Industry (Consultation) (Hansard, 3 June 1965)

§ 12. Mr. Sheldon
asked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what action he will take to encourage the co-operation of industry in fulfilling the Government's long-term development plan.

§ 15. Sir C. Osborne
asked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs how soon he expects to achieve his policy of ending restrictive practices, demarcation disputes, using more labour than is necessary, the under-use of machinery, and the refusal to use modern techniques; if he will set out in detail the steps he has taken already to achieve those conditions; and if he will make a statement.

§ Mr. George Brown
I intend to continue and enlarge the process of consultation with both sides of industry through the medium of the National Economic Development Council and the little Neddies. It would not be sensible however to put a timetable on the complex task confronting us, which will require determined effort by the Government and by both sides of industry at all levels. I am today publishing in the OFFICIAL REPORT and placing in the Library copies of a note which will, I hope, give hon. Members a clear picture of the interrelationship between the Government's industrial policies and the development plan.

§ Mr. Sheldon
While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him if he is aware of the gross misrepresentation of Governmental economic policy in the past few weeks, obviously politically inspired? Is he further aware that this misrepresentation is bound to recur to an even greater degree on publication of this plan, so will he take steps to combat this?

§ Mr. Brown
I tried to reply very quickly to the last manifestation, but one of the things which always occurs to me is this; every time I go into the country I find a great difference between the attitude of industrialists and businessmen out there and that of those who in here pretend to represent them.

§ Sir C. Osborne
As one who has always supported the right hon. Gentleman's policy and hoped he would succeed for 1938 the nation's sake, may I ask him this? What hope has he really got of his policy being accepted at the shop floor level, and what steps can he take to stop the foolish unofficial strikes we have seen very recently from holding up production?

§ Mr. Brown
We suffer from more than one foolish move in industry and on more than one side. I have every hope that the policy will succeed, and it is the more likely to the more it is recognised that it is not my policy or the Government's policy but the policy which management and the unions and the Government have accepted.

§ Mr. Patrick Jenkin
With reference to the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary answer to his hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), is he aware that the remarks which he made in reply to the Institute of Directors provokes the question, "Who feeds whom?"

§ Mr. Brown
To answer that very interesting question would keep me going on for a very long time.

§ Mr. Ronald Bell
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that there is a growing anxiety because of the fact that the Government's fiscal and legislative policy appears to be designed primarily to placate the trade unions in the hope that they will respond by a diminution of militancy in pay claims and by the abandonment of restrictive practices, and that no perceptible response in either of those two spheres has yet manifested itself? Will he address himself to this basic defect in his incomes policy?

§ Mr. Brown
That description of the Government's fiscal and other policies I would not accept, and the hon. Gentleman's last comment is inaccurate and will also be unhelpful. It is no use telling people who are trying to do their best in difficult circumstances that we do not believe they are doing their best. It would be better to give them a bit of encouragement, I would have thought.