Technology

Part of Orders of the Day — Queen's Speech – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 November 1964.

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Photo of Mr Richard Buchanan Mr Richard Buchanan , Glasgow Springburn 12:00, 5 November 1964

If it were within my power to introduce a new tradition to this House, it would be that hon. Members who are making their maiden speeches should do so from the Dispatch Box so that they might lay their trembling hands upon it and give some support to their quaking knees.

I succeed a man who served this House and his constituents since 1945, John Forman, a quiet, conscientious and courteous man. Much of the electoral majority which I enjoy is due to the work which he did in the constituency, and I am grateful to him for that. Spring-burn is a typically industrial constituency in Glasgow which is a typically industrial city. There we are suffering from what happened in the Industrial Revolution. The ancient industrial community of Springburn has a history which goes back a long way, just as does that of Glasgow. We were in tobacco before Bristol and in cotton before Lancashire and we led the world in engineering. Our factories and engineering works are growing old and they are slowly dying. That is inevitable. It is the march of time. The advance in technology is responsible for much that is good and for one thing which is adverse for the young generation. The boys of future generations will no longer see those animated locomotives steaming through the countryside "loco's" that were built by the North British Locomotive Co. No more will boys have the joy of seeing such sights, they will simply see a coach that goes. Again, this is inevitable, because things must go on, but I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House must regret the passing of those noble iron horses.

Glasgow Corporation is preparing for the technological age. The whole city is being rebuilt and the decision to carry this out took courage and foresight. This project is going ahead very quickly, but during the period before its completion there will exist a hiatus before the engineering industry has moved into the technological age, and we are having a rather thin time in Glasgow. We are waiting anxiously, and I invite my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, who also had a period of anxious waiting, to adopt the theme of this Government which is to get things done and speed up the transfer of the Post Office Savings Bank to Glasgow. The decision to transfer the Bank was one of the most enlightened of the decisions made by the former Government.

I was pleased to note in the Gracious Speech a reference to the need to … take action to improve the arrangements for industrial training and for the retraining of workers changing their employment. Much has been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House about restrictive practices. Representing as I do a constituency such as Springburn, a constituency in a town like Glasgow, which has suffered more than most from unemployment, I, and many of my friends on this side of the House, feel that there is no more heartrending sight than a man who has trained for a particular task, trained for a job, being refused admission to that job or situation because of some archaic line of demarcation which keeps him from earning his living in a dignified way.

I am also pleased to see in the Gracious Speech that we intend to improve the penal system and the aftercare of offenders. My right hon. Friend, in his excellent speech today, also said that we must build up the whole level of understanding. This takes me on to a part of the speech which might have been better if it had been made tomorrow. On the aftercare of offenders, let me say that if technology is going to do one thing, it will increase the amount of leisure time. This brings in its train certain problems, problems which achieve some notoriety in the Press but which nevertheless exist and are increasing.

One of the institutions which has suffered greatly because of the social problems is the approved school. I have served as a member of the board of governors of an approved school for 12 years. In this approved school—a senior school—the boys sleep in bunks one above the other because the school is approved for only a certain number and yet because of the increasing pressure on these schools, we have to put more and more boys in.

We have petitioned as managers for a new school, and we have always been told that, "We will find a place". We have looked at various houses up and down Scotland. I have spent hours travelling up and down Scotland looking at these old houses. We went to one at Bannockburn and the first thing I saw in the house was a notice to say, "Prince Charlie slept here." He had slept there when he was a very young man, which gives hon. Members an idea of the type and age of the house. Yet this is the type of house we were contemplating converting into an approved school. There would have been more "Charlies" sleeping there if we had fallen for that. In the same context, at a junior approved school the headmaster wished that the toilets should be altered. Because of the moral dangers he wanted separate stalls. On approach to Her Majesty's then Government he was told that the extra cost of separate stalls would be in the region of £60, and this was refused.

One cannot do anything other than keep these boys—and girls—out of circulation in such approved schools. These are the casualties of our system of society. They are the casualties of us as parents, as administrators, as legislators, as teachers. They demand a much more serious approach than do the ordinary schools, and we are not giving it to them. I think that we have a social duty to ourselves and to these young people that they ought to be rehabilitated and retrained. What I said about restrictive practices still holds good in this context, because many of these young people cannot be trained, whether it be as joiners, painters or leatherworkers, for the simple reason that this period of training cannot be regarded as a start to their apprenticeships. This is something we ought to look at. If we do not go into this problem seriously and sincerely, if more help is not given to these dedicated men and women who man our approved schools—in equipment and service—then these casualties may so increase that we may yet regret the advance of technology, and the casualties may become the technological Luddites.