Unemployment

Part of Orders of the Day — Debate on the Address – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 9 November 1971.

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Photo of Miss Irene Ward Miss Irene Ward , Tynemouth 12:00, 9 November 1971

I have written every month. It is no good writing once. The hon. Gentleman has to go on and on. Sometimes I get a helpful answer, sometimes not. If I do not get a helpful answer I bang them on the head with another letter.

The Chancellor spoke about putting more capital into nationalised industries, but why must it take so long? He did not mention hospitals, and in Newcastle a very large hospital is being built. I have received representations from a member of the management committee who is also a constituent of mine asking why we cannot have the capital now and get on with the hospital rather than wait until 1976. If the Chancellor wants to spend money on nationalised industries—although I do not call the hospital service "nationalised"; it is a co-operative effort even though it is jolly difficult to get one's own way—why cannot he provide the money now?

Why cannot British Rail get on with things now instead of considering for months and months? I do not want trains going at 350 m.p.h. but I want money. In my constituency, at Percy Main, there are a lot of old people who complain that the platform at the railway station there is so low, because of subsidence, that they cannot get out of trains. I have asked the Chairman of the Railways Board about it and he says that it is true but that they are too hard up to reinforce the platform. They have also taken down an old Victorian roof but have not replaced it with anything so that people have to stand in the snow and and the rain.

Like all people, my people need to feel that they are being cared for. They are the grandest people in the world. Will the Lord President tell us what this extra expenditure means? My people want specific answers to specific questions. I will help my Government to the utmost but my first responsibility is to my part of the world and I want to know what is to happen to my people. I dare say that lots of Navy orders will go to the Clyde but we want as many as we can get because we are very good naval shipbuilders. I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell me a great deal of what is to happen and I will have great pleasure when I go home this weekend in telling my constituents that the debate has been worthwhile.