§ Mr. Hordernasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will give an estimate of world demand for new ships by 1980 and of the production capacity, and present production, of Japan, Sweden and the United Kingdom, together with employment in shipbuilding in each of these countries.
§ Mr. Les HuckfieldAccording to recent OECD studies, by 1980 the average annual demand for new ships is likely to be between 10 and 12 million gross tons, and world capacity is expected to reach 50 million gross tons by 1978. Production in 1975 totalled 17 million gross tons in Japan, 2.2 million gross tons in Sweden, and 1.2 million gross tons in the United Kingdom. Comparable figures on employment are not available.
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§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Industry on what dates and for how long in June 1976 the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), met hon. Members of the Scottish National Party for discussions on shipbuilding; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. KaufmanAt the request of hon. Members of the Scottish National Party I met the hon. Members for the Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) and for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) on 24th June for approximately 30 minutes. This was followed by a meeting with the hon. Members for Dundee, East and Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) for approximately 45 minutes on 29th June. There were also further brief informal meetings on 29th June.
§ Mr. Trotterasked the Secretary of State for Industry how many persons are employed by, and what the annual turnover is, of each ship repairing company scheduled for nationalisation in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
§ Mr. Les HuckfieldInformation about the turnover of the ship repairing companies named in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill is set out in the relevant annual reports which are available on application to Companies Registration Office or, if the company is registered in Scotland, from the Registrar of Companies in Edinburgh. Some of these annual reports give information on employment, but there is no publicly available Government source of employment figures for individual companies.
§ Mr. Trotterasked the Secretary of State for Industry at which ports each ship repairing company scheduled for nationalisation in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill is engaged in the business of ship repairing.
§ Mr. Les HuckfieldInformation on the location of ship repairers named in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill is available from Section 2 of the Appendix to Lloyds Register of Shipping, a copy of which is in the Library, as well as from other commercial sources.
§ Mr. Trotterasked the Secretary of State for Industry what is the width of the largest dry dock available for use by 370W each ship repairing company scheduled for nationalisation in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill.
§ Mr. Les HuckfieldThe widths of each of the graving or dry docks of each ship repairing company named in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill are contained in Section 8 of the Appendix to Lloyds Register of Shipping, a copy of which is in the Library.