HOUSE OF COMMONS

Evening Star, Issue 22593, 10 March 1937, Page 9

HOUSE OF COMMONS

SPECIAL AREAS BILL a OPPOSITION AMENDMENTS. (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, March 8. Tho financial resolution on which the new Special Areas Bill will be based is to be introduced in the House of Commons this afternoon. Tho Opposition parties have expressed the opinion that the terms of the resolution will preclude a discussion of certain points they wished to raise, such as the inclusion of other parts of the _ country within the scope of the special areas scheme. They have accordingly tabled a motion for omission of the standing order on which tho money resolution is based, and the debate of this motion will first bo taken. After this procedure question has been settled the financial resolution will be submitted. Newspapers anticipate that the Minister of Labour will announce the Government’s decision to set up a Royal Commission to consider the whole question of the future location of industry. GOVERNMENT’S PLANS REHABILITATION MEASURES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 9. (Received March 10, at noon.) In a speech in which he explained and defended the Government’s proposals for the amendment and extension of the special measures of rehabilitation already applied to regions where particularly severe unemployment obtains, the Minister of Labour announced in tlie House of Commons a number of hopeful developments along the lines which the Government was hoping to encourage—namely, establishment of new lighter industries offering a broader basis for employment. He informed tho House that in South Wales a firm was arranging to set up a glass factory and another firm a biscuit factory, while a sewing machine factory at Merthyr, an engineering works at Aberdare, and a reinforced coneveet factory at Port Talbot had also been planned. Negotiations had also been proceeding between the Government, Lord Nuffield’s trustees, and Low Temperature Carbonisation Limited for the establishment of a “ coalite ” low temperature carbonisation plant on the southern outcrop of the South Wales coalfield. The total capital involved in these six new undertakings in South Wales would be about £1,000,000, and they would ultimately give employment to 3,000 people. Mr Brown also announced that the Government proposed to appoint a Royal Commission to make an authoritative and comprehensive study of tho problems raised by the southward drift of industry and of the question of location of industry as a whole.