BRITISH LEYLAND MOTOR CORPORATION LIMITED

HC Deb 18 December 1974 vol 883 cc1725-73

10.14 p.m.

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

I beg to move, That this House authorises the Secretary of State to pay or undertake to pay by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industry Act 1972 in respect of a guarantee or guarantees to be given to the bankers of British Leyland Motor Corporation Limited and any of its subsidiaries covering borrowing facilities made available by the bankers to those companies, insofar as the amount paid or undertaken to be paid under the guarantee or guarantees is in excess of £5 million but does not exceed £50 million. If the House will allow me, I was intending, in presenting the motion, to be as brief as possible in conveying the information which the House will need to have and then, if the House is ready to give its assent, to seek to intervene at the end of the debate in order to deal with questions which may be raised by hon. Members.

In my statement on 6th December I informed the House that discussions had been taking place with British Leyland about its short-term requirements for working capital and its longer-term investment programme. I indicated that the Government would seek the approval of Parliament for a guarantee to British Leyland's bankers for the short-term working capital required over and above existing facilities. The bankers have expressed their willingness to provide these additional facilities, subject to the guarantees. The motion seeks authority for the Government to enter into commitments in this respect.

The Government wish to provide these guarantees because of the company's position in the economy as a leading exporter and of its importance to employment, both directly and through the many firms which are dependent on it. The arrangements proposed will enable the company's needs to be met without interruption while the Government examine the company's request for longer-term support for its investment programme.

I am sure that all Members of the House are aware of the difficulties which have beset not only British Leyland but the motor vehicle industry in general since the end of last year. Because of higher fuel costs resulting from the dramatic rise in the price of oil, the increased cost of materials, economic uncertainties and inflation, major motor car markets have declined on an almost unprecedented scale throughout the world. Widespread redundancies, short-time working or lay-offs have been reported by nearly all major motor car manufacturers. Inevitably, sales, revenue and profits have decreased sharply, and the competition in the industry has become increasingly fierce.

It is against that background that British Leyland approached the Government early in December for support for its longer-term programme. I had exploratory discussions with Lord Stokes and his colleagues on 3rd December. Previously there had been regular discussions over a long period between senior officials of my Department and the company. But, as the Chairman of British Leyland has indicated in his statement today, it was only very recently made evident that the investment programme would have to be cut back to an undesirable extent or money obtained from other than commercial sources.

The company, in common with the rest of industry, also suffered from the disruptive effects of the three-day working week. British Leyland has also lost many days through industrial disputes. It would be wrong of me to ignore the effects which all these events have had on the company's performance. In spite of declining markets, the products of British Leyland are, however, in demand, and I am sure that all hon. Members will join me when I express the hope that the Government's present initiative will evoke a constructive response from the workers and the management and, indeed, all those who work for this enterprise, and that through good industrial relations the company will be able to realise its full potential in the period ahead.

The House will wish to know more of the arrangements that have been made to advise the Government on British Leyland's situation and prospects. I have already announced that the high-level team will be led by Sir Don Ryder and I am now able to inform the House of the other members of his team. It includes two members from the Industrial Development Advisory Board, which has statutory responsibilities under the Industry Act 1972. They are Mr. R. A. Clark, who is the Chairman of the IDAB and who will, as Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman of Hill Samuel and Company Limited, bring wide banking experience to the team, and Mr. Harry Urwin, a senior official of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who has a great deal of first-hand knowledge of the industry. Mr. F. S. McWhirter, who is a chartered accountant and a partner in the firm of Peat Marwick Mitchell and Company, has agreed to serve and he will provide expert accountancy advice. Production expertise will be provided by Mr. S. J. Gillen, formerly the Chairman and Chief Executive of Ford of Europe Inc., who completes the team.

I think that the House will wish me to express its thanks to these gentlemen for their agreement to undertake this very important assignment.

The team's remit is to conduct, in consultation—I stress that—with the corporation and the trades unions, an overall assessment of BLMC's present situation and future prospects, covering corporate strategy, investment, markets, organisation, employment, productivity, management-labour relations, profitability and finance; and to report to the Government.

The investigation will be given the highest priority, but it is clearly a substantial task which will take a few months to complete. No specific time scale has been imposed but the report is expected in the spring of 1975. It will not be possible to publish the report because it will obviously contain information of great commercial value to British Leyland's competitors. I shall, however, report to the House on its principal recommendations and their financial implications as soon as I am able to do so.

It is my intention that the conditions of the guarantee will require that the company shall co-operate fully with the review team, and that during the period of the guarantee while the review is taking place all major decisions proposed by the board will be subject to agreement with the Government. Responsibility for negotiating pay settlements will continue to rest with the board, but the Government will expect the board of British Leyland to reach settlements which are consistent with the financial situation now facing the company, and within the guidelines given to negotiators by the Trades Union Congress, as welcomed by the Government—

Mr. David Stoddart (Swindon)

Can my right hon. Friend answer a point regarding negotiations? He may know that some delicate negotiations are going on within the industry about pension schemes. Can he tell me whether these negotiations will be affected? Can he give an assurance that these negotiations will be able to proceed without interference?

Mr. Benn

I am aware of the point my hon. Friend raises, because it has been raised with me by other hon. Members. I thought that it might arise in questions and I would have dealt with it later, but I am happy to deal with it now. I should explain to the House that the present position is that until the House of Commons, in its wisdom, has given its view and its decision on this motion, and until the conditions to which I have just referred—which it is the Government's intention to secure— have been met, my relationship, as the responsible Minister, with the company has no official character. But clearly the negotiations that are in progress would continue to be the responsibility of the company, subject to what I have just said prior to my hon. Friend's intervention. I think that perhaps many questions similar to that posed by my hon. Friend will arise and it might be more helpful if I try to deal with them all together later. I appreciate that many hon. Members are concerned.

I conclude by saying that British Leyland is a great British company, made up of a highly-skilled work force which has made, and I hope and believe will continue to make, a notable contribution to the British economy. The company needed Government help and I believe it right to have offered the facilities for which I seek the consent of the House.

But certainly in our approach to the matter—I hope the House will reflect this in the debate—we should not be looking for any scapegoats. Rather we should see this as an opportunity for those who work in British Leyland—I am speaking of the management and the trade unions —who know the firm very well and who have worked with it for a long time, to work out, with their knowledge, their own proposals. I hope that those workers will also feel that the review body which I have announced tonight, in working in consultation with them, will be able to make use of this knowledge to find the right answer to the problems that confront the company. The real assets which we are discussing tonight are the people who work in British Leyland, and I hope that the House approaches the debate in this spirit.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Michael Heseltine (Henley)

I am sure that the House will feel that the Secretary of State's concentration on the events of the past 12 months does not do justice to the depth of examination into the affairs of British Leyland which one hopes the inquiry will undertake. There are longer-term and more difficult issues to be dealt with rather than the particular difficulties, real though they are, which have beset the entire world motor manufacturing industry over the past 12 months or so.

The truth is that not all other companies throughout the world have had to go to their Governments. Some have and some have not, but it is important to draw the distinction that there are motor manufacturing companies which have so far been able to react to the circumstances and remain viable. I believe that the inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman has announced will have to probe over a far longer period than the past 12 months and look into matters which were inherent in the whole BLMC structure before it was brought together as a result of the intervention of the IRC in 1968.

I am sure that the membership of the team which the right hon. Gentleman has announced does justice to the measure of public concern in this matter, but there is a question to be asked about the trade union representative who has been invited to take part. I believe that it is necessary for there to be a trade union representative, but I wonder whether the Secretary of State was wise to choose a member of a union which must have a deep involvement in British Leyland. The Transport and General Workers' Union is a major constituent representative of the work force in BLMC, and I believe that the other unions involved will be concerned when they know that their interests will be considered by a member of a union with which they are in partnership or in rivalry, as the case may be.

Mr. Benn

Before he continues on that line about Harry Urwin, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will confirm that Mr. Urwin was appointed by his own administration to the IDAB, and, had the Government not thought it right to appoint a special body in this case, the provisions of the Conservative Industry Act would have referred the Leyland case to the IDAB, and Harry Urwin as a member of it would have participated in the inquiry.

Mr. Heseltine

I am sure that the House will in no way misunderstand the point which I am making. [HON. MEMBERS: "We understand it."] I believe that Mr. Urwin is an extremely valuable member of the Industrial Development Advisory Board under the Industry Act, and I have heard nothing but praise for the contribution which he has made. However, there are deep issues involving the unions in British Leyland, and I just wonder whether it might have been wiser for the Secretary of State in this specific case to appoint a union representative who does not have such a close involvement in one of the 16 unions concerned in that organisation.

As I have said, the issues here go back much further than the Secretary of State suggested. Specifically, they go back to the moment at which the IRC approached Donald Stokes, then Chairman of Leyland Motors, to suggest that he should become involved in a rationalisation scheme embracing the Austin-Morris operation.

At that point two significant events took place. First, there developed the widespread belief that the Government had decided to become involved in the motor industry in the form in which it then existed, and that they would stand behind that industry in that form, come hell or high water. The reality is that, having taken that standpoint, we shall never know in this country what alternatives might have emerged for the motor industry and its employees if the rationalisation brought about by the IRC at that time had not taken place.

For example, we do not know, and we cannot know, whether Britain's motor industry might not have been stronger if, instead of putting together the BLMC package and using, to an extent, the investment resources and profits of the more successful aspects of that package to maintain investment and development in the least successful aspects, we might have achieved more advantage in the national interest by concentrating on developing the successful components of BLMC as it is today, pouring investment into them and concentrating on the success which was evident at that time and which, as the figures show, has been evident consistently since BLMC came into operation.

The one thing we do know is that in all the main areas in which the company concentrates its activities there would not have been a shortage of earnings for its employees. The reality is that there were throughout this period a large number of vacancies for people with the skills employed by BLMC, and it is therefore in no way realistic to suggest that the choice was to employ these people in BLMC or see them unemployed. It is simply a question of whether they were serving themselves and the nation more effectively within the organisation that the IRC brought into being than they would have done had the IRC not intervened and if there had been a rationalisation of the industry in the normal course of events in 1967–68. The reality is that six years later we cannot know what would have happened; we can only know that there would not have been unemployment in these areas but a redeployment in some uncertain way.

Given the situation we face tonight there are only two ways in which the present problems of British Leyland can be dealt with. The first is the method of traditional receivership. It is only fair to appreciate that that does not entail liquidation of the company, mass unemployment or anything of that sort. It simply means forcing a number of decisions to be taken now as a result of an examination in the hands of a receiver. It would retain the vast proportion of the company, which is successful, as an operating unit, at the same time seeking solutions to the company's problems.

The other alternative is the Government's suggestion of a guarantee. I believe that in all the circumstances this is the right solution to take, providing we understand the nature and the limit of the guarantee into which the House is expected to enter. It is very important that implicit in this guarantee is no automatic assumption that the Government are to move in with a substantial commitment of public resources to the company which will maintain its work force at present levels without regard to its record.

In other words, the Secretary of State is entitled to ask for a period in which the inquiry he has appointed will do its work. That is the limit of the commitment that we enter into tonight. We are not saying, and we are not being asked to say, that we shall commit ourselves to a particular form of Government intervention on a particular scale, until we have seen the report of the inquiry.

One of the greatest anxieties is that the Government, having once come into the matter, will now underwrite any degree of irresponsibility in the company's employee relationships regardless of the cost to the public purse. This matter has been widely commented upon in the Press and it is one which concerns me, representing, as I do, many of the company's employees. The fear is that this will happen in spite of all the problems which have evolved over the years, and the Secretary of State referred to some of them. These fears cannot be ignored by the House in coming to a conclusion on the report, which it seems we shall be asked to do in the course of next year.

The real problems of this company will not be solved simply by injecting public money into it. The questions arise over the level of profit, the extent of industrial disputes, the prospects in world markets for the projects on which the company is working and the manufacturing pattern for the motor industry internationally. These questions cannot be separated from the impact of the present management on the particular group.

Those of us who heard the Secretary of State's statement tonight that the report will not be published were perhaps aware that he had already outlined his own commitment to a degree of public ownership in the structure that emerges from the report. What I do not understand is how the right hon. Gentleman can appoint an independent inquiry to examine the situation in British Leyland and, before it has agreed to serve, can have made a commitment that there will be public ownership, whatever its conclusions.

It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman's announcement tonight should have pointed to the statutory responsibility of the advisers under the Industry Act. The reality is that no one more than the Secretary of State has ignored those set up under the Act to advise in circumstances where the Act was called into play. He has a record of Court Line, Harland and Wolff, Meriden, IPD and Scottish Newspapers, in all of which the Government ignored the advice of the industrial advisers.

The Secretary of State says that he has now set up an inquiry, the report of which will not be published, and upon which he is presumably to reach conclusions which will be presented to the House, without our being able to see the full details of the evidence submitted.

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Eric Heffer)

Would the hon. Gentleman have allowed all the workers in the shipbuilding side of Court Line to be put out of work?

Mr. Heseltine

I would have allowed the private companies which were prepared to acquire those shares to have a chance to do so.

Mr. Heffer

Answer the question.

Mr. Heseltine

The hon. Gentleman must understand that the track record of nationalised industries in causing redundancy and laying off people is in no way to be disregarded when we consider these matters. It is the delusion of Labour Members that this country can turn its back on the pressures of economic forces, which will mean that people have to move from job to job, from location to location. We in Britain, now immersed in one of the worst economic crises of our time, cannot go on telling people that there is a way in which the Government can intervene in all circumstances to ensure that change is frustrated.

Mr. Heffer

Why, then, did not the hon. Gentleman's Government allow Rolls-Royce to collapse, with thousands of workers being put out of work? His Government would not allow that to happen. Nor would ours with Court Line. The hon. Gentleman knows it.

Mr. Heseltine

Before the take-over of Rolls-Royce 10,000 people were laid off by the private sector management. After the take-over another 10,000 were laid off in the nationalised operation. No one can look back and say that there was a realistic choice. If an industry is overmanned, whether it is in motor manufacturing or aerospace, in the public or private sector, the bankruptcy of the company will result, or the taxpayer will be called upon to bail it out.

If that is the policy with which the Government will conduct their industrial affairs, no one need look further than the Treasury Bench to understand why company after company is queueing up at Victoria Street for help. There is no ability in industry to finance its own operations within the framework of the Government's policies. That is why next year we shall face levels of unemployment which I shall be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman explain away. I understand that already the alibis are being made. But in the recent election Labour Members were not saying that there would be unemployment as a result of private enterprise—

Mr. Heffer

The hon. Gentleman should read my election address.

Mr. Heseltine

I realise that the hon. Gentleman's election address probably did not have much to do with the Labour Party manifesto.

There will be redundancies within the private sector and the public sector next year, as the pressures of the economic forces which the Government try to pretend do not exist make themselves felt on a larger scale than the hon. Gentleman has seen in this country.

The Minister of State is out of touch with what the Government seek from the inquiry. I refer him to what Sir Don Ryder said in the Investors Chronicle only last week, namely, that his aim was to see the National Enterprise Board as a totally commercial animal, not some big Santa Claus". The Government have appointed a man who is determined to pursue the very arguments which hon. Members opposite pretend do not exist.

But what I am concerned about is that the House will not be given the opportunity to see the detail of the report. Therefore, I have one question to ask the Secretary of State: will he achieve the agreement of the inquiring committee to the presentation to the House of the summary of its findings?

The second area about which I want to say something is the area within which the inquiry must concern itself. First, it is necessary for the inquiry to examine the use of the company's resources since the merged operation came into existence. It is necessary for us to know whether the policy which has had the effect, as the Financial Times article pointed out only a week ago, of using money from the more profitable parts of the organisation to support and encourage investment in the less successful parts was right and should be continued.

Secondly, I wish to know, and I believe the House will wish to know, what the future industrial relations policy of the company—management and trade unions —will be. Thirdly, we want to know how much money is involved and the purposes for which it will be used. It is impossible to divorce management from all these decisions, and the first purpose of the inquiry must be—and the management could wish it no other way—to examine the role of the management of the company in the past six or seven years in all these three critical areas.

One of the first questions which must be asked is why British Leyland last year made £1 million less profit than the conglomeration of the component parts made 10 years ago and why in no intervening year were the profits anywhere near as great as they were before the group was put together. Secondly, we need to know what the unions are prepared to say about the rôle of unions and the negotiating procedures in the company. There are 400 bargaining units in British Leyland involving 16 unions. That means that on every working day between one and two new agreements or refinements of agreements must be reached. Does the House seriously believe that we should invest substantial sums of taxpayers' money in a situation of this sort which must make coherent management, no matter what the ownership of the business may be, virtually impossible?

An important question to be asked by the inquiry is, are the unions—

Mr. Heffer

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely ignorant about the trade union situation.

Mr. Heseltine

I have not come here to plead a special case. What I concern myself with is how we shall make British industry as effective as its competitors in the world and how we can survive in the modern world if we do not. We all have an overwhelming responsibility for the use of taxpayers' money. I concern myself with that, and I believe that I have as much right as the hon. Gentleman to express views on these matters.

If the unions want the company to be successful, they must give assurances, before the commitment of taxpayers' money, that the provisions and procedures of the last seven years will be dramatically changed. The chaotic industrial relations in British Leyland cannot continue.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk (Ormskirk)

Bring back the Industrial Relations Act.

Mr. Heseltine

I am interested to hear the suggestion that that was caused by the Industrial Relations Act. Perhaps I may refer to a debate that took place before the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) came to the House, when the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), referring to British Leyland, said: to say nothing of the motor car workers in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), one of my Under-Secretaries, who have welcomed the White Paper"— the Labour White Paper— as, at last, doing something about the chaotic industrial relations in the motor industry which keep putting them out of work."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March 1969; Vol. 779, c. 41.] How any Labour Member, knowing that that was said by a Labour Government spokesman about British Leyland, can try to put up a smokescreen of false laughter when we ventilate these issues on the Floor of the House passes all understanding.

Mr. Robin Corbett (Hemel Hempstead)

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that in the opening page of the guide to the Code of Practice under the Industrial Relations Act the statement was made that the responsibility for good industrial relations rested ultimately with the management?

Mr. Heseltine

If the hon. Gentleman had been listening to my speech he would have realised that I made exactly that point. If the hon. Gentleman cares to read HANSARD in the morning, he will find that that is what I said. It is a disservice to management to pretend that it is removed from this problem. No respectable management would want to be removed from it.

How can the House remain credible when every mention of unions and management results in a series of catcalls? Unions and management are unified by a common interest in the country's prosperity. It is because Labour Members are consistently determined to divide when there is need to seek unity that we fail to find agreement on so many issues.

The Financial Times has listed year by year the cost to British Leyland of industrial disputes. It is fascinating to see that the cost was higher in 1969 than it was in 1968 and higher again in 1970. The cost fell in 1971, again in 1972 and again in 1973. In 1973 the cost of disruption through industrial disputes was the lowest since the figures were calculated in 1968. Anyone who says that a Tory Government aggravated industrial relations in British Leyland either must produce figures to refute the Financial Times figures or, better still, ask the inquiry to calculate where the greatest cost falls.

During the last financial year of British Leyland 20 per cent. of the industrial disputes took place before 1st March and 74 per cent after 1st March. Why? Because a Labour Government was returned, and the feeling spread throughout the motor industry that this was the moment to grab wage increases before we were forced back to a statutory policy. That is why there are now more disputes in the motor industry than there have been for many years.

Mr. George Rodgers (Chorley)

Would the hon. Gentleman concede that, according to Lord Stokes's statement today, the loss of £16.6 million is attributable to the three-day week, which occurred during the period of the Conservative Government?

Mr. Heseltine

I have Lord Stokes's statement here. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt have read it carefully. It says that the cost of inflation is £190 million. The hon. Gentleman cannot simply blame the three-day week, when we were confronted by the miners' strike, when the miners were attempting to break a rate of inflation of 7½ per cent. We are talking now about an inflation rate of three times that level. We would have been thought prosperous if we had kept the rate of inflation down to what we had then.

Mr. John Lee (Birmingham Handsworth)

The hon. Gentleman has spent the best part of 20 minutes by inference, if not directly, attacking the trade unions. Would he come back to the purpose of the debate and say how such remarks, be they true or false, are going to assist the situation which he says he is interested in solving?

Mr. Heseltine

This is a critically important question. I know, and the House, I believe, knows, that until we get industrial relations right in the company it can never perform as effectively for the country or for its employees as we all want it to. The independent inquiry will have to find out the extent to which the structure and attitudes of the unions are now possibly out of the management's capability. That question must be answered. It cannot be divorced from the figures, which indicate the cost to the nation, but particularly to British Leyland, of that situation.

The figures show that industrial disputes since the company came into existence have cost about £100 million, every penny of which could have been turned into sales because the demand for its products at the time was such that it could have sold the cars. We cannot consider whether we should give a £50 million guarantee to tide the company over without also considering that, over the last six years, more than £100 million in sales has been lost through industrial disputes. We cannot avoid that issue.

The question before us is whether we should give the Government the opportunity to allow their independent inquiry to take place, as opposed to allowing a more traumatic situation to overwhelm the company. I believe that we should support the concept of an inquiry. But it is important that, in agreeing, we should see it as a holding operation when we come later to the point at which we reach a decision.

We shall have to see whether there has been, first, a realistic assessment of what the company can expect to achieve in future; secondly, whether the present management can carry that out; thirdly, whether the unions are prepared on their part to make the sort of commitments that are necessary to bring about the proper operation of the company. It is a holding operation, no more and no less.

10.54 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Edelman (Coventry, North-West)

I will not follow the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) in the more historically contentious part of this speech. My purpose is to support the motion that some bridging aid should be given to British Leyland.

British Leyland is a national asset, and what is at stake now is the future of the only wholly-owned British motor company, our biggest single exporter, and the employer of 200,000 workers, which really means that probably more than 500,000 people are directly dependent on the prosperity of the company.

Only today, the company's cash difficulties were underlined by the unhappy financial report issued by Lord Stokes. What is clear from it is that the bankers have given a vote of no confidence in the present administration of the company in existing circumstances.

The real question for this House is why we should make a contribution of £50 million worth of preliminary support to the company unless there is some structural change within the company, and some assurances that its future strategy will be in accordance with the country's needs and will be designed to promote the prosperity not only of the workers most intimately concerned but also of the nation as a whole.

When I say that this is a preliminary contribution, it is clear that the £50 million which the company is immediately asking for is merely to replenish stocks which cannot be replenished at present, first, because the bankers will not give the necessary support and, secondly, because of inflation there is not the cash flow available to provide the stocks required. If we look further ahead, we see that something like a further £350 million of support will be needed to re-equip the company if it is to be able to compete with the giants of the motor industry.

There is something slightly ominous about this order. It reminds me unhappily of cash handouts in the past which ultimately dribbled away into the quicksands. Some people regard public support as being some sort of bran tub, and it can become a bottomless pit, which the Concorde eventually became, into which public money is poured, without accountability and without public control. When money is asked for in these circumstances, without the guarantees which I have talked about, I regard it as being a great confidence trick played upon the public.

It is wholly improper to extract money from the taxpayer unless there is a proper organisation capable of supervising the expenditure of the money and accounting for it, so that the Minister can come to the House and say, "The money which you voted to support the company has been paid out not simply as a sort of dole for those who have fallen on hard times, not as a kind of Christmas stocking to be filled by the taxpayer because of the season of the year, but as a constructive contribution to the future of the British motor industry".

We have to consider some matters of future strategy. We have to consider, for example, how to raise the productivity of the industry which at present is one of the lowest in the Western industrial world. I quote some figures from the Economist. Last year in Britain, the number of cars produced was six per worker. In Europe, it was 12 per worker. In Japan, it was 37 per worker. These are sinister, disturbing figures, wherever the fault may lie. It means that the amount of horsepower and the amount of investment put behind each worker is very much lower here than it is abroad.

If we are asked to invest money in the motor industry, a second question must be answered. What will labour relations be like in the future? The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) very properly drew attention to the fact that industrial disputes have resulted in a lowering of output, inevitably. But the profounder question concerns the cause of these industrial disputes. It takes two to create a dispute. It is not unilateral Management has a great responsibility in this matter, and I revert to the question whether the management of British Leyland has been or is adequate to deal with this new investment of public money and to produce the results that we all want to see.

Finally, there is the question of competitiveness of the British motor industry and whether, in the world as it is, we really are in a position to tackle the big three or even the big four of the motor industry.

Tonight is the moment of truth for the British motor car industry. The oil crisis and the deepening world recession have plunged the industry everywhere into difficulties. A figure worth remembering tonight is that one-third of Detroit's labour force is either laid off or on some form of short time. That has relevance to Coventry, too. It used to be said that if Detroit sneezed, Britain's motor car industry caught pneumonia.

The symptoms are already there. Chrysler is already laying off men. Five of Chrysler's six American assembly plants have been shut down until after the New Year. There is redundancy and short time in Europe. Governments are intervening desperately to restructure their industries to deal with the already deepening recession. In the last year output has fallen by about 25 per cent. Perhaps the most disturbing figure is that European motor manufacturers now have over 800,000 new cars in stock, which is about half the number of our likely production this year.

These are symptoms of a very grave situation in our motor industry. This is a moment not for slogans, but for a real examination of the industry's problems.

I believe firmly in the public ownership of the motor industry, and that belief is reinforced by the fact that we are now being called upon to provide this trailer, so to speak—perhaps my right hon. Friend will confirm it—of £50 million for what ultimately might rise to an investment of about £400 million. If so, this vast expenditure of public money should have an adequate form of public accountability and control, and I believe that public ownership must be the answer.

Having said that, I should add that, even if British Leyland were nationalised tomorrow, the industry's problems would not be solved by the wave of a wand. Nationalisation will not cure the malaise in the industry. Still less do I believe that my right hon. Friend's proposal—I take issue with him here—of bringing in Sir Don Ryder as the magic man of the industry, complete with his hatchet, will provide the urgent action required for the industry.

My right hon. Friend has named an eminent panel of investigators who are to inquire into what went wrong at British Leyland, and presumably to make recommendations for the future. I have known Mr. Harry Urwin for a very long time. He is an outstanding trade unionist with remarkable—indeed, unequalled— experience of the motor car industry who will obviously bring great expertise and benefit to the investigating committee. But that is not the point. If Sir Don Ryder is to apply a Beeching-like process of rationalisation to British Leyland —a sprawling, amorphous company which grew haphazardly without any logical and integral relationship between one part and another—if he is to apply that kind of Malthusian process of cutting down, I must warn my right hon. Friend and the House that there will be great resistance by those workers who, in this arbitrary way, are to be done out of their jobs.

I recall that in Coventry, when automation was first introduced, there was what was called an anti-automation strike. Some people called it the Luddite strike. Whatever it was, it was the immediate response of men, and women too, who felt that their jobs were in danger from new processes being introduced arbitrarily without consultation with them. They felt that they had not been allowed proper consultation, and therefore they objected. If that sort of process were to take place there would not only be anti-redundancy strikes but sit-ins on a massive scale which, by definition, would be profoundly detrimental to the future of the industry.

I am speaking tonight because I want not only to tell my right hon. Friend about this but to suggest to him a means by which it would be possible so to consult those who are involved in this industry that there would be an assent that would in turn enable British Leyland to be the strong, productive and efficient industry which, with its managerial experience and skilled workers, it has been in the past and can be in the future.

I have urged my right hon. Friend to call a conference of all the interests involved, and I mean the Government, managers and shop floor workers, because it is not enough to pluck out a few established trade unionists, much as I respect them, and say that they are the people who will make the decisions, they are the people who will decide what will happen to the livelihood of so many men. I do not think that is the way to do it.

In reply to a Question of mine, my right hon. Friend said that he was already having discussions with the interests concerned. I do not believe that that kind of bilateral discussion is the way to do it. The first thing that is necessary is to have this general national consultation to create the right psychological climate in which people will feel that they are having some part in deciding what their destiny will be. If my right hon. Friend feels that the term "psychological" is too strong, let me tell him that this is the preparation for any pragmatic decisions that will have to be taken.

The sin of right hon. Gentlemen opposite in their policy of confrontation was that they made a unilateral diktat directed against workers with the Industrial Relations Act which produced the three-day working week and all the unhappiness and the disadvantages which flowed from it.

Let my right hon. Friend consider this question of a tripartite national conference. Let him not think that just because it involves so many people and there may be so many delegates it may turn into a national jamboree. I know that I can speak for the shop floor workers in Coventry with whom I am in close touch and with whom I have had consultations on this subject. I am certain that they will not be prepared to receive a kind of ukase from outside that will tell them what they have to do, unless they are taken into the confidence of those concerned.

My right hon. Friend said that he will not publish the report because of conditions of commercial secrecy. It is in saying that that he is showing the weakness of his approach to this matter. If issues are to be shrouded in secrecy, if workers on the shop floor feel that facts are being kept from them, how on earth can my right hon. Friend expect to have their co-operation? How on earth can he expect to have their participation? What is necessary at British Leyland is not only a statement on the general facts, but a clear statement that if there is massive public investment there must be public ownership and accountability. In the interim, there must be a new deal at the top, and not only on the floor.

I have the greatest respect and admiration for Lord Stokes. I think he is a superb salesmen and I hope that, come what may, his talents will remain at the disposal of the company, but there comes a moment when the failure of a company —and tonight we are engaged in an inquest into the failure to obtain the proper cash flow of the company and the fact that it has run into its present difficulties, which I believe have been produced by top management—must lead one to say that there should be a change at the top. No person is sacrosanct in that respect. No person can be said to hold his position freehold, and that applies not only to politics but to an important national company such as British Leyland. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider, as a condition of the contribution that we are being asked to make tonight, an urgent inquiry into the top management at British Leyland.

Some of the workers who live in my constituency have summed up the situation very simply. They have said that there are more sheriffs than cowboys at British Leyland. That is a matter which should be investigated. How has the management been conducted? Is it being conducted properly in a financial sense?

I ask this specific question of my right hon. Friend. Is it true that if Lord Stokes were to retire he would receive a terminal payment of £400,000? I ask that question because that statement has been made. If there is any truth in it, there is something seriously wrong with the financial organisation of a firm which can vote its top management, however indispensable it may seem, such a fantastic figure. I hope that question will be answered tonight. If hon. Members are being asked to vote £50 million, we ought to know whether almost half a million pounds of that sum may be paid to one manager as a golden handshake.

In conclusion, may I say that I want to see a new mood of co-operation and purpose both at the top and on the shop floor. The Opposition are fond of talking about co-operation. The workers of British Leyland want nothing more than to have the opportunity of working on, and producing, cars. They want to help exports. They want to participate in a great national effort. Let them make a new start in promoting a state of affairs where strikes will be a thing of the past. That new start can be made only if the workers are brought into consultation and given the chance of participation. I hope and believe that eventually, out of the restructuring of British Leyland, the workers will have a participatory place on the board, and that they will be able to feel integrated into a firm of which they are an essential part. In that way I hope that, with the assent of the 200,000 workers of British Leyland, we can make a new beginning in which this great national firm will be able to work in the interests of the nation as a whole.

Mr. Speaker

Order. We have only until half-past twelve to complete this debate. I hope we shall have rather shorter speeches.

11.12 p.m.

Mr. Hal Miller (Bromsgrove and Redditch)

Before addressing myself to the motion, I should like to pay a tribute to the management and men of British Leyland who purposely and productively worked to create this great enterprise under the direction of the noble lord, Lord Stokes, and the managing director, Mr. John Barber. I should like to place this great enterprise within the context of the British economy to show that it truly deserves the name British Leyland, particularly in view of the fact that the firm employs about 200,000 people.

The products of British Leyland account for 4 per cent. of British exports, and represent approximately one-third of the contribution of the entire motor industry. That industry has consistently accounted for about 10 per cent. of capital investment formation in this country, 12.5 per cent. of exports and approximately 15 per cent. of employment in the engineering industry. It is right that we should bear those figures in mind when we consider this motion.

I hope that the Minister, when he replies to the debate, will take the opportunity to correct the impression made by the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Edelman). The motion will enable a back-up to be provided to allow the commercial banks to lend to this company an additional amount of money over the current borrowing limits. I stress that this company is fully satisfied that it is capable of servicing those loans, so there is no question of this money disappearing down some bottomless pit. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will underwrite those remarks.

I turn next to the question why British Leyland has got itself into the position, not of failing, as some hon. Members have said, but of bumping up against its borrowing limits because of the erosion of its borrowing base, partly because of the fall in its share value. The company could be purchased on the stock market today for £39 million.

Mrs. Audrey Wise (Coventry, South-West)

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that it would not be a bad use of public money to do just that, and have complete public accountability?

Mr. Miller

I see no case for the public purchase of British Leyland.

The company's borrowing base has been eroded and it has had to use a great deal more working capital—£190 million —because of inflation, the increased cost of inventory, higher interest charges and the higher wages paid. There is also another £80 million in pensions, national insurance contributions, increased costs of steel and other overheads. That is why the company has been brought up against its borrowing limit. There is no question of its having failed.

The motion guarantees borowing for a temporary period while the inquiry takes place. I support it, but I should like the Secretary of State to direct the attention of the inquiry not only to the circumstances of the company but to the outside circumstances which have brought it into this position, particularly acts of the Government.

We were told that one of the objects of the inquiry would be the company's markets. It is important to realise that the management has taken a strong decision to concentrate its marketing effort on Europe, because its share of the European market has been very low and that market, despite the current troubles, has grown much faster than our own market over the past ten years. The uncertainty created in the company by the Government's failure to resolve their position on Europe is damaging the marketing strategy and management morale. Some clear statement of the Government's position would therefore be of great help.

The whole motor industry lost 465,000 cars as a result of strikes in 1973, and this year it has already lost 500,000, which, at a unit price of, say, £1,000 is a large sum—and these are all profitable cars, above the break-even point. One consequence of a heavy capital investment is a much higher break-even point. There is, therefore, a serious need to ensure that that capacity is fully utilised. But the whole situation in the British industry is such that the utilisation of capacity has been dropping over the past five years. I hope that the inquiry will direct its attention to this matter.

However, this loss of cars through industrial disputes must be faced. I am not one of those who take an anti-union attitude. I have had valuable consultations with union officers on this subject. But the sad truth of the matter is that the union officers, as well as the management, have lost control of the situation. It is the direct shop-floor power—so much beloved by the right hon. Gentleman— which has brought about this situation.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield (Nuneaton)

Absolute nonsense.

Mr. Miller

If the hon. Gentleman had the number of constituents who work at Longbridge that I have, he would know something about this matter. Many people in those factories wish to work for 52 weeks of the year, and not for the 36 weeks which mindless people have inflicted upon them. They want to earn their wages for a full year, as do most people in this country. This disruption must be faced, and the Government have a responsibility to come clean on the subject.

The third matter for which the Government have very direct responsibility is the use that they have made of the motor industry as an economic regulator, which has led to very severe fluctuations in demand in this country with consequential effects on employment and earnings. The work force has at some times been compelled to work long periods of overtime and at other times has been on short earnings. Until there is more consistency and continuity in Government policy, there will always be these difficulties, which are so easy to seize on as an excuse for industrial action.

From what I have said, I hope that the House will accept that this great company is not going under at present and that it is in a position to continue without Government assistance by reducing its activities. It is only because it is thought to be in the national interest that the volume of exports to which I have referred and some of the employment should be maintained that there is a ground for bringing forward Government assistance now. But that assistance need not necessarily include a direct Government investment. As has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), the immediate transfer of shares of itself will achieve nothing.

What is needed is a firm statement and a commitment from the Government on the points I have mentioned—namely, the EEC, militant activity against the best interests of the trade unions, continuity and consistency of Government economic policy, and a determined attack on interest rates and inflation in general. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us an outline of the Government's thinking on these matters.

11.24 p.m.

Mr. Ray Carter (Birmingham, Northfield)

I shall be as brief as possible as I am aware that other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. However, as 25,000 out of the 200,000 workers involved live in my constituency, not only did I want to take some part in the debate but I think that it would have been expected of me.

There will be no surprise at the present troubles of British Leyland. If there is any surprise, it is that they took so long to come about. I say that because over the past few years, particularly the past year, British Leyland has battled against some enormous problems. It has had in addition the structural problems to which the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) referred. But in the past 12 months it has had the three-day working week, the oil crisis, falling demand, and foreign competition, which in recent months has reached enormous proportions.

In my opinion, however, all those circumstances amount to the straw which broke the camel's back, and the real problem which British Leyland has faced over the past decade rather than two or three years has been the problem of investment. This has been referred to time and again by Lord Stokes and other members of the board of the company. That is the root cause of the trouble, and it has to be tackled.

The problems facing the company in that respect are now revealed by the fact that every car it makes it can sell, and there is not one in stock. If productivity had been higher, if production had been higher, the company, with all its difficulties, would probably not have been in the position it is in now.

In my view, whatever be the solution arrived at now, we must ensure that the crisis within the company is solved and, one hopes, solved for good. The car is with us to stay. What is more, it is our biggest export earner, and the industry is one of the country's major employers. In the West Midlands, one in four of all industrial workers works either in the car industry or in an industry associated with it. So it is no laughing matter for us in the West Midlands. Whatever happens as a result of the crisis and of the inquiry, we must find some long-term solution. Failure now could lead ultimately, I believe, to disaster.

What should the Government do? I echo what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Edelman) and by others of my hon. Friends who intervened at various points in the debate. Complete public ownership, it seems to me, is the only way out. I say that because the industry appears to have been rejected by the private sector. If support from the private sector were still there, British Leyland would not have had to come to the Government.

Mr. Reginald Eyre (Birmingham, Hall Green)

May I refer the hon. Gentleman to the company's report for the year ending September 1974: All industrial companies in the United Kingdom are affected by inflation, but British Leyland is particularly vulnerable because production loss over the years due to strikes has prevented the building up of reserves for difficult times". Will the hon. Gentleman pay due regard to that?

Mr. Carter

I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a great interest in the car industry, as any West Midlands Member does, and he is a Birmingham Member. But what he should bear in mind—I feel that we should not make flippant points, and I am not suggesting that that was—is that every car industry in the world has this problem. It does not apply only to British Leyland. True, British Leyland has more of a problem in this area than other companies have in other countries, but one cannot reliably compare one company with another or one country with another. Indeed, if we did we could come up with some quite alarming facts and figures.

If there is one thing I have learned in five years of association with my constituency, with British Leyland and with the 25,000 people who work in the industry, it is that there are no simple solutions. Public ownership has been referred to. I know, and my shop stewards in the car factories know, that even if we took this industry into public ownership tomorrow, we should still have the job of producing motor cars, and nobody really likes doing it.

I believe that a large part of the difficulty which we experience in industrial relations in the car industry is bound up with the difficult nature of the job of actually making cars. I take the point that no strikes are acceptable, and certainly one loses production, but it is not a pleasant job. I am afraid that we have to live with a certain degree of disruption in the industry.

I said that public ownership was the only way. Perhaps some other solution will be arrived at, but we must insist, from the Government side, that any money invested by the Government in British Leyland is taken as a public stake in that industry. I am afraid that the measures adopted in the past, by the IRC and other bodies, for investing public money have not given the degree of public accountability that the taxpayer and we, as a Parliament, should expect. That is the first political requirement that we can make of any public investment.

This may be the last chance for British Leyland—the last sector of the wholly British-owned part of the car industry. The workers in British Leyland at Long-bridge feel that. That is why a delegation came to the House yesterday, consisting of the whole of the works committee, accompanied by some people from Coventry, and made plain their fears.

For the information of hon. Members on the Opposition benches, these are not wild men; they are people with a long experience in the industry. The convener of the works committee—Dick Etheridge —has held his post in that factory for over 30 years, and others have been shop stewards or trade union officials in other capacities for more than 20 years. They realise that the company is in trouble and they want to do something to help it. That is why they came here yesterday —not thinking just of their jobs but of the future of their industry—the industry of which they are a part and of which they are proud to be a part. These people must be listened to. They have a point of view and they have a part to play in any restructuring of the company that may be decided upon.

We must remember that the days of imposed decisions are going. No more can Governments or companies say to workers, "This is how we think you should order your industrial life". Nowadays workpeople expect something better. We, as a Government and an institution here in Parliament, should capitalise on that and try to involve people as much as we can, particularly in times of crisis.

The works committee had a number of demands to make, some of which have been answered by the Secretary of State tonight. The first one was that Sir Don Ryder must involve the workpeople—by whom I mean the trade union—in any decisions made about the future of the company; about the question of public ownership or about a BP-type solution. All these factors must be taken into account and be put fairly and squarely to the trade unionists involved, so that they can put their point of view.

The second point is that they are extremely worried about the suggestion by John Barber that there are certain loss-makers within the British Leyland empire. Mr. Barber referred in the Sunday Times a fortnight ago to the Cowley plant, and Longbridge. For the benefit of hon. Members, I should explain that these are the two plants that are in the volume car production area. Anybody who is making volume cars today is in a loss-making area. It is true that these two plants have not been making profits for a long time, but if we wish to maintain a presence in this field, Longbridge and Cowley must be kept in production. The earliest opportunity should be taken by the Government or by Sir Don Ryder to reassure the people at Longbridge and Cowley—I know that the Opposition Front Bench spokesman has many people in his constituency who work at Cowley and who would want to be assured on this point—that their jobs are secure.

Mr. J. W. Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr)

To reinforce my hon. Friend's point—these two plants make the most economically-running motor car that British Leyland produce. The man who buys a Jaguar does not give two hoots about the price of petrol, but to the man who buys a Marina or an Allegro it is a vital factor, and it is important that consideration should be given to that fact.

Mr. Carter

My hon. Friend is right. The finest range of quality cars at Long-bridge and Cowley are highly suited to the age in which we live, with petrol costing almost £1 a gallon.

The third point that the shop stewards raised with me and other hon. Members yesterday was the fact that no one had yet had put to him precisely what the state of British Leyland was. Tonight we are discussing £50 million to support the company, and yet no one knows precisely what the internal position of the company is, although we have had a statement about its financial position.

The fourth point is overseas investment. It is felt by many people that the export of capital has jeopardised the employment prospects and possibly the standard and status of the company in Britain.

The fifth point concerns the import of Japanese cars. Last year we imported just under 90,000 Japanese cars while the total of British cars exported to Japan was only 1,200. We are not asking for a total ban on car trading with Japan, but we are asking for fair terms of trade.

Above all, and this is the sixth and final point—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—I have tried to be as brief as possible.

Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that if the Government had had their way, the debate would have lasted only an hour and a half and that it is only because of the Opposition's strong representations that it is to last two and a half hours, and that he and his hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Edelman) have already taken half an hour?

Mr. Carter

I must congratulate the Opposition on that. They have done a fine thing and rendered a great service to British Leyland and its employees. I should have been very disturbed if the debate had lasted only one and a half hours. However, the hon. Member has succeeded in lengthening my speech by two minutes, and I am not sure that everyone will be happy about that.

My sixth point reinforces what I said earlier about consultation with working people, and by that I mean people on the shop floor, the staff and the management. They want to become involved in the future of the company. They feel that they have a positive part to play in the future structure and future organisation of the company.

If that is done, there is a golden opportunity, even though this is a crisis situation for British Leyland, to ensure that the future of the company is secure.

11.38 p.m.

Mr. Nick Budgen (Wolverhampton, South-West)

I find myself in the embarrassing position of agreeing with many of the sentiments that have come from the Government side of the House and not agreeing with my hon. Friend for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) that this is a holding operation. He believes that he can agree with the concept of an inquiry. The debate will be seen throughout the West Midlands and the whole of the rest of the country as a preliminary to a major public stake in British Leyland. It will be seen as leading to public control of the whole company. It is wrong to pretend that this is just a mere holding operation.

If it were a mere holding operation, it would be grossly wrong to spend £50 million. One would expect one of the banks to be prepared to put up the money for a holding operation for an otherwise solvent company. I believe it to be a preliminary to massive Government expenditure and nationalisation which are wholly wrong in the circumstances in which the debate takes place.

The debate takes place at the end of two days of debate on the economy during which one subject on which there has been widespread agreement is the danger of the Government's vast borrowing requirement. Time and again hon. Members have mentioned the £6.3 billion requirement and its effect on already rising interest rates. One after another hon. Members have warned that we are perilously dependent on foreign borrowing. We are warned that if the Arabs do not continue to lend to us we must resort to the printing presses. We know from the rates revolt that there is no real chance of a major increase in taxation being forced upon the people. Yet tonight this measure is described as a mere holding operation when we know that it is the preliminary to a massive increase in Government spending.

The proposals are wrong in every way. I am against nationalisation not simply because I believe it to be inefficient. The case against nationalisation is not based upon efficiency or growth. It is based upon freedom. It is the case against the concentration of power into the hands of the State, and it is most of all the case against those who would wish to see all power of decision in the hands of politicians.

If there is this increased nationalisation there will be a repetition of the situation which occurs in the case of the British Steel Corporation. Plants are kept open because they are in marginal constituencies. Decisions are taken on that criteria and not according to the profit record of the plant in question. The politician and not the business community holds sway.

I am opposed to this measure most of all because it is a preliminary to public expenditure of the order of £500 million, which is the figure Mr. Barber was referring to recently.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield

It will be at least that.

Mr. Budgen

It may be more, probably much more, and for the following reason. Unhappily British Leyland has had very bad labour relations. One of the main arguments of the company has been that it could not pay excessive rises because it would mean that the company would go bust. This did not happen between 1971 and 1974 because wage payments could be met out of easily obtained credit. Now the employees will be able to tell the management to get the money from the Government. I agree with the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) that the figure may well exceed £500 million. It may be that the unions will go on demanding more and more and that they will get it, because this is no preliminary holding operation, it is the beginning of a massive handout.

The situation is even worse than that. It sets an appallingly dangerous precedent. It is grossly unfair that British Leyland will be bailed out because it is big.

Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West)

Is the hon. Member aware that if British Leyland is not helped thousands of small concerns all over the country, including my constituency, will go to the wall and their employees will be out of work? That is what this debate is all about.

Mr. Budgen

If the Government print more and more money there will be more and more inflation and we will simply delay the crunch for perhaps three or six months. But the crunch will come and the more its coming is delayed the worse it will be when it gets here.

The horrifying danger of this is that the little man will realise that, because he cannot influence the outcome of a particular election, because he does not command power in the places where the politicians make their decisions, he will not be bailed out in the way that the big companies are bailed out. Little men will seethe with indignation in a year's time when they see how hardly treated they are compared with the big companies, and particularly when they realise how they are hit by inflation, increased rates and taxes, and the increased national insurance contributions of self-employed people.

This premilinary act of bailing out will divide the nation more than almost anything else. The Secretary of State sees himself as the great company doctor, but he is no more than a quack. He does not appreciate that British industry is an organic whole. Parts die and parts are born. Before a new part can be born an old part has to die. It is a horrible and inescapable fact of the market economy which the right hon. Gentleman so hates. If he sets himself up as a quack doctor and tries to tell all his patients that he has the secret of eternal life, when the relatives finally find that he is wrong the cynicism and disillusionment will be even greater than it would have been if he had told them the truth at the beginning.

11.47 p.m.

Mr. Evan Luard (Oxford)

I speak for the great majority of my constituents who work in the motor industry when I say that I warmly welcome the reiteration of support for British Leyland involved in the statement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State tonight. They will welcome it not merely as an expression of confidence in British Leyland and the British motor industry but as an expression of the Government's determination not to allow the genuinely British motor industry to collapse or fall out of British control.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) has repeated things said widely in the House and in the Press. He has spoken of the operation as if it were the bailing out of a totally unsuccessful firm or industry. I contest that view. British Leyland has not had a totally unsuccessful record over the past year. It is true that in the first half it was not so successful, but the figures published today show that in the past six months its trading record has been much better. In its domestic operations alone it has had a substantial operating profit.

It is still less true of the British motor industry as a whole that it has recently been operating at a loss or unsuccessfully. Compared with most of the other motor industries of the world, it has a remarkably successful record, given the present state of the market. In October the industry's exports were 36 per cent. higher than they were a year earlier, whilst imports were only 5 per cent. higher. Exports in the first 10 months of the year were 17 per cent. up, whilst our imports were only 10 per cent. up. That should be remembered by those who believe that our domestic market has been taken over by foreign manufacturers. The balance of trade for the whole of this year is likely to show a surplus of exports over imports for the industry of £1,000 million. That surplus is 32 per cent. higher than last year. In October alone it was 70 per cent. higher than last year. Those are remarkable figures, figures of an industry not doing at all badly.

It is true that the industry has suffered over the past year from two factors which every motor industry in the world has to contend with. One is the tremendous increase in the price of oil and of petrol which has inevitably caused a decline in the demand for motor cars. The second is the general recession in industry, not only in this country, but in other parts of the world. Taken together, those are severe handicaps for any motor industry or motor firm to contend with.

It is remarkable that the British motor industry has, on the whole, been affected by these problems much less than comparable industries in other countries. We have been reading in the past few months of the large numbers of men who have been put out of work or on short time or laid off temporarily by the major motor firms in most of the major industrial countries. The British industry has come off remarkably lightly compared with those countries. We have had a certain amount of natural wastage and a number of people have been temporarily laid off, but, on the whole, we have avoided making permanently redundant large numbers of people, as has happened in many other countries' motor industries. This is a good reason for us to have confidence in the future of the British motor industry and, therefore, a good reason to justify the measures announced by my right hon. Friend and his promise of further assistance in the investment programme of British Leyland.

Another charge often made against the British motor industry, and particularly against British Leyland, is that it has a particularly poor industrial relations record. The responsibility for this no doubt lies in many quarters, but management must take a large part of the responsibility. In my constituency there has not been one major industrial dispute in British Leyland in the past eight months.

Mr. Douglas Hurd (Mid-Oxon)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that at the Cowley plant, of which he and I have knowledge, the improvement to which he refers was the result of a remarkable revolution in the summer by which the troublemakers were turned out by the men because they believed that the trouble-making might drive the firm to bankruptcy? Does not he see a danger that the troublemakers at Cowley will be able to say, "We need not bother about that argument any more because the Secretary of State is at hand with his cheque book"?

Mr. Luard

There are many reasons for the great improvement in industrial relations at Cowley in the past eight or nine months. One of them may well be, as the hon. Gentleman says, that there has been a change in the leadership among the shop stewards. I do not know whether that is the main reason. There are many people working in British Leyland—and this applies all over the country—who are conscious of the serious situation of the company. It is a remarkable tribute to them that they have responded in this way and have determined to ensure the future prosperity of the company and of the motor industry generally.

There is not the slightest likelihood that, because the Government are offering the firm money, the great improvement in industrial relations will suddenly change and the men will turn out the existing highly respected leadership in the union and among the shop stewards, since many of the workers have noted the improvement and have welcomed what has happened. They have much more continuous work than before. Industrial relations in Oxford are extremely good, and it is a wild generalisation to say that there are bad industrial relations in the motor industry generally. The good industrial relations in Oxford are largely due to a good union movement and a sensible relationship, but that could be achieved in other parts of the country.

I hope that the inquiry will note and remark upon the good situation in Oxford. When, for example, decisions are made about the distribution of investment, I hope that the sole consideration will not be whether a factory is making highly profitable models—which are often the most expensive models—but that consideration will be given to factories which have a good record and make cheaper models which are more economical in the use of petrol and will have a good future on the British motor market in years to come.

I hope that the inquiry will also note that the situation in Oxford is in some ways different from that in other parts of the country. I hope that there will be no major redundancies in the industry as a result either of the problems of the industry or of the inquiry, particularly in Oxford, because there is no other major manufacturing industry in Oxford to which displaced workers will be able to turn. That is not necessarily true in other parts of the country. In Oxford the motor industry is the only major manufacturing industry.

Mrs. Wise

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be dangerous either to play off or allow to be played off one worker against another in various towns? Is it not the future of the car industry as a whole that is important?

Mr. Luard

I prefaced my remarks by saying that I hoped that as a result of the offer of Government support and of the inquiry there would be no redundancies in any part of the country. The points I have made are not irrelevant to the inquiry and will have the effect of ensuring stability of employment in Oxford.

There are two matters about which workers in British Leyland in my constituency and in the British motor industry as a whole will want to know. If the Government are to give a considerable volume of investment to British Leyland, the workers will expect the Government in return to acquire a share of the ownership of the company. In association with the share of ownership, the workers will expect a considerable measure of partici- pation in the major decisions that are reached which affect their future. I hope that my right hon. Friend when he considers the report which Sir Don Ryder makes will bear that in mind.

Secondly, I hope that my right hon. Friend wil regard it as a major concern to maintain stability of employment within the industry as a whole. In certain cases there may need to be a continuation of the natural wastage which has been taking place over the last year or so. There are many people who have devoted their lives to the industry. They have worked within it for 20 or 30 years and will have difficulty in finding work elsewhere. One major result of Government assistance for the firm will be that many people in Oxford and elsewhere will have less fear for their future.

If those two conditions are met, my constituents and many others who work in the industry will warmly welcome the offer of Government support that has been made.

12 midnight.

Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)

I want genuinely to speak briefly. It is a great pity, when so many hon. Members wish to speak, and the time for the debate has been extended, that so few on either side have been able to take part, with the result that the Secretary of State is to answer relatively few questions on an extremely important topic. I support the motion, but not with any pleasure. I am sure that none of us is pleased to see a great company of this country in such a condition. The motion is necessary. I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller.) re-emphasised—that this is not money to British Leyland but a guarantee of money from the clearing banks, at normal commercial rates of interest, which, if the guarantee is not called in, will cost the Government nothing. It gives a holding period while the review is undertaken.

I fully support what my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) said about the needs which the review should meet. It is not going to be a pleasant review, as we all know. There is no secret magic formula which will protect the British motor industry from the problems facing the car industries of the world.

The only formula which has protected British Leyland so far has been the number of strikes and the fact that it is so far behind production that it has not faced so immediately the cuts in demand now taking place in the world. There is still some demand for its cars.

Any hon. Member trying to buy a British Leyland car over the last month or so will have experienced, as I have done, the greatest difficulty. I was promised a four-month delivery date. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter) talked about how British Leyland should face foreign competition. We know that the keenest edge of foreign competition in the last two years has been in delivery, the fact that foreign competition has been able to deliver a car where the British industry has not been able to.

This motion has come before the real impact of the crisis has hit our industry. The extent of the worldwide crisis has not yet hit British Leyland. Its problems are domestic—domestic in the financial state of the country, inflation, and the domestic circumstances of the company itself. It has yet to feel the real impact of the cutback in world demand for cars.

The fact that we are in this situation now should bring home to all hon. Members that this is going to be an acutely difficult inquiry. My feeling is that every week it goes on it will be presented with figures for a lower and lower potential demand for cars from British Leyland.

Today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted that the recession is now deeper than he forecast three months ago and that his expectation for world trade is now lower than it was three months ago. The inquiry will find that the prospects for British Leyland will be substantially lower this year than last, and that the forecasts will be chipped down again and again. Every time the Secretary of State asks the inquiry, "How are you getting on?" he will be told, "We are revising the forecast of demand for next year." The impact on employment is obviously very serious.

Mr. Peter Hordern (Horsham and Crawley)

Whatever the report may conclude, it is essential that its conclusions be published, otherwise there can be no public accountability in the real meaning of the word.

Mr. King

I perhaps do not go wholly with my hon. Friend on that point. I accept that publication of a summary of the essential outlines is sensible, but I understand the problem about handing over in a public report certain facts to the company's competitors.

My concern is that the investigation and study may produce beyond peradventure the fact that British Leyland is really an unmanageable organisation. I do not so much criticise the management or the union leadership. I think that a lot of very good people find themselves in an impossible situation, one which needs examination to see whether it should be tackled. Companies of this size set up in this way will be seen as the dinosaurs of the 1970s. People will realise increasingly that real human industrial relations in the context of 1980 are not possible in the size of organisation represented here.

Finally, I ask one specific question. There are two members of the IDAB on the study group. Did the IDAB support this measure? The Secretary of State is taking it under Section 8, and Section 8 requires the Secretary of State to consult the IDAB. Did the IDAB support him?

12.5 a.m.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield (Nuneaton)

Without casting reflection on you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I find it incredible that we should debate a company which employs 200,000—and I have 20,000 constituents involved in one way or another in Coventry and in British Leyland—and that less than half of the two and a half hours allotted to the debate should be given to speeches from the back benches. I am asked to compress my remarks into three minutes—

Mr. Janner

My hon. Friend is lucky.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield

That may be because of my 20,000 constituents.

Listening to the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), anyone would think it was unique that we should be trying to help save British Leyland. We have to realise that one of the most successful motor manufacturing companies in the world, Volkswagen, has been publicly-owned. We have to take note of the fact that one of the most successful motor manufacturing companies in Europe, Renault, is still publicly-owned. We have to remember that another of the most successful in Europe, FIAT, still has a sizeable public chunk. We are doing nothing unusual. We are simply following the example of what is happening throughout Europe—

Mr. Heseltine

rose—

Mr. Huckfield

I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. I prefer to make my own speech.

Mr. Heseltine

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The House is listening to the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) realising that he is curtailing his remarks in a way which he does not wish to do and which we do not wish to make him do. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have not had a chance to contribute to the debate. Is it in order for me to propose that this debate should continue after the time allotted to it? Would such a motion be acceptable to you?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)

I cannot at this stage make a decision on the matter.

Mr. Huckfield

I can only take note of the generous interruption of the hon. Member for Henley. I am sorry that I mistook his intention in rising just now.

Mr. Heseltine

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When you say that you cannot take a decision, is there any reason why I should not put such a motion so that this House might have an opportunity to consider the matter at greater length?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

It is for the Chair to accept or reject a motion. But I am not prepared to make a decision at this moment.

Mr. Huckfield

That leaves me about 30 seconds.

The alternatives facing the company are that we can either inject a substantial sum of public money and, I hope, take over the company completely, or we can let the company fall into American hands and go, ultimately, exactly the same way—

Mr. Janner

Or the Arabs.

Mr. Huckfield

As my hon. and learned Friend says, or the Arabs—as General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, with investment decisions, men's jobs and even where men stand on the production line put completely in the hands of Detroit or Dearborn. If we start on that road, we end up with American multi-national corporations manufacturing cars not in Britain but in Spain or South-East Asia.

Sir Don Ryder's inquiry team has to decide the kind of car industry that we are to have. Will it be a car industry which will compete only with BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and that type of car, or will it continue in the Austin-Morris range? These are the kind of concerns into which my right hon. Friend's inquiry will have to look.

I hope that, whatever comes out of the inquiry, British Leyland will be a publicly-owned company with the Government and workers at last having a say in its affairs, because, on behalf of my constituents, I want the British car industry preserved.

12.10 a.m.

Mr. Christopher Tugendhat (City of London and Westminster, South)

This short debate is a fitting epitaph to the day that we have spent debating the economy, because a constant theme through that debate has been that the country has not yet fully recognised the depth of the crisis in which it finds itself.

During the week when this great company, British Leyland, went to seek Government assistance, there were 11,000 men idle—not all on strike, but idle as the result of a strike—and pressure from the Cowley works for a £16 a week increase which would bring the main production rate up to £67.20.

The danger that we see in Government assistance to British Leyland is that everyone in the company—management as much as men—will feel that they can sit back and relax, that everything will be safe, that jobs will be safe, that pay increases will be guaranteed, and that the expansion programme will go ahead without difficulty.

I agree with the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Edelman) who, in a most interesting contribution, said that there is a danger, whenever there is Government intervention on this scale in a company of this kind, that it becomes a kind of Christmas stocking. We shall want to hear from the Secretary of State how he proposes to ensure that it is not a Christmas stocking, or, to take another of the analogies suggested by the hon. Member for Coventry, North West, a bottomless pit. Those who work for British Leyland, at whatever level, must realise that Government assistance on this scale is not a soft option. and that all the difficult problems and decisions that faced the company before it went to the Secretary of State remain now just as they did then.

I particularly stress the importance of labour relations. The labour relations and industrial disputes record of British-Leyland has been very bad. One point not mentioned in the debate is that one achievement of the company in industrial relations has been the virtual elimination of piece-work and its replacement by a more logical system of payment. I think that we all recognise that the negotiations leading to that change were in themselves very difficult and complex and provoked —perhaps "precipitated" is a better word —a number of disputes. Now that the change has largely been carried through, it is to be hoped that industrial relations within the company will improve.

It is fair to point out that, though there have been difficulties on the union side, the management has not sufficiently recognised the importance of industrial relations. This was demonstrated by the fact that Mr. Pat Lowry was invited on to the main board only in 1972. A man with his job ought to have been on the main board much earlier.

The facts speak for themselves. There has been a loss of £92 million as a result of industrial disputes in the company's first six years and productivity, as the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West said, is among the lowest in the Western world.

There is no doubt that the Government will become increasingly involved in the affairs of British Leyland. Therefore, it is essential that the inquiry should pay particular attention to industrial relations. If, as the Secretary of State suggested, the workers are to play a more prominent rôle in the management of the company, we must look for improvement in that direction.

We must also look for improvement, given that the company is deeply in debt and living off the taxpayer, as it will be, for a degree of wage restraint which would not perhaps be necessary in a company which was not living off the taxpayer and was earning good profits.

Experience in the past of companies which have gone to Governments of both parties—Rolls-Royce comes to mind immediately—shows that the willingness of trade unions to restrain wage demands, when a company is living off the taxpayer, has so far been unhappy.

I hope that when the inquiry takes place and the Secretary of State becomes involved he will make certain that all sections of the company are consulted— middle management and upper management, quite as much as the trade unions —and that he will give sufficient weight to the opinions and ideas of the retail side of the motor trade. The retail side has a vast amount of capital tied up in the success or failure of the company and its opinions deserve to be taken into account.

I draw the attention of the Secretary of State to the interesting point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller) who is extremely knowledgeable about the motor industry. He mentioned the difficulty that has faced British Leyland in planning its investment in Europe while the uncertainty about this country's future in Europe remains.

I hope, too, that the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider what he said about the publication of the report. We realise that some aspects of the company's affairs will have to remain secret. We realise that commercial information is at stake, but as much information as possible should be made available to this House, to the country and to the people who work in British Leyland if we are to form a reasonable judgment of the kind of decisions that the right hon. Gentleman takes.

If the country is paying for British Leyland, and if the people working there are dependent upon it, this House, the country and the workers have a right to as much of that report as can conceivably be published.

12.16 a.m.

Mr. Benn

I hope that I may have the leave of the House to reply to the points that have been made.

May I, in response to the argument that we should defer the matter because the debate has not been long enough, remind the House that we are debating and deciding something very real, namely, the issuing of guarantees with the authority of Parliament, and consequences would flow from not being able to do that. I hope the House will accept that we must reach a decision tonight.

I have noted most carefully all the points that have been made, and I know that other hon. Members who would have liked to do so have not been able to contribute to the debate.

It is not possible, and it would not be sensible to seek to anticipate the out come of the deliberations of the review team and of the unions, shop floor workers and management in British Leyland who, in my opinion, will be making a significant contribution to the study of the deep-seated problems of the firm. I do not see this is as an external study done in isolation subsequently to be imposed on the company by the agency of Government action.

Mr. Rodgers

Would it be possible to convey that to the individual plants? There is great appreciation of the Government's action, but will there be discussions at local level in which the workers will be involved?

Mr. Bean

It is the intention and desire of the Government that those who work in the plants, including those with shop floor responsibility and full-time trade union officials who represent the members, should not only have an opportunity, but should have an obligation, with their knowledge of the firm and their experience in it, to contribute constructively to a solution which the review team will have to find. There is no intention that this should be a secret, separate external examination with the results disclosed later to workers who would have had no part in making the recommendations.

Mr. Janner

Will my right hon Friend bear in mind that many hon. Members who are waiting to speak on this subject are considerably worried because in our constituencies we have, for example, light engineering and other industries which depend on companies such as British Leyland for the livelihood and employment of their men? Will he take them into account in the inquiry and consult them and their workers in so far as that is possible so as to take their views into account when deciding what steps are to be taken?

Mr. Benn

I appreciate the concern of my hon. Friend who represents workers in component and other factories in Leicester. I should be misleading the House and confusing the exercise if I were to suggest that Sir Don Ryder and his team would be undertaking a study of all aspects of the British motor industry, including its compenents firms.

However, one of the factors we had in mind in making this proposal for a guarantee—as distinct from a receivership, which was canvassed and hinted at, though in fairness to the hon. Member for Henley it was not his view—was the disastrous effect that the company's failure would have upon supplies of components. I am very glad to have this opportunity to say that.

It follows from what I have said that, although we are bound to have regard to proper commercial confidentiality in not publishing to the world every detail of the British Leyland company—which is the only large British-owned motor company, whose commercial security we are bound to protect—the maximum degree of disclosure now by the management to the workers, as well as to the team, would be highly beneficial. One of the greatest problems of industrial relations is that workers, because they are usually not given the facts relating to the company in which they work, are limited by the ignorance imposed upon them to confine themselves simply to wage bargaining because they are not able to participate in discussions about investment, export markets, and about the general strategy of the company.

Although this is not the occasion on which to make the point, I see in this review an embryonic planning agreement developing in which workers, who have much to offer and who in my judgment have been attacked most unfairly in some of the speeches made this evening, might perhaps begin to be able to contribute towards the solution of those problems.

Mr. Heseltine

So that the House is not limited by ignorance, will the Minister ensure that the summary published for this House to consider has the agreement of Sir Don Ryder?

Mr. Benn

I have undertaken in my opening statement to publish a summary of the recommendations. If the hon. Gentleman is not satisfied with my answer, I can say that the reservation I made relates to disclosure of commercial matters and not to any desire on my part to withhold recommendations which might not find favour in the mind of the Government. I was referring solely to the need to preserve a degree of confidentiality. That will be understood, bearing in mind the quality of the men who have agreed to serve on the review body.

Reference has been made to public ownership. If public money is to go into British Leyland there must and will be participation and accountability going with it. There is no question that that is right. That is the attitude we adopt.

Listening to the debate, I wondered whether those hon. Gentlemen who made points concerning the attitude of workers in industry fully took on board the consequences of what they were saying. Many hon. Members spoke as if, somehow, the mystical experience of redundancy was an essential ingredient of redeployment and national recovery. One hon. Member spoke in medical terms of the need for death and rebirth. I utterly reject the idea that it is the duty of the House, or indeed of any industrial policy, to seek to bring about redundancy to obtain the necessary redeployment.

Eight million people in Britain change their jobs every year. Even in 1971, which was a peak year for redundancies, there were only 370,000 redundancies. The idea is widely put abroad in the Press and elsewhere that somehow, unless evidence can be produced to show that blood has been shed in redundancy situations the nation is not applying its resources properly. That is a wholly Victorian notion which is entirely unacceptable to me and to the trade union movement. When men become redundant needlessly, as has happened, this is a major factor in creating restrictive practices throughout industry, for workers feel that they are treated solely as factors of production and will necessarily devote much of their time to defending their jobs. Since this point was made, let me say that plainly.

Let me say something else about the references in the speeches of hon. Members opposite to motor car workers or the trade unions or trouble makers or shop stewards or whatever term they use in their arguments. Can any hon. Member recall any Press support ever being given to those involved in any dispute in the motor industry? Hon. Members who have visited the factories, as I have, and seen the track and the conditions under which motor cars are made know that, at its worst, this is the most boring and tedious work. Yet I cannot recall the grievances of motor car workers ever being described fairly in the popular Press. There is comment only when matters come to dispute. This applies equally to the unfair criticism of management, who have a formidable task in trying to get good production out of these conditions.

If no one in the party opposite or in the popular Press is prepared to turn his mind to the real problems of motor car production and what it does to men's lives, then it is no surprise that some of the disputes should be the means by which these matters are brought to the attention of the community. I say this with deep feeling because I believe that much of what is wrong with Britain lies in the sort of debate we have had tonight, in speeches about industry which are not coming from people with industrial experience—who are ready to attack— [HON. MEMBERS: "So are you."] I am not attacking. I have not attacked the management tonight. I said at the beginning that I did not believe that the heroes and villians approach to the problems of Leyland and British industry is the right approach.

Those who work in the industry, whether industrial workers or shop stewards or full-time officials or technical people or salaried management, right up to board level in British Leyland, would not think very highly of a debate which sought to make this problem the occasion for searching for scapegoats— [Interruption.] This was a great element in the debate, in which the hon. Members did not participate in any way.

Many of my hon. Friends have brought to my attention the anxieties which have been brought to their attention by the representatives of the workers who come to the House. It is manifestly true, first, that productivity has been low in the British motor industry and British Leyland because of a lack of investment in the past; second, that productivity can and must be increased; third, that the key to the economy of the West Midlands lies in and around the motor industry; fourth, that public ownership is the right way of dealing with public participation,

Question accordingly agreed to.

where it is required; fifth, that there must not be an attempt to handle this problem externally, without involving those who work in the industry, so that their skill can be brought into play—

Mr. Tom King

What about the IDAB?

Mr. Benn

I am grateful to the hon. Member. The IDAB had this matter reported to it.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 149, Noes 13.

Division No. 41.]	AYES	[12.30 a.m
Allaun, Frank	Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Archer, Peter	Fitt, Gerard (Belfast)	Murray, Ronald King
Armstrong, Ernest	Flannery, Martin	Newens, Stanley
Ashton, Joe	Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Noble, Mike
Atkinson, Norman	Ford, Ben T.	Oakes, Gordon
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)	O'Malley, Brian
Bates, Alf	Garrett, John (Norwich S)	Ovenden, John
Bean, Robert E.	George, Bruce	Paisley, Rev Ian
Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood	Gilbert, Dr John	Palmer, Arthur
Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)	Golding, John	Parry, Robert
Bishop, Edward	Gould, Bryan	Pendry, Tom
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Graham, Ted	Richardson, Miss Jo
Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Pr)	Grant, George (Morpeth)	Rodgers, George (Chorley)
Buchanan, Richard	Grant, John (Islington C)	Rooker, J. W.
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)	Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Roper, John
Campbell, Ian	Hardy, Peter	Ryman, John
Carmichael, Neil	Harper, Joseph	Sandelson, Neville
Carson, John	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilf)
Carter, Ray	Heffer, Eric S.	Silkin,Rt Hon John (Lewish)
Carter-Jones, Lewis	Horam, John	Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)
Cartwright, John	Hoyle, Douglas (Nelson)	Spearing, Nigel
Clemitson, I. M.	Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)	Stallard, A W.
Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)	Hughes, Mark (Durham)	Stewart, Rt Hon Michael (H'smith F)
Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)	Stoddart, David
Concannon, J. D.	Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)	Stott, Roger
Conlan, Bernard	Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)	strang, Gavin
Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)	Janner, Greville	Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
Corbett, Robin	Judd, Frank	Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, M)	Kinnock, Neil	Tierney, Sydney
Crawshaw, Richard	Lamborn, Harry	Tinn, James
Cryer, Bob	Lamond, James	Tomlinson, John
Cunningham, Dr. J. (Whiteh)	Latham, Arthur (Paddington)	Urwin, T. W.
Dalyell, Tam	Leadbitter, Ted	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)
Davidson, Arthur	Loyden, Eddie	Walker, Terry, (Kingswood)
Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)	Luard, Evan	Ward, Michael
Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)	Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)	Watkinson, John
Dormand, Jack	McCartney, Hugh	Watt, Hamish
Douglas-Mann, Bruce	McElhone, Frank	Wellbeloved, James
Duffy, A. E. P.	MacFarquhar, R.	Welsh, Andrew
Dunlop, J.	Mackenzie, Gregor	White, Frank R. (Bury)
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth	Maclennan, Robert	White, James (Glasgow, P)
Edelman, Maurice	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)	Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)
Edge, Geoffrey	Madden. Max	Wilson, William (Coventry SE)
Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)	Marks, Ken
Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)	Marquand, David	Wise, Mrs. Audrey
English, Michael	Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)	Woodall, Alec
Ennals, David	Mellish, Rt Hon Robert	Woof, Robert
Evans, John (Newton)	Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)	Young, David (Bolton E)
Ewing, Harry (Stirling)	Miller, Dr M. (E. Kilbride)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES
Eyre, Reginald	Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)	Mr. Laurie Pavitt and
Faulds, Andrew	Molloy, William	Mr. Donald Coleman.

NOES
Brotherton, Michael	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral	Winterton, Nicholas
Budgen, Nick	Nelson, Anthony
Hooson, Emlyn	Penhaligon, David	TELLERS FOR THE NOES
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)	Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch	Mr. John Biffen and
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)	Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)	Mr. Ian Gow.
Lawrence, Ivan	Tebbit, Norman

Resolved, That this House authorises the Secretary of State to pay or undertake to pay by way of financial assistance under section 8 of the Industry Act 1972 in respect of a guarantee or guarantees to be given to the bankers of British Leyland Motor Corporation Limited and any of its subsidiaries covering borrowing facilities made available by the bankers to those companies, insofar as the amount paid or undertaken to be paid under the guarantee or guarantees is in excess of £5 million but does not exceed £50 million.