Mr Robert Hudson: No. Anyone who has read the accounts of the Public Accounts Committee knows that hon. Members who are on that Committee act in an impartial and non-party manner, and are thus able to question witnesses more satisfactorily than either party can do across the Floor of the House. As far as domestic consumers are concerned, this pamphlet to which I have referred reaches the conclusion that the...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am sorry, I have very little time. The Fabian Society, which is not, obviously, a supporter of ours, says: It is hardly surprising that these reports"— that is, the Annual Reports— should be limp arid platitudinous documents, which do little more than apologise for the inability of the Council to do anything for the consumer in the present circumstances. That is a very formidable...
Mr Robert Hudson: —and I suggest that there is a strong case for setting up some form of permanent inquiry of an impartial nature which should carry on in a similar way to the Public Accounts Committee. I turn to the speech of the Minister. The first point he made was that it was only in September, and, more especially in December, that the Government realised how serious the situation was becoming and...
Mr Robert Hudson: I wish first to finish my sentence. In addition there were, it is fair to point out, a large number of housewives who, when they applied for that extra coal this summer in order to stock up, were unable to get it.
Mr Robert Hudson: Yes, but the question is how much are they going to get during the remaining four months of the coal year? It is not very much good to say, because we cannot tell what the final result will be, whether the Minister's promise has been carried out or not, until 29th April. That is merely another example of the way in which the right hon. Gentleman quotes figures. If the House doubts that, I...
Mr Robert Hudson: I will leave the point to the House to decide, but no one can deny that 50 million tons is an average of 10 million tons per year compared with 12½ million tons per year over the last three years. There is only one point I should like to ask on the question of opencast coal. The right hon. Gentleman did not say anything about the increased price or the increased compensation. It is clear...
Mr Robert Hudson: What I said, and what is the fact, is that foreign ship-owners introduced very much higher freight rates than the British rates which were kept down in accordance with an agreement with the Ministry of Transport.
Mr Robert Hudson: Instead of spending money on an expensive form of manufacture, would it not have been better to have kept our word with Canada?
Mr Robert Hudson: May I be allowed to say on that point of order that we entirely support your view, Major Milner? I have had much longer experience of the Committee, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive my saying so, than has the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. L. Hale), and certainly it was the normal pre-war practice, and it was the continual practice, found to be to the convenience of hon. Members of the...
Mr Robert Hudson: I beg to move, That this House views with concern the inability of the National Coal Board to secure an increase both of production and productivity sufficient to meet the urgent demands of industry, of the rearmament programme, of the domestic consumer and of export, resulting in the necessity to spend scarce dollars, which could otherwise have been applied to provide urgently needed raw...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am delighted to have that agreement, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree with this next thing. In that case, why express surprise that industry requires more coal? Apparently, according to his statement, that was something new and unexpected.
Mr Robert Hudson: I suggest that the trouble today is that for the last two, if not three, years, the target set the coal industry has been hopelessly inadequate. That has been the gravamen of the charges that we have made in debate after debate in this House. On one occasion even the Trades Union Congress agreed that the target set the coal industry was too low. Certainly two years ago Sir Charles Reid, in...
Mr Robert Hudson: The right hon. Gentleman has got all the figures at his hand, and I certainly suggest that the impression he left on people's minds in his statement was contrary to the fact, for today industry is not using more coal than it did before the war. Before the war the figure was 42 million tons. Last year the figure was 42.1 million tons, and this year it has gone up by the very small amount of...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am going through the points. I am trying to get the facts, and I shall draw conclusions from them in a moment. The figures are given separately for different industries, and I think it will be of convenience to the House in following the argument I am trying to develop if they take the figures separately. To make it clearer, industry qua industry used directly 42 million tons pre-war, and a...
Mr Robert Hudson: For my purpose, the figure is 33 million tons, and, if what the hon. Gentleman says is true, as late as July, 1948, that figure was published and accepted by implication by the Coal Board in its annual report for 1947. As the figures were so entirely wrong and the demand was so inflated, and the National Coal Board never intended to send that figure of 33 million tons of export, it is a great...
Mr Robert Hudson: Yes, Sir. It is not the Government's intention to import coal … and while I have no doubt that under a given set of conditions, which I need not at this stage mention, it may he necessary to think about that, all I would say at this stage is that the Government do not propose to import coal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th September, 1950; Vol. 478. c. 1686.] If these cryptic words have any...
Mr Robert Hudson: Yes, I quite agree. I was in favour of it, because I do not believe that an industry, which is so vital to the nation, ought to be based on what is, in effect, conscripted labour, any more than agriculture, which is equally vital to the nation. We want all fences to be removed as soon as we can. That does not blind us to the fact that there was going to be a problem raised. The problem has...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am sorry. They are very far from what Sir Will Lawther expected. That is why we ask for an inquiry to find out what can be done. There is no general agreement about causes. I have no doubt that in the course of the debate we shall hear of many causes of the trouble and many suggestions for remedies. But they will not meet with general assent. Lord Hyndley said in February of this year:...
Mr Robert Hudson: It is a long way short of 210 million tons.
Mr Robert Hudson: I did my best to try to be realistic. I never questioned nationalisation; I simply accepted it. We are not now concerned with hypothetical things which might have happened if we had not had nationalisation. We are concerned with what will happen under nationalisation and not with what might have happened under private enterprise.
