§ Mr. Ednyfed Hudson Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he is aware that the Forestry Commission puts out work on contract in development areas to contractors who employ imported labour, when local forestry workers are threatened with redundancy; and what steps he intends to take to remedy this.
§ Mr. Cledwyn HughesIn the Welsh Development Area the Forestry Commission employ 48 contractors of whom 64W 46 are timber merchants buying timber standing or at the roadside. I have no precise statistics of the staff these contractors or timber merchants employ from outside the Development Area.
The Commission must retain the freedom to sell their timber by the method most suited to local circumstances. I am nevertheless assured that where they have no contractual commitments for selling timber standing to timber merchants the Commission will give full weight to the desirability of felling by their own labour before they declare any of their own local staff redundant.