Industry, Employment and Roads

Part of Scotland – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 July 1959.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr John Taylor Mr John Taylor , West Lothian 12:00, 2 July 1959

I will not comment on what was said by the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Sir W. Anstruther-Gray), except to say that I think he is optimistic in imagining that another port is likely to open for general traffic on the east coast of Scotland so near the existing port of Berwick, and with Leith just round the corner, so to speak. His hopes will be just as likely to be dashed as were my own in the other part of the county, West Lothian, which I represent, when I tried to save Bo'ness docks from extinction.

The one fact which arises at this stage of the debate is that, in spite of all the efforts which the Government are making—and it would have been a most astounding situation if, in Scotland, any Government of the day had made no efforts at all—to bring new employment, we are still confronted with the fact that our unemployment rate is double that of the United Kingdom. This situation has grown chronic. It is a disease to which we have almost become accustomed, but we must ask, as so many hon. Members have asked so many times, whether we must always continue to be in this drastic and inferior position. Can we be content with the grim fact that for every unemployed person in England there are at least two in Scotland, at any time, slump or boom? Must we be content always to shrug our shoulders and say that it is a pity, but that, owing to Scotland's preponderance of heavy industry, it is just one of those things which, like the weather, cannot be helped, and that what cannot be cured must be endured?

The time has come when we must say "No" firmly and definitely to all these questions, because there is no logical reason or justification for this condition of double disability for Scottish workers. If it is really true, and I doubt it very much, that it is the preponderance of heavy industry in Scotland which causes this situation, then clearly the Government should take action to adjust the industrial balance.

In my opinion, what is wrong is not the over-reliance on heavy industry, but mainly, simply and clearly, the lack of sufficient industry of any kind to provide full employment for the Scottish people. There is just not enough industry in Scotland. That is the problem. We have a laissez-faire economy in the United Kingdom at the moment which produces this astounding spectacle—this really crazy state of affairs—in which areas around London are chock-a-block with factories and firms are fighting for space to build more. We have local authorities in those areas at their wits' end to find room for the houses, the schools and the hospitals to cope with the ever-growing numbers who flood into their areas to work in those factories.

At the same time, in large areas in Scotland, we have stagnating industry, derelict factory buildings, a gradual but relentless slowing down of the pulse of industry and a growing number of gaunt, empty, silent and ugly industrial establishments, crumbling monuments to a decade of lost opportunities—lost because of the Government's failure to plan our national resources.

That is not an over-painted picture. There are areas in Scotland where this is happening. There are hon. Members opposite who well know this; indeed, we have just listened to a speech from one who has admitted that his area is not severely affected and who rather apologised to my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), recognising that the problem in her constituency is vastly different. The only complaint which the hon. and gallant Gentleman could level at the moment was by entering a caveat against the use of barracks as a home for juvenile delinquents. I agree with him. I do not think a former barracks is a good place for juvenile delinquents. That was one of a number of comparatively minor problems of that nature which the hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned. But take a constituency like mine in which there has been no industrial development at all for ten years. On the contrary, there has been and is at the moment industrial decline and decay.

Due to what I can only describe as the stubborn stupidity of the Treasury—and I am sorry that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury has now gone from our midst—the shale oil industry has been forced to contract to half its former size and continues to exist only by a near miracle. In a neighbouring constituency, coal mining is a contracting industry. The viewpoint of those still engaged in it is met, on the whole, with a cynical unconcern, particularly by many Ministers who ought to view with alarm the waste of manpower and skill consequent on the decline of a once great industry on which the industrial strength of our nation has so long depended.

This week in my constituency the dock and harbour of Bo'ness has closed down. As one who once earned a precarious and laborious living as a dock labourer, I cannot convey to the House the feeling of sadness and desolation engendered by the knowledge that a once busy harbour has reached the end of its service to the country, that the cranes will no longer rattle their loads in and out of the holds of the ships, that ships will no longer cross the harbour bar, that the dock will silt up, be stripped of its equipment, its buildings left to the rats and to decay, and that the dock gates will be closed and strapped so that no vessel will ever pass between them again. I had intended to go to Bo'ness on Tuesday to attend the last rites, but at the last minute my heart failed me. I thought it would be too sad a spectacle.

Also in my constituency we have a lively and enterprising engineering industry, but it has to scour the world for orders in a never-ending struggle to maintain continuity of employment, and it is still never able to guarantee to its workers that they will have full employment all the year. It is never confidently free from that kind of hidden unemployment known as short-time working. There are derelict pottery and moribund hosiery factories. All these circumstances, and others which I could mention, of a general and gradual decline in the major industries as well as in some of the minor ones have been taking place over the last ten years. Tradesmen and shopkeepers of all kinds are alarmed because of falling receipts over the counters, and overall there is a general atmosphere of industrial ebb tide.

In those circumstances, I cannot enter this debate today or consider the Government's White Paper with any detached equanimity. I cannot be expected to listen to the Government's propaganda in the Press, on the radio, on posters and in this House with anything but cynicism, if not anger. For many of my constituents the claims of prosperity and boom are a fraud, a sham and a lie. Local authorities, notably the county council and Whitburn Burgh Council, have joined with me in trying to persuade and urge one Ministry or another to co-operate in reversing this decline, and trying to get across the message that there exists a special responsibility to avoid the creation of a graveyard area. All these endeavours have hitherto been fruitless.

Now the county council has decided to build factories, if it can find tenants for them. Once more I urge the Government, in this enterprise, to try hard to help the county council to find the tenants, to give a helping hand with more urgency and to steer industries into this and surrounding areas, for not only my constituency but neighbouring constituencies are similarly affected.

We are asked in the Motion to take note of the Government's White Paper. The one fact of which I can take note is that it gives no indication that there is any policy for tackling such problems as exist in my constituency and those similarly situated, those which have a declining industry with no alternative employment and no immediate indication that there will be such alternative employment in the future. I am not advocating that we ought to buttress artificially industries of past generations whose products, operations and methods are being by-passed in the current technological revolution. I am not advocating that a dying industry should be kept alive if there is no further need for it, but it is my submission that in these days of change the Government have the duty so to arrange matters that no area becomes an industrial graveyard.

Old industries should be replaced before they die, and some regard should be had to the ancillary and human problems created by permitting derelict areas to develop. The ancillary problems are those of shopkeepers and others who depend on local industry. The human problems are those of the families of industrially displaced persons in areas with no alternative jobs to offer them hope of a restart in life. I will not dwell on the human problems because it is so difficult to remain objective in one's approach if the emotions of compassion or indignation are roused. I have every right to feel indignation at the way my constituents, and others like them, are being treated.

I would mention in passing the financial aspect of this matter. Surely in the long run it is cheaper to incur the cost of steering new industries and building advance factories than to have a large section of the community drawing unemployment benefit and National Assistance, and drawing on public funds of one kind and another, apart altogether from the fact that if we find jobs rather than National Assistance people's human dignity is preserved. I recognise that the Government have no power except that of persuasion, but I urge that this power of persuasion is used with extra vigour and urgency in areas of this kind.

The D.A.T.A.C. yardstick of 5 per cent. unemployment over a period is all very well, but in small industrial communities where there is often a large group of small towns, such as in my own constituency and in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North, an employment exchange does not serve only the population of the town in which it happens to be. There is a hinterland of residential and agricultural population which is included in the total number of employed persons in the area, and to register a figure of 5 per cent. in a town it is necessary to have 7 per cent. or 8 per cent. in the town that is affected. Therefore, this yardstick is not always fair, and some regard ought to be had to the communities as communities, rather than areas and districts.

May I refer to another point which is germane to the debate? It is the fact that hon. Members on both sides of the House have had representations from the Scottish paper-making industry in the last few days. This industry is alarmed at the possible effect on the industry of the proposed Free Trade Area agreement. Because of the circumstances which I have outlined, I am naturally very much concerned that there should be no additional unemployment in my constituency, particularly in industries which hitherto have been fairly steadfast in their employment potential. Any additional unemployment of any kind naturally fills me with alarm, even in prospect.

There are three well-known paper-making firms in my constituency. The factors which those firms have brought to our notice—and I think that I speak for hon. Members on both sides of the House—are that the products of the Scandinavian paper and board factories would remain subject to duty in the six Common Market countries but would be freed from duty in the United Kingdom. The result of this would be a considerable increase in imports of paper and board to the United Kingdom and a consequent decrease in indigenous production.

Industries likely to be adversely affected by such treaties have been told in earlier debates that they should adapt their buildings and plant to other uses, but the plant and machinery of a paper mill cannot be adapted for any purpose except that of making paper or board, and that advice is therefore useless in their case. If mills in my constituency are so affected, there is no alternative employment in the area for the people displaced. The mills are extensive users of coal and such other materials as chemicals, felts and machine wire, and the effect will be widespread over many other industries in Scotland.

Their case, therefore, is that the result of such an agreement will not be freer trade but restricted trade for the paper-making industry, which is so extensive in Scotland. I understand that representatives of the industry are to meet the Paymaster-General next week and I have no doubt that they will put their case to the Government, but perhaps I may express the hope that the Secretary of State will impress upon his Cabinet colleagues that this industry is important in Scotland, and not merely in my constituency, and that there is a need for such safeguards in any agreement or treaty as will avoid serious effects on an industry of such value and hitherto of such pride to Scotland, because we have always been proud of the high quality of the products of our paper mills.

I content myself with that, because there are obviously many other hon. Members wishing to speak in the debate. I make a plea, again, for extra, urgent and carefully detailed attention to those areas where the industries are in danger, where employment is less than it was and is steadily growing less every year, and where no alternative work is available. I think that such areas merit additional, careful and urgent attention, and I hope that it will be given to them as one of the results of the debate.