Mr William Taylor: After the long and controversial debate which has just concluded, I wish to draw the attention of the House to a matter which is giving very serious concern to my constituents, to public bodies and to medical authorities in the City of Bradford. I refer to the high incidence of tuberculosis among European volunteer workers in and about the city. This matter has been given considerable...
Mr William Taylor: I have indicated how and under what arrangements these people came in, either under the official scheme or under the private scheme, or found themselves here at the end of the war. It is not possible to break down the figures to show the number of active cases in each class, but if the hon. Member will be patient I think I shall be able to indicate where, I feel, the trouble lies and how it...
Mr William Taylor: asked the Minister of Supply if his attention has been drawn to circular letters, copies of which have been shown to him, sent out by a firm offering to act as agent on commission for obtaining armament subcontracts; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.
Mr William Taylor: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that satisfactory reply, may I ask him whether he will go a little further and say that, to discourage any future undesirable activity of this kind, he will keep in closer touch with the engineering associations when compiling his list of approved sub-contractors so as to provide a proper opportunity for the smaller firms to play their full part in the...
Mr William Taylor: I understood the hon. Lady to say that the Government had deliberately brought about this state of unemployment for a political purpose of their own. She is now saying that if the Government had of necessity to move some labour, that was another matter. Will she say exactly what she means?
Mr William Taylor: rose—
Mr William Taylor: The Government of the party opposite had six years.
Mr William Taylor: It was perhaps inevitable that this debate should range more on the western side of the Pennine range than on the eastern side, and I am therefore glad to be able now to say something of the Bradford wool textile industry. Before I do so, I should like to say that the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), and the earlier speech of the hon. Lady the Member for...
Mr William Taylor: I am sorry the hon. Lady does not feel that she implied what I have just said. I certainly took her speech as implying that the difficulties of the textile industry started at the time my right hon. Friend took office. The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, East, certainly did say in her speech that the difficulties had become very much worse since November of last year. [Interruption.] I...
Mr William Taylor: I am not saying anything of the kind. What I am saying is that when the Government release sterling for the purpose of purchasing goods from this country, they should insist on a condition that the country concerned should buy our manufactured goods in return for the sterling we make available to them. I anticipated such a question as the hon. Member has put, and I would say that I am not in...
Mr William Taylor: The hon. Member is very persistent. What I said, or what I intended to convey, was that the Government should be much more strict with regard to the conditions under which they release sterling for purchases by overseas countries, and that if they were much more strict they would be able to insist on conditions which would result in the sale of our manufactured goods to those countries. The...
Mr William Taylor: I was not at the Treasury. I cannot tell him the answer in terms of how much more sterling was available, but there were other things we wanted, and other things besides wool cloth that Argentina wanted from us.
Mr William Taylor: The hon. Gentleman ought to know something of the subject about which he has been talking, because he was one of the negotiators, and he did not get meat from the Argentine. All I can say is that if he had wanted yarns and had come to Bradford for them, he would probably have got his orders fulfilled. I really do not follow the point of the interruption. I will admit that there is a limit to...
Mr William Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for War why Private Geoffrey Boot, 1st Battalion the Green Howards, was reported killed in Malaya and his parents informed by telegram and letter accordingly when, in fact, he was only slightly injured; and if he will take all possible steps to prevent unnecessary suffering to next-of-kin by errors of this kind in his Department.
Mr William Taylor: I am very glad to have been called so early in the debate. It gives me the opportunity of paying my tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Air for the most competent and lucid way in which he presented his statement. The right hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. A. Henderson) said that it was time the House had a statement about the progress of the...
Mr William Taylor: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that explanation. Apparently, the position is not quite so bad as I imagined it was.
Mr William Taylor: We were thrilled to hear about the tremendous progress that is being made in the supply of equipment and aircraft. The story that we heard made us feel more secure than we have felt in that direction for some time. [Interruption ] The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) may have his reservations, but, if I remember rightly, he was not in the House when the statement was made...
Mr William Taylor: "Security" is a very wide term. I am sure that defence is the first consideration of Her Majesty's Government in that connection. One is tempted to make a comment about the tremendous achievements which have been made in the scientific and mechanical field, but I propose to deal only with one specific difficulty that is apparent in the Service in relation to the education of children of...
Mr William Taylor: I have outlined the educational difficulties facing Service parents. Their difficulties are not the easier to bear when one remembers that such provision is made in the Civil Service. There the principle recognised is that financial assistance should be given for the education of children of officers posted abroad. The 1949 Report of the Joint Committee of the Civil Service National Whitley...
Mr William Taylor: That is rather a question of detail, and I cannot answer. I know that the principle that educational grants should be made to servants of the Foreign Office who serve abroad was accepted by the Treasury, but I am very sorry that I cannot answer the detailed point put to me. Under the Civil Service arrangements, £75 a year is paid for the second and each subsequent child put to boarding...
