May I say at once Mr. President that I came to Manchester to praise the spirit of enterprise and to wish you well in all your endeavours.
But I know that Manchester was not built from Whitehall or Westminster. It was built by the spirit and ability of the people in Manchester. But it was built before there was even a Ministry of Industry. The boost did not come from Whitehall, Manchester was the boost and it was a prosperous boost and it built the prosperity of this City.
After that Mr. President, thank you for your warm welcome.
Just to make absolutely certain that we are all on the level. The name is Thatcher; it is a very good name, you need Thatchers to keep the house safe from wind and weather.
May I say it is always a pleasure to visit Manchester, with its grand buildings constructed by the merchant princes of the last century and its many more recent developments. [end p1]
With its two world famous football teams, the Lancashire County Cricket Team. Its musical traditions, fostered among others by the Northern School of Music and by the Hallé Orchestra. Now I know that some people manage to combine these interests. Neville Cardus was one with his deep knowledge and love of both cricket and music. Another was Charles Collier for fifty years harpist to the Hallé Orchestra and a devotee of cricket. Not least because the bar at Old Trafford was open throughout the day. One day he returned to rehearsal earlier than expected. “Did Lancashire win” asked Sir John Barbirolli “No,” came the reply “bad light closed the bar” .
But it doesn't spoil the pleasure or affect Manchester's Chamber of Commerce. I am very grateful and very honoured that so many of you should have come this evening. For Manchester is above all a City of innovation and enterprise—and indeed as you said Mr. President it is the capital of an enterprising region. The fortunes of this place lie, as I indicated in the beginning, were founded on the skills of its business people.
The Duke of Bridgewater's canal brought coal into Manchester. He did the unthinkable, taking a canal over a river. The canal helped to halve the price of coal here and founded Manchester's fortunes.
Sir Joseph Whitworth 's companies built many of the precision tools which were the foundation for mass production. [end p2]
Sir William Fairbaim, Richard Roberts, James Nasmyth and there are many others. They were the driving force of the first industrial revolution and just they then [sic], there was a North South divide, but not with the prosperous regions. I do not think there is anything like such a North South divide to-day as some people like to think. I think there are great areas of prosperity and there are some areas of deprivation all over the country. But I am aware of the great difficulties of the regions which suffered when the older industries had to be replaced by the newer ones.
Then there is our tendency as a nation which is far to often to look to past industrial successes, ignoring past difficulties and failures. While in our own age we concentrate on the difficulties, ignoring the successes and the new opportunities. History tends to become telescoped in our imagination, so we look at the successes and forget the problems and to-day we don't sing enough about our successes but we do, my goodness me we do, about our difficulties.
I know that Manchester and the North West have faced a period of enormous and painful adjustment and the pressures piled on each other. The long decline of employment in textiles from a peak reached before the First World War was accelerated by the enormous event of the switch from cotton to man-made fibres—and I may say that some of us are switching back to the more natural fibres—and finding it very comfortable and very attractive. [end p3]
Also of course, the competition from the developing countries in textiles has sometimes been hard to beat.
The regions suffered because our shipyards have suffered with others around the world. Shipbuilding capacity was increased by heavy subsidies and by new producers and the subsidies of the new producers all came as the demand for ships slumped—and the consequence of every shipyard being subsidised the world over was we now have two years supply of ships swinging on the buoys. So subsidies are not always the answer they can cause some of the distortions which they were meant to relieve.
Now the engineering industries have suffered often as a result of past weakness of our car industry, which used to be so outstanding in the post war period, has not done so well and the affects of that have been felt throughout the economy.
Then at the end of the 1970s a juggling of the price of oil led the whole industrial world into the worst recession for fifty years.
Certainly the value of our own North Sea oil also doubled, a boom in so many ways, but its affect on our exchange rate added to the difficulties for manufacturing industry which depends so heavily on overseas trade.
I know there is a natural inclination to blame external events for problems which it is in our own hands to put right. But you can't blame the high exchange rate for restricted practices, over-manning, poor design or for late delivery. They are nothing to do with high [end p4] exchange rates, but something to do with the way our industry is managed. Without those things we should have been in a far better position to ride out the problems and maybe to have turned them to our advantage as Germany and Japan have in the past. If I may say so, we are getting over some of those problems now and management is far better than it was and I believe the spirit of both responsibility and enterprise have returned.
The North West region has a strong base from which to build its success. Second only to the South East in terms of employment and output. It has an economy much larger than some whole countries. Much larger than for example Greece, which is a member of the European Community in its own right. It has, you gave some of the virtues of Manchester, I'm also going to give some of the virtues, because its much better than even you said. Oh! Yes and I want you to know that I did my utmost to find out. That's how I know it's good.
Let me tell you something about Stansted. I have been in Parliament since 1959 and the Stansted decision took twenty years, much longer than Manchester.
Now let's come back, I want to talk about hospitals. You have got three major teaching hospitals. Yes, its the largest medical complex in Europe, in Manchester. Let's shout about it. And I am glad to say that tomorrow the Health Minister Mr. Tony Newton will be laying the foundation stone for a £30 million scheme at Manchester Royal Infirmary. [end p5]
Let's refer to the University Campus. I remember it well, as Secretary of State for Education, when I made several visits here. The University campus which is also the largest in Europe and attuned to the needs of business. Together with strong institutions for further education. So you have got the largest teaching hospitals, the largest University campus. Sometimes I go to a region which will say to me, “Mrs. Thatcher we can't get on because we haven't got a University, we haven't got a Polytechnic.” You have got both, they're good, and the largest University campus in Europe.
People sometimes ask, how can a region once heavily dependent on traditional industries create new ones? Well, Manchester is producing people with both the qualifications and the vitality for building new industries.
The region has a magnificent network of motorways. Yes, I have driven them. A magnificent network of motorways. No applause. Come on!
You have got a prime airport. You have got good rail connections. You have excellent access to the markets of the world in your fantastic assets on which to build new industries—and your industry is now more diversified.
Yes, textiles remain vitally important and I gather a good many people here to-night are engaged in the textile business. The whole industry is now far more confident. You see substantial investment in new [end p6] machinery, high quality, and good design, to offset the advantages enjoyed by countries with lower labour costs. I know the massive investment that's been made in the textile industry. I read a letter from one of your Managing Director's telling me that we were no longer importing the particular goods he was producing and he hoped within the next three years to have net exports, and one must note something about our manufacturing industry to-day as investment becomes the bigger and bigger proportion of costs and labour a smaller and smaller proportion of costs so we have the chance to win back some of the orders which we lost to the Far East. The essence there is investment, private investment, Mr. President, from things like insurance companies and pension funds and that's because of the enterprising spirit of this region. The cotton mills as you know have been put to good new use of, some to making cream cakes to making chips, of the electronic variety of course.
The North West is also a centre for Britain's nuclear industry. Now you know we were a first in the nuclear industry we led with nuclear power stations but somehow we lost the lead. It's one of the tragedies of the post-war period. So often we were a first but so often other people took our inventions and they made the profit and we didn't. Well, that's changing, I'm here to help you change it, but you're here to do it.
Now look, you've got the National Nuclear, I spent a day going all round it. It was fascinating, it was [end p7] exciting. You have got the National Nuclear Corporation. You have got the B.N.F.L. at Risley. You have got Sellafield and various other complexes.
You have also got good transport industries, good defence industries, good food industries, good chemical industries. That's all well represented here and many more businesses large and small.
The North West also has the second largest service sector in the country. Did you know all this, Mr. President? The question whether services are more important than manufacturing or manufacturing more important than services is quite absurd. They depend on each other, they turn to each other, and the country needs both to be successful, and the North West has both.
Manchester's Stock Exchange installed its new technology well before the big bang.
A flourishing insurance industry and the presence of over forty international, foreign and merchant banks make Manchester a major financial centre.
So its time for people to recognise that the North West has an increasingly diversified well based economy. It's about time people got rid of their own prejudices about smoke-stack industries.
That isn't the Manchester you know and I know. But there are other prejudices too, one of them is the belief that there is not enough investment in infrastructure. Well, a drive along the motorways around Manchester should begin to change that particular prejudice. [end p8]
I know there is concerns about Manchester's sewers and water supplies. The investment by North West Water has doubled in cash terms since 1979 to £170,000,000 million last year alone.
You spoke about the Channel Tunnel—every penny piece of investment from the private sector. Let me tell you something else. The Mersey Basin Campaign is a £4 billion twenty-year programme, more than the Channel Tunnel. The Mersey Basin, got it, the Mersey Basin—£4 billion twenty-year programme to clean up every waterway from the Pennines to the Mersey estuary and it is exciting, exciting, it's fundamental. It will also do enormous things to help to improve the environment, which most of us feel very strongly about.
The centres of the North West face many of the same urban problems as London, Birmingham or Glasgow. Somewhere in large cities, because of our history, because of the Industrial Revolution, we have all got these problems. But we tackle them together and we try to pool our common experience and our common knowledge of how to tackle them. But do let me say this, because I feel it most strongly. Yes! I know one needs a good deal of money, but I feel deeply that, to these young people, money will not solve the problems. They want personal interest taken in them and their future. That is what so many of them are missing.
Now the government announced recently that a new Urban Development Corporation would be set up in [end p9] Trafford Park. Urban Development Corporation, Enterprise Zones, City Action Teams, Urban Programme Grants, Developments Grants, Regeneration Grants, Derelict Land Grants, Employment Programmes, those are all the lengths of the things we have got going to try to help under this Government. These initiatives all offer ways to channel resources and management directly to where they will do most good.
In Manchester alone—a figure I took out which I thought you would be interested in-over 4,300 people are currently running businesses with the aid of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. I found that also very exciting. Young people starting off in business on their own, more self-employment.
I would be most thrilled if a manufacturer came and said “I want to set up in the North West and I want to employ 4,300 people,” and yet that is happening with Enterprise Allowance Scheme. Each of them has the possibility of growing into a larger business, which may start to employ more people.
The G-Mex Exhibition Centre has support from the Urban Programme. I mean no disrespect to this hotel when I say that the Midland Hotel is being restored to it's former glory—although, with every modern convenience, of course—with the help of an Urban Development Grant. And please, as a guest, may I just say that I thought we had a wonderful meal at this hotel? I thought it was marvellous. I looked at it and thought, I wonder if there's things like cauliflower in [end p10] Manchester, it used to be called the toast rack. I know, I went there when I was Secretary of State for Education. I wonder if it has all been changed.
But you know as I do and I must stress this, there is a limit to the Government's ability to bring a new vigour into an area. There is no substitute for local pride, initiative and enthusiasm. In Manchester and elsewhere private enterprise, pride and finance are bringing new hopes and your Chamber of Commerce is helping to channel and organise local business initiative. And I am very pleased to see the amount you are doing. You represent a true partnership between the efforts of government and the enterprise of business. And that's why I come to tell you and point out the things that government has been doing. To point out the things which you are doing, because it is the partnership which will create the wealth and health of the future.
Mr. President, British business North and South can increasing look the world in the eye. Thanks to your enterprise, backed by prudent, stable government. The figures tell a story, you don't see much about it in the newspapers. The fact is we are now beginning to hold our own against industrial rises. Since 1981 this country's economy has grown faster than France, Italy and Germany. The prospect next year is for further growth of output which in turn helps towards the new jobs we all want to see. The Nigel LawsonChancellor of the Exchequer expects growth of 3%;. And because the [end p11] contribution of oil is declining, the rest of the economy could go faster than 3%;.
Manufacturing is steadily improving its performance, over the past five years our manufacturing exports have held their share of the volume of world trade. That again is something we should be thankful for.
Ironically some industries are still far too vulnerable to overseas competition in our own home market. May I say it is just as important to keep and win customers at home as it is abroad? But the steady recovery is being felt throughout the country, most strongly in the South East, but now increasingly everywhere.
Youth unemployment is far too high but it has been falling in the country as a whole for the past three months and in the North West for the past four months. Rising employment, a million new jobs since 1983, now has a partner in falling unemployment.
There are as ever risks, there always were in business. I was born and bred in it. There is always risks and always will be.
In this City of Cobden and Bright and the long history of support for free trade, there is one risk I must mention in particular, that is the risk of protectionism. We know the the pressures for it in our own country. But internationally, particularly in the United States, they are as great as I have ever known. But were they to be allowed to succeed the results could be devastating as indeed they were in the [end p12] 1930s. Protection for one industry is so often followed by retaliation against another. One factory may gain in the short term but its neighbour suddenly finds its markets closed. Our western economies are founded on trade; jobs and our standard of living depends on it. But standards is a two way business and that is why we are so anxious to begin a new round of tariff discussions within the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. And why the European Community acting together has decided to raise a test case against Japan in the gaps.
We need also to persuade some of the newly industrialised countries also around the Pacific base to open up their markets and to respect our patents and trade marks.
Enterprise is returning to Britain. Managers have been freed from constant worry that their employees may walk out with the smallest of grievance. The burdens of overmanning and restrictive practices have been cut down to size, if not yet removed.
Now you and your businesses can concentrate on the real tasks. New profits, better design, because unless you have good design, I sometimes have design seminars in 10 Downing Street. You could have one in Manchester if it was helpful, for unless you get good designs, people don't even get looking at your goods. It is extremely important, whether it is in the ordinary consumer products or whether it is in the design of engineering. Whether it is in appearance or whether it [end p13] is in function. So it's new products, better design, quicker delivery, and cheaper prices. And you are doing it with increasing success.
Now what is our task in government? It is to set the framework, Low public borrowing, quicker planning decisions, less burdens and regulations, lower taxes, and I know you would like lower interest rates when we prudently can. Our aim is stable responsible policies, so that business can plan for the future with confidence. That is also the reason why we propose a radical reform of local authority finance. Among other things to take away from local authorities the ability to place quite excessive burdens on business.
Now Mr. President, this week saw something which I must refer to. The successful launch of gas into the private sector, giving new freedom to its management to invest and grow within the proper framework of regulation and making hundreds of thousands of people shareholders for the first time.
Well, that too is a part of our policies. Not only returning industries to the private sector, although that is important, you manage far better than politicians and bureaucrats. If half my Cabinet and Ministers were good business men they would be in business.
It is not only returning industries to the private sector but it is also giving ever more people the direct stake in success. Because our goal is the nation of independence and enterprise, privatisation and wider [end p14] share ownership. Even before the privatisation of British Gas the number of shareholders had doubled under this government, and now there are many more. There are people who own shares, not through a pension fund or an insurance company, but directly on their own account. Watching the Stock Market, receiving company reports—learning to understand and appreciate the problems and possibilities of business. Well over a million people now enjoy the benefits and the incentives of employee share schemes—that's important.
Two thirds of the population own their own homes. And more than eleven million people have occupational pensions. And there are fifty-two million building society accounts. This is a different world, it's a world where ordinary folk with ordinary incomes can become property owners and share owners and saving owners. Have their own independence, build their own security, build their own future, and have an interest in future generations, and in their grandchildren's prosperity.
The number of people who are self employed has increased by almost half since 1979. And now businesses are being created at a record rate.
Mr. President, your predecessors in business would have recognised the importance of enterprise as you do and as I do. In fact we were both saying the same thing, although slightly in a different way.
Yes! You are telling me what I have got to do and I am telling you what you have got to do. So, if we both [end p15] get on and do it, we should all do well. And maybe I will be hearing the same comparisons in the next five years.
Now your predecessors made their own opportunities as you do. They were tremendously proud of their own region and city as you are. You here to-night are their worthy successors and I honour you for it. May I on behalf of the guests thank you for the way in which you propose this toast. I enjoyed it because you gave me such a chance to reply to it.
May I thank you for asking me? May I thank you for your hosplitality? May I wish you well in all your endeavours? And may I wish this region increasing prosperity for the joint endeavours of government and the spirit of the region?
May I now ask you to rise and drink a toast to the health of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce and Industry coupled with the name of your illustrious President Mr. Morris?