HC Deb 08 December 1949 vol 470 cc169-70W
60. Mr. Erroll

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer in view of the Treasury loan of £340,000 made to the Vactric Company, Ltd., what control is the Government enabled to exercise' over the affairs of the company; and what control does it in fact exercise.

Mr. Jay:

The Treasury is a shareholder in this company by virtue of a share entitling it, in the event of a poll, to cast three times the number of votes which could be cast by all the other shareholders entitled to vote. These voting rights would be exercised whenever, in the judgment of my right hon. and learned Friend circumstances so demand. But the Treasury does not intervene in the normal commercial business of the company, and my right hon. and learned Friend prefers to rely on the discretion of the directors approved by the Treasury, who are fully alive to their responsibility, both to the Treasury and to the other shareholders.