§ 70. Mr. Sydney Silvermanasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has considered the growing rate of unemployment in the cotton textile trades and in north-east Lancashire generally; to what he attributes the renewed difficulties of the industry; what remedies he proposes to arrest the renewed economic paralysis which appears to be spreading once more through this industry; and whether he will reconsider the decision by which north-east Lancashire does not rank as a development area.
§ Mr. JayThere has until recently been a shortage of labour in the cotton textile industry in spite of a decline in employment as a result of modernisation and some falling off in orders for yarn and 337W cloth. Unemployment in North-East Lancashire is below the national average and I should not be justified in designating this as a development area, although its special problems are allowed for in the granting of I.D.C.s.