Control of Office and Industrial Development Bill

Part of Ballot for Notices of Motions – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 14 April 1965.

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Photo of Mr Patrick Jenkin Mr Patrick Jenkin , Wanstead and Woodford 12:00, 14 April 1965

I see the Minister of State shaking his head and I at once acquit him and many other hon. Members opposite of falling into this error. But there are many people who themselves have very little to do with the sort of activities which go on in offices and who are inclined to regard office workers as encumbrances weighing down the efforts of the productive workers and being, as it were, an incubus hanging round their necks like the Old Man of the Sea. I am fairly certain that most rational people recognise that this is not so.

Furthermore, there is an increasing trend, certainly in commerce and industry, for emphasis to be placed on those who sit at desks and think, as opposed to those who stand and twiddle knobs, or do other productive work in factories.

It is not only in commerce and industry that one finds office workers. I mention a particular case relating to one of the schools in London University. Its modernisation plans and plans for developing and expanding the capacity for taking students was, in a major respect, brought to a halt because of the announcement made by the First Secretary of State.

An administrative block was to be planned which was to enable the whole of the administration of the college eventually to be housed—this is within Greater London—to make room for the expansion of residential and teaching accommodation. This had to come to a stop, because of the embargo placed on office building. I hope that eventually permission will be granted. This is a case in which office workers are essential to a rapidly expanding element of society, namely, the universities.

With regard to office workers in commerce and industry, it seems to me that the force of the Amendment is that it imports into the Statute, which is where it ought to be, as my hon. Friend has forcefully said, the fact that the Board of Trade must have regard to the reasonable requirements of office employment. It is my misfortune that one of my duties in the firm for which I work is to be responsible for the allocation of office accommodation within central London. I therefore come fairly frequently into contact with the problem of finding space for an ever-increasing office population.

One of the directors of my firm, who has now retired, used to say that when he was young the whole office was run by two men, a boy and the office cat, whereas now there were hundreds of office workers. He was inclined, in a light-hearted way, to regard this as a measure of deterioration. I recognise that as the productivity of factory workers has increased enormously, so the employment of all sorts of office workers has had to increase, too. As a business expands, one has to have not only more management staff, but more marketing staff, sales staff, and so on. There must be more forward planning and, therefore, there must be more planning and technical staff.

One sees advertisements in the Sunday newspapers for a new range of staff—statisticians, mathematicians, economists, computer programmers, econometricians, technical representatives and so on. All these people have to be employed to increase the productivity and efficiency of industry. In addition, there are those who are perhaps rather less directly engaged on production—clerks, accountants, lawyers, and so on. These are all an essential part of the productive enterprise. It must, therefore, be right that when the Board of Trade is considering exercising its powers under the Bill it must have regard to the reasonable requirements of commerce and industry to ensure that there is space in which these people can work.

It is not only in modern industries where this is happening. I had the great privilege of going as a member of a small parliamentary delegation to the National Coal Board. We saw—hon. Members will have read about this in the newspapers—new automatic coal-getting equipment which eventually will lead, it is thought, to the completely automated coal mine. The ambition which the extremely able technical men have set themselves is that the coal will be mined by a technician sitting in the mine manager's office and that eventually there will be no one down the mine at all. A slightly amusing point is that when I was adopted by my constituency I was stigmatised in the Daily Express as "the faceless man". I have now seen the manless face. So it has gone full circle.

10.15 p.m.

That only shows that even in the old-established industries this trend towards increasing employment of technical and planning men in offices, with a corresponding reduction in the number of manual workers, is bound to go on. Therefore, we need not be surprised if there is constant pressure for more office accommodation. It therefore seems to be right in the Bill and in this important Clause that those who administer this legislation should have their attention specifically directed to the reasonable requirements of commerce, industry and the professions.

I entirely agree that the regional planning aspect of the Bill must be the cardinal feature in it. I have already indicated in an earlier debate that this is an aspect which I support. It must not, however, be done to the detriment of the economic life of the country. It is right that this should be spelled out in the Bill. For this reason, I have much pleasure in supporting my hon. Friend's Amendment.