HC Deb 24 November 1919 vol 121 c1454W
Mr. HAYDAY

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any steps are being taken or decided upon in the direction of providing the Government dockyards with merchant shipbuilding and repairs; and whether, in view of the fact that such work as repairing, altering, disguising, and reconditioning merchant craft has been done during the War and that merchant work could be continued without much in the way of conversion having to be done, hewill give this matter his careful and immediate consideration, with a view to finding useful and necessary employment for men who would otherwise be unemployed and in receipt of no unemployment donation?

Dr. MACNAMARA

I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on Wednesday last to a question by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Molton, in which I explained the types of productive work now being done by us in the Royal dockyards, and explained the steps initiated by the Prime Minister to secure an exhaustive investigation of the feasibility of utilising dockyard facilities now to be set free from naval effort upon work of a productive character.