Orders of the Day — Local Employment Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 10 November 1959.

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Photo of Mr William Small Mr William Small , Glasgow Scotstoun 12:00, 10 November 1959

In asking the indulgence of the House, I appreciate that I am entering the debate at a very provocative moment, but it seems obviously an appropriate time, particularly having regard to the designation of the Bill, the Local Employment Bill, to refer Scotland's needs, and particularly the position in the constituency of Scotstoun which I represent. I may not have another early opportunity of describing Scotstoun to the House.

Scotstoun, in Glasgow, is one of those places which has both an old and a new community. Drumchapel, which is one of the biggest housing areas in Glasgow, is itself a community equal to a small burgh in Scotland such as Stirling. There is a population of 28,000 in this still developing area of Scotstoun constituency. That is the new development. In the older development, Yoker and Knightswood have already built into themselves a form of community.

Scotstoun and Drumchapel, in particular, have their problems, including that of transport, which a new community will bring. One of the needs of these places is light industry for the women workers in the new area. The problem of shopping facilities is also apparent, but this, we believe, can be solved. No doubt, as it develops, Drumchapel will develop a spirit and life of its own and probably will become one of Glasgow's best developments.

As the Member for Scotstoun, I have more than a passing interest in the Bill and in our need for light industry. In the old industrial part of Yoker we are peculiarly dependent on naval orders and Government support of the shipbuilding industry for our industrial prosperity. Effective Government action can help to ensure full employment in the area.

Many of the nation's best ships have been built in the area and in the yards of Scotstoun. It is in these yards that the Clyde craftsmen have been trained in the traditional way. The names of the yards in Scotstoun are household words in Scotland and in seafaring outwith Scotland. They include Connell's, Yarrow, Meechan's, Barclay-Curies and Barr and Stroud's, on the perimeter, which is one of the places which supplies the instruments for most of the vessels on the Clyde.

These yards maintain a continuing introduction of apprenticeships. Shipbuilding is the lifeblood of the area and the fear of redundancy, which was one of the features of the recent election, is very real. The candidates at Scotstoun were each circularised by the firm I have mentioned concerning naval defence and asking their opinions. This indicates the great interest that is taken in maintaining the prosperity of these firms which is dependent largely on Government action and Government support in the way of naval orders. The shipbuilding craftsmen on the Clyde have done much to uphold the prosperity of the area. Today they are looking to the Bill for help.

I am not necessarily advocating any extraordinary requirement for light industries, because the peculiar position of the Clyde is that its existing heavy industries must be maintained there. They cannot be moved elsewhere. The Government should not overlook the tradition and needs of this industry, which has fulfilled national and international needs.

Speaking as an engineer with some knowledge of the situation, I find that one in four of the school leavers of the Clyde area are being offered the opportunity of an apprenticeship, but that in 1960–61, when the number of school leavers increases, the chance that a boy will secure an apprenticeship will fall to only one in five. One of the important things for workers is that they should have a craft behind them in order to ensure a good standard of life. People's standard of life is lower if they are not skilled. One of the peculiar traditions of Scotland as against England is that we have had the straightforward tradition of being either craftsmen or labourers. There is a minimum of semiskilled workers in Scotland. For this reason, parents are anxious to ensure that their children are educated and acquire a skill to ensure for them a higher standard of living.

To encourage that, we should foster the development of new shipping in the area of Scotstoun. Steam has given way to oil and oil in turn will give way to atomic propulsion. Our workers cannot build the vessels, however, unless they have the skill and necessary technical education. This is one of the criteria that will encourage other units to bring employment to the area, in which we have the type of labour that is appropriate to the needs of the development of existing industry.

The success of the Bill depends upon the Minister's interpretation of it and his definition of a "high rate of unemployment", During the election, despite the opinion of the Secretary of State for Scotland, I argued from the public platform that Scotland was a depressed area. In the years since 1956, redundancy agreements have been entered into in which trade unionists agreed to give employers permissive power to dismiss workpeople. It is obvious that redundancy is continuing under these agreements, which were mutually agreed to by the unions. Redundancy, therefore, is the existing pattern of life in Scotland.

One of the features of the Bill is the need to decide the imminence of unemployment. In the public sector, the criterion so far has been a planned contraction and a knowledge and public awareness of the fact that mines or plant are to be shut down. In the private sector, however, similar advance information is not forthcoming, for the reason that it might be interpreted as a sign of weakness on behalf of management and ownership. Sound management and commercial judgment would be thought to be at fault in declaring that redundancy was imminent.

In one factory which I visited, all the workers were told at Christmas last year that major redundancy would occur during the forthcoming year. Obviously this came as a bolt from the blue and in a manner which is not necessarily acceptable to workers as the best form of warning of impending redundancy. The private sector is not as forthcoming as the public sector of industry in furnishing information of the imminence of redundancy. This aspect is related to one of the vital features of the Bill. I hope that, as a result of inducement by the Board of Trade, the private sector will become sufficiently open to announce in good time when difficulties are likely to arise so that the workpeople may have some opportunity of preparing themselves.

In establishments in the region of Prestwick, Ardrossan and elsewhere, men have been declared redundant in terms of the Minister of Labour's report and their cards were marked "T.S.", denoting "temporarily stopped", indicating that they were restricted from entering into other engagements. If "T.S." is to be the criterion on a man's card, we want these people to be declared fully unemployed in the sense that they can build up proper benefit and get a correct and not a faulty percentage.

We are assuming, as we must, that the industrialists want to expand. We are well aware that there is over-full employment in the congested areas of the Midlands and London, where the principle seems to be to establish what might be regarded as a supermarket of chemical factories to the detriment of the chemical industry in Scotland. Because the Atomic Energy Authority is building the stations and supplying the power, we find that industry flows more readily into these congested areas, with the result that we in Scotland may well be left on the perimeter with an even smaller proportion of the chemical industry than we have had hitherto. This applies particularly to certain areas of Scotland.

I make an appeal to the President of the Board of Trade that if we are to succeed in maintaining the prestige of Scotland, and of the Clyde in particular, we want an immediate injection of capital towards the building of the new Cunarders. During the election, this was a leading topic in the Scotstoun area. If vessels of this kind are built on the Clyde, the sub-contracting will be spread throughout Scotland, benefiting the steel industry of Lanarkshire and the Scottish industrial belt. My single list idea—and I am peculiarly single-minded in this matter of shipbuilding—is that Cunarders should come to the Clyde and thereby give support to Scottish industry within the terms of the Bill.