Mr Robert Hudson: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the groundnuts scheme made any contribution to this total?
Mr Robert Hudson: In listening to the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) paying high tributes to the energy and other qualities of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), I could not help wondering why, if he had all those qualities, he was removed by the present Leader of the Opposition from his job.
Mr Robert Hudson: I was not moved I was dropped. The Motion which we are debating makes certain assumptions and pre-supposes several different things. It presupposes, in the first place, that conditions today are satisfactory. It presupposes that houses today are let in accordance with the need of the applicant, and it presupposes that all the applicants in real need of housing lists today will, in fact, get...
Mr Robert Hudson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman take steps to see that his reply to the last supplementary question but one gets due prominence at the Labour Party Conference?
Mr Robert Hudson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in order to relieve a good many anxieties that exist on this matter, endeavour to secure the inclusion in that list of conventions to which the Japanese have agreed to conform, specifically those conventions dealing with trade marks, patents, designs and copyright which they had not signed before the war?
Mr Robert Hudson: Is the situation then that we cannot get sulphur from anywhere else without it being taken into account in the United States allocation?
Mr Robert Hudson: Reverting to the question of the Copyright Convention and so forth, I do not think it was covered because the declaration deals only with those multilateral international instruments to which Japan was a party on 1st September. I should have thought it would have been much better that the two conventions, to which our industrialists attach a very great deal of importance, should be included...
Mr Robert Hudson: I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Third Report from the Select Committee on Estimates. The country is faced today with a rearmament problem. That problem is bound to make demands on our national resources of manpower, plant and raw materials. It is obviously of prime importance to our economy that those demands should be met with the greatest economy of our resources consistent...
Mr Robert Hudson: If the right hon. Gentleman will wait, I am coming to that point. What we should be doing today is, not talking about increased productivity, but actually getting on with the job of enforcing and encouraging it. The Lord Privy Seal said in a speech last week that we wanted an increase in productivity of 20 per cent. from every worker and management in the land. In relation to the 6 per cent....
Mr Robert Hudson: A non-party speech.
Mr Robert Hudson: Surely that is not so. The Government presuppose in their re-armament programme that they will get 500,000 extra people and the question is whether they are to be employed on single shift or double shift working. The same thing applies to raw materials. The policy of the Government is based on the presumption that they will secure the requisite raw materials.
Mr Robert Hudson: The Government can stop their contractors from poaching. There was a case, quoted in the Select Committee's Report, of motor manufacturers poaching from the machine tool industry.
Mr Robert Hudson: Before the Parliamentary Secretary leaves the subject of machine tools, I hope he will say something about the point, which both my right hon. Friend and I made, about what steps he is taking to ensure that new machine tools are used to their full capacity and are not left idle for 16 hours a day.
Mr Robert Hudson: Yes, but is not one of the reasons why the right hon. Gentleman did not arm himself with the necessary figures to answer my right hon. Friend's supplementary question the fact that he knew that the record of the nationalised industries since the war would be shown up very badly?
Mr Robert Hudson: As I understood, the pre-1949 arrears amounted to £7½ million and there is only £6¼ million to meet this. Where are the post-1949 payments to come from?
Mr Robert Hudson: The figures do not tally.
Mr Robert Hudson: We have all been listening.
Mr Robert Hudson: On a point of order. It has been suggested that we might discuss this Order together with the next order, namely: That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order, dated 13th June, 1951, entitled the Nickel Prohibited Uses (Board of Trade) Order, 1951 (S.I., 1951, No. 1049), a copy of which was laid before this House on 14th June, be annulled. The principle of both...
Mr Robert Hudson: Surely, the whole point of the 50 per cent. conversion factor is not the actual quantity but the value of the nickel? The hon.. Gentleman is talking about quantity.
Mr Robert Hudson: Then the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I say he has got it all wrong.