Associated British Ports (Sale of Shares) (Hansard, 16 February 1983)

§ Mr. Albert Booth (Barrow-in-Furness)

I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely, the sale of shares in Associated British Ports". The matter is specific because it relates to the sale of commercial control of the largest port operator in Great Britain and to the transfer of ownership of 19 ports.

I submit that the matter is important because the British Transport Docks Board and Associated British Ports have a fine profit record, making profits in virtually every year except 1981, and because those profits have allowed them to invest £100 million over 10 years in a public asset without drawing in any way on the public purse or going to the market.

It is also important because, in order to make the proposition attractive to private investors, the Secretary of State for Transport has written off a loan of £81 million to the British Transport Docks Board and is requiring private shareholders to repay only £25 million of loan.

The matter is urgent because this morning, when trading in the shares opened for the first time on the Stock Exchange, their value shot up from the 112p set by the Secretary of State to 137p, revealing a most serious undervaluation of this public asset.

The matter is also urgent because control of public assets of £158 million is passing, for a very small return to the Exchequer.

I submit that the matter must be debated in the House, because this is not the first such scandal. If follows the Amersham International scandal, after which the Public Accounts Committee in its tenth report 1981–82 said: it should be possible in future to avoid a repetition of such large windfall profits". It further recommended that the Treasury, 294 with Departments, should re-examine carefully what steps could be taken in any future sales to minimise the risk of further large profits being made at the taxpayer's expense. There is a clear prima facie case that that advice has been utterly disregarded by the Secretary of State for Transport.

I further submit that the Government have engaged in an action entirely contrary to an assurance given on the passing of the legislation. I quote the Official Report of the Standing Committee proceedings on the Transport Bill in March 1981, when the Under-Secretary of State said, with reference to Associated British Ports: assuming that one has made no mistakes, and assuming that one has given the company the right capital structure and handled the flotation in the proper way, one will obtain the market value. He went on to say: We will get the market value."—[Official Report, standing Committee E, 3 March 1981; c. 736.] It is now crystal clear, however, that the sale has been organised in such a way that the public will not get the market value. It is clear that there has been action by the Secretary of State in pursuance of a vicious doctrinaire attack on the nationalised transport industry with blatant disregard of the public interest. I therefore submit that it is a matter for consideration by the House.