Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

HC I [Debate on the Address - Industry and Employment]

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: House of Commons
Source: Hansard HC [921/605-12]
Editorial comments: 2139-2200. MT intervend at c610.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 2463
[column 605]

9.39 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley)

I join the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) in congratulating his hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. [column 606]Hodgson) on his maiden speech. It was a forthright speech and well delivered. It was a controversial speech, but I do not make any complaint about that.

The hon. Gentleman concentrated on small firms. He had some rather selective quotations and rather forgot the discriminatory help on corporation tax and capital transfer tax given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget and specifically designed to assist small firms. We must not forget the Industrial Common Ownership Bill piloted on to the statute book by my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins).

The hon. Gentleman was generous in paying tribute to his colleagues in the House of Commons, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), for the way in which they represented his constituency during the period when it was otherwise without representation. We are grateful to him for that.

The right hon. Member for Lowestoft said that he hoped that his hon. Friend would stay a long time in the House. Some of us can remember Orpington in 1962, Dudley in 1968 and Bromsgrove in 1971. Our advice to the hon. Member is not to make any long-term plans but to look for a safe Conservative seat. I am sure that there will be some changes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Crowther) had some powerful things to say about regional policy and how it affected his constituency. We shall consider carefully what he has said. He was right to point out, particularly to those who have just been to Japan and elsewhere, the importance of the Thrybergh steel works, which has broken all records in commissioning, coming in on time and production.

I join the Secretary of State for Employment in welcoming the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) to his new assignment. The hon. Member is popular in the House. Some of us think that he is more popular on our side than on his own. He spent a good deal of the period 1970–74 voting against the very policies that the right hon. Member for Lowestoft was pushing through the House. Some of us will recall his endeavours during debates on the 1972 Industry Act and the strenuous efforts of his new colleague on the Front Bench, the right hon. Member [column 607]for Knutsford (Mr. Davies), who was at his wit's end when the hon. Member for Oswestry and Mr. Jock Bruce-Gardyne and other frustrated progress on that Bill.

The hon. Member for Oswestry made a very good speech. It is rare to have decent jokes from that Dispatch Box, and his were extremely good. I cannot agree with everything he said. For example, when it comes to public expenditure cuts, he would wield the axe in the same way as the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) used to wield the Mace. We know that the Mace will be safe in the hon. Member's hands.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has been appointed industry spokesman because the Leader of the Opposition is trying to rewrite Tory history as fast as possible. The hon. Gentleman is a very good eraser. He will get rid of that very quickly. But we on this side of the House will not allow him or his hon. and right hon. Friends to get away with it. The Tories imply—the right hon. Member for Lowestoft tried to imply today—that if only they were in power they could pluck from the air industrial policies which would transform our situation, restore overseas confidence, reduce unemployment and bring down the rate of inflation. We all know how phoney that kind of argument is. No one believes it.

Between 1970 and 1974 they tried every Tory policy in the book and in some measure they produced the situation in which we now find ourselves. First, we had the Selsdon period and its tremendous failure. That was swept hurriedly away together with that typical symbol, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). I am sorry that he has not taken part in this debate, although I think he made an intervention in another hon. Member's speech.

Then they tried what some commentators have described as the period of “wet intervention” under the faltering leadership of the right hon. Member for Knutsford. That was the period of the Industry Act 1972, the nationalisation of Rolls-Royce and the nationalisation of Govan Shipbuilders. [column 608]

When I hear some Conservative speeches to the effect that nationalisation is so foreign to Tory political thinking, I wonder where some of the Conservatives have been in the last few years. That period was brusquely dismissed by the Tory policy document “The Right Approach” which said:

“Our aim is to make it much more difficult for Governments to become involved in support of unviable industrial concerns.”

Those policies did not work either, and in turn the interventionist and Selsdon periods were succeeded by the Barber period involving panic resort to the printing press. I shall not say too much about that matter because no modest words of mine could be as devastating as were the words used by the hon. Member for Oswestry this afternoon in this debate. I am sorry that there were not as many Members on the Conservative Benches as there are now to hear what he said about that period.

No wonder the Tory document “The Right Approach” complained

“One of the main difficulties against which industry has been struggling for years in this country has been endless change.”

Yet if any policy at all can be discerned from the muddled verbiage in “The Right Approach” , it appears that there is to be more change simply for the sake of change.

That Tory document also says that a Conservative Government would repeal the 1975 Industry Act but the Tories will put nothing whatever in its place. They will abolish the National Enterprise Board, although every day I am visited in the Department of Industry by very good industrialists who say how useful a source of investment and innovation the NEB is, and how they wish to know more about it.

Furthermore, the Tories scrapped the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation and ever since then industrialists have wished that it could be brought back. The Tory policy contained in “The Right Approach” seeks to repeal, abolish and scrap——

Mr. Crawford

rose——

Mr. Varley

I cannot give way, because I still have a great deal to say.

Mr. Crawford

rose——

[column 609]

Mr. Varley

The hon. Gentleman did not take part in the debate, he has been out of the Chamber for most of the time, and therefore I do not see why I should give way to him now.

The Tories say that they would sell off as much as possible of British Shipbuilders and British Aerospace after we have brought them into public ownership. But I have a feeling that, even if the Tories were to take over, the civil aircraft industry, the merchant shipbuilders and some of the ship repairers in assisted areas would remain in public ownership. I suppose what would happen is that the Tories would quickly hand over guided missiles and would hand back to private industry the building of warships because they are the profitable sectors—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) should remember that he is a Whip and should not interrupt. Whips are appointed to sit quietly in the corner, and that is exactly what should happen.

I was interested the other day to read a pamphlet written by the hon. Member for Oswestry. It was based on a speech he made to the Tory Party conference on 6th October. [Hon. Members: “Reply to the debate.” ] We are now debating a Tory Opposition amendment tabled to the Queen's Speech. I must reply to the debate in that vein. The hon. Member for Oswestry said at the Tory Party conference

“The mood of national doubt will be intensified when the authority of the House of Commons is demonstrably infringed and circumscribed.”

I agree with that. I hope that on Wednesday, when we debate the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, the hon. Gentleman will be voting with us against the unelected House of Lords and supporting the Government.

The fact is that between 1970 and 1974 the Tories did not have an industry policy. They do not have an industry policy now and, what is more, they are incapable of having an industry policy. There is a yawning gap between the robust individualism of the hon. Member for Oswestry and the cautious interventionism of the right hon. Member for Lowestoft.

It is said that the Labour Party is divided, but I read weekend speeches and speeches made in the House, and I read that the right hon. Member for Worcester [column 610](Mr. Walker) says that there must be an incomes policy, while the Leader of the Opposition said in Wales

“We shall never have any kind of incomes policy.”

I should like to know exactly where the Tories stand.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher (Finchley)

Will Eric Varleythe right hon. Gentleman quote what I said, or has he not checked?

Mr. Varley

I do not have very much time but I am prepared to strike a bargain with the right hon. Lady. I am prepared to give up two minutes of my time so that she can tell us whether she believes in a voluntary incomes policy, a statutory incomes policy or no incomes policy?

Mrs. Thatcher

The right hon. Gentleman clearly did not check what I said—[Hon. Members: “Answer.” ] Of course I shall answer. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I check my facts and I check transcripts. I said during the passage of the Bill through the House last year that I do not believe in a statutory incomes policy. I thought that the Government Front Bench did not either. I do not believe in a statutory incomes policy but I believe in a voluntary incomes policy.

Mr. Varley

I am sure that in the next few days and weeks we shall study what the right hon. Lady has to say. I am sure that the country will study what she has to say. Clearly the right hon. Lady and her Shadow team have no policy on inflation and how to bring down the rate of inflation.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) made an interesting speech. He had a great deal to say about the nationalised industries, which are an important component of British industry. The hon. Member for Oswestry in his book and the Tories in “The Right Approach” state that there will never be any interference with the nationalised industries. They say that there will be no intervention in pricing policy.

That has been echoed today by the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton). He said that there will be no intervention in pricing policy. It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman was not in the House during the Tory years of 1970–74. If he had been, he would have [column 611]witnessed the most deliberate intervention in pricing policy, which created some of the difficulties of the nationalised industries and the rest of the industrial sector. That was the disastrous intervention policy of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and the present Leader of the Opposition, who was a member of the Conservative Cabinet. Their deliberate policy of controlling the pricing policy of the nationalised industries resulted in subsidies to those industries having to be handed over and paid for by this Government when we took office, subsidies of £1,250 million. That was public expenditure incurred when the Tories were in power. We are determined to put that right.

Since that time we have started to put things right. Last year the electricity industry, the Gas Board and the National Coal Board made a profit. In 1974–75 the British Steel Corporation made a profit, and if it had not been for the worst world recession the industry has ever suffered it would have made a profit in the past financial year, too. Costs and profitability have been brought into line. We get these thrusting speeches from the right hon. Member for Lowestoft about standing on one's own feet and no intervention, which prove that he has a very short memory. I know that that is not the sort of line that would be taken by the hon. Member for Oswestry.

The nationalised industries have maintained their investment. If it were not for the investment that has taken place in the nationalised industries, private industry would be in an even worse plight. Investment in the nationalised industries in 1975–76 was 10 per cent. up over the last year. If we had that kind of investment record in private industry we would not be in our present difficulties. The public sector, representing 11 per cent. of our GDP, is responsible for 19 per cent. of the total fixed investment.

Another important element of our industrial strategy is the investment schemes which have been widely welcomed. One of the cornerstones of our [column 612]industrial strategy is the National Enterprise Board. It is playing a valuable and important rôle in rebuilding British industry. The hon. Member for Cornwall, North referred to the fact that the NEB last week took a major equity stake in Sinclair Radionics. That was just the sort of thrusting firm one would have expected the City or some of the institutions to support. But they would not do so. That firm went to the institutions and the banks but could not get support. It would have been in severe financial difficulties had it not been for the NEB.

I understand that the Tory Opposition want to make exactly the same mistake with the NEB as they made with the IRC. Last month the NEB supported Reed and Smith, the specialist paper-makers, and enabled new technology to be introduced.

We see industrial democracy as an important part of our industrial strategy. Complaint has been made time and again in the debate about our poor economic performance. It is said that we do not get enough out of our investment, even where our technology is comparable to that existing elsewhere. The best way of getting the most out of our investment is for management to take workers much more into their confidence. That can be done only through the extension of industrial democracy and the planning agreement system.

I am extremely dissatisfied that further progress has not been made with planning agreements. The Government will not abdicate their rôle in industrial policy. The Tories do not have any strategy. Their approach is a complete abdication. They are getting into the ludicrous position they were in before the 1970 election, and we know what disastrous mistakes they made then.

Mr. Humphrey Atkins (Spelthorne)

rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 269, Noes 277.