Mr Robert Hudson: Fifty times.
Mr Robert Hudson: We have had a very interesting couple of hours' debate on this matter, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pudsey (Colonel Banks) is, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, to be congratulated on having raised this question, because it illustrates in a particularly acute form the sort of problems we are bound to be up against over the next few years, and at the same time it...
Mr Robert Hudson: The words I took down were "might have been given more time" and I assumed from that that the hon. Member meant the manufacturers might have been given more time; but I will not quarrel with the wording. The fact of the matter is that the re-armament programme dates back to August of last year, and anyone who has any knowledge of the requirements of the re-armament programme must have known...
Mr Robert Hudson: The Americans introduced a nickel restriction as long ago as last February. It surely would have been within the capacity of this Government of planners—who, I would remind the hon. Gentleman, said, through the mouth of the Foreign Secretary, they were not going to be the victims of blind economic forces any more because they planned—to have seen that if the Americans needed to restrict...
Mr Robert Hudson: Mr. R. S. Hudson (Southport) indicated assent.
Mr Robert Hudson: If possible, it would be more convenient to deal in one single discussion with the Schedule and the Amendment.
Mr Robert Hudson: Would the right hon. Gentleman mind repeating that?
Mr Robert Hudson: They would be left with £2.7 million?
Mr Robert Hudson: I think all quarters of the House must be indebted to the right hon. Gentleman and his officials for having spent so much time in successfully reaching the compromise which is before us today and which has been agreed by all sides of the industry. One might also hope that it is a good augury for the future, for I believe this is the first time in very many years that all sides of the industry...
Mr Robert Hudson: We discussed in Committee the question of depreciation and of bringing cinemas up to the necessary standard. I have forgotten the exact figure, but we have been told of the cost involved over the next three years to bring cinemas up to a standard to comply with the new Home Office requirements about safety against fire. Those are the ordinary costs of exhibiting, quite apart from the question...
Mr Robert Hudson: If they are given this figure between £2 million and £2,500,000 for their share of revenue for the next three years, then, as far as human forecast can go, that should be sufficient to put them on their feet and to make it unnecessary for them to come back, either to the House or to the exhibitors, and ask for further finance. I believe that is the Government's understanding of the...
Mr Robert Hudson: May we assume that this scheme will be worked out with the fullest consultation, in the real sense of the word, with industry and that industry will not be presented with a fait accompli and asked to comment.
Mr Robert Hudson: Did the right hon. Gentleman say that we would not receive enough supplies?
Mr Robert Hudson: The right hon. Gentleman said the opposite.
Mr Robert Hudson: We have listened to a very pleasant speech, and we have had the great advantage, which the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends do not possess. of being able to watch the faces behind the right hon. Gentleman as be talked about queen bees taking the cheques. The real thing that emerges, and which I hope to illustrate in detail in the course of my remarks, is that practically nothing...
Mr Robert Hudson: We will leave it to the right hon. Gentleman to "scrap" later. Anyway, it is clear that the Lord Privy Seal holds very different views about the help that we are getting and are likely to get from United States from those of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) and his friends, judging by what they said a very short time ago. I began by saying—I hope I shall not be accused of...
Mr Robert Hudson: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. It was the Prime Minister who gave us a list of the raw materials with which the Chancellor's Committee is dealing at the present time under the chairmanship of the Economic Secretary. It seems to us to be a comparatively short list. It consisted, so the Prime Minister said, of sheet steel, tinplate, softwood, sulphur and sulphuric acid. As the right...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am glad to have that denial. Let us see where we get to now.
Mr Robert Hudson: It was never under the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the shape of deciding the economic policy of the Government, as it is today. In any case, what is to be the position supposing the Lord Privy Seal does not agree with the decisions of the Economic Secretary? In my experience—I do not believe human nature has altered much in the last six years—it was very often the case that Ministers...
Mr Robert Hudson: I agree. If the alternative I have suggested had been adopted—namely, that he was chairman of one of these committees; a sort of "trouble shooter," or the general representative of all Government Departments—that is precisely what he would have done. But under the layout of the Bill and the White Paper—we are dependent on the White Paper for our information on the intentions of the...
