I am afraid that at this stage I cannot say anything on the matter of costs. It really is too early to expect us to do that. I suggest that is a subject which could be discussed more appropriately when we get the accounts of the National Coal Board, when they are presented to the House.

Some hon. Members have got into the habit—both inside and outside the Committee—of painting an extrordinarily gloomy picture of the coal situation. Only the other day one hon. Member spoke of coal output going down, and down, and down—a sort of picture which implied that when the Labour Government came into power everything was all right, and that, since then, nobody has done any work, and that the whole thing is falling to pieces. That is an absolute travesty of the facts. The facts are.—and I now come to something the right hon. Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) said—that the nadir of the coal industry was not 1946 but 1945, and the output in 1946 was 6½ million tons above 1945. In fact, it began to rise immediately after the Labour Government came into office. Take whatever index you like—I do not mind; output per manshift, manpower, absenteeism—there has been a steady improvement since then. We are not satisfied with that. Of course not. How can we be satisfied, in the present state of the country? But there is no reason whatever for this general gloom and despondency. In comparison with other European nations the output per manshift in this country is far nearer the prewar figure than in any other country in Europe.