Orders of the Day — Central Office of Information

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 May 1949.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Woodrow Wyatt Mr Woodrow Wyatt , Birmingham Aston 12:00, 23 May 1949

I really think I have been interrupted quite sufficiently by the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friends on the Front Bench.

Much the same thing applies to the campaign begun a little later in the year to attract people into the woollen industry. There again, the number of recruits into that industry was almost doubled as a result of the Central Office of Information press and poster campaign.

Leaving the economic field, let us consider the campaign which has now been run for nearly eight years to make people aware of the need to immunise their children against diphtheria—a very important matter. In 1940 and 1941 about 45,000 new cases of diphtheria were notified each year. At the end of eight years' campaigning by the Central Office of Information and its predecessor, the Ministry of Information, the number of new notified cases each year has dropped to 8,000. If that is not a remarkable achievement in the field of publicity and advertising I really do not know what is. That campaign alone, by reducing the number of notified new cases of diphtheria has saved the taxpayer £2 million a year—because that is the saving in hospital treatment by the reduction of those notified cases every year. So even on that one campaign alone, which at the moment costs £35,000 a year in press and poster advertising, £2 million a year is saved for the State, and 2,500 nurses are released for other work. Now, that is nearly half the cost of the Central Office of Information at home. To my mind, that in itself would justify the existence of the C.O.I., if it did not do anything else.

But it does many other things. Recently, there was a great shortage of teachers in the schools, as every hon. Member knows. There was an emergency, and it was necessary to recruit new teachers as quickly as possible. From June to September, 1948, the Central Office of Information ran a Press and poster campaign to encourage people to undergo emergency teachers' training courses. Before that campaign began, there were roughly 100 applications a week from people to undertake emergency training teachers' courses. After the campaign applications rose to 600 a week—six times as many. And as a result of the Press and poster campaign launched by the Central Office of Information they got all the teachers required. I notice that the right hon. Member for Bournemouth is not laughing any more. I suppose he thinks that was quite useful.