Orders of the Day — Local Employment Bill

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

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Photo of Mr Thomas Peart Mr Thomas Peart , Workington 12:00, 2 December 1959

I strongly support the views of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson). Apart from various parts of the Bill itself, I dislike its wording. I strongly emphasise that we need in the Bill the idea of development. Indeed, the Title of the Bill, the Local Employment Bill, is wrong. I would rather it were called the Development Bill.

If I may refer to my own area without being out of order, I emphasise that it is now known as the West Cumberland Development Area. We have achieved success. Now, it is all to go. When I wish to use my influence with the Board of Trade, attending with deputations of my colleagues, we seek to encourage the development of the whole area, not just that of my own constituency, the constituency of Whitehaven or parts of the constituency represented by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw). It is the whole area which we seek to develop.

This is a concept which we must not lose. We have argued at great length about the diversification of industry, just as we shall, no doubt, argue about prob- lems of depopulation. All these matters can be tackled only if one treats an area as a whole, as a development whole. That was the purpose of previous legislation, as has been said over and over again by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland. We regard the Development Areas as a fact. In the area with which I am concerned, we have achieved success. I will not weary the Committee with the success story we could at one time tell. Now we face difficulties and we wish to press forward and redevelop, treating West Cumberland as a unit.

There is also the psychological factor, as has been pointed out. We have come to think in terms not of tackling black spots, but of dealing with the development of areas where industry must be integrated and development considered as a whole. I strongly support this Amendment. The wording of the Bill as now drafted destroys the whole concept of "Development Area". I will quote what the Economist said in one of its main articles on 31st October: By abolishing the nine development areas fourteen years after they were first set up (more strictly, twenty years for the four that were created in 1945 as enlarged versions of the pre-war special areas) the Government's new Local Employment Bill will achieve what no President of the Board of Trade has previously had the courage to do—to take an area out of the list when it no longer needed special help. The President of the Board of Trade has done that, but the point is that there are areas in the list which need help. That is why I condemn the Bill and support the Amendment. I hope that we shall have a better approach to the matter from the right hon. Gentleman than we had in his earlier intervention.