Debate on the Address

Part of Orders of the Day — Queen's Speech – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 November 1962.

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Photo of Mr Henry Hynd Mr Henry Hynd , Accrington 12:00, 2 November 1962

I thank my right hon. Friend. I am glad to hear that, because there is this dark cloud of unemployment hanging over Lancashire at the present time. Some of the local authorities are not just crying out for help; they are taking active steps themselves to try to do something about it. The Town Council of Accrington has gone to considerable expense in preparing a trading estate which the council hopes will attract new industries to the district, and it has built a new market centre, and generally got on with the job, and in very unpromising circumstances, to prepare for what the council hopes will be a revival of industry.

There was a conference in Lancashire quite recently, which the Minister probably knows all about, attended by 34 mayors and chairmen of local authorities, who passed a resolution asking for some Government action in the matter and, in particular, calling attention to the attitude of the Government to the cotton industry, because we all know how that industry has been allowed to drift and, indeed, is bleeding to death, as it will unless something is done to pull it together. They asked particularly for the restoration of the 1959 ceiling on imports.

We realise and sympathise with the argument about the necessity for helping certain parts of the Commonwealth, particularly Hong Kong, but I sometimes wonder just whom we are helping in Hong Kong. Are they the people of Hong Kong, or are they some smart Alecks who withdrew their capital from this country, thereby causing unemployment in Lancashire and started up mills in Hong Kong, taking advantage of cheap labour in that part of the world?

I have never forgotten the shock I got after I was in Hong Kong a couple of years ago and found out certain unsatisfactory labour conditions. I reported them to the Minister and raised Questions in the House only to be told that my facts were incorrect. I am not blaming the Minister. He got official assurances that my information was incorrect. As I say, I do not blame the Minister for that, but it was a disillusionment to me. I never got over that. This is the sort of thing which is hurting Lancashire, which is continuing to hurt Lancashire, and I do hope that the Government have not shelved it but are continuing to con- sider whether anything can be done to help.

I know what the official reply will be, that they can give special consideration and issue industrial development certificates and so forth only where there is a certain percentage of unemployment over a certain period. I hope they are not going to be tied down too rigidly to that measurement, because it is like a doctor saying that he will not treat this man's illness till he has been ill for a certain period and the illness has reached a certain stage of seriousness. That is not the way to do it. In Lancashire there is an opportunity, I suggest, for something to be done fairly quickly on a local scale and, perhaps, on a national scale as well.

I had an opportunity during the Recess to go to America, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of national planning which is going on in that country. They would not use that term—" national planning". They certainly would not use any Left-wing terms, but they do go in for it just the same, whatever it is called. One interesting feature of their work is not only the wide scope of it, but that if they want to get any big engineering works done they do not hesitate to use Army engineers. That seems to me to be a thing which we ought to consider—giving work to army engineers, keeping their skill and energy employed and, at the same time, getting on with really useful national constructive work. There is something I suggest the Government might have a look at.

The only other local point I want to mention particularly is the other threat hanging over Lancashire and my constituency at the moment, and that is the reorganisation of local government. Before this gets too far I want to ask the Government, if they will, to pay attention to the protest which was raised at the annual conference of the Urban District Councils Association against a possible wholesale elimination of urban districts. There may be a case here and there for adjustments; there may be a case even for amalgamations of certain local authorities; but to go at it as though urban district councils had served their day I suggest would be the wrong approach, and I ask the Government not to underrate local patriotism and civic pride. We in Lancashire do not want anything like this great, sweeping London plan, which is going to create such an enormous local government area and wipe out all local initiative and interest.

Those are the points I wanted to raise, and I am grateful for having been given the opportunity of making them. I want to make just one other point and that is in connection with the other place. I am disappointed that there is nothing in the Gracious Speech about reform of the House of Lords. This has been talked of time and time again, and I know that there is a Committee sitting at the moment on a particular aspect of it, but the thing which has always worried me since I came to this House is this acceptance of the hereditary principle in the House of Lords.

I have nothing against the second Chamber. I have nothing against many people in the second Chamber. I recognise that anyone who has shown merit in any particular field, be it diplomacy or business or the Services, and so on, may be a very useful person to be sent to the other place to revise our legislation and to contribute his expert knowledge on a subject, but I do not think anyone can defend this principle of someone sitting in the other place with legislative powers simply because one of his ancestors happened to go there for some particular reason. I suggest that the creation of life peers was a wise move, and I would like to see it extended, and I should like to see all future appointments to the House of Lords on the basis of life peerages. That would be, I agree, a very slow way of carrying out the object I would have in view, but, nevertheless, it would be a step in the right direction. I make that suggestion and register by disappointment that there is nothing in the Gracious Speech about it.

There is some useful new legislation envisaged, and I am quite sure that the Opposition will give every assistance in getting much of it through, but I suggest, as has been said before, that probably there is enough existing legislation on the Statute Book without our needing to create too much new legislation in this new Session. It has been said that there is enough legislation already on the Statute Book to create a social revolution in this country.So I would ask the Government to have another look at the powers they already possess to see if they can use them more fully than they are using them at present.

The country is, of course, expecting some good things to be brought out of the bag before the next General Election. Well, good luck to the Government if they do it, but they have got to hurry up, because time is running short, and they will have to do something pretty good to offset the terribly bad record they have on their conscience at the present time.