HC Deb 02 April 1979 vol 965 c918
5. Mr. Christopher Price

asked the Secretary of State for Industry what recent communications he has had with the chairman of the National Enterprise Board about United Medical Enterprises Ltd.

Mr. Kaufman

I have nothing to add to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) on 19 February.

Mr. Price

Does my right hon. Friend accept that there will be considerable satisfaction that, after the quite disgraceful bribery in which this company indulged under private enterprise, it can, now that it has a new chairman, under the National Enterprise Board, look forward to a solid future? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the role of the NEB in saving firms such as this—which had been carried on under the unacceptable face of capitalism—and running them properly is a very important one which ought to be sustained?

Mr. Kaufman

I fully accept what my hon. Friend has said, and I congratulate him and my other hon. Friends—

Mr. Stainton

And Lord Ryder.

Mr. Kaufman

—on the way in which they have pursued this matter. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the healthy way in which the NEB intervenes. The matters about which he has been properly concerned are as nothing to the jiggery-pokery that would go on if the Tory Party got its hands on the NEB and brought about the forced sale of NEB holdings in Fairey Engineering, ICL and Ferranti.