I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

It has been said,' and rightly said, several times during the discussion on this Bill in the various stages of its progress through this House, that it sets out to be an entirely new scheme of compensation for injury suffered at work. This, of course, in an important sense is perfectly true, but in another sense it is not. We in this country do not proceed by way of setting up schemes that are entirely new or wholly unrelated to what has gone before. We build on, and develop existing structures, and make use of previous experience, so that this new scheme of compensation for industrial injury takes account of much that has gone before, picking out the good and rejecting the bad. It carries forward a good deal from the schemes for workmen's compensation which it replaces. It recognises the case for special benefits for injury or death arising out of and in the course of employment. 'It applies to all workmen covered by Workmen's Compensation Acts. It makes some important additions. If brings all workers into one fund and spreads the cost of providing the improved benefits over all industries. The new scheme also owes a great deal to the experience gained in operating the Royal Warrants which provide for casualties sustained by members of the Forces, and wartime schemes of compensation to civilians who suffered at the hands of the enemy or as a result of war service.

Then again, the scheme has been brought within the ambit of the larger national insurance schemes; and the system of financing these schemes, and the machinery for operating them and giving decisions rapidly and without expense to the claimants, have been adopted here in this Bill. Perhaps it is partly due to the fact that we are not building entirely anew that the scheme does not, at all points, give complete satisfaction to all Members of this House and to all sections of the community. But I myself do not take this view. Past experience tells how far we can safely go and how much further we can go as a legitimate risk. Future experience will tell us what is the next advance we should make. If the scheme is not entirely new, it is equally true that the Bill which will, I hope, pass its Third Reading today, is not the same Bill as that which was published at the end of September and which was, with minor variations, the same Bill as published by the "caretaker ", Government in June, 1945.

There was much helpful criticism during the Second Reading Debate and also in the Committee. I would like at this point, on behalf of my right hon. Friend and on my own behalf—and I am sure 1 speak for every Member of Standing Committee A— to say how very much we appreciated and benefited from the very wise and tolerant, but firm, guidance of the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr and Bute Northern (Sir C. MacAndrew). A considerable number of amendments have been made upstairs, and there were a number of points which my right hon. Friend agreed to look into and reconsider. Every one of these points has been carefully reconsidered, and where my right hon. Friend could, and felt able, he has made amendments. The many important Amendments which he introduced during the Report stage at the beginning of this week, should be evidence of the care which he has devoted to this matter.

During the Report stage there was also considerable discussion on Clause 61 with regard to the powers taken for inspectors to secure evidence. First may I emphasise, as did my right hon. Friend during the course of the discussion on that Clause, that the powers taken under Clause 61 are identical with those which, from time to time, have been taken by successive Liberal and Tory Governments, and even by the Coalition Government as late as 1945. As a trade unionist who, in the past, has had something to do with the practical application of these Acts, may I say that I have never heard the slightest implication that these powers have ever been abused. On the very few occasions on which they have had to be used, they have always been used to the benefit of the worker in industry. However, the very valid point was made during the discussion that if the powers taken were greater than was absolutely necessary for the successful operation of the Measure, then the House ought not to give those powers. My right hon. Friend said he was prepared to look at the matter again, and if those powers were found to be ' greater than was necessary he was prepared to see that opportunities would be given for modification of the Clause, in another place. During the last two days there had been discussions with the Law Officers and my right hon. Friend is now satisfied that adequate power can be taken in a modified Clause. I am sorry I cannot give the House the actual wording of the proposed new Clause, but I am happy to be able to say that the modified Clause will meet 99 per cent. of the criticisms which were made during the Debate.

A further point made in Committee stage—and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General promised to discuss and reconsider it— was in connection with Clause 67 (5) and the power taken to call a husband or wife as a witness. In Committee my hon. and learned Friend gave it as his opinion that a husband or a wife was a competent witness, though not a compellable witness, but he promised to confirm that, and put it beyond a shadow of doubt. My hon. and learned Friend had hoped to be in the House this morning to make a statement himself but demands upon his time from other directions have so far prevented that. I am authorised by him to say, on his behalf, that by the terms of the Subsection it is assured beyond doubt that the point of view he expressed in Committee is correct, and that a wife would be a competent witness but not a compellable witness.

We think the Bill is much better as a result of all the Amendments, and I gladly acknowledge the help we have received from all quarters of the House in our effort to make it as good as possible. Of course, improvements in benefits mean increased expenditure, and in any insurance scheme, an increase in income is needed to meet increased expenditure. Perhaps the House will bear with me while I say a word or two about the finances of the scheme. Though, as I have said, we have made use 0f past experience wherever we could, the proposals in the Bill are, at points, sufficiently novel to make impossible a precise estimate of expenditure on the benefits to be provided. So far as we can judge, however, when the scheme reaches maturity— and I will have a word or two to say about that in a moment— the total expenditure may amount to rather more than£32,000,000 per annum, including expenses of administration, for which we allow about£3,500,000. Included in this total expenditure is the cost of the Amendments made to the Bill since its introduction, which amount to a total of about£6,000,000 per annum.

My right hon. Friend was asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peaked) whether at some stage, preferably on the Third Reading, we would give details of the estimated increases in the Bill. I take first the Amendments made during the Report stage earlier this week. The figures are as follows: Proposals relating to death benefit£250,000; proposals relating to the assessment of the degree of disablement,£250,000; and proposals for alteration of waiting days,£300,000. Then I take the cost of the Amendments which were made in Standing Committee A. They are: waiving of the hospital deduction, between £100,000 and£150,000; the post-accident wife being made eligible for death benefit,–250,000; the increased disablement gratuity, for the percentage below 20, raised from£100 to£150,£150,000; the increase of the maximum benefits from 40s. per week to 45s. per week,£2,500,000; the increase of benefit in the case of special hardship—the engineer's eye, the compositor's finger, those men who are unable to return to their pre-accident occupation,£2,000,000; the increase in the maximum weekly rate of benefit to juveniles of 17 to 18 years of age to three-quarters of the adult benefit,£150,000. If my arithmetic is still as good as it used to be, that should total between£5,950,000 and£6,000,000.

Against that, may be set the income from the increased contributions agreed by the Standing Committee, which will produce about£4,500,000 per annum. To meet the expenditure of£32,000,000 there will be an income—and of course in the nature of things the income can be much more firmly 'estimated than the expenditure—estimated to be in the neighbourhood of£30,500,000 per annum. Contributions at the rates now in the Bill of 8d. for men, 6d. for women, 5d. for boys and 4d. for girls, of which the employer pays half and the worker half are expected to produce£25,500,000 per annum. The Exchequer contribution will be£5,000,000 per annum. On the basis of these estimates, it will be seen that there is an excess of expenditure over income of£1,500,000 per annum. As I have said, however, the expenditure is what we expect when the scheme reaches maturity, and, in the nature of things it cannot reach maturity for some years— certainly not for ten years and possibly not for twenty years. The annual income, however, should be realised from the outset, and in fact, therefore, in the early years of the scheme, there should be an excess of income over expenditure. That excess of course must be held in reserve to meet the rising cost of benefits as the claims mature, but in view of what I have already said about the difficulty of making precise estimates of expenditure, we feel justified in keeping the contributions at the level proposed in the Bill until we see how closely our estimates are confirmed by events and experience.

Under Clause 58 the Government Actuary is to review the operation of the Act at the end of five years, and to make a report to the Treasury,

"on the financial condition of the Industrial Injuries Fund and the adequacy or otherwise of the contributions payable under this Act to support the benefits payable thereunder."

The first report by the Actuary should give us a reliable pointer as to how far our estimates will be confirmed, at a time before the expenditure on benefits has fully matured. I would add the warning, though indeed it will be obvious to the House, that any surplus disclosed as a result of the first report by the Actuary is not likely to be available to increase rates of benefit or to reduce rates of contributions, but will be needed to meet the rising cost of benefits in years to come. This rising cost will, of course, be due to the accumulation of long-term cases over a considerable period of years. They correspond to the cases in which, under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, payments will have been in force for some time when our Appointed Day arrives, the cases which we sometimes call "past cases". On that subject of past cases, the House will recall that my right hon. Friend the Minister said that he was most anxious to bring them under the Bill if a satisfactory scheme could be worked out. The proposal raises some very complicated problems, and it was decided that the Bill should not be held up until the inquiry and discussion necessary to secure a solution had taken place. The inquiries are still proceeding, and if it is found that arrangements could be made to bring these past cases within the scope of the industrial injuries scheme, the necessary legislation will be introduced.

I have spoken about the benefits to be paid under the Bill and their cost. Let me conclude by repeating what my right hon. Friend has emphasised on many earlier occasions both inside this House, and outside it—that the payment of cash benefits is not the only, or even the most important, part of this new scheme. We shall seek to do by every means in 0 power all that it is possible to do to promote measures for the prevention of accidents. Prevention is better than cure. For those who, despite all the preventive measures that can be taken, still suffer injury, we shall arrange for courses of rehabilitation and training, so that they may be able to take their place and play their full part in the battle for production and the normal life of the community.

We come today temporarily to the end of our discussions on this Bill. It has had a fairly long journey through Committee and on Report, but I do not think that anybody could claim that any of the time spent upon it has been wasted. When we got to the Report stage there were something like 13 pages of Government Amendments and there are still, as the Under-Secretary has indicated, quite a number of lacunae in the Bill—matters which will have to be dealt with during the further stages after the Bill has gone to another place. I should like at the outset of my remarks to congratulate the hon. Gentleman who has moved the Third Reading, and to congratulate his Minister on having acquired a very competent and courteous Parliamentary Secretary. The hon. Gentleman came into this matter at a rather late stage of the development of the scheme; he has applied himself to it and mastered it, and, having been an Under-Secretary myself for a number of years, and having seen a good many occupants of such offices struggling with difficult situations, I must say that the hon. Gentleman has done himself great credit during the progress of the Bill.

There are a few points to which he addressed himself, and about which I should like to say a word. I am extremely glad that further consideration has been given to the powers of inspectors, which are detailed in Clause 61 and about which, during the Report stage, a certain amount of criticism arose in all quarters of the House. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman the Minister, at all stages of the progress of this Bill, when short of an argument with which to combat a case made against the Measure, has thought it a complete and conclusive answer to produce the Coalition Bill, which bore my name, among others, upon it. Of course the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that my connection with this scheme terminated when the original White Paper was published, and that the Minister of National Insurance who held office during the time when the Bill was being prepared was his col-. league in the Government, the present Lord Chancellor. Therefore neither Mr. Hore-Belisha—who came into this matter as a bird of passage in the "caretaker" Government—nor I, can have any very great measure of responsibility for the details of the Clauses.

However, I am glad that this matter of the inspectors' powers is to be looked at again. The Clauses as included in the Bill are, I think, rather a hangover from the days when the power of employers was far greater than it is at the present time, and when there was a possibility of, and an incentive to, evasion on the side of the employer. When we convert the workmen's compensation and other schemes into schemes of State insurance, the incentive to the employer to evade the provisions of the Act is very much more limited than it was in the old days, and also his power to intimidate his workmen has been almost completely destroyed. I am therefore glad that the Clause with regard to the inspectors' powers is to be modified.

There are two or three matters which, on the Third Reading, I think it would be well for us shortly to consider. We had all hoped, I think, that ultimately this scheme and the Social Insurance scheme might be unified, that the rates of benefit might be assimilated, and all the difficulties which follow from having to draw a distinction between an industrial disability and a disability attributable to other causes might be eliminated. When these schemes were launched it was perfectly clear that, in the light of history the benefits for industrial injuries must be on a higher scale than those for either sickness or unemployment. That, in the circumstances, in the light of past history, was inevitable; but at the time that the White Paper on this matter was drawn up, the gaps between the two scales of benefit were bridgeable in the course of. perhaps, 10 or 20 years. During the Committee and Report stages of the Bill, however, as the Parliamentary Secretary has indicated, those gaps have been very much widened. The Committee stage of the Bill cost the scheme, as I estimate it,£5,250,000 per annum, and the Report stage nearly another£1,000,000; and the result now is that, if we take the basic scales of payment, we have to compare 45s. under this Bill with 26s. under the National Insurance scheme. I am afraid that creates a gap bridging of which none of us can visualise. Suppose it is possible to increase that 26s. in the course of ten years to 35s., will there not, meantime, have been an unanswerable demand to in- crease the 45s. under this Bill to a still higher figure? Therefore, have we not now to abandon, completely and for ever, the idea that we can unify these schemes? I am afraid we have, and I am afraid there was justice and truth in the leading article in "The Times" of last Monday upon this subject.

I turn to another matter which is fundamental to this Bill, and to the National Insurance Bill, also. That is the question of alternative remedies, which still remains with the Monckton Committee. We all know about the old doctrine of election under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. We all know of the difficulties to which it has given rise; but we must surely recognise that the position cannot be left as it is at the present time. It is quite unjustifiable, upon any thesis, that the workman should obtain on the one hand, common law damages from a negligent employer to the full extent, and all the benefits of the industrial injuries insurance scheme as well. He would be getting two remedies for the same injury; and the Bill, of course, as it stands, is silent upon that point. I think we arc promised that when the report has been received and considered, further Amendments will be introduced into the Bill in another place. I do not think that is a very satisfactory way of proceeding with such a fundamental and important issue. I urge the Government to consider the possibility of introducing any legislation that is required as a result of the Monckton Committee's report in a separate Bill, so that issues which vitally affect the interests of the workpeople may be considered in this House before they are considered in another place.

I had something to do with the framing of this scheme, and there were two ruling ideas to which we related every detail and every proposal. You can consider how this matter affects the injured workman individually, or how it affects injured workmen collectively. So far as the individual injured workman is concerned, our motive in drafting the scheme was to do our best for the injured workman and to promote his recovery in the shortest possible time. You can do that, I think, if you give him a feeling of security; and that, I think, this scheme is calculated to do. In the old days, rehabilitation was unthought of, unheard of, undiscussed; and injured workpeople simply found their way on to the economic scrap heap. But we must remember, in the future, being a much poorer nation now than we were before, that it is by the efforts of the able-bodied workpeople alone that we can achieve prosperity and maintain the standards of life for the children, for the middle-aged, and for the aged folk that we have established in this country; and that, therefore, it is vitally important to promote the recovery and rehabilitation of injured workpeople. We cannot afford any waste of man power through failure to restore injured workpeople to full capacity at the earliest possible moment. Rehabilitation depends as much on psychological factors as it does on medical factors, and this scheme, which deals, of course, with the limited aspect of financial provision, will, I think, assist greatly to give the injured workman the right psychological attitude. He will feel secure in the continuance of his pension. His pension will no longer be related in any way to his earning capacity, and he will, therefore, feel that he and his dependants are provided for and that he can devote his whole effort to trying to regain full working capacity.

The second main idea running at the back of this scheme has been the elimination of suspicion and bitterness, and the promotion of good will between employers and workpeople. This is, of course, related to the question of" the man's recovery, because so long as the man is permeated with bitterness and suspicion, his recovery is bound to be retarded. But it goes much further than that, much further indeed. It is much easier to promote discord between workpeople and employers than it is to promote harmony. The old system of workmen's compensation, of itself, tended to promote discord and suspicion between employers and workpeople. Of course, it was a great advance upon anything that existed before the year 1897, but it has been for many years past, a hopelessly out-of-date model of a social provision against misfortune. In many ways this scheme will tend to promote better relations between employers and workpeople. There is, for example, the local appeal tribunal, upon which will sit representatives of workpeople and of employers. There is the Central Advisory Council where the broad features of the scheme, and the amendments to the scheme, and the regulations under the scheme will be discussed jointly, under the chairmanship of an impartial chairman, between representatives of both sides of industry. There is the total elimination of the interest of the employer and his insurance company from the whole business. There is, moreover—I congratulate the Government on this—the accepted basis of equal contributions from employers and their workpeople.

There was a great deal of discussion as to the incidence of the contributions under this scheme. I always attached considerable importance to these contributions being equal. It would have been comparatively easy to add an extra penny to the employer and take a penny off the employee, but I always felt that in the administration of a scheme in which both sides of industry were to play a part it was very important that those who sat round the table should speak with equal voices and an equal sense of responsibility. I, therefore, attach importance—I should like to congratulate the Government upon adhering to the principle set out in the White Paper— to equal contributions from employers and from workpeople. The idea of the new scheme is to promote the recovery of the workman at the earliest possible moment under the best possible conditions, and to tackle this question of industrial injury, which inflicts severe economic loss upon the nation year by year, in a totally new spirit—a spirit of partnership rather than a spirit of hostility. I think that this Measure is designed, and well designed, to achieve these ends. In conclusion, I congratulate the Minister on having had the good fortune to pilot this Bill through the House. Our discussions throughout have been amicable although we have sometimes differed; and I compliment the Minister, the Parliamentary Secretary, and the Solicitor-General upon their conduct of the Bill throughout its various stages.

I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes I want to say how proud I am that this Bill has now reached its final stage. I welcome it in the main because it removes from the private profit-making motive the whole of our work- men's compensation arrangements. I do not know whether Members recollect what has been said on many occasions against the present system. Of the premiums paid by the employer to cove" workmen's compensation risks, about 10s—50 per cent—goes in legal, medical profits and administrative costs. This Measure makes it certain that a larger amount of the premiums paid will in future come back to the pockets of the injured workpeople. The administrative costs of National Health and other forms of State insurance are known to everyone to be comparatively low in relation to private enterprises undertaken in this connection. The success of every scheme depends ultimately on its implementation and administration. For instance, at present, when a man is injured either at work or outside his employment, and fails to secure workmen's compensation or damages he falls back automatically on the National Health Insurance funds. The right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) mentioned in his speech something about "bridging the gap." I would ask the Minister about another gap, namely, whether, when an injured workman fails in his claim for benefit under this Industrial Injuries scheme and is still incapacitated from following any employment he will then fall back automatically on to the new National Insurance fund. It is not impossible that the injured may have the same doctor under both schemes. Would that doctor be able to declare that he is entitled to claim from either? Having administered these schemes for a number of years, I have found that that always has been a very difficult problem to handle. I leave the point, however, with the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure he will come up against it fairly soon in his administration of the two schemes.

The right hon. Member for North Leeds welcomed the fact that in future employers and employees will pay equal contributions for workmen's compensation risks. I have studied social insurance schemes throughout Europe and America, and I think this is the first occasion in any country that the workman is called upon to contribute to benefits which he will receive as a result of injury while following his employment at the dictation of an employer. In that respect it is a new principle and a very serious departure. We cannot, I suppose, get a Bill passed to throw the whole of the financial responsibility for workmen's compensation on to the employer. If, however, the employer is the State, as may' be the case for millions of our people in future, then the situation may become a little more difficult still. On the whole, however, I think it is a splendid Measure. I believe that there will be less bickering, and certainly fewer legal proceedings, in future. I have been somewhat gratified that lawyers in this House have supported this Bill; I have wondered that they have not asked the Minister for compensation for loss of profit.

I, too, congratulate the Minister, his Parliamentary Secretary and the Government on a very excellent achievement, but I say again that I am a little disturbed about the question of contributions when the workman is employed at the dictation of his employer He meets with an accident in the course of his employment; and it has always occurred to me that the departure of calling on him to pay contributions towards benefit in those circumstances is a litle odd in comparison with other social insurance schemes that have been established throughout the world. Finally, this Bill is one more contribution to our scheme of social service. I have lived long enough to see them all coming into force; and I accept this as one more contribution towards laying down that economic foundation for the people of this country through which no decent man shall fall.

May I deal with a question which the hon. Member who has just spoken has raised about the employee's contribution? I would point out that it is not a large contribution, and I have no doubt that there are many working people in this country who will feel some pride in having themselves made some contributions to a scheme which is very much for their own benefit I leave it at that.

In the Autumn, the Leader of the House taunted the Opposition with not doing their job properly. I am sure, however, that those of us who have sat through all the stages of this Bill will feel that the Opposition have made a positive contribution to the work which has been done. I must confess that the way has been made more simple and more encouraging for us by the co-operative attitude of the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary. It has been a great comfort to know, when we have raised a point, that it has actually received consideration, whether the result which was achieved was the one which we wanted or not. For the most part our points have been fairly dealt with. There is one matter which was not dealt with in the way we had hoped, and that was the question of representation before the tribunals. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we on this side of the House will keep a careful watch on the way their work proceeds, and a very careful watch indeed upon the Regulations which he makes.

In the work of the Standing Committee and on the Floor of the House a certain amount of light abuse was thrown at the position which lawyers occupy in our society. I am sure, however, that Members who have taken part in the various stages of this Bill will agree that we have gained something from the wrangles between the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg). Not only have we been delighted, but I think the Government have, to some extent, profited by their wrangles. But there was a point of view which the Government had about this Bill which, frankly, shocked me just a little. They have been trying to prove that two blacks make a white, by referring to the fact that previous legislation very often contained Clauses which they have put into this Bill. When they were embodying Clauses from past legislation in that way, they were indulging in that imitation which is always said to be the sincerest form of flattery, but we on this side of the House consider that we should move with the times, and that not everything we did in the past, will be right for the future.

The hon. Member is doing well.

I am astonished that a Left Wing Government should adopt such a complacent and sometimes reactionary attitude as to want solidly to embody in their own enactments, things which have gone before, and then put forward as their main defence for doing it the fact that those things have been done before. It may be that like very subtle lawyers they were relying on the doctrine of estoppel, and trying to prevent us from condemning their Clauses because we had approved similar ones in the past.

In conclusion, I would like to say that I welcome this Bill and I do so not only as one of the few Liberals left in this House, because it is an essentially Liberal Measure. I also welcome the Bill because it will contribute considerably to the solution of the manpower problem which this country will have to face for many years. We have suffered through two wars. We have suffered through years of calamity of one kind and another, and we shall have to nurse our manpower, in future, as best we can. One way in which we can conserve that manpower is by having a well thought out and workable scheme of industrial welfare, such as this Bill envisages.

As one who was very critical of this Bill on the Second Reading, and who supported many Amendments in Committee, I would like to say how satisfied I am at the way in which my right hon. Friend met the points of view which I and some of my colleagues have put forward. The right hon. Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) referred to the question of common law in relation to this Bill. Well, I do not seriously suggest that a man will contribute to this scheme in order to get benefits for an accident while following his employment, and I see no reason why he should be debarred from receiving benefits under the Bill and, at the same time, damages for an accident which he suffers through the negligence of his employer. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said, earlier today, that the Government were proceeding upon the experience of the Royal Warrant. I hope that in determining partial incapacity the basis of such in-capacity, and the percentage of disablement that was fixed by the Tory Party after the 1914-18 war, will be forgotten. When a man came out of the Forces at that time his assessment was fixed for him as a citizen with no relation to his particular industry. As one who has been critical about light rate compensation, I hope that while there is no increase in the basic rate, the committee which will deter-mine partial incapacity will bear in mind my failure to get increased amounts of light compensation, and increase percentage disability, having regard to a man's particular industry over that of the Royal Warrant.

Having had to handle questions of workmen's compensation for miners for 25 years, I am pleased that we are taking workmen out of the field of contests between owners, employers and doctors, contests which often finished in the county court. It is worth fourpence a week to take the working man out of that field. I compliment my right hon. Friend in making provision in the Bill for supplementation of compensation. If we are to get people to go into hazardous industries such as mining we must see that there is supplementation. There has been a departure from the waiting days' provision. That, in itself, was a compromise between those who wanted it and those who believed it should be abolished, but, taking the long view, I think my right hon. Friend's concession will be welcomed. It will mean that if a man has an accident, he will have his waiting days counted. If, after a 13 weeks' gap, he has another accident his waiting days will be counted in that respect as well. In the major Bill, there is need for a man to go from compensation on to the Unemployment Fund. I hope my right hon. Friend will regard a man's first three days' compensation as his waiting days to come out of employment, or, where he has lost three days' compensation for incapacity, he will see that the man comes on to benefit on the first day of his employment. As regards the wages of boys between 17 and 18, my right hon. Friend has met us handsomely, Compensation for boys has been equalised to such an extent that there is no loss under the present Bill, as compared with the Workmen's Compensation Act.

I would like to know what is the position with regard to successive accidents. This point was debated at considerable length in the Standing Committee, but so far there has been no Government pronouncement as to what is to happen in this matter. The position taken by the Government is that no matter how many accidents a man may suffer, he can only reach a total disablement of 100 per cent. There are, however, cases in which a man gets a light rate of compensation fixed, he goes back to do light work, and then has a second accident. There are cases in which a man receives the full rate of compensation for the second accident while at the same time receiving the light rate for the first accident. As the Government have made no pronouncement on this subject, I am wondering what is to happen in such cases. As the Minister knows, such a man is now able to get the light rate and full compensation. I feel that some concession should be given in these cases.

In my opinion, the finest part of this Bill is that relating to rehabilitation. Gone are the days when, at the colliery gates, we collected pennies from the men in order to buy an artificial leg for an injured man. It also means that people suffering from spinal injuries, who used to have to lie in bed, will now have facilities provided which will enable them to get out into the sunshine. If there had been rehabilitation in the past instead of spending money in the county courts in contesting the men's claims for compensation, there would have been a different tale to tell today. Finally, I ask the Minister to consider the point about amputations and operations being a question for the man himself to decide. That is the position at present under the compensation law, and I see no reason why that position should not be carried into this Bill. I hope that as experience is gained in the operation of the Measure during the next year or two, the Government will be able to come to the House and say that, as a result of this experience, better benefits can be given than are embodied in this Bill.

Were it possible to embarrass the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of National Insurance, he would be embarrassed by the chorus of tributes with which he has been greeted this morning, and I hope it may not be an impertinence if, as a new Member, I add my humble mite of appreciation to the very large wad with which he has been presented. The manner in which the right hon. Gentleman and the Parliamentary Secretary have conducted the Bill has been a vivid illustration of the efficacy of the maxim of the American hotel industry that courtesy pays dividends, for not only has the right hon. Gentleman obtained his Bill with, as he, I am sure, will be the first to admit, nothing but co-operation and help from all parties, but he has also got, and will no doubt take credit for, a very much better Bill than the one with which he started. I welcome among the improvements the provisions as to supplementary schemes which now stand as Clause 82 of the Bill. Several hon. Members, particularly on this side, were very much concerned about one matter in the Bill, as originally drafted, and that was the position of the more highly paid and highly skilled workers who became injured. No matter at what level the ordinary basis of compensation and benefit was fixed, such level could not possibly reach the level at which the highly skilled man getting good wages would not suffer a catastrophic loss of income. I feel that the provisions as to supplementary schemes in the new Clause 82 go a long way towards meeting that apprehension, and for that reason I particularly welcome those provisions.

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will admit that, even with the many improvements which have been incorporated in it, the Bill still leaves a number of loose ends. A great deal still falls to be determined by the regulations which the Minister is empowered to make under the Bill. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that those regulations will receive respectful, but diligent, scrutiny from hon. Members on both sides, and I express the hope that they may be so framed that it will not be necessary for hon. Members to interfere with the Minister's beauty sleep by putting down Prayers for discussion at a late hour. Another loose end, and one which may give rise, as loose ends so often do, to a certain amount of friction, is the one which was referred to a moment ago by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton)— the position, under this Bill, of the common law action by an injured workman against his employer on the basis of injury caused or occasioned by the negligence of the employer. As hon. Members are well aware, there have been, in the last 20 years, even under the old system under which the injured workmen elected whether to go under Workmen's Compensation or common law, a very considerable number of such actions, and many of them have resulted in the injured workmen recovering damages to the tune of some thousands of pounds. I am not certain to what extent under this Bill that common law. right of action is affected, and if it be not affected, how it is co-ordinated with the scheme.

There are two ways of looking at it. There is the way adopted by the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring of saying that where a man is injured by the negligence of his employer, he should be entitled both to his insurance benefits and to such damages as he can get. But there is also the consideration as to whether it is right to burden what is, after all, a contributory fund with the consequences of the personal negligence of an individual employer; and there is the question, to which I do not know the answer, whether the courts, in dealing with such an action for negligence, when they came to assess damages, would bear in mind the fact that in any event the injured workman would be entitled to benefits under this scheme. It is a little unsatisfactory that there should be any room for doubt in this most important matter, a matter which, after all, will be liable to arise so soon after this Bill becomes law.

There is only one other matter to which I wish to refer, and that arises from the observations of the hon. Member for West-houghton (Mr. Rhys Davies), who I regret to say is not present now. Throughout the Committee stage, the hon. Member was very naturally concerned with the relative levels of costs of administration under the various schemes under which benefit has been administered, and will be administered. I understood him to say, subject to correction, that under some of the previously existing schemes, costs of administration, etc., had risen to something in the neighbourhood of 50 per cent. If that was the hon. Member's contention, I would most respectfully point out that that is quite out of date and that the latest figures so far as the mutual insurance associations are concerned is an administrative cost of 11 per cent., which is actually less than that contemplated under the present Bill. Therefore, although that matter is now becoming one perhaps of more historical interest than of practical importance, I thought it proper to put on record that I, at any rate, do not accept the figures which the hon. Member, no doubt perfectly sincerely, gave.

Finally, I would express the hope that this Bill, upon which so much labour and time has been expended, not only by the present House but by our predecessors, may make its contribution to give additional peace and a feeling of security of mind to the much tried and valiant British people.

This is one of those harmonious occasions that lend grace to Parliamentary life. Every one who has spoken has been in a mutually congratulatory mood, and I think the occasion merits it. No one is so enthusiastic or so blind about this matter as not to agree that although this is the right road, it is not the whole of the road. It is quite clear, looking at this Bill, that there are still visions of the old neighbourhood, and even, lying ahead, one can see signs of things in the old legislation which I am perfectly certain the Minister will want to get rid of as soon as he can. I, too, would like to give my meed of congratulation and praise to the Minister relative to the work and success he has had in connection with this Bill. It is perfectly true, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) has said, that he has been ably assisted and seconded by his Parliamentary Secretary, and there is no doubt that all of us who took part in the Standing Committee proceedings can say, with truth and pleasure, that this is a better Bill because of the personalities of the Minister and of his Parliamentary Secretary.

The effect of the Bill is undoubtedly a revolutionary one, in spite of the qualifications that have to be made. It has been said by one of my hon. Friends that it is unique to call upon the workman to make a contribution even in a social insurance scheme. There may be two opinions about that, as there usually are about most things, but I am not at all certain in my own mind that it is not both an equitable and a practical position. First of all, it means that the employer ceases to be responsible for injury resulting from accidents to a man whilst in his employment. I am not quite sure, on perfectly just and logical grounds, that so long as it cannot be shown that the employer himself was not in any way responsible for the injury or the accident which occurred, in equity he ought to be called upon to pay the necessary compensation or damages that result. However, it must be remembered that this Bill does not divest the employer of his responsibility or liability if he himself is negligent and that negligence is the cause of the accident. It is only fair that members of the House and the public outside should realise that it is not a correct statement to make that the employer is being divested of liability; he still remains liable if he himself is, either in the way of negligence in connection with his property or his machinery, or if he contravenes any statutory or other regulation that controls the carrying out of the particular work, responsible for the accident.

One feature of the Bill to which I would like to refer—and I do so with great pleasure from certain experience I have have in connection with these matters as an unfortunate member of the Bar—is the elimination of the insurance companies. 1 think that will achieve more than anything a position of harmony between the worker and the employer that has not been present in the past owing to the friction and the controversy which arose whenever these matters of compensation were in issue, because the insurance companies were behind the employers. That will undoubtedly help to smooth the course of events in industrial life and in the relations between employers and workman, and that, to my mind, is a very considerable gain. Another gain under this Bill is that it gets rid of the "compo" man. When one remembers, as one does from knowledge of the industrial centres of the North and the mining areas, coming across these unfortunate people of the industrial system who became almost part of forgotten humanity, it is some tribute to make to this Bill that it may achieve the most desirable disappearance of these "compo" men.

The Bill will undoutedly abolish litigation. I dare say it might be thought extraordinary that a lawyer should accept, with rejoicing, that particular fact, but there is no doubt that it will be a very great gain to get rid of the complicated legal proceedings which have surrounded questions of compensation and of the obscure and complexing mass of case law that exists in connection with it. It is one of the things which undoubtedly the Bill sets out to achieve. In that sense a new chapter is being written, and the State will see that every man who suffers injury in industry will get his benefit without the test, and very often to him, the terror, of legal proceedings and legal atmosphere.

With regard to the question of alternative remedies, it has been asked, why should a man be able to draw State benefits, such as this particular legislation gives him, and at the same time bring proceedings either for negligence or for loss of expectation of life, and so forth, with regard to those alternative remedies that exist, and also get damages there. One of the elements that we have to keep in mind is, that on no account must a person who has been guilty of negligence get off scot-free or be able to reduce his liability merely because the workman is under a scheme of social insurance. Every reasonable person would agree that that result would be wrong. Whether it can be adjusted, and whether some other system can be achieved, I do not know, but the central point should be borne in mind that the person guilty of negligence ought not to go free merely because compensation is receivable from some other source.

Another point to be borne in mind in connection with the Bill is that it has a wide embrace in regard to people whom it brings into its purview. Its circle is larger than existed under any previous Workmen's Compensation Act. It brings in everyone who is under a contract of service or who is in apprenticeship, and a large range of persons who do not come under that category, such as policemen, taxi-drivers, seamen, and civilian airmen. An aspect of the inclusion of the police was made a subject of criticism by me in the House the other day. I have no doubt that those criticisms will be well considered and that the necessary machinery or legislation will be introduced to make their inclusion completely water-tight.

Self-employed people feel that they have been left out in the cold. I am sure that the Minister has tried hard to see whether it was practicable to include them. They are people such as small builders, village carpenters, hedgers and ditchers. The difficulty was found to be too great. No satisfactory basis could be found on which to bring them into the Bill and they would have to pay an unduly large contribution for a relatively small risk. A serious principle in all social insurance is that all those who come into the scheme should do so with complete pooling of risks. One of the strongest arguments for not bringing them in is the fact that the National Trades and Kindred Organisations Committee, who look after the interests of these people, came to the conclusion that they ought not to press for inclusion.

Another change is the disappearance of the notorious lump sum payments. Those who have done this work are very familiar with that procedure and how it was brought about. It was not a result that the court initiated, but was confined to the parties themselves. It was necessary for the parties to come together in order to bring that result about. All experience showed that the practice was surrounded with pressure, hardships and abuses. It led in many cases to improvidence. No one regrets that it has disappeared. Another very important feature of the Bill is that a person will no longer be robbed of initiative and of the incentive to mitigate the melancholy prospect of living workless, wasted and without a future. Previously, once a man got his compensation no one offered him a job or lifted a finger to help him, or to make it possible for him to restore his capacity for work.

Under the present Bill not only is there provision for rehabilitation and aftercare, but, whatever a man may earn or whatever money he gets, once he receives his disablement pension, belongs to him, and does not in any way affect his pension. It is along those lines that the Bill is such a welcome addition to the social legislation of the country. I should like to have referred to industrial disease, which is another very serious matter, but I have no doubt that the Minister will speak about it. The mechanisation of industry is making a greater and greater levy on human life One is, therefore, pleased to see that the Bill endeavours to make a more human approach to the problem of dealing with the scourge of industrial disease.

1 should like to have dealt with the question of the determination of claims and legal representation, but I have already taken enough time. I conclude by saying that the Bill launches a new era in compensating for industrial injury and that any leader of the working class might be very proud to have introduced the Bill. The Bill gives the present Minister a great opportunity and I am sure he will take it and that the Bill will become an epoch-making piece of the legislation of the Labour Government.

I will attempt to make the points I have in mind in as few words as possible. I appreciate that the main points have already been dealt with by previous speakers and at other sittings, as well as today. I was not on the Committee, and, therefore, I would like to express my opinion. I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary has drawn attention to the fact that the Bill is the result of previous experiences, and consequently I read into his speech an apology for some of the flaws in the Bill.

One of the greatest flaws in the Bill could have been overcome, even at the stage when the Bill came into the hands of the present Government. I believe that the contributing factor is basically wrong and that industry should bear the cost. The costs incurred in respect of workers in industry should be a basic charge upon industry. I agree that there is a change, it may be that many of the main industries will pass into public control. I do not know whether that possibility has been responsible for the abolition of employers' responsibility for workmen's compensation. I know that it would not have been welcomed 18 months or two years ago by hon. Members sitting on these benches. Obviously, it should be a charge upon industry.

The next point I would like to make concerns Clause 61. I understand it is going to be slightly modified, and I would make a plea that in that modification it will be possible for those who will be charged with looking after the interests of the injured person to see the report of the inspector. I should like to say at this stage that workmen's compensation has been something with which I, as a trade union officer, have been concerned for many years, and consequently I am speaking from experience. I hope that the House will accept that as the reason why I mention this point. At the present time when we want a report from the factory inspector it is denied to us, and so we cannot get that report. I think that is wrong because, after all, if a report of an inspector is made, and it is not in the hands of those who are dealing with the case on behalf of the claimant, the claimant is at a disadvantage. I hope that the modified Clause will contain something to cover that.

As far as negligence is concerned, I hope claims at common law will be continued. Obviously, there is a difference between a case based on negligence that goes to common law and the ordinary claim for compensation. We know today that the Workmen's Compensation Acts bring great benefits to the workers, and, in spite of the higgling and haggling which takes place, matters are satisfactorily settled. I must pay my tribute to the manufacturers whom I have had to visit, for if there is a clear accident, there is no great argument—I do not know anything about the mining industry—but in saying that I am speaking for my own industry, which is the boot and shoe trade. When we come to a question of negligence obviously we are in a different position. I do feel that, if the management can be proved to have been negligent and that fact is accepted by law, the person who is injured has a right to expect more than the barest livelihood; he Has a right to expect a livelihood similar to that which he would have enjoyed had he been permitted to carry on with his career. He alone is not affected, but his wife and family are concerned as well, and, consequently, if it can be proved that negligence has prevented him from reaching that standard of life he would have attained in normal circumstances, adequate payment should be made to compensate him for that great loss. I hope that these points will receive due consideration.

I wish to join in congratulating the Minister of National Insurance and the Parliamentary Secretary on getting this Bill to its present stage, and particularly would I like to refer to that tremendously important aspect whereby the issues between insurance companies and workers are diverted from their present relationship to something that is more humane and largely upon the State. I also wish to thank the Minister for his deep understanding and for the intelligence which he has shown in conceding the maximum possible allowance which he can arrange for the unmarried wife. There is one aspect to which I should like to call attention. The Minister has great powers under the regulations, and I should like to think that under those regulations he will protect the natural right of the injured workman to seek the medical or other treatment that he chooses. At the present time, as the Bill stands, the existing freedom in regard to-the selection of a practitioner will be less than obtains at present under the National Health Insurance Act of 1936. Under the regulations of that Act there are within certain limits a right for the insured person to attend his own practitioner and also for a practitioner to be paid. Under this present Bill an injured workman might be able to seek his own form of treatment, but there is no provision for the payment of such treatment. So the injured person is in this position, that if he is sufficiently well to do to pay for the treatment of his choice, he can have it, but if he is not sufficiently well to do, it may well be he cannot have it. So this Bill might very well bear unfairly on the injured workman in that respect and I trust that the Minister will take the matter into consideration.

The final point I wish to make is with regard to the observations of the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) and the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Attewell). Under this Bill, in their opinion, the employer ought to pay all the contributions to support the workman. I am against that opinion. I cannot see that it is fair that a person, merely because he is an employer, should bear the full burden of compensation arising from an accident in industry. The employer may be running an industry that is not paying very well; he might be running a dangerous industry or one where accidents are not very frequent. I am also against the statement made by the hon. Member for Harborough that industry should, in effect, carry the whole of the financial burden of this scheme. Personally, I cannot see why, collectively, employers and workmen should pay the whole of the financial burden for those injured in industry, nor do I see why industry should be the sole bearer, because there are those not engaged in industry at all or in useful occupation who ought to pay more than those engaged in industry. I would say, too, that, morally, the State ought to bear the whole of the burden of such a scheme as this, which is based on the principle of ability to pay.

Another aspect to which I would like to call the attention of the Minister is that it is quite true that, where there is proved negligence against an employer, the employer will be exposed to a claim for damages at common law, and that that employer, if he is proved negligent, will be required to pay considerable damages to the workman. There are many cases where, although negligence has been existing, nevertheless, it has not been quite revealed so that it could be established in law. It is well known, for example, that many individuals are what is called accident-prone. There are many employers, too, who are not only accident-prone, but accident-prone in the conducting of their industries, and they can get away from this burden. Under the existing Act, the employer who is accident-prone has his premium increased proportionately by the insurance company, and, therefore, an employer who is negligent to a moderate degree is, nevertheless, penalised under the present Act, whereas, under this Bill, the employer who is accident-prone but is not proved to be negligent will not have his financial burden increased at all, and, to that extent, there will not be the need for that added incentive on the part of the employer to protect his workers to the utmost limit against accidents.

From that point of view, therefore, there is something to be said for placing some part of the financial burden of the Bill on the employer. To want to place the financial burden of this Bill solely on industry is wrong in principle. To want to place it solely on the employers is again wrong. The ideal way of placing the burden would be through the national Exchequer, based upon the principles of Income Tax, with some leanings towards increased premiums being charged against an employer where it is shown that an unusual number of accidents occur in his works. I wish to express my sincere congratulations to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for the deep and sympathetic understanding they have shown throughout the different stages in the passage of this Bill.

1 will not detain the House very long, but I Would add my own to the congratulations of other hon. Members to the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary for the way they have carried out their responsibilities in piloting this Bill through the House. I wish to refer to what strikes me as an anomaly in this Bill. In Clause 31 (3), there is a reference to a local authority paying a sum of money to a person becoming a beneficiary under the Act during a period of waiting, and it is provided that a local authority will be financially reimbursed for carrying out that service. This practice has hitherto obtained in similar services, but under paragraph (b) there is a reference to a recipient going to the workhouse. I rather regret that phrase being used in the Bill, and I should have thought that the Minister would have been the last person to use it, because it has been dropped in some places in South Wales, and, in Aberdare, they refer to the workhouse as "'Windsor Castle."

In any case, when a recipient enters the institution, he will not receive any benefit, and, presumably, the local authority, the public assistance authority, will have to bear the burden. I think that is unfair to the local authority, and I certainly think it is unfair to a man or woman who has gone into the institution. It has been the practice for public assistance authorities who have been making advances to old-age pensioners to return a sum of Is. or Is. 6d. to the inmate, so that these people might have some sense of independence, although in the institution, and could purchase those things they required. If this Bill is allowed to go through as it is, or some provision is not made by regulation, it would appear that the person who enters the institution and has hitherto received this benefit will be deprived of that opportunity. I think the local authorities should, first of all, be considered and should be reimbursed in some way, and, further, that an opportunity should be given to them to pass on to the inmate something in the shape of pocket money.

Perhaps I may be permitted to add to the compliments which have been extended from both sides of the House to the Minister and his lieutenant, in connection with their responsibilities for this Bill. May I also say that I am perfectly certain that we have also been helped a great deal on this side of the House, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake), who has shown unfailing courtesy in carrying out his responsibilities on behalf of the Opposition? I am sure I can say that, while the right hon. Gentleman may no' always be able to command agreement from this side of the House, he will always command our attention and respect.

The Minister will not be surprised, if I express some disappointment in not finding in the Bill a provision that some of us would like to see. We thought he might have found it possible to agree to the very strong representations that were made to him on behalf of the health workers in this country in relation to the exposure to the risk of tuberculosis of the health workers, particularly nurses. It is somewhat gratifying to know that they will have, under this Bill, the right to make a claim on the ground of having contracted such a disease, but, of course, I know it will be very difficult indeed to establish such a claim since such diseases are not being scheduled under this Bill. It is hoped by some of us that, when the committee is appointed to review the existing schedule of industrial diseases, it may be found possible, on the evidence submitted, to bring such diseases within the scope of the schedule and thus put at rest the present agitation that such diseases, to which we consider health workers are subject in the course of their employment, should be covered.

I should like to add my praise for this Bill, and my congratulations to the Minister on the fact that he has seen his way to include in it the share fishermen. The great majority of fishermen are already covered, and I am grateful to the Minister for having brought in the share fishermen under this Bill. Having once taken them under his wing, I hope that, in future, he will not ignore their claims in connection with another Bill.

May I begin by expressing my sincere gratitude and thanks to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mr. Peake) and to Members on all sides of the House for the kind things they have said about myself and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I am sure they will not mind if I include my Parliamentary Private Secretary as well. We had a most interesting, sometimes exciting, at all times helpful, time on Standing Committee A, and it has been a pleasure today to hear voices with which I have become familiar. On the first day in Standing Committee A, I tried to estimate the composition of the Committee. It may be some guide to the House, as it was a very good one. There were 17 lawyers and 17 coalminers on the Committee. The lawyers brought their learning, and the miners brought their experience. The combination of the two is responsible for the improvements that were made in the Bill in Standing Committee. I would like to express to my opposite number my gratitude for the helpful way he has approached this matter. When we have differed we have done so without unpleasantness to one another or to either side.

A number of points have been raised, and I wish, first, to refer to the very important one raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds. He referred to the fact that there was a well informed, highly critical leading article in "The Times" on this problem which deserved every attention, the question that in these schemes it has been found impossible—I do not think anybody would have found it possible—to secure that there shall be equal benefits under the whole of our social insurance schemes. I have had the privilege for seven months of working, first, on this Bill and then on the other Bill which has received its Second Reading, and will shortly go to a Standing Committee. I have often felt that it would be an advantage in some ways if one could begin with a blank sheet, if one were beginning to write the social code of legislation in this country. We are not doing that. As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, there is a background, a history, to all this. All our new legislation is replacing existing legislation, and we have to remember that the men and women of this country will judge it very largely by a comparison between the benefits of the new and the old. This is particularly true of the Industrial Injuries Bill. We have been asked "what are we doing in this Bill to cover something that is provided under the old Measure? "

There is a very wide and substantial gap between the benefits provided under the Bill before us today and those proposed in the National Insurance Bill, which is now before the House. At some time in the future—I hope the not too distant future—it may be possible to bring into being a unified social insurance scheme. The measures we are taking pave the way for that, for while we had a system by which the population was divided into a section which was covered by State insurance schemes, and a section which was outside, it was difficult to co-ordinate them. It may, in ten years or less, be possible to unify the schemes. It is clear that when that is done it will be effected by a departure from the contributory principle and an acceptance of the principle of this obligation being covered by the State from State funds. Meantime, it was clear that since this Bill was one to replace the existing Workmen's Compensation Act, the scales of benefit had to be higher than we could possibly make them under the National Insurance Bill in view of their effect on contributions. Hon. Members will be fully seized of the facts that benefit scales under the National Insurance Bill require heavy contributions, and also that if there is to be equalisation, it will have to be upwards and not downwards. It will be appreciated that that is a problem for the future.

Let me say a word about the important, very vexed and highly controversial problem of alternative remedies. That matter is still receiving the consideration of the Committee appointed by my right hon. Friend the Lord President when he was Home Secretary and presided over by Sir Walter Monckton. That Committee is still continuing its consideration, and it would obviously, be wrong for me to say a word before I receive its report. When it is received the Government will give it immediate and urgent consideration. We realise how important it is. Meanwhile, I can only say that the Monckton Committee is proceeding as rapidly as possible with the considerataion of the problem, which is a difficult one. I hope to receive their report in the not too distant future.

There have been references to the fact that under this scheme we are departing, in many ways fundamentally, from the old code. The consequence of that departure is that for the first time in the history of workmen's compensation in our own country, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) said—and, speaking from memory, I think he is right—for the first time in any country in the world, provision for industrial insurance is being placed on a contributory basis. Under our existing scheme it has been the responsibility of employers. Is that departure justified and worth while? I do not want to enter into a long argument, but I do not accept the view that the worker has never previously paid. 1 am a coalminer, and since 1921 I know that indirectly 85 per cent. of the cost of compensation has been borne by the workers. One of the incidental affects of this Bill will be to reduce enormously the burden of workmen's compensation upon the mining industry. In my own part of the country that burden has reached an appalling figure, represented in tonnage by 3s. 6d. or 4s. a ton on the coal, for compensation alone, and 85 per cent. of that goes in the queer, curious ascertainment of the earnings in the coalmining industry.

What do we gain? If the employers are to be solely responsible for the payment of workmen's compensation, they will also claim to be solely responsible for its administration. Under the new scheme each workman pays 4d. a week, and for that 4d., in addition to the cash benefits, which are. substantially improved, the whole of his treatment is taken out of the hands of the employers and the insurance companies, and out of industrial strife. I would say to my constituents that it is well worth the 4d. they will pay, and it will be worth much more in the years to come. That principle having been accepted, it can be said that what we gain ii full compensation for the fact that we have had to accept the principle of having to contribute towards it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Blyton) raised the question of successive accidents. This is one of the many headaches we have encountered in seeking to translate into this new scheme, which is a revolutionary departure from the old, all the provisions, either in the existing Act or which arise from all the judge-made case law which has been built up over the years. This question of successive accidents is one of them. After the first accident, when a workman receives partial compensation and returns to work, and meets with a second accident, in some cases—not all, for the case law is uncertain—the man is entitled to receive compensation. But whereas the workman would receive partial compensation based upon half the difference between his earnings at light employment and his earnings before the first accident, the second compensation he would receive would be based upon his earnings at light employment. Therefore, the whole thing becomes entangled with the earnings rule. It is very difficult to introduce into a scheme like ours a principle of that kind which provides a flat rate benefit for the period of the injury benefit—six months— and then provides for an assessment of the injury based upon loss of faculty, and an award of payment which has no relation to earnings.

At the same time, 1 appreciate that something must be done about this question of successive accidents, and the provision which attracts me most is a combination of both. I propose, therefore, since these schemes will be worked together and co-ordinated, where there is a second accident, to give the workman in that case an option of receiving either the injury benefit of 45s. or his pension, plus the sickness rate provided in the new Bill. That is rather complicated, and I do not wish to go into too many complications now, but it seems to me that in that way we can meet fairly the position of the second and subsequent accidents if they occur, without departing from what is a principle in this scheme, which is, that 100 per cent. disablement, whether it is a consequence of one or more accidents, is assessed at a uniform figure.

1 apologise for interrupting my right hon. Friend, but would he explain what that would mean in actual monetary value, assuming that a man had 10s. a week compensation for his first accident?

The position is this. The sickness benefit in the new scheme is 26s. and provision for a wife and children is the same in the two schemes. In the case where the man has 10s., the addition of 26s. sickness benefit would make 36s. He could, therefore, have his pension, plus sickness benefit, or the benefit of 45s., which ever is the greater. The bigger the pension, the greater would be the amount he received. The system provides benefits which increase in accordance with the gravity of the injuries the man has sustained, as assessed by the tribunal for the purpose of compensation. After a good deal of consideration of what is a very difficult problem indeed, that is the best solution that I and my advisers have been able to find.

There have been several references to-day to the question of industrial diseases. My hon. Friend the Member for Stour-bridge (Mr. Moyle) raised the question. It is a difficult question, but I know it is an important one. It has been urgently pressed upon me—and I know how urgent it is—and my hon. Friend expressed disappointment because I have not so far included in the Bill itself a provision for the payment of compensation to nurses who contract tuberculosis at their work. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, we do not in this Bill specify a list of industrial diseases, nor do we specify the workmen who are entitled to claim subject to certain conditions. That is left to be done under regulations as provided in Clause 54 and the succeeding Clauses. With regard to the nurses' claim, the Clause in which industrial disease is defined is sufficiently wide, that, if the evidence that I can get is sufficiently strong, to schedule tuberculosis contracted by health workers. The question is one of evidence.

Here 1 would like to say a general word. In the past the task, first of all, of the Home Office—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds had some experience of it there—and now of my Ministry, of scheduling industrial diseases has been easier than it will be in the future. Miners' nystagmus, for example, is fairly easily recognisable by accepted medical standards. There are other industrial diseases of that kind. We are now reaching the stage where it is not so easy to draw the line between the disease which is constitutional or which arises from natural causes, and the disease which arises from industrial causes. That is becoming extremely difficult because of mechanisation. We have a good deal of discussion in the House these days about the need for modernising, re-equipping and mechanising our industries. I agree that that has to be done, but I have to look at the other side of the ques- tion. Mechanisation and modernisation, with all their consequences, including the consequences of speeding up, are going to bring a new range of problems and industrial diseases. One of these days we shall have to consider seriously a group of neurotic diseases which will arise. That is bound to come. Therefore, we are entering a field in which it will be difficult for a Minister or his medical advisers to be able to say: "Here is a disease which many people have from natural or constitutional causes, but here it arises from industry." For those reasons I felt it was desirable to assist myself, the House and the country by having this problem considered afresh.

I propose, therefore, to set up a Committee of persons, both medical and lay, who can examine this problem, and I hope they will find it possible to establish and recommend—unanimously, I hope—some criterion, perhaps a new criterion, which will help the Minister to decide where the dividing line should be in these difficult cases. At the moment there are two of these difficult cases which I am considering. There is the claim put on behalf of the nurses; there is the other claim for Reynaud''s Disease which has suddenly come into prominence. It is claimed in one factory that there have been scores of cases of this disease due to the effect of vibratory tools on the hand. I think the Clauses we have in the Bill are sufficiently wide to enable me to bring in the nurses and the other cases, if I am satisfied about the evidence. At the same time, it is essential for the future to have a fresh examination of this problem, and I hope that a new criterion will be found which will be helpful to us.

There have been references to the question of the administration of this scheme. I appreciate that in this scheme and in many others, administration will be the key to success or failure. I am confident that it is right to take workmen's compensation out of industry. I am certain that nothing but good can come from that. I am a coalminer, though it is along time since I first had the misfortune to have an accident. I was very lucky. I spent 17 years in the pit; I have a few marks, but they are very trivial. I can remember my first compensation payment, and I can remember going to the colliery office. The very idea that an injured workman—I was a boy then—had to go to the colliery office and associate with the manager and the boss, and be examined by a' doctor who was the employers' doctor, has been one of the most important elements in creating the tragic strife in the coalmining, industry for which the country is paying very dearly in these days. I believe in taking it away from the industry and from the employers, and making a social service of it and creating a new chapter. That is going to be worth the£5 million which the Exchequer will pay towards it. The taxpayers will pay£5 million towards this scheme and the contributors will pay the balance. That£5 million will be repaid one hundredfold to the State in the improvement of industrial relations in consequence of taking workmen's compensation out of the industrial field. I hope 1 have covered most of the points raised in the course of the discussion this morning.

I do not think the Minister has referred to the right of the injured workman to preserve his freedom of choice of practitioner.

I am sure my hon. Friend does not expect me to make a pronouncement on that. In the not too distant future the House will be considering proposals for a new health service. That question, of course, will be much more relevant then. At the moment I cannot say anything about that. My hon. Friend must await the production of the new scheme by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health. The matter, obviously, will be dealt with in a general way and not in a particular way as confined to this Bill.

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who made an admirable statement in opening the Debate today, and who has been such a fine and loyal colleague to work with, referred to the fact that this Bill is estimated to cost in benefits—and all estimates are bound to be rather conjectural, for we have an entirely new system of assessment of benefits, and there is therefore an element of conjecture about it—in the region of£30 million. That is as far as we can estimate with the aid of our advisers and the Actuary. I hope the country will realise what that means—£ 30 million. This country cannot afford to go on suffer- ing an appalling waste of manpower. The number of preventable accidents is still far too high. I am certain that the number of industrial diseases which can be prevented is far too high.

If Members will look at HANSARD today they will see I have made a written reply to an hon. Member with regard to the number of cases certified disabled by pneumoconiosis and silicosis last year. In South Wales alone the number in one year exceeds 5,000. I look upon this not merely as a scheme to pay benefits, but as something imposing an obligation to conduct a search into the incidence of disease, into the prevention of accidents, and an obligation to rehabilitate men and give them a new life. If I go home to-night to my village, I shall find there is a little pool of "compo" men. I know perfectly well those men can be, ought to be, and, speaking for myself, will be rehabilitated to new work and new life. They have been there for five, 10, 15 and 20 years and the country has lost their services. So far we have only used their services to produce munitions. We must use their services in future to produce things needed for this country. Perhaps one of the greatest things now is that, in future, it will be the responsibility of the Minister, of the Government, of the House and of the country to see to it that these men not only receive payment during the time they are incapacitated, but receive the best of medical services and skill, the best kind of rehabilitation, and that they are fitted into a new life. That will be the true advantage of this Bill to the nation. I am sure the House will give the Bill its Third Reading. Perhaps I might be permitted to say, as an ex-miner, that it is for me indeed a proud moment to see this Bill pass.

The subject which I wish to raise for discussion is that of traffic through the Welsh ports. So far as I know this is the first opportunity we have had in this Parliament of discussing Welsh affairs. We hope that, before long, we shall have a Welsh day to consider Welsh affairs generally. The Government have now had an opportunity of formulating their policy, and the time has come for considering that policy in relation to the different parts of the country. The Welsh Members of Parliament are particularly concerned about the position in Wales. We are fortunate in having a Government formed from a Party which is particularly sensitive to the problems which are causing so much concern and even anguish in Wales—problems of unemployment and economic chaos.

I know that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of War Transport has been most sympathetic in dealing with this problem of traffic through the Welsh ports. He has received hon. Members with the greatest willingness, and I am sure he welcomes the opportunity of having this problem ventilated here. What is the problem? The problem arises in this way. Before the war, there was heavy bulk traffic through the Welsh ports, particularly coal exports. That traffic was declining rapidly over a period of years before the war. During the war, there developed in the Welsh ports a considerable general cargo trade. That general cargo trade has now practically come to an end. The position is that, in the Welsh ports, traffic is dwindling away to nothing, and the great question is: What are the Government going to do about it?

I will give some figures to illustrate the position. Dealing first with the coal export position, taking the principal South Wales ports, in 1929, 30 million tons were exported; in 1938, 19 million tons; in 1945, 5 million tons. In other words, there has been a very heavy decline in the years between the two wars. That decline was rapidly accentuated during the war. With regard to the general cargo position, the figures are in 1938, 592,000 tons; in 1944, 3½ million tons. That is a very rapid war increase.

Now that the war is over, what is the position? In Barry there is practically no general cargo trade at all. The position in Cardiff is that there is only a small quantity booked. The position in the ports is reflected by the employment figures, and I refer merely to the employment figures of the registered port transport workers. Those figures are comparatively small because they do not take into account the vast number of ancillary workers who are linked up with transport through the port. In Cardiff in the autumn there were 1,700 registered transport workers. They have now dropped to 1,424. The numbers not engaged at present are 315, and I understand that 150 are to be dismissed this week. In Barry, out of 308 on the register, 81 only are employed, 227 being unemployed. The totals for the six South Wales ports are: 3,364 on the register, 2,137 employed and 1,227 unemployed. This is not merely a transport workers' problem, but all the ancillary trades and occupations go with it. Take the position with regard to chartering. There is great concern in South Wales that chartering is becoming more and more centralised in London, and I hope that when the Minister considers this problem, in due course he will bear in mind the important question of ensuring that ship broking is not confined, or is not too much concentrated, in London, but is decentralised to other parts of the country, including South Wales. The ship repairing position is good, but that is due of course to the transition from war to peace, and to the amount of repairs that have to be done in the immediate future. The immediate prospects for ship repairing in the South Wales ports is a comparatively happy one.

The significance of this position, however, is that the unemployment figures represent not just frictional unemployment. Unemployment is settling down in the South Wales ports as a permanent feature, and that is the disconcerting part of this problem. There is, of course, unemployment in the hinterland of South Wales generally, and I know my hon. Friends are very much concerned about it, but I would emphasise that the great concern in the South Wales ports is the permanent loss of trade and the consequent permanent unemployment.

May I refer to the facilities in those ports? I will not labour the question of the ability of those ports to deal with heavy bulk cargoes. They are world famous, of course, for their coal and heavy bulk cargo export trade. What is not sufficiently appreciated is their capacity for dealing with general cargoes, because that is a development that has come about through the war, very largely on account of Government action. May I mention one or two of the factors. A very important consideration is that roads have now been built right up to the quay-sides, so that they are not limited merely to railway traffic; there are ample transit sheds and warehouses; cranes for dealing with general cargoes have been provided on a great scale. A 10,000-ton general cargo liner can be dealt with as rapidly in Cardiff as it can in the great general cargo ports, and it can be dealt with more quickly in Cardiff than it can in Liverpool when there are more than 20 ships in Liverpool. Barry has handled more of the transport returned to the United States after the war than any other port in the country, and is now asking, quite naturally, why it cannot continue to deal as efficiently in peace time with this traffic as it has done during the war. There is at Cardiff a cold store which, I believe, is about the best in the country, with a capacity of a million cubic feet and 10,000 tons. The facilities are there, the personnel and skilled labour are there, the management is there—the only thing which is lacking is the shipping.

Before going on to the policy of the Government in dealing with this problem, may I refer to the question of freights, which is a very sore point with South Wales. I am very glad to see, almost in the House, a director of the Great Western Railway. Quite apart from Government action, Wales feels it is being unfairly dealt with in competition with other ports in the matter of freight and dock charges. In the case of London and Liverpool there are arrangements by which dock charges are dealt with, by rebates and so on, in such a way that they are borne by the railway companies. In Barry, Cardiff, Swansea and the Great Western ports along South Wales, those charges are additional to the ordinary freight rates. The result is that one of the leading forwarding agencies has recently advised its clients that on account of the dock charges Bristol Channel ports should be avoided. That is unfair competition. I hope that the Great Western Railway will do something about it.

There is also the question of the freight charges on the railway itself for transporting the goods from the factory to the docks. I know that freight rates are an exceedingly complicated matter, but I hope that this will be fully investigated. I have not examined the position in detail myself, but I am assured that it is cheaper to send goods from the Midlands a long distance to English ports than to send them a shorter distance to Welsh ports. If that is so, it is a scandalous state of affairs, and I hope the Minister, and the Directors of the Great Western Railway who sit on the Benches opposite, will do what they can to see that the position is rectified. It is not the fault of the local officials of the Great Western Railway, who have been most helpful, considerate and enthusiastic in trying to get the Welsh ports developed. It is of course a fantastic position if, when the Government are trying to develop South Wales and are putting energy and money into developing the Welsh valleys and preventing them from becoming a devastated area again, private enterprise is driving trade away from the ports.

There is one part of Government policy in connection with which some injustice, I think, has been done to the Minister of War Transport, and that is the closing down of the Diversion Room. I think that in fairness to him the position should be explained in this Debate. There was a great deal of publicity in South Wales and considerable consternation when the Diversion Room was shut down. It was thought that the shutting down of that room meant that there would be no traffic coming to the Welsh ports, and that the shutting down of that room was a deliberate act of Government policy. As I understand it—I may be wrong in this, and if I am the Minister will doubtless correct me—the Diversion Room was merely an instrument for carrying out the directions of the other Government Departments, including, in particular, the Service Departments, in time of war, for directing ships to the most convenient port, having regard to the varying conditions and the emergencies of war. When the war ended and war conditions subsided, the orders to this room from other Government Departments and, in particular, the Service Departments became less and less; the room was less used, and, naturally and quite properly, the room, having ceased to serve its purpose, was closed down.

But that leaves the question of substance untouched. It may not be a just complaint to say that the closing down of the Diversion Room was an act of deliberate policy. The charge may be wrong that the Government there did something prejudicial to the South Wales ports. But it leaves untouched the question whether they ought not to do something that would encourage the South Wales ports and Welsh ports generally. What is the Government plan? The Government are decontrolling shipping. The decontrol of shipping is coming into operation in its completion next month. I am not advocating that there should be control of shipping. That is not in issue. There may be good reasons for controlling shipping or for not controlling shipping. That is a separate subject which does not really affect the issue in this Debate. But the question of allocation to ports can be preserved without preserving complete control of shipping, and what I suggest to the Minister is that some measure of allocation of shipping to ports should be preserved. It will be a ridiculous position if we have development in the Welsh valleys, while the Welsh ports are perishing, if we are to have the devastated area moved from the valleys to the ports. The allocation of shipping is as necessary as the location of industry.

The Government are committed, in principle, to a planned economy. I understand chat the principles of the Scott Report, for instance, on de-urbanisation are principles by which the Labour Party, as a Party, stand. The Government are to nationalise the railways, including the docks; and all the South Wales docks are owned by the Great Western Railway. They are committed to a policy of full employment, and are committed to developing the development areas. All these considerations affect the position of the Welsh ports, and the Minister cannot just wash his hands of the Welsh ports—and keep them clean! The Government must deal with this problem. Either we are to have a development area or a devastated area in the Welsh ports. There is no other possibility.

What is the Government plan? Have the Government a plan? What is that plan? Consider, for instance, coal exports, which have played such a big part in the Welsh export trade. What are the chances of recovering the coal export trade? There is no immediate prospect of that, but I personally do not despair of it, and it is good to see that as a result of Government policy there has been a substantial increase in the production in the Welsh mines during the last month. The ports cannot be considered apart from their hinterland. Is it the policy of the Government to put into operation the Scott Report or to adopt any action on the lines of the Scott Report? If the Government are in favour of de-urbanising the urban conglomerations it is ridiculous to talk of de-urbanising London, for instance, if some part of London's port traffic is not given to other parts of the country which the Government are anxious to develop.

Has the planning of ports a place in the Government's plan of the general economy of the country? We suggest that food and other goods should be landed at ports as near as possible to the places where they are consumed. It seems to us to be commonsense that that should be so. Within 80 miles of Cardiff, there is a population of some 8,500,000. Canadian apples, for instance, go to Liverpool and are sent down to South Wales by rail to be consumed there when they could be sent to Welsh ports. In 1932, 73 per cent. of the beef of the country was sent to London, although a con- siderable portion of that beef was consumed in South Wales, and in the very ports themselves, and in the places next to the ports. What is to happen about the cold store in Cardiff? Are the Government going to cave in to this pressure for shutting down the cold store? Is the cold store to be used as an asset in the development of the port of Cardiff, and of the trade of South Wales generally? What proportion of the industries which the Board of Trade is encouraging in South Wales, consists of export industries? Is the placing of those industries planned with due regard, not only to the requirements of the localities in which they are to be placed, but also with regard to the trade of South Wales generally, and of the Welsh ports in particular?

Is any effort being made to open up the Midlands to Welsh port traffic? The Severn waterway provides the best water connection from the coast to the Midlands. Craft of 300 tons can go up as far as Worcester, within 27 miles of Birmingham, and with very little alteration they could go as far as Stourbridge. Is anything being done to develop that waterway? At present, the traffic coming down the Severn is only 10 per cent. of the traffic going up. It would be an economical matter to have a more even distribution by developing the general cargo trade from the Midlands through the Welsh ports.

A number of questions have been put to the Minister and a good deal of pressure brought to bear on him, but may I in fairness acknowledge the most encouraging reply which he gave yesterday to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bed-wellty (Sir C. Edwards)? We are exceedingly grateful and very much appreciate the stand which he has taken on this question of the Severn Bridge which will play such a big part in the development of South Wales. May I read one extract from the first interim report of the Welsh Reconstruction Advisory Council on this matter? I think that the full significance of this will be fully appreciated by all those who will follow this Debate with considerable keenness. The Report states:

" The construction of a Severn road bridge would be the greatest single contribution to the improvement of transport facilities in South Wales. We regard the provision of the bridge as so essential to the industrial future of that part of the Principality that we subordinate to it all other questions of the development of communications in that area."

I hope that in the interests of Welsh development, the Minister will continue to press that this scheme should be given the highest priority possible.

I recognise that a good many of these points can only be dealt with as part of a long-term policy. But the Government must have in mind a long-term policy before they can draw up a short-term policy, because their short-term policy must be connected with the long-term policy, and must obviously be influenced by it. The Government are going to nationalise the railways. It is clearly the commonsense thing to ensure that, when the time comes for taking over the Welsh railway ports, these ports will not be just derelict structures. What employment do the Government envisage for these ports in the future? What scheme has the Government in mind for keeping employment in these ports in the meantime? What is to be done—this is just one phase of the problem—about any unemployed that may not be required in the immediate future? I trust that there will be some scheme for keeping this very valuable labour force in the docks of South Wales in operation—they should not, for instance, be turned on to the roads to break stones.

Of course, all these problems are not problems only of the Minister of War Transport. I realise that very well. Not only is the Minister of War Transport involved, but many other Ministers as well—the President of the Board of Trade, the Minister of Fuel and Power, the Minister of Food, the Minister of Labour, and so on. I fully recognise the difficulty of getting co-ordinated planning and co-ordinated action through a multitude of Government Departments. What Government machinery is there for dealing with. this problem as a whole? That is an important matter, and one which concerns not only this particular problem but Welsh problems generally. Wales feels, and feels strongly, as a result of past bitter experience, that its problems are pigeon-holed in Whitehall in different Government Departments—often in the bottom pigeon-holes—and that Welsh problems are never regarded as a whole, from the point of view of Wales. You cannot just cut up a country into bits and deal with it section-ally. There is more to it than that. It has to be dealt with as a whole. That is the explanation behind the drive going on in Wales, and the deep concern felt there, by members of every Party in favour of having a Secretary of State for Wales.

We are dealing now with the Minister of War Transport, and this problem of the traffic of Welsh ports. I hope that the Minister, who has been most sympathetic in dealing with this problem, will give us, as fully as he can, answers to the specific questions which we have put to him, tell us what the Government plan is, and give us such assurance as he can that this problem is being dealt with sympathetically and boldly.

I am sure that hon. Members representing Welsh seats, in all parts of the House, are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having raised this matter which is of vital importance to the Principality. The situation in regard to the future of the Welsh. ports is causing grave anxiety, which is intensified by the bitter memories of what happened between the two wars. These ports, from Cardiff, Swansea, Mil-ford to Holyhead, have played a very important part in the war. They were used extensively during the Battle of the Atlantic, when the ports of the South and East coasts of this country were so vulnerable to enemy attack, and could only be used in a very limited degree. The hon. Gentleman has given some very striking facts about the traffic that passed through these ports in that great emergency. It seems to us necessary to maintain these ports—and if you are going to maintain them up to modern standards of efficiency it means they have to be in constant use, and they must never be allowed to relapse into the conditions which the hon. Member has described—it seems to us that to maintain these ports is as vital a matter of national defence as to maintain an efficient standing Army, Air Force and Navy. In fact, these are the strategic bases of this country, and they must form a vital part of any strategic plan of the Government for national defence

The hon. Member has spoken of the closing down of the Diversion Room and of the policy of the Government in that regard. He has reminded us that the control of shipping is to end very shortly— I think sometime next month. What are the Government going to do then? Are they going to follow that up, or are they going to wash their hands of the whole thing? The ports will virtually be still under the control of the Minister. The railways are to be nationalised. Cardiff and Swansea—I am not sure about Mil-ford—but certainly Cardiff and Swansea are owned by the G.W.'R.

Holyhead is owned by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. Therefore, it becomes a matter of very great importance what the right hon. Gentleman intends to do in the interim period. Has he any short-term policy to cover the period until the railways are nationalised? Will it be to his advantage or the Government's as the hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry (Mr. Ungoed-Thomas) said, to take over what will virtually be liabilities when the railways have been nationalised?

South Wales is a Development Area, and we are told it is to receive special assistance because of that. We have-seen very little practical assistance up to date. We are told that special facilities are to be given to encourage industries to go to South Wales. But here we have ports which have made a great contribution to the prosperity of South Wales in the past, which are an integral part of that prosperity, and which have provided employment for thousands of men. Is anything to be done for those ports? They are a vital part of the whole problem. If it is necessary to have location of industries, it is equally necessary to have allocation of shipping. We hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter from that point of view. These problems really are urgent and pressing. They cannot wait until the Government have nationalised the railways. At the present time, there are, in South Wales, 68,000 people unemployed. The problem is already forming. We can almost see the shadow of that earlier depression coming over South Wales again, and over many other parts of Wales as well. The young men and women are leaving Wales already by their hundreds. Many of them will be lost to us forever. We cannot afford to lose them. They are the most virile of our race. Yet the same old tragic migration is beginning all over again. This is not a question of expressing fears about the future. The thing is actually happening today. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will have some message of hope for those areas. This problem affects not only South Wales, but also certain parts of North Wales. I would like particularly to mention the problem of Holyhead, a problem which I think is well known to the Minister. Holyhead is dependent in the main upon its port and upon the cross-channel traffic with Eire. Like the other greater seaports, this little port played a historic part in the war in that great chain of harbours down the West coast. Before the war, Holyhead was a distressed area, if ever there was one. Unemployment in the town rose, at its peak, to something like 40 per cent. of the insured population. In fact, unemployment was higher in Holyhead at times than it was in areas within what are now called Development Areas. The main industry of the town was depressed, and it had no prospects for the future. Is it to go back to that state of affairs? What assistance is it to receive from the Government? Is there any plan to cover areas of this kind?

Before the war—and this is a point on which I would like to have some reply from the Minister—there were three ships used in the Holyhead cross-channel service carrying mails, passengers and trade between this country and Eire. One of those ships was sunk at Dunkirk. Is that ship to be replaced? Will the right hon. Gentleman give a licence? More than that—because one can have a licence and wait a very long time before anything else happens—is priority to be given for the provision of that ship? It is vital that we should have it so as to enable us to take full advantage of what we hope will be a revival of the peace-time trade with Eire. This is a very important matter which affects not only Wales, but other parts of the country. A small expert committee appointed by the Minister of Agriculture for Eire reported only a few days ago, and its report has a bearing on this matter. In one of their recommendations, the majority of the committee say that the future of agriculture in Eire must depend upon the international economic environment in which Eire finds herself, but most of all upon the receptivity of the British market for Eire's products. That statement is true, and it is a very important consideration in view of the food shortage in the world. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise the urgent need for providing facilities to receive that trade in this country. Holyhead is one of the vital ports affected. Holyhead is admirably fitted for ocean-going traffic, for medium-sized freighters. It has been used as a repair depot during the war. It has a very well equipped marine engineering department. All these considerations have been put before the Minister. Representations have been made to him on many occasions. I would like to hear from him today whether, as a result of those representations, he has any statement to make, and can tell us what policy he intends to pursue.

The hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry spoke of the multitude of Government Departments which will obviously be involved in all these problems that have been put before the House this afternoon. The hon. Member asked what Government machinery there is to meet our problems. The answer, quite frankly, is that there is no Government machinery. That is one of the things from which we are suffering most in Wales to-day. I do not believe there will be any solution for the traffic problem, the shipping problem, the unemployment problem, or anything else in Wales, until that central problem is settled. We are in a very unfortunate position. We have to go from one Ministry to another. Ministers are very sympathetic towards our problems, they are most anxious to help, they are very solicitous for our future, they schedule us, and then they pass us on to another Department. So we have to go cap in hand from one door to another in Whitehall. We think that is not good enough. With unemployment rising in Wales, with industries promised to us but not coming to us, we believe that there is only one central solution, and that is that we should have someone in the Government at high Ministerial level, who is responsible for Wales and its future.

It was the good fortune of the hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry (Mr. Ungoed-Thomas) to have the opportunity of bringing this matter before the House this afternoon, and it is very appropriate that the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) should have taken part in the discussion. I hope this will afford the Minister ample evidence, if he needs it, that this matter is one of very great concern to the whole of Wales. I ought to make it perfectly clear that it is not a question of a separatist movement of any kind. We do not ask that Wales should be cut apart from England and given anything in the nature of a favoured nation clause. We are, in fact, taking the advice which has been given to us over and over again by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, that we should make every effort to fit the economy of Wales into the economy of Britain as a whole. He has urged us, on more than one occasion, to recognise that our interests and the interests of other parts of Britain are mutual. We recognise that, and it is because we feel that up to now the Government have not recognised it, that we are drawing attention to this very grave problem this afternoon.

The hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry, in introducing the subject, put the case without emphasising the claims of any particular port. He expressed a point of view which is subscribed to, I believe, by every Welsh Member, and one which I hope will meet with equal acceptance from hon. Members representing other parts of the country. I hope that no one will feel that we are taking too pessimistic or an unduly alarmist view of the matter. Some figures have already been quoted, and I would like to add a few more. In reply to a Question. in the House recently, it was stated that, on 14th January of this year, no fewer than 46,236 people were unemployed in the County of Glamorgan alone. An analysis of the figures gives the positions of the ports. In Cardiff there were 2,491, in Newport 1,433, in Barry 481, in Port Talbot 1,339, and in Swansea 5,226. Can anyone deny the seriousness of the position, and the legitimacy of our claim for immediate attention? Only a few weeks ago the House passed a Bill which had as its object the decasualisation of dock labour. Unless something is done very quickly, we shall decapitate rather than decasualise dock labour in South Wales, with very serious results for the rest of the country.

I wish to suggest certain interim measures. First, I urge the Minister to restore the Diversion Room, or some other body exercising its functions. I ask also that Port Emergency Committees be brought into being again, and that they shall be properly representative of all the interests of the individual ports. I know from my experience during the war that Port Emergency Committees served a very useful purpose. Those committees consisted of representatives of the workers, the port authorities, and the Government, and I think those in authority will testify that the committees helped very much in facilitating the movement of traffic on land and on sea during the great emergency. All we are asking is that the South Wales ports shall be allowed to participate in the general cargo import and export trades of the country and that proper use be made of the excellent facilities and labour available in the area.

I am rather puzzled by the fact that direction of some kind is still being exercised, presumably by the Minister of War Transport, although here I speak subject to correction. I gather that ships are diverted to Wales to start with, and that then somebody else decides that they shall go where it is more convenient, without regard for the welfare of the people in the separate ports. On five days in January dock labourers were transferred from one port to another. The men cannot understand why they, instead of the shipping, are diverted from port to port. On one occasion in January, 202 men were transferred from Barry to another port, and on another day 154 men were taken from Barry. The dockers resent having to live this gipsy-like life, without there being any need for it. I was very interested to observe that the Minister of War Transport and the Minister of Labour have been good enough to send their Parliamentary Private Secretaries to Swansea and South Wales on fact-finding commissions. I am grateful for that, because I am certain that when the Parliamentary Private Secretaries report to their Ministers, the facts that have been presented by the hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry and the Noble Lady the Member for Anglesey will be fully confirmed.

I sincerely hope it is not thought for one moment that road-making is an acceptable substitute to the dock workers of South Wales. All of us played our part during the years of the war. I remember having more than one sleepless night. One occasion in particular comes back to my memory now. There was a very violent thunderstorm, and I knew that in certain ports between Cardiff and Swansea there were cargoes of a highly explosive and inflammable character. The docks were crammed full, and if anything untoward had occurred during that storm, some of the towns would have been blown to smithereens or burnt in a terrible fire. The dock workers knew what was in the docks, they knew how the harbours were stored at that time, and yet they went to work day in and day out. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor told us on more than one occasion that he was grateful to the dockers of South Wales for giving the best shipping turnover in the country.

We have the nearest port to the Continent, we have highly equipped and modernised docks, with skilled workmen waiting to work, but being told that it is not convenient to send ships to those ports, and that for that reason the men may be transferred to road-making. I want to be fair to the Minister of War Transport. Almost immediately after he had assumed office, he came to Swansea. I have a feeling that the responsibility is not entirely his. We are emphasising this matter this afternoon in the hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take it to the Cabinet, and make clear to his colleagues that the people of Wales are not content to accept this position, and that we will press the matter on the Floor of the House and take all possible steps with a view to restoring industry to the ports and bringing about a proper balance as between the inland towns and the ports. As has already been suggested, it is useless having trading estates and new factories if we are transferring the problem from those places to the ports themselves, so we ask the Minister of War Transport to have another look at this problem and to convey, if necessary, to his Cabinet colleagues the feelings of the people of Wales on this matter.

I am not suggesting that the Diversion Room shall be a permanent feature. I am not suggesting anything of a permanent nature, but I am asking that interim steps shall be taken to enable us to bridge this period between war production and peace production. The people of Wales are willing to work; they are independent of spirit and of mind, they are prepared to "go to it" in time of peace as they were in time of war, and all we are asking for is a reasonable opportunity. We feel ourselves that the case is a clear-cut one, that it does not present any great difficulties and, if there is a will to do it it can be done, and we are waiting for it to be done.

One final word. The people of South Wales have great faith in the Government of today; in fact, if they had had their own way, the present Government would have been in power long ago. They are waiting with great expectation, and all we ask is that the Government will not wait too long, that this interim arrangement which I have suggested will be brought about, and that the difficult transition period will find our people remaining and working in Wales. When our export trade is recovered, when these new factories and trading estates are functioning properly, we shall be able to play our part in the economy of Britain as a whole and contribute to the prosperity of Great Britain as we have for very many years past. I hope, therefore that the Minister will be able to encourage us this afternoon.

I join with the hon. Members who have already paid tribute to the hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry (Mr. Ungoed-Thomas) for raising this afternoon the very important question of trade in the Welsh ports. The House, and even that lone and solitary figure on the Opposition Front Bench who shows the interest of the Conservative Party in what is happening to Wales today, should note that there is a strong unity so far as North and South are concerned. I would like to add to what the hon. Member for West Swansea (Mr. P. Morris) said, that it was fitting that the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) should have spoken today. My hon. Friend the Member for Llandaff and Barry suggested that it would be possible for shipping to be allocated from other areas. I notice in a newspaper today that more and more ships are steaming into London docks, and I will read to the House what the journalist in question says:

" London's docks, hub of the world's shipping, are today crammed with the greatest number of ships— 120—since the day the war began."

He speaks of

" ship after ship lining the quays, big ships, little ships, all manner of ships, gaily painted in their peace-time colours."

Then he says:

" More are yet to come, and within the six more days of this month another 40 will have arrived from all corners of the globe, coming to London with passengers, food and cargoes of every kind."

I believe it is a sign of a lack of that vigour which we expect from the Government if they allow London once again to be top-heavy, and for the rest of the country to suffer. I believe it is in the national interest for shipping to be spread out all over the country. I remember that when I made my maiden speech in this House I pointed out that whilst the economic needs of Wales were the same as those of England—we need food, shelter, work for our people—none the less we recognise that we are in a very special position. The unity which has found expression in the Debate today has been forged in adversity for Wales. We have been through the dark waters together, and now we say to the Government that we would like to see some separate machinery under a Secretary of State— if hon. Members do not like the name, he can be given another, as long as we get him—in order that we should have somebody to whom to turn in our troubles, industrial and economic.

The great ports in the South have been in the past great export centres. They built up their world renown, in the main, upon the distribution of coal to the four corners of the world. Today that position no longer holds good, and I would disagree here with my hon. Friend the Member for Llandaff and Barry when he suggested that perhaps they can look to great days for the export of coal again. If they can, it will not be for a very long time, and therefore it becomes a matter of the first importance for the ports of Wales, North and South, that we shall look for other means of work for our people. This, I believe, can be done in two ways; first, we can have new industries; and second, we can exploit those industries which are already in our island country.

I would utter a word of warning to the Minister, namely, that he need not persuade himself that dolls' eyes factories, and such stupid little industries, will meet the needs of South Wales. I believe the Minister showed by his visit to the Principality, made very early in his period of office, that he is himself aware that Wales needs heavy industry, and that industry can be placed there because there is skilled manpower available. But in the Midlands we have that great centre of industry today, and if only we had signs of actual work for improving the communications between South Wales and the Midlands, it would give us greater hope. I believe that if we could have shorter communications between the Midlands and South Wales, we would have no problem about our ports. In the world of commerce people do not deal with the niceties of human feelings, I know; it is£ s. d. which counts. Much£ s. d. can be saved, even in the world of commerce it we can have these shortened communications 1 believe that the Minister shorn ' be aware that in the great ports of South Wales the facilities are there to deal with general cargo, to deal with the imports as well as exports, and I am led to assume, after the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey, that the same facilities are available in Holy-head.

During the war, South Wales distinguished itself once again for the part it played in dealing with the port trade of the country. We want to say to the Government that South Wales, having proved its ability in importing and distributing soft goods, fresh fruit and so on, to the country, should not be neglected. South Wales will not be neglected, because her people, like the Northern people, have had a dose of the misery of unemployment in other days. I am confident that the Government's long-term plans will meet the position. I believe that that policy will provide full employment throughout the whole of our island country. I ask the Minister once again, in connection with his short-term policy, to look at the question of new industries and the application in respect of shipping.

It is perhaps somewhat bold of a mere Sassenach to intervene in a rather closed Welsh Debate, but I do so with the justification that the hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry (Mr. Ungoed-Thomas) raised a point of very great principle which applies to the whole country. On the Dock Workers Decasualisation Bill I made a few remarks but I must have made them very badly because the Minister entirely ignored them. As one who has had some 20 years' experience of large-scale industrial planning, I must say that it does not make sense to me to plan the labour in the docks and leave material unplanned. We can plan labour sensibly only if at the same time we plan plant and materials. If I understood the hon. Member. aright who opened the Debate, he made that point very much better than I could have made it when I spoke on the Decasualisation Bill.

What is the good of planning labour supply or the intake of labour into the docks, if we do not at the same time plan ship arrivals, which must be done nationally, and if we do not plan port facilities, which must also be done on a national basis, and if we do not plan factories and services in the hinterland of the ports? It does not make sense to me to plan labour and ignore those other factors. No expert in large-scale, long distance planning would dream of doing such a thing because it just does not make sense.

I wish I could have seen some sign so far of large-scale national planning to take care of this matter. It is a subject of great regret to me that, in this respect, we do not see a cloud on the horizon yet, even the size of a man's hand, that would indicate that plans are even in the period of incubation. I hope that when the Minister replies he will be able to assure us not only on the point touching the Welsh ports from the national point of view but that there is a national plan indeed, or at least being planned, that will take care of these very important points of co-ordinating labour, plant and materials.

I welcome the opportunity which my hon. Friend the Member for Llandaff and Barry (Mr Ungoed-Thomas) has afforded the House today, to discuss this problem in public. It has occupied my attention continuously, though not exclusively, since I took over this Department and I feel that it is only one of many similar problems which will confront me from time to time in this transitional period. Therefore, everything is to be gained and nothing to be lost by examining these matters in a frank and reasonable way on the Floor of the House. Hon. Members will appreciate that I cannot follow readily the range and width of their discussions, because that would take me into departmental responsibilities which are not my own. Neither am I qualified or authorised this afternoon to review the whole policy of His Majesty's Government and to fit in the various stages of its development. I want to make it plain that I do not desire to shirk my own measure of responsibility. I would not wish to avoid the fact that there is undoubtedly organic connection among many of the matters that have been raised today. I am not dismissing them as irrelevant or unconnected, and if some questions or problems which have been raised do not get dealt with specifically by me, it is because they obviously fall within the responsibility of the President of the Board of Trade. However interesting it may be I could not possibly follow, for example, the hon. Lady into the constitutional issue with which she endeavoured to support her arguments.

I do accept responsibility for the ports of South Wales. It is the policy of the Government in relation to South Wales and the general responsibility for transport facilities connected with those ports. I do not in any way wish to minimise the gravity of the problems, but my hon. Friends are making a mistake if they over emphasise it. I do not feel that in this matter of trade and employment, where so many factors are outside the control of any political administration, we serve the purpose we have in mind if we unduly exaggerate the gravity of any problem. Trade, employment, transit of goods and the place where goods are to be marketed, are fairly sensitive factors. If we create an idea in any particular part of the country that any group of ports is more or less neglected, or is labouring under difficulties which are much greater than those of some other ports, we do not develop the right atmosphere for the elements that we are trying to influence. I do not feel that I have put that idea into the best language. I have examined the figures, however, and I realise the seriousness of the problem, but it is not calamitous in the sense which some hon. Members have been inclined to suggest today.

First let me deal with the broad chain of events that has affected this group of ports and harbours. No one has denied the fact that, before the war, this group of South Wales ports rested their prosperity mainly on the export of one commodity—coal. For a long period because of that circumstance they were content that their trade, prosperity and employment should be largely determined by that export. It was a natural situation. The whole trade, employment, commerce and life of the area rested upon one commodity factor. If we take the last prewar year of traffic from these ports we find that of the total trade, the export of coal constituted for Swansea, 68.6 per cent., Port Talbot, 74.9 per cent., Barry, 91.5 per cent., Cardiff, 76.1 per cent., Newport, 85.4 per cent. and Penarth, 88.4 per cent., a total for the whole six ports of 79.74 per cent. Their imports were not of a considerable character, but even the imports were obviously influenced by that overriding factor of coal exports.

The problem that was developing, not as a result of any weakness in the administration of the Ministry of War Transport or its shipping policy, was obscured through the war, owing to the compulsory diversion of shipping due purely and directly to enemy action. That traffic was diverted for a variety of reasons and quite consciously to our Western ports. In war time conditions nobody pretends that a national policy of that character rests upon normal economic conditions and considerations. I have been very gratified to observe that none of my hon. Friends, who have taken part in this Debate this afternoon, have attempted to advance that point of view, because nothing would be more calamitous in my view than to begin to establish in this House a rivalry or antagonism between port and port, and have it fought out on the basis of political pressure. I should desire at this stage to make my own position perfectly clear. I desire very sincerely to make every contribution that I can to the prosperity of the South Wales ports, but under no circumstances would I allow myself to be influenced to agreeing to what I considered to be an uneconomic or unbusinesslike proposition as a direct result of political pressure. I feel it desirable to make that position plain.

The problem was further obscured because at the end of the war it became necessary to move largely from these ports the traffic in connection with the depar- ture of American troops. I want to take this opportunity of acknowledging, as my predecessor did, the very fine contribution to the national effort which this group of ports gave in a time of difficulty during the war, and I consider that, in other aspects of national life, it behoves the Government to do all in their power to see that, after the war, the consequences are not more severe than can possibly be helped. The closing down of the Diversion Room I regret to say must remain. It was purely an instrument of war policy, and whatever methods we may adopt now to deal with problems of this character as they arise, we must face the fact that we cannot maintain insruments of policy that are peculiar to war in our peacetime economy, for they are not the right instruments. I was satisfied that the war Diversion Room type of organisation was not satisfactory to solve these problems. It does not follow from that that you have no machinery at your disposal to see that there is a rational and successful handling of the port traffic of this country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Mr. G. Thomas) drew attention to a Press statement which dealt with the crowded condition of the Port of London. I want to emphasise at this stage that, if we take all the ports of this country, we have by no means got back to our peace-time trade yet. Therefore, to talk about overcrowdng or congested conditions in any British port at the present moment would not lead to a solution of this problem. We have to increase very considerably all the traffic in our ports before we can become concerned with the over-crowded condition of any of them. Only recently, with regard to the Mersey I had to sanction an increase in traffic charges there, because the port is not able to handle the amount of traffic necessary to carry its normal charges under peacetime conditions. The capacity of different ports varies very much indeed, and what might represent crowded conditions in one port does not necessarily mean crowded conditions in another.

I want to say I appreciate very much the case as presented by the hon. Member for Llandaff and Barry. I think he referred to the general problem of what is the short-term and a long-term policy of the Government. With regard to the long- term policy of the Government—although I am not always clear as to the length of period hon. Members have in mind when they discuss h" short-term" or "long-term policy"—I prefer to look at the problem with which we have to grapple. With regard to the ports of this country, which number over 300 and are very diverse in character, I see no short-term or long-term policy, but I see one sensible policy to which we should address our minds as rapidly as possible, and that is the need for the co-ordination of the whole of the docks, harbours and waterways system of this country. Every investigation has proved the necessity of that, and it would be my desire to carry out that policy as rapidly as possible. Until you have the ports and harbours of this country co-ordinated, it is exceedingly difficult, without exercising political pressure of a very dangerous character, to begin to influence cargoes or ships from one port to another. Under the scheme which the Government has made plain, we hope to carry out that plan for the docks and harbours in the interests of the co-ordination that I have indicated.

With regard to the promotion of traffic from the South Wales ports, my hon. Friend knows that that was one of the first areas I visited. That was not accidental. I was aware of the fact that, for some periods, though I would not venture to suggest for how long, we should not be able to export from that group of ports the coal turnover or tonnage upon which their prosperity depends. I had a fairly reasonable idea of the policy for which I might have to be responsible in this House, and I was also aware of the fact that not only should I be departmentally responsible for all the ports but that this was a group of railway ports whose communications were not altogether disconnected with my visit. I thought therefore it would be desirable to get to the problem at once. In visiting the South Wales ports, I was under no illusion that, in a few weeks or by one visit, I should solve the problem. I was anxious to become acquainted with the problem, and I can assure my hon. Friend that, from the date of that visit, I have given constant attention to that problem, for the purpose of seeing what contribution I can make.

It is quite wrong to state that road-making is no solution. It may be. I am satisfied, as I have studied the course of economic development in this country, that it is not altogether an accident that our greatest industrial developments have been more or less connected with our best roads and transport facilities. I do not think that it is an unconnected factor, that, because of transport facilities, this group of ports has been limited more or less to its railways, and those railways, owing to the Severn Tunnel, are not up to the standard of the best railway facilities throughout the country generally. I rather hold the view that it would be difficult to develop the general cargo trade from these Welsh ports, other than coal, unless the transport facilities are much improved. Therefore, when I approached the problem of the roads, of the Severn Bridge and motor road development, I did not approach it from the angle that it was a substitute for port development, or that I was looking to it as a solution for the problem of labour that might be temporarily displaced in the ports. If it served the purpose of easing any difficulty for some individuals, well and good, but the policy was not influenced by that consideration.

I fail to see how a general cargo trade can be influenced to the Welsh ports, unless they are linked up to the largest manufacturing and producing area close to those ports. It is true that the President of the Board of Trade and I are working closely together in an examination of this problem of how rapidly new industries can be attracted to that area, and, again, I would say to the hon. Member for Central Cardiff that it does not matter whether it is heavy or light industry. I do not think we shall solve it at this stage by unduly minimising the importance of any type of industry that can be brought to an area.

Hon. Members have been urging that the Government should avoid making London top heavy. I hope everyone shares that view. I certainly share it, although I represent a London constituency. We realise that it is not to the best interest of any country to allow an ever-increasing proportion of the population to be attracted to one spot. But I would emphasise that a great commercial and economic pull arises because of the variety of industries and interests that represent broad-based commerce in its most attractive form. Therefore, the President of the Board of Trade and myself and other Ministers are giving close attention to the attraction of economic and industrial activity to that area for the purpose of providing that foundation of well-balanced trade and the opportunity of employment and wages and interests which will develop the type of community in which, eventually, commercial prosperity will be bound to arise on a long-term basis. It is upon the organic connection of great ports like Liverpool, Hull and London with the broad-based type of industry that prosperity has always, permanently and ultimately, rested, and, in opening up these ports to what I trust will eventually be the best coal facilities in this country, I am approaching this matter not only from the point of view of a development area, but also as a good commercial business proposition, in view of the capital to be expended there and the need to provide facilities for industry as well.

We may, under an artificial theory and by a system of licensing, influence trade for a period, but we cannot build permanent prosperity in a particular area for generations in that way, and that is what I want. We cannot do it unless we have proper transport facilities, because transport is the life-blood of all industry today. I hope, in the next year or two, by the development of the road transport system—the road from Swansea to Port Talbot, Cardiff, Newport and across the Severn, and ultimately, by a fast motor road through to the Midlands—to make the whole of that group of ports as accessible as Liverpool and London. After all, it must depend on the enterprise, initiative and drive of the business people locally. All the Government can do is to provide equal facilities on the basis of equity and wise national expenditure. The Government can never supply the initiative and organising capacity that are required on the part of traders generally.

I do not pretend that my reply has indicated that I am able to come down here and provide trade for ships next week in these ports. Instead of holding out any particular indication of immediate work, I propose to go on with the policy that I have followed hitherto, of getting together the material that enables one to shape a policy, and, secondly, of being prepared to have continuous consultations both with the Members who represent those port areas in the House of Commons, and with bodies that are able to come and discuss practical plans which I can examine test, and if necessary, put into operation.

rose—

1 take it the hon. Lady is rather concerned that I should answer the point she put to me about the three vessels at Holyhead. I was hoping that she would be content, with the rest of the hon. Members, with my general statement. To deal with her point, one vessel is already operating at Holyhead and another is being reconverted and should again be in commission in a month or two. With regard to the third, which was lost at Dunkirk, she is quite correct. A third vessel will have to be built, but in view of the pressure on our shipyards I have to take into consideration the importance of one type of vessel as against another. I undertake to look into the question of the third vessel, and if it can be facilitated I give her my word that I will do my best.

Could the Minister say something about freight and dock charges, and also about the cold store at Cardiff? Could he say further whether there is available at the present time any method of inducing shipping to go to particular ports in the same way as there is of inducing industry to go to particular areas?

The cold store is largely a matter for the Minister of Food. So far as I am concerned it has already been gone into, but I am prepared at any time to examine that matter with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food. As regards freights, and charges and railway rates, I have looked exhaustively into this problem and am satisfied that, in the main, that matter must await the nationalisation of road and rail transport. It is so complex a matter that it must be dealt with in a special manner. That would not prevent any examination of any particular rates or freights from any port, or on any railway system, taken by itself, but I could not undertake to have involved in that a general revision of the rates and freight structure of this country.

Could the Minister say a word about the third question I put - to him—whether there is any method available for inducing shipping to go to ports in the same way as there is for inducing industry to go to particular areas?

1 would not say that the Government are without power in that direction, but the application of that policy, particularly if it developed to any extent, would be a complete reversal of the policy which has been followed since the end of the war of trying to get shipping and our commerce back to normal conditions, and then reshaping policy to deal with this new set of conditions.

1 am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye this afternoon. The subject I wish to raise is not a new one, and even if the present Government do not know the whole sad story of the defence areas, I am sure that you, Sir, having heard Debates on this subject both in the last Parliament and this one, probably know all that hon. Members representing constituencies in the defence areas will say. Our problems are so complex that they affect many different Ministries. They affect among others the Ministry of Health, and 1 am extremely glad to see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Heal here. I understand he is to reply to us. But our problems are not only the concern of the Ministry of Health.

The Treasury is very largely concerned, and I should like to protest that no representative of the Treasury is on the Government Front Bench this afternoon. This is a big enough case for either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to be in his place. Thirdly, the Service Departments are concerned—the War Office, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry—in cases of requisitioning. In the course of my argument I.hope to refer to one or two matters in which the Minister of Labour is vitally concerned. The Board of Trade, the Ministry of Food—regarding the supply of unrationed foodstuffs to these areas —and the Minister of Works also have their responsibilities. I was extremely disappointed to hear that the Lord Privy Seal, who has been taking a great interest in our problems—and we admire that interest—is not here. I have heard two rumours, one that he was celebrating the result of a recent by-election, and, secondly, that he was ill. I sincerely hope that he is not ill, and if he is I would like to say how much we regret that he is not able to be here to hear our case this afternoon, and answer it, in view of the special interest he has taken in our problems. In the last Parliament, Lord Jowitt,, then Sir William Jowitt, was deputed by the Government to carry out an investigation of the defence areas. I cannot speak too highly of the way he carried out that investigation. He took an immense amount of trouble to visit a great many constituencies, and he went into the whole problem in detail. Unfortunately, a calamity then overcame the country. There was a change of Government, and Sir William Jowitt was elevated to another place, and no longer has the responsibility of being a sort of godfather to us and looking after our problems.

For the benefit of the new Government it is only right that for a few moments I should repeat what I have previously said in the last Parliament—a little about the history of the case of the defence areas. After the fall of Dunkirk a stretch of coast line on the South and South-East coasts of England became extremely vulnerable. It looked as though the Germans would invade that part of England at any moment. In consequence of that, the Government, quite rightly, in my opinion, said, "We must get out the women and children and those who can go so that we can turn this strip of coast line into a defence area," not for the benefit of Eastbourne, Hastings, Brighton, Clacton and places on the South and South-East coasts, but for the benefit of the whole of England. In consequence, constituencies, towns and villages round the coast were evacuated to the extent of a 60 to 80 per cent. reduction of their population. In addition to that, there was a ban on visitors. No visitors were allowed to go into those areas without a special permit, and the areas in consequence became desolate and derelict. I wish to emphasise this fact because hon. Members seem to forget about it. It was not for our own benefit that this happened; this economic distress and devastation of our areas occurred for the benefit of the more prosperous areas of England. In those days we had more than our fair share of enemy action. Dover was shelled, and I believe Eastbourne was the most consistently bombed town in the whole of England. People do not realise that, but it is so, and it can be checked up. I see the Parliamentary Secretary looking surprised, but in fact we had raid after raid—not a large number of machines, but, night after night, two, three, four or half a dozen enemy aircraft came over in tip-and-run raids, dropping their bombs on Eastbourne and flying out to sea again. We had our quota of damage by the enemy.

But I am not now worrying about that so much because the damage done in that respect is covered by the war damage scheme. What I am concerned about is the economic distress which was occasioned in those areas by the evacuation, with houses left unoccupied and hotels closed down. In fact, the whole business of the town was closed down and no visitors were allowed. I do not believe people who have not been to those areas really understand what those areas have suffered. I think when people listen on the wireless to Albert Sandier playing on Sunday nights from the Grand Hotel, they still visualise Albert Sandier at the Grand Hotel at Eastbourne. They do not know that the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, is in the most shocking condition, because it has been occupied by, I think, the Civil Affairs Department for years, and anybody who has visited buildings occupied by any of the Service Departments knows what state they are in when they are left.

I began to mention a few of the difficulties which now confront us. We have made this case so many times that we are getting tired. We feel that the Government ought now to take the bull by the horns and do something about it. In the first place, the derequisitioning of the hotels and boarding houses is far too slow. We wanted the hotels and boarding houses derequisitioned at the earliest possible moment so that they could really get going next summer. I ask the hon. Gentleman who is going to reply to realise that this is not a small matter. The case that we are presenting affects 51 local authorities. It affects the area from Scarborough to the Isle of Wight—a very large strip of England—and I suggest that as it is in the national interest, something should be done to help these areas. Holiday accommodation is hopelessly inadequate. We have got war-weary workers, we have great schemes for holidays with pay, and yet we have nowhere for the people to go and enjoy themselves. Secondly, we have to consider the attraction of visitors from overseas. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman saw the "Daily Express" this morning. If so, he will have seen the cartoon by Strube of two overseas visitors looking at a hoarding bearing this sort of advertisement: "Restville"— obviously a hotel or a small boarding house—" Visitors are expected to do the shopping, cooking, beds and the washing up." There is also the "Seaweed Hotel" with a big notice saying "Derequisitioned next month. Call later."

That is optimistic.

It is optimistic. Apart from the benefit to the war-weary workers and other people who need and deserve holidays, there is another point I wish to put. We have to restore the means of livelihood to those people who lost it for the benefit of England. I do not wish to be too long, because I know that on both sides of the House there are hon. Members who wish to speak in support of this case. The next question is that of labour, materials and equipment. It is no good derequisitioning premises if the Government do not produce the labour to repair and staff them, and the materials and the equipment so that they can get going and produce an income for their owners I am not talking about the big luxury hotels—I wish the Minister of Labour were here today—but about the little boarding houses and small hotels where the Parliamentary Secretary and I go when we go away for a holiday.

I wish to say a few words about the supply of unrationed foods. I have a letter from the town clerk of Eastbourne. There have been very many complaints about the shortage of unrationed foods in our area. I do not think the Government appreciate that now these areas are gradually—so gradually because we have had no assistance whatsoever—getting back to normal, the population is beginning to go back. I do not believe the Ministry of Food appreciate our troubles at all. The town clerk of Eastbourne says:

" The chief difficulty lies in the fact that the Ministry of Food do not adjust our population figures quickly enough. They persist in saying that on the 18th January, 1946, the population was 45,895 people. In fact, on 4th January "—

that is, a fortnight earlier—

" it was 47,345, and on the 1st February 47,993."

I' would like the hon. Gentleman to come down to Eastbourne. I would put him up for the weekend and he could go round shopping with my wife, and see if he could buy unrationed foods in Eastbourne. He would not be able to do so, because of the shortage caused by the increase in the population which is still increasing every day.

There is another point I would like to make concerning the Ministry of Food. The town clerk goes on to say:

" With regard to the first allocation of bananas, someone made an unfortunate slip."

[Laughter.] That may be amusing, but the town clerk continues:

" There should have been a pound of bananas for each child under 18. Unfortunately, they allocated bananas to Eastbourne on 1944 figures when Eastbourne was still an evacuation area Whether the mistake was made by the Ministry of Food or the trade I cannot say. The result of that mistake was that Eastbourne only received 45 per cent. of the bananas that we should have had."

Bananas may not sound very important, but I am certain the same principle applies to liver, kidneys and all the unrationed things which some people are able to get but which the housewives of Eastbourne so badly want and of which they do not get their fair share.

I now come to the suggestions which I would like the Government to consider. We want more than consideration; we want speed of action. This matter has been considered long enough. We want real action. We want the financial assistance to our local authorities to be continued, to prevent any undue increase in the rates. It is no good the Parliamentary Secretary quoting places like Merthyr Tydfil and saying their rates are higher than ours, because one must also take into consideration the assessment.

The House must realise that in my constituency unless this financial assistance is continued for two or three years to enable us to get on our feet again the rates are going to rise out of all proportion. With regard to the£150 loan, it is hopeless and everybody knows it is hopeless. Very few people have applied for it. I see the Financial Secretary to the Treasury standing at the door. I hope he will come and take his seat so that he may hear our case. I see he is off again now. That only shows with what complete levity the Government are treating our case. They orght to be here in force to listen to us. They ought to realise these towns are assets to England and not liabilities, and should not be liabilities. We feel that the£150 should be increased per individual to at least£1,000. The hon. Member sitting on the Front Bench opposite has had great experience in these matters. I ask the hon. Member to try to decorate one room on£150, and see how much the distemper and the paint costs; see how much it takes to renew the curtains and carpets that have been moth-eaten and worn out during the war, then he will realise that£150 is hopeless. We must have that loan raised. After all, it is only a loan. The local authorities have agreed to repay, to stand surety for the repayment of the loan to the central Government. Why should not the central Government be prepared to increase that£150 to£1,000 if the local authorities feel they are able to lend it with impunity?

We must have a continuance of compensation paid by the Service Departments for the requisitioned property, until the owner is able to get back and get it into such a state of repair that he can start earning money. It is no good de-requisitioning property and not giving any help at all to get it put right. The owner may be left with that property on his hands and be unable to take in any visitors for months. All that time he will have no income coming in. Therefore I feel there should be a continuance of the compensation paid until the hotel or the boarding house is put into a complete state I of repair to enable him to take in visitors again. In addition to that, we have got to have the labour, both to get the I places in order and to staff the hotels.

The last matter I want to mention is the question of the co-ordination of our problems. We do not want to keep running round to the Ministry of Health, the Treasury, the Ministry of Food and the Service Departments, always greeted with the same answer, "It does not only affect us; it affects so many Government Departments." We want to be able to deal with one Minister and one Minister only, a Minister who really understands and is willing to treat our case sympathetically. We want to be able to go to him and say, "These are our problems. Can you call a meeting of representatives of the various Government Departments concerned to discuss our problems, so that we do not have to spend hours, weeks and months going round the various Government Departments." Let us have a Minister put in charge of our rehabilitation problem. I do urge the Government to treat this matter seriously. We have been going on too long, year after year, trying to make this case and we have had nothing in return, nothing. The Government have done nothing. I hope that now this new, heaven-sent Government— [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."]— as they think—are going to do something about it so that this strip of England that did its work so loyally and nobly during the war shall be compensated and put back on its feet again.

I was hoping I should be able to say that 1 supported to the very fullest extent everything the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. C. S. Taylor) had said, but I am afraid that at the very beginning I must disagree with him on one point. He regarded the change of Government as a calamity, but we on this side of the House must regard it as a blessing.

Wait and see.

Another point was his special pleading in regard to the stresses that Eastbourne has suffered. Each time I have had the privilege of addressing the House I have had to do some special pleading for my own constituency, and I have to do so again today. I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Eastbourne has said about this distressing problem. It is an acute problem. It is one that is not recognised by people in this country. It is not recognised by the authorities, or if it is recognised, the restitution that they are making is so tardy as to be a real distress to the people in these areas.

There are two points 1 want to make, and only two. The Minister of Health made a statement in the House on 6th November with regard to the winding up of the existing scheme and the substitution of a new scheme based on the requirements of the individual authorities. That would act with a great deal of injustice to some authorities, including my own, because hitherto Lowestoft has not been assisted under the old scheme. During the war, by the requisitioning of premises, it has been able to attract a good deal of contributions in lieu of rates. Of course, that has been of great assistance to the local authority. In addition there has been very extensive billeting in the town, and that has brought in very considerable rents. Against that there is the depletion of the industry, the evacuation of the population, the general distress, the cutting off of the whole of the holiday resort programme, the wiping out of the fishing, and a great many of the' other disabilities that towns on that part of the coast have had to suffer.

We feel that when we come to rehabilitation, when we come to make our new scheme and our deferred programme, with the increased cost to local authorities of new legislation and development of certain services, unless we can get some-assistance—although we have not applied for it before—it is going to act very heavily against us. We are anxious to attract our people back. We are anxious to attract light industry, and that was made abundantly clear in the discussion we had in the House with regard to coastal resorts. If we have to have a sudden steeply inclined increase in the rates it will act as a very great deterrent, not only to the normal population to return, but to new light industries coming to the towns. We feel that in any new examination of this problem the fact that we have not hitherto applied for assistance should not debar us from applying when the new scheme is being examined.

There is only one other matter, and that is in regard to the point made by the hon. Member for Eastbourne, namely, the grave burden that is placed on a local authority—and I am talking now from the local authority angle—by the time lag between de-requisitioning and the property coming back into rateable value. Very often that period is very considerable owing to the fact that the property has been damaged by occupation, and also to the difficulty of hiring labour to recondition these houses, hotel premises, small factories and business houses. During that period the town suffered from the loss of rates, and we feel very strongly that we should have assistance over the period between derequisitioning and the time when the property again becomes rateable.

I urge the Minister to regard this problem as one of very great urgency.' It is an acute problem for the people who live in these places. We on the East coast, like our friends in Eastbourne, have suffered consistently during the war. We have also to have regard to the fact that when the holiday season begins we shall be in competition with places—I do not say this in any invidious way—which have not suffered at all, which have built up reserves to develop their entertainment industry, their catering establishments, and so on. We shall have to start practically from zero, and I might say that on the East coast we make very special claims for the holiday attractions we are able to offer, and we do want to get back into working condition again. We cannot do it alone if we are faced with such a high and steep incline in the rate incidence as to be a deterrent to people who wish to come or who wish to develop new industries in those areas.

I welcome the opportunity of continuing the case so ably put by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. C. S. Taylor), but I am very disappointed that the Lord Privy Seal is not in his place. We all hope he is not ill.

May I clear that point up? My right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal is in bed and cannot be moved.

1 am extremely sorry, and I am sure all of us on this side of the House will extend to him our sympathy, and our hopes for his quick recovery.

But I spoke to him only ten minutes ago in the Lobby.

Yes, but he has been taken away. He has had to go to bed because of sciatica something of that kind. I am not telling a fairy story.

We fully accept the explanation. We appreciate that this is a very difficult problem indeed, but we do think there is a need for more co-ordination. At the moment so many Ministers are involved that, unless we achieve some co-ordination, there can be no question that the coastal towns will not be able to give to the community the service which they wish to give, and that does not apply only to the holiday resorts. My constituency consists chiefly of holiday resorts, but there are also constituencies like Dover and others where there are industries which form a vital part of the economic life of this country. I would like to ask the hon. Member who is to reply five or six definite questions, and I hope he will face them and give us a frank answer.

The first one is the very vexed question of labour. In Hell Fire Corner we are down—my figures are not quite up to date—to something like two-thirds of our prewar building force. Will he say what steps His Majesty's Government intend to take in order to increase our building force? Obviously, we need a large increase, in view not only of war damage, but, as my hon. Friend has said, of the somewhat unfortunate damage which takes place when soldiers take possession of private property. Unless we get this increase we most certainly cannot make up our arrears of maintenance. We cannot keep up with the restoration of requisitioned buildings, and for some time we cannot even contemplate the building of new houses. At the moment I do not believe that the local authorities in any of these regions are in a position to make a man-power budget.

Secondly, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be able to answer this, what steps does his Ministry intend to take in order to give us some priority for building materials? Thirdly, what steps are to be taken to give the shops some priority for household goods? I raised this subject with the President of the Board of Trade some months ago, and I did not get a very satisfactory answer. He pointed out that housewives must have priority. We do not in any way seek to have household goods removed from householders in order to furnish hotels; but we do think that these hotels, and particularly the small boarding-house keepers who have lost their all, should be given some priority fairly soon over those household goods and utensils which are just as vital to them as machinery is to a factory.

My fourth point is the very vexed question of rates. I would ask the Treasury to approach this subject on the basis of the 1937 figures and not of 1938 or 1939. The reasons are quite obvious. In 1938 the Munich crisis caused dislocation, and in 1939 there was war. We would ask, him to consider all these problems in the light of the figures for 1937 I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the Government should make a firm decision, and guarantee to keep our rates where they are for three years, so that the local authorities can make out a plan and get on with it. The problem of grants to individual traders has already been touched on. The£150 grant during the war. was understandable, but it is almost an insult now, if you take the case of an ex-Service man who comes home and finds his business smashed. I would ask that it should be put up to£1,000 at once, on the most generous terms.

On both sides of the House, there is a very real feeling that there is a danger in the coming summer months of the Ministry of Food and the Board of Trade not keeping pace with increases in the population in the allocation of foodstuffs and goods In the case of the small town of Hythe the population went up from 2,000 to 7,000, and by some miracle 3,000 visitors got in—nobody knows how, but they did—and there was a very serious shortage. Now that the long distance buses are starting to run, if people come down to the coastal towns, there will definitely be a shortage of every form of foodstuffs and rationed goods unless steps are taken to get ahead of the increase in population which is about to start. I hope that that matter will have the very urgent attention, on a co-ordinated basis, of His Majesty's Government.

We are all anxious that light industries should be established in our various towns, and I will not deal with that, other than to mention it, but I do believe that an economic and industrial review of these defence areas is necessary. Further, I believe that there is a great deal that we shall be able to do for the country if we can get people to come to this country from abroad, not only from America but from Europe. That would have a first-class effect, not only economically, but also in teaching people to come to this country, which they did not do before the war. It will help them to understand our problems, as we must understand theirs. Perhaps at some future date the hon. Gentleman will consult his colleagues and make certain that we are not going to be behind in establishing suitable facilities for light aircraft to land in England with the minimum of red tape. There can be no doubt that these towns have stood in the front line, not for the first time in the history of this country, and they are now in a position of great difficulty. They are like wounded men and if this country does not come to their assistance they will not forget it..

1 rise to endorse wholeheartedly the speeches that have already been made on this problem. We were defence areas, and we must have special consideration. It has been said before, but I would repeat it again, that we were made defence areas in the national interests and our rehabilitation is a nation-wide problem. It cannot be left to us alone. It must be solved by the nation and by the central Government: our defence areas are a national responsibility.

I want to raise two or three points, firstly the quota system, and may I for an example of this take what is, possibly, a non-utility product, but a very essential one, tobacco? I have had conversations with the Tobacconists' Association in my constituency, and I have found that until very recently the tobacco allocation to my constituency was based on a 1939-40 basis which is obviously out of date. That was at a time when we became a defence area, and our people were evacuated and our population fell very heavily. Representations from the local tobacconists were made about this, and as a result the quota was changed. It was then based on the population in the area at the tail end of 1943. That was adding insult to injury, because 1943 was not a better year. The area was still a defence area and we had still a very small population.

But the complaint was not only confined to tobacco. There were other trades and more important trades affected. For example, I wrote fairly recently about the shortage of crockery in my area to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith), who was then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. He wrote back and admitted there was a grave shortage and that we were not getting our full quota. He said he would look into it, and so far as I know he may have done so, but I have not heard anything since then, and we are still short of crockery. I had an Adjournment Debate on 18th December last on the subject of light industries in coastal areas. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke replied to that Debate, and he pointed out that our primary function was to provide holidays for the workers of this country and for people coming from abroad. He said that was our main function. I would not wish now to go into the problem of light industries in coastal areas, desirable though I think it would be. But if the Government wish us to become holiday areas for people who doubtless need holidays, they must help us. Up to date I must honestly say that they have not done so.

Then there is the question of food. We had an influx, in the late part of last summer, into my area—Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs. When visitors come down for food, emergency cards are issued. We had a rush. I must say in all honesty that the amount of emergency ration cards issued was far in excess of the amount of food released to that area by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Food, and the result was that nobody in that area had any unrationed food at all; and in large numbers of cases it was not possible for the inhabitants or even the holders of the cards to get their full amount of rationed food. I would reinforce the plea of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. C. S. Taylor) that the Ministry should look ahead more than it does, and try to make sure that the supplies are there to meet the ration cards that are issued. In London we do not very often see liver or any other kind of offal or unrationed foods, but we see them less often in Margate. I know a person in Margate who has seen liver twice in a year, once in six months. I do not think anybody in London can say that he has seen it as infrequently as that. Now I turn to the Board of Trade. I am sorry indeed not to see the Parliamentary Secretary here this afternoon.

Where is he?

I do not know but, nevertheless, we cannot start up as a seaside resort and give people holidays unless we have the necessary supplies and materials with which to restart our boarding houses—I mean our small boarding houses, not our luxury hotels. One special thing that comes up every time I see my constituents is the supply of sheets for beds. The Board of Trade will not issue priority dockets to boarding houses to start up again. They have not got sheets left. They have been worn out, or possibly bombed in the stores into which they were put during the war. They have not towels and they have not the 101 things that they need in order to attract and serve visitors. If they cannot have priority dockets they must attempt to buy in the open market. The difference between the price of goods bought on priority dockets and the price of goods bought in the open market is large and the prices in the open market are beyond the means of the ordinary boarding house keeper.

Thirdly, there is the labour problem. All our boarding houses and all our hotels have suffered very hardly during the war, as is natural and inevitable. A lot of repairs are necessary. I am by no means sure that we have even all our own labour back in the area. I said this in the Debate on the Adjournment on the light industries for coastal areas, and I repeat it— that there are still people who desire to go back to the Isle of Thanet to work and who are not allowed. They are being employed—usefully, I admit—in areas such as Coventry and London and other areas that have been badly blitzed. I admit the claim of those places. But we need them, and we need them desperately. My postbag every morning includes letters from people who are ordinary labourers who cannot go back to their own part of the world. Surely, at the very least, we can ask that those people should be allowed back as they are needed in our constituencies, which, in most cases, have been bombed and bombed very heavily throughout the war.

I, personally, think that we need more than that. I consider we should have a certain priority. How much priority can only be worked out by the Government, but I consider we should have a certain priority, not only of labour, but of materials; otherwise we cannot do our job. I do not think His Majesty's Government do honestly realise how absolutely vital we are to England—we, the coastal areas and ex-defence areas. We can give—I say it without any swank—a far better holiday to the workers of Britain and to other people than other parts of the country. We can give holidays, and we want to give holidays, if we are helped by the Government. We cannot if they do not help us and if they leave us to our own resources. In conclusion, I will say quite frankly, if they leave us, as every other Government in the past has left us, to solve our own difficulties, we cannot do our duty to England.

May I start by saying I am extremely sorry to hear that the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Privy Seal has been taken ill? I did see him a few minutes ago and he told me he was not feeling well. We are sorry he is not here because, as everybody knows, it is frightfully difficult in these days to get an opportunity on the Adjournment Motion, and there is so much work to be done. We do feel unhappy about our position. That is why I am disappointed. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is going to do all he can to answer us and to encourage us. Since I have been in the House, in the last two years, I have become-more and more depressed, almost to the state of despair, about the prospect of anything being done for our areas in any way different from what is being done for the country as a whole. That is the main burden of my theme. I feel that we have gone through, as several other hon. Members have said, a little more than most other parts of the country. We have not only been bombed—everybody else has been bombed—but we have been evacuated; we have been banned for a long period of time; we have seen V.I's going over us and falling over us. It is true they were meant for London. While they were coming to London I remember getting a letter from a constituent who said that, in view of the fact that the V.I's were definitely meant for London, would I use my influence to see that they were not shot down over Brighton, as they were, unfortunately, occasionally. But we must remember that the people of those coastal areas, which were for long banned areas, were cut off from their relations and got into a "jittery" state.

The women of these South coast areas got into such a state of nerves during the war that it has perhaps made them more jumpy with regard to food problems than is the case in many other parts of the country They are terrified of what is going to happen this summer. They are not ungracious, or unwilling to have people into their areas, but they say that the food situation is bad enough at the moment, and they do not know what is going to happen when the visitors descend upon them. They say that they will not be able to move from their houses and join the shopping queues before everything has been snatched up by the people coming down from London for the day. Can the Parliamentary Secretary give me any encouragement by saying that special arrangements will be made for the regular inhabitants, who own houses in these areas and have lived there throughout the war? I am not happy about the organisation of the Ministry of Food with regard to these areas.

1 am not happy about Tunbridge Wells. There has been a food muddle in the last few days in my own constituency, and I should like the right hon. Gentleman to discuss that matter with the Minister of Food. When I first got into the House the Minister of Labour, the present Foreign Secretary, said that one of his great hopes was that the moment the war was over, and even before the Japanese war was over, the workers of this country would get a short holiday before carrying on again. He felt that a holiday would buck them up and that they would go back to their work feeling fresher and do more. Now both wars are over, and the workers have not yet had their holiday. If they are to have their holiday this summer, it will be a pretty miserable one for them in many parts of the country if they are away from their homes. In my area there will be the sea and the views, and, if the Ministry of Health and the War Office can agree, there may possibly be walking on the Downs, but even that is not certain.

In Hove there is serious discussion of turning "one of the most beautiful squares architecturally in the whole of Europe"—to quote Sir Osbert Sitwell— into a car park. We were hoping that that square would be an attraction to European visitors. This is being done because a great many people will be unable to get into the hotels and will be coming down only for the day. A special beauty spot may be permanently ruined because of a temporary shortage of accommodation

The hotels and boarding houses are in. need of a great many necessities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the days of the Coalition Government, gave the impression that he was afraid to grant us large sums of money, for two reasons. One was that if he did so, he would probably have to make similar grants to other places—a point which none of my hon. Friends admitted because we thought we had a priority—and, secondly because if he granted sums of money it would encourage the purchase of things he did not want purchased. He wanted to keep back the demand for things which we consider are necessities for our hotels and lodging houses. We are told that we have to have this appalling austerity to develop the export market which is essential to this country. If we bring tourists to Britain the money is the equivalent of an export. If we attract them our own people also can use the hotels. Therefore we will have less austerity and still have exports. We are told that we ought to have an export of coal of something like£40 million, yet the value of our tourist trade to this country from abroad is£30 million in normal times, only£10million short of the maximum export market of coal which is not likely to be achieved for a very long time. Something like 1,000,000 foreigners who have previously been in this country want to return to it because of their friendship for it, and bring their relatives and friends.

The United States published a statement in the last few weeks that they could send enough people from America to tour Europe to bring an equivalent of£300 million to Europe as a whole, and they consider that about£100 mil- lion of that sum would go to this country. Surely, when we are about to make an agreement with the United States for a loan on which we shall have to pay something like£37 million by way of capital and interest, each year, it would be worth while if we could get the Americans to come here and balance out that£37 million. Yet the other day, when I brought up this question in the financial Debate, whether there could be some taxation and rating relief for hotels and boarding houses, I was told, "No, this is a very. secondary industry and nothing like as important from the point of view of exports as the big basic industries. When we can regard this industry as essential we will consider it in relation to the whole of industry and trade." Now not in a vague future is the time when we are trying to put the hotels back on their feet, and when the owners are wondering what they can afford to spend on them.

Why cannot something be done now to relieve the hotels, when it would bring millions of money into the country from people from abroad and make it possible for thousands to go on holiday themselves?. If we read the newspapers, we see that everything is being done by Cook's, and all the other organisations, to arrange for people to go abroad during this coming summer. Before the war, the average number of people who left this country on holiday was 1,000,000 a year. I do not say that everyone who goes away will be taking£1oo with them, but they can legally, and supposing they did, that would mean£100 million going out of this country during the coming summer. I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that more than 1,000,000 people will want to get away for a change of air if they cannot go to the south coast and other places near London.

We have been told, in another place, that 1947, 1948 and 1949 are the target years for bringing people into this country. Do not let us be too late. I have just come back from the South and South West of France, where I have been discussing these matters with the hotel associations and the mayors of the different towns. Take the Riviera. It has been, in many ways, in the same position as the South coast of this country. It has been a banned area, a taken-over area, and, finally, a shelled area when we landed there. It is true that a few houses are still as they were after being shelled, but all the main centres and casinos have been replanned and rebuilt. The Americans have been there during the last six months, making the place their rest camp. They are now going, which means that the Riviera will be left in a difficult position. They are, therefore, determined to attract foreigners, which after all is their industry, as it is the industry of the South coast. But we have to wait, it seems, until 1947-1949. Already the French are making agreements with Sweden and South American countries, in order to attract visitors. I see no reason why they should not make the same arrangements with us. If our people are to go abroad with£100 per person we ought to come to some arrangement whereby we can get people from abroad to come here.

Nice has a statue of Queen Victoria, which lost its head during the troubles with Germany. The Lord Mayor of London is to be asked out to Nice for the ceremony of the restoration of that statue. Cannes is on the point of giving villas to famous war leaders from other countries. Biarritz has written to the Mayor of Brighton to say that because of the occupation and the American requisitioning they regret that they will not be able to put their town into a proper state to receive the Mayor and Council of Brighton until the end of April. It seems that it will be two years before we are ready to do anything like that, but only four months for the French at Biarritz. Let us wake up, because other countries intend to snatch the trade which ought to be coming to this country. In my area, we intend to hold, in August, a Regency Festival, because we believe that such a festival would add to the prestige of our towns which have beautiful Regency architecture At the festival we shall have an exhibition of the best pictures of that period, and we shall reproduce the pavilion as it was in the old days. There will be balls, and music of a suitable type. We are also to have an exhibition showing modern architecture, compared with that of the Regency period, to interest the Americans, and, in addition, we shall hold an exhibition of wines from France. We are doing that as an area, on our own. But our hotels will be hampered if there is no possibility of getting enough accommodation for foreigners. The mayors of various towns in France, and elsewhere, are being invited. Our effort is one that will help the country and the Government to bring money here, and I beg of the Government to take seriously what we are trying to do in that area, from the Isle of Wight right up 10 the North-East of England. A little encouragement and a little finance from the Government will repay the Government a hundredfold in the near future.

I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to clear up two or three points when he replies to the Debate. The day before yesterday Lord Pakenham, representing the Government, in another place, was asked what was being done for hotels in the way of reconditioning and the re-equipment of derequisitioned hotels. The Noble Lord's answer was that the appropriate Departments were in touch with the Hotels Association, but that it was not the Government who were holding up matters, or were in any way responsible for the delay, because the Hotels Association, no doubt for the best of reasons, had not, up to the present, been able to furnish the Government with the information which the Board of Trade required. Can we be given some idea of what it is the Hotels' Association are not doing, how they are holding up the decision of the Government?

I was about to say that the Government have had in their hands for three months the Report of the Catering Commission. Cannot the Government tell us what they intend to do with regard to the Report, and especially about the licensing laws? These are vital matters. We are doing our level best to help Will the Government do their bit, so that we can all feel that the amenities of the South of England are not being forgotten in every effort that should be made in the export market by this country to pull the nation together ' financially and gain us foreign exchange?

I think hon Members will admit that this has been an interesting, as well as a useful, discussion. 1 want to say, quite definitely, that the Government are most anxious to do all they can, in a practical way, to assist in the rehabilitation of coastal towns. But it must be remembered that those claims must be considered in connection with the claims of other parts of the country. Our sympathy with the coastal towns is not based merely on a sense of the handicaps under which they are now suffering, but is also based upon our desire to make holiday facilities available for the ordinary workers of this country. It is essential, however, to remember that in the country as a whole there is a shortage of labour and materials, and that there are great competing claims for whatever supplies are available. Important as it is to secure, so far as we can, holiday facilities for our people in the coming summer, it is more important still to ensure to them homes in which they can live during the whole of the year. I think the ordinary man would, quite rightly, regard a home of his own as of considerably more importance than a place in which to spend a fortnight's holiday in the summer.

We are giving very careful consideration to the problems that are presented by these towns. Quite recently a deputation representative of those towns was received by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal, and the proposals which were put forward there are now being given very careful consideration. Many points have been raised in this Debate, and I cannot hope to deal with them all, but I can assure Members that those I do not mention in this brief reply, will not be overlooked. Note will be taken of them and consideration given to them. I want to confine myself to what I personally regard as perhaps the more important of the points that have been raised.

First, there is the financial position of the local authorities here concerned. I want to claim that we at the Ministry have been giving the greatest assistance we can to local authorities who are in real financial difficulty as a result of war activities. During the period of the war something like£15 million was advanced to local authorities in distress. It was done upon the basis of a 75 per cent. grant and a 25 per cent. interest-free loan. We have decided that that 25 per cent. loan shall itself be regarded as a definite grant to the local authorities. In addition we have just had passed through this House a Financial Provisions Bill which has added£10 million to the block grant given to the local authorities, and is to be distributed to them upon a real basis of need. I would like to say here, in relation to a point raised with regard to that distribution, that unless my memory is very much at fault the basis of that distribution is to be the population of 1936 and not of any later date.

In addition, we have said to local authorities that whilst this free grant must end with the present financial year as a general proposition, we will undertake to give very careful consideration to the financial position of individual local authorities who will come to us and present their case. Then, assistance will be given to them on the basis of their need, which will be measured first by the loss of rate revenue compared with the normal situation as a result of empty and destroyed properties, and so on. Secondly, upon the rates which it would be found necessary to levy if no assistance were given to the authority. Those will be the two factors taken into consideration, and on that basis lump sums will be given to the more needy of the local authorities. It will not be confined merely to one particular year but will be apportioned to them in what we hope will be a fairly rapidly decreasing sum to meet the needs of the years that are ahead.

Does this mean that the local authorities will be in a definite position to make a three-year or five-year plan?

Our proposition is to decide this grant upon what is the anticipated need in some three years ahead.

Three years?

The first year, and then on the basis of what is regarded as the decreasing factor. The local authority will know what is likely to come to them in the succeeding years.

This is very important and I am very heartened to hear it. It will not be that the local authorities will be told that they will get so much for the ensuing year and that they will not know what they are going to get in proportion for the next two years. I would like to know if they are to be given a three-year period for which they can plan ahead.

Let me quote from the reply given by my right hon. Friend to a Question which was asked in the House:

" Assistance given alter this. year will take the form of lump sum grants; these will be determined after discussion with the individual authorities concerned, and we shall take into account the loss of productivity of rates and the anticipated expenditure of the authority. In any cases in which further assistance is needed for more than one year, we propose to make a series of two or more annual grants of decreasing amount, spread over the period during which the local authority may be expected to achieve financial recovery. We propose to determine the number and amount of these grants at the outset and we shall not then need to impose any conditions as to the poundage of the rate to be levied.[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th November, 1945; Vol. 415, c. 1221.]

Next I want to deal with the rehabilitation grants that are being made to small traders with the object of assisting them. It has been said before, and again this afternoon, that£150 is too small, but for reasons which I shall give in a minute or two that sum was regarded as sufficient. In the area concerned, 44 local councils have applied for the Minister's authority to make these loans, and 32 authorisations have been issued. We have no complete information regarding the applications received by the local authorities from individuals, but we have got, so far, that, by January, the councils had granted 144 loans to individuals, amounting in all to£18,275, or an average of£126.

The smallness of the figure, as I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will realise, is due to the fact that people do not see much point in getting the money if they have not anything on which to spend it.

I was coming to that point. I was going to say that the relatively small number of applications that have been received is due to the difficulty experienced by applicants, even if they have the money, of being able to get the supplies and materials necessary for their purpose.

The amount is too small.

It has to be proved that the amount is too small. If we have had the experience—

If the hon. Gentleman wants information about the number of people who would have applied for the loan had it been a bigger and more substantial amount, I can give him many instances of people who certainly would have applied but for the fact that they thought that£150 was not worth all the red tape.

People who are in a position to be able to stand much bigger loans and use them should be able to find other facilities than applying to local authorities.

That is not right.

1 want to emphasise that the scheme is intended for small traders. Many of the goods and services on which the recipients would wish to spend the money are in short supply. The intention was to get the trader started again so that he could then keep himself going upon the receipts of his business as he went forward. Perhaps a more important point with regard to the settling of the sum is that the maximum figure adopted was the same as in the Ministry of Labour's scheme of grants for post war resettlement of ex-Servicemen. The maximum of these grants to traders could not very well be altered without prejudicing the maximum of the resettlement grants Therefore, it was felt that the two schemes had to correspond in amount.

Another question raised was that of derequisitioning and rapid derequisitioning. I want to assure the House that that is being speeded up very considerably. Let me give an illustration. I cannot pick out the coastal areas from the figures because specific figures for them are not available, but the total figure for requisitioned premises at the end of 1944 was 96,752 and at the end of 1945 it had fallen to 41,827. In other words, during the 12 months ending December last 54.925 premises, or considerably more than 50 per cent., had been derequisitioned. I might say that the speed of derequisitioning has been faster since Christmas than in the months preceding Christmas, and I think hon. Members will find that as the spring draws near, the speed will increase even more. With regard to compensa- tion to people at the derequisitioning of their premises in order to enable them to get the premises back into use, the Treasury make a payment to the owners on derequisitioning which is intended to cover the compensation rent for the period during which re-equipment takes place, and a case has been put forward that the time taken into account is not long enough. I want to say in the case of hotels that the formula was worked out after negotiations with the Hotels Association. We have to remember that the hardship which is imposed by the present scarcity of labour and materials is very widespread, and it affects people in areas other than the coastal areas. Other people suffered war damage to their premises, and the Treasury do not make a concession in the case of those premises.

Another point raised which is of considerable importance was on the question of materials for the re-equipping of hotels, boarding houses and so on. Up to the beginning of this year it had been almost impossible to begin thinking of making any plans for re-equipping them, because supplies available of the things that were mostly needed like furniture, floor coverings, bed linens, blankets, and so on, were insufficient to meet even the minimum needs of the ordinary householder.

I am sorry to keep interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but I should like to point out that during the time of the last Governmen we had a discussion on this subject, and the then Minister of Health pointed out that furniture was being sent out of this country to Canada.

And to the Colonies, too.

There is this to be considered, that in cases of real necessity very often you have got to do some things you do not like. I think that because we were in a position of real necessity, some of the equipment we would like in the way of linen, clothing and so on had got to be sent out of the country to get in something even more important—that is food, on which the people are going to live. Therefore, this is the situation in which we often are that we have got to export things that are in short supply for even more essential commodities. There is a limited amount of material, and very often it can only be given out to a limited group of householders within the priority classes, that is to the bombed-out people, the newly-married people and those whose families are increasing. I can assure the House that all practical steps are being taken to increase the production of goods, and that the hotels, which want the same goods as are most urgently needed by householders, will be given due consideration in any distribution which it is possible to make of those materials.

Further, 1 want to say that, whilst there are no prospects of giving to the hotels the furniture that normally could be used in ordinary homes while it is in short supply, there are probably much brighter hopes in view for these hotels in taking furniture of metal and other types that are not suitable in the utility range for ordinary homes, and provision is being made for distribution amongst the hotel people in the area concerned. With regard to stocks in shops, the Board of Trade's area distribution officers are keeping a particularly close watch on the supplies in the shops in the East and South Coast towns, and, in general, it has been found that the shortage of consumer goods is not more acute in those districts than it is elsewhere. Where investigation has shown that the local shortage of a particular commodity is more acute that it is in the country generally, arrangements have been made for the suppliers to send extra deliveries on a specially generous scale to those areas.

Are there no special facilities available for quick contacts with the Ministry when a sudden emergency arises? Is there any link between the coastal areas and the Ministry's regional officers?

The regional officers of the Ministries concerned are in close contact with the local authorities and, through the normal channels of those contacts, the information comes quickly.

But it is the bottleneck to which I referred that worries us at the moment.

1 noted that that was said in the course of the Debate, and it is one of the points on which 1 shall ask investigation to be made, because we feel that the development of our regional organisation, in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Works, is probably going to be the best way of dealing with problems of distribution and so on that are facing us now. There is one other point—I know I have omitted a number—that I want to deal with. It has been pointed out that a great number of Government Departments are concerned in this subject, and that, very often, difficulties may arise because of the lack of easy facility for information passing from one Department to another about the matter. The claim has been made that we ought to have a Minister for Reconstruction for coastal areas. Quite frankly, I do not think that that is the way in which the problem should be tackled. Wherever possible, arrangements are made, when specific problems are presented, for them to be passed from one Department to another. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] That does not always result in the easiest way of working out the problem wanting to be worked out, and I can say quite definitely that consideration is being given to the question whether it would not be possible to designate one Minister to receive general representations from the coastal resorts and then, as a result of his consideration of them to be responsible for seeing that the various factors are properly distributed amongst the departments responsible for dealing with them.

Surely this has been done already. We thought this had been settled months ago. Will there be another Minister to co-ordinate our problems? Surely this problem is not now being reconsidered. We thought that the Lord Privy Seal had been made the co-ordinating Minister.

1 am saying that the machinery for that purpose is being worked out, and should facilitate dealing with the problems that present themselves in these particular areas. I conclude by saying that I have made a note of many of the other points that have been raised in this Debate, and will report them to my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. Then I am certain we shall get greater facility in dealing with the difficulties.

Could the hon. Gentleman answer the point I raised of exactly what was meant by the statement in another place that any delay was due to the fact that the hotel associations were not able to furnish the Government with the information which the Board of Trade required for the reconditioning and re-equipping of requisitioned hotels?

That meeting was held with two of the principal hotel associations. They were asked to give the Board of Trade an estimate of their needs as quickly as possible, and to help in drawing up a priority list. My information is that that information has not yet been furnished to the Board of Trade.