§ 9. Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Industry what steps he is taking to encourage British industry to buy British goods; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. CarmichaelThe industrial strategy sector working groups are examining the scope for saving imports and my officials are participating actively in this work.
§ Mr. RobertsDoes my hon. Friend admit that it is appalling when a great many public sector orders, such as that from British Leyland for tooling equipment, are going to Japan and countries all over Europe? Does he accept that we in Britain have a great deal to learn from the attitude of France and Japan to this kind of situation?
§ Mr. CarmichaelThe scope for action to reduce imports varies greatly from industry to industry. The improvement of the links between users and suppliers is an important area, in which we hope to achieve results.
There has been some misunderstanding about British Leyland. I understand that the equipment to be bought from Japan is factory tooling—dies and jigs—and not machine tools. Leyland International chose the most competitive tenders. I understand that the figure is about £5 million and not a considerably higher figure, as has been reported.
§ Mr. John GarrettDoes my hon. Friend agree that what is needed is not so much encouragement and exhortation to buy British as a plan for import substitution and temporary protection by import controls?
§ Mr. CarmichaelOne of the criteria for a project qualifying for the accelerated projects scheme is that it should benefit the balance of payments. Equipment purchases are taken into account when deciding whether a project qualifies for the accelerated projects scheme. It would be wrong to make aid totally conditional on firms buying British equipment, particularly as Britain depends so much on exports.
§ Mr. AdleyDoes the hon. Gentleman agree that the fancily-named working group that he has mentioned and the fanciful views of his hon. Friends are useless? Should not the Government be encouraging management and unions together to work hard to produce goods competitively and to deliver them on time?
§ Mr. CarmichaelI should have thought that that was what the Government were doing, and were beginning to do much more successfully than any previous Government. There is still a great deal to be done in terms of improving the links between users and suppliers, getting them together, and perhaps getting suppliers to meet the needs of users better than has been the situation in this country in the past. Users' needs seem to be met much better by the marketing forces of our competitors.
§ Mr. CryerWill the report of this working group, which seems to be one of a vast proliferation of working groups, be published, so that we may have a little chat about it? Will the working group encourage British Leyland and Chrysler to place orders for machine tools in the immediate future, so that the machine tool industry, which has surplus capacity, can get cracking on these machine tools rather than wait for the much vaunted upturn, when we are likely to be sucking in imports?
§ Mr. CarmichaelIt is not a working group; it is a number of working groups from various industries working closely with the industries. This is not a matter 17 for a Royal Commission or anything like that. This is a matter for groups within industries, which know the industries and the suppliers and the users, getting together to try to achieve some organisation between them.
On the question relating to British Leyland, it was not machine tools but parts of factory equipment.
On the general question of helping the machine tool industry, the Government have already made a large effort in that direction, in a specially accelerated investment scheme.
§ Mr. HeseltineIs the hon. Gentleman aware that investment in British Leyland has come to a standstill because the company is not producing the cars at the necessary rate to hit the targets upon which the money was committed? Until that happens, there is no point in talking about substituting British production. If British Leyland would produce the cars which British people want, it would sell them, but it is not producing them. That is the problem.
§ Mr. CarmichaelThe hon. Gentleman has jumped the gun a bit. There is a later Question dealing specifically with British Leyland. I was asked a very narrow question relating to a factory in South Africa and the purchasing of some Japanese secondary equipment for machine tools.