Orders of the Day — Re-Armament

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 July 1951.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Edwin Leather Mr Edwin Leather , Somerset North 12:00, 23 July 1951

I will answer with great pleasure if the hon. Gentleman will give me a little time. It is what I propose to do—although I am not dealing with the mining industry. The Report is not concerned with the mining industry but with the engineering industry. It would be better if I stuck to that. I deplore the fact that there is no Minister here from the Ministry of Labour. The hon. Gentleman who is on the Front Bench may feel that he is not competent to answer the point that I am making. It is very important that the Government should give this point consideration otherwise they may put themselves sooner or later into the position of being forced to direct labour. If the Minister refuses to ponder upon that unpleasant fact certainly the Trades Union Congress will do so.

This is a difficult and intractable problem, which can be dealt with under two heads. One is the re- distribution of labour and the second is productivity. Both of them have been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking. Perhaps I might deal, first, with the point about re-distribution, which is an unpleasant matter which we must face.

If we are to carry out this re-armament programme and are to get a shift of employment, there will be redundancy in some places and somebody will be out of a job for some little time while he is shifted into another job. When people like myself talk in that way, hon. Members opposite shout that we want unemployment. It is, therefore, very important at this time to point out that if the kind of remark which I have made is to be a pretext for people like the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) to launch into one of his charming essays in political veracity in the "Daily Herald" about some Tory having said that he wanted unemployment, then by the same token both the Government and the T.U.C. have said that they want unemployment because they have both said clearly that redundancy must be faced.

The writers of the excellent T.U.C. pamphlet on the trade unions and productivity were, on page 59, quite clearly of the opinion that redundancy was inevitable. They went on to add that it is important to bear in mind that redundancy was not unemployment where full employment existed. That is a very important consideration, because unless we are prepared to face up to redundancy and unless we are prepared to say, "We are sorry, but somebody has to leave the job he is doing and go elsewhere," we shall not fulfil the re- armament programme and we shall be forced to direction of labour.

Surely of the two alternatives a certain amount of redundancy and mobility of labour is infinitely more pleasant and easier to deal with. The engineering industry, and particularly the machine tool industry, is very dangerously undermanned in many places and non-essential industries are greatly over-manned, the most notable of them being the Government, which becomes more and more non-essential every day of the week.

The conclusion is inescapable. If we are to fulfil the re-armament programme and if the Government are really serious, we have to shift 500,000 people somehow and in some way from their present jobs into other jobs, but we have had no indication whatever how the Government propose to go about it. I believe that if they will tackle the problem and trust to the good sense and patriotism of the British working man, they will find that many of the difficulties will be surmounted before they start.

I believe that the T.U.C. can go a long way towards helping solve the problem. The Minister mentioned, very quickly in passing, that somebody had had some discussions with somebody in the trade union movement. I wish someone could be a little more specific. Has this matter been discussed at length with the T.U.C.? Have the T.U.C. been asked to set up an emergency committee to deal with it and to explain the problem to the workers? That ought to be done. It will be a great pity if it is not done.

To quote again from paragraph 38 (iv) of the Report: Short of the introduction of war-time conditions of labour, it is important that steps should be taken to investigate what can be done to remedy the existing serious situation. The evidence is available and it is quite clear. I do not want to labour the point too much, but the Report contains eight specific suggestions each one of which in one small way or another would help to solve the problem. I want to know, the country ought to know and almost certainly the trade union movement ought to know, whether the Goverment propose to do anything about any of these steps. For the record, I should like to itemise them.

First, it is suggested that voluntary machinery should be set up, by all three parties presumably—management, labour and the Government—to guide workers from non- essential jobs to essential ones. The right hon. Gentleman made some reference which led me to believe that that had been done, but it certainly was not clear. If it has been done, I welcome it, but if it has not been done I hope that it will be done. Secondly, it is suggested that the Government should take more steps to ensure a widespread sub-contracting of orders so as to spread the work to the workers instead of having to bring the workers in to new work.

Thirdly, it is suggested that clear directives should be given to the employment exchanges so that they shall be exactly aware of the problem and the part they can play—voluntarily, of course, but a definite part—in solving it. Fourthly, there is the very vexed question of the call-up of apprentices. We should like to know what the Government propose to do about it. I confess that I can see two arguments about it and I should not come down on either side without a great deal more knowledge and expert advice than I have at the moment.