HC Deb 14 June 1974 vol 874 cc2076-82

3.36 p.m.

Mr. Robert Adley (Christchurch and Lymington)

I beg to move, That this House understands that man flies rather than sails the oceans in order to save time; believes that supersonic transatlantic flight in 31/2 hours will attract custom; further believes that airline passengers will demand supersonic flight from the airlines; notes that Concorde exists; recalls that, historically, new British civil aircraft receive an unenthusiastic welcome not only from 'professional' critics but also from our nationalised airlines; remembers the development stage of the world's first turbine-powered aeroplanes, the Viscount, also the VC10; notes that British aerospace companies are currently achieving annual exports around £500,000,000, much of which emanates from decisions taken 25 years ago; condemns the Government's pathetic stance, caused by a split Cabinet; and now calls on the Government and British Airways to stop twittering about the difficulties and get on with the job of putting Concorde into service, so that, in a quarter of a century, we shall be able accurately to measure its value to the nation. Being called to move the third motion on a Friday presents almost as difficult an exercise as bringing Concorde into service, in that from time to time one gets the impression that there are others almost deliberately seeking to prevent one from attaining that objective. I have only 20 minutes and I shall not make a long speech.

I start by thanking the manufacturers of Concorde for flying the aircraft from Paris to Boston in 3 hours 9 minutes yesterday in order to allow me to congratulate them in the House of Commons today. The fact that when the news of that event appeared on the tape last night one was able at very short notice to get a number of hon. Members, hon. Friends and hon. Members from the Labour Party, immediately to sign emotion congratulating the manufacturers and urging British Airways to put the aeroplane into service at the earliest possible date is an indication of the continuing interest and support for the Concorde project on both sides of the House.

That is not to say that the opinion of the House or of both parties is unanimous. There are many people who have followed this project for many years, however, and who now feel that we are approaching the final and crucial stage when at last we see this great aircraft about to come into service. There are many people on both sides of the argument who have well-known views, and in my brief remarks I shall try to aim at the middle ground.

We get so much paper for and against Concorde and so many figures about supersonic aviation generally and Concorde in particular that it is almost impossible to base one's judgment on figures provided within or outside the House. But one statement on which we can all agree is that Concorde works.

I want briefly to quote the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) when he said in 1962: I have today signed an agreement with the French Ambassador for the development and production of a supersonic airliner. This will be a joint project undertaken by Britain and France together. The aircraft will be a slender-wing airliner built mainly of light allow. It will have a cruising speed of about Mach 2.2; that is, about 1,400 mph. At this speed, it would cut the present Atlantic crossing from 71/2 hours to about 3 hours, and the flying time from London to Sydney from about 27 hours to 13 hours."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th November 1962; Vol. 668, c. 670.] As we saw yesterday and earlier this week, when Concorde flew to Rio with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) as one of the passengers, no one can deny that Concorde will achieve all the design objectives for which it was originally intended when my right hon. Friend made that announcement all those years ago.

Of course inflation has hit the cost of Concorde very hard. It has been easy to decry the project on the basis that it is so much more expensive than was originally intended, but I can think of very few projects about which one could not say that. One now has to ask oneself a simple question about Concorde, and the future of Concorde will depend on whether the answer is yea or nay. Will people fly in it? Will the customer want to fly across the Atlantic in 3 hours 9 minutes, or would he prefer to spend 7 or 71/2 hours on some other kind of aeroplanes?

I do not deny that many people would prefer to go by ship, to spend five days crossing the Atlantic. However, as I have said, in the main people tend to fly in order to save time, and the history of civil aviation shows crystal clearly that the development and introduction of fast new aircraft has been the decisive factor in attracting customers to those airlines that have operated such aircraft.

As we approach the final phase, those of us who support the project have to do so in the face of the professional knockers, the faint-hearted, those malicious people who can never see anything good in anything British, the "clever" journalists who always find it hard to accept any developments of this sort, and, not least, those people who are financially motivated in wishing Concorde not to succeed.

I do not have a great deal of time to go into this subject, but it is clear to anyone who knows anything about the aircraft manufacturing business that American aircraft manufacturers are not exactly happy that Britain and France together will soon be selling aircraft to the major airlines on the North American continent. There are people who have a clear financial motivation for causing Concorde to fail.

There are, as I have said, always those who have their doubts about any new project. If I may do so with due modesty, I should like to quote my remarks when in a debate on the subject I quoted what was said at the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1830: It is safe to say that of the many people who traveled from afar to watch the chief actress—the locomotive—play her part in this novel drama, only one in ten wished her a long run. The rest.hoped for, and indeed confidently forecast, her speedy failure. Rumors that the locomotives had not proved as economical as horses, and that the Company was about to abandon them, were circulated so assiduously that years afterwards, writers of railway history would give them fresh currency."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, llth December 1972; Vol. 848, c. 129.] I do not believe that there is much difference from those who believe that Concorde is not a viable project.

As I have said, I believe that the argument will finally be settled by the decision of the customer whether he wants to fly in the aircraft. That means that Concorde's future depends on the marketing argument. As someone who has been involved in marketing for many years I have no doubt whatever that the project is a winner. I am sorry that British Airways, which does not have a very good record in supporting new British civil aviation projects, has during the past few months from time to time given the impression that it is not exactly wholeheartedly looking forward to the arrival of Concorde.

Mr. Geoffrey Partie (Chertsey and Walton)

Would my hon. Friend agree that the recent gloomy propaganda has obscured the fact that in its appraisal document British Airways said that it would operate Concorde at a profit of £1.1 million? Would he also agree that the document is anaemic and flabby and has no flair or inspiration whatever? Does he further agree that if people like those who now run British Airways had been around in the past we would probably still be evaluating the wheel as a dangerous technological innovation and one which would not make any money?

Mr. Adley

There is no doubt that if Mr. David Nicholson and Mr. Henry Mark were to go through the Press releases which their airline issues they would probably knock out a number of "ifs" and "buts". My hon. Friend will be aware that the Press release of 31st May by British Airways said: British Airways makes no claim to infallibility in its assessment of the future, and in this matter our forecasts may prove to be wrong. We hope they are wrong. Unfortunately, British Airways has a record of being wrong when it comes to assessing the marketing capability of new aircraft. We need only think of the VC 10 to prove that point.

The point my hon. Friend makes is that British Airways has given the impression that somehow Concorde will be unique in having operating difficulties which it might place in the midst of British Airways' balance sheet. Even Pan American and Trans World Airlines are now making a case out to the American Government to obtain subsidies for operating the Boeing 747.

One question we have to ask is: are airlines, like railways, entering an era when profitable operation is impossible? Mr. Freddie Laker does not think so. British Airways' attitude causes me to wish that it had a little more spirit of adventure, even as great a spirit of adventure as Monsieur Pierre Cot, President of Air France, who, on 22nd February, addressing the French Chamber of Commerce in Montreal, said: We are confident of filling our Concordes. I am confident we shall win the commercial challenge of this aircraft. It seems that British Airways sometimes looks at a glass of water and says that it is half empty while Air France looks at it and says that it is half full.

I find it sad that it is the French partners in this project who are taking the lead in the adventurous flights to Rio and Boston.

I have referred in the motion to the fact that there is a difference of opinion in the Cabinet about this issue. This is not something I deduced by listening secretly at keyholes. The Secretary of State for Employment admits to being a long-time member of the group which has always opposed this project. The Secretary of State for the Home Department was responsible for the miserable attempt to cancel the aircraft in 1969. Thanks to the skill of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion in drawing up the contract with his French partners in 1962, this attempt failed.

I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Secretary of State for Industry. I am delighted to see a Minister from his Department present this afternoon. I am sorry that I shall not be able to give him a great deal of time in which to reply to the debate. The tactics of the Secretary of State have been dangerous, adventurous, but, I hope, successful. As soon as the Labour Government came into office he decided that he would not sit back and wait for some secret Cabinet committee to announce, in the middle of the Summer Recess, that Concorde would be cancelled. He decided that he would take the battle into the enemy camp. So he produced a lot of figures which he has not even tried to justify. He has done a great deal to mobilise the trade union movement in challenging these figures. He has done a power of good by whipping up a great deal of interest in the project.

Although some of my hon. Friends may not agree with the right hon. Gentleman, I am grateful to him for the way he is conducting this campaign. More power to his elbow. Projects the size of Concorde which take 10 or even 15 years from initiation through development to the final stage cannot possibly be judged in five minutes or even five years after they have come to fruition. We are putting £500 million worth of exports of aerospace equipment through Britain's books at the moment. Much of this total is the result of decisions taken 25 years ago. It will be all of 25 years from today when we will be able to judge whether Concorde has been a profit-maker or a loss-maker for the nation. It is not possible to give a sensible answer within five years of its development, let alone at this stage before the aircraft has got into service.

Concorde will provide jobs, and gives us pride and prestige, but unless and until this country discovers how to grow rice or discovers vast resources of copper which could be exported we shall have only our brains on which we can base our export efforts. I hope therefore that the Government, after due consideration, will come out firmly in favour of this great Anglo-French project.

3.56 p.m.

Mr. Terry Walker (Kingswood)

The motion calls attention to future supersonic civil aviation and is most timely. As the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) said, we had a great achievement yesterday, in connection with which he and I joined together in an early-day motion, in the flight of Concorde to Boston in 3 hours 9 minutes. That was something of which the House—indeed, the whole country—ought to be very proud.

We are told that the Government are at present reviewing the entire Concorde project in the light of figures produced by BAC and British Airways, in which there is a conflict of view. Some of us on this side of the House are most upset that the Government have not taken account of an early-day motion, signed by 80 hon. Members on this side of the House, calling for the setting up of a Select Committee on Concorde to look into the figures in an independent manner, after which we could perhaps consider in depth which figures are correct. I believe that this is necessary, because in reviewing the future of Concorde we are in effect saying whether we are to remain in the supersonic race at all.

There is no future for this country in supersonic engineering should Concorde by some mischance be cancelled. But such a decision by the British Government would in no way preclude the supersonic race continuing elsewhere. The hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington was right in saying that the great beneficiary of our cancellation would be the Americans, but the Russians are also in the field and are stepping up production of their aircraft.

If the British Government decide not to continue with Concorde, it would by no means be certain that the French would not decide to go ahead on their own, and thus we might in the foreseeable future have the degrading fact of a French-produced Concorde landing at Heathrow while we in this country did not have the "guts" to carry on with the project when we were almost at the end of the road.

I stress that a Select Committee should look at this matter because we, in partnership with the French, are well in front in the supersonic field. I recognise that the Government will want to speak to the new French Government, but it is essential that we do not step aside in the supersonic race and leave it to others, because the only beneficiaries can be the Americans——

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.