QUEEN'S AWARD TO INDUSTRY (SERVICE INDUSTRIES) (Hansard, 13 June 1968)

§ Q2. Captain Orr
asked the Prime Minister which service industries paying the full amount of selective employment tax without rebate are eligible for the Queen's Award to Industry.

§ The Prime Minister
Generally speaking, service industries are not eligible 430 for the Queen's Award to Industry. But the criteria applied in assessing eligibility are not precisely the same as those which govern Selective Employment Tax rebates and some establishments have, in fact, received the Award while paying Selective Employment Tax in full.

§ Captain Orr
Surely this is very strange. Was not the Selective Employment Tax designed to move labour towards productive industry from service industries? Is the Prime Minister aware that I know of one company making films which has received the Queen's Award to Industry but which pays Selective Employment Tax? Does not that make a nonsense either of the Queen's Award to Industry or of the Selective Employment Tax?

§ The Prime Minister
The conditions for the Queen's Award were settled, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman will know, a year or two ago by a Committee representative of industry and presided over by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Those conditions will fall to be reviewed against the whole background of the operation of the scheme when it has been going for five years. One of the three companies which in fact is not exempt from S.E.T. but which has received the Award is the one mentioned by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and I would not have thought that the Selective Employment Tax there has made any difference either to the profitability of the company or to its ability to earn the Award.

Dr. Dunwoody
In view of the considerable technological advances and the amount of foreign currency earned by the industry, would my right hon. Friend consider making the ship-repair industry eligible for the Award?

§ The Prime Minister
As I said, it was agreed with industry at the beginning of the scheme, which has now been running for more than two years, that the whole question of eligibility and coverage should be reviewed at the end of five years' working. No doubt that would provide an appropriate time for considering my hon. Friend's question.