asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes taking to rectify the wide differences between the regions of which he has been informed as regards the rate of increase in numbers of insured workers.

My right hon. Friend will continue to do what he can to secure a balanced distribution of industry, but the number of jobs available in manufacturing industry is only one of a number of factors which affect the rate of increase in the number of insured workers in a region.

In view of the fact that the rate of increase varies between the regions by as much as fourteen times and that it is clearly shown that Scotland and Wales are suffering very badly and losing their industrial population, will not the Parliamentary Secretary ask his right hon. Friend to review the advance factory building policy?

My right hon. Friend, of course, can influence factory building only by means of the grant of industrial development certificates. He possesses no powers of direction either of factories or of labour.