powered Electrical Generators
  Isotope-Powered Electrical Generators
  B.S.R. Factory, East Kilbride
  B.S.R. Factory, East Kilbride
EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY
  Small Traders (Industrial Training Levy)
  Small Traders (Industrial Training Levy)
  Motor Industry (Strikes)
  Motor Industry (Strikes)
HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Thames (Pollution)
  Thames (Pollution)
  Empty Property, Lancashire, Cheshire and the High Peak
  Empty Property, Lancashire, Cheshire and the High Peak
  Local Authorities (Home Loans)
  Local Authorities (Home Loans)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Sea Fish and Birds (Deaths)
  Sea Fish and Birds (Deaths)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Government Contracts(Standard Conditions)
  Government Contracts(Standard Conditions)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Mr. and Mrs. Kroger
  Mr. and Mrs. Kroger
  Senior Attendance Centre (Coventry)
  Senior Attendance Centre (Coventry)
ROADS
  Motorways
  Motorways
  M4 (Loose Chippings)
  M4 (Loose Chippings)
  Grand Union Canal(Kensington Road Bridge)
  Grand Union Canal(Kensington Road Bridge)
  Road Deaths (Lancashire, Cheshire and the High Peak)
  Road Deaths (Lancashire, Cheshire and the High Peak)
TRANSPORT
  Urban Authorities (Traffic and Transport Plans)
  Urban Authorities (Traffic and Transport Plans)
WALES
  Housing
  Housing

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Leicester):
The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
The Viscount Combermere—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
LORD CACCIA: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are now able to anounce their plans for meeting the long-term needs for search room and storage accommodation in the Public Record Office.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, approval has been given in principle to the erection of a second Public Record Office on a site owned by the Crown in Ruskin Avenue, Kew. It is hoped that the first stage of the building will be completed in the mid- 1970s. When the building is finished it will provide accommodation for 750 readers a day, and the 360,000 feet of additional storage accommodation which it is estimated will be required by the end of the century.
LORD CACCIA: My Lords, while thanking the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for his practical decision on a foreseeable need, may I ask him one further question on the time factor? In view of the increasing pressure on accommodation for records and for readers, both from overseas and at home, will every effort be made to ensure that at least some part of this new building, and as large a part as possible, will be available by the mid-1970s?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, although the immediate needs have
334
been met by converting a large part of the Land Registry for the use of the Public Record Office, I would agree that the need for a new building is an urgent one.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether the new building will be large enough to accommodate the records which at present are not stored at the Public Record Office but are stored elsewhere; or will there always, even now, have to be a separate store for public records?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think there may have to be a separate store for some. The Advisory Council on Public Records are still considering what would be the best division. I think that they anticipate probably keeping everything for this century, and the things which are more normally required, at Kew, and the medi wal documents and legal documents in the existing building in Chancery Lane.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, may I ask my noble and learned friend to what extent microfilm is used, in order to save space?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think a good deal of microfilming is done. Certainly the photographic side is large. But I think that none of us knows at present how long a microfilm itself will last.

CIVIL AIR TRANSPORT: EDWARDS COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how soon legislation will be introduced to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into Civil Air Transport.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as the noble Lord will appreciate, it will first be necessary to state the Government's policy arising from the Edwards Committee recommendations, and this will be

335
done by a White Paper to be published in the very near future.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that rather vague answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that as long ago as May 2 his right honourable friend anticipated that the Government would be producing their White Paper during the summer? Can he not be a little more precise and say whether it will be by Christmas time? Can he also say whether we are to presume that since no legislation was mentioned in the gracious Speech no Bill will be introduced this Session?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I accept what the noble Lord says about the need to get on with this matter. I should have liked to give him an actual date for the publication of the White Paper. I cannot do so, for certain reasons, but I think it may be a matter of days rather than weeks. So far as the gracious Speech is concerned, I think that if the noble Earl looks at it again he will find that there is a reference.

RAILWAYS: USE OF CONTINUOUS WELDED RAIL
2.36 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement concerning British Railways policy with regard to laying down long welded rail, and what special safety measures are being taken in that connection.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, R.A.F. (LORD WINTERBOTTOM): My Lords, the British Railways Board, whose responsibility this is, have informed my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport that they intend to extend the mileage of continuous welded rail as quickly as possible. There are several reasons for their adoption of this policy. It will lead to an increased life for the track components and reduced
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maintenance costs: it will lead to a smoother ride for the rail vehicles using the track and for the passengers in them; most importantly, there will be a greatly reduced risk of broken rails, and such breaks as do occur will be likely to be less dangerous.
The Board say that since 1960, when the laying of continuous welded rail was started, the Code of Practice they have been using has been regarded as satisfactory. But the unusual weather conditions and the high occurrence of track distortions in continuous welded rail in the recent summer have shown that the margins already provided must be increased to ensure the stability of continuous welded track. Your Lordships may be interested to learn that the distortions in jointed track in 1969 have also been greatly above average. The special measures the Board have now put in hand to increase the margins of resistance to heat distortion in continuous welded track take the form of increased ballast provision and of the re-adjustment of the continuous rails themselves to a higher stressfree temperature condition than has hitherto been deemed necessary. This work should be completed before the onset of the hot weather of 1970.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his full Answer to my Question. May I ask him whether he is aware that, in the light of recent accidents, there is a good deal of anxiety about the safety of the continuous welded rail, despite its obvious advantages? There are two questions that I do not think the noble Lord completely answered in his full reply, which I should like to study. The first is whether the continuous welded rail is out of the experimental stage; and secondly, whether experience in this country and elsewhere has been sufficient to establish all the facts needed for satisfactory laying down and maintenance. If the answer to the second question is "Yes", why are we still having trouble? If the answer is "No", can the noble Lord tell us what action, other than what he has now told us, is being taken to establish maintenance satisfactorily?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, first of all, we are in close contact with other nations using continuous welded rail. There is a constant interchange of information between ourselves and other

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countries using this system. If I may be completely frank with the noble Lord, I think the problem is that it is well beyond the experimental stage. In the beginning of this process from 1960 there were no accidents, but it is considered that it is possible, although by no means certain, that as continuous welded rail becomes a commonplace perhaps the standards to which this track is laid are not as closely rigid as was the case in the early stages of laying continuous welded track. In my Answer your Lordships will have noted that the Code of Practice is being surveyed and tightened up to ensure that the admittedly rising number of accidents in continuous welded rail do not in fact continue. The result of the inquiry into the accident at Somerton may show that the abnormally good weather conditions this summer caused the accident.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one further question? Is he aware that his reference to the abnormally good weather conditions of this summer and the higher temperatures, is rather disturbing? Is he further aware that in other countries in Europe and America, where far higher temperatures obtain, a great deal of experience must have been gained, with wider ranges of temperature difference between summer and winter? And is the noble Lord aware that there is a rather uncomfortable feeling that there his not been quite the sufficiency of care given to this innovation that there ought to have been?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Lord may think it worth while to debate the report on the accidents that have taken place which will appear early in the new year.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, my noble friend has said that welding will increase the life of the rail. Can he give us an assurance that it will not diminish the life of the passengers?
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether he and British Railways have taken account of the fact that what were abnormal temperatures last summer may not be abnormal if we continue to discharge carbon dioxide into the air by the burning of various fossil carbons, so increasing the greenhouse effect?
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, is it possible that welded rails can be satisfactorily used for very complicated crossovers, such as exist outside London Bridge?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, that is a technical question which I am afraid I am not able to answer. This may come out in the inquiry.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord clear up one point? In one of his replies to my noble friend he said, I think, that the standards used now are not so accurate as the standards used in 1960. Did the noble Lord mean that the standards used now are different, or that the implementation of the standards is not as precise as it was?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, it is just possible that familiarity may be breeding some contempt, if I may put it this way, and it is for this reason that the Railways Board are re-examining the codes of procedure relating to the laying of this track.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, my noble friend did not answer my question, apparently on the ground that it was thought to be frivolous. It was not frivolous, and I would ask: can he give us an assurance that the welded rail is not shortening the lives of the passengers?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if I may say so, that is a very different question.
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, the noble Lord has given us a wealth of information but, arising out of the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, can he tell us where the experiments on which a great many of his statements are based are taking place?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I shall have to write to the noble Lord on that point.
LORD KILMANY: My Lords, will the noble Lord take into consideration the anxiety of other Members of this House, and will he not make it possible for the whole House to be aware of this interesting information when he has ascertained it?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, may I repeat what I said? The accidents that took place this summer are at present the subject of a study, and a report will be issued early in the new year. Without doubt, it will be a very detailed report. May I suggest to noble Lords that its publication may provide an opportunity to discuss the implications of the accidents that are taking place.
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether this report will also cover the accident at Somerton in Somerset?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: Yes, my Lords, that is correct; it will.

NATIONAL SUPERANNUATION SCHEME
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after half past three my noble friend the Leader of the House will be making a Statement on the terms of partial contracting out from the National Superannuation Scheme.

RIDING ESTABLISHMENTS BILL [H.L.]
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to confer further powers on local authorities with respect to the licensing of riding establishments and to amend the Riding Establishments Act 1964. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Viscount Massereene and Ferrard.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH
2.45 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved on Tuesday, October 28, by Baroness Gaitskell—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:—
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and
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Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, the number of your Lordships who have indicated your intention to speak to-day is greater than it was yesterday, and I do not want to take up much time. I should like first to make a short reference, for the sake of continuity, to yesterday's debate, and then to refer equally shortly to the question of industrial relations and also to the question of regional industrial development.
I greatly enjoyed the winding-up speech last night of the noble Lord, Lord Brown. I agree with him that in this House we can do more good if we discuss these matters in a non-Party spirit, and I sympathised with him when he said that if we always blame the Government for our economic difficulties, we shall only encourage the ordinary citizen to think that he has no responsibility at all. But, if I may say so, I have been in politics for longer than the noble Lord, and I feel I ought to warn him that, whatever we say here in this House, the ordinary citizen will always continue to blame the Government, not only for everything that goes wrong but for a great many things that go right, too; and all Governments will probably continue to claim the credit for what goes well, although it would probably have gone still better if only they had left it alone.
The noble Lord said that when the present Government took office in 1964 there was a high rate of industrial activity combined with a big trading deficit for that year, and he seemed to imply that this Government rather expected to go out of office in about a year's time, leaving a large balance-of-payments surplus together with inactivity, as he said had been the case in 1958. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, was a little more sanguine. He thought it was likely that we were moving into circumstances in which a balance-of-payments surplus would be combined with greater industrial activity and growth. That is what the two noble Lords said. They did not make quite the same prediction, but I could not help feeling that it would have improved the Government's public image a little if only the Government could

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have predicted what was going to happen before now with a little less inaccuracy than in fact they did.
My noble friend Lord Jellicoe told a story yesterday about a French prince who was a very bad shot, but he had a loyal and faithful servant who always fired at the same time as his master and then said, as the quarry fell stone dead, "Monsieur tire à merveille". The speeches of the two noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite made me think of an even better and more loyal servant, the native batman of an Anglo-Indian colonel who was a very bad shot indeed but who was invited by a Maharajah to an enormous duck shoot. The batman loaded for his master, who fired 1,500 cartridges without visible result. When they got home the adjutant took the batman aside and anxiously whispered, "Tell me, did the commanding officer shoot as badly as he usually does?" But the batman drew himself up and replied, "Sir, the colonel sahib shot with impeccable accuracy, but God was merciful to the birds." I think that for the last five years God has been very merciful to all the birds at which Her Majesty's Government have aimed.
The rate of economic growth was the biggest and fattest duck which they have missed. Under the National Plan it was to be 3·8 per cent. a year for six years, which was rather an interesting figure because that six-year total was exactly one-quarter of 1 per cent. less than it had been in the previous six years without any National Plan at all. What actually happened was that the target was introduced one year after it was meant to begin and then abandoned four years before it was meant to end. There was, however, a second barrel in the Government's Election Manifesto of March, 1966, which predicted that the standard of living—not economic growth, but standard of living—would go up by 25 per cent. in five years. In fact, the only thing which has gone up in five years by nearly 25 per cent. is not the standard of living but the cost of living, and I really think that that is an unrivalled record of sustained progress.
On taxation, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, told us yesterday, almost gleefully, that a Conservative Government could not abolish S.E.T. unless they put forward an alternative tax which would
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be equally, or even more, objectionable. I suppose that if we really tried hard enough we could work out a tax which might do even more harm than the selective employment tax, but there was a time when the late Chancellor of the Exchequer said he hoped to carry through the Government's programme without any increase in taxation at all; and if one goes a little further back in history there was a Government which even reduced taxation by £2,000 million in 13 years, in spite of carrying through a very large programme of social reform and economic progress.
As for high interest rates, which in my view may be even worse than high taxation, especially for small businessmen, I shall always remember the touching scene on the introduction of Mr. Callaghan's pre-Election March, 1966, Budget which I witnessed from your Lordships' Gallery in the other place, when he and George Brown publicly shook hands on the Treasury Bench after it was announced that there would at last be a reduced rate of interest for house-purchase loans to people of small incomes, who could opt, if they did not pay income tax, to get the loan at a reduced rate. It is a sad memory for me, because even now, I am told, the option scheme is being revised, and even after the revision the rate of interest which these smallest householders will have to pay on a house of average size will actually be £1 10s, a week more than it was in 1964. I think that the rise of the interest rate on house-purchase to 8½, per cent. has very seriousy retarded the expansion in home ownership which has been going on, but much too slowly, since the early 'fifties. Britain in general, and Scotland in particular, is still predominantly a rent-paying country, and I do not think we shall solve our housing problem until we have become a nation predominantly of house-owners, like Canada or the United States.
But, my Lords, the most recent miss of all, in the present year, was the Industrial Relations Bill. Your Lordships may remember that it was talked about quite a lot before it was abandoned. According to The Times and the Financial Times —I forget whether this was an official hand-out or one of those leaks, but, anyhow, it was in The Times, the Financial Times and other papers—the Prime

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Minister told a Party meeting in April that this Bill was
"essential to our economic recovery, essential to our balance of payments and essential to full employment".
That may have been, perhaps, only the art of hyperbole. Anyhow, we must all hope that it is not really true. He is then reported to have said that the passage of this Bill was
"essential to the Government's continuance in office".
Some people might not mind very much if that was true. But I do not think anybody believes, and I am sure none of your Lordships believes, that when the Government dropped that Industrial Relations Bill they were truly satisfied with the general assurance from the Trades Union Congress that they would try a little harder to settle unofficial strikes than they had done before.
If I may try briefly to summarise the position as I see it, I think the Donovan Report gave a useful analysis of the problem, although most of us did not think much of their recommendations, on which members of the Commission did not seem to be very united. One thing which they stressed—rightly, I think—was that the number of working days lost in strikes, in which we had always thought we compared fairly well with other industrial countries, is not a true measure of the damage inflicted on our economy, and that the number of strikes, excluding those in the coal industry, has been increasing for a good many years.
My Lords, the gracious Speech tells us that Bills will be brought in
"to promote improved industrial relations and to provide for equal pay for men and women".
I think we are aware what the proposals about equal pay for men and women are likely to consist of, but I do not know what other Bills there will be, and it may be too early at this moment to ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House to tell us what the nature of the Bill or Bills will be "to promote improved industrial relations". I certainly will not press him if he is not ready to tell us now.
On the other hand, the Government have the great advantage of being able to criticise, now or at any time, with all the strength of their departmental information and their official knowledge,
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the proposals of the Opposition. It is not often that an Opposition sticks out its neck, as the present Opposition has done, by publishing, more than eighteen months ago now, our full and detailed, though of course provisional, proposals, with the intention that the public should have every opportunity both of understanding and of criticising those proposals. They have already been discussed, attacked and defended many times in your Lordships' House as well as outside it. I think it was last week or the week before that the Prime Minister, according to Press reports, suggested that although we are the only industrial country where collective industrial agreements are not legally binding, yet other countries may have more to learn from us than we have from them. I am sure that we all have a great deal to learn from each other, but I doubt whether any of those other industrial countries would wish to follow the present example of the United Kingdom in this matter.
Almost exactly two years ago the ex-Minister of Labour in the present Government, Mr. Gunter, made what I think was a very true observation about this subject—and this is the only quotation from Hansard which I propose to inflict on your Lordships. It was actually in reply to a Question on November 13, 1967, about the dock strike. But he went beyond that. He said:
"The disturbing thing about the docks strike—and, indeed, about many elements of British industry—is that it is an unofficial stoppage.
"Perhaps I may give an example. When Mr. Walter Reuther brings his men out on strike in the American motor car industry, they have had at least three years' peace. No one has broken a contract. When he takes them back, there is another three years in which they can plan and wait. The dilemma of British industry is continuous interruption of production lines. No one knows when it will strike next."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 13/11/67; col. 35.]
I think that that is a very pregnant observation and I would say to your Lordships that this is an urgent matter of trade union reform which ought to be dealt with quickly. I wish that it could be dealt with in this Session. If it is not dealt with quickly, then this country will suffer grave disadvantage in its economic growth in comparison with other free countries of similar industrial capacity.

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Finally, my Lords, the gracious Speech says that the Government
"will continue to foster the fullest use of resources in all regions and will lay before you measures to provide for assistance to industry in intermediate areas."
I should first like to say this. I agree with the Government diagnosis of our present unemployment problem. When I was a member of the last Government I remember that we had two very short but relatively acute periods of unemployment, one in the winter of 1958–59 and the other in March, 1963, which were mainly due to weather. We were strongly attacked—I thought rather unreasonably—on account of these figures. But as my noble friend Lord Jellicoe pointed out yesterday, for the last year or more the figures have been at a much higher average level. Nevertheless, I still think the Government are right in saying that the present problem of unemployment is regional and not national: there is no real unemployment problem in the London area, in the South-East or in the Midlands.
I should also like to say that I commend the Government's activity in pursuing their policy of attracting more industry to the development areas. I think that the policy of using industrial development certificates, to refuse them to industries in one area in order to persuade them to go to another, is a justifiable policy. I am certainly not speaking of this in any kind of Party spirit, because on one occasion in 1958 I criticised my own Party as I thought they were being less active in pursuing this policy than they might have been. I believe that our development area policy reached its best level from 1960, when my noble friend Lord Eccles brought in the Local Employment Act, to 1963, when Mr. Maudling's Budget gave a 100 per cent. depreciation allowance to industries in the development areas.
While I am glad that this Government are pursuing the same objectives, I think that there are one or two points on which their tactics may not be quite riqht. Your Lordships will forgive me if my examples are from Scotland, which is the place I know best, although of course the other development areas in North-East England, in Wales, and especially in Northern Ireland (which I had the great
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pleasure of visiting for some days the week before last) are equally important. There is one point on which I am doubtful of the Government's tactics in this matter. In Scotland there is the policy of a general spreading or dissemination of industry and development, in preference to one of growth points—but this is rather a technical matter which I will not pursue this afternoon. Moreover, I think it was a mistake to substitute the present investment grants for the depreciation allowances which had been given in 1963.
I know the Government's argument on this matter and I quite understand it. Their argument is that a depreciation allowance does not benefit the smaller owners of industry who cannot claim it because they may not be within any income tax bracket and, therefore, it is weighted in favour of the larger owners whose firms are paying income or corporation profits tax. I sympathise with that, for I am much in favour of more smaller industries. I will not trouble your Lordships with figures, but I believe that on balance the depreciation allowances were doing substantially more good in Scotland than the present investment grants, particularly since those grants do not apply to all the kinds of machinery which were covered by depreciation allowances. I would prefer it if this course were abandoned and if we went back to what was done in 1963.
My Lords, the final criticism that I have does not apply to Scotland because, since nearly the whole of Scotland is a development area, there are no intermediate areas in it. But so far as the other parts of Britain are concerned, I am rather doubtful whether the regional employment premium is producing the best results for value of money because I think it may sometimes be attracting industry not from the conurbations, but away from the "grey" areas; and that it may to some extent be discouraging industrial development in areas which might, in a year or two, fall behind the present development areas in economic growth.
I have spent a minute or two longer than I meant to do on this point, my Lords, because I think it right to make it clear that we on this side of the House believe that this kind of control through industrial development certificates makes

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common sense, since it is not the kind of control that is administratively top heavy, although in general we maintain that there is too much Government control over the whole field of industry and we believe that our economic growth would benefit if Government control in general were to be substantially reduced. May I conclude by offering my very genuine good wishes to the Government for a very successful Session—and I think that they will need all the good wishes they can get.
3.10 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, has made one of his admirable speeches, genial and short. The last is a special virtue of his, one which I always hope to emulate but which I confess I do not always succeed in doing. He raised some interesting points: for example, that fascinating argument which goes on sometimes even within Government on investment grants versus investment allowances; but I do not think that he will expect me to get drawn very far into that. I realise that there is a real area of discussion here; none the less, it is our view that investment grants are capable of doing, and have done, much for industry.
We are to have two very interesting maiden speakers to-day, the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, and the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux. I have known Lord Stokes for many years. I used to stand outside the factory gates at Leyland's many years ago, More the noble Lord rose to his present eminent position. I am sure that we shall have a very interesting speech from him; and indeed from the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux. I feel that the present Brougham and Vauxes have probably changed a little from their most distinguished ancester. We shall look forward to hearing from both noble Lords. It is unfortunate, and I must apologise for it to the noble Lord, Lord Stoke—I have indeed two apologies to make to the House—because it is likely that I shall have to rise again as soon as I sit down in order to make a Statement on partial contracting out. Such an interruption is always disturbing for a maiden speaker. I hope that many of your Lordships will be able to hear those
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two noble Lords, even though I suspect that they would very much prefer that there was no one in the Chamber when they made their speeches.
I must also apologise because I may have to disappear for half an hour or an hour immediately afterwards to attend a very urgent meeting. I do not feel too badly about this, since those who are to speak immediately after me (I except the noble Lord, Lord Crook), or some of them, were not present during the first day of the Economic debate. I make no special point about that beyond the general observation, and I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will be with me in it. Some noble Lords sit through debates and provide support for their colleagues, but there are others—and I can use a rather more direct form of language—who, just occasionally, or regularly, go off.
I should like to start by referring to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I do so because I thought it was a very courageous speech, although it did not arise in this particular part of the debate. I consider that it was very timely. I feel a certain obligation also to stand up and be counted, like the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, although I do not think I can go all the way on certain points in support of the enormous advantages there will be to us and to Europe if we are able to enter the Common Market. I must acknowledge that there are noble Lords on both sides of the House (I suspect that there are more on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, than on mine) who are against it. But we have some formidable characters—like the noble Lord, Lord Blyton—who put up very effective arguments on this subject. I would only say that no one at the moment would suggest any form of unconditional commitment. The very objections which opponents have drawn attention to are the matters on which we must negotiate. On the other hand, I believe that our entry, if it comes about, will bring strength to the whole European Community, of which I consider we are a natural member. We must not forget, and it is relevant in an economic debate, that in the E.E.C. living standards have been rising faster than our own, and it would be a brave man who would dare to predict that if we remain outside this trend will be reversed.

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I think it is not only Europe who may benefit from our entry; and I believe it is the duty of this country and other advanced countries to increase their production and raise their standards, not only for themselves but in order that they may also contribute to other parts of the world. I felt bound to say this because the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, made a wholly un-Party political speech although one which I fully acknowledge as being controversial; and I know there may be at least one noble Lord, the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, who will, I am sure, be putting the case against it in his usual forceful way.
LORD BLYTON: Hear, hear!
LORD SHACKLETON: Well, my Lords, I was giving my noble friend a bit of a preamble, a lead-in.
LORD BOWLES: We shall all wait for him.
LORD SHACKLETON: And also perhaps people will come and listen to the noble Lord, Lord Blyton. I hope so, because it is disheartening suddenly to find yourself, round about five or six o'clock, speaking in an empty Chamber.
My noble friend Lord Beswick, like my noble friend Lord Brown, made a notable speech. Lord Beswick referred to the "Decline and Fall Squad" and singled out the noble Earl, Lord Cromer. I am not sure whether the noble Earl is present to-day, although I told him I was going to speak about him. I do not think the noble Earl may be accused of being in the "Decline and Fall Squad", although I consider that his place has been taken by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—but I will leave him out too. Certainly I think that he joined the "Puzzle Squad", along with the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale. Lord Erroll danced lightheartedly over the scene, and I think that he did not really understand what the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, was saying. I suddenly realised that there must be something about the air of Altrincham and Sale. Like his friend the present Member for Altrincham and Sale, the noble Lord, Lord Erroll (I have to be careful here), seemed—perhaps it is not too unkind to say this—to lose touch with reality a little; and we noted the job of "demolition" which was done
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by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place.
My Lords, I think that most of us are pretty bored with the allegations about trade figures being fiddled. I express my appreciation to noble Lords who, characteristically did not take part in what was described by my right honourable friend as one of the nastiest of little political stunts, but I am reluctantly bound to refer to it, not because of anything said by noble Lords opposite but because Mr. Chapman Pincher has returned to the attack. I suppose we could say that we should not bother about him, but it is really intolerable to have that sort of misrepresentation which is read by lots of people.
The figures that were published were understood by all the responsible newspapers—The Times, the Telegraph, the Financial Times. None of them got it wrong; and to make statements such as that it would not do a company no harm to claim that the correct figure was given in small print at the end—he does not say that the Government did it, he implies it—is wrong, because the Government did nothing of the sort. If noble Lords want to see the statement, they can. It is a full statement, and the full explanation under the visible trade balance explains the position; and the papers understood it. This point is important, because we have to get it right. The Government did not take a euphoric line on it. My right honourable friend the then President of the Board of Trade warned people against euphoria, and in particular in his statement said that if allowances are made for the combined effect of these factors, the improvement in the visible balance between the second and the third quarter remains very substantial; from an average deficit of £20 million a month in the second quarter to a surplus of £4 million a month in the third—which is an even smaller figure than Mr. Chapman Pincher and the Member for Altrincham and Sale used.
These figures are complicated, as the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, pointed out. I think that Lord Cromer took a simpliste or optimistic view. It is really rather surprising to find an ex-Governor of the Bank of England thinking that these figures about a complicated subject are capable of being deployed in a very simple manner. He said, for instance,

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that the trade figures did not give a useful indication of the balance of payments. I should have thought this was something we all knew. But they are of value, as my noble friend Lord Balogh pointed out, as indicating the trend of visible trade.
Then again, the noble Earl said that we had achieved almost complete obscurantism. I can only say that responsible newspaper editors, and I am sure noble Lords on both sides of the House, understand it. Finally, the noble Earl suggested that we should get rid of the monthly reserve figures, on the ground that they reveal nothing. I agree with him, but, of course, it is customary to publish them. One can now and again pick up some unconsidered trifle from them, and probably be misled by it. When he uses such trifles in the context of looking at the balance of payments, they are certainly misleading. In the long run the answer comes out, together with the balancing item only on the current and long-term balance of payments figures—and even they, as the noble Earl pointed out, are subject to amendment over a period of two or three years.
The truth of the matter, my Lords, is that, so far from making excessive claims, the Government have consistently underplayed the position—or at least have been scrupulous not to overplay it—for fear that people would take a too easy and optimistic view. None the less, I think it was apparent from the speech of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from that of my noble friend Lord Brown, that the situation is such that we can take a reasonable degree of encouragement. It would be lunacy, of course, to think that we are out of the wood while there are all sorts of dangers to the progress of the economy.
It is a pity, I feel, that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale (and I think the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, recognised this) kept on emphasising one point, even though it is one with which I entirely agree. They said that the credit must go to those in management and on the shop floor, and that the Government should not seek to take all the credit. It is curious, however, that the converse is
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always argued when things go wrong. In my view it is a pity that we should have had this ridiculous red herring introduced. I am sure that we shall continue in this House to manage to discuss important issues of industry and the economy objectively.
I should like now to turn to consider the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale. The noble Earl (I thought he was here, but I am unlucky in my audience to-day) must have been surprised by the warmth of the reception given to his speech. It could have been conceived in the spirit of a red-hot technological revolution. I am sure that if it had come from this side of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, would have mocked at it. The noble Earl really waxed lyrical as he described the possibilities and prospects of this country, provided that we seized our opportunities, particularly in the field of ports and sea communications. With all sincerity, I would commend noble Lords who did not hear the noble Earl speak to read his speech, beginning at col. 294 of yesterday's Hansard, which I am glad to say is in our hands to-day. There is a challenge here, and I do not think the noble Earl was embarrassed when my noble friend Lord Brown drew attention to the relevance of his speech to the Government's proposals for the reorganisation of the ports.
I am sure that noble Lords will not dismiss this particular set of proposals just in terms of a conflict between private and public enterprise. I think that talk of doctrinaire nationalisation rather tends to fade away, especially as we see the growing success of some of the nationalised industries. The greater part of the major ports of this country are already in public hands. There is, in fact, only one run by a company, half of whose capital is provided by Manchester Corporation. It is apparent from the noble Earl's speech, and indeed from the White Paper, that the logic of the new development in transport methods and technologies—containerisation, unit loads and all that the noble Earl was talking about—demands that we shall have a co-ordinated strategy which, despite the efforts of the British Transport and Docks Board and other bodies, is not possible until there is a unified control. This does not of course mean that the National Ports

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Authority will operate ports from the centre, though it will be establishing policies and strategies. I believe that it will be possible to combine in a proper mixture local interests and matters which will be decided locally with the national need.
One important aspect of our proposals is that we believe they will give an opportunity for bringing about better industrial relations in the ports. Nobody knows this problem better than my noble friend Lord Crook. I should have liked to let the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, know something of other points he raised, but I will save time by leaving them now.
I should like to turn to some of the institutional measures which the Government have taken. Here again the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, made fun of the various proposals—and admittedly his speech was funny, with his MAXTECH and MINPROD. Even though he was not responsible for thinking up MAXTECH, I think he may have invented MINPROD. Though I agree that we must not just tinker around with Government and there is a danger of it having a disrupting effect, I am absolutely satisfied—and so are those concerned with these changes—that the new institutions both in Government and in some of the public bodies are calculated to produce more satisfactory results, both for the citizen and for industry. I think we must recognise that change is a bit uncomfortable. But the logic of bringing together the Prices and Incomes Board and the Monopolies Commission, which sometimes escapes people, becomes only too apparent when one sees certain areas which might be subject to investigation by either body and some co-ordination is necessary here. The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, drew attention to the vital nature of a prices and incomes policy, and the Government are giving it urgent and detailed consideration. We hope to be issuing a White Paper before the end of the year.
The intention in merging these two bodies is that they may carry out more tidily and effectively a range of functions at present divided between the two. The Monopolies Commission, for example, examines mergers and whether they are likely to be contrary to the public interest. The Prices and Incomes Board has been concerned with private companies and with the public sector of industry. It is
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also concerned, as the Monopolies Commission is, with problems affecting pay and its relation to the efficient use of labour. There is a large area of potential overlapping, and the merging of these two bodies, I think, will produce a stronger and more effective body as a single unit. The role of the body will be constructive as well as regulatory. I think this will be helpful to industry. We are well aware that industry does not like being investigated unnecessarily, and any references made to the Board will have to be made with the agreement of the Minister who is particularly concerned with the sponsorship of a particular industry. But I believe that, properly handled, as it will be, this again will provide the sort of flexible machinery which allows private enterprise, and for that matter public enterprise, to continue freely and independently to do its job, but to be subjected to the type of influence which occasionally is necessary, and which has operated through other types of institutions in industry.
There are other important reforms, both of a social and of an industrial character. One, again affecting the industrial area, is equal pay. The Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity will be introducing a Bill to provide for equal pay as between men and women. This is an important measure of social reform, and I am sure that the principle will be supported. The Bill will provide that equal pay should be fully implemented by December 31, 1975. The Government's view is that this is a reasonable period for industry to adjust to the change. But it gives rise to a number of detailed problems, although, happily, not in the non-industrial Civil Service, for which I am responsible, because we have had equal pay there for a number of years. There are to be discussions—and they have already started—between the Secretary of State, the C.B.I., the T.U.C. and others, and I believe that following those discussions we shall be able to produce satisfactory measures which will be valuable socially and also play their part within the industrial scene.
I have already mentioned that I shall be making a Statement shortly on partial contracting out. There has been curiously little discussion during this debate on the national superannuation scheme. It is, I admit, a very complicated subject. I

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fear that it is one of the matters which, again with the best will in the world, it is not easy to produce with simplicity. But not the least important aspect of this will be the guarantee of a pension in a country where half the population have no occupational pension. Many who lose their rights if they lose their jobs will in future be able to qualify for a pension; and even if they leave their jobs it will be transferable or frozen. Apart from the social advantage, this will be of value to industry, whether at managerial or shop floor level.
Another piece of legislation which falls in the same category is that which relates to industrial health and safety. A number of my noble friends—Lord Crook, Lord Collison, Lord Taylor and Lord Blyton —have been active and interested in this field. We are rightly concerned about suffering animals, and we quite rightly get very concerned in our debates at proposals for factory farming and so on. But we seem to be curiously inured to the ill-health and suffering that still arises in our workshops in this modern age. It is a long haul, but we simply cannot wait. Year after year noble Lords and Members of another place raise this matter, and although a great part of our factories legislation is pretty good, it needs amending, developing and bringing up to date in a number of respects. I must say frankly that we shall not be able to complete the job in this Parliament; but we are going to bring certain measures which bear directly on the subject of safety. It is worth reminding the House that we pay an infinitely higher price for ill-health and injury in a week than we do in a whole year from industrial disputes.
In the field of organisation. I should like to give a plug to my own Department, the Civil Service Department. It is not, admittedly, a Department with the most glamorous title; and is not one whose work will naturally attract the attention of Mr. Chapman Pincher and others. But we are engaged in implementing a number of important reforms from which this Government and successive Governments will benefit. I have paid tribute to the Civil Service. No one, I find, is more enthusiastic in carrying out this work than those officials in my Department who are charged with the
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responsibility. The efficiency of our central Government machine is crucial to our national efficiency, and improvements here will contribute greatly.
Some of your Lordships may have seen the document, Progress on Fulton, which has been placed in the Library. Since that Report was published in the spring the momentum has increased. The planning of the Civil Service College is now well advanced, with a branch in Edinburgh, a branch in the country near London and the Centre for Administrative Studies actually in London. We are deeply involved in the question of examining the grading structure, which will mean major job evaluation exercises across an enormous field; personnel management (my own particular interest and experience) and recruitment, to which again the Fulton Committee devoted a great part of their Report. We are bringing in a great deal of industrial advice, not because I believe that industry necessarily has a great deal to teach the Civil Service, but because in certain areas it has something, as we have something to teach it. We have a number of industrialists and consultants, as individuals, working closely with us, and we find that there is a mutual exchange and a great degree of common understanding because many of the problems are similar whether in Government or in industry.
Some of the results have already appeared. We have already proposed the carrying out of an interim merger of classes at lower levels as well as a statement of intent to form a common grading structure at the top of the Civil Service. There are to be major decisions taken in the next few months—they are too many for me to list.
No less important is the attention that is being paid to those recommendations on the organisation of work. We have just completed (and I hope that it may be possible to publish it, though I cannot give a promise on this) a major study of the need by Government for computers over the next year. It occurs to me that I should like to send the glossary associated with this Report, almost a dictionary of all the words that are coming into our language, to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, because in order to understand the definitions, you have to look up other words in the same glossary!

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There is to be a thorough review of the future of our management services, a programme of experiments and studies in accountable management, management by objectives and output budgeting—or the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System. All these have been started and have gained considerable momentum. We have a long way to go in these fields, but I can assure your Lordships that the groundwork is being thoroughly prepared. I am confident (and I hope that anybody who is working in any activity regards his own work as important) that this will be of significance. What has particularly struck me has been the enthusiasm of the Civil Service staff, and the co-operation between staff and management through the staff side of the National Whitley Council, which in industrial relations is unequalled anywhere in this country or, I would say, in the world.
My Lords, I had an interesting passage to deliver, but I do not propose to do so, on the new developments on the presentation of public expenditure. This is an area where the Government have made considerable progress, which has been welcomed by the Committee on Procedure in another place.
I should like to say a few words on certain other points: first of all, unemployment. Reference has been made to the level of employment in October, and I do not wish to minimise the importance of this figure. Nevertheless, it is necessary to probe it a little further. There is still a relatively high level of vacancies, one which would normally be associated with a much lower level of unemployment. In most areas there has been good absorption of summer school-leavers. The development areas are in a relatively better position than in the past, and there is a large flow of people on and off the register. I am sure that noble Lords—if they have not thought of it already—must agree that the development of earnings-related unemployment benefits and, in some cases, redundancy payments—both of which this Government introduced—has meant that some of those who have become unemployed are being more selective in seeking fresh work. They do not have to take the first job offered to them. This of course has advantage economically as well as socially, because if they go into jobs for
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which they are better suited they are more likely to be productive.
Because of the shortage of time I will not go into the problem of the development areas. We know that much of the loss of employment has been due to the decline of traditional industries in those areas. This is the principal reason for their designation as development areas. Government preferential expenditure on the development areas in the year 1968–69 was £270 million. Although much of the assistance to industry is not specifically linked to the creation of new jobs, none the less there is special assistance, and 380,000 new jobs have been created since 1965. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we had not had the system of regional support that this Government have so fully developed.
My Lords, I do not propose to go on any longer because we look forward to hearing a number of valuable contributions from noble Lords; nor shall I follow the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale (who has somewhat handicapped me by not being present at this moment) in producing any innuendoes. Although we live in an uncomfortable age, it is certainly nothing like so uncomfortable, in terms of living standards, as in those drab years in the past. I must emphasise that in the past few years, during the lifetime of this Government, living standards have been steadily rising; and this is shown by countless indicators, whether it has been an increase in the number of motor-cars, television sets or even central heating systems. One may laugh and say that these are not very pleasing indicators. But they are. And they are important to the comfort of life, and should improve its quality.
Industrial production has risen strongly —by about 8½ per cent. in two years—and we are in a unique position, for this country, in now seeing a favourable trend in the balance of payments while production still continues to rise. Our total debit and credit position—on which there has been some discussion—is probably slightly better than it was a few years ago; and despite our external difficulties Britain has remained a net external creditor nation. At the end of last year our net external assets exceeded liabilities by almost £2,000 million, due to the steady increase in the value of net

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long-term assets. I do not think that this figure is as vital in the short term: the really vital question, from the point of view of the balance-of-payments position, is not our net credit or debit position, but the capital flows and the interest receipts or payments associated with them. It is in this area that so many of our problems have confronted us.
We shall need to sustain our improvement over a long period. We now have a chance to free ourselves from some of these agonising difficulties imposed by the balance-of-payments problems that have bedevilled us ever since the war—and I would remind noble Lords that they would have bedevilled us before the war, too, if there had not at that time been mass unemployment. At least we are moving in the right direction, and this is where we are perhaps coming to a clearer understanding in this House. I hope we shall not fall into the error of being too confident and relaxing our efforts, but let us also show some real pride, whether it is by the Government or the people, in our achievements, in which there is quite a lot to be proud.
3.46 p.m.
LORD STOKES: My Lords, I am well aware of the custom of your Lordships' House whereby maiden speeches crave the indulgence of the House. This I am more than happy to do. I am, moreover, aware of two other customs; namely, the desirability of being both brief and noncontroversial. Here, however, I must ask even more strongly for your indulgence again, since I have a difficult theme and I am more accustomed to speaking to the shop floor rather than the Floor of the House. I must also declare a personal interest in industry in general, including the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, and the motor industry in particular.
As an industrialist, I welcome the Government's successful efforts to improve our balance of payments, and I must applaud their determination in not faltering after a few months' initial success. There is no doubt that if any economic policy is going to be successful it has to be consistent, and one of our big difficulties as manufacturers in the past has been having to cope with the vacillating policies of successive Governments. Whatever one's views on how the nation's resources are distributed, the fact re-
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mains that most of our balance of payments success is due to industry taking up the export challenge and, in particular, to a relatively small number of companies who are carrying most of the burden in competing in fiercely competitive overseas markets. In fact over half our direct exports are accounted for by a little over one hundred companies, although I am not underrating the part played by our many suppliers.
I have always accepted that industry must regard the whole world as its market, not just this country, and until we do we shall never be successful either profit-wise or in developing an aggressive industrial mentality. At the same time, we must not neglect the fact that to export successfully most industries must have a readily available domestic market to absorb some of the overheads of aggressive exporting. This may not necessarily be logical, but in many cases is due to the restrictive measures of many of the countries with whom we either trade or compete.
If I may quote an example: much play has been made of the success of the Japanese motor industry in obtaining export markets, but it should always be remembered that they have a virtually restricted home market from which meaningful foreign competition is excluded, and from that protected base they export substantially, but in total it amounts only to 18 per cent. of their output. Our British motor industry, on the other hand, has succeeded in exporting nearly 50 per cent. of its output with a home market depressed by credit squeezes and yet, at the same time, open to international competitors throughout the world whose mere presence here effectively controls our home selling prices. The Japanese market is also protected by import quotas on 120 items, by high tariffs and tight controls on investment by foreigners. If we operated under similar conditions to the Japanese—which I do not advocate—we too could make even greater inroads into almost any market. As it is, Britain as a country exports more than twice as much per head of the population as Japan, and in this respect is second only to Germany.
Independence, individualism and free enterprise have always been cherished words in the industrial sense in this country. If, however, we are going to

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succeed in the world trading stakes we cannot afford the luxury of small, individualistic firms, or of sleepy giants, who are not prepared to expand and to meet the challenge. Industrial concentration of our meagre resources in this small country is vital if we are going to compete, and this is particularly so in the capital intensive industries. In this connection, I believe that the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation as an industrial catalyst has been most worth while; it has been the most worth while of almost all the institutions set up by the present Government. It is vital that it is continued with the same independence under which it currently operates.
Size for the sheer sake of it is no argument. There are, however, obvious and real advantages of economies of scale in purchasing, research, product rationalisation, large-scale marketing projects, and the combined financial strength to enable one to ride out fluctuations caused by market changes or by individual project failures. Most important of all is the ability to attract and to use to the full the best management and specialist talent that will be available to large companies. In the end it is always people who matter.
Mergers or takeovers, issued sensibly, can unite skills or techniques into one composite, competitive whole. They enable scarce managerial talents and expertise—probably the scarcest resource in this or any other country—to be more effectively used, and thus enable us to stand up to the sheer size of some of our major overseas competitors. It must be admitted that size brings its own problems. Critics of what is sometimes called "giantism" talk as if the problems of large size were parallel with those of small size. Several of the problems of smaller companies are incurable except by growing bigger. It is, however, axiomatic that successful small firms grow big unless their owners take positive steps to keep them small, either by denying them capital for expansion or merely by being reluctant to take on additional responsibilities in these days of high taxation. To my mind, the problems of large size are basically organisational and they are therefore curable, provided that we can find and attract and reward inspired management, who in the end must be the key to all business success.
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It is of course worth remembering in this context that firms which may appear giants to us in this country are in reality quite small on the world scene; and it is only in the global sense that industry must think to-day, including the possibilities of many more trans-national associations. While I think it can be proved that industrially large groups are vital for our international competitiveness, they contain the seeds of their own destruction. I refer, of course, to the tremendous problems imposed by the sheer numbers of the work force of any large organisation. Large corporations to-day tend to pay their employees better, provide better working conditions, and act in the most responsible way possible; yet at the same time, merely because of their size, they often become bedevilled by more industrial disputes and problems than are smaller organisations.
At the present time we are getting into a most dangerous situation in this country, with the future livelihoods of all of us at stake, because of the action of a number of people pressing pay claims, mostly unofficial, which do not go through the normal procedural channels and in many cases are completely unrelated to any increase in productivity or efficiency. It is becoming common practice for groups of people to withdraw their labour in breach of normal agreements and to hold to ransom whole industries on which the country's survival depends for the sake of piratical pay claims which, if granted, merely spark off a whole series of similar leapfrogging demands. The end result is that the cost of products and servicing goes up, to the detriment of all, and is rapidly exhausting the gains and sacrifices made by the last devaluation. We should all like perpetual increases, but it must be becoming obvious even to the most obtuse of us, that, if continually applied across the board as attempted at the present moment, they are self-defeating. All we shall achieve is a rapid rate of inflation and a loss of competitiveness.
Because of the complicated and interdependent production processes of the mass producer, the automobile industry is perhaps more vulnerable than most; but as the largest exporter, the loss so caused to the country by this industry alone is

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incalculable in real terms. British Leyland, which is my own company, alone during the last year, but for strikes, could have manufactured an extra 100,000 motor cars, of which at least 50,000 would have been exported, representing some £26 million sterling extra to our balance of payments over and above our existing record export financial contribution. The extra cash flow generated by this lost continuity of production would have been applied to purchasing more modern plant and equipment to keep ourselves competitive, and it would also have been applied to paying wages which, in their absence, have been made up by strike pay or by social security benefits or in some cases, I regret to say, one suspects, even by unprecedented sickness benefits, which indirectly are all added to the country's overhead costs.
This drain on our investment fund availability is reflected in the fact that 59 per cent. of the machine tools in the motor industry in the United Kingdom are over ten years old. This compares with only 42 per cent. in Germany and only 36 per cent. in Japan. As a country we are devoting a lower proportion of our gross national product to investment than are all our European competitors. Investment is particularly important at the present time in order to ensure that the export-led boom is sustained by an investment-led recovery in the home market. We suffer, I suggest, in this country from a legacy of "we" and "they", which is a hangover of Victorian paternalism and prejudice. Memories are sometimes too long, and the minds of too many of us stretch backwards rather than look forwards. The next few years must see great changes in the relationships between the work force of this country, their unions and managements, all of whom have an equal share in the task of running companies at all levels. All who share in this task must receive proportionate rewards; but rewards carry responsibilities, which also must be fully shared. This means a positive approach from management, unions and Government.
Management itself must work much harder at communication, particularly in the large companies. "Communication" is a much abused word to-day and I do
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not think there is anyone in industry who is unaware of the necessity to communicate. But what do we communicate and how do we do it? In a small organisation this is no problem. The manager, by his physical presence in walking round the works, can know everybody and give a full sense of participation. As the organisation becomes larger, so the management tends to become remote, and therefore much has been, and is being, done by joint works councils, productivity committees, works newspapers and so on, to reach directly the men on the shop floor and to prevent, as in the old parlour game, the message getting distorted down the line as the number of ears increases. These are areas in which management must take the initiative.
In the age of big business and big Government there must also be big and strong trade unions. We cannot run factories without strong and efficient trade union organisations, and in the same way as industrial concerns must merge and reorganise themselves to meet the changing times, so too must the unions review their structures and their own multiplicity in order to enable them to maintain reasonable disciplines over their members, and adherence to bargains which have been freely entered into by them on behalf of all their members, taking into account the varying conditions of the individual plants concerned.
The shop steward to-day has one of the most responsible and difficult tasks in industry. If he confines his activities to the plant in which he is accredited, supports his union and is given full support by management, he has a tremendously potential power for good in so far as the company, its workpeople and the country's prosperity in general are concerned.
We live in a permissive society where, perhaps, people are once again seeking to reassert their individuality beyond the restrictions induced by repetitive tasks. If we want high remuneration, shorter working hours and a greater affluence then reasonable disciplines must be accepted, preferably voluntarily, and elected representatives must be able to negotiate on the basis that their agreements, once entered into, will be maintained for an agreed sufficient period of time to enable the productive machinery to fulfil its purpose.

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One of the main aims of the Government's document, In Place of Strife, was to ensure that agreements, once made, were kept and that proper procedures were adhered to. I am doubtful whether legislation is the sole answer to our problems, nor do I consider it realistic to think in terms of attaching fines to particular individuals, although it may well be that employers and unions should be made more responsible for their collective actions. Industrial relations have fundamentally to do with attitudes of mind, and the purpose of any legislation should be to create an environment in which attitudes can more easily be changed. I think this has largely been the success, for instance, of the Race Relations Act, and any such legislation is best kept to the minimum necessary. In industrial relations I suggest that a start could probably best be made by insisting on a secret ballot prior to any major strike. A further considerable improvement would be a move to three-years contracts on pay and conditions, as they are negotiated in the United States of America. Unions must be responsible for their members, and poaching from one union to another must be discouraged, otherwise the whole structure of responsibility is damaged. A concerted effort on these fronts by management, unions and Government working together could pull us through these difficult times.
We are, of course, not the only country to suffer from strikes and labour indiscipline. In France, Italy, the United States of America and Japan, for example, industry has been suffering from problems which are in many ways as bad as or even worse than ours, and the number of days lost through industrial disputes is even greater than our own.
My Lords, it would be quite wrong to leave you with the impression that we in British industry are masochistically obsessed with our difficulties. On the contrary, we are only too conscious of the challenge and the opportunity facing us, and impatient of anything which hinders us from responding to them. Our export record shows that we are rising to the challenge. Our exports this year are up 15 per cent. over last year, and for the first time since the war we are holding our share of world trade as a nation.
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Our need now is to build on the success we have already achieved. To do this we must learn—all of us, whether in Government or in industry or whatever—to cope with change which is occurring at a faster rate than ever before in history. I believe we can do this, probably better than any other people on earth, but we must be aware of the difficulties of trying to solve this urgent and vital problem in the relatively remote atmosphere of Westminster. In the industrial areas of our land feelings run high and it will require political acumen and persuasion of the highest order to make a change back from militancy to reasoned negotiations. I thank you, my Lords.

NATIONAL SUPERANNUATION SCHEME
4.4 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, with permission I should like at this point to make a Statement on partial contracting out under the National Superannuation Scheme. It will fall to my noble friend Lord Crook to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, but I must say—and I am sure the whole House will agree—that it was a most remarkable and satisfactory speech. However, I will not take up time by saying more now, because nobody is better qualified than my noble friend Lord Crook in this area of industrial relations.
My Lords, the Statement that I am about to make on the National Superannuation Scheme closely parallels one which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, who yesterday laid before Parliament a White Paper setting out the terms on which the provision for partial contracting out will be made in the Bill introducing the national superannuation scheme and copies of the Paper (Command Paper No. 4195) are now available in the Printed Paper Office. The Government attach great importance to the role of occupational schemes as partners with the State scheme; and before deciding on the contracting out terms, we consulted the T.U.C., the C.B.I., and a wide range of organisations with a special interest in occupational pension matters.

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These consultations gave us a comprehensive view of all the relevant issues, and the Government are greatly indebted to those who took part.
The purpose of having contracting-out facilities is to offer occupational schemes the opportunity of taking over responsibility for part of the State scheme pension and in this way to limit the extent to which occupational schemes may need to cut back both in contributions and benefits when the enlarged State scheme is introduced. As to the scale of the contracting-out provision, our initial suggestion was that the annual rate of pension for which contracted-out schemes would take over responsibility might be set at around 0·9 per cent. of the earnings on which the employee contributed to the State scheme. It was represented to us, however, that occupational schemes would find it helpful to take over responsibility for a rather bigger share of the pension; and we decided, with a wide measure of support from those we consulted, that for men the annual amount of pension for which the occupational scheme would take over responsibility as a condition for contracting out should be 1 per cent. of the employee's reckonable earnings. For women, who have a lower pension age than men, the equivalent figure is 0·55 per cent. of reckonable earnings.
We sought the advice of the Government Actuary on what deduction from State scheme contributions would correspond to these deductions from the State scheme pension. He advised that, on a strict actuarial calculation, a contribution abatement for the employee amounting to 1·25 per cent. of his reckonable earnings, with an equal deduction from the employers' contribution, would be fair for the average occupational scheme. Most of those we consulted wished to have a bigger contribution abatement, and although we could not go as far as they wished without being unfair to employees not contracted out, we have decided to go beyond the strict actuarial terms based on averages and to abate the contributions for contracted out employees by 1·3 per cent. a side of their reckonable earnings. The Government Actuary has advised that this improvement in the terms should be sufficient to make them financially acceptable to a
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further number of schemes covering an appreciable number of employees.
We are confident that on these terms the balance will be struck fairly between those employees who are partially contracted out and those who are not. The way in which the terms have been arrived at is described in full detail in the White Paper, which shows how far the Government have been able to go in meeting representations from the occupational pension interests and contains supporting information which will repay careful study.
I now turn to matters affecting public service pension schemes for which responsibility lies also with a number of my right honourable friends and in regard to which I, in my capacity as Minister in charge of the Civil Service Department, have a particular responsibility. The Government have a special responsibility for the public service schemes and in view of the misunderstandings that have been voiced in recent months about our intentions towards these schemes, I should like to make the following points clear.
First, we have no intention whatever, as has been alleged, of dismantling public service pension schemes. Members of the public services take a pride in their occupational schemes, and the Government understand and share these feelings. It should not be forgotten that occupational pension schemes were pioneered in the Government service. Secondly, whatever changes in present occupational schemes may be necessary after the introduction of the new State scheme, we do not intend that benefits earned by previous service in existing schemes should be subject to retrospective change. Thirdly, anxieties about the retiring age have been expressed on behalf of the police and fire services, and other groups who because of the special nature of their duties cannot continue in their present employments until the age at which the State retirement pension comes into payment. There is no intention of making a change in their retiring ages. Fourthly, where the Government are the employers, any necessary changes in occupational pension arrangements will be fully discussed with staff representatives, as I have no doubt other employers in the public services, and I hope elsewhere, will be doing. Indeed, in many areas such consultations have already begun. We have

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no intention of acting precipitately, or without full consultation with staff interests.
It is not in question that changes are necessary in public service pension schemes. One of the disadvantages of pioneer schemes is that if they are not periodically reviewed they get out of date. In the Civil Service, for example, we are all aware that, despite the many improvements that have been made in recent years, the arrangements for preserving or transferring the pensions of those who leave for other work are still not nearly as comprehensive as we should like to make them. In another field, the Government are already pledged to seek better ways than the series of Pension (Increase) Acts of reviewing the level of pensions already in payment.
But it would make no sense at all to reshape occupational schemes to deal with these and other points without at the same time taking into account the important part to be played by the new State scheme. The pensioner is concerned with his total pension benefits, and careful co-ordination is essential to ensure that the pensioner gets the right benefits from the two schemes, State and occupational, taken together, without avoidable gaps or duplication. This is the way to ensure that the member does not have to pay too much in contributions and that he gets value for money. Clearly, any adjustments that may be needed to take account of the State retirement pension will apply only when the individual is old enough to receive it. Those who retire on pension before the State pension age will still receive an immediate pension as good as that which they would now receive; necessary adjustments to take account of the State retirement pension will apply only at the State pension age.
This is the background against which we shall be discussing changes with staff representatives. The discussions will cover not only any changes needed to take account of the new State scheme, and whether the public service schemes should make use of the partial contracting-out facility, but also any proposals that staff representatives themselves wish to put forward.
The Armed Forces are in a special position but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence has
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asked me to say that the same general approach will be adopted in considering what changes may be necessary in their present arrangements.
My Lords, I have been dealing with those schemes for which the Government have a special responsibility. In setting up occupational pensions schemes the nationalised industries have also exercised a pioneering role. Their schemes may also need to be adjusted in the light of the proposals for the new earnings related State pension scheme. I am, however, confident that, taking the State and occupational pension scheme arrangements as a whole, there will be better provision for future pensioners and their families throughout public sector industry generally, as there will be for public service pensioners.
4.15 p.m.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that very full Statement. I am sure all noble Lords will wish to study it in detail, and also the White Paper that has been laid; because without doing so undoubtedly they will not be able, any more than I am, to understand its full meaning. But may I ask the noble Lord one or two questions?
The accumulation of personal savings represented by the net growth in occupational pension funds in 1968 was reckoned as £810 million. I wonder whether the noble Lord has any estimate that he can make of the effect of the present proposals on occupational pension schemes surpluses. After all, the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, whose speech we have all so much enjoyed, has just been laying emphasis on investment and the amount of our resources that have to be devoted to investment. Of course, the State scheme is going to be a pay-as-you-go scheme and not a scheme which is going to enable a large proportion of investment to be made; so therefore this question is absolutely crucial.
There is one point—I do not know whether it is made clear in the White Paper— which I think may be puzzling your Lordships, as it is me. The Statement talks about an abatement of 1 per cent. of the employee's reckonable earnings. I think that what your Lordships would like to know is what proportion this will represent of the employee's

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actual pension when it comes to be paid —not just the reckonable earnings, but what proportion of the pension that is to be carried by the occupational pension scheme as a basis of contracting out. Those of us who have had experience of pension schemes and their passage through Parliament will know that the working together of occupational schemes with the State scheme is always the point of greatest difficulty in setting up these schemes, and I think we may find that to be so in this case, too.
The noble Lord spoke of a wide measure of support. I take it he means a wide measure of support for these proposals in the context of the Government's intentions to set up these schemes, and not necessarily a wide measure of support for what is going to happen to occupational schemes as a whole. After all, the original White Paper envisaged that any such arrangements as the Government are proposing are likely to lead to the winding up of a certain number of occupational pension schemes.
May I say one word about the public sector? The public sector accounts for more than half of all employees at present contracted out. It is not clear from what the noble Lord has said to-day whether the expectations of pension in the public sector are going to be affected or not. This particularly applies to those who reach their peak earnings at the end of their service. The noble Lord said that, if they retire before the age of 65, under the new proposals they will get until they reach 65 the full pension that they would otherwise have received. But he seemed to imply that their present pension expectations thereafter—not referring to retrospective payments—will be adversely affected by the present scheme. We should like to know whether that is so or not.
Finally, the noble Lord referred to discussions still to take place. From that I would assume that the Bill cannot be presented for some time. Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to give us some indication of when the Bill is likely to come before Parliament.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord. When I sat down I nearly said, "I hope your Lordships understand it." I understand my part of it, but the other part is very com-
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plicated, and although I have been very involved in it it has taken me a long time to grasp all the factors. Unfortunately, I did not make a note of the noble Lord's points, because I thought he was going to make only one or two; if I miss anything perhaps he will remind me.
First of all, he raised the important question of the effect of funds available for investment. When I say that I cannot give an answer to that question, it is because it is not yet possible to tell what the various schemes will do. This was a very big factor in the mind of the Government, not only in the interests of retaining partnership and keeping good occupational schemes going, but because this is an important source of funds. The figures that the Government have now arrived at have taken this sort of consideration much into account; but it is not really possible to be more precise, although obviously this is a matter of importance.
Then the noble Lord asked me what proportion of pension would result from the abatement figure. Here again, the proportion in the total amount will depend on the earnings and therefore the actual entitlement to pension. If the noble Lord studies the new State pension scheme he will see what I mean. I shall, however, be able to give him a table; and if it is of help to your Lordships I will see whether it is possible to put in the Library some other information if the information that is contained in the White Paper does not cover this matter far enough.
The noble Lord then raised the subject of the discussions. I do not think that these will necessarily hold up the preparation of the Bill itself, which is far advanced. Discussions on the general nature of the scheme and on the level of contracting out—and we have to remember that at least half the population of the country are not in occupational scheme at all—are now complete. The next stages will be consultation between employers and employees on how they propose to adapt the occupational scheme, to mesh it in with the State scheme when this comes into effect. On that point discussions will go ahead. In my area of responsibility in the public service we are ready to proceed. We have a joint committee in existence and some discussions have already taken place; but it has not been possible to

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make them really meaningful until the level of abatement was fixed.
I believe the noble Lord asked me one more question, about the level of pension for those who have to retire early by the nature of their job. I do not think I can add anything to the carefully chosen words that I have already given; but it is meant to be an absolutely firm assurance that those who have to retire early by nature of their particular jobs —and the list I gave was not exclusive, but those are the ones with regard to whom concern has already been expressed—will still get a retirement pension at that age as good as they would expect to get now.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I have not yet had an opportunity to see the White Paper or the other document to which the noble Lord referred. May I ask the noble Lord whether he is able to give an assurance that the quite comprehensive arrangements under which local government officers at present retire will not be modified to their disadvantage?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, that is quite an appropriate question, because it is in the area of local government that the greatest concern has been expressed, by NALGO in particular, and I must frankly say that I find it most difficult, after the explanations that have been given by my right honourable friend, to see why they are so concerned. It is clear that if one is introducing a new and revolutionary pension scheme which will apply to all the community, modification in occupational schemes to take account of the new scheme must take place. But, of course, considerable additional benefits will flow to the occupational scheme employee. There will be a much better prospect for him, in regard to both frozen pensions and the transferability of pensions. There is a whole area which will be the subject of negotiation, and I should be most surprised, taking into account the responsibility and the power of the unions and the attitude of the employees, if the ultimate outcome is not most satisfactory. But obviously there must be a certain disturbance of existing arrangements.
Being, as I am, one of the great unpensioned, I find myself heavily engaged in ensuring that those for whom I am
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responsible really have a good deal, and I am quite confident, and should not be embarking on this scheme if I were not well satisfied as to what we are likely to achieve with the Civil Service; and this will, I think, tend to set the pace across the field of the public services. I do not myself have direct responsibility over the local government field—that is for the local authorities; and my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government is responsible at second hand. In the last resort my Department plays a co-ordinating role. Anything that the noble Lord can do in the light of that assurance to put people's anxieties at rest will be helpful, because it would be a great pity if, in this suspicious age, there should be some feeling that people were going to be "done down".
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I put one or two questions to my noble friend? If he cannot answer them now, I shall be quite content if he says that he will look into them. The first question follows on what the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, has mentioned and concerns local government employees. These local government employees now retire at so many fortieths of the salary they have been drawing for the last three years of their service. Is that kind of employee likely to be better off, or worse off, under the new Government scheme? The second point concerns equal pay for women which we are going to see in operation in six years' time. Will the fact that in 1975 women are to get equal pay in any way throw the actuarial calculations off their balance? The third point is—
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I deal with those two questions while I remember them? On the first point, which concerned the terms for local government employees, I would say that these are matters which employers and trade unions and the staff side will want to discuss. There are various alternative ways of calculating pension entitlement. This is not a completely open and shut matter. The Government have set out the framework and this is a matter which they will have to discuss with those concerned. But I must say that the object of the exercise is that the pension arrangements in all sections shall in no way be worsened. There may be changes. There

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may be changes which are most desirable for the public sector or for any other occupational scheme members. There may be a choice of interest—the type of provision for widows. It is unlikely that any lump sum arrangement will be changed, because under the State scheme there is no provision for a lump sum. As for the position of women generally, I can assure the noble Lord that actuarily they have been taken fully into account; and under the State scheme their retirement age still remains at 60.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I then ask my noble friend about the firemen, policemen, et cetera? He told us that when they retire at, say, 55 they will be guaranteed a pension at least as good as that which they get now. Will they draw that pension when they are 55, or will they have to wait until they are 65 before they actually put it in their pocket?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, no: they will be able to draw it. That is the essence of its being as good as they would get at present. Many of them may not retire completely, in the sense that they may go on working. The fact is that they will draw their pension.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, my next question is with regard to the universities' federated superannuation scheme. Is that likely to be affected in any serious way? Finally, can my noble friend tell us about the investment aspect of this scheme, which I think has already been mentioned? At present, pension schemes, particularly those in local government, invest a considerable proportion of their accumulated funds in industrial equities. Will this Government fund be restricted to investments in gilt-edged? If so, the flow of money into industrial investment will be quite seriously affected.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think my noble friend is beginning to take a little advantage of the freedom of this House, and I ask him to wait until he has had a chance of reading the White Paper. I have already dealt with the investment side, and I do not want to get drawn into the kind of investment which may be done by the State. Indeed, I should have to wait for my noble friend Lord Mitchison to participate on that. I
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am not sure what was the other point that my noble friend raised.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I asked about the federated superannuation scheme.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I think I will leave that until another day. I must stress that the essence of the arrangement is that it is not for the Government to lay down; it is a matter for discussion and negotiation between employers and employees, and I am sure that all wise employers will see that there is full consultation. Inevitably, however, when the State scheme comes into payment, at the age of 60 for women and 65 for men, it will be necessary to provide some form of assimilation. Otherwise, there could be over-provision and the employee would be paying more for his pension during his working life than he would want to do. So there will need to be careful discussion. I agree that it is going to involve a lot of work for people.
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may I trespass on the time of your Lordships just to ask two questions to put the matter into perspective? The importance of occupational pension schemes is tremendous, and while the noble Lord is quite right in saying that half the population are not covered, I would ask him whether he is aware that only one third of the male employees are not covered by occupational pension schemes? Incidentally, may I say that I hope that he will at least get his national insurance pension? He is a pensioner himself to that extent.
To sum up, so far as contributions are concerned, am I right in understanding that the contribution of those who are contracted out will be abated from 6·5 to 5·2 per cent. each side? And am I right in thinking that that applies only to earnings up to one and a half times the average national earnings, and that the employers will have to pay the full 6½ per cent. on all that is earned over that national average?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I was referring at that moment to my position in relation to occupational pension schemes, and I should point out that Ministers are not even entitled to take part in the graduated pension scheme—we are a very hard-done-by lot. As to

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what the noble Lord has said with regard to the contribution rate, if he has worked it out I have such respect for his acumen and accuracy that I should be very surprised if he was not right. I should be unwise, even with him, to confirm precisely the figures, but I shall examine urgently what he has said and make sure. I tried to write it down. I think he probably is right, but I really must look at the figures. I am sorry that I can say no more at the moment.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH
4.34 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, as the noble Lord the Leader of the House has said, it is a tradition to congratulate a speaker who has given us an excellent maiden speech. I offer my congratulations not merely because of tradition or because it is the habit of the House, but as one who has been 45 years in industrial relations. The noble Lord, Lord Stokes, brought us a breath of fresh air, and I hope he will not restrict himself only to speaking on the factory floor and the board room floor. I hope that he will come to the Floor of this House and give us the benefit of his wisdom on every appropriate occasion.
I intended to refer only to the forthcoming legislation on accidents, but I should now like to congratulate the Government, since the noble Lord the Leader of the House has referred to two matters of great importance to me, to which I have devoted some considerable time. For 25 years, from 1925 onwards, I was a member of the National Whitley Council Staff Side and the equal pay committee. But having taken part in the discussions in the National Whitley Council which led to equal pay in the Civil Service, I have since wondered whether I should get to another place before I saw legislation to produce equal pay in this country in general. I congratulate the Labour Government to-day on their intention of introducing this, and I also congratulate them on their timing. They were able to put it into the Queen's speech immediately before the fiftieth anniversary of the I.L.O., and we all went to Lancaster House feeling very much
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happier that another convention, which had hung fire for a long while, was going to be signed. May I also say how much I appreciate the way in which the Government, the noble Lord who is the head of the new Civil Service Department, and the Prime Minister, have got on with the job of organising that Department, and of studying and trying to carry out the better parts of the Fulton Report.
I want to say something about accidents, and I make no apology for the fact that, during the 22 years that I have been in this House, I have been trying to force the attention of Parliament and the country to the grave problems which are being so much forgotten and neglected. I think that, in his speech on my Motion which we debated here, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, uttered two sentences which show what a problem accidents represent. He said:
"One wonders how society can tolerate this running sore on our industrial life, for which we pay a very heavy price in human suffering, and the hard economic factor of lost production."
He added, I think rightly,
"…I think that people in future ages will look back with the same astonishment on this age as the astonishment with which we look back on the circumstances of the Industrial Revolution."'
The way in which we take things for granted in this country is most astonishing. This loss of life, and this suffering and misery of people and their dependants; this tremendous loss of production; the waste of our medical power; the waste of our beds in hospitals—all seems to be forgotten. We react everywhere—in the Press, on our television, in both Houses immediately there is a train accident or a plane accident, or immediately two people are killed on a level crossing. It is quite right that we should do so, but what we should try to remember is that every day in the week throughout the year two people are dying in industrial accidents.
Every time there is a strike, someone will ask questions in Parliament and, quite rightly, we will have debates in one or other or in both Houses. There will then be talk about the great loss of productivity, but accidents are causing far greater loss of productivity than any strikes. The last year for which figures are available show—I quote from Hansard of January 20, 1969,—that the

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number of work days lost through industrial accidents was 24 million, while the number of work days lost from strikes during that same period of time was only 2½ million. My Lords, 625 people died in industrial accidents in factories last year, and a considerable number in addition died in offices and shops; 313,000 people had accidents in factories and there were over 20,000 in shops.
I am not quite clear, from what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said, about what legislation we are going to get in this House, and that is one of the subjects to which I want to address myself. A short Bill was promised by the right honourable lady in July last, but there is the longer and much more important Bill which was first circulated in draft 18 months ago, and there is also the outstanding undertaking that an attempt will be made to amalgamate the Factories Acts, in general, with the Act of 1963 on Shops, Offices and Railway Premises. I hope that we shall not get only the short Bill, and that the long Bill will not be put off once again. I understood that it was not in the gracious Speech last year, because of the time needed for the preparation of this kind of measure.
I imagine it is quite clear that the promise given in July of the short measure covers the joint committees. I and some of my noble friends on this and on the other side of the House have debated again and again the complete failure of voluntary effort. I for one have stood in this House and have urged that voluntary effort should be relied upon in the first instance, but we have now reached the stage where voluntary effort has failed. The report which the Minister issued recently says that there are
"still large gaps due, for example, to apathy, general lack of co-operation between employees and employers, or genuine belief that some alternative was more effective".
It was in 1965 that the then Minister of Labour said that if things did not get better we would have legislation, and I hope that that is what will be involved in the Bill that we see.
I hope, too, that the short measure, if it is only the short measure, includes some quite strong action about fire risks. I am not going to keep your
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Lordships by rehearsing all the details of that shocking event in Glasgow, which we all know about; and I know that the right honourable lady the First Secretary gave instructions that high fire risk factories should be inspected at least once a year. But inspection is only one thing. I am quite clear in my own mind that the legislation needed must include very much heavier penalties, and penalties of quite a grave kind, on those who are responsible. I am also quite clear that there must be co-operation between the employers and the workers on this question, and that the employers must face up to their responsibilities. For instance, I was amazed to read the recent statement of the Chief Fire Officer of Coventry, Mr. Leese, that Coventry's four-year research project into industrial fires is being abandoned because of, he said, a lack of real interest on the part of the management. He said in his report:
"It is obvious to me that management are paying only lip service to the problem and are not using managerial talents to solve it."
I hope that we are going to be very firm about this.
I also hope that in the amalgamation of the two Acts we shall bear in mind that these risks are present in offices and in shops. Four weeks before the Glasgow fire, which had so much television and Press coverage, there took place not very far from London—in Chesham, in fact—a fire in a supermarket belonging to a famous firm. Five employees were trapped inside the storeroom in which they were working, behind windows which had iron bars that were padlocked. There were no means of escape such as had been certified by the authorities; the security door was padlocked, and the key was missing. It was only by the Grace of God that because there were workmen nearby with tools who were able to cut through the iron bars on the windows the people managed to be got out before they were roasted alive. I am glad that the judge who dealt with the matter inflicted a fine of £660 and full costs on the big firm concerned.
My Lords, supervision of shops and offices under the 1963 Act was left to local authorities. Some of us had our doubts about this then, although we did not know the right answer. I for one was very glad to see the Government

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of the day bring in the Bill, for it was better to have a Bill and to get something going than to have nothing. We certainly have got something going, and we have learnt a lot in the last four years. It was obvious to most of us at the time that local authority supervision would not be good enough. There are now three-quarters of a million shops and offices which have been registered, with 7½ million employees, and it is true that nearly all of them have been inspected once in four years; but not quite all, even now. The truth is that there are 1,378 authorities responsible for administration, and they all have different standards. They have such different standards that it is possible for the manager of a great firm like Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's to agree a particular standard for one of their shops with the local officer who is inspecting and to go into production (because good firms always agree to do anything which is wanted), only to find that in the next county or borough the authority in question says. "That is not good enough for us; we do not want that, we want something quite different". It has even reached the stage that some people who are making some of these things are beginning to wonder whether we have gone out of our minds.
However, it was a good Bill which, when it became an Act, proved to be a good Act. It was the provisions for inspection which were wrong, and the Ministry of Labour as it then was, or the D.E.P. as it now is, have admitted this. If one looks at the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government, one sees that they said in evidence quite clearly:
"The only conclusion … to be drawn … is that despite all advice and guidance, both quantitative and qualitative, uniformity of enforcement by local authorities is an unrealisable ideal".
Later in their evidence they said:
"It is a ground for general criticism that an Act which provides safety, health and welfare protection for all office and shop workers should vary in its application according to the degre of enthusiasm of the enforcing authority".
It is that to which I direct attention in respect of whatever Bill we may get.
As to the inspectorate that we have, let us grasp one nettle immediately by saying that we have not got enough inspectors. We have always been saying
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that, and always we have received the same reply. It is repeated in the new report which has just come out: that is, that there are still not as many inspectors as are provided for in the establishment; that we are still not recruited up to the number authorised. This year, the Chief Inspector said that improved starting salaries and the introduction in 1969 of an alternative method of entry for well-qualified older candidates with industrial experience had not remedied the situation. Of course, it was not for him as Chief Inspector to go on to say what I can say and what other Members of this House can say: that a very good reason why you cannot recruit inspectors is that what you offer them as starting pay—and, indeed, even after five years in a responsible job such as this—is less than the dustmen were prepared to settle for in their recent strike. How can you expect to have a factory inspectorate up to strength in such conditions?
Even if the authorised number is reached, I think that number must be increased. That is one thing that must come out of this Bill. I was very glad to see that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in a Statement in another place that he thought the only answer to these problems was to have more inspectors. He also pointed out that it was no good in one breath saying, "Let us have more inspectors" and then in the next breath saying, "But, of course, we must not have any more civil servants; we must keep the figure down". The plain truth is that if there is one field in which more civil servants are justified it is in this one.
My Lords, there are many speakers to follow. There are many more aspects of this problem about which I should have liked to say something, but I shall have further opportunity on the various stages of the Bill, whatever it is. I shall be able either to suggest Amendments, if it is something that can be amended, or if something has been left out I shall be able to get up and grumble that it has not been put in. Whatever form the legislation takes, I hope it will go some way at any rate towards the proper realisation of that which some of us have been pressing for so long; that is, a proper understanding in this country that the only capital possessed by

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most workers is their lives and their health, and that they are not expendable in the interests of their job.
4.49 p.m.
LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX: My Lords, I should like first to thank the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for his very kind remarks. Unfortunately, he is not here at the moment, but no doubt a message will be passed to him. I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, on his very good speech. I only hope that I can do as well as he did. I beg the indulgence of your Lordships' House to intervene in this debate to make my maiden speech, and I am honoured to be able to take part in this general debate on the gracious Speech. As is the custom, I shall not speak for too long.
The subject of your Lordships' debate to-day is directed to economic affairs, with special reference to industry and industrial relations. As industrial relations is a very controversial subject, and as a maiden speech should not be controversial, I shall refrain from making any comment on it except to say that I believe that before this country can pay its way something must be done—and soon—about all these unofficial strikes and disputes on safety. I shall say no more on this subject as many noble Lords are better qualified than I am to speak on it.
The gracious Speech made reference to an agricultural expansion programme and also to achieving a better balanceof-payments surplus. I feel that these two go hand in hand. In other words, we should grow more and import less. The agricultural industry should have been allowed to expand at a much quicker rate than it has done. During the war it had to expand to meet the demands of the country, and it did so to the best of its ability. Since then it has not expanded in proportion—or so I believe—with the result that there is more imported produce than home produce on the market. I should like to see—and so, I am sure, would those noble Lords who are in the industry—more home produce on the market. This I am sure could happen, because we in this country are fortunate to have an enormous amount of scientific knowledge, experience and know-how which is waiting to be un-
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leashed and so increase the present output and thereby reduce imports.
I give one example—corn. A farmer who wants to sell his corn at a profitable price cannot do so, because the grain stores are overflowing with imported corn. It is partly because of this imported produce and because of these completely unnecessary strikes, fortunately not in the agricultural industry, that this country has got into its present state. Finally, my Lords, expansion of the agricultural industry would not only relieve the country of a very heavy burden, and give relief to the farmers; it would also give them a much better margin. Moreover (and this is just as important), the farmers would be more willing to pay the farmworkers the realistic wage which they so rightly deserve for the very good job that they perform in all weathers.
4.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT WATKINSON: My Lords, it is first my pleasant duty to congratulate the noble Lord who has just spoken in this House for the first time. I do so very sincerely. I think he sets us all an example in saying what he had to say clearly and quickly, and I very much hope that we shall hear him often. I reflected, while he was speaking, that whatever differing views there may be in this House on the hereditary principle, surely it will be a very sad day for all if we do not get a system that enables people of somewhat younger age (if he will allow me to say this to him) to come to this House to bring the freshness and direct approach of youth. I should also like to say a word about the maiden speech to-day from my old friend Lord Stokes. I think it is a very good thing for this place occasionally to have somebody hot from the industrial battles to come and tell us very straightforwardly and clearly what goes on and what ought to be done about it. I hope that the noble Lord's many preoccupations will not keep him away from this House entirely and that we may from time to time have the great benefit of his advice "straight from the horse's mouth".
The only comment that I should like to make on his speech—I think I agreed with everything he said—was that the picture he painted presents the Government with a very great and difficult challenge. I should have liked to take up this point

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with the noble Lord the Leader of the House; but I understand perfectly why he is not here. I think we all have to accept that if this House is to attract people who have other jobs to do, then from time to time they must go away and do them. None the less, 1 must say—and I hope that he will forgive me for saying it in his absence—that I was rather surprised that in a speech from a leading member of the Government nothing was said about this most difficult problem of industrial relations that the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, rightly brought to our attention.
That problem is certainly not confined to the motor industry. All of us who want to see our country prosperous must be increasingly alarmed at the rising tide of unrest—I almost said "anarchy"—that is sweeping through the factories of Britain. Although there are bad employers and perhaps bad trade union leaders, although we have to do what we can to manage our own affairs as well as we can, and although the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. have their duties to perform, if this situation menaces the nation's economic progress—and many of us think that it is doing so—then nothing absolves the Government of the day from the duty to deal with it. Therefore the proposals that I wish to make as briefly as possible must inevitably be aimed at the Government—because they have the reins of power and I believe that it is their responsibility to act.
The Government have tried to act; but it is only reasonable to say that they have in fact made industrial relations much worse by getting involved in a head-on collision with organised labour and then retreating the moment that the real battle was joined. In industry we must now cope with the troubles that face us and that flow from this situation. We will do the best we can; but we have to face a very difficult situation on the shop floor and in our relations with trade unions who appear to have increasing difficulties in keeping control of their members.
The gracious Speech said that the Government are going to bring forward a measure to improve industrial relations. I hope that they will at least have a major re-think about the subject before they bring that measure forward and will try to tune it more accurately to the facts
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of the situation; and, having said what they will do, I hope they will stick to it and do it. I must say again that it would be quite wrong and unfair at this moment to put the responsibility for solving this problem either on to action by the employers or on to action by the trade unions, or even on to action severally and jointly by the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. It is the Government's problem.
As a young Minister, I had the privilege for four years, as perhaps one or two Members of this House may remember, of being involved in a very different approach to industrial relations in a Ministry, incidentally, that regarded Mr. Ernest Bevin as one of its greatest Ministers and a Ministry which, in my day, was under the very able, very sympathetic and great leadership of the late Lord Monckton. I hope that in my putting forward two concrete suggestions it will at least he accepted that I put them forward from a basis of some knowledge of what goes on in industrial relations both on the Government side and over a fairly broad range of British industry.
The first task in this situation of any Government who mean to do their duty by the British people is to revise the legal code which governs the operation of the British trade union movement. I do not think that any of us in industry who have to face this problem can really burke that issue. I hope that I choose my words carefully: I say "revise". The trade union movement is not outside the law of the land; but it is at present governed by a legal code which was designed to deal with the situation of the 19th century rather than the 20th century.
We all know—some of my old friends in the trade unions know and perhaps will agree—that all the old historical battles of the past have long ago been fought and won. We no longer have employers who regard their employees as chattels to be exploited or locked out as circumstances might dictate. Thank goodness, we do not! We no longer have the mass unemployment of the 'thirties. Thank goodness for that! Some of the mythology of those events still remains; but surely the practicalities of the present situation require an impartial re-examination of the trade unions' legal position, particularly in regard to safeguarding the

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rights of individual members of trade unions. For example, it is at least arguable that some impartial body—perhaps the Registrar of Friendly Societies—might be given the duty of making sure that union action is taken only in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the members of the union. I think, too, that the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, and I do not seem to disagree on this.
These and many other proposals, my Lords, are regarded by the trade unions as being controversial. It might be helpful, therefore, in this situation (I am trying to make concrete proposals, and not merely to propound a number of criticisms) for the Government to say, as in my view they must, that they accept the need to revise the legal framework in which trade unions work, but that they do not propose to enter this area of controversy as final arbitrators. The way out, surely, is for the Government to make their proposals clear and precise and then to put them—after all, it is a legal problem—to the test by obtaining the best legal advice available as to the fairest and most workable means of solving the problems.
I do not suggest the setting up of another Royal Commission, but that the Government should make precise proposals, and then ask the legal profession to examine them impartially and try to make them into good and reasonable law. This might not take the issue out of the area of controversy, but at least it would have the advantage of making a solution legally workable; and of making it fair and seen to be fair. It would also avoid some of the many difficulties which, as many noble Lords are no doubt aware, have arisen from trade union legislation both in the United States and in Australia.
Having secured an impeccable and up-to-date legal background for industrial relations, the Government must stand firm, and see that the law is enforced in this connection in the same way as it is enforced in respect of any other citizen of the land. I hope that it will be thought a constructive suggestion when I say that the Government are much more likely to succeed in doing this if they do not confuse their economic policy with the task of seeing fair play in industrial relations. When I served in the old
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Ministry of Labour it was not an economic Department; our job was not to impose economic doctrines in the form of wages or price policies. The work of the Ministry was cast in as non-controversial a role as possible. It sought to provide a service; to conciliate; to ease friction; to resolve disputes. In other words, it tried to act as an impartial referee, even when the game got rough, as it did, and as obviously it always will.
What I am trying to say, my Lords, is that if the Government re-write the rules of the game in industrial relations on the best impartial legal advice they can obtain—as I believe they must—they have an equal responsibility to provide an impartial and fair referee; one who is known to be impartial, and who will see fair play in the national interest. Such a man must clearly be a Minister; for this certainly cannot be done by a committee or an outside body. Moreover, he must be a Minister in the Cabinet—although one might hope that he would not be the most controversial member of the Cabinet.
He should be armed with the right to intervene whenever he or his advisers judged it to be necessary. Here. I believe, is another important point. The old convention of the Ministry of Labour—and, as I understand it, of the present D.E.P.—that you do not intervene in unofficial disputes, really must be abolished. Of course there cannot be an aura of "peace at any price" in this sort of intervention, but where the Ministry felt, as it might feel in an unofficial dispute, that it could not achieve a settlement without putting undue pressure on a company, or for that matter on a trade union, it should be given the very important task of exposing the facts of the case to the public and to the Press, and thus to the country as a whole.
The Ministry should have a statutory duty to investigate unofficial disputes in this way. I think that to-day, if it had that duty, some very strange and twisted stories would arise as a result. No doubt from these stories public opinion could form a view, and would thus be able to exert a more acutely aimed influence on any particular dispute, and perhaps, in the end, enable the Ministry to get a fair settlement in the public interest. The Ministry would be operating against the

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background of this new code of legal practice. Whatever the law, I am quite sure that if it is to work it must have the hacking of the public. And public backing cannot be given unless the facts are known; and, as many of us know the facts of many unofficial disputes are very disagreeable, and very much against the public interest. In many cases, however, they cannot be exposed because there is no impartial body to examine the matter and to put the facts before the public—or, indeed, before some of the chaps who are themselves involved.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, talked about the new super-Board to be formed out of the Monopolies Commission, the P.I.B., and the rest. I pray that this Board will have no responsibility whatsoever for industrial relations. If it does, industrial relations will be worse and not better. I want to say again that a Government must not mix up their economic policy with the task of seeing fair play and getting reasonable conciliation in industrial relations, which are better dealt with on the shop floor than in scenes of great drama in St. James's Square or, even worse, in Downing Street. When they come to national level, surely they will be better solved by the kind of procedure that I am advocating. This Ministry of Labour in its re-formed state would have need to be quite small. It would need an expert staff, and it would need to have the kind of people who can investigate an industrial dispute, official or unofficial, and see that the truth and the facts are known.
Those, my Lords, are my proposals: that a new code of legal practice should be constructed in as non-controversial a way as possible; that the Ministry of Labour should be reconstituted under a Cabinet Minister; that it should work within this legal code; that it should have the right to intervene in unofficial disputes but primarily should have the duty to dig out and present the facts. And certainly it should not apply pressure on trade unions, or on employers to give in to those in the trade union movement who are seeking disruption rather than agreement and efficiency.
The last thing I want to say is this. I have talked a certain amount about the public interest. What is the public interest in this regard? It is—and I think that other noble Lords who are engaged
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in industry may agree—to see that these senseless battles on the shop floor are stopped because, after all, the only people who win these battles are our foreign competitors. They are very happy to take the orders that we cannot fill because we are too busy arguing about some unofficial strike problem instead of getting on with the job of producing our goods and selling them. Nothing gives you a worse name than failing to meet your delivery date, and nothing is more likely to cause you to fail to deliver to a foreign customer than this sort of industrial disruption on the shop floor.
What advantages would this plan show to employers and workpeople? I have never believed that the trade union movement was right to be afraid of a new code of legislation; and I would say that the trade union movement needs the backing of such revised law as much as the Government, employers, or the nation as a whole. Another point that I would draw to the attention of my trade union friends (I sometimes regret that so many of them are now colleagues of mine in your Lordships' House and not still fighting the battle), or to those of them who have any cause to fight the battle, is this. If the trade union movement would come together and agree a proper code of legal behaviour and practice, and would back it, they would then have the right surely to get a much larger membership, something much nearer 100 per cent. of the working population of this country. That I believe would be no bad thing if only we had the situation put into a proper framework and into proper perspective. So, my Lords, in my view there is a great deal in this for the trade union movement; there is a great deal in it for the employers, who ought to be able to get on with their own jobs and not be faced with this sort of industrial anarchy.
Finally, I invite your Lordship's to imagine a first-class game of soccer where there is considerable doubt about the rules, and no referee at all. Yet that, I believe, is the sort of situation in which we in British industry are asked to go ahead and increase our exports, and to do all the other things which for the sake of our country we ought to do. I believe that it is the job of the Government to put a stop to that situation, and to do so soon.
5.10 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, like the noble Viscount who has preceded me, I should like to offer my congratulations to the noble Lords who have made their maiden speeches to-day. One of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, caught my imagination. The noble Lord, who is head of a large firm, employing many thousands of people, spoke about the complications and technicalities of modern industry and ended up with the phrase, which I thought was wonderful, "It is always people who matter". If both sides of industry can take cognisance of that and of the spirit that is behind it, industrial relations in future would be much better than they have been in the past.
I have listened to many of the speeches during the past three days of debate on the gracious Speech. They have covered a wide front in the domestic and international fields and many important matters have been raised, but the topic which we are discussing to-day as the epilogue of the debate—industry and industrial affairs—is as important as anything which has been brought forward since we began last Wednesday. I am pleased to note in the gracious Speech that:
"Provision will also be made for certain reforms relating to industrial safety and health."
It is to that part of the gracious Speech that I want to address my observations.
The possible hazards to health arising from present day industrial processes need our consideration and cannot be ruled out as unimportant. More and more attention has to be paid to those whose health has been impaired, and is likely to be impaired, by these processes, for this impairment vitally affects the individual. First of all, it affects his working capacity and, as a consequence, his standard of life. Many of the people to whom I have spoken throughout the years profoundly and sincerely believe that the diseases of which they are victims arise from the nature of the employment in which they have engaged over a long period of years.
My purpose this afternoon is to talk mainly about respiratory diseases. I will mention only three of them: pneumo-
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coniosis, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. There is a great deal of evidence on record that these three diseases are a direct result of industrial processes. May I quote the example of a man who starts employment physically perfect and with a healthy pair of lungs but who, after working for years in dusty conditions—and some of us here have had experience of this—arrives at a stage when his breathing becomes difficult. He feels that his health is completely impaired and it is difficult to convince him that this condition has not arisen out of the employment in which he has been engaged. I am not a doctor and I do not know much about the human anatomy, but when this type of case arises there is no dispute in the field of medicine about the condition of such a person's lungs and breathing apparatus, although there often arises a difference of opinion about what disease such an afflicted person is suffering from.
Let us assume that a person is suffering from an occupational disease such as pneumoconiosis. That person is entitled to draw benefit from the industrial injuries fund. But if he is certified as suffering from emphysema, which at the moment is regarded as a non-occupational disease and is not a prescribed disease added to the existing schedule, the benefit that such a person would draw would be sickness benefit from the National Insurance Fund. The difference between the two is rather large—and I am going to argue the desirability of uniformity.
I am not unmindful of the fact that there have been great improvements in this field during the last forty years. If I may, I should like at this stage to give an example. Let me take the disease known as silicosis, which was added to the schedule in 1928 but with the restriction that although a man was medically certified as suffering from silicosis, it had to be proved that there was a percentage of silicon in the strata in which the man had been or was working before compensation under the old Workmen's Compensation Act was payable. Happily this is no longer the case. I think it is appropriate here for me to pay tribute to the late Lord Ingleby. I remember when, as Mr. Osbert Peake, in the Coalition Government in 1943 he was Under-Secretary to the late Lord Morrison, then Mr. Herbert Morrison. In this field he,

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together with Herbert Morrison, had a very liberal outlook, and a great deal was done at that time to remove the restrictions so far as affliction to the lungs was concerned.
In this connection, I am not unaware of the argument that is often put forward by the medical profession. They say that emphysema, for instance, is a hazard common to the general public; that apart from those who work in dusty conditions and are subject to industrial diseases, anybody can get it. But my belief, as a humble layman, is that people working in dusty conditions are more likely to become victims of not only pneu-moconoisis, which is prescribed, but of emphysema which is not.
Let me take two men working in the same conditions—and, so far as the coalmining industry is concerned, they may have worked together for years in the same working place. The breathing of both becomes impaired and difficult, and they become limp and ill. What happens? They both go to their local doctor, and he says: "Look here, boys, my suspicion is that your lungs are affected by the inhalation of dust at your work." He is not the final arbiter. He suggests that they go for an X-ray, which they do. The X-ray may reveal suspicions that there is something there. They then go to the Pneumoconiosis Board—this is not exceptional; it very often happens—and one of them is certified as either totally or partially suffering from pneumoconiosis. From the point of view of benefits, that is all right, because that man can go on to the industrial injuries fund. But they may say to the other fellow: "Your lungs are badly affected by dust. However, our diagnosis is that you are not suffering from pneumoconiosis, but from emphysema." By comparison, the one who is suffering from emphysema draws sickness benefit, which is much less than his mate would draw as industrial injury benefit.
If this happened to miners the financial position would be worse, because the mining industry is the only industry in this country (I regret to say this to some of my trade union friends here to-day) that took advantage of that section of the Industrial Injuries Act 1946 to institute a supplementary scheme, which means added benefit for those who be-
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come the victims of an accident or disease.
I came to the conclusion long ago that the prescription of emphysema is long overdue, and that it should be added to the schedule of industrial diseases. I had a document put into my hand this morning. I have not had time to go through it in detail, but I should like to read to your Lordships a short paragraph. It says:
"The case for including chronic bronchitis and emphysema as part of an industrial disease rests in the end, as we have stated before, on social and moral grounds rather than on medical research. Nevertheless, such research, particularly associated with the name of Professor Gough …".
Here I should like to pay tribute to Professor Gough of Llandaff Hospital in Wales, who has done an immense amount of work in this field. He has suggested that certain forms of medicine at present excluded under British legislation are occupational, and are indeed regarded as such on the Continent. I hope that when my noble friend conies to reply he might give us some assurance that this is being looked at as closely as possible, with a view to emphysema being included in the schedule of industrial diseases.
I now want to mention something that I raised in the other place, and have raised here before now, that is, the disease (I wish they had a different name for it) dupytrens contracture. I have seen many miners with this ailment and affliction. For years these men have been using heavy tools—gripping pick handles and, in these more mechanical days, using vibratory tools as well. This is a disease which is an occupational hazard, but it has not been scheduled. I know it is argued by the medical profession—and I am not arguing against it; I am not competent to do so—that sedentary workers have this as well as manual workers who use the tools that I have described. While accepting medical opinion on this score, that it could happen to anyone in the general community, my own view, for what it is worth, is that people using heavy and vibratory tools become victims as a consequence of the disease known as dupytrens contracture. I would ask my noble friend to urge upon the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (I believe they have studied it already) to undertake a thorough investigation into this disease.

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I think I have gone on long enough. I wanted to say something about the latent compensation cases. I will not go into detail about this, but I should like to say that there are still many who were injured long before 1948, and up to 1948, who are partially disabled. All the other categories, the time-barred pneumoconiotics, the total disabled, and even the partially disabled, receive some weekly sum under the old Workman's Compensation Acts. All Governments in this post-war period have made improvements in their lot, but what is left is this remnant of what we call the latent cases. Time forbids me to go into this matter, but I would ask my noble friend, in addition to looking at the methods to which I have specifically referred, whether some further attention and thought can be given to these latent compensation cases. If something is not done soon, the calendar will solve the problem, because these people are getting older. What they think, feel and say is that they are the only remnant left, and they are like the lost tribe. Because of that I hope that something will be done.
5.31 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I was one of the people who was not able to be present yesterday for the first part of this debate on economic affairs, as I had to be up in Scotland. Several of the points I want to make to your Lordships would be more appropriate, perhaps, to yesterday than to-day since today's debate is mainly on industrial relations. However, I have in mind to touch on industrial relations in one particular aspect. Before I do that, I should like to join so many other of your Lordships who have spoken in congratulating the two maiden speakers, and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, who, with his unrivalled experience of industrial relations, said so many things which to me in every way seemed to ring a bell. Something that struck Lord Taylor of Mansfield also struck me, when Lord Stokes said that in the end it is always the people that matter. Clearly the question of good relationships between the worker, the union and the employer is without question the most important matter we have to face to-day. If we can only get that right, then we need have no real worry for what lies ahead.
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I believe the blame for the troubles is at least as much with management and with trade unions as it is with the workers. I am always struck by the fact that when the workers come out on strike it very often is something which cannot be easy for them to do. It shows loyalty to their fellow workers, but the strike is often due to their being misled about things. So often it is a failure of the management or the trade unions to communicate; and that is one of the points which the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, made—failure of communication. It is failure of communication to-day partly because of the size of many of our great industrial units. It is a very difficult problem, but it is not an impossible one. May I give your Lordships one example of a case about which I know? A big company embarked on one of the most difficult of all tasks; namely, to close down one factory, and bring three shifts on to another one which was situated nearby. The company took that as a policy decision, and for a period of two years worked with the top people in the trade unions on how to put that decision over to the workers. They worked together on all the questions with regard to the right pay to give, what should be done about redundancies, and so forth. As I say, this took them a period of two years, and they were working, naturally enough, in secrecy.
When they came to an agreement on these matters they had the problem of how to communicate. This—and perhaps it is a bad analogy—was like a military operation, in that over a week-end they told the foreman what they proposed to do, and on the Monday collected all the workers of the factories together—there were some 3,000 of them—and addressed them in parties of never more than twenty. So each party of twenty was able to hear the reasons, the whys and the wherefores, of what was proposed. Of course, there was a certain degree of upset among some of the workers and there were those who worried about what it all meant for them. There was a moment of anxiety as to whether the decision was going to succeed, but it did, and the result to-day is to the benefit of all. The only reason I have told your Lordships that is because it is an example of the importance of communication down to the smallest possible scale—not

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more than twenty people at a time out of a total of 3,000, each being told what it was all about. As the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, said, it is always the people that matter.
The second point I want to touch on is something which has nothing to do with industrial relations but rather the prospect which faces us all in the 'seventies of a rise in the cost of living which will make the days which we are experiencing at the present time, or which we have experienced over the past ten years, look like the "good old days" and make us wish in the future that we could have something as reasonable and as limited as we are experiencing now. I say this because there are certain built-in factors for this rise in the cost of living in the 'seventies, and if we are not extremely careful nothing will be able to prevent them from operating. What are those factors? The first which occurs to me is that of decimalisation. I am convinced that we made the greatest possible mistake when we decided to have a pound of 20s. rather than a unit of 10s. No other country which has made the change has made that mistake. I have seen it estimated by the most reputable economists that the sequel to this will be an inevitable rise in the cost of goods, generally of anything from 10 to 20 per cent. Those are almost incredible figures if you think of the process of evening-up every time. You may say that it should be a process of evening-down, but that is not human nature. You will always find very good reasons why you should even-up. What can we do about it? I do not know that we can do very much, for I suppose it is too late to put the clock back. I beg that the Prices and Incomes Board, or whoever may be the watchdog on these things, should be strengthened to the nth degree, to try to stop this almost inevitable evening-up.
I would also ask whatever Government may be at that time in power not be too doctrinaire about it all. I have particularly in mind when I say that the abolition of the sixpence. That was a purely doctrinaire decision by somebody with no good ground—economic or otherwise—for it. Let us think what is going to happen. By that time the price of all the popular newspapers, for example, will be sixpence. What are we going
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to do about the parking meters? Those now take a sixpence or sometimes a shilling or two shillings. But we shall no longer have the sixpence, and I disagree with the people who say that it will not be very expensive to change the meters. It will be expensive to change them, and they will be evened-up, as opposed to staying as they are or going down. So please try to be not too doctrinaire, and do not make these decisions which have no good rhyme or reason.
What is another built-in factor for the 1970s? It is, I hope, that we shall join the European Economic Community. I say "I hope" because I am all in favour of it, but we have to realise that this will mean, for example, an increase in food prices. I think the counter benefits will far outweigh this, and there ought to be reliefs in taxation because, after all, certain of the subsidies will no longer have to be paid. All the same, here is another built-in factor. Then there is, as we know, the question of equal pay for women. I am not against this. but let us be quite clear that this again is an inflationary factor, and how it is to be handled is something requiring great thought and great care. Let us hope that our general prosperity will be such that we can take it in our stride. What else? Well, there are the latest plans for increased pensions and insurance payments. We all know what happens in matters of this kind. Somehow or other they become involved in the next round of wage negotiations and prices go up. Again, I believe that these proposals, good in themselves, are one more example of built-in factors for the 1970s.
One last one, which has not yet been announced and which I hope does not come off, is a proposal that we should go on to the metric system. I am told that if and when this happens it is going to be enormously expensive to us all, and, so far as I am aware, there will be no very obvious benefit. If to-day we were on the metric system, I can well imagine a situation in which we should be saying, "Oh dear! I wonder whether we could get on to the same system as that in the United States of America. After all, we do so much trade with them and they are such an enormous unit." Let us at any rate wait on this matter until after the 'seventies or until we have got over all the other factors I have mentioned.

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The third point I want to make is not on the question of the rising cost of living in the 'seventies but on the problem of stockpiles. Stockpiles are not very fashionable to-day. There was a time when Governments had them in considerable size, and then for reasons of economy we decided we should run them down. At the moment this policy is facing us with one of the most serious industrial problems and crises we have had for a very long time: I refer to the crisis of the shortage of nickel. Our total strategic stockpile of nickel at the present time is some 1,500 tons. I am not blaming this Government, I am blaming Governments as a whole, for having run down on certain strategic materials upon a supply of which our whole industrial wellbeing may depend. When it came to uranium, Governments acted wisely. They foresaw that they had to be sure of having a stockpile of uranium when we entered the nuclear age and were basing more and more of our power plants on uranium, and Governments made long-term contracts to ensure adequate supplies. But we have run down on almost all our other strategic materials, and I ask the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, who is to wind up, whether the Government will give special attention to this problem again in certain fields where we are so much dependent on the action of one single country, which may bring us almost to our knees through no fault of ours.
The only concrete suggestion I have which may help to alleviate this problem at the moment is to get rid of the 50p pieces. I gather that they are made almost entirely of nickel. Let us have some courage and go back and collect them all and put the nickel into a stockpile; and let us have our 10s. notes. It may be difficult, but it would be worth while, and I, for one, would applaud such a move.
Lastly, I must say one word—your Lordships will not be surprised—about Scotland. I want to touch on only one point. Unfortunately I was not here yesterday and did not hear the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, speak on the question of ports. It is on this one subject that I want to touch, and I would stress the enormous value to this country of the deep water on the Lower Clyde. In years to come the deep water there will be,
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I believe, not only the biggest asset we have in Scotland for industrial development but the biggest asset of this country. I know that one hears about the developments of Port Talbot or of Tees-side, but those are developments which can be enlarged or continued as they are only by constant forms of dredging, and even now to secure the passage of a 100,000-ton ship is a difficult and expensive thing to do. There is no problem of that kind with the lower waters of the Clyde. Milford Haven was in the same position, but Milford Haven is now fully taken up.
On the lower Clyde there is clearly a great opportunity for a vast steel complex. All the great new steelworks in other parts of the world are deliberately put on the coast for the very good reason that then the ore comes in easily, the power is easily generated there, and so forth. Again, obviously, great refineries are there, and so a great industrial complex is built up. I believe that in the 'seventies this will be perhaps the most exciting development we can have in this country. Of course—and I think quite rightly—the preservationists of the countryside say, "Oh, but—"; and I have great sympathy with their saying that, because this is a question which needs careful study, which is being given. But, in the end, we must go forward with it, and I think we should go forward firmly and quickly, and the benefit not only to Scotland but to the whole of this country will be very great.
5.47 p.m.
LORD THORNEYCROFT: My Lords, I was brought up to declare a few interests which are mostly in the electronics field or telecommunications, in cables and in tyres. I suppose that to that extent I might be said to have a vested interest in the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, as well, because the future of the motor industry is of concern to all of us. But at this stage I would content myself by adding my word of tribute to a first-class maiden speech, and by saying how fortunate I think your Lordships' House is to be able to have a contribution from an industrialist of the first grade right at the top of his job.
I was brought up as a politician; I would count myself now as an industrialist, and I suppose therefore that I see matters a little through the eyes of

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both. But when we are debating industry and industrial relations, I think someone should repeat what I believe the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said yesterday; namely, that it really is the success of British industry which is going to determine whether we have any success in our economy. I therefore want to make about six points concerning British industry, and when I have made them I will sit down.
The first point I want to make about British industry is this. Its image in this country is not what it ought to be. Few people in this country really understand much of what British industry is about; where it obtains its money from; what is the purpose of profit; how it organises itself, and what contributions trade unions make to both sides of industry when properly worked. To most people in England these matters are a closed book. I am not here to say that the Socialist Government have destroyed British industry. They have not. We stagger on in a way, carrying a substantial burden of taxes and interest rates and the rest; we stagger on, as I say, and even make a modest success. It will be found that we shall be as loud in our praise of moving into surplus as anybody else is. Indeed, I think that most British industrialists will think they have made a modest contribution to bringing us into that position. What I would criticise Her Majesty's Government about, and, perhaps even more than the Government, the Party that lies behind them, is for doing a good deal of damage to the image that British industry has.
I have been reading—because I like to read these things—a pamphlet called Agenda for a Generation, and I opened it with rather trembling hands to see what was in store for us during this generation. I found what was said about industrialists, and I found that I am insufficiently accountable for the decisions which I make. I am told that I am one of the major sources of economic inequality in our society. I am told that I encourage the belief that individual spending, rather than collective spending in the public services, holds the key to rising living standards; and I am told that the new management which is coming along is responsible only to itself.
I do not think it helps—and I feel bound to say this—to treat industry not
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as a matter of high adventure in which all of us have the deepest interest in success, but as some kind of national disease which causes more social evils than it cures. The idea is even held out here that somebody might make some money out of British industry; might even—worse still!—actually keep some money that they make. These horrors are spelt out in detail in this pamphlet. If I may say this to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and to the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, who is to reply to this debate, my criticism—if I can criticise what they do—is in regard to the image. It is here that we differ from the United States of America. In this country we have an image where wealth is obscene, where success is almost indecent and where "profits" is a dirty word.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Nonsense!
LORD THOR NEYCROFT: The idea that, against a background of that kind, one can get industry to take the fullest part that it ought to take is an illusion. So my first point, my Lords, is that all of us, wherever we sit in the House of Commons—I beg your Lordships' pardon, I meant the House of Lords. These little slips do occur: it is the old Adam rising in me—ought to make it our business to try to improve the image and, above all, the understanding of what it is that industrialists are engaged in.
The second point I wish to make is that, contrary to what is said in this pamphlet, we are not too powerful; we are not powerful enough, and we are not efficient enough. I saw in one of the Sunday papers an article on Mr. Arnold Weinstock. Mr. Weinstock may be a controversial figure, but he is certainly one of the stars in the managerial firmament, and at the end of the article the writer said that in his desk he keeps a piece of paper which acts a constant spur to him. On it are the key statistics of two of the big electrical companies, together with those for G.E.C. They are constantly brought up to date. The gap is still so wide, the article says, that Weinstock is unlikely to want to give up for some time yet. I must say that I did not know that there had been any indication that he was anxious to give up, in any event. I would ask your Lordships

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to believe that if that is true of Weinstock, of the G.E.C., it is also true of the great majority of British industry.
There are many ways in which one can judge the performance of British industry: one can see what sales are generated by each man who is employed, or one can test performance on the value that is actually added by each worker employed in any particular business. But there are few industrialists to-day who, putting the figures that we can produce against some of our principal competitors in the United States of America, or perhaps in some cases in Europe, would really say that they are yet happy. The answer to these problems, of course, lies in part, and largely, with management, and we in this country must all use our best endeavours to see that the coming generation of British managers is as highly skilled and trained and as professional as they can be.
But, my Lords, it depends also on investment. I should like the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, if possible, to spend a little time in his reply telling us what he really thinks is likely to be the future pattern of investment. The noble Lord, Lord Stokes, drew some attention to the need to replace obsolescent equipment. How? With a squeeze at fairly high pressure, to put it no higher; with wage demands being conceded at what some people would think to be dangerous levels, and the consumer pressures that might come after that, what room will there be for this investment in the new equipment which is absolutely vital?
Success, then, depends on the management; it depends on investment; it depends on markets. And here I would say how much I, too, appreciated the speech made by my noble friend Lord Carrington about Europe and the opportunities that lie there, both for Europe and for this country. I am not going to debate the subject here, but I do know and recognise—and I think most people do—that no small part of the success which has been found both in the United States of America and in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics lies in the fact that a large market is freely available to them without any tariff barriers whatsoever. I see the gravest difficulty in large-scale British business being able to draw
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the maximum from their resources until they have access to markets of that kind.
So the answer is management, investment and markets. But, my Lords, in my view the answer certainly is not in all this talk about redistributing wealth that has already been accumulated; in the appointment of State directors (by all means put in State directors, but what benefit will this give?), in the introduction of new State Boards. I would therefore ask the Front Bench opposite to use its influence, which I feel sure it would wish to use on the side of the angels, to try to get this discussion about industry. in the Labour Party and nationally, on matters which are at least relevant to the problems that industry actually has to face.
That brings me to my third point, the illusion that shareholders are altogether irrelevant, on the way out and dead, so far as the Socialist Party is concerned. I do not believe this to be true. I know that it is quite a fashionable idea, but I observe that in this document they say:
"In this connection vie shall also review the realm of dividends. The demise of the shareholder"—
They have already buried him. The shareholder is over. They feel that if he exists at all great care should be taken that he does not have any rewards for any success in his company. The idea that his actual wealth, in the form of capital, should grow if he happens to invest in one of our proud corporations is regarded as horrific.
My Lords, it is very difficult for a Government to say that they are wholeheartedly behind British industry if at the same time they launch a direct attack upon equity capital. The two are connected in some way—I would beg your Lordships to believe that. It is partly this utter lack of understanding of the way things work that many of us find a little disconcerting. I would say just one thing more about shareholders. In my life I have seen quite a bit of both public and private business, and if I had to give one reason why private businesses struggle to get profits, and why public businesses, of many of which I am very proud, tend to extravagance and often to losses, I would say that it is because the former have to answer regularly to the owners of the capital. That makes a tremendous

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difference when decisions have to be taken.
My fourth point is about the relations between Government and industry. Whitehall was always a bit of a jungle, never a very easy place to find one's way around, and I am bound to say Her Majesty's Government have not made it any easier. I look to the Minister of Technology to look after my industry, but I am told that the Board of Trade is managing the exports and the Department of Employment and Productivity will decide whether or not I merge with somebody else. There is a whole wealth of brilliant but diverse characters who are involved in almost any single one of the difficult decisions that boards of directors and chairmen and managers have to take.
I want to ask for only one point, and in this I turn to my honourable and right honourable friends on the Conservative side, who, I have a feeling, if noble Lords do not mind my saying so, are more likely to have to make this decision than anyone else. It concerns the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. I am not a member of it, let me hasten to say; I am a user of it, a satisfied client, so to speak. I would ask my friends not to take any hasty decision about the future of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation before they have, while in office, had experience of its working. I know the talk about putting it here or there, or taking its powers away, or something of that kind. But business is quite a complicated affair to carry on, and some of the decisions that have to be taken, or that one has to feel one's way to, can be of a highly confidential character, naturally; they affect one's competitors, the people who work for them and sometimes foreign Governments as well. They are not things one can take all around the town. To be able to go to some body of men who understand straight away what you are talking about, whether they agree with you or not, who know the arguments and have seen it all before, is of very great assistance to many industrialists. I would ask my friends to talk with some of the people who have practical experience of this particular body and not to take quick decisions to start altering its structure.
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The fifth point I make is on the question of the squeeze. I suppose this might have been more revelant yesterday. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that he must not rebuke too much some of us who were not here yesterday. We were working yesterday, and there is something to be said for Members of the House of Lords, if I may say so, who work actively in industry and come to the House and try to contribute, to the best of their ability, some of the things they pick up on the way.
As regards the squeeze, we are moving into surplus—I hope the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, would approve that phrase as accurate and that it will not mislead The Times newspaper. I get rather nervous in talking about this surplus, but I believe it is accurate to say that we are moving into surplus, moving into surplus on the back of the capitalist system and conservative finance—conservative finance, let me say, of a pretty violent character. With this Government we are likely, I think, to stay with the capitalist system and with conservative finance: with the capitalist system because it is the only thing that is likely to save their bacon over the next few months, and with conservative finance because with the amount of overseas indebtedness we have got our bankers will not let us do anything else. But it is pretty rough at the moment.
Let us face the facts. We have behind us a deficit on current account of £500 million over the last five years, a price increase of 22 per cent., a devalued pound and new debt of £3,000 million. If I may use a vehicle analogy, we are holding the car on the road by increased taxes at the rate of £3,000 million a year and a prolonged period of high interest rates. It is rather like trying to cure a patient with injections of penicillin while you are pumping the germs into him at the other end. The tensions which have been built up in this economy over the past four years, and the strength of the medicine that has had to be administered in order to clamber into even a modest surplus, is so strong that it is doing a good deal of damage to the general body of the economy. I believe it is putting us at a very serious disadvantage with a number of our overseas

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competitors who are operating in home markets much healthier, much freer and much easier than our own.
That brings me to the last point I want to make, and this concerns industrial relations. I think we all know really that we ought to legislate. I do not believe anybody who thinks about this matter would think otherwise. I agree emphatically with the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, when he says that legislation is not the whole answer; it is not. This is a matter of people, and you do not cure the condition with legislation. But you do set the climate in which it could be tackled by legislation. We all know it. The Prime Minister knows it. Before he abandoned the Bill he said:
"I could say to them …"
that is, to the British people—
"'All right; not to worry! We are not going ahead with the problem about dealing with unofficial strikes'. I would have a united Party cheering its head off to-morrow. Is that really my job as head of the Government? My job is to face the Party and the country with the problems, not to try to be popular by pretending there are not any.'
He got the people cheering all right, but it was a terrible thing to abandon that Bill. It was worse than not having attempted it at all; it would have been far better not to attempt it. But to stake himself, his reputation, that of the First Secretary of the Government on the success of a measure in that field, of all fields, and then walk out! They certainly cheered him; but they are cheering rather more thinly after the Port Talbot steel works, the coal mines, the Underground, after they have seen the rubbish piling up in the streets, watched all the troubles that have gone on in the motor industry, and even seen the difficulties in this House in getting the necessary papers to carry on the business. It was a very grave mistake—so grave that it has, I believe, weakened this Government and weakened the Prime Minister's reputation to a point where the country ought to be given a fairly early opportunity to judge. I do not know what their judgment will be. It may be that they will judge that we ought not to legislate; it may be they would prefer to risk it. But they ought to be given the chance to say "Aye" or "Nay" to a matter as critical as is this particular area, not only to the future of British industry but to
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the future of the economy as a whole. When I look at the Government and see what it has done and what it has failed to do, I think it is time it went.
6.10 p.m.
LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELAND: My Lords, Lord Stokes made a typical speech for Lord Stokes. Some of us on this side of the House could have written his speech for him; and I know he will not misunderstand me when I say that he is no virgin in industrial relations. We look forward to hearing much more from him. Having regard to the problems which he has had to face quite recently, his restraint was really most delightful; much more so than that of the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft.
I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux. I was struck by the thoughtfulness that he put into it, particularly with regard to the job of a farmer. It is now more than 50 years since I had to milk my first herd of cows, and if I say that I milked them with electricity I think your Lordships will agree that I was ahead in mechanisation. If I say that I found the job of "milking" the employers thirty years later much more difficult, I think you will understand that, too.
I am wondering what people think is the job of the trade unions. I wonder what the Opposition think is the job of the trade unions. Do they think that it is their job to carry out the wishes of Governments; to bring down the Tablets from Sinai—which is the Government (whichever Government is in power)—to the people below and instruct them there what they have to do? If they think that, then they are backing the communist and fascist regimés. The trade unions are free. I believe the Opposition say that they are too free. But once that freedom of trade unionism goes, then the understanding between the worker and the employer, and between the employer and Governments will fail; and that understanding is the most important thing that we have inside this country.
Sometimes it is an embarrassment to be associated with the Government. I think the T.U.C. suffer from this embarrassment at the moment, because the Government believe that the affinity of the T.U.C. to the present Government is

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something which should enable the Government to make heavier demands on the trade union movement than would a Conservative Government. These are facts that are difficult to deal with. These are situations which present great problems. The affinity which we have certainly gives us a sympathy for them, and it gives us support for them; but it does not give us an inalienable obligation to follow whatever this Government do, no more than it would with a Tory Government.
I submit that the employers have a similar embarrassment when it comes to dealing with a Conservative Government. We should recognise this, and not talk about head-on clashes between the Prime Minister and the trade unions. The Prime Minister has been pushing the unions and the T.U.C. as far as he can along a sensible economic line, in order that the economic success which is now coming the way of this country might he continued. If, occasionally, he does not get the T.U.C. to go all the way with him, do not laugh too much because this is a tragedy for the Opposition just as much as it is for this side of the House.
Trade unionism is going through a most difficult phase. Inside the trade union movement we have a Left-Wing organisation which is determined to destroy the movement, and we have one hell-of-a-job in dealing with this element—make no mistake about that! But we have dealt with it so effectively that there is less of that element in this country than there is in any other country of the world. The Opposition should say to us, "Thank you for doing that"; we should say to the Opposition, "Thank you for helping us", except that we sometimes feel that that help is beginning to fade. The rape of Czechoslovakia was quite a blow to these people and, as a consequence, a lot of them resigned from the Party. But they did not resign from the activities that have become inherent in their nature, and they are still carrying on with them.
I have been to Russia. What I have seen there is that the Russian trade unionists, who are really the employers, must be closely associated with the Communist Party, and there are bigger tycoons than ever we had inside this country. For 30 years the Russians have been allowed to build up bank balances. The child-
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ren of the generals, of the trade unionists and of the heads of industry have now inter-married; and you have growing up in Russia an aristocracy, if not an autocracy, which is far more capitalistic than anything we have in this country. They are now talking about profits in industry, because their planning is failing.
We have to deal with these people inside our movement, and if we can shock them a little more in the way that events in Czechoslovakia shocked them, we might get rid of this small element in this country. We must be quite frank when this element gets into control of trade unions in this country—as it has done in some trade unions—and say that it is a bad thing for the trade unions and also for the country. Nobody has fought this problem harder than the present Government, because the present Government is socialistic, not communistic. But these are some of the problems with which we have had to deal before we ever meet the employers.
What has happened when we have met the employers? Thirty years ago I had to meet the employers in North Wales about a small steel works called Brymbo. It was obsolete and clue for demolition; it was placed in a part of the country where it could never succeed, and we negotiated a reduction of wages to try to help the management. I was condemned by some of the people I have just spoken about. They approached our members in the trade union world and said that this was not trade unionism. But we stuck to our guns and to-day, 30 years later, Brymbo is one of the most efficient electric steelworks in this country. This shows what trade unionism can do if it is met on the opposite side by the right type of management.
I remember discussing with the incoming manager—he was quite a young fellow; I was quite young myself at the time and am not so old now—how much the electric furnace which he was going to bring in would cost. It was a secondhand one. We discussed how much it would cost to repair it; what would the wages be; what would the cost of raw materials be; what hope was there for the future. We came to the decision that long-term planning would pay the members in that part of the country, because if that works closed down that part of

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the country was going to be desolate and obsolete, and unemployment was going to be rife. Not only is it one of the best electric steel works in this country to-day; it pays some of the best wages. This is an example which I think could well be followed.
But what happens when we meet the employers to-day? Just before I retired I had an experience in the steel industry, where we had a pretty good record. I was negotiating wages on a national basis on behalf of steel workers in Scotland. Then we got stuck. The case I had was a sound one. I want your Lordships to believe that. I was not pushing forward a "phoney" case of any kind. As a matter of fact, I had the same agreement in Wales that I was asking for in Scotland. It was as simple as that, and I think that should convince your Lordships of the sincerity of what I am saying. At one o'clock in the morning we all went home, dispirited because the employers could only say, "No". They had many long arguments, but they said, "No". On Monday morning they telephoned me to tell me my members had stopped work in Scotland. I said, "I am not surprised, and I do not think I can get them back". And I did not get them back, for four days. At the end of the four days the local management gave them a better settlement than I would have accepted nationally a week before.
My Lords, are you going to throw the blame on to trade unions for the present state of industrial unrest in this country when this happens? Your responsible trade unionist is denigrated, without anybody saying anything about the employers who do this. And it is not enough to say that this happens in public enterprises, because it happens in private enterprise time and time again. The trade unions have been fighting against this all the time, and the consequence of this attitude of mind on the part of many employers has been that the trade union movement has moved to the Left. If the T.U.C. is more to the Left at the present time than it was when I and some of my colleagues were on it, the employers are not without blame.
Having said that, I would add that I know that the employers have a problem when they have a small group of people,
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perhaps 20 or more, who can stop 20,000; and I should not like to be the man to tell them just how to deal with that particular situation. When they have had a stoppage for about three or four weeks we bring in an outsider, a catalyst, to solve the problem. We ought to be ashamed of this, because he usually comes in when both sides want to get something done, when they both have their faces to save, and so the outsider gets a reputation for peace-making that we could well have had in the industry long ago if we had had any sense. It is a difficult problem, and I think it gave rise to the sentiments expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson.
At first, in dealing with the question of an incomes policy I supported legislation. I said from the T.U.C. rostrum, not from the platform, that the reason we shall not be able to establish a voluntary policy is that we shall not have enough volunteers. And that was prophetic; we do not. I asked the question, "Can we have civilisation without legislation?". I do not think we can. There has to be legislation somewhere.
Inside the trade union movement we are advised to get to the bottom when we are trying to negotiate productivity agreements. I would advise everybody to go to the top first, and do not go away from the top until you get some understanding, because the rules of every trade union in this country, so far as I know—and I know most of them—give the executive council of that union power to deal with any industrial matters that come within its purview. I do not think we have done enough talking to the top in this particular respect. I do not think the C.B.I. have given us the encouragement to talk to the top, and I think that they—like some of my friends on the opposite Benches—have talked rather too much about the wickedness of the trade union movement. I have tried to show your Lordships some of the problems we have had to deal with.
The noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, spoke about interest rates, and here he struck a chord with me—not because I have any money: maybe that is why I do not want high interest rates. I think that noble Lords on the Benches opposite control most of the money, but interest rates are not a matter which is decided in each individual country. The

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decision may be printed there, but the international control of money has shown that the control of interest rates is international; and one by one the different countries in the Free World have put up their interest rates because money has been tight from an international centre. I put it to the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft: "If you have strong feelings on that—you have many friends in Switzerland; go and tell them about this; and if someone will pay my expenses I will come with you." I think that will put an end to the suggestion that this Government are responsible for the high interest rates.
Despite the high interest rates, the balance of trade is now moving in the right direction; and in spite of all that has been said about the wickedness of trade unions I want to say to noble Lords opposite: "You have the cheapest labour in the Western World. If you had had trade unions which had forced rates up to the level of France, America, Sweden and Italy, you would have had a case. "The fact is that employers in this country have the cheapest labour of any Western country, so do not let us have any talk about the trade unions causing the problems of finance that we have in this country. They do not.
This leads to another thought: are we wise in holding down wages in this country? If you trace the problems facing you, you find that wages problems arise more strongly in the transport industry than in any other industry in this country. I do not think it is because transport people are evil; I think it is because they are associating with people from other countries who receive high wages. If a man in a ship operating between America and Britain is getting British wages and goes in for a drink with an American who is getting American wages, do you expect to have industrial peace and contentment with the low wages that are paid in this country? I think we have to give some thought to this problem.
On the same theme, the large companies in America are now spreading their tentacles throughout the world. I am not saying this in criticism; I am glad they are doing it, because without this money we could not make the progress we are making. But so big are the companies, so vast
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is their control of commerce, that they are becoming stronger than Governments. Is the trade union movement wrong to become strong in order that it may oppose these people? I do not think so. I think trade unionism must have the strength to compete with the strength of the employers.
Often, as I have illustrated, I think the employers are no more sensible than the trade union side. But this is no reason for continuing the folly; and this is what has prompted the present Government to decide that something must be done about the existing circumstances. Here I suppose that I should declare an interest, having regard to what my noble friend Lord Shackleton said about these bodies. I was not sure that I should do so, but I am a part-time member of the Monopolies Commission. I am not going to try to tell you what that Commission should do, or what the new body should do. I hope that they will learn from experience. But surely a change was needed, in the changing circumstances, if something was to be done about the increasing inflation arising, in no small measure, from increasing wages. The problem must be thought out; and not on a partisan basis. And it is no good the pot on the Conservative Benches calling the pan on the Government Benches black—I nearly used a more vulgar term, which some of my friends would understand. There is a job to be done here, a common job between the two sides.
In dealing with wage negotiations and claims for increases I have always been a little bothered about this percentage calculation. The Prices and Incomes Board talk about a 3½ per cent, and the T.U.C. about a 4 per cent. norm. Somebody else had another percentage. I had to deal with this problem during the many years that I had to negotiate; and always in steel, on a national basis, we negotiated a flat rate of increase for everybody in the industry. If the increase was 10s. a week, it was 10s. a week for the man who earned £50 and 10s. a week for the man who earned 50s. I was pressed many times to indulge in the percentage method. Frankly, I believe that if differentials are to be created they ought to be negotiated, and that the negotiations should be local, where the men know what they are talking about and know the differences between the jobs.

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But we kept away from percentages, and having regard to events I think we were very wise in view of the upsurge in this country among the lower-paid men, in jobs where there had never been trouble before, with claims for higher wages. And apparently they were justified, because the increases have been granted almost before the claims were made. There is an astonishing willingness to pay higher wages to the lower-paid men in this country; and there is an astonishing willingness on the part of some sections of the financial Press, who have never been friends of the Labour Movement, to say that these men ought to have these increases.
The question is asked: if we are going to give something to the lower-paid men, has it got to be given to the higher-paid men? We negotiated wages which gave nothing to the higher-paid men but a great deal to the lower-paid men, and graded up according to earnings. I am telling your Lordships this not to boast but to show that it is possible to do this and that it is possible to get acceptance of it within an industry. If the men at the top have a case for more money, the claim can be negotiated separately. Company negotiations are very complex, but I think that this percentage procedure will get us down before we are done. Having said that. and seeing some of the increases that have been paid to the very highly-paid men, I wonder how men who earn something like £20,000, £30,000, or £40,000 a year can talk about the iniquitous trade unionists who ask for an extra 10s. a week. This has always been a mystery to me. But there it is. It may be, I say to Lord Thorneycroft, that we do little by way of taxation to take some of it back.
We have talked about what happens in other countries from the legal standpoint, and I was rather enamoured with what happened in Sweden, where they had a method of sharing out the money. The two sides met, the employers and the Government, the industry and the Government—the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, shakes his head; he was with me when we discussed these things—and they decided how much money would have to go for Government purposes, public purposes, and how much should go back to the
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industry. Then the trade union decided how it should be shared out within the industry. This was a remarkable system. I never could see it working in this country, but I am bound to say that it worked in Sweden, and everybody told me that this would be a good thing in the United Kingdom. I had my doubts at the time. I find now that in Sweden they pay the highest wages in Europe. Together with that, they have the highest productivity in Europe and they have more millionaires to the square foot than any other country in Europe.
This is an anomalous state of affairs, is it not? And yet they are meeting with tremendous trouble at the present time because there an ethical consideration is involved. They have high wages and high productivity, and they have millionaires among the shareholders, for whom the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, made such an eloquent appeal; and yet they are not satisfied. Why are they not satisfied? They are not satisfied because basically most men want to see a fair deal, and a great deal of money does not compensate for unfairness. There is going to be a good deal of unrest, if all the reports I get from Sweden at the present time are correct, simply because there is an ethical consideration which you should never lose sight of. I do not care whether you get the legal process to deal with this problem, as some people want, or whether you have the voluntary process to deal with it: the innate desire of people all over the world for a fair deal will destroy inequity wherever it is. Our task is to get to the root of this problem and to shift it before it causes all the unrest and violence that such things have caused in other countries and, indeed, in this country.
My Lords, I have gone on long enough, and I want to come to an end, but it may be that I should say something about Australia and the legal side before I sit down. It is some years ago now that I was talking with my Australian friends, but at that time the Australian Labour Government were at their wits end because the dockers in that country had so many strikes that the economy itself was being affected. The Government looked at the legal standpoint, just as we have been advised to do now, and they brought out a

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system which has not, in fact, been much discussed. They did not penalise the men: they penalised the union. Every time there was an unofficial strike they fined the union to which the men belonged who were on unofficial strike. It was effective; it stopped the strikes almost completely almost overnight. Everybody said, "Here we are—the millenium has come! We do not have to think any more, we have only to make laws". The idea was so successful that they tried to spread it; and to-day the Right Wing trade unionists in Australia are condemning the legal sanctions that apply in that country.
If proof is needed that legal sanctions are going to be difficult, there is the proof. You have the proof in Sweden and in Australia. I could go into the position in other countries, because I have visited them and I have stood at the works gates trying to organise people. I have doubts about the legal system, but I am willing to examine it and I am willing to try to find a way. But I do not want anybody leading the trade union movement like a horse to water and finding that it is not thirsty, because if that happens you will never be able to achieve success in industrial negotiations.
My Lords, I close on this point. When I first went on the General Council I was told by one of the senior members, "You will not need wisdom on the General Council; you will need guts". If the Opposition had just as much guts as this Government have shown at the present time in dealing with these problems then we might get somewhere with it and find a solution. I hope we do.
6.37 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, and the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux, on their maiden speeches. I hope that we shall often have the pleasure and the interest of hearing them in your Lordships' House.
I have chosen to speak on industrial relations to-day because I am sure that these issues are fundamental to the survival of the United Kingdom as a meaningful entity. Let no-one be complacent about one or two months' reasonably good trade figures. We are of course delighted about a better trend and about
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our export achievements. But please remember that there has been a tremendous boom in world trade and if the United States economy is now going over the top, as the stock markets imply, then the boom is not very likely to continue. Please also remember that many of our competitors have done at least as well, or even better, out of it than we have: witness the revaluation of the mark and the tremendous success of Japan, where even British companies tend to place orders for ships nowadays.
I have to travel fairly widely, and I am still always hearing complaints about our delivery dates slipping, about poor after-sales service and often about inadequate care for quality in production. I think the Q.E.2 was only a particularly striking example of a state of affairs which is still much more widespread than it should be. I am sure that our poor industrial relations are largely at the bottom of the trouble, because our industrialists and technologists have all the techniques and the ingenuity to make an immense success of our country and of our industry in the present century. Therefore we absolutely must improve our efficiency.
I get rather annoyed when I hear people in the train say, "I hope that someone is going to have a bash at the unions". Half the trouble is that many of our trade unions have largely lost control of their members. If ever there were a living example of the danger of trade union confusion it is in the United Kingdom to-day. We have some of the best trade union leaders in the world (and in this connection I am really proud to follow the noble Lord, Lord Douglass of Cleveland), but we allow a state of trade union structure and organisation, and also trade union law, which renders a great deal of their attempts at real leadership almost hopeless.
I mention trade union structure just in passing because, after studying trade union structure in some other countries, I think that it should correspond to the real industrial interests involved. A trade union which is purely sectional, like the bricklayers in the South Wales Steelworks, must mainly have regard, it seems to me, to sectional interests. At the other end of the scale, a trade union which overgrows its strength and includes all sorts of people in all sorts of industries,

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some in large groups and some in penny packets, is usually not efficient in organising the sort of collective bargaining at plant or company level which the Royal Commission and the White Paper rightly emphasised we need. We really require a few industrial unions like there are in Germany and Sweden. I was very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Douglass, had to say in that connection. Surely we ought to look once more at the German system of works councils and workers' representation in the boardroom. That system produces good communications, although I am quite aware that neither side really likes it too much. But I cannot, in the time available, say more about this to-day except that not nearly enough is being done about the structural problem in our trade union movement, in spite of the considerable rationalisation that is going on and the very careful studies that have been made.
For, underlying all our troubles there is the present state of the law. We really need a new statute about industrial relations, a statute more suited to the huge integrated industries of 1969, such as the motor vehicle industry or shipbuilding, than to the smaller companies, typical of the turn of the century, when the Acts of 1871 and 1906 were passed. I realise that we cannot get such a thing in this Session of Parliament. But I suppose that so long as any element of our law regards trade unions as a "conspiracy" instead of recognising that they are an essential feature for the orderly conduct and development of the economy, we shall have to go on "excusing" them (I put the word "excusing" in inverted commas) for their actions and giving them the present legal immunity for acts done in furtherance of trade disputes.
This situation is one of the most remarkable anachronisms of our time. Every time the courts have got around to making better sense of the situation, Parliament has restored it. The last occasion was only in 1965, and the situation of indiscipline and disorder has steadily deteriorated ever since. I really think that the Government ought to have given much greater priority to this problem of industrial relations and less to other aspects of economic policy, which they have taken so seriously.
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But the result, in fact and in practice, is that the law really does not demand good faith in the execution of works agreements. So long as anyone can cook up a trade dispute, even within a few weeks of a collective agreement being made, there is normally complete immunity for those who break the agreement and ignore the proper procedures for settling disputes, however flagrant their action and whatever the undesirable consequences for the company, for the livelihood of their workmates, for the industry, or for the country. The motor industry, about which the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, has spoken to us so interestingly to-day, is a good example of this. At one moment we find there are no brakes, at another moment the dispute is about car bodies. At another moment it is the assembly workers; then it is the radiators, and then at another time it is electrical equipment. How can any big integrated industry run in those conditions? It is quite impossible. And please remember, my Lords, that with interest rates as they are at present it is very hard for a company to keep such stocks that it can face these checks with equanimity.
I have studied the Donovan Report, the White Paper, In Place of Strife, and the T.U.C. Programme for Action, as adopted and modified on June 5. I have followed Mr. Victor Feather's most commendable efforts to apply that programme here, there and everywhere. I warmly support all current efforts to improve collective bargaining. But what hope has Mr. Victor Feather, or any other trade union leader, really got in the present state of the law? Even if he gets a new collective bargain made, any local troublemaker can upset it again. The local demagogue may tell his mates that he will get them an extra shilling an hour if they come out on unofficial strike; but if after a long dispute he gets them only 6d., where does the branch secretary or the T.U.C. stand in trying to get the collective agreement executed and maintained? They just look silly; because the law does not demand good faith, does not recognise their collective bargains, and provides no practical available redress if the agreements are broken.
The Donovan Report says that most agreements could not be enforced because

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they are so vaguely drafted and because it is hard to identify the real position or the proper procedures. But that is exactly why we have so much trouble, as the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, explained. If we were to tighten the law, the agreements would, I am sure, have to become very much clearer; and so would the procedures. But without that I believe that our efforts will be futile, whatever the Government may put in their promised Bill. The whole situation reminds me of what that great scientist Galileo said about mediæval theology: "It is like trying to milk a billy goat into a sieve". Even if the milk of good collective bargaining were there, it would not stay put, in the present state of the law.
I am much in favour of most of the useful ideas in the Donovan Report and in the valuable supplementary notes, notably those by Lord Tangley and by Mr. Andrew Shonfield. I am also in favour of the plans set out in the White Paper and by the T.U.C. But, let us face it, these are most unlikely to solve our present problem unless this ridiculous gap in our law is put right, and put right in a way which everyone can understand.
My Lords I find, coming rather late in life to your Lordships' House, that the drafting of our legislation is really as dry as dust and remarkably unrewarding to read. I miss the declaratory or explanatory preambles, the "Whereas-es" which might enable one to understand what the legislation is all about and what is its real background. The perpetual references to other Acts, which are only rarely explained, are batting to anyone, however well-informed, who has not a legal library at his immediate disposal. I should like to see a preamble included in our next Bill on Industrial Relations saying in effect—I am thinking aloud, not drafting;
"Whereas close co-operation between management and organised labour is needed for the effective conduct of industry on which the prosperity of the country and the national standard of living depend; and whereas rates of pay and conditions of work and procedures for the urgent settlement of disputes should be agreed in collective agreements, the proper excution of which should be guaranteed by both sides of industry and have the force of law during the period of their validity…."
and so on. I think that this would explain to people who read the law what was the intention of the law and what
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was the sort of problem with which it was trying to deal.
I think that ideally the Act should give the force of law to all labour agreements (with possible exceptions where both parties specifically desired the contrary), perhaps after registration with the Department for Employment and Productivity or with the Industrial Relations Commission. Special courts in each area, with assessors from both sides of industry, should judge alleged breaches of these agreements by either employers or employees. Quick decisions are needed, not endlessly drawn out procedures such as those which exasperate our work-people to-day. Either side of industry might be found to be at fault. If penalties had to be applied against workers, their companies might be obliged to deduct small weekly amounts from individual wage packets and pay them to the courts. Other countries have labour courts and I can assure your Lordships that they are not usually kept very busy and they do not by any manner of means usually decide against the workers—in fact, quite the contrary.
This would not of course prevent men and women from giving notice and changing jobs. Nor would it prevent strikes. If collective agreements, which would normally be valid for at least one year, could not be renewed when they ceased to be valid, then strikes might very probably occur. Often that cannot be avoided. The usual processes of conciliation and investigation would then be followed, just as we do now. But at least a works agreement might then be executed until it ceased to be valid, and good faith in its execution could be insisted on by both sides—trade union leaders and management—and backed by the law. I believe it would make an immense difference to the efficiency of modern industry, all the difference between prosperity and the squeeze.
I realise that these suggestions are revolutionary in this country—
LORD BLYTON: Hear, hear!
LORD HANKEY:—but the Government and the C.B.I and the T.U.C. ought to recognise that these problems cannot be postponed. In any case, I think that these suggestions are less revolutionary than the Government's interference with wage rates and prices. In view of what

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has passed this summer I fear that the Government's promised Bill on industrial relations will show that they are only tinkering with the problem. But I am sure that we should keep in mind the real basic need. At the very least, we should adopt the proposals of Lord Tangley and Mr. Shonfield in their supplementary notes to the Donovan Report.
My Lords, I want to mention some important administrative questions which affect industrial relations. The position of those in industry who believe in orderly collective bargaining is further weakened because many or even most people involved in an unofficial or unconstitutional strike do not really suffer too much. The income tax authorities pay rebates to the strikers and the men's families get supplementary benefit. So here we are paying official funds out to men who may be breaking their agreements, refusing to follow agreed procedures and defying their own elected trade union leaders regardless of the damage to their workmates or to anyone else. You may say, "What a disgraceful example of lax administration." As a public official of 38 years' experience, I want to say that you cannot blame the administration. Our officials cannot distinguish between justifiable strikes and unjustifiable strikes, or between agreements which are kept and agreements which are broken, unless the law makes such a distinction.
This legal and administrative absurdity leaves our trade union leaders without "teeth" in ensuring good discipline among their members. Indeed, I believe that they often distribute some sort of strike pay to those who have defied them successfully, even if the strike be unofficial or unconstitutional. I cannot believe that the promised Commission on Industrial Relations, to which one can only wish well, will be effective either, if it has no teeth. We must beg the Government to make it effective. In short, I fear that these bodies may turn out to be largely irrelevant unless we close the gap in the law.
Finally, my Lords, I want to say a word about economic policy in connection with industrial relations. The people of this country are determined not to let their real standard of living be eroded by the rise in prices. Every time the
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Government let demand get too high and take action to damp it by measures which raise prices—the selective employment tax springs to mind—it forms a starting point for another round of wage claims. The demands for higher wages which lie behind this year's rash of strikes may no doubt be eventually traced back to the devaluation of November, 1967, and to the measures which followed. I think the Government have been right and should be supported in their endeavour to link wage rises to productivity and to hold prices stable. But they are most unlikely to succeed if they let demand be swollen by the credit institutions or by any undue rise of public expenditure.
There is a severe limit to what the Government or the Prices and Incomes Board, or trade union leaders, or anyone else can do to restrain excessive wage claims or to secure the execution of agreements, once demand increases and prices rise. To press any such attempts can only make those concerned horribly unpopular and reduce their real influence. I think this is why the Prime Minister and Mrs. Castle, despite their most courageous efforts, have failed to lead the Labour Movement and the Trade Union Movement in the direction which they wanted when they published In Place of Strife. That is why I think they should have dealt with this question of industrial relations at a much earlier stage. I am glad that the Government have recognised their responsibility in this regard by controlling credit and public expenditure, as we cannot hope to institute a proper system of industrial relations while demand is overheated. Nor can we keep up our exports if costs rise, as they are now doing, more than productivity. But wages and price controls are valuable in the grey area before overheating occurs, and I think it is the job of the Government to see that we stay within the grey area.
To sum up, my Lords, there is clearly no one cure for our troubles, but I believe that unless the law on trade unions and trade disputes is much more radically and fundamentally reformed than is now intended, one fundamental cause of trouble will be left untouched and will render futile most other action which is taken. We must deal with the basic legal issue in the broadest terms and drag our poor country into the second

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half of the 20th century. If the law does not demand good faith, we cannot expect management to be able to manage, or our trade union leaders to be able to lead, or our industry to profit by the great technical genius of our countrymen, much of which is now frustrated. In no other way, I believe, can we expect capital to be invested here on the same relative scale as in other countries. Nor can we in any other way maintain our export markets and stop the decline in our relative standard of living compared with that of all our neighbours on the Continent.
6.59 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I wish for a moment to refer to a few of the remarks made by the noble Lord. Lord Douglass of Cleveland. I should like to assure him that I have always had the greatest respect for responsible trade unionists, of whom the noble Lord is one. I understood him to say that wages in Italy and France are higher than wages in this country. I am sorry to have to say that I think the noble Lord is misinformed. It is true that Germany has caught up and passed us—and Sweden, too. We always come up against this with the Labour Party. They are always trying to compare every country with Sweden. But you cannot compare Great Britain with Sweden.
LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELAND: My Lords, I am not mistaken. It may be argued that agricultural wages in the south of Italy are low, but manufacturing and industrial wages are higher in Italy and France than they are in this country.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: But, my Lords, they do not have such cheap food as we have in this country. I am talking about the purchasing value of our wages and I am sure that if it is worked out statistically, the noble Lord will find that I am right. I was talking about Sweden. Sweden has a population half the size of London's, and a geographical area nearly 2½ times the size of Britain. We cannot compare the two economies.
The noble Lord blamed employers—not that all employers necessarily belong to the Conservative Party—and financiers for the high bank rate. Good heavens! Employers hate the high bank
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rate. It has nearly ruined me. One of the reasons why we have a high bank rate is the great number of strikes we have had during the last two or three years, which has meant that productivity has suffered. Another reason is that we have a highly-organised Welfare State—I do not object to that—so that we have great consumer expenditure. If there is big consumer expenditure and low productivity, there has to be a high bank rate. It is one of the ways by which we can take the heat out of our economy and try to keep consumer expenditure down.
There are one or two bright aspects in the gracious Speech but, on the whole, it is the same old story. The whole accent is on nationalisation, the cure for all ills. The Labour Government is rather like a doctor who prescribes sugar for a diabetic. Surely it is time the Labour Party gave up this old dogma of nationalisation. I am pleased to see in the gracious Speech that the Government are going to bring in legislation to give more assistance to industry in the intermediate areas. But if industrial and other companies did not have this crushing taxation, they would need none of this help. Personally, I am always suspicious of this help, because it rather smacks of back-door nationalisation.
I believe about 80 per cent. of the economy is in small businesses, I am interested in small businesses. But they now make hardly any profits at all, and therefore have no surpluses to plough back into their businesses. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, whom I should like to congratulate on his extremely interesting maiden speech, who said that the average age of machine tools and of machinery generally in this country is about ten years. Of course it is; we cannot afford to buy new machinery because we have to pay so much tax. I hope that this point has sunk home.
By far the most important part of the gracious Speech is that dealing with industrial relations. It has been said so often that, if we do not get our industrial relations right, we will have industrial chaos and the country will be sunk. We are told in the gracious Speech that we are going to have a Bill to improve industrial relations. I only hope we do, but, as the Prime Minister has capitulated over his previous legislation to put

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In Place of Strife into law, how is any new Bill going to have any teeth? Is this new legislation going to work? No doubt it will have teeth against the employers, but the poor employers have so many teeth in them already that they are absolutely reeling with the pain. We have had this great rush of strikes in the last few months. Though there is no conclusive evidence, I can only presume that it is owing to the Prime Minister's capitulation. We have had strikes and we have had some wage rises, of between 10 and 20 per cent. Where is it going to end?
Several noble Lords have said that legislation cannot cure strikes; that industrial relations is a very human thing. But, of course, legislation can lay the basis for having good industrial relations. I think it was also the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, who said that for large firms the problem of good relations between management and shop floor becomes more and more difficult. We never have strikes in small companies and in agriculture. The reason is that the managing director or some executive is always there to go straight on to the shop floor and patch up any difficulty. Probably he knows most of his people by name, and their families. But in enormous companies like I.C.I., or the noble Lord's company, with a vast number of employees, it is a terrible problem, because they are too big for human contact.
The root of the trouble is that the unions cannot control their own people. The curse of this country, as has been repeatedly said, is unofficial strikes. I cannot see why the unions, where there are unofficial strikes, cannot make a few examples and put the ringleaders out of the unions, or fine them. This militancy on the shop floor is an appalling problem. I feel, as has been said already, that we must have some legislation laying down a code of practice, a code of law, by which employers and unions must abide. Otherwise, I can see very little hope. As things are at the moment there is an inducement for men to strike, because the strike is usually successful. They suffer no hardship, because their families can get national assistance. It is the height of absurdity that when you have a strike in a nationalised industry the workers' families can get national assistance. If
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they were unable to get national assistance—apart, of course, from the real hardship cases—I am sure there would be less inclination to strike.
Surely it is time that the trade unions modernised themselves. After all, in certain countries on the Continent workers in a public utility company cannot strike without giving, I think it is, three months' notice. I feel that it would be a good thing if we could have something like that here. It is true that some people say that for all practical purposes the trade unions are outside the law. I agree that technically they are within the law, but for practical purposes they are outside the law. I should like to see a code of practice under which, if there is an unofficial strike, the unions should be responsible and be fined so much according to the period of the strike and the number of strikers. It is not practicable to fine the individual working man, because the money could never be collected; or the employer would have to collect it, and it would cause a great deal of bad blood. We must hold the unions responsible for keeping order in their own house.
There is one thing on which I have always been keen and which I think would improve industrial relations (I should hope that the Government would give some support to it at some time), and that is the idea of employees' taking shares in the company—share ownership. I agree that the average Socialist does not like this, because he is afraid that if the employees are given shares they will turn into Conservatives. One of the excuses for nationalising industries is always that the industry is going to the people; but I am sure that the average worker would far prefer to have a personal stake in his particular firm. Companies have tried this, and the trouble has been that the employees usually sell the shares. But if we could get round that difficulty, I think this would greatly improve industrial relations.
I most heartily welcome the paragraph in the gracious Speech which refers to equal pay for men and women. The year 1975 may seem a long way off, but to bring this into practice will not be easy. It has always struck me as quite incongruous that, while we have Acts against racial discrimination, we have always had this discrimination between

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the sexes. It is not logical, and I heartily welcome this paragraph. It will, of course, increase the expense to industry, but industry will have to bear that.
I should like now to refer to the paragraph in the gracious Speech on the selective expansion of home agriculture. Governments of all colours have always promised agriculture a paradise, a promised land, but it has never come. Perhaps I might compare the price of corn with the price of coal. When I was a boy I remember coal being unloaded on the shore from Glasgow into the Isle of Mull on the West Coast at about £2 a ton.
LORD BLYTON: Miners were cheap then.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: This was in the early 'thirties. The price of corn was then about the same as it is to-day. Nowadays the price of coal is, I think (I have not checked this), about £14 a ton. I do not object to the price of coal being £14 a ton. I went down a mine in Durham before the war. A miner's life must have been a hell of a life and tough, and I think that everything the miners get, good luck to them! But how about the poor farmers? The price of corn has been fairly static the whole time. We are promised great things to come, but they never happen. I only hope that in referring in the gracious Speech to the encouragement of selective expansion of home agriculture, the Government will not bring this encouragement into factory farming until a proper code of conduct has been accepted. The code of rules accepted at the end of last Session is really not good enough.
There is one aspect of agriculture that worries me, and that concerns the question of housing, about which quite a lot has been said in the debate on the gracious Speech. In agriculture we have no option but to cut down our labour every year, and we then have quite a few houses left unoccupied. I know that a neighbouring estate to mine has 14 houses unoccupied, and I have four unoccupied. The trouble is that under the existing rent laws we are scared to let these houses, because if we do they are gone for ever. We only get low rents from them, which are not enough to keep the houses in good order. It would be
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most helpful if the Government could bring in some legislation to help this situation, but I know that this is very difficult. If we could let these houses and have some hope of getting them back if we ever required them for agriculture again it would be helpful. I know that the whole question of housing is very difficult. I have always thought that the best thing to do is to alter the Rent Act and so allow landlords to charge fair rents in order that they can keep their houses in good order. If any family cannot genuinely pay the rent then you should have subsidised rents, which I think would be a great help in the country.
That is all I will say. I should have liked to say a great deal more, but I am sure your Lordships would not like that. However, may I just add one word. I was unable to understand the noble Leader of the House429 Address in Reply to —perhaps I misheard him. I thought he said that it was preferable for people to remain unemployed and receive social security benefit than to take a job that was not suitable for them. Well, my Lords, is that right? Perhaps I did not hear the noble Lord correctly. I quite agree that a craftsman cannot be expected to take a job which entails doing some menial work, but you ought to be able to stretch a point there.
I was very pleased to read about the favourable balance of payments, and I only hope that it continues. We shall have to have a great amount of favourable balances to repay all the money that we owe, but long may the favourable position continue.
7.23 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, the gracious Speech deals with many subjects of great interest to the nation, and I will speak on three of them only. I, want to deal with the economic cost of joining the Common Market, the Coal Industry Bill and human relations at work. I listened to the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, who has sent me a note to say that he cannot be here this evening because of another engagement. I listened to him deal with the Common Market last week. He deployed his arguments in his usual robust way, and at the latter end of his speech he left his options open. The great surprise to me in his advocacy of joining the Market was when he referred to the

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undoubted fact that the majority of the people in England were against it. He said, and I quote:
"One of the reasons why public opinion has shifted has been the great amount of publicity by those who are opposed to our entry … there has been an almost deafening silence from those who think differently."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30/10/67; col. 127.]
How he arrived at that conclusion I cannot understand. For twelve long years nearly every newspaper in the land has been urging on the people the great benefits there are in the Market for us. For over twelve years there has been this constant agitation to get in the Market. There have been only two newspapers against entry. We have had organisations like "Keep Left in Europe", we have the European Movement, who not only want us to join the Economic Community but also are bent on a Federal Parliament in Europe and on England's abrogating her sovereignty to it. They have plenty of money; they take M. Ps. to Brussels to see the set-up, and for many years they have issued brochures, pamphlets and held meetings all over the country. They have the resources and the Government behind them, together with the Tory and the Liberal Party. If the opponents of the Common Market had just half of the pro-Marketeers' resources the number against entry would be far greater than it is now. We have no C.B.I., no European money behind us at all.
The reason people have changed is because they now realise what it means to them: cost-of-living increases; loss of sovereignty for the nation, and Parliament in Europe more remote than now for them to ventilate their grievances. They have no desire to be ruled, either politically or economically, by a bureaucracy abroad. The people whom Britain recognises as our closest political and human links have been for generations, and still are, those nations which we largely created by British emigration, capital and economic development over the past 200 years. Australia and New Zealand are flourishing independent States built up by the British and founded on British political ideas that prevail still to-day. Canada and India, with our long association not merely in trade and administration but also in education, have created a community of ideas which has
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survived the manifold difficulties of the present world. People in Britain are not prepared to throw over the Commonwealth for six nations in Europe. People are now recognising what is involved in this issue. Hence the change that the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition was concerned about. People have been saturated with pro-Market propaganda, but have at last not accepted it.
What of the economic cost of joining the Market? Let me say that from Britain's point of view I think there is the strongest reason for developing an expanding EFTA until the time comes that a wider free trade area can be achieved. EFTA has bound together in a highly successful free trade area those nations which believe in closer trading without the surrender of essential sovereignty and without agricultural protectionism. It is a type of association well suited to British political ideas and economic needs. EFTA achieved complete industrial free trade in six and a half years, well ahead of time, between all the eight countries. That has been done without forcing any rigid pattern of external tariffs on any member. In this sense EFTA is a free trade area and not a customs union. This leaves it open for us as a nation to continue our traditional policy of the free import of food and raw materials from outside the EFTA group, while allowing those other countries that wish to do so to practise their traditional agriculture protectionism.
EFTA has also worked out rules of industrial and commercial competition without any supranational interference by any bureaucratic body in the internal affairs of the member countries. It also allows each nation to follow whatever foreign or defence policies it wishes. For these reasons, and until some better and wider economic and political group can be established in Europe, it should remain a major objective of our policy to preserve, strengthen and enlarge EFTA in every possible way. It is wise to safeguard and foster what we have until we have something wider and better to put in its place. I am confident the E.E.C. does not fit in as it is now.
What of the cost of living and the balance of payments? The Chancellor of the Exchequer last week in another place gave some of the increased prices

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for foodstuffs in the Common Market—meat, pork, cheese, butter, eggs and bread. I will not quote them all; they can be seen in the House of Commons Hansard of October 29. These are the basic foods of the working people. No wonder the people of Britain are worried! Trade unions have warned that if we go into the E.E.C. and prices go up they will press for increased wages. This will increase our costs and make us less competitive, as export prices would rise.
The most serious social and economic effect on us, other than the load on our balance of payments, would be the serious influence on our own very efficient agriculture. Grain prices would rise steeply. They are about 50 per cent. higher in the E.E.C. This would bring two serious consequences to us. There would be an increase in the production of wheat and feedingstuffs, which one can buy more cheaply from overseas, and the price paid for feedingstuffs by farmers producing meat, eggs and dairy produce would rise sharply. Feedingstuffs represent one-third of the costs of British agriculture and the change would force British agricultural land from production of secondary foods like meat and milk to primary foods like wheat and barley. It would be damaging to most farmers, since 60 per cent. of our total farm sales are from the livestock sector.
Another economic consequence for us of going into the Common Market is that we should put at risk our ability to buy the essential imports we must have in order to live. At present nearly 30 per cent. of our imports come from the Commonwealth, and about the same percentage of our exports are sold to the Commonwealth. A large proportion of our essential imports of food and raw materials comes from the Commonwealth or elsewhere outside Europe. Almost none at all comes from the Common Market. The essential materials we buy from Europe come almost entirely from EFTA countries, like timber and iron ore from Scandinavia, and bacon and butter from Denmark. Fifty per cent. of our imports of essential goods like dairy produce, cereals, feedingstuffs, sugar, coffee, tea, rubber and textile fibres come from the Commonwealth.
Therefore, a major switch from the Commonwealth to the E.E.C. would put our economic future at the mercy of
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people in the High Authority in Europe over which we should have no control. We should have to put a tariff on food coming from the Commonwealth which now comes in free or under Imperial preference; and we should have to do the same with some of our raw materials that we import. When we have done this, then we face reciprocal action, because once we put tariffs on goods from the Commonwealth we can expect to lose our free entry and Imperial preference on our exports to them. We should have to put a tariff of 70 per cent. on our trade with the outside world if we go into the Common Market, and I think we shall lose more trade than we shall gain. What we want is industrial free trade without a "dear food" policy and without supranational control.
What about our balance of payments? Since devaluation it is agreed that the figure will be higher against us than the £500 million the Prime Minister said on May 8, 1967, in the House of Commons. Some estimates have been quoted lately that the figure will be £700 million; others say £1,000 million. Whatever the figure between the two, we shall have to have this burden put upon us. We have had a struggle in the last four years to get the balance we have now. We have had to have wages restraint, price rises, spending curtailed, to get where we are to-day, and our people have had to bear it. Do we go in the Common Market to carry this huge burden and have the people face all these measures to try to get us in balance again?
Worse than all this is the fact that, once we as a Parliament have surrendered our legislative powers by ratifying the Rome Treaty, we can never recover them. The Rome Treaty will not be altered to suit us. It would not be possible, as with other treaties, to leave it on due notice when it turned out to be unacceptable. Signing the Rome Treaty is legally irrevocable, with no provision for leaving it, as there would he if we signed other agreements in this country. Legally any country which finds the E.E.C. intolerable in practice—and I believe we should find this out—could not secede; and to sign the Treaty would be unprecedented. It would take out of the British public's hands forever a major part of their power to legislate on their own affairs, which it has taken centuries for them to secure,

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and grant it to a body in Brussels not responsible to them or even to the electorate.
I wonder, my Lords, why this is accepted by those who claim in the Lords, when the Government do anything they do not like, that they are the custodians to prevent the Executive from doing anything that smatters of taking people's rights away. Yet there are many who are prepared to give all this away in the Treaty of Rome. A decision to join this Market will be so contrary not merely to all democratic principles, but to the whole of our British Parliamentary tradition.
I believe it is intolerable that any Government should do this without first gaining the approval of the people. This is a unique decision that has to be made; the most important decision our country will be asked to make, if they get the chance, for many generations. I believe the case is strong enough for a referendum, as the Party system to-day does not present a clear and explicit choice being made by the public at a General Election.
We all know that the Conservatives have adopted a "dear food" policy in their import levies plan, and now their value added tax will make it much worse. We are aware that they intend to throw away the Agriculture Act, and are preparing the road to Brussels, but the farmers and the workers in agriculture had better beware if ever we join the Common Market. The public are aware of the high cost of food that will face them if we join the E.E.C. Many people have been abroad for their holidays and have had to pay high prices for their food. Hence the public have "tumbled" to it. If they are given the chance they will most certainly vote against going into the Common Market, because they do not believe there is a hope that we shall attain higher standards.
I should like to congratulate the Government on continuing the powers of the Coal Industry Act 1967 to March, 1974. The intention to support extra coal consumption on the part of the electricity industry is gratifying. So also is the announcement that Drax B electricity station will be coal fired. I should like to see more coal-fired electricity
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stations as I am far from convinced that the figures given for the costs of nuclear powered stations justify the rapidly increasing number of such stations.
The Minister said in another place that the Government intend to continue the ban on the import of coal and on the conversion of coal-fired stations to oil. This is indeed good news to an industry which has taken such a battering because of closures and which at the same time has increased its production in the face of ever mounting difficulties. No other industry has increased production in such a way, with the exception of agriculture. The Bill will also retain powers until March, 1974, to finance the scheme for redundant miners and to contribute towards the social cost of contraction incurred by the National Coal Board. I do not know how far this industry is to further contract. In the last 10 years 350,000 men have gone from the industry and the manpower figure now is near the 300,000 mark. The scheme for redundant miners is a good one for the miners affected. It is certainly more generous than we ever got in the past, because when we finished work we were thrown on the scrap heap with nothing. While I have disagreed with the Government over the too rapid closure of mines, I extend my thanks to them for the extended provisions of this Bill.
Men over 55 years of age who have been declared redundant are being looked after for three years until they can find a place in the changing pattern of industry, and for this we are grateful. Yet at the end of three years a man who has finished work at the age of 55 is only 58 and at that age he finds it difficult to get any job, let alone a less arduous one. After three years his unemployment benefit has expired, his 90 per cent, of his pay has gone, and if he cannot get work he is a National Assistance case until he is 65 years of age. At this age he is not a likely candidate for re-training, and he still has seven good years of working life in him. I suggest that the re-training of men made redundant should be one of the main objectives of our employment policy.
One of the most intractable problems of industrial change is the re-employment after redundancy of the older men and the disabled workers. The important point to emphasise is that an effort must

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be made to get rid of age discrimination in the employment of older workers. If this were done there would be more willingness on the part of these people to undergo re-training. The problem of the training and re-training of redundant disabled men, many of them very young, is much more difficult. The kind of jobs which can be undertaken by these people is limited, and the difficulty is not so much the provision of training as finding suitable work. I suggest that these two problems could be looked at, and more effort and more money expended to deal with them.
Another problem we have learned from experience is that of the younger men when a pit is closed. When a firm closes a factory the men are accepted as redundant from the standpoint of redundancy payments. In cases like this the redundant man is not offered work in the firm's other factories. When a man is declared redundant at a pit he is told that he can find a job at another pit. Further, he may be offered another job in another coalfield many miles away. In such circumstances, he is declared to be not redundant because work is there at another pit, a great distance away. This means that a man will have to move his family and obtain another house, or travel long distances to another pit, because so long as he is offered another job in another pit he is not declared redundant within this scheme. Also it has happened many times that a man has moved to another pit which has closed and he has again had to move. I know cases where this has happened to men four times since they were declared redundant at the original pit. I ask that consideration he given to the case of a miner who is declared redundant at a pit. He should get his redundancy pay straight away, without any consideration being given as to whether or not he can find another job at another pit. This at least would put the miner on the same basis as all the workers in private industry. I ask the Minister to give these matters his urgent consideration. I wish to thank the Government for introducing and extending the provisions of the Coal Industry Bill.
I should like to say a word on industrial relations. I thought the speech made by the noble Lord on the Cross Benches smacked very much of "Let's bash
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them". It did not seem to me to be a speech which was aimed at building up human relations but rather one with the intention of "get them in the courts and let's hammer them". Extravagant statements were made by the Leader of the Tory Party at Croydon last week, just before the mini-election, but neither those statements nor his policy of aggressive legislation will solve this serious question. He said that 1969 will be the worst year ever for strikes, and he called the situation one of industrial anarchy. We have had 2,181 stoppages in Britain in the first nine months of this year, and there have been 3,989,000 days lost. But Mr. Heath ought to have looked at the record of his Party, because when he was a member of the Government in 1957, 1959 and 1962, what was their record in the first nine months of those three years? In 1957, when the Tory Party was in power and its Ministers at that time were Mr. Macleod and Mr. Hare, there were 8,157,000 days lost. In 1959, there were 4,880,000 days lost in the first nine months. In 1962, there were 5,980,000 days lost. That was during the reign of the Conservative Party. There was no talk in those years that I heard of industrial anarchy, and those figures for those years are much worse than the figures for the year that the Leader of the Conservative Party said was leading to industrial anarchy.
There is no doubt that what is happening to-day is serious, and the nature of the disputes is changing. What we are witnessing to-day is an upsurge from the shop floor and the pit, and unofficial strikes being made official in many areas. All the threats of court action, penal clauses in legislation, will make matters worse. We had penal legislation in years that are gone, and it never led to any solution. Those who talk about taking the workers into court, as the noble Lord on the Cross-Benches did, ought to remember that powers exist to-day in the present law for the employers to claim damages for unofficial strikes. As I said in the debate on the Government's White Paper, I have myself been fined damages in my life, and that law is still there. To-day, employers can still prosecute workers who strike; but they seldom do. The reason is that when the strike is over, and damages are deducted by county court order from the man's pay,

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industrial relations become bitter. Employers have found out over the years that it really was not worth it.
The Conservative policy in this respect will do more harm than good, and they will find this out if ever it is attempted. Fear of prosecution will not stop men going on strike. They will not tremble at the idea of being taken to the county court. This threat will not deter men when they are feeling anger on the shop floor or at the pit. You could not take every miner, every dustman, every nurse or every fireman or docker to court if they came out on strike, and we all know this.
This year we have seen an upsurge from the lower-paid workers in industry because prices have been going up against them with practically no increase to meet it. In the main, the revolt has come from the bottom and not from the top. I believe that we have to adopt what was foreshadowed in the Donovan Report, and raise the status of the shop stewards on the floor. They have in the past been much maligned. They settle hundreds of problems each day in industry, and no credit is given to them; but if a strike takes place at any works they are heavily criticised by the Press and all those who think they know better how to handle it. I am pleased to see that some unions are recognising this and that some devolution is taking place to give more power to these men on the shop floor.
Since these unofficial strikes have resulted in some cases in wages increases quickly I am afraid that they might become the pattern; and it will not be good for the trade union movement. I believe that our trade union leaders at national level will have to face this new situation and draw up new procedures to meet it. In the old days, if a man led an unofficial strike, neither the employer nor the trade union leaders would do anything at all until the men went back to work. Action of this kind was small in those days; now it is gigantic. And trade unions are being forced to make such strikes official or to negotiate for unofficial strikers. That is the fundamental change, as I see it, that is developing in this country to-day.
The employers' organisations also will have to recognise this. They must not
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let negotiations drag on for months and then, when their industries are closed by unofficial strikes, settle within days, after months of negotiation by national leaders for their men. We shall have to do the same for the nurses—and here I speak to my own Front Bench. Do not let us, because of the nurses' loyalty to their profession, drag their case out until they become militant and then, if this should happen, settle the dispute in a couple of days. The first time the nurses demonstrated their position was in 1955, in the Selwyn Lloyd squeeze, when he offered them 6d. a day. In the last four years we have gone some way to meet the nurses, but they still rank among the lowly paid in our midst. I ask the Government not to exhaust their patience or their loyalty to the sick, but to meet their case now.
I believe that the new industrial charter will meet many of the grievances of the trade union movement, and I am pleased that the Government dropped the penal clauses. I am certain that the Tory policy on this will cause economic chaos. I would ask the trade unions and employers especially to recognise this new trend in human relations and get together to bring some peace in industry and also some order. The Government should give the C.I.R. more power and more work to do to help to this end and to bring procedures in industry up to date. The Government should see that the Prices and Incomes Board deal with prices as rigorously as they have dealt with the wages of the lower people. All will have to recognise that the wages of men and women in essential jobs who are lowly paid must be raised. The Prices and Incomes Board must see to it that justice is done, and must clear away from industry this awful feeling that if you are a worker you "get the hammer" from the Prices and Incomes Board. This is no easy job, my Lords. It will take time for the trade unions, the employers and the Government to get the human relations right. But if we all work together there is hope that we shall win through.
The true situation is not industrial anarchy. It is our industrial climate that is bad, and no amount of penal legislation will alter it. We all have to be fair in this, and those who are strongly organised must remember that there are others, not so strongly organised, who also have

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to have something. If we can get agreement on some restraints on high incomes, in the interests of fairness to others, and prevent inflation, I am sure that we shall all be doing a service to the nation.
8.0 p.m.
LORD GRANVILLE OF EYE: My Lords, this second day's debate has been concerned mainly with industrial affairs and industrial relations. I hope that my noble friend Lord Blyton will forgive me if I do not at this hour attempt to debate the very powerful case he has made against going into the Common Market. I shall have to leave that "hot potato" to my noble friend the Minister of State when he comes to reply. But I certainly agree with Lord Blyton that one of the very big problems in this connection is going to be that of agriculture. This was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux, in his maiden speech, on which I congratulate him, in which he again stated the case for increased agricultural production as an import saver for this country. I look forward to many contributions from him in the future on this subject.
I was glad that to-day my noble friend the Leader of the House dealt again with this "March hare"—the attack upon the figures of the balance of payments. If anything was needed finally to dispose of that argument, he certainly produced it to-day. I imagine that it will now be relegated to, and lost in the limbo of, Smith Square. In the last two days of debate many speakers have paid tribute to our economic recovery. Particularly has this been so after the Chancellor's statement on Monday in another place, and after the publication yesterday of the gold figures. This has undoubtedly highlighted the fact that the economy of this country is certainly on the way up. I suppose that all politics are about power, and I can understand the Opposition adopting what they think is the right argument with which to bludgeon the Government. But, in my view, the attack which was made on the balance of payments figures will certainly not give them the power for which they are looking.
I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, on his maiden speech. He spoke with great authority and experience, and I am sure that we all look forward to hearing more of his wisdom and fair-mindedness on
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industrial relations. I was glad that he highlighted this tremendous problem of industrial relations. While great strides have been made, and while there has been a great improvement in our economy, our balance of payments, our export figures, the invisibles and so on, this problem of industrial relations is the mountain which we have to climb. Of course we are not alone in this. Most large industrial countries have this problem. But I believe that this is the biggest problem that management, trade unions and the Government have to face in the next two or three years.
As my noble friend Lord Douglass of Cleveland and others have said, it certainly cannot be solved by legislation. In my view it can be solved only by an all-out effort by all concerned. I think that we shall probably have to look again at this problem. A great deal will depend on the calibre of future trade union leaders and—in the companies—of directors of labour relations in the new generation. You can merge, arrange your finance, design, plan and sell. You can do your research and your development. But unless you can "sell" it to the shop floor you are not in business to-day. As I have said, this is increasingly a problem which industry in all modern industrial countries has to face, and I think we have to take a special look at the type of men we want in personnel, as executives and directors of industrial relations in our large firms. I have been greatly impressed by some of the younger trade union leaders who are coming along. To-day, they not only have to understand productivity but also, in relation to the take-home pay packet, they have to understand incentives. To-day, no personnel manager can achieve that all-important efficiency without himself having made an up-to-date study of trade unions, their practices and their workings; and no modern trade union leader to-day can be efficient in his job, with its increased responsibilities, without a study of productivity and incentives.
I suppose that in industry the most important people used to be the cost experts, the production planners, the accountants, the cost accountants, and so on. They were the top people—perhaps they still are. But my advice to-day to any young man thinking of going into industry would be to go in for industrial and labour relations, because I believe

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that in the future this is going to be one of the most important jobs for higher executives, and even for boards of directors in large industries. As I have said, it will call for a new breed of labour relations executives. Perhaps, as a great friend of mine has always said, what it calls for from a managing director is rather more of an art than a science.
The noble Lord, Lord Stokes said that communication is the big problem. Of course it is. As he said, it is the problem of how to get over to the man on the shop floor, and to those at home, the prices and incomes policy and all that the Board of Trade have been, and are, doing for the export drive. It is the problem of how to get over what all this means to the balance of payments, to the problem of inflation created by the payment of increased wages. As my noble friend Lord Balogh said yesterday this problem of communication is still the vacuum to-day.
We talk a lot about communication, and about methods of communicating through various channels in industry. I think we have to face the fact that the main communication in every modern country today is broadcasting. The B.B.C. and I.T.V. have at their disposal a tremendous medium and, if I may say so in criticism of them, the fantastic, free publicity which they give to all kinds of wild strikes, unofficial strikes, or whatever they may be called, is unbelievable. A great deal of time is spent by the B.B.C. with their cameras in close-up and panning, in order to give this publicity to the country and abroad, where it is seen by millions of people. In fact, as one expert in public relations said the other day, the B.B.C., while they may not realise it, are in fact promoting, in the public relations sense, the irresponsibility of the very persons who are causing this trouble in industry. It is no good just passing round a leaflet. or a works newspaper, or publishing the annual reports of a company. The B.B.C. broadcasting and television and all these media of communication go into the homes of millions of people every day, both here and abroad, and I think that the broadcasting executives who are responsible ought to try to get their priorities right in a modern industrial State—what the late Poultenay Bigelow, a famous American, once called "Rule by M.O.B."
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When we are struggling with these problems of labour relations, we have to look also at what is behind the wages demand. Housing is a key factor. Mobile labour—and there is a good deal of this going on now in the development areas and so on—is paying high rents for furnished accommodation, and this leads to increasing wage demands. Credit affects everyone in almost every home to-day; increased hire-purchase charges for homes, cars, furniture and television have all to be paid for out of the wage packet, and that means fresh demands. This is a problem we must look at again. Credit is here to stay, and I believe we have to face the fact and realise what it means in the way of wage demands.
There is also the feeling among some people on the shop floor that there are too many people concerned with how to make what the Americans call "a fast buck" and we call here "a quick pound"; too many people unproductive; too many people living on the productive effort in industry. They are using cars, petrol, services. We have to ask ourselves, in this country of almost 60 million people, whether this is not too big a price to pay in the national overheads of a modern industrial State. If we are finally going to get this problem right we must learn to be a nation of industrial producers. We have perhaps to create a new élite as never before. We must get our priorities right and understood through whatever communication we can use, because "set the people free" to some has meant a "free-for-all", and "how to get it by any old means".
Finally, sooner or later, any modern industrial State is going to have to face the problem of a national wages policy. That has always been the hot potato. Nobody wants to know. The problem is a national wages policy in a free society. The steelworker, or the electronics producer, uses the same services as the bookmaker's runner, but they may be drawing much less at the end of the week. That is one of the things we have to look at when we come to face the problem, which many have tried to face in the past, of a national wages policy. In fact, of course, in a free society it begins at the schools.
I think that the Government have shown in the debate over the last two days that they are on the right road; but

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it is not enough to get efficiency in industry alone. Without improved efficiency in Whitehall and in the regions—to which my noble friend the Leader of the House referred in his speech to-day—we cannot get a completely efficient national effort. I hope that the recent Ministerial re-grouping under the two overlords, as they are referred to, will help to bring this about.
8.15 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should like to open by adding a tribute from this Bench to to-day's two maiden speakers. The noble Lord, Lord Stokes, speaking for the first time in this House, showed us some of the vision and qualities of mind that have made him one of the most highly regarded industrial leaders in Britain. The maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux. was very different from a notable performance by his ancestor, who was Lord Chancellor at the time of the passing of the Reform Act 1832. When the Bill was being debated in this House the Lord Chancellor, it is reported, went down on his knees in his peroration, begging noble Lords not to throw out the Bill. We take up the story from a contemporary account:
"Brougham ended with a prayer; he fell on his knees, and remained kneeling. He had kept up his energy with draughts of mulled port, and his friends, who thought that he was unable to rise, picked him up and set him on the woolsack."
LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX: My Lords, I can assure your Lordships that those are high jinks in which I will not partake.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, by way of contrast the quiet and modest approach of the noble Lord was very noticeable this afternoon.
The Queen's Speech refers to the Government's intention to continue to develop policies for promoting the efficiency and competitiveness of industry. Even allowing for some doubts about the continuation of policies that have done so little to promote industrial prosperity in the past—Selective Employment Tax, Corporation Tax at 45 per cent., the imports deposit scheme—what is there in the long list of measures in the Queen's Speech which gives substance to the claim that the efficiency of industry, and its competitiveness will be improved?
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There is nothing, first of all, on prices and incomes. There is a reference to the merging of the Prices and Incomes Board and the Monopolies Commission, to which I shall refer later, but on the future of prices and incomes legislation itself the Queen's Speech is silent. Nor are there any proposals to tackle what several noble Lords to-day on both sides of the House have identified as the most urgent problem of industrial relations—indeed the Government itself identified it as the most urgent problem I of industrial relations only six months ago—that is the rising tide of unofficial and unconstitutional strikes. I shall be discussing the new Industrial Relations Bill in a few minutes, but it is worth getting clear one vital fact right at the start: there is nothing in the Queen's Speech, and there will be nothing in the industrial Relations Bill when it is laid before Parliament, that will deal in any way with unofficial strike action. There are a number of proposals in the Speech concerning changes in specific industries, both in the public sector (electricity supply, gas, the ports, nuclear fuel) and in the private sector—building and the film industry. Then there are the proposals on industrial safety and health which have been commented on by the noble Lords, Lord Crook and Lord Taylor of Mansfield in the debate this afternoon.
But at the end of a long debate in which a lot of ground has been covered, I should like to concentrate on only three issues which are central to the Queen's Speech, and which will affect industry as a whole. The first of these is equal pay for men and women. This is far from a new subject, much less straightforward than it appears at first sight, and one that raises the age-old problem of politics: how to reconcile idealism and ideals of social justice with practicability. Equal pay has been touched on to-day by a number of noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, spoke about it briefly in his opening speech, and the noble Lord, Lord Crook, also mentioned it, as did the noble Earl, Lord Perth, and the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard. But I should like, just for a few minutes, to go a little deeper, and review some of the implications of the proposed legislation to introduce equal pay by 1975.

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I shall not go back into the history of this matter—there is a good deal of it—but since 1950 it has been accepted by both Parties that equal pay should be introduced as economic circumstances allowed. This followed on the Report of a Royal Commission in 1946 under the chairmanship of Sir Cyril Asquith. In 1955 Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, when Chancellor of the Exchequer—the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, will probably remember this—announced proposals to implement equal pay in the Civil Service over a six-year period, from 1955 to 1961. Later the same sort of phased programme was introduced to include teachers and the local government service as a whole. This pace of advance may seem slow—six years for the non-industrial Civil Service, the same sort of period of time for teachers and local government officers, and now a proposed live-year period until 1975. Even leaving the economic implications on one side, which I want to turn to in a moment, it is worth remembering that public attitudes towards opportunities for women and the work they do outside the home change very slowly. This is a field in which the reformers tend to be drawn from mainly middle-class and professional women, who have tended to be some way ahead of what is known about the aspirations of the majority of women at work, and how they regard their own jobs. Therefore, if legislation is to be soundly based, it must take account of these factors, as well as of the costs involved, when the timetable is drawn up.
The costs to industry are going to be very large, and I do not believe the implications of equal pay are widely understood yet. A joint working party of officials from the D.E.P., the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. has inquired into the costs of equal pay and into the technical problems involved in its implementation. Although there is no agreed estimate of the direct cost in additional wages it seems that something of the order of between 3 per cent. and 6 per cent. will be added to the national wages bill. In round figures, this sum represents between £600 millions per year, rising up to perhaps as high as £1,200 millions. Therefore, if the benefit of incomes policy is of the order of 1 per cent. per year, an amount claimed by the Prices and Incomes Board, over a five-year
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period the cost of equal pay might extinguish completely the entire anticipated benefit.
Nor will the incidence of equal pay fall equally on all industries. In certain industries employing many women, but with some men doing the same work—such as retail distribution, light engineering, clothing, laundries—the costs, it is estimated by the joint working party, may go up by as much as 20 per cent. The joint working party went on to say that in individual firms within those industries the increased costs might vary between 0 and 30 per cent. in some firms, therefore, the wage bill might be as high as 30 per cent. higher. Clearly, increases of this order, particularly where they are likely to affect the competitiveness of the industries and companies concerned, both in this country and in some cases internationally, should not be overlooked. The period of five years envisaged by the Government, while it may seem slow, is in fact a minimum. I believe that initially it was thought that a shorter period might be feasible; but, for the reasons I have given, I am quite sure that five years is a minimum period of time for the effective realisation of a policy which is agreed by all Parties to be highly desirable.
The remaining problem—and it is a difficult one—is definition. Convention No. 100 of the I.L.O., about which one noble Lord (I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Crook) spoke, provides for equal pay for work of equal value, while the definition contained in the Treaty of Rome is based on equal pay for the same work. While there are arguments in favour of both these approaches, there is no doubt that the I.L.O. concept of work of equal value would be the more contentious of the two. It would involve very extensive job evaluation, and I am inclined to think that it would lead to considerable difficulties in application, both for employers and for the unions. The Treaty of Rome definition—that is, equal pay for the same work—has a number of advantages. It is more precise than the I.L.O. Convention, and is therefore capable of being more easily understood and applied. Secondly, its application depends on a judgment of fact rather than on a judgment of value, being less likely to give rise to disputes over matters of interpretation.

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It could be said that this definition should be widened. Indeed, I believe that the Government has considered widening the definition of "work of equal value" to include "broadly similar work". I hope that Ministers will think very carefully about this, because if the narrow definition is departed from difficulties of uncertainty in interpretation will arise. if there is to be a tribunal to decide on cases of discrimination, the definition contained in the Treaty of Rome—that of equal work—should be the one used by that tribunal. These are the reasons why I hope that when the Minister comes to reply on behalf of the Government he will be able (I have given him notice of this) to say something about what form of definition will be adopted. My Lords, when we talk of equal pay for women, there is rather more to it than may appear on the surface.
Next, my Lords, I should like to move on to industrial relations, which has been the main topic of the debate to-day. The noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, who is to reply for the Government, was regrettably absent from that football-team photograph which we saw in the Press the other day, of Mr. Wedgwood Benn surrounded by his senior officials and supporting Ministers. There are now seven Ministers in all at the Ministry of Technology—MAXTEC, as my noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale called it in the debate yesterday. I understand that, in addition to his responsibility for Aviation, the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, is to be given the special job of trying to forge better links between the T.U.C. and the Government. A fairy godmother, in the shape of Mrs. Castle, must have been presiding over the noble Lord's ministerial rebirth. For who could have hoped for a spoon so thickly plated with silver as the proposed Industrial Relations Bill? His task is going to be a very simple one.
For what is going to be in this Industrial Relations Bill? Parliament has not been told yet, but it has appeared in the Press. We can assume that most of the things which the unions liked best in the Donovan Report, and in the White Paper which followed it, are going to be included in the Bill. Some details have already appeared in the Financial Times and The Times. The Bill is expected to
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establish every worker's right to belong to a trade union. It will move a long way towards making union recognition compulsory; it will give union negotiators the right to information about their company; it will give workers the right to appeal against unfair dismissal, and it will make the Commission on Industrial Relations a statutory body. If this is to be the content of the Bill—and it certainly seems likely, because these items were the palatable elements of the earlier proposals contained in the back of the White Paper—In Place of Strife—they are very substantial benefits indeed. What is more, the Government know that they are very substantial benefits.
Last Session, in the White Paper, the Government sought to balance these improvements in the unions' position with proposals for dealing with unofficial and unconstitutional strikes. The White Paper demonstrated that the total number of strikes had gone up considerably. A statistic of the utmost significance was that 95 per cent. of all strikes were unofficial, in the sense that they had not been sanctioned or ratified by union officials, and nearly all were unconstitutional as well, in that they took place in breach of agreed procedures for dealing with disputes.
To deal with this situation the Government came forward with the proposal that the Secretary of State should be able to order a 28-day conciliation pause; that in this time consultations should take place, while unofficial strikers returned to work and desisted from taking industrial action. This power would be backed up by the imposition of financial penalties if the order was not complied with. That was the first specific proposal. The second major concession which was required of the unions was to accept that, in certain defined circumstances, the Secretary of State should have power to order that a strike ballot should be held.
These were the two quid pro quos that the unions were asked to accept. The Prime Minister left no one in any doubt about their importance. My noble friend Lord Dundee, in his opening speech this afternoon, referred to the Prime Minister's statement when he met T.U.C. leaders in May. On this occasion he said that proposals contained in the White Paper were "essential to the continuation of

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this Government in office". Mr. Wilson left no doubt of their importance. Those were his actual words. Yet in June, the following month, the Bill was dropped in the face of determined opposition from the unions and from the Government's own Back Benchers.
Since then Mr. Feather has certainly done his best to honour the "solemn and binding" undertaking given by the T.U.C. to try to persuade unofficial strikers to return to work. But he is faced with an impossible job as he uses all his efforts to honour the undertaking that he and his colleagues in the General Council have given.
Meanwhile the problem of industrial disputes is becoming more and more acute. Figures for the period up to the end of 1968 were published at the back of the White Paper (Cmnd. 3888, p. 39). If those figures are projected forward—these are the official figures taken from the D.E.P. Gazette—it shows that the number of stoppages and working days lost is moving unmistakably upwards. Between January and June, 1969, the number of strikes increased 67 per cent. against the average for the six months period.
At that precise moment, when the trend was already apparent, the Government withdrew. Since then, not unexpectedly, the pace of industrial unrest has quickened. The figures for the third quarter of 1969, from July to September, show no fewer than 724 disputes against a quarterly average (for the previous eight years) of 329. This total, excluding coal mining, represents an increase of 120 per cent. The statistics for working days lost show the same trend.
The seriousness of this position does not seem to be challenged by Ministers. Mrs. Castle made a speech to the Industrial Society on October 22 last during which she referred to what she called,
"a spate of unconstitutional strikes in various sectors of industry".
She said they fell into two categories. The first concerned the lower-paid workers, while the second and larger category she described as follows. These were the words of the Secretary of State herself, but they could have come from a Member of these Benches:
"As usual, they are mainly unofficial and unconstitutional and they are increasingly
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about pay. They reflect an increasing tendency for local groups of workers to take the law into their own hands and defy the attempts of Vic Feather or their own union officials to get them back to work again."
To-day, we heard the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, with all his knowledge of industry, refer to unofficial groups pressing what he called "piratical claims" in breach of agreed procedure.
My Lords, who can quarrel with this analysis? It is contained in the White Paper. The Secretary of State herself accepts the upward trend; while industrialists with the experience of the noble Lords, Lord Stokes, Lord Thorneycroft and Lord Watkinson, have come here to say the same to-day. Yet faced with this situation the Government are going to produce a Bill which will not in any way deal with this central issue of unofficial or unconstitutional strikes. It will deal with what the unions wanted in the White Paper, but not with the essential issue facing Britain to-day.
My Lords, I turn finally to prices and incomes, that other cornerstone of Labour policy. While there is no mention of the words "prices and incomes" in the Queen's Speech—a notable omission, one would think—the Prime Minister told the House of Commons last week that Part II of the Prices and Incomes Act 1966 would remain in force for a few months after the powers to delay price and wage increases lapse in December. New legislation to merge the Monopolies Commission and the Prices and Incomes Board (as forecast in the Queen's Speech) will be laid before Parliament. When this comes into effect, presumably in the middle of next year, the existing Prices and Incomes legislation will lapse.
My Lords, after that, everything is obscure. I cannot believe that I am alone in this House in finding it very difficult to see how a merger of these two institutions will take the place of the present mandatory legislation controlling prices and incomes. I suspect there is a very real change of Government policy here; but, as with the switch in policy towards the unions last summer, the Government have disguised it. There is clearly some logic in joining together the two bodies. But this seems to be a quite different line of reasoning; the merger of these institutions cannot surely have an effect similar to the Prices and Incomes Act as it

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has operated over the last two and a half years.
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred to overlapping inquiries by the Monopolies Commission and the Prices and Incomes Board. Yet there are considerable differences between the two. The Monopolies Commission is now fairly old—it has been going for 21 years—it has a rather small staff and it is backed by statutory powers, but is able to make only limited use of them. The P.I.B. is newer and larger and under the exceptionally vigorous chairmanship—this will be accepted by noble Lords on both sides of the House—of Mr. Aubrey Jones it has developed flexible and advanced methods of inquiry. But I believe that, behind all the arguments in favour of rationalisation, there is an attempt to counteract the pro-monopoly influence of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, which will now function under the wing of the Ministry of Technology.
It is ironic that while one part of Government is busy promoting mergers into larger units in order to accelerate the processes of innovation and encourage greater competition in international markets, another part of Government should be concerning itself with the prevention of what is now called "the abuse of market power". The medium-sized to large company which is likely to find itself in the crossfire between these two bodies, is going to become increasingly exasperated, I fear, over these well-intentioned, if at times contradictory, efforts by the Government to lend a helping hand. It is for this reason particularly unfortunate that it is planned to put the new body under the Department of Employment and Productivity. The noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, dealt with this in his speech.
As noble Lords on the Government Front Bench know, there has been a great deal of opposition to this proposal—almost uniformly so—since it was first made known. I hope that there may still be time to think again. The consultations on the merged institutions, as I understand it, are only just beginning, whereas those on equal pay have been going on for a year or two. Surely if consultations are just beginning with the C.B.I. and other interested parties it would be more appropriate that a decision
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on this matter should arise out of the consultations, rather than be taken before they began. The Board of Trade, despite its present reduced status, remains the sponsoring Department for most of industry and has built up over the years extensive industrial contacts and a good deal of expertise in industrial and commercial processes. On the other hand, in spite of its recent association with incomes policy, the D.E.P. still tends to see its role as one of conciliation and as being primarily concerned with the settlement of strikes. I should like to underline as strongly as possible what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, that it would be far better to keep these two functions apart.
In conclusion, my Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, mentioned that in industry, to be successful, any policy must be consistently pursued. This is also true of public policy. It is essential to be clear about the main aims of policy and to concentrate on achieving them. And if the big things can be got right, then some of the smaller ones which depend on them may follow without too much difficulty. It is for this reason that the Government's lack of any stated policy towards two of the major issues of the day—prices and incomes, and unofficial and unconstitutional strikes—makes the part of the Queen's Speech dealing with economic affairs so very disappointing to us on this side of the House.
8.42 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF TECHNOLOGY (LORD DELACOURT-SMITH): My Lords, it can never be easy to reply in your Lordships' House to a debate of this character. As the evening wears on one is, I think, bound to find one's notes becoming increasingly complicated, and one speculates more and more frantically on the tantalising question of how many noble Lords will actually be present to hear the reply. Perhaps it is particularly difficult to-day, because we have had a very wide-ranging debate and a number of contributions of the highest quality and authority. I know that noble Lords will forgive me if, especially at this time of night, I am not able to reply to, or comment individually on, every point which noble Lords have raised. But I certainly hope to comment on some

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raised by the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham.
I must begin by adding my warm congratulations to those which have already been expressed to noble Lords who have made maiden speeches. The noble Lord, Lord Stokes, sent a note explaining that owing to a very important commitment connected with the export effort, which he could neither rearrange nor possibly cancel, he would have to leave the House before the conclusion of the debate. From the reception given to his contribution, and from the many observations that noble Lords have made subsequently, there can be no doubt about the high value we all set upon it. The noble Lord's speech was delivered in the light of great industrial experience and eminence, and I echo the words of those noble Lords who have expressed the hope that, notwithstanding the wide range of public service which the noble Lord undertakes in addition to his heavy industrial responsibilities, there will be many occasions when he will feel it appropriate to contribute to our debates.
I add my congratulations to those extended to the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux. I think that the House is particularly attentive to those who plead the cause of agriculture, and I am sure that noble Lords will join me in hoping that the noble Lord will contribute many times to our debates on matters which are close to his heart. I was struck by the anecdote recounted by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, about an ancestor of the noble Lord, Lord Brougham and Vaux. If my memory serves me right, the touching incident to which reference was made came at the close of a speech which lasted for three and a half hours.
My Lords, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, made clear at the outset of the debate and of his speech, we are at one in welcoming the trade figures, with the effect that they have on the balance of payments and the prospects which, in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's view, they hold out. But it is perhaps in the nature of things that there may be some who appear to find it easier to contain their enthusiasm than do others. In the wide-ranging debate that we have had there was a forceful contribution from the
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noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft. I was not altogether sure sometimes whether the noble Lord was addressing himself to the policy of Her Majesty's Government or to the terminology of a discussion publication of the Labour Party. But there was one observation he made which I must confess pained me. The noble Lord charged the Government with having made it more difficult, or at any rate with not having made it any easier, for industry to find its way round Whitehall. It was a major aim of the reorganisation from which the Ministry of Technology has emerged in its new and expanded form to focus the points of contact which industry would particularly need to have with Government Departments, and to bring so many of the major contacts in industry under the direction of one Department of Government. Indeed, the major aim of the Ministry of Technology is that of building up a widely based partnership between Government and industry; and in the tone and spirit of some of the noble Lord's comments I could not always recognise the kind of relationship which I believe exists between the Ministry and a very wide range of industry.
The Ministry will continue to use the considerable variety of methods to encourage and assist industry to reorganise and increase its "R and D" effort and to improve its competitiveness. I welcomed the reference made by the noble Lord. Lord Stokes, to the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation and the rather oblique praise extended to it by the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft. Along with the National Research and Development Corporation it is an important instrument for intervention. At the time when it was brought into being it had a somewhat dusty welcome from the Benches opposite, but I hope that both these institutions may now be regarded as well-established and well-accepted parts of the industrial scene.
There cannot be any doubt that the policy of working with industry in this way to help it in what it recognises so widely to be its own tasks offers the best hope of sustained growth, of higher investment—about which I will say a word or two later—and of greater employment. In many fields we can see a practical result. In electronics, for example, the N.R.D.C. is investing nearly

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£5 million in the field of micro-electronics, and the three leading British firms have already invested some £10 million. By the early 1970s the sales value of the United Kingdom market in this growing field is likely to exceed £20 million a year. It is worth while to look at the export contribution of some of the industries in which there has been a substantial degree of Government interest and sometimes Government intervention. In computers, exports are up from £10 million in 1964 to over £40 million in 1968. In electrical engineering, exports are up from £360 million to £515 million; in shipbuilding from £15 million to £51 million; and in aviation from £98 million to £253 million, with an outstanding export order book in the middle of this year of £547 million. So my Lords, if I may say so, there are some industries which are succeeding in staggering along to some purpose.
I was asked particularly to make a comment on investment and I would say that the Government see no evidence of an investment slump. This is not a field in which the Government are likely to be complacent. They have a real knowledge of the importance of the degree of industrial investment. It is true to say that over the last 18 months the underlying trend of investment has strongly improved. The figures are somewhat complicated, but I think it is fair to say, bearing in mind that there were certain special factors operating in the last quarter of 1968, that the second quarter of 1969 shows, on a seasonally adjusted base, an all-time record in investment. So here again I think we may say that there is evidence of some practical concern and practical results.
In other circumstances I should have wished to speak at some length about the production and consumption of energy. Suffice it in the present circumstances to say that a series of proposals, some requiring legislation, are embodied in the gracious Speech addressed to the various differing needs of the energy-producing industries. My task in this regard has been made much simpler because the references which I should have wished to make to the coal industry have been largely anticipated by my noble friend Lord Blyton, and we appreciate very much the warm welcome which he gave to the provisions of the proposed
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Coal Industry Bill. In respect of gas, electricity and atomic power there are proposals which are concerned to strengthen the essential base which the energy producing industries must constitute in any period of industrial expansion or in any period of rising standards of comfort in the home. It is material in this connection to know that the energy-producing industries in the last five years have shown in their varying degrees productivity increases satisfactory in every case. I would particularly mention last year's increase in productivity of 9·2 per cent. in the coal industry.
I turn to the field of regional responsibilities and policy, to which the Government have attached and continue to attach great importance. This afternoon the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, addressed himself for a substantial part of his speech to the development areas, and we appreciate very much the common ground and common objectives which exist between the two sides of the House in this field of policy. Both sides recognise that this must be an essential part of regional economic policy. As the noble Earl pointed out, there is room for legitimate differences of opinion about the merits of particular methods of reaching the common objective. In particular, the noble Earl criticised the broad spread of the present development areas and indicated a preference for concentrating on growth areas. This is a matter we could debate, but I am sure the noble Earl will forgive me if I remind him that we moved away from the former Government's rather narrower development districts, which incidentally were designated regardless of their prospects for growth, because we felt that it was desirable to plan for substantial regions as a whole and to spread industrial development within broader areas, according to the needs and resources of each of them.
The noble Earl expressed some fears for the grey areas in the light of existing policy. As he knows, there is under discussion in another place a Local Employment Bill which will deal specifically with the position of the grey areas. We cannot dogmatise about the effects which this will have. Some measures to assist the grey areas, to bring them, for example, on to the same footing as the development areas in respect of the issue of industrial development certificates,

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have already been taken, and in so far as one can make any judgment the signs are that these measures are working. But, of course, the major measures in this field will come under the new Local Employment Bill.
The House is aware that unemployment has risen in the country as a whole. To some degree this is reflected in the development areas, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, mentioned yesterday, and he particularly referred to Wales and Scotland. The position is, as again he will be aware, that to some degree the disparity between Scotland, Merseyside and other development areas, and the rest of the country in relation to the percentage of unemployment has been reduced over the last five years. To take the case of Scotland, the figure is now something like half as much again as in the rest of the country, instead of being one and a half times as much again, as it was in 1964. One-fifth of our population lives in development areas, and their share of the estimated additional employment created through i.d.c. approvals is running at about half of the whole total.
I am anxious to come on to the question of industrial relations, which has occupied, very understandably, an important part of our consideration of the gracious Speech, but before I do so I should like to emphasise one or two points about the effect, feared in some quarters, of the machinery of Government changes upon development area policy. These changes imply no change in the general priority which the Government are giving to achieving a substantial and permanent improvement in the economies of the development areas. The new arrangements mean that with responsibility across the bulk of industry both in the private and the public sectors, the Minister of Technology can ensure that national industrial policies and regional policies are thoroughly complementary. In practice, this means that proposals for expansion, for rationalisation and for change in industry will be considered with full awareness of their implications for the development areas.
These areas are receiving direct preferential assistance to industry at the rate of some £270 million a year. This represents about one quarter of the total direct
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Government assistance to industry and is a measure of the importance which the Government attach to helping the development areas to overcome their problems. On the administration of I.D.C. policy, the Government have stressed that general priority will continue to be given to the development areas and now to the intermediate areas, but they have also underlined that development areas will still enjoy a massive preference in financial assistance to industry over the rest of the country, including in that the intermediate areas.
Before I come to the question of industrial relations there are two further comments I would make by way of proper preliminary. Apart from the measures embodied in the gracious Speech dealing with the merchant shipping industry and with labour-only subcontracting in the construction industry, I feel that two of the contributions to our debate are particularly appropriate as preliminaries to examining industrial relations. I refer to the speeches of my noble friends Lord Crook and Lord Taylor of Mansfield. I shall come in a moment to the speech of my noble friend Lord Douglass of Cleveland. My noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield asked me specifically about emphysema, about duputreyns contraction and about latent compensation cases. As he indicated, these are three difficult questions, and in the case of the two diseases he mention, research is still proceeding. But I felt that his speech, in which was expressed his knowledge of humanity, was a reminder to us of the cost in human terms which our industrial development has sometimes had in the past.
My noble friend Lord Crook, who has, I think, sat through the debate from beginning to end, dealt with the question of health and safety. I am sorry to have to tell him that I am advised that what he described as the short Bill will be coming before us, but it does not of itself, as at present drafted, contain the kind of provisions in respect of fire risks for which he was asking. But it will provide for the establishment of consultative committees, which might well interest themselves in the question of the prevention of fire hazards.
I should like now to come to the question of industrial relations, to which so many noble Lords have referred. Much

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criticism has been levelled at the Government because of the state of industrial relations as indicated by the statistics on strikes. The number of strikes and their duration is certainly not the only index—it is not, perhaps, even necessarily the most important index—of the state of industrial relations, as I shall try to argue later. But we ought to know what the situation actually is.
Here again I have been anticipated by my noble friend Lord Blyton, because I had been intending to refer to a speech recently made in the country by the Leader of the Opposition in another place; to refer to the figures he quoted in that speech, and to quote some further figures which perhaps put them more in perspective. The Government have made very clear the serious view that they take of industrial disputes and of the loss of production to which they give rise. But, even taking that into account, we ought not to talk ourselves, or allow anybody to talk us, into the belief that some degree of industrial anarchy quite unparalleled in our history is indicated by the recent outbreak of strikes.
A certain amount of time is lost in strikes. My noble friend Lord Crook (I think it was he) pointed out that a great deal more is lost by illness and injury; and it can be argued that a good deal is lost by inadequacies of management. But the time lost by strikes, even when one takes into account time lost through other causes, is important because of the disruptive effect it has on industrial schedules, and because very often the incidence of the stoppage is not altogether easy to predict. Often the time lost in strikes is important—not so much in itself, but as an indication of bad industrial relations, and of the friction and waste to which these give rise, even when they do not actually express themselves in stoppages. I think the point ought to be recorded that noble Lords on the Opposition Benches are by no means entitled to imply that they have some panacea for this which in some obstinate way the Government are refusing to recognise.
The issue of the contribution which some greater legal intervention in strikes could have is one that could be debated at great length. I somehow do not think that in the time at my disposal I am going to persuade noble Lords who hold
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strongly to that belief to reverse their opinion. I listened with great interest to the contribution of the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson. He speaks, of course, with the authority of someone of long ministerial experience in Ministries concerned with industrial relations, and I shall study his speech carefully when it appears in Hansard. But I am bound to say that, hearing his proposals across the Floor of the House, they appeared to me to invoke the idea of legal intervention as a panacea in an even more legalistic form than any previous expression that I have heard. But, as I say, I wish to study these proposals more fully when I see them to-morrow.
For those noble Lords who hold the view that there is some panacea, as seems to be implied so often by Conservative propaganda, I do not think I can do better than to recommend to them the speech made in this House some months ago by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan. We were asked to-day by one noble Lord whether it would not be a good idea to have an examination of the legal position of trade unions. I thought that that was what we had been doing for years, as carried out by the Donovan Commission. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Donovan, with his legal knowledge, and the great experience which he gained by presiding over that Commission, made in your Lordships' House a speech which is very striking in bringing out the practical and technical objections to the idea which is so light-heartedly put forward, that there is some relatively simple legal solution to this. I submit that it is necessary to go beyond the figures, because they can be interpreted in many ways. It is necessary to go beyond the figures and facts of the industrial disputes themselves, and to look at the malaise which exists in some fields of industry—not in all—of which industrial disputes are the symptom. The only way effectively, satisfactorily and permanently to reduce strikes is to work at the causes of this deeper malaise, which, as I say, some, but not all, fields of industry exemplify. It is this malaise which delays and sometimes precludes the introduction of new working methods and new equipment; it produces a lack of co-operation and a lowering of morale. Sometimes it is better, quite frankly, that conditions like that should find their expressions in

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a strike rather than go on, in the long run, to do far more damage under the surface to the industry in which those conditions exist.
This problem will not be solved by gimmicks; it will not be solved by slogans. I doubt whether it will be solved by a further examination of the law by lawyers. I do not think it will be solved by pretending that the modification of the law can easily solve it. This malaise arises where men feel, for example, that they are in danger of losing their jobs and see no prospect of getting comparable ones; or where they feel that the dice of society are loaded against them and that whatever efforts they make, they will not really raise their standard of living or their status where; they feel that they have no say in the broad conduct and organisation of the industry to which they have committed their lives, or where they feel that management and supervision are cynical and poor, and that time and effort is wasted. My Lords, it is causes like these, which are deep, that are at the root of those elements of frustration in our industrial relations. The noble Lord, Lord Stokes, touched on this, as did the noble Earl, Lord Perth, in talking about the need for communication, and in talking again like the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, about the old tradition of "we" and "they".
In addition to all this we are passing through a time of very rapid industrial change in the national interest, and in the interests of all sections of the community. That pace of change ought to be maintained, and indeed accelerated. To the individual worker, industrial change can often present itself as a source of individual anxiety which he looks to collective action with his fellow workers to allay in one fashion or another. The background of these industrial problems is a complicated one. We are dealing with people, as the noble Lord, Lord Stokes, reminded us, and as many noble Lords have echoed. It is against this background that the industrial relations policy of the Government is conceived, and it is against this that it makes sense.
In many cases, our procedures and the institution of our industrial relations have not kept pace with the realities of industrial change, technical change or social
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change. When I hear some noble Lords offering as a contribution to solving this problem the suggestion that we should find a way of precluding people who are on strike from having social security benefits or supplementary benefits, I am tempted to wonder whether some noble Lords are completely in touch with current social realities. Our tradition in industrial relations is a voluntary one, and it would be a very substantial change in our society, and not a change for the better, if we set seriously about changing that voluntary basis.
The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, asked what the Industrial Relations Bill, mentioned in the gracious Speech, would include. It is intended to give effect to many of the proposals in the White Paper, In Place of Strife, excluding those overtaken by the June agreement with the T.U.C. It will have three main purposes: to encourage the development of collective bargaining; to extend the protection of individual employees and to clarify certain aspects of the existing law governing trade unions and industrial disputes. I believe it will serve a useful purpose in our industrial relations when we remember (and I do not think any noble Lord has mentioned this point in the course of this debate) that one recent strike was caused because an employer refused to recognise a trade union, although he was not seriously disputing that his workers wanted to join the union. There is a need perhaps for changes in attitude, and some changes in the law. Discussions with the T.U.C., the C.B.I. and nationalised industries on this subject are about to be undertaken, and they will be followed by the Ministerial decisions on the final form of the Bill.
That reference leads me very naturally to a consideration of the events of last June. We cannot for one moment accept the view expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, and echoed, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, that industrial relations have been worsened as a result of the events of last June, and the events which led up to the undertakings given by the Trades Union Congress. I feel that many of the contributions made in this debate have misunderstood and misconceived the effect of that understanding. It is easy in a melodramatic fashion to present events

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which followed the publication of the White Paper in terms of conflict, triumph and defeat. It did not really look like that to those who were engaged in any degree at all in those transactions.
The understanding which was reached between the Government and the trade union movement was not a face-saving formula; it represented a very important change indeed in relationships within the trade union movement and in the responsibility of the General Council for the movement as a whole. Only those who appreciate how immensely strong the tradition of the sovereignty of individual unions has always been will grasp the long-term significance of these changes.
It would have been naïve—and still is—to assume that the effects of such an agreement can be judged on the experience of three months. I think it ought to be firmly put on the record that the trade union General Council has abided loyally by the spirit of that agreement and, particularly in the person of its General Secretary, has been most active in seeking to assert it. It was not an undertaking or an agreement to intervene in every dispute. And of course there arises a factor which again one of my noble friends mentioned: that the trade union representative always finds cast upon him the responsibility for an industrial dispute, but never receives credit for the very many situations which could so easily develop into an industrial dispute if constructive, reasonable, statesmanlike approaches were not undertaken.
My noble friend Lord Douglass of Cleveland, I believe, gave a very real indication of some of the practical problems which a trade union general secretary, or indeed a trade union representative at any level, must face. I believe that my noble friend's contribution deserves very close study by those who seem to be under the impression that there is some easy solution which could be applied to this problem if only the Government were not so pigheaded as to refuse to apply it.
The basic industrial relations policy of the Government is a right one, but it is a problem to which all concerned must make a contribution. I do not think that we can seriously accept the view which was expressed by one noble Lord, that this is a matter only for the Gov-
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ernment. Each side has a contribution to make. The Government have a contribution to make by their general economic policies and by their policies of social security; by the work of D.E.P. and the work which we are seeking to develop in the Ministry of Technology (and the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, was kind enough to make a reference to this) to bring the trade unions more effectively into discussions on broader questions of industrial policy and industrial structure than has hitherto been the case.
Trade unions have a contribution to make by pressing on with their work of improving their own structure; effecting their own reorganisations, modifying their practices and developing the services which they give to their members. And the employers have a contribution to make by enhancing the importance which they attach to personnel management and industrial relations aspects of management; by improving the organisation of industry—and I think we ought to remember some of the comparative figures about wage levels which my noble friend gave us earlier; by the selection and training of supervisors, and by showing in practical terms that they respect and recognise the commitment to industry of so many of those who work in it at the shop floor level, and to be prepared to take them into effective discussion on matters which it is sometimes thought proper to regard as just the prerogative of management.
The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, asked me some specific questions, first of all on equal pay and then on the merger of the N.B.P.I. and the Monopolies Commission. So far as equal pay is concerned, the Government do not propose to adopt the Treaty of Rome definition of equal pay, but the legislation will be such as will enable us to ratify the International Labour Office Convention No. 100 on the subject of equal pay—a point which will give great satisfaction to a number of noble Lords on this side of the House, and particularly. I know, to my noble friend Lord Crook. It will also enable us to satisfy the requirement of the Treaty of Rome in this respect.
So far as cost is concerned, of course we appreciate the point, which is a very clear and apparent one, that the cost will vary industry by industry and, to some

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extent, firm by firm. The Government, however, assess the cost of equal pay, over the whole wages bill, as probably ranging between 3 per cent. and 4 per cent. This gives an annual rate of less than 1 per cent. per annum over the period of implementation, which in our view ought to be largely absorbed by the expected improvement in the efficiency of labour and by the more economical use of the labour of women.
The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, also asked me about the arrangements for placing under the Department of Employment and Productivity the proposed new body replacing N.B.P.I. and the Monopolies Commission. The position is that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister is satisfied that the D.E.P. is the best Department in which to place responsibility for this body. There is always scope for argument about which is the right Government Department for an agency with wide-ranging economic responsibilities, but the new body will be concerned with a wide range of functions centring on the efficient use of resources, and particularly of labour, in the private and the public sector. It will have a central role to play in developing an incomes policy in relation to pay structures and negotiations, and this is obviously related to the work of the D.E.P. The new body will be concerned with many aspects of improving efficiency, and this links with the manpower advisory work of the D.E.P. and with such bodies as the British Productivity Council.
It is further removed, of course, in so far as its work is concerned with mergers and industrial structures, from present D.E.P. responsibilities, but it is also fairly well removed in that respect from the Board of Trade. I think this coincides with a point made by the noble Lord, that there is a strong case for considering that the regulatory aspects of work on industrial structures should be separate from those Departments concerned with positive initiative, for example through the I.R.C., or in other ways, which may lead to the building up of
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larger, more substantial industrial structures.
My Lords, I have detained you longer than I should. I have tried to answer, to the best of the time available, points raised by noble Lords. I would merely conclude by echoing a point which I think was made by my noble friend Lord Beswick and has been made by other noble Lords in the course of the debate. The degree of success in achieving a solution of our problems and achieving progress, rests not upon what the Government do alone; it rests upon the efforts of millions of people in all kinds of positions in varying degrees of authority and varying occupations throughout the country. Over most of the field the Government cannot dictate and they certainly cannot dragoon, but more and more it has become clear in the post-war years that if this country is to secure stability and success it will have to be on the basis of themes which are struck and priorities determined by the Government of the day, whatever that may be.
This Government have made their priorities very clear: they are industrial priorities, they are social priorities. Their character is well known, and I believe they are priorities which are accepted as such by the overwhelming majority of the people of this country. I venture to submit to noble Lords that this debate has shown beyond question that the Government have the capacity, the will and the determination to carry on with these tasks to their accomplishment.
On Question, Motion agreed to, nemine dissentiente: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past nine o'clock.