HC Deb 28 June 1976 vol 914 cc21-3
19. Mr. Tebbit

asked the Secretary of State for Industry what proposals he has put to the EEC Ministers responsible for their national aerospace industries for a civil aircraft production programme within Europe.

Mr. Kaufman

M. Cavaille and I recently agreed that our aircraft industries should explore together the possibilities of United Kingdom participation in derivatives of the airbus, European participation on the HS146 should the project be relaunched, and European collaboration on future 150–180-seat medium-range aircraft.

Mr. Tebbit

Does the Minister mean that after all the rubbish about the failures of the private sector, and after two and a half years in office, that is all he has to report as the carrying out of the obligations imposed upon him? What is restraining him? Let the hon. Gentleman not say that it is the nationalisation Bill, because he has ample powers under the Civil Aviation Act 1949 to do anything which needs to be done. Why does he not get on with it instead of talking rubbish?

Mr. Kaufman

When I met Michel Cavaille on 29th March I raised the question of collaboration with the French on civil aircraft projects. One of the problems that confronted me in having those conversations was that in all the preceding years none of the privately-owned aircraft companies had put forward a single proposal for collaborative projects with Europe.

Mr. Tebbit

What about the A300B?

Mr. Kaufman

The hon. Gentleman once again demonstrates his farcical ignorance. We are not a partner in the A300B. We are a sub-contracting associate. The great problem in achieving collaboration is that the British Aerospace Organising Committee is having to operate in a vacuum created by the inactivity and lack of initiative of the aircraft industry under private ownership.

Mr. Whitehead

Does my hon. Friend agree that collaboration in aero engines as well as aircraft bodies is equally important? Does he agree, therefore, that French and British aero engines should be given preference over American engines in these projects?

Mr. Kaufman

I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that, after the period of lassitude and inactivity under private enterprise, now that we are having discussions on collaboration with the European aircraft industries—with the French in particular—Michel Cavaille mentioned to me the possibility of the use of the Rolls-Royce engine in the airbus. That will be one of the dividends we draw from public ownership of the airframe industry.

Mr. Warren

Bearing in mind that the Minister told me earlier today that he had received no proposals from the British aircraft industry for new projects, where does he get his ideas and information which enable him to go unilaterally to M. Cavaille and put forward ideas which have not come from that industry?

Mr. Kaufman

The airbus proposal came from the French, not from British industry. The HS146 was hawked around by Hawker Siddeley Aviation provided the Government funded it 100 per cent., which is an interesting interpretation of the words "private enterprise".

The 150–180-seat plane to which I referred was mentioned to me by the French. There is the Mercure which is a possibility, but I am very interested—and I told BAC that I was interested—in having the X-11 discussed as a possibility.

Mr. Heseltine

The Minister of State must know, and will he confirm, that his record of the private sector is a travesty of the truth? The fact is that all the projects he has put before the House originated in the private sector and were being discussed by the Conservative Government when his Government came to power. The last two years have been a culpable dereliction of duty by the Labour Party.

Mr. Kaufman

The main partner with which we will he associating if we go into the airbus project will, in fact, be that paragon of private enterprise, Aerospatiale, which bitterly regrets the possibility of having to negotiate with a nationalised aircraft industry. As to what the hon. Gentleman said, with the inaccuracy which once led him to have to apologise to the House about the HS146, the fact is that when my right hon. Friend, now the Secretary of State for Energy, had this project brought before him, it was on the basis that it would have to be abandoned unless the Government paid all the costs 100 per cent. If it were not for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and the holding contract he placed, that project would now be dead.