Trade Trends (Hansard, 27 March 1985)

§ 16. Mr. Spencer
asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on recent trends in British trade.

§ Mr. Tebbit
Underlying export volume has been rising since mid-1984. Indications are that this will continue in 1985. CBI surveys show manufacturers increasingly optimistic about export prospects.

§ Mr. Spencer
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the improved prospects for the engineering industry in the east midlands where some of the bigger firms now have order books extending for 15 or 18 months? Does this not augur well for exports and show that Britain really does mean business?

§ Mr. Tebbit
My hon. and learned Friend is right. It is not merely a matter of what is happening in Leicester, but that manufactured exports, excluding erratic items — [Interruption.] Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know what is going on below the Gangway, but I ask hon. Members to listen to the answers.

§ Mr. Tebbit
As I was saying, manufactured exports, excluding erratic items, are 12 per cent. up in volume terms in the latest three months against the equivalent three months of a year ago. That is against imports, which are only 7 per cent. up, so there is good news there.

§ Mr. John Smith
Does the Secretary of State think that it is good news that we now have a £4 billion deficit in the balance of trade on manufactured goods? Is that some sign of the success of the Government's policies?

§ Mr. Tebbit
The right hon. and learned Gentleman gets rather boring about this matter, and I shall have to be rather boring about it, too, I am afraid, and give him the elementary lesson that it is unlikely that any country can maintain a surplus on every category of trade or with every one of its trading partners. The crucial point is that for the past five years consecutively we have maintained a surplus, and that has not been done since the end of the war—

§ Mr. John Smith
Oil.

§ Mr. Tebbit
Yes, and oil is an exported item just like textiles.

§ Mr. Nicholas Winterton
Oil will run out but textiles will not.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That is very uncharacteristic of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). [Interruption.] Well, I think it is very uncharacteristic.

§ Mr. Wrigglesworth
Does the Secretary of State not agree that our international competitiveness is being undermined by unit labour costs in this country arising considerably faster than those of our major competitors overseas? What do the Government intend to do about that?

§ Mr. Tebbit
It is not a question of what the Government can do because we do not believe that it is right to run an incomes policy, because every one that has been run in the past has failed. I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman's party is now committed to introducing an incomes policy and to backing it with a measure to freeze wages. That will interest the electorate when it is put to it just as much as the proposals of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) for an incomes policy will interest his colleagues in the trade union movement when they are put to them.