§ Mr. AlexanderTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the successor to Sir Bryan Carsberg as director general of Oftel.
§ Mr. HeseltineI have today appointed Mr. Don Cruickshank as Director General of Telecommunications from 1 April.
Mr. Cruickshank has had a varied and successful career in business. He was managing Director of Virgin Group plc from 1984–89 and before that, Commercial Director at Times Newspapers from 1977–80 and a Director of the Information and Entertainment Division of Pearson plc from 1980–84. Since 1989 he has been Chief executive of the national health service in Scotland, where he has done excellent work.
Since the privatisation of BT in 1984 the telecommunications industry has changed substantially and since the further liberalisation set in train by the Duopoly review in 1991, there has been an increasing number of operators entering the market in competition with BT. I wished to appoint someone to this important post who had direct experience of competition as a businessman. Mr. Cruickshank fulfils that criterion admirably and will, I am sure, do a very good job.
Since Sir Bryan Carsberg became Director General of Fair Trading in June 1992, Bill Wigglesworth, the then deputy director general of Oftel, has been acting as Director General and I would like to pay tribute to the sterling way in which he has carried out his duties. He will return to his position as deputy director from 1 April.