Unemployment and Economic Policy

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 4 February 1963.

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Photo of Mr Archibald Manuel Mr Archibald Manuel , Central Ayrshire 12:00, 4 February 1963

They need all of them.

Lieut.-Colonel Grosvenor: We do not export houses, but we build them.

The Minister of Defence and the Service Ministers should remember that we can do all these things if we are given the opportunity. We have the machinery, the skill and the labour to do it. The President of the Board of Trade is concerned in the encouragement of new industry. Surely, if he has the opportunity to encourage industrialists to go to particular areas, the area which has the highest amount of unemployment should be considered first. I hope that he will keep that object before him when any industrialist comes to him. The Minister of Labour and his opposite number in Northern Ireland, the Minister of Labour and National Insurance, are important in training and educating labour so as to make our young people more useful in employment.

The Minister of Agriculture here, together with his opposite number—our Minister of Agriculture—can help by promoting further schemes to bring about higher production from agricultural land. Increased agricultural productivity could offset the drift from the land. Those hon. Members who are farmers know full well that the more that is taken from the land the more people must be used to handle it. If more cattle can be raised, a greater number of people are needed to look after them. If crops are greater, more people are needed to handle them. Any scheme that the Minister of Agriculture can devise to achieve greater productivity will help to stop the drift from the land and add to the hard core of agricultural labour.

The Postmaster-General can help us with building programmes for new telephone exchanges throughout the Province. Some of them are very old. Some of them were destroyed during the recent troubles. There is a great opportunity for the Minister to increase the numbers of these buildings and thus help the building trade. The Minister of Aviation might consider the civil versions of the aeroplanes we produce, namely, the Belfast and the Skyvan.

The Minister of Power can help by ensuring that we get the right coal at the right price. I do not think that enough hon. Members realise what coal is like when it has gone from the pit into a train, into a ship, out of a ship, and into another train or into a lorry. It has had an awful bashing by the time it reaches the housewife and the price is considerably increased. To quote an example, in my area, right over on the west of Ireland, coal is £1 a ton dearer than it is in Belfast.

Finally, I adjure and encourage my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the Minister in charge of Northern Ireland affairs, to keep an eye on those of his colleagues whom I have listed. I am very confident that with our interests at heart the Home Secretary will ensure that those gentlemen consider Northern Ireland before any other part of the United Kingdom, because we deserve it. Here I am not being unsympathetic. I am only being parochial.