Production.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 24 March 1942.

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Photo of Mr David Adams Mr David Adams , Consett

I would not have troubled the House at this late hour, but my inquiries indicate that there is a possibility that the Rule may not be suspended on the next Sitting Day, and the opportunity for back benchers there fore is somewhat restricted. The House has looked forward to this day with considerable interest, but, much more than the House, the country has looked to see what Parliament proposes with respect to Production, particularly in the relatively depressed state in which the country un questionably was after certain international events. In my part of the world they were looking forward to some dramatic announcement that the dis abilities which have been so admirably advertised from the House and elsewhere under which the country has suffered in the matter of the Production of arms would perhaps be ended to-day. I am optimistic enough to believe that the Minister's statement will satisfy those who, having the country's interest most deeply at heart, are anxious for a dramatic change in the situation. The Minister's statement was very broad and well-informed and an admirable survey of the situation. His notion of a new General Staff for Production and the various details which he laid before the House would indicate that, if he will exhibit the same pertinacity, determination and resolution in the conduct of his new office as he has indicated to-day, the country, I think, may put behind it once and for all most of the disabilities under which it has suffered.

I recognise, as probably the whole House does, that in many respects the Government have been suffering through the disability of having to work at secondhand through private concerns, and it would seem a rational thing for the Government, just as they requisitioned shipping for war purposes, to have requisitioned the war industries. However, the powers and machinery that the Government now possess will, I think, fill in the necessary gaps which have been revealed in Production, and in that way there will be an intensified national effort that will bring us where we would desire to be. I was reading a technical book the other day upon the strength of glass, and was interested to notice that if you remove the crevises in a piece of glass, either plate or other, the glass has ten times the strength that it had before. Let us hope the new effort will have ten times the strength that it has had hitherto.

The question of audit has been mentioned and the objection taken that the Government audit certain accounts. I recently met a manufacturer who said, "I thank God that the Government audited my accounts, for I quoted a figure at which I find I was working at a loss." He was producing numerous articles, and he, said he would probably have gone on until the end of the war losing money on the transaction. It seems that in new work—and it applies, I understand, to certain machinery in shipyards and marine engineering works—when there are so many changes, the manufacturer is not able to quote a specific price, and he should be allowed to quote a price which ultimately will have to be re-examined. I cannot agree that the Government audit is a bad thing on the whole. It has been asked why there should be a Government audit with firms which have now reached their datum line, for the whole of their profits go to Excess Profits Tax. Who knows what will happen now or in the future to the Excess Profits Tax? The Chancellor may abolish it altogether, and then a new situation would be created upon which we could not rely. A Member had some objection to the Board of Admiralty having its hand over shipyard capacity and merchant tonnage, but from my inquiries there is a proper balance, and all is well in that respect.

The great disability—I do not know what powers the Minister may have to deal with it, but we hope he possesses them—is the lack of labour in our shipyards. At the moment they require 10,000 additional men and a certain number of boys. Has the Minister power to insist that private firms whose requirements are not too urgent shall be combed out for these men, and has he power over the Fighting Forces to declare that the national urgency is such that workers must be sent to our shipyards? The House is not fully apprised of the shipping position and in public session one cannot reveal it, but we do know that a large amount of tonnage, merchant tonnage particularly, is under repair, although owing to modern methods there may not be a great proportion of it entirely immobilised. But the lack of workers, even unskilled workers, in the shipyards prevents this tonnage from getting to sea, and in that way is impairing the national effort. We have the same story from our marine engine works. If they had additional workers better results would undoubtedly ensue.

We have had the singular position of the Minister of Agriculture telling the House that his danger point is the shortage of man-power for agricultural purposes, and we are told that as mining is the basic industry upon which all industries depend there ought to be some Ministerial authority which can declare to all concerned that the shortage of labour here must be made up. In County Durham alone there are eight first-class collieries which could produce not less than 5,000 tons each weekly of urgently required coal standing idle to-day for lack of labour, skilled or unskilled. The reflex of that position is that certain districts are materially short of coal. Does the House know that in a certain large centre of population the gas company is so short of coal that it cannot supply the necessary gas to munition factories, which are being driven to set up their own gas plants? How absurd! that they should have to use material and labour in providing additional gas plant while the local gas works cannot obtain sufficient coal to produce the required gas.

I hope that what I have termed a dramatic change is the dramatic change that has given to this Minister the power to say either to private enterprise or to the Forces of the Crown, "This labour is urgently required in the national interest and it must be produced, either temporarily or permanently." It is gratifying to know that regional boards are to have additional powers; they urgently need them. I know from my experience of engineering that if the powers which these boards should enjoy had been granted to them, interminable delays which, perhaps in the nature of things, arise from Whitehall could have been avoided. A great deal of unnecessary travelling and telephoning could be averted. Manufacturers on the North-East coast use nothing but the telephone and the railway train, because the Regional Board has not the necessary authority to settle matters of detail.

No doubt the Production committees will be set up not merely by agreement between employers and employed, but will be statutory. Otherwise, employers who are not in the employers' federation may disagree with the setting up of a Production committee. I know a very large factory which has no committee operating between the employees and the management. The idea was rather foreign to them. This factory does not even possess a welfare organisation. If that situation can occur the establishment of these committees ought to be made legislatively certain, so that the whole country can be brought into this admirable new system of co-operation among all those who are producing goods for the war. The Minister of Labour has advised employers to consult their workers. I noticed an announcement this week that in a certain factory where a committee has been operating with great good will, the workers were recommended to make proposals for the improvement of output. They made no less than 72 proposals in a short time, and the management have accepted 69 of them, to the general advantage of the factory. If such advantages can accrue in one factory, similar organisations in factories throughout the country would distribute those advantages.

We are told that it is intended to approach the problems of the Colonial Empire with a new mind, perhaps a more benevolent one. There has been great exploitation in the past, but that ought to disappear. There is a glorious opportunity now to obtain labour which cannot be obtained from the Armed Forces or from private enterprise organisations which are producing either for munitions or for the export trade. Here is a great source of admirable labour, and the principle of using it has already been adopted. There is in the country now, being trained in the munitions trade—and I am told they display very great skill, judgment and strength in dealing with the work to which they have been allocated—600 workmen from British Honduras and 200 from the West Indies. That is a very-small number of those who are available, and if they have been proved, with the voice of authority, to be admirable students in the production of munitions, why should they not be brought on to the land? Why should they not have an opportunity of descending our coal mines, as unskilled labour maybe to commence with, and why should they not have an opportunity of coming into our factories and shipyards? I think the Minister might well consider that aspect. It would give us a new fund of labour power, it would extinguish the colour bar said to prevail in certain directions, and I believe that it would give a greater stimulus to the war effort.

The Minister will find, as he surveys the position generally, that in certain great manufacturing concerns there is plenty of good will and all is well. He will find in others that there is a lack of good will, in many cases for small reasons. He will find that in certain areas there is a shortage of steel work which ought not to prevail, and we know a shortage of drop forgings and possibly of other goods. The Minister will look into these questions with enthusiasm and without delay, and will inquire into what we are told is a hold-up in the matter of Production. I look forward with assurance—I hope the country will too; certainly the House will—to seeing this Minister, who has probably one of the most important functions, second only to that of the Prime Minister, fulfil to the letter and even exceed the highest expectations we have formed of him, and in that way shatter once and for all those barriers to the maximum Production of which the country is capable.