§ Sir W. Edgeasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether, in view of the restoration of tranquillity in the mining industry, he will now publish the weekly output of the different mining districts so as to show the rapidity with which the loss of coal in the past is being made good.
Major Lloyd GeorgeNo, Sir. In my view the publication of figures of coal production covering such short periods tends to be misleading, particularly when holidays and other factors affect production in individual weeks. This is true even of statistics covering four-weekly periods. The publication of figures of production for four-weekly periods, which I instituted at the inception of the district output bonus scheme in the hope of providing a further stimulus to production, has not in my opinion made any noticeable contribution to increased output. The new National Wages Agreement, which I reported to the House on 21st April, made provision for terminating the district output bonus scheme, and has directed attention away from the performance of whole districts on to the personal efforts of the individual coal-getter by providing a greater incentive to him to increase his output. Accordingly I propose to stop issuing these figures.
At the same time, in order that the House and the country can be kept even more fully informed than hitherto of the main statistics of the industry, I propose to issue in the near future a White Paper giving all the salient statistics relating to coal production, manpower, absenteeism, and consumption, as well as to the finance of the industry from 1938 to the present time. I will make arrangements also for the more important items in this Paper to be kept up to date by quarterly publication in the Board of Trade Journal.