I move:—
That a sum not exceeding£2,478,510 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in the course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1954, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsides and sundry Grants-in-Aid.
The Estimate for the Department of Industry and Commerce this year, amounting to £7,416,510, shows a decrease of £2,286,670 as compared with the Estimate for last year. The majority of the sub-heads show a decrease but the principal decrease is, of course, that in respect of food subsidies which is down by £2,149,000. There are substantial increases necessary in respect of two items: one, the payment to the Central Fund of advances made for rural electrification, and the other, in respect of fuel subsidies.
I will deal more fully with the position of our fuel stocks later and indicate my attitude with regard to them. The repayment of advances to the Central Fund in respect of rural electrification is likely to increase further in subsequent years because of the anticipated speeding up in the rural electrification programme.
There are two new sub-heads in the Estimate, first, sub-head V, which provides for the expenses of the Fair Trade Commission. The Restrictive Trade Practices Act was passed in the present year and the Fair Trade Commission was established and began its functioning subsequent to the preparation of the Book of Estimates. However, provision was made when preparing the Estimate for the Department, for the expenses of the commission. The other sub-head is sub-head W, which provides grants towards the cost of technical assistance projects. Technical assistance projects were financed from a separate Vote last year but this year the amount provided for technical assistance projects is set out under sub-head W.
These technical assistance projectsare intended to provide for the employment of competent technical experts in particular industries and the money requested in the sub-head is required to enable the Government to make a contribution towards the cost of the employment of these experts. There were various technical assistance schemes of that kind financed in the past under the E.C.A. scheme but now that that scheme has wound up, if the projects are to be continued—and our experience of their operation would justify the decision to continue them at least to some extent—the money must be found from our own resources or at least from the resources of the particular industries concerned, supplemented, where necessary, by State subventions.
The custom is, on the occasion of the introduction of the annual Estimate, for the Department to give a general review of the state of trade and of the outcome of various measures in operation to stimulate industrial development and other desirable changes. The fact that the Estimate is being introduced so late in the present year rather requires some departure from that practice because a review of the state of trade in the previous financial year would be rather inappropriate now. But in a general way I propose to indicate how things developed during that year and what changes have taken place in the meantime.
The trade recession which we discussed here with so much concern last year passed during the course of the year. The industries which were most directly affected, the textile industries and the leather and footwear industries, were back into full production before the year ended; in fact the change in conditions affecting these trades came so suddenly that the industries were frequently unable to meet the orders which they were receiving in any reasonable time and some special import facilities had to be allowed as a temporary measure to avoid difficulties in unemployment in industries using their products. The inability of textile firms to deliver promptly all the cloth required by clothing manufacturers might have caused difficulty for the clothing tradeif these special facilities had not been allowed. Somewhat similar conditions arose, although less acutely, in the leather trade. That was due to the fact that many firms, being uncertain about the trend of prices, had allowed their stocks to run down to the point that when the revival in consumer demand took place they were unable to expand their output accordingly.
The improvement in the balance of trade position which was also noticeable last year was to some extent attributable to the same circumstances as had produced that recession in our textile and leather trades, the desire of manufacturers and traders to keep their stocks at a minimum. With the revival in business which has brought these new orders to the textile and other firms concerned, so also some expansion of imports of similar goods was recorded.
I move to report progress.