in Parliament. He was appointed to the Standing Committee considering the Cotton Spinning Industry Bill in 1936. He referred to the Lancashire saying "clogs to clogs in three generations", and asked for the appointments to the advisory committee under the Act to include textile workers rather than factory owners. He spoke in an all-night debate on unemployment assistance regulations in July 1936, blaming increased unemployment in Burnley on the National government's destroying the market for textiles in India. In November 1936, referring to a speech by Sir Arnold Wilson praising Germany, Burke expressed his disappointment and dismay at "growing appreciation of the totalitarian state" by Conservative MPs. He launched a debate on location of industry later that month, calling for new industries to be diverted from London to areas of high unemployment. Burke regularly called for moves to preserve steady trade with overseas markets for Lancashire textiles, as when he argued in March 1939 in support of a Government Bill to create a fund to stabilise the exchange rate between Britain and China during the Second Sino-Japanese War; other Labour MPs had moved the rejection of the Bill. Labour whip Burke played an active part in a joint committee of Cotton Trade organisations which was set up in advance of legislation to reorganise the industry in the late 1930s. When the proposals gathered the support of two-thirds of the industry, Burke told a luncheon in January 1939 that they should confidently expect Government action. He spoke in favour of the Bill when it was introduced in March. Burke was appointed as a Whip for the Labour Party in 1941; however he voted against the Government's proposal to delay the implementation of the Beveridge Report in February 1943, and was replaced in October of that year. Labour Party National Executive At the Labour Party conference in June 1943 Burke moved a resolution on behalf of his union, calling for an adequate rate of the old age pension. The resolution was carried. He was a member of the executive of the newly formed Anglo-French Inter-Parliamentary Committee in October 1944, and having been sponsored by the shopworkers' union to be a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party from 1944, in August 1945 he was one of three fraternal delegates representing the Labour Party at the conference of the French Socialist Party. He was a member of many more international