HC Deb 04 August 1980 vol 990 cc13-4
5. Mr. Winnick

asked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will consider initiating new steps to assist manufacturing industry.

Sir Keith Joseph

The Government's policies of cutting public spending, reducing inflation, promoting enterprise, fostering small business, and restraining the excessive claims of the public sector, will create a climate in which industry can prosper. Financial assistance to industry also has a part to play, but industrial success depends on action by management and work force to improve competitiveness.

Mr. Winnick

That reply comes from fantasy land. In view of the CBI's latest industrial survey, does not all the evidence point to a deepening recession, mounting unemployment and many closures all over the country? Given that, is it surprising that the Secretary of State for Industry is viewed as the grave digger of British industry and of British jobs?

Sir K. Joseph

My reply did not come from fantasy land. It is true that the prospect is one of deeping recession, which in turn reflects world recession, oil price increases and our own sustained decline in competitiveness in recent decades. It is fantasy on the part of Opposition Members to ignore that crucial factor, which is within our control.

Mr. John Patten

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if, when circumstances allow, his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to alleviate or abate the employers' national insurance surcharge—which was so unwisely laid on British industry by the previous Labour Government—that might help British industry?

Sir K. Joseph

The answer is "Yes" but my right hon. and learned Friend would surely say that that would either have to be done at the expense of reducing public expenditure elsewhere or by raising taxation or borrowing.

Mr. Jay

Is the Secretary of State aware that interest rates would have been a good deal lower today if the Government had not abolished exchange controls?

Sir K. Joseph

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is correct in being so confident and in deciding what decision-makers all over the world would have done about the exchange rate, which in itself has some connection with our internal financial affairs.

Mr. Whitney

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the abolition of national wage bargaining is of major importance to manufacturing industry and to employment prospects?

Sir K. Joseph

I am being tempted by all sorts of subjects outside my responsibility. Wage bargaining that ignores crucial local factors of supply.demand and profit does great damage to those firms and workers concerned.

Mr. John Silkin

Why is the Secretary of State being so modest about his Government? Why does he not take credit for his right hon. Friend's recent Green Paper on the streamlining of bankruptcy procedures, which must make life so much easier for him now that we have a record number of bankruptcies?

Sir K. Joseph

We still have some way to go before we reach the level of bankruptcies achieved by the Labour Government in 1975, 1976 and 1977.