Mr. Speaker

Before I call the Leader of the Opposition to move his motion I have to inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends.

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Edward Heath (Sidcup)

I beg to move, That this House regrets the Government's damaging industrial policies based on a massive extension of nationalisation and control of individual companies. Although this debate is short, it is devoted to the coverage of the whole of the Government's industry policy. After three and a half months the impact of the Government's policies is already seen very clearly on industry—as a result of the Government's action in four separate spheres, with which I shall deal. First, there is the burden deliberately placed on industry by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. The right hon. Gentleman took £1,100 million out of industry's cash flow this year—£420 million in corporation tax, £340 million in employers' contribution, and the remainder in the increase in the nationalised industries' prices. The impact of this shortage of cash flow is already being seen in the conditions of many firms in this country, in the reduction in the investment forecasts and in the cancellation of plans which would have led to new jobs. I believe that the reduction of the cash flow is a deliberate policy designed to force many firms into a situation in which they will have to ask for Government assistance, and as a result of their being in this position the Secretary of State for Industry will then be able to gain control over them, the control which he wants and which is in accordance with his published plans.

There is then the impact of the Budget on the consumer by deliberately forcing up prices. This has triggered the threshold earlier than was necessary and the very triggering of the threshold—on three occasions with the last rise in the BPI, and I expect there to be a further two when the announcement is made tomorrow—is bound to have its impact first on prices and then on the cash flow of many firms. As a result, we are also seeing a rash of industrial disputes over thresholds because of the way in which this matter has been handled by this Government. About 2 million workers negotiated thresholds and the remainder are now disputing the whole question.

There should also be added to this the damage which this approach did to those on middle sized incomes, who come largely from middle management and now find that their incentives are greatly diminished. The obvious result, which could easily have been forecast, is that these people look to other countries to see whether there are better possibilities for them. This is even extending, as I know well, to the artistic world, to those who have come to make their homes and lives in London as the greatest musical capital of the world and now have the greatest doubts whether they should remain here.

The second factor which has made its impact is the Government's attitude towards the EEC and the so-called renegotiation of the treaty and the talk of taking Britain out of the Community. This has completely undermined the confidence of firms which had already made plans—some of them implemented, others well on the way to implementation—to operate freely within the Community. They now find themselves in a state of doubt about the future. The result is postponed investment and again the loss of jobs which could have been created by it.

In addition, we must include the loss of investment from overseas by those who were prepared to invest here because they wanted to be inside the Community. They are now unsure of the future in Britain, so this investment is being lost, together with the jobs which would have gone with it, many of which would have been in Scotland, Wales and the development areas.

All of this is quite unnecessary if the Foreign Secretary is now genuine in saying that he does not propose to ask for any changes in the Treaty of Accession or the Treaty of Rome. If that is so, none of this doubt need have been inspired. Changes inside the Community will constantly be made, they have been made already while we have been a member, and they will go on being made to suit the conditions of the member countries, no matter which country is involved.

In fact, by talking first of renegotiation and then saying that they did not propose to make any change in the treaties, the Government have been playing out a charade—but a damaging and very dangerous charade from the point of view of investment in industry in this country, either indigenous investment or investment from overseas. They have done it in order to try to heal the breaches in their own ranks. It is time that the Prime Minister and his colleagues faced their Left Wing, showed them what the facts of life really are about Britain's place in the world and looked after our national interests as they should have done when they became the Government.

The third matter which has made its impact on industry is the Government's Green Paper on the so-called "worker participation". This is a misnomer if ever there was one. These are not proposals for participation—

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)

It is not a Green Paper.

Mr. Heath

I am referring to the general paper which has been issued by the right hon. Gentleman's party—

The Prime Minister

That is a party document.

Mr. Heath

Yes. It is called a Green Paper, as I understand it. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to disown it, of course he may do so.

The Prime Minister

The right hon. Gentleman referred to a Government Green Paper. There has been no such Green Paper issued by the Government. In his period of office, Conservative Central Office published an awful lot of tripe, but he never took responsibility for it.

Mr. Heath

It is called a Green Paper—" A report to the Labour Party Indus trial Policy Sub-Committee." If the right hon. Gentleman wants to refer to it as "tripe" he is free to do so.

But these are not proposals for worker participation, for participation by workers elected by all those working in the firm. These are proposals which threaten a system of outside control of firms and companies by professional union officials, men who may well know nothing about a particular firm and will have to know nothing about it.

In that Labour Party document—I am agreeable to the Prime Minister's disowning the lot if he wants, because that might start to restore confidence in British industry—the proposals would mean the so-called "election" but, in fact, "appointment" to 50 per cent. board membership, with alternating chairmen, of union leaders. We know that a union leader can be elected for life on a ballot of less than 10 per cent. of his total membership and that he himself might get only 7 per cent.

This is what is undermining confidence in British industry, that the right hon. Gentleman's Government will take over proposals of this kind and expect British industry to be run in this way. This proposal has thoroughly undermined confidence. I repeat that it is not a proposal for worker participation. Many of us have long argued for that, and, in respect of the Community, I put it forward at the Summit Conference in Paris in 1972, specifically by arrangement with the then German Chancellor, Herr Brandt.

Many of the best firms in this country are carrying through participation of this kind themselves at the moment, and they want it extended by a code, by European legislation or whatever it may be—but not this sort of proposal, in which 50 per cent. of a board's members would be nominated solely by union officials and drawn from union officials or those outside the company.

Mr. Eric Moonman (Basildon)

The right hon. Gentleman has made much of the fact that the practices of Europe are worth taking into account. What is the difference between these proposals by the Labour Party and those which have already been acquired by the EEC?

Mr. Heath

There is a major difference—this is true also of the German system—which is that in Europe they are "workers" and not solely "union members", and, moreover, that they consist of those who are in the firm and who, therefore, participate in the life of the firm and are not imposed from the outside. These are the two basic differences in a subject which is of great importance.

Fourth, the matter which has made the greatest impact of all is the plans for widespread nationalisation of nine major industries and State control initially of the first 100 firms. I say "initially" because that is the word that the Secretary of State for Industry has openly used. These plans cover at least half of British manufacturing industry. The Prime Minister, of course, is coy about naming the 100 firms. I am not in the least surprised, but others will make sure that those 100 firms are known in every constituency in the country; in every branch they have, no matter where they are, the workers will be told exactly what lies in store for them if this Government have a chance to implement these proposals—the nationalisation, complete and outright, of shipbuilding, ship repairing, marine engineering, the ports, the aircraft industry, machine tools, pharmaceuticals, road haulage and North Sea oil and gas.

It may well be that on pharmaceuticals and machine tools there is a limitation on the profitable parts of the industry available for nationalisation. It is difficult to understand the logic of that on any reasoning, but when it comes to the point I suspect that the Secretary of State for Industry would like to take the whole lot.

On North Sea oil and gas, it may be that the Government will adapt our plans for carried interest or an additional revenue tax, but, again, they have not made their position clear. They have shown typical dithering over the whole question due to their internal arguments. We had already taken our decisions about taxation so far as the losses are concerned and announced them to Parliament. The Chancellor did that, too, and confirmed again that they would be taken in the Finance Bill.

This indecision is damaging to the oil industry, but what is more important is that it is raising doubts in the minds of every overseas investor in the oil industry in the North Sea whether he should go on being prepared to put sums of money into prospecting. This is the damaging effect of the Government's attitude and of the fact that they have not made their position clear over North Sea oil.

We must also add to these proposals the very real threat emphasised by the Chancellor a year ago, that, given a chance—I have no doubt about that—they would be working on plans to nationalise the banks, insurance companies, building societies and other financial institutions. Indeed, I will freely grant it to the Secretary of State for Industry and his friends in the Cabinet—I think that they would agree—that if they are able to do what they plan in the way of widespread nationalisation over the field that I have described, plus the National Enterprise Board and the controls that he wants, they can argue logically that there is no justification for having any private financial institutions of any kind.

Why should they have them if they have control of so much of industry and have nationalised such a wide spread of it? So it is logical for the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends to press for the nationalisation of the financial institutions as well, because, in their logic, no place would remain for them.

What is more, one of the reasons why I am convinced that the Secretary of State for Social Services wants to postpone a large part of the 1973 Act is to ensure that the pension funds are under her control and not under control of any other kind. That is once again the propose of this Government's policy, to secure the control of contributions to pensions funds in the pensions arrangements. We would reach a position where all savings banks, building societies and insurance companies were under direct Government control. It means the removal of choice for the individual. It is absolutely basic. It is the removal of choice.

It would mean that London would cease to be a major financial centre. Great damage will be done to our invisible exports, which in these last few years have been playing a major part in our balance of payments.

These four policies—the damaging Budget, the uncertainty over membership of the EEC, the proposals put forward for trade union control of 50 per cent. on boards of management, and the massive extension of nationalisation, of State control—have undermined the confidence of British industry and brought it to an all-time low. But they have also undermined the confidence of people outside Britain who were prepared to invest in this country.

If one adds to those four points what is now clearly a very dangerous situation, the approaching breakdown of a pay and incomes policy of any kind, one can understand the collapse of confidence in industry and finance, the cancellation of many investment plans, and the collapse of the capital market and of share prices.

There are many hon. Gentlemen opposite who are only too glad to welcome any collapse of the stock market. For the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who must finance his deficit, this will now pose major problems, and for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite with very close trade union connections, for they will look to their pension funds and see what is happening to them as a result of the undermining of confidence in British industry.

Mr. T. W. Urwin (Houghton-le-Spring)

The right hon. Gentleman in an obviously planned speech has chosen to restrict his comments to four areas—I meant to say "well planned"—which attempt to denigrate the present minority Government. Would he be prepared to give a fifth dimension to his speech and tell us how serious and deleterious were the effects of £1,200 million in public expenditure effected by his Chancellor of the Exchequer last December?

Mr. Heath

I am always prepared to argue that point. As Prime Minister I discussed very often with the trade unions and the CBI the financial measures required to get expansion going in the economy. That expansion was achieved. It was more than 5 per cent. It was welcomed by the trade unions as well as by the employers.

These plans—whatever the Government finally wish to admit—will be bitterly fought both politically and by industry. They will be bitterly fought by all those who believe in a free society, and this at a time when we face grave perils and when a divisive policy of this kind ought not to be put forward by any Government.

These plans are put forward as a solution to the problems of British industry. The problems are well known. Practically all members are fully acquainted with them. Many hon. Members have handled them over the past years. Some are historic, arising from the fact that we were the first industrialised nation. Another point is that we were not destroyed by the war to any great extent. We did not, therefore, have the advantage of modern post-war replacements as did some of our competitors. We received a loan of $2,000 million. That was thrown away and not used by the 1945 Government for the reconstruction for which it was intended. We know there are trade union attitudes and conditions governed to some extent still by the depressed years of the 1930s. We know there is a lack of mobility of labour in this country compared with other industrial nations. We also know that we have not forged ahead until very recently with sufficient training for middle or top management. There is a lack of cash flow, which has been made much worse by the recent Budget. There is an inability now to plan ahead because of changes of Government policy.

The right hon. Gentleman opposite is critical about the speed of industrial development during the last four years. If he and his colleagues had adhered in Opposition to the European policy they had while in Government British industry would have had complete confidence and could have invested to go into the EEC. That is a heavy responsibility which he will always carry.

I know of the right hon. Gentleman's comments on my remarks concerning the unpleasant face of capitalism. I deliberately pointed that out. The right hon. Gentleman said we took no action about it. We took immediate action. We set up an inquiry into the complaints. I do not see why hon. Gentlemen have reason to complain about a DTI inquiry into a matter of this kind.

We brought forward the Companies Act to deal specifically with the defects revealed. That is the correct way to deal with defects in a free-enterprise society. I wish right hon. Gentlemen were willing to do that with the trade union movement when defects are seen.

Let us look frankly at our society. Where we see defects, let us be prepared to take action about them.

The Government's proposals do not provide any solutions to the problems which in some cases have long been evident in British industry. They are either damaging or else irrelevant, or in some cases both. What justification is put forward for this wide extension of State control? The Prime Minister is clear about it.

The Prime Minister

It is in the manifesto.

Mr. Heath

The Prime Minister says that it is in the manifesto, but he has made no attempt to produce any justifification for it or intellectual argument about it.

The Prime Minister

There is a mandate.

Mr. Heath

There is no mandate for nationalisation by this Government. There were 18 million people who voted for parties which were against nationalisation, compared with 11 million who voted for the right hon. Gentleman's own party.

We then come to the somewhat shoddy arguments now used. They seem to be coming forward for the first time, particularly from the Secretary of State for Industry. He says that industry pays £4 million a day in taxes and receives £2 million a day in aids of one kind or another, mainly regional programmes. Which party has pressed incessantly in the House of Commons for regional aid programmes? The last Government carried out more than any of their predecessors, although sometimes criticised by my hon. Friends on the back benches.

The Secretary of State for Industry then claims that that gives him the right to have this massive extension of nationalisation and State control. But what argument is there in this? What right does it give him?

The Secretary of State's figures are wrong. At Question Time the Prime Minister made a strange statement in which he said he thought more was paid to industry than industry paid in taxes. He knows more about football than politics. He seems to know more about football than statistics.

Industry pays £10 million a day in taxes and receives £2 million per day in aid and grants of various kinds. For every £1 it receives it pays £5 in taxes.

What is the position of the nationalised industries? The write-offs in the nationalised industries now amount to more than £5,000 million, without including what Governments and public money have contributed towards their investment programmes.

That is not a real argument. It is a diversion put forward by the Secretary of State for Industry. He is producing these figures only to confuse the real issue. The real issue is: in what way will the British economy be run? That is the real issue which faces the House and the country.

There are two ways of running the economy, which is part nationalised and in part free-enterprise. The first is the way in which the British nation believes: that the Government take overall responsibility for strategy through the Budget and through monetary policy. The Government use planning powers to protect the environment and financial inducements to encourage investment and, for social reasons, for regional development. The second way is the way of State control and State planning throughout.

The Prime Minister says that every European country has the sort of arrangement that he is proposing, and he may have in mind the Italian IRI. I say to him, and I am prepared to give the Government credit, that the Italian system has not coped with the problem of development in Southern Italy or done anything of any consequence to restore the balance between Southern Italy and the northern industrial region, whereas we, although we have not solved the problem, have had considerable success through our regional policies. Between 1960 and 1965, 192,000 new jobs were created, and, taking the more recent example of our Industry Act 1972, by October 1973 60,000 new jobs had been provided.

That has not solved the problem entirely, but we ought not to discount what has been done under the system used by all post-war Governments which leaves the choice to industry and to individuals and which is carried through by consent. It is because we have had success that the Italian Government have been studying our methods and have supported us in Brussels in our proposals for the Regional Development Fund.

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw)

The right hon. Gentleman neglects to mention Sweden, Israel and Canada, the countries in which a National Enterprise Board has been successful in industries such as tobacco, banking and coal. Why is the right hon. Gentleman being selective and referring only to Italy?

Mr. Heath

I could not mention all the places which the Prime Minister this afternoon was asked to visit. The hon. Gentleman should read what his right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General said: My concern with the National Enterprise Board suggestion is simply that it is a bad idea. It derives from a vision of a monopolistic society ruled by technocrats", and that is what the Secretary of State for Industry wants.

The system that we have avoids strict controls on firms and individuals. It avoids the creation of more State monopolies and the huge apparatus of State domination. It protects individual freedom and choice, and the European countries use a similar system.

I do not believe that the Secretary of State for Industry understands how a mixed economy works in a democracy. I do not think that he is interested in understanding it. What he understands is an economy based on State planning and State decision-making. That is what interests the right hon. Gentleman and leads to the production of his plans. Down that path lies the growth of collective coercion and a decrease of personal liberty, and in all this the Secretary of State is fully supported by the Prime Minister.

What right hon. Gentlemen opposite never discuss—though I hope they will do so today—are the problems of the nationalised industries. They are, however, prepared to denigrate free enterprise. Let us discuss the problems of the nationalised industries.

All those who have been concerned with the nationalised industries—and that means the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues as much as it does us—know that the problems are basically infinitely greater than those in free enterprise. Nationalised industries are massive units—and many of the proposed units will be massive—remote and, to a large extent in the literal use of the word, unmanageable.

The quality of management for units of such a scale is almost entirely unobtainable from either inside the industry or outside, and those who have had experience of trying to make appointments to boards or of chairmen of these massive units know what the difficulties are.

Nobody has found a way of making these massive and remote units properly responsible to Parliament, to Ministers or to anyone else. The industries themselves have not found a satisfactory way of delegation within themselves, and this is evident outside the Metropolis. They are usually unwilling to adapt their investment programmes to the trade cycle in order to help the national situation. They always press for subsidies of one kind and another because, they say, they are not commercially justified in making such a commitment. They are reluctant to work closely with British industry to encourage British industry because, they say, they much prefer to go elsewhere in the world where they may be able to get what they want off the peg. Those are the facts about nationalised industries.

Mr. Stanley Newens (Harlow)

What about the multinationals?

Mr. Heath

During my time as Prime Minister and when I was at the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour I never experienced a multinational which refused to co-operate with the Government. What is more, many of the multinationals have stood this country in good stead in times of war.

The demand by the nationalised industries for investment capital already hamstrings the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his financial policy and financial management, because he knows that with such massive units it is difficult to change anything with any rapidity. Why hamstring the Chancellor of the Exchequer still further and have massive demands which further nationalised industries will make on the Exchequer, apart from the cost of buying them—which presumably will be the case—and the inflationary effect of that?

The nationalised industries themselves, being such massive units, find the utmost difficulty in having an adequate system of financial control within their own organisation. They are cumbersome and slow-moving in their decision-taking, and the whole process is compounded by the fact that they have to act in concert with the Treasury.

Those are the facts of life. Those working on the boards of management of nationalised industries are doing their best to cope with the problems but, many of these problems, by their nature, have still not been dealt with, and nobody can see how they will be, and that must be a major argument against the extension which the Secretary of State wants to bring about.

Who can argue that industrial relations in many of the large nationalised industries are satisfactory? One reason why they are not is the massive size of the units and the remoteness—

Mr. Ashton

And Government interference.

Mr. Heath

The hon. Gentleman blames Government interference; yet this House is constantly being pressed for further Government and parliamentary control over nationalised industries. If the hon. Gentleman does not want Government interference, he should tell his right hon. Friend to give it up and not nationalise industries.

The other fact is that a nationalised industry has no negotiating position in any of these problems, because the other side knows that it can say "Away with you. We will go to the Government of the day", and it goes to the Minister, be it the Secretary of State for Employment or the Treasury Minister or, as it used to be, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and now either Trade or Industry. Those who run these massive and remote units know that in any event those with whom they are negotiating will always sweep them to one side and demand to go to the Minister or the Government, and yet this House is constantly pressed for that situation to be developed.

Let us consider the consumer side of the matter. It may have been idealistic at one time, but does anybody now believe that consumers feel that the nationalised industries belong to them? Do the tormented commuters feel that the railways on which they are being disorganised belong to them? Does the housewife who finds the power switched off believe that the power stations belong to her? Does anybody believe that the consumer councils represent what the consumer wants? What connection is there between consumer councils for nationalised industries and the ordinary citizen? These, too, are remote, and these are the problems of the nationalised industries about which we never hear from Government Members.

Right hon. Gentlemen opposite have sufficient experience, knowledge and intelligence to know that those are the real problems. Why, then, are they proposing to go ahead with proposals such as these? It can only be because, above all, they are greedy for power for the sake of power over industry. That is the basic demand of the Secretary of State.

The Government have at the moment launched this attack against British industry and it has shattered confidence and destroyed prospects for future jobs through affecting investment. It has now inflicted a complete planning blight across the whole face of industrial Britain.

In the past 20 years we have seen this all too often. The steel industry was a massive example in which, because of the constant threat of nationalisation, it did not go for the investment which it ought to have gone for, and the whole country has been suffering from that ever since—

The Prime Minister

Why did the right hon. Gentleman not denationalise any of the industries he has been speaking about, with the exception of the Carlisle State pubs?

Mr. Heath

There were other industries which we denationalised—but we did not denationalise in other cases for the simple reason that to do so again brings conflict in industry, and that is what the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State is doing with free enterprise industry today. He has launched war against free enterprise industry

The industrial policy of the Labour Party has been the curse of Britain for 25 years. Let the House show in the vote tonight that the country wants no more of it.

4.31 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn)

I beg to move, to leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: 'recalling that subsidies paid to private companies by the previous Government, coupled with State intervention, did not correct the long term problems of British industry, failed to sustain investment, and ended in a collapse of confidence, believes that the time has come to re-examine the working of the mixed economy and to seek ways to improve production and exports, raise investment and provide more jobs in Scotland, Wales and the English regions; and supports the Statement by the Prime Minister on 12th March in the Debate on the Address on the Government's intention in respect of the forthcoming Industry Bill and the National Enterprise Board'. This is the first time that the House has had an opportunity of discussing the industrial situation and the Government's industrial strategy in this Parliament. It is also the first time that there has been an opportunity to discuss the proposed Industry Bill, and the National Enterprise Board and the planning agreements system.

However, before passing to these subjects, which are central to our debate, perhaps I should say to the Leader of the Opposition that it was significant to me, listening to his speech, that, bearing in mind that he occupied the high office of Prime Minister for almost four years, he found no time to describe the contribution which he made to any of the problems now confronting the House.

The right hon. Gentleman made no reference whatever—one wonders how long his memory may be—to the inheritance of the three-day week or to the fact that when we came to power we found his policies of confrontation and war upon workers in industry which had led to the most tragic collapse of confidence which we have had in British industry since the war. If the right hon. Gentleman appeared, as many thought, to be out of touch with reality when he was Prime Minister, he has certainly proved today that he is still unready to face the reality of the consequences of his own policy—

Mr. Heath

There was no confrontation with our Government. If the right hon. Gentleman consults the leaders of the trade union movement who took part in the talks with me they will tell him that there was no confrontation by our Government. The confrontation was with one union only, at that union's insistence, because it was not prepared to accept the arrangements laid down by Parliament.

Regarding the three-day week, the present Prime Minister has paid tribute to the fact that the three-day week showed that British industry during that period greatly increased its production proportionately. Trade union leaders and employers will tell the right hon. Gentleman that fact, and they will ask him why they cannot still further achieve an increase in times of full working. The breakdown of confidence came later with the present Government.

Mr. Benn

If the right hon. Gentleman is now producing a new argument for the three-day week and saying that it proved what British industry could do under difficult circumstances, he must be even more out of touch with the reality of the situation. Not only were 1½ million workers temporarily stopped during that period, but he ran up administration costs of £1 million for the Department of Trade and Industry alone and did enormous damage to industrial confidence and investment. It is true that the settlement after the change of Government created a sense of well-being because people saw these immediate problems dealt with.

However, I want today to invite the House to look at the more deep-seated problems which have confronted industry in one form or another since the war and which should properly lead Ministers of both parties who have had responsibility for these matters to consider in which direction we should go.

The plain truth is that Britain has suffered a relative industrial decline over a long time under Governments of both parties. If the claim and forecasts which led to a rebuke being administered to Lord Rothschild, or the claim or forecasts of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), in one of his speeches at the time of the General Election, are correct, this country is faced with the prospect of a continued relative industrial decline.

Figures which I shall give to indicate this spread over the record of a number of Governments. Let us take, for example, the average annual growth of manufacturing output from 1953 to 1971. The figures are—for the United Kingdom 3 per cent., for France 6½ per cent., for Italy 7½ per cent., for Germany 7½ per cent., and for Japan 14½ per cent.

Mr. Michael Heseltine (Henley) rose—

Mr. Benn

If I may be allowed to continue to give some figures, I shall take next the average annual growth of manufactured exports, by volume, in the period 1954 to 1972. The figures are United Kingdom 4 per cent., France 9½ per cent., Germany 10½ per cent., Italy 16½ per cent., and Japan 17 per cent.

If we next take the ratio of imports of manufactures to exports of manufactures over a 10 year period, we find that in 1964 the figure was 57 per cent.—nearly twice as much exported as imported—and it is now 90 per cent. or only 10 per cent. more exported than imported.

Further, if we take investment per employee in manufacturing—that is, the amount of horsepower, machinery and equipment behind the average British worker—we find that in 1971 there was £250 worth of investment behind the average worker in the United Kingdom, while in Germany the figure was £400, in Japan £500, in France £600, and in the United States £700.

If we look at the basic statistics and figures over a long period we find that a mixed economy, in the way in which it has been operating, and in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman sought to defend it in his speech, has not brought to the people of this country the results which they might otherwise have had—

Mr. Heseltine

The right hon. Gentleman has given the House a vastly impressive catalogue of the great success of the truly free enterprises in the world's economies.

Mr. Benn

The hon. Gentleman underestimates the magnitude of the problems facing us. These problems have extended over a prolonged period. They have had their impact on the people of this country and have contributed in part to the acute and chronic regional unemployment problem in Scotland, in Wales, on Merseyside, in the North and now even in the Midlands. During the last period of high unemployment there was some anxiety in the Midlands about the future there. The unemployment figures published today, for June 1974, still indicate that we have been unable to solve—not for lack of effort and attention—the disparity in unemployment between the South-East, for which today's figure is 1.5 per cent. and, for example, the North, with a latest figure of 4.4 per cent.

These problems go back for a long time. The record does not give very much encouragement to a belief in the right hon. Gentleman's arguments about his capacity to improve industrial investment. Industrial investment fell by 17 per cent. in the first two years in which he held office. It never recovered. By the time he left office, investment was back to the 1970 level, when he assumed office.

He and his right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, have made many speeches about the need to encourage people to invest. He must know very well that the boom which his Cabinet tried to produce to break through these problems came up against capacity limitations by the autumn of last year, because of the failure to invest in British industry, before the impact of the higher oil prices began to be felt.

The picture I paint is gloomy. I believe that unless we are able to change the prospects in some way, the forecasts which have been given may be correct in that we may be led into graver difficulties. It is not for any lack of trying. The right hon. Gentleman was at one time President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development. All Governments over the period since the war have attempted to correct these underlying problems.

There have been many disagreements on important items of policy, but in general during this period there has been the development of policy on the simple and clear pattern that the basic industries brought into public ownership should be re-equipped by the community which owned them. If we consider the figures for public investment, since 1951 in the public corporations—such as mines, railways and electricity—we shall see that some £24,000 million has been invested in re-equipping these industries. Similarly, Governments have accepted that what is sometimes called in the jargon the social infrastructure—that is to say local authority and central Government expenditure, which impacts very much on the capacity of investment to improve its own performance—must be improved, and this has led to investment over the same period of about £35,000 million.

This has been a great contribution to our industrial capability because industry depends upon this infrastructure. If we add to that the fact that nationalised industries have been running at a loss, very often as a result of Government policy, we get a subsidy that has come through the provision of nationalised industry services at below cost for private manufacturing and for the benefit of private manufacturing industry. If freight fares are below their true cost, or telephone or electricity charges are below the true cost, then some of this benefit feeds into private manufacturing industry.

As to manufacturing itself, it has been left very largely in the private sector. There has been some financing of innovation by Government. I will give examples from two industries in which there has been public expenditure on innovation. Over the four-year period beginning in 1968–69 and ending in 1972–73, the aircraft industry received £766 million in this way, and the nuclear industry about £228 million. In certain areas, where the Government of the day thought it necessary to carry risks or to promote development, substantial sums of public money have been used.

But in the private sector there has been another tendency which we are bound to notice. That is the steady development of monopoly in private manufacturing industry. Nearly half of the manufacturing now done in Britain is done by 100 companies. In making my own inquiries about the top 20 of these companies, the figures I have been given show that these own 4,000 companies in Britain today.

The right hon. Gentleman says that nationalised industries are big and suffer from the problems of remoteness of management, yet there must be millions of people working in private manufacturing industry in Britain today who do not even know the name of the company that owns the company in which they work.

I come to the question of Government grants—

Mr. Heath

First of all, I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's general monopoly conclusions. In any case, the machinery for dealing with monopolies exists and has existed under many Governments. If he wants, he can use it. How can these companies of which the right hon. Gentleman speaks be monopolies in a European Economic Community in which tariffs disappear and we are open to competition from all?

Mr. Benn

The right hon. Gentleman should address his mind to the point I made, that half of manufacturing output in Britain today is controlled by 100 companies. The phrase I used was that there was a tendency to monopoly. The right hon. Gentleman gave to these companies their first legislative definition—Category 1 firms. Aneurin Bevan, in more romantic language, had called them the commanding heights of the economy. They remained entrenched in Labour rhetoric until the right hon. Gentleman thought them so important that he provided special arrangements to control their prices and profits under his own Counter-Inflation Act. It is no good his saying that this does not represent an important development in private manufacturing industry.

If the right hon. Gentleman looks at Government grants to private industry, which have come from Governments of both parties and in many categories, he will find that the amount of subvention to private industry for purposes which the House accepted—regional policy or innovation or whatever—has been mounting steadily and rose under his Government, taking the four-year period as a whole, to the figure of some £3,000 million—£2 million a day. If the House is not entitled to take account of this in examining its own future industrial strategy without crude political abuse entering into the argument, then it will not be able to examine why we have done so badly and how we must do better.

It is no good the right hon. Gentleman saying that intervention is itself a controversy between the parties. The legislation which he introduced, the Counter-Inflation Act and other legislation, brought to the private sector a greater degree of detailed interference than had ever occurred even from the National Government during wartime. I have brought with me four sections from his Acts. I will read them to him because he might possibly not have been aware of what was going through under his premiership.

Let us take first—and I could have taken examples from a number of Acts—Section 19 of the National Insurance Act. It says: The Secretary of State may require a company to furnish at specified times or intervals with information about specified matters being, if he so requires, information verified in a specified matter. That is not from a commissar but from a Conservative Government. They intervened. Let me give another example: The Secretary of State may require a company to take such action as appears to him to be appropriate for the purposes of protecting policy holders. That is the right hon. Gentleman's National Insurance Act. Let us take the question of the relations between the Secretary of State and private industry: The Secretary of State shall not issue under Section 61 of the Act of 1967 an authorisation with respect to an incorporated company if it appears to him that any controller or manager of the company is not a fit and proper person to be associated with the company. Those are not the words of a commissar; they are the words of the right hon. Gentleman in his own legislation.

Let us take as another example the Counter-Inflation Act: The Minister may by order direct that—

  1. (a) any provision of any Act, whether passed before this Act or later, which relates to prices, charges or to remuneration or other terms or conditions of employment, or
  2. (b) any provision having effect under any Act…shall while this Part of this Act is in force, have effect subject to such exceptions, modifications or adaptations as may be specified in the order."
That was the right hon. Gentleman's legislation, not the legislation of a Labour Government.

I take next the commanding heights of the economy. Listen to the right hon. Gentleman's own Price and Pay Code. Paragraph 6 reads: For the purpose of control all companies whose main activity is in manufacturing will be divided into three categories. Is that the ravings of Transport House, or is it the managerial view of the Leader of the Opposition? It is the latter, of course.

The plain truth is that intervention is not controversial between the parties. What matters is for what purpose we intervene, how we intervene, what accountability to Parliament there is for the intervention, and in whose interests we intervene. For the right hon. Gentleman to pretend, for the purpose of his public posture, that the pressure for intervention is a social one when he intervenes consistently in the interests of those whom he supports in society is to mislead the public, who must come to terms with the realities of industrial policy.

Mr. John Gorst (Hendon, North)

On the other hand, will not the right hon. Gentleman admit—indeed, he has gone some way to admitting it by using the phrase "the purposes of intervention"—that what matters is the fact that there is no dictatorship in the world which has not had nationalisation as an adjunct to dictatorship? This is the problem that we are fighting.

Mr. Benn

I ought not to have allowed the hon. Gentleman to intervene. What were the two last great acts of public ownership in this country? They were Rolls-Royce and Govan Shipbuilders. Both were brought into public ownership by the Conservative Party.

Let us now get beyond the absurd simplicities of the Leader of the Opposition, who is always on the hustings, and come down to examine what is the real question confronting Britain. Does this system of subsidy and intervention work in the national interest? The answer is, "No". Has it produced the results for which it was intended? Again, the answer is, "No".

We have been told to face the facts. The fact is that our mixed economy is not working properly for the purposes for which, to some extent, there is agreement between the two sides of the House in terms of investment, regional policy and a healthy balance of payments.

Mr. Heath

The right hon. Gentleman knows that the first cases of intervention which he cited are particular to any President of the Board of Trade, as it was and later Secretary of State, to ensure that people concerned with financial matters are of proper standing. That is a perfectly seemly thing to do. It does not deal with the detailed affairs of the company or the financial institutions. Secondly, dealing with his argument about Rolls-Royce and Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, Rolls-Royce found the burden which he placed upon it of the 211 too great to bear, and we had to take the consequences of that, as we did with Upper Clyde Shipbuilders as well.

Mr. Benn

The right hon. Gentleman continued the support both for Rolls-Royce and for Upper Clyde Shipbuilders for a long period before driving both of them into bankruptcy.

I understand the special case of the insurance companies. Who would not after the recent cases? But is there any reason why, if a company is failing the interests of its workers, it should not find Government interest attaching to it as it would if it fails its policy holders? Why is it that the interests of those whose livelihood depends on the companies should be exempt from any Government interest, whereas in the case of the insurance companies, this power should be exercised?

I come then to the policy of the Labour Party. At least the right hon. Gentleman will grant me that the Labour Party makes no attempt to conceal its thinking about future policy. It has always been ready to discuss it in the open. Anyone who follows these matters will have followed them in the 1972 programme: the discussions with the TUC, our statement published in February last year, the programme in 1973, the ship-building policy published in the summer, and the manifesto. The House knows that the discussion within the Labour Party about future policy is always very open, and although accounts are not necessarily accurate of what goes on in individual policy committees, there is full coverage of the discussion.

I said in the only speech that I have made in this Parliament until today that I saw it as my job to implement the policy on which we were elected—an idea which is quite reasonable for an incoming Minister.

Let us look at the difference between the policy making of the two parties. I take first the aircraft industry. We said in our programme that we would bring it into public ownership. It has received about £555 million of public support over the past four years. We put that in our manifesto. I was asked about it in this House, and I confirmed our election intent. I had informal talks with the SBAC and the trade unions.

Compare that with the way that the right hon. Gentleman's policy developed for the aircraft industry. His Government decided before the election to bring about a private merger between BAC and Hawker Siddeley. He did not tell the House. He did not discuss it with the unions. He sought to bring it about privately.

I have before me a letter dated 4th February addressed to a well-known firm of chartered accountants about this operation of bringing BAC and Hawker Siddeley together. The letter is significant for two reasons. The first is that here was a major piece of Government policy for the aircraft industry being brought forward without consultation with anyone. It is significant, secondly, because in writing to this distinguished chartered accountant, the Department said: Your remuneration will be at the current rate for your professional services for each day devoted to the consultancy. This rate is £24 an hour or £168 for a working day. The letter is dated 4th February 1974. While the Leader of the Opposition was going round the country denouncing the miners for their wage claims, he was offering a single chartered accountant £168 a day to do a study of the aircraft industry, without any statement to Parliament.

Mr. Heath

Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that, if a Government Department employs a professional man, it should pay him at other than the professional rates? That appears to be what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting. The Department is right to say that he will be paid at the normal professional rate for his services. How else can a Government get the service of professional men?

Secondly, if there are discussions between firms and the Government, the right hon. Gentleman knows that they are conducted on terms of commercial confidence. That is the only basis again on which a Government can act. Indeed, many of his hon. Friends pressed me constantly when I was Prime Minister to ensure that commercial confidence was maintained. The right hon. Gentleman is now quoting a private letter from the Department in the era of another administration. I should like to know what justification he has for doing that.

Mr. Benn

I have not given the name of the firm. If this House is to debate the difference between our policy making and that of the Conservative Party, it is important to recognise that in the policy making that we are undertaking we are doing it openly, in consultation with those affected, and not secretly. The matter of the money only draws attention retrospectively to the difference in standards between the amount paid to a chartered accountant, which is probably the standard fee, and the amount which the Leader of the Opposition was ready to see paid to working people under his pay policy.

Mr. Heath

The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to argue what he likes about the various ways of policy making under given administrations. But he is not entitled to make a general accusation against a professional servant employed by the Government by quoting a particular letter, or to reveal discussions in commercial confidence with a previous administration. There is no justification for that. His advisers in the Department are in error if they have allowed him to see a previous administration's documents, let alone to quote them in Parliament.

Mr. Benn

The right hon. Gentleman will not get away with it like that. The plain truth is that the previous Government sought a solution—I am not commenting whether the policy was right or not—to the problem of the aircraft industry without any statement to the House of Commons and without any consultation whatever with the workers who would be involved and do the job at a rate which is probably not the going rate for chartered accountants. That was in marked contrast to his appeals for restraint at a time when the country was being forced on to a three-day working week as a result of his pay policy.

Mr. Gorst

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May we have your guidance on this matter? If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to a docu ment, should it not be made available to the House or, alternatively, the whole matter withdrawn?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas)

I understand that unless a direct quotation is made from a document—[HON. MEMBERS: "It was."] Order. Unless the document is read out—

Hon. Members

It was.

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, Central)

Yes, it was. Let us have it. We must have it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. It is difficult for me at the moment. If the document is as confidential as has been outlined—

Mr. Heath

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State quoted from the document. He purported to read from it. He still has not answered or tried to give any justification for producing a document from a previous administration which he is not entitled to see and is certainly not entitled to quote publicly. I should like to know what possible justification there can be for doing that. The head of the right hon. Gentleman's Department is completely ill-advised if he has allowed him to do so. The head of the Civil Service and the Secretary to the Cabinet ought to inquire into it.

Mr. Benn

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that relations between the Government and third parties do not come in the category of papers that pass between officials and Ministers in a previous administration. He knows that in negotiations which occur between the Government and third parties separate rules apply.

Mr. Gorst

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. Perhaps I can help now as I have the advantage of Erskine May, which, on page 421, states: I understand that it was a private letter. The rule for the laying of cited documents cannot be held to apply to private letters or memoranda.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a technical but very important matter. There is some question whether this is a private letter or, because it is from a Department, a public document. Would it not be more helpful to the House if you were to take as much time as you think necessary to consider the matter and, when you have had time to reflect—I think that everyone would like you to have time to reflect because it is an important matter—then to give your ruling to the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that the House will feel that that is the wisest solution.

Mr. Benn

I now come to the policies, which I should outline briefly, which the Government have in mind to put before the House after full consideration. They are that, in the circumstances that I have described and against the background that I have outlined, it is necessary for us to have an instrument which would be capable of doing better in solving many of the problems that I have described than in the past.

I am referring to the National Enterprise Board whose contributions would lie in the area of promoting investment and, indeed, in getting more jobs into regions of high unemployment. I am referring also to the planning agreement which would allow the Government and the firms, particularly the category I firms, to lay their strategies side by side to see how community needs could be met.

There are precedents for all these matters. The letters exchanged between the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the chairman of Rolls-Royce, which were not published at the time but have since been published in HANSARD, identified exactly the pattern of planning agreement between Rolls-Royce, and the Government of the day which might form a pattern for our thinking on these matters.

We are saying that in thinking about these deep-seated problems we may conclude that fundamental changes are needed to correct them. If these fundamental changes are to work, they must have consent. The one lesson that we may have learned—indeed, I think that most people should have learned it from the experience of the previous Government with the lesson of the Industrial Relations Act—is that in the industrial sphere we cannot put a statute in the statute book and expect it to work without consent.

As I made absolutely clear in the first speech that I made on this subject in the new Parliament, we are not seeking confrontation with British management. We are seeking a debate about problems that have not been resolved over a prolonged period. We are seeking a wide measure of agreement about the nature of the problems and about the way in which they might best be tackled.

We are putting forward policies which we have worked out and in which we believe. I warn the Opposition that, if they suppose that those policies will be electorally advantageous to them, they must offer some alternative policies. I suggest that no one hearing the right hon. Gentleman today would believe that he had any answer to the problems that are common between both sides of the House, for at least we share the nation's problems. He has not put forward an alternative. We believe that executives as well as workers in industry and those who live in Scotland and Wales and the regions, will look with sympathy and approval on the proposals that we have been publicly advocating.

This country can do better than it has done. The three-day working week taught us that there is a reserve of production that we have not yet been able to tap. We must do better than the present forecasts indicate.

I believe that our policies will command support. I invite the House to support us tonight. If not, in due course we shall gain that support from the British people and come back able to carry our policies into effect.

5.9 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan (Farnham)

The Secretary of State for Industry, in his speech today and in the "trailer" that he gave yesterday to the AUEW conference, appeared to be speaking from the heart with the fervour of an old-style Socialist setting out to remedy just grievances and to put forward proposals in the national interest. But the cold and mechanistic policies that underlie his speech come only from the head. In his speech, the right hon. Gentleman has shown that his head, so far from being thick, as has sometimes been suggested, might better be regarded as the thin edge of a Marxist wedge. He is using the language and arguments of democratic Socialism to put forward and to justify—and indeed, to conceal—purely collectivist policies, policies which have not been accepted by the electorate and which have raised doubts in the minds of some of his right hon. and lion. Friends, and which I hope will be firmly rejected by the House this evening.

The right hon. Gentleman says in the amendment and in his speech that he wants to take a fresh look at the working of a mixed economy. So do I. He criticised free competitive enterprise for a growing tendency to monopoly. I would not disagree with him in that. But his proposals are not a fresh look; nor, indeed, are they directed against monopoly. He said that he was seeking agreement. But what he is seeking is the agreement of the House and, apparently, of the country to a stale formula of more nationalisation, with greater State intervention in the private sector. The right hon. Gentleman is seeking, in other words, more bureaucracy in large industries, which in many cases are already too bureaucratic to be enterprising. He is also seeking to extend that into the smaller industries, which are now prevented from exercising their natural enterprise only by the policies of the present Government and the fears for the future that those policies engender. The new, or relatively new, idea of appointing union officials as directors will not help. All that that will do is to add yet another element of bureaucracy—the bureaucracy of the unions.

We on the Opposition side of the House accept that Government intervention in industry is necessary. That has been part of Tory philosophy throughout the ages. Of course we accept that legislation is required. Indeed, the Conservative Party has never been the party of laissez-faire economics, from the days of Disraeli onwards. We accept that legislation is required to frame the conditions in which industrialists and businessmen operate. We believe it is required to frame the conditions in which trade unions and their leaders operate, too. But most of the plans that the right hon. Gentleman is putting forward are irrelevant as well as divisive.

I do not deny that the right hon. Gentleman's analysis of the seriousness of the position of British industry is basically right. But there are very complex problems and complex difficulties. The object of the right hon. Gentleman is to make them seem simple, so that his simplistic remedies can apply and that he can take control away from the workers, from people and from Parliament and concentrate it in the hands of the Government. If he were really seeking to deal with the problems of growing monopoly, he would turn his attention to company law and monopolies legislation in order to protect both customers and work-people. He would seek to ensure that directors exercise the responsibilities of ownership on behalf of their shareholders as well as protecting shareholders' rights. He would be putting forward proper measures for employee participation that can give management and work-people a greater say in the affairs of their company and a greater stake in its success.

But the Government have rejected that concept. They rejected it when they rejected our amendment to the Finance Bill, which sought to spread share ownership more widely through its linking with the Own-As-You-Earn scheme.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West)

Hear, hear.

Mr. Macmillan

When the Secretary of State says that he wishes to alter the balance of power and wealth, he means that he wants to centralise it in the hands of officials—Government officials and trade union officials. He and his colleagues would use wealth for the people rather than spread it into their hands, leaving the people the choice as to how that wealth should best be used. He would use power for the people rather than passing power back to the people to use themselves. This may be Socialist, but it is certainly not democratic.

The attitude of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues is that of an over-possessive mother who continues to make decisions for her children after they have grown up and can well make them for themselves. In the words of the television advertisement, the right hon. Gentleman appears to think that "Mother knows best."

Of course I agree that it is intolerable that people should feel themselves at the mercy of forces which they do not understand, that their destinies at work—whether they are management or work-people, at any level—are controlled by groups which they do not know and which they cannot identify, and that they are being manipulated for reasons outside their own interest and understanding. That is true whether these groups are of capital or of labour, and whether it is the selfishness of financiers or of trade union leaders that is causing this manipulation.

The Secretary of State suggested that a framework of law was required for the operations of the capitalist system. I agree. I wish that he and his colleagues would see the trade unions as part of that system, a part which also should operate within a framework of law. I quite agree, too, that company law and consultation between management and work-people is not, in itself, enough, and that we need a greater degree of employee participation. But that means all employees—junior management, foremen, those on the shop floor or in the office. It means all the staff—not simply the union leaders but all employees—taking an active part in the affairs of the companies for which they work, at all levels. If it is to be at boardroom level too, it must be by persons elected by the representatives of those working in the firms concerned and not simply by officials appointed by union headquarters.

I would not deny the rôle of the trade unions collectively. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition accepted this rôle of the unions as a group in his tripartite discussions with the CBI and the TUC. I would go further, perhaps, than he would, and consider whether we should not find some method of formalising or even institutionalising the rôle of industry in the management of the economy and the consultation between the employers and the unions concerned. In other words, I should like a fresh look to be taken at the working of our mixed economy, going a little beyond saying "It did not work before, so now we shall make it purely Socialist." I should like a closer look to be taken at the part that should be played in a modern industrial society by the different elements that go to make up the great complexity of our industry, commerce, business and finance.

The problem is how to reconcile the increasingly inhuman demand for efficiency in modern industry with the human aspirations of those who work in it. I have never believed, and neither has any member of the Conservative Party, that the answer lies in laissez-faire economics which try to make man fit the machine. Yet that is just what the Secretary of State is trying to do. He is not trying to fit his theories, ideas or policies to the needs of people; he is trying to get people to agree to be fitted into his own dogmas and doctrine. He is trying to get agreement with the neo-Marxist policies that he conceals, perhaps from himself as well as from other people, by the Democratic-Socialist language that he uses.

I hope that the House will reject the Amendment and in doing so commit itself to taking a new look, yes, but a look at the mixed economy, an economy which will remain mixed and not be dominated by the theories and dogmas of the Secretary of State.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas)

May I now quickly give the ruling which the House was kind enough to give me time to consider?

The rule for the laying of cited documents cannot be held to apply to private letters or memoranda. It is also stated in Erskine May, in the light of earlier rulings, that the rule applies to public documents only and not to documents of a confidential nature. Taking all these matters into consideration, I have come to the view that the document cited by the Secretary of State is not one to which the rule applies.

Mr. Moonman

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As there is so little time for back benchers to do justice to the debate—less than an hour—is it possible for you to advise all speakers to keep their remarks to, say, five minutes?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

There is just three-quarters of an hour left for back benchers. That will no doubt be borne in mind.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the matter on which you have ruled is of some constitutional importance as well as being a matter of good manners. I should be grateful if you could make available to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who is to speak later from the Opposition Front Bench, the words which you have used, and I should be obliged if that could be done as soon as possible.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Certainly.

Mr. Gorst

Further to that point of order. Whilst in no way challenging your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should be grateful if you would consider the fact that the Secretary of State spoke in such a way as to imply that it was not a private but a public document. Consequently, if that is the case and the right hon. Gentleman does not deny it, according to your ruling the document should surely be made available.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I have ruled that the document did not come under the category of having to be laid.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Roy Hughes (Newport)

The Conservative Party always has to invent a bogyman. There have been many examples in the post-war years. At the 1945 General Election it was Professor Harold Laski, then Chairman of the Labour Party. Then followed Mr. John Strachey. Scurrilous attacks were made over many years on the late Mr. Aneurin Bevan. There were Mr. Frank Cousins and Mr. Hugh Scanlon, the engineering workers' leader, and then a few months ago a practically unknown Scottish miners' leader, Mr. Mick McGahey, suddenly found fame thrust upon him.

Now the attacks are concentrated on that great proletarian revolutionary leader, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. He must feel flattered. I have always thought him to be more in the line of Baden-Powell than Karl Marx. However, he has had the merit of spotlighting how much our so-called private enterprise system relies on State dole. The £2 million a day that my right hon. Friend mentioned is highly relevant in the context of our