HC Deb 04 November 1974 vol 880 cc668-9
6. Mr. Raphael Tuck

asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will seek to initiate legislation to take Hawker Siddeley into publish ownership as a matter of urgency.

28. Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson

asked the Secretary of State for Industry if it is his intention to seek to nationalise Hawker Siddeley.

Mr. Benn

Legislation to bring the aircraft industry into public ownership will be introduced as soon as is practicable.

Mr. Tuck

Does my right hon. Friend realise that the HS146 is the only civil aircraft we have to offer in the 1980s and that if Sir Arnold Hall is allowed to wreck it, which he is now petulantly and spitefully trying to do, the long-term result will be a loss of 20,000 jobs, the finest jet design team in the country and perhaps hundreds of millions of pounds worth of exports of civil aircraft in the 1980s, while Britain will be forced to purchase civil aircraft from abroad? The British civil aerospace industry will therefore be dead, and when the Government take over the aircraft industry there will be nothing left to take over. Will my hon. Friend press again for urgent tripartite talks so that a national disaster of that sort does not arise?

Mr. Benn

My hon. Friend, along with other hon. Members, has been making these points to me, as have the trade unions and representatives of the management side involved in the project. I have already answered questions on the HS146, but I admit that, if ever there was an example of the need for public ownership, it is clearly in the funding of long-term projects, as we were able to do, for example, with the RB211–524, only because Rolls-Royce had been brought into public ownership by the Conservative Government.

Mr. McNair-Wilson

Is the Secretary of State aware that his answer could imply that he intends to nationalise Hawker Siddeley as such? I suspect that he intends to nationalise Hawker Siddeley Aviation. If so, will he say how he intends to buy the assets of the company? Will he do so with a cash offer, and who will value those assets?

Mr. Benn

I understand the hon. Gentleman's question, but I must ask him to await the full statement that I shall make upon this matter, as I did with the shipbuilding industry in the summer.