Don't expect miracles, now that the Referendum is over. For five or six weeks the campaign itself has deflected us from tackling the nation's urgent problems. The Government can delay no longer. It must get down to business. Not, I trust, Benn-business, but business under new management. The important task is to restore confidence to the profit-making free enterprise sector. The nation needs exports to live. Private enterprise provides over 97 per cent of our visible exports. The nation needs profitable companies if we are to invest more. Private enterprise paid nearly £3 billion tax on profits made last year. The nationalised industries on the other hand lost money each year save one, 1969.
If the Government is seriously concerned with the standard of living of our people, its strategy should be to create the climate in which the free enterprise sector can flourish with confidence.
But is the Harold WilsonPrime Minister really serious in wanting a prosperous private sector—or does he just talk about it? And if he is, will his extremists upon whom he relies to keep his Government in power, let him take the necessary steps? [end p1] There are three:
1. To restore the profitability of private enterprise. 2. To check further nationalisation. 3. To encourage small businessmen and the self-employed.
I will deal with each of those:
First, the Government must recognise that secure jobs and new investment come only from profitable industry. Therefore the Government should ensure that: * prices are enough to make a proper return on capital; * a company after it has paid tax has enough profit left—
(1) to meet its cash needs
(2) to invest in new equipment, and
(3) to distribute to those who have invested their savings in it.
It is no good Ministers complaining that the private sector does not invest enough if they deny it the resources and the incentives to do so.
Tomorrow's jobs depend on todays investment. Today's investment depends on yesterday's profits. Without profits: tomorrow's jobs are in jeopardy.
But it is not enough for the Harold WilsonPrime Minister to say he wants a profitable private sector, or even put up Harold Lever to persuade the city he does, or to point out that he and not Mr. Benn is really in charge of industry.
In that case, why is Mr. Benn Secretary of State for Industry?. It is not what the Prime Minister says, but what his Government does that counts. And so far, that consists in refusing to let industry generate or retain enough cash from its own resources to keep going without becoming progressively weaker.
Perhaps that really is the policy. To squeeze firms to death and then nationalise them for next to nothing. [end p2]
Second, if the Government seriously wants to restore confidence in industry, it should stop further nationalisation.
I believe that the overwhelming majority of our people want to make the present mixed economy work, and would respond if that were to become accepted Government policy.
It is common knowledge that the vast majority of workers do not want the firms they work in to be nationalised.
Last January, an opinion survey was published in The Times. A broad sample of employees were asked a vital question.
Do you support or oppose the nationalisation of your firm?
Only 18 per cent supported the nationalisation of their own firm. 67 per cent were against it. 8 per cent neither opposed nor supported it, and 7 per cent didn't know.
But break that answer down again. Of those who said they were Labour voters, only 31 per cent supported the nationalisation of their firm. 48 per cent were against it. No one wants more nationalisation, not even the majority of Labour voters.
From my experience the indications are that nationalisation is growing less and less popular. Who does want more nationalisation? It would seem only the extremists in the Labour Party.
Once the Tories were accused of ruling the country through a small aristocratic group, and the Labour Party claimed to speak for the people. Today it is the Labour Party which is manipulated by a tiny unrepresentative clique, a clique motivated not by the welfare of the people they represent, but by their own mania for more power.
And it is the Tories who are the true democratic party giving expression to what the great majority of the people really want. [end p3]
Third, the large company of the future grows from the small business of today. Some of tomorrow's jobs will come from new organisations.
The Government must stop penalising the self-employed and the small business by its National Insurance and taxation policies. These people are prepared to risk their savings and put all their efforts into building a business, and creating jobs.
There are far too few people and even fewer politicians who, out of their own resources, have actually built up a business themselves and created work for others. The risks are great, the rewards are modest.
But how much longer will these businesses continue or more start if:
— they are living under a Government which hates business and will do everything it can to clobber it.
— profits are taken away from them.
— middle management upon whom so much rests, are subject to heavier and heavier taxes.
— when they invest, they can't enjoy the fruits of that investment or pass it on to their families.
Part of our freedom is freedom to take risks, to reap the rewards and, occasionally, to suffer the consequences of failure. End of press release. [end p4]
This freedom has been eroded. We must halt and reverse the march of socialism.
These three steps are essential to rebuild the confidence of business.
— Restore the profitability of industry.
— No more nationalisation.
— Opportunities and rewards for the small business.
They are not likely to come from this Socialist Government.