Wales

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 4 Tachwedd 1965.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr James Griffiths Mr James Griffiths , Llanelli 12:00, 4 Tachwedd 1965

I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Report on Wales for 1964 (Command Paper No. 2602). This is the first time the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) will have taken part in our debates on Welsh affairs in his new rôle of shadow Secretary of State for Wales, and I take it that that confirms what was said by the former Leader of the Opposition when he said that, in the unlikely event of the party opposite ever being returned to power, it, too, would have a Secretary of State for Wales. Since the right hon. Gentleman is the Member for Monmouth, may I say that his appearance in our debate is further proof, if that were needed, that Monmouth is an integral part of Wales.

Before I turn to survey the past year in Wales and give some account of Government action in our country, I should like to make a brief reference to two Reports, both of importance to Wales, which have been published since the Report which we are discussing today. There is first what has come to be known as the Hughes Parry Report of the Committee on the Legal Status of the Welsh Language. I have already expressed our gratitude to Sir David Hughes Parry and his colleagues for the thorough way in which they have examined this problem, and I repeat that expression of gratitude today. They have made very important recommendations and I have appealed to all my compatriots to consider those recommendations objectively, free from prejudice on either side, and to give them the attention which they deserve.

I was very glad to see that the first representative body to consider that Report, the Council of the Churches for Wales, approached it in the right spirit and in the right way and decided that before it would make any pronouncements on the recommendations, either any of them or in total, the first thing to do was to appoint a number from among its ranks to give very full and detailed consideration to the Report. I hope that that example will be followed by others.

I recall that this Report emanated from a desire by the Welsh Parliamen- tary Party, representing hon. Members of all parties within Wales, for an examination of this difficult problem. That request was made to the then Minister for Welsh Affairs who agreed to set up this Committee. I commend it to my compatriots as a very honest job of work, and perhaps in due time we may have an opportunity to discuss it and give one of our Welsh Grand Committee sittings to it when the time is appropriate.

The other Report, which has just been published, is the Llewellyn-Jones Report on Science and Education in Wales. This is very important, and I commend it to all hon. Members, not only Members for Wales, for it deals with a matter of great importance not only to Wales but to the whole country, as we approach this new technological age. I express my thanks to all who took part in the study and the preparation of the Report, and I express the hope that some day that, too, may have our consideration.

Ever since these annual debates on Welsh affairs were instituted—and I have taken part in most of them and took part in the first—now and again I have refreshed my memory and read the reports of them all over again. Running through them has been the recurrent theme of the problems of jobs and livelihoods for our people and the prosperity of our communities. It is understandable that that theme should have dominated our debates. Over the past generation and more we have seen all our basic industries in Wales—agriculture, coal, steel, tinplate and slate—each in its turn, and sometimes simultaneously, affected by very great changes, changes in demand, decline in markets, changes in fashion and sometimes other changes. The result has been that over very many years in these annual debates we have returned to this theme, and I propose to begin with it today.

I have seen, as we have all seen, a great transformation in Wales. We have very great successes to our credit. We have established many new industries and the economy is healthier. But, notwithstanding all that has been done and all the success achieved, it is the plain truth that in Wales there are still large areas in the south and in the north where the percentage of unemployment stubbornly remains above the national average. There are other areas, like Mid-Wales, in which the problem is expressed in another way. Although it is the same problem, it has another name and it is called depopulation. It is therefore right and proper in these Welsh debates to call attention to these problems. I also propose to say a few words about two other problems which will be uppermost in the minds of many hon. Members and to which I know they will refer. There is, first, the future of the coal-mining industry and, secondly, the problem of the steel industry.

We are proud of the success of our great steel plants. I have seen the transition, for I saw the old steel industry and grew up with it and my family provided some of its employees. I have seen the great change, and it is of vital importance to Wales that we should sustain and help the steel industry to maintain its place in what is a very harsh' and competitive world market. That has been behind some of the proposals which have been made about iron ore imports. At the same time, we know from experience in this country and from reading accounts of comparable plants now operating in Europe that in this industry technical changes are taking place at a tremendously rapid rate, with consequent changes in levels of employment. For a given output, fewer and fewer men are required almost annually. We know perfectly well that this problem of the level of employment in future in this great industry is a matter of great concern to all my hon. Friends, and in some of the decisions which the Government have made it has been one of the factors which we have taken into account, for example, in deciding what areas should be covered by the Local Employment Acts.

I now wish to speak about coal. I am an old coalminer and I have been associated with the industry all my life. I grew up with it. I grew up with it and I have had experience of all its ups and downs.

I remember its heyday in 1913, when, in the South Wales coalfield alone, we produced 56 million tons of coal and exported through our ports 36 million tons. My right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade are both present. What would they not give to have 36 million tons of coal flowing through the South Wales ports these days?

I spent the middle part of my life as an officer for the South Wales miners, for whom I was for some time privileged to be their president. I saw the industry contract. I am a Welshman with all a Welshman's nostalgia and, therefore, it is sad to see a great industry contracting in decline.

If I may recall and think back to the 1930s, when I was a young man, there were some of my colleagues, notably Mr. Vernon Hartson, who had the right approach to the problem and realised that in the changed world situation the market for 36 million tons of coal abroad would not continue and that the sensible thing to do was to face the fact that changes were coming and that the industry should be adjusted to the change in a planned, orderly, humane way.

We did not do it. I say "we", but I do not want to go back to the 1930s and all that. It was not done. The Government did not do it. The owners and the industry did not do it. The result was that the adjustment took place over a generation of conflict, strife and poverty, which dragged down this great industry to the mire. Ever since those days I have endeavoured to be realistic about this. I want to look at the situation realistically to see what changes are coming and to prepare for the change. If contraction becomes inevitable, I want to see it done in an orderly, humane way, caring for all the people involved, looking after them and caring for the communities, leaving behind in the end an industry which, even if smaller than of yore, having been modernised with modern techniques and the donkey-work having been done away with, can provide good standards of life for my people.

In the change which is now coming to us in the policy outlined by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power in his fuel and power policy and in the White Paper published today concerning the massive aid which we are bringing to the industry, I believe that with the co-operation of both sides in the industry we can come through in the end, even if it is with a loss of manpower and of pits. We can come through with an industry which thereafter can play an important part in the life of Wales and of the United Kingdom. It is in that spirit that I commend this policy.

If I am asked how many pits will close, I do not know. I do not think that anybody has yet made up his mind. I have taken the opportunity in the course of the past few weeks to have thorough discussions about this matter with some of my hon. Friends, with the officers and representatives of the executive of the South Wales area of the National Union of Mineworkers and with officers and representatives of the North Wales area of the N.U.M.

With them, I have been through the whole list of collieries, some of them economic, some nearing exhaustion, some making heavy losses and some making slight losses. I spent two and a half hours in going through them with my old union colleagues and with my successor as president, to whose constructive approach I pay tribute. I knew every one of those collieries and I have been to most of them. We sat down and discussed them. I know all the problems.

We had the great advantage of the advice and guidance of the union's technical expert, a man with wide and deep knowledge of the South Wales coalfield. I had similar opportunities in North Wales. I spoke to them as one collier, not to another, but with another, with each other, and went through the list. I am convinced, and I said so to them, and I believe that they were convinced, too, that with co-operation—and, believe me, all this requires co-operation—between the Government, the Coal Board and the N.U.M., some of those pits can be saved and made economic, although not without effort, on both sides. This is a job for management as well as men. We are determined to do what we can. If I do not go into details today, it is because there will be opportunities to do so later. I believe, however, that by the policy announced by the Government, we can get through this transition.

I have seen a great contraction of this kind in the 1930s. May God preserve us from a situation of that kind. As one who has looked at the situation, in the light of my experience, with all the knowledge which I have and the res- ponsibility which I have shared with all my colleagues of working out a policy for the Government, I believe that the way to handle the situation now is by co-operation between the industry and the Government.

The next stage is important, too. If there is to be contraction in the industry, we must bend all our energies to providing the men and the communities with alternative employment. I speak in the presence of my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade. I pay my tribute to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade for his full co-operation in this matter.

It is inevitable that I shall use figures, but I shall present the House with a plain, factual account of what my Government have done to provide new employment in Wales in this first year. It is a record of which we need not be ashamed. I want, however, to use the figures with circumspection. I want them to be realistic. I was made much more careful about this when, the other day, I noted that after an interview with the right hon. Member for Monmouth, he was reported in the Liverpool Daily Post of 8th October as saying: It is worthy of note that 4,000 new factories have come to Wales since 1958, creating 30,000 new jobs. When I saw that, I knew at once that something was wrong and that the right hon. Gentleman had been misheard or misreported. Somebody had put in a "0", because the figure was not 4,000, but nearer 400, and the hope of 30,000 new jobs was not realised. Part of that number were to have been 4,000 which should have come through the new Prestcold factory at Swansea, which ultimately failed.

I want to present a factual report of the new employment and new industry that has been established in Wales in this first year of our Government. Thirty-four firms have established new industries and 112 have expanded existing industries, which means that there have been 146 new factories or extensions of existing factories, all of them providing jobs now and prospects of jobs if they develop. These mean about 10,600 new jobs for Wales in one year. This is the highest number provided for very many years.

Another way of viewing this is the number of industrial development certificates isused for Wales. In the first year of the Labour Government the number of industrial development certificates issued in Wales numbered 119, covering projects with a total area of 4·4 million sq. ft., which is the highest provision of this kind since 1960.

Between 1959 and 1964 the Tory Party built eight advance factories in Wales. In the first year we have built 13. The purpose of this from the very beginning was to enable the Government to build factories in areas to which we wanted to attract industry and where we knew there would be difficulties in attracting industry. We therefore established these 13 advance factories covering the whole area of Wales. All of them have been established in the hope—indeed, we believe, in more than the hope—that they will be used, that they will provide employment, and that they will bring fresh life to these areas.

I will give two examples of the particular success of this policy. I will give one example for North Wales—Blaenau Ffestiniog. There we decided to build an advance factory of 10,000 sq. ft. Already this factory has been taken over by a very reputable firm. I am very glad for the sake of Blaenau Ffestiniog, for the people of which I have such a deep regard. The firm concerned has said that it wants the factory extended fivefold to 50,000 sq. ft. The other example is at Pontardulais, up the valley. The new advance factory which we are to build there has been let before a brick has been laid. I quote these as two examples in which the policy in respect of advance factories can succeed. I believe that in our efforts in the past 12 months, through my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and his regional controller, we have done a very good job for Wales.