§ 71. Mr. Callaghanasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware of the concern of the members of the Cardiff No. 1 Branch of the United Society of Boilermakers at the growing redundancy of their members employed on ship repairing; and if he will accede to their request that further Admiralty repair work should be allocated to the port.
§ 72. Mr. G. Thomasasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the facilities available at Cardiff docks for repairing both small and large ships, he will increase the quantity of Admiralty repair work sent to this port.
§ Mr. J. P. L. ThomasThe Admiralty will continue to give full consideration to the needs of Cardiff in allocating contracts for repair work in Her Majesty's ships. I must add, however, that other 39W ship repair centres have also to be considered and the indications are that the total volume of such work may be somewhat less in the current year than in 1953.
§ Mr. Llewellynasked the First Lord of the Admiralty how much Admiralty repair work has been allocated to the port of Cardiff for each of the years 1945 to 1953; and whether he is aware of the desire of employers and trade unionists in the port of Cardiff for more long-term as well as short-term repair work.
§ Mr. J. P. L. ThomasThe first allocations made to Cardiff firms were in 1947–48, and in terms of ships have been:
1947–48 … … … … 7 1948–49 … … … … 5 1949–50 … … … … 4 1950–51 … … … … 4 1951–52 … … … … 2 1952–53 … … … … 2 1953–54 … … … … 10 The aggregate value of the work so placed and in hand is about £2–2½ million.
As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given today to the hon. Members for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas).