Industrial Competitiveness Division (Hansard, 20 January 1993)

§ 14. Mr. Page
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement concerning the work of the industrial competitiveness division.

§ Mr. Heseltine
I attach great importance to the work of the industrial competitiveness division, which is central to my drive to make the Department of Trade and Industry a real partner to British business. The division provides me with a wide range of advice on the United Kingdom's competitiveness, based on research at home and abroad, which I take into account when considering Government policy.

§ Mr. Page
I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. I am delighted that he takes information from that division into account in formulating Government policy. That is a change from what some of his predecessors have done. Nevertheless, does he agree that it is vital for the information gathered by the division to be disseminated to British industry so that industry knows where it is lacking 373 and where it can compete to drive out imports and increase exports? Will my right hon. Friend please say how he will get this information through to British industry?

§ Mr. Heseltine
I very much sympathise with what my hon. Friend has said. He will realise that we have a wide range of contacts with British industry, both large and small companies. The purpose of the competitiveness division is not to produce one jumbo report, but to continue to advise us. We shall therefore use all the avenues available to us, through the sectoral divisions or through the one-stop shops that we are pioneering, to communicate information to the companies where appropriate.

§ Mr. Barry Jones
When can the right hon. Gentleman get the problems of manufacturing at the head of the Government's agenda? When shall we see an end to the indecision and drift which are at the heart of industrial policy in Britain today? Would it not be better to invest in manufacturing rather than go for quick profits from privatisation sales?

§ Madam Speaker
Order. I feel that perhaps the hon. Gentleman is putting a supplementary to the wrong question. We are here concerned simply with the division in the Board of Trade which is concerned with industrial competitiveness.

§ Mr. Heseltine
I understand the point that the hon. Member was making, but I am at a loss to understand how he can criticise the Government when his own party has produced a budget designed to cut back on the levels of investment in British industry by a windfall tax on consumers of British-manufactured products.