UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: 1986

  • David Mitchell – 1986 Statement on Seatbelts

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Mitchell, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 13 January 1986.

    I beg to move, That the continuance in force of the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts) Regulations 1982 (S.I., 1982, No. 1203) be approved.

    The purpose of this evening’s debate is to enable the House to consider whether it wishes to continue the decision taken by Parliament in 1981 that drivers and front seat passengers in cars and light vans should be required by law to wear their seat belts.

    The background, as the House will recall, is that the decision to make belt wearing compulsory was taken only after years of argument, both inside and outside Parliament, over the case for such a measure. As the controversy had raged so fiercely and had continued for so long, Parliament took the view that there should be one further opportunity to consider the entire issue again after an initial period and decide in the light of experience whether compulsory seat belt wearing should continue indefinitely. Hence the provision in the Transport Act 1981 that the regulations, under which compulsion took effect, would lapse automatically after three years unless this House and another place resolve that they remain in force. The three years expire at the end of this month and the time has therefore now come to take a decision. Just in case there is any misunderstanding, let me make it quite clear that the issue is simply whether to make the regulations permanent or allow them to lapse; there is no provision for modifying the regulations or renewing them only for a further limited period. I remind the House also that the law on the restraining of children in cars is not subject to the review procedure. It is not covered by tonight’s debate and will continue in any event.

    Although we are returning to an issue which has been discussed many times before in this House, there is, of course, one important difference between tonight’s proceedings and all the earlier debates. On those occasions we could look at the issue only in terms of what people thought would or would not happen in the event of seat belt wearing becoming law. Tonight we can consider what actually has happened. Instead of merely speculating, we have moved into the business of observing and recording. Rather than relying on endless hypotheses, we have real facts to work on.

    To ensure that all the relevant information is available to Parliament, the Government have conducted, as we promised, a comprehensive monitoring programme, ​ designed to study the practical effects of the belt legislation from every possible angle. The results are set out in our report published last October, which I trust all hon. Members will have studied. The report provides a full statistical analysis—carried out by departmental statisticians and the Transport and Road Research Laboratory—of seat belt wearing rates and the effect of seat belt wearing on casualty trends. It also includes detailed studies by hospitals and universities on the consequences of seat belt wearing in terms of the nature and severity of road accident injuries.

    As seat belt compulsion continues to arouse strong feelings in many quarters, with particular attention focusing on the interpretation of all the statistical evidence, the Government thought it right that, in addition to our own monitoring exercise, there should be an entirely independent analysis of all the statistics carried out by expert assessors from outside the Government. We are most grateful to Professors Durbin and Harvey of the London School of Economics for undertaking this task. Their report was published as a clearly separated annex to the Department’s own report.

    What does the evidence tell us? First, it tells us that there has been instant and wholehearted acceptance of the seat belt law on the part of motorists. Up to the end of 1982 the proportion of drivers and front-seat passengers wearing belts never exceeded 40 per cent. Immediately the law came in, the wearing rate rose to around 95 per cent. and has remained consistently at that level, with no sign whatever of any fall off. This is a remarkable achievement, especially when we consider that in no other country with a seat belt law has the overall wearing rate even begun to approach the sort of level that we have here. Our own observations have been confirmed by the police, who report that the law has been almost entirely self-enforcing.

    Why should the public adapt so readily to the seat belt law, when their previous attitude was no more than halfhearted? The most likely answer must surely be that the seat belt law came just at the right time to catch the tide of public opinion. The majority of people had, I believe, all but decided for themselves that wearing a seat belt was a sensible thing to do to reduce the risk of death or injury in the event of an accident. All the legislation did was clinch that decision for them. The law was accepted because it equated with what people judged to be in their own interests.

    The next question must be whether people’s faith in seat belt wearing has been justified in the light of experience. I will say straight out that in our view, the answer has to be an unequivocal yes. This is the opinion, not just of the Department of Transport, but of all those who have been directly involved in research on seat belt wearing. It is a view shared by virtually the entire medical profession, the police and all those working in road safety.

    The evidence to support this conclusion is set out for all to see in the Department’s report, backed up by the independent assessment of Professors Durbin and Harvey. The most striking facts are surely these: since the seat belt law took effect, there has been a substantial net reduction in road casualties—at the very minimum, an annual saving of 200 deaths and a further saving of 7,000 serious injuries. On a large sample of some 14 hospitals which are generally recognised as representative by the medical ​ profession, there has been a reduction of no less than 25 per cent. in the admission of car accident victims to wards, with a comparable fall in bed occupancy.

    The 200 deaths and 7,000 serious injuries prevented are net figures which take account of changes in the number of rear seat passengers and pedestrians involved in accidents. No one making a proper study of the evidence could seriously argue that trends as clear as these are merely a coincidence. They can only be a direct result of the massive increase in the use of seat belts.

    Some people, I know, are worried that there is a debit as well as a credit to seat belt wearing. The notion that seat belts encourage drivers to take risks they would not otherwise take has had a lot of attention from the media and from groups concerned with the safety of vulnerable road users, but, despite exhaustive analysis inside and outside the Government, there is no material evidence to support this allegation. The theory has been studied in this country—it has been studied throughout the world—but nowhere has it been in any way substantiated by the facts.

    In any case, let me make it quite clear that the annual saving of 200 deaths and 7,000 injuries to which I referred earlier are net figures, arrived at after allowing for every possible relevant factor, including increases in casualties among certain road users. Seat belt wearing has to be seen as an outstanding success in terms of reducing casualties. Experience since the law took effect has confirmed the results of the earlier research conducted here and abroad. Wearing a seat belt substantially reduces the chances of death or serious injury in the event of an accident.

    Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South)

    Will the Minister give way?

    Mr. Mitchell

    I was hoping to speak briefly, as I know that many hon. Members wish to speak. If there are questions to which I must reply, I shall ask leave of the House to do so.

    With the case for seat belt wearing demonstrated so emphatically, the Government’s view is that the right course must be to establish the law permanently. Given the evidence that we have, to abandon compulsion at this stage would make no sense from any angle.

    There is still, of course, the argument that, however strong the case for wearing a seat belt may be, the decision should remain a matter of individual choice, rather than be enforced by law. I do not lightly dismiss that point of view. This Government are, after all, fully committed to minimising the regulation of people’s lives, but I hope that even those for whom this argument had force earlier will be ready to reconsider their view in the light of experience over the past three years. I originally had considerable doubts about the principle of compulsion, but, in the light of the evidence that I have studied, I am persuaded that the law should be allowed to stand.

    The House needs no reminder from me of the possible consequences of road accidents for the victim, his family, his friends and colleagues and the community at large. Experience over the past three years has shown that one way of minimising the risk is by the simple act of putting on a seat belt. Ninety five per cent. of drivers and front seat passengers are taking advantage of that facility. I hope that their decision to do so will be endorsed by the House on our first sitting day in European Road Safety Year.

  • Nick Raynsford – 1986 Speech on the West London Hospital

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Raynsford, the then Labour MP for Fulham, in the House of Commons on 18 July 1986.

    I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the future of the West London hospital, which is extensively used by many residents of my constituency, although it is located just outside the boundary in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), who has fully supported my concern and would have wished to be here today but for other commitments. It is appropriate that this debate should take place today as a consultation paper is expected to be published today by the district health authority proposing the closure of the West London hospital in November 1987.

    It is important that the House should be aware of the context of that consultation paper. It is being produced by a district health authority which has been told to make cuts of some £33 million in a budget of £120 million by 1993–94—a reduction in expenditure of no less than 27 per cent. That is no reflection of lack of need in the area, which has huge unmet needs—an aging population, long and lengthening waiting lists for many operations and many people suffering poverty and deprivation. Against that background, the National Health Service should be expanding and developing to meet needs more effectively, rather than being told to make swingeing cuts in the budget which illustrate all too clearly the dishonesty of the Government’s claim that the Health Service is safe in their hands. The people of Fulham and Hammersmith are well aware how hollow and untrue that claim is. In the face of such cuts in hospital services, the Health Service in West London is far from safe in the Government’s hands.

    The West London hospital currently incorporates four main units. The obstetrics unit has a national reputation for a very high standard of care. Among women it has a reputation for providing a service that is sensitive to their needs and aspirations, and it has been in the forefront in promoting natural childbirth. There is also a special baby care unit with a particularly high standard of neonatal care —a factor contributing to the good reputation of the area in terms of perinatal mortality, for which the figures are among the lowest in Britain and, indeed, in western Europe. The plan in the consultation paper involves closure of the hospital and loss of the obstetrics unit without replacement, and thus the destruction of one of the country’s best maternity units.

    Secondly, the geriatric unit provides long-term care for about 50 elderly patients. This unit has done important work in developing understanding and a close relationship between staff and patients. Many of the patients suffer from senile dementia, requiring intensive care and needing to develop trust and confidence in the people looking after them.

    The third unit is the psycho-geriatric assessment unit providing 16 beds and also associated day care. The fourth is the genito-urinary unit, which is doing extremely important work in one of the most difficult areas of medicine and, indeed, is currently one of the first places of referral for a substantial number of people suffering from AIDS in Britain. The importance of that work should not be underestimated.

    Apart from the four units provided by the hospital, there is also an associated nurses home, Abercorn House, which is providing accommodation for 90 nurses in an area where there is a desperate need because high house prices and exceptionally high rents make it difficult for nursing staff to afford to live. That in turn creates acute problems for hospitals, one of which, the Charing Cross hospital, has encountered considerable difficulty in maintaining its wards because of the absence of nursing staff who simply cannot afford to live in the area.

    The proposal in the consultation paper suggests the relocatin of some of those units. The psycho-geriatric and genito-urinary units would be relocated, essentially at Charing Cross hospital, and I would not quarrel in principle with that. It is appropriate that those units should be on a district general hospital site, and the standard of provision could well be improved there.

    The geriatric department will be replaced under the proposals with two small-scale nursing homes. Again that is not necessarily wrong in principle, but there are serious potential problems. In the first place, there must be an anxiety about the timetable — whether the new units, which have not yet been begun, could possibly be completed and ready for occupation by November 1987, the date set for the closure of the West London hospital.

    Secondly, what will happen in terms of the disruption of the care of the elderly people, whose trust in their nurses has been painstakingly built up over a period? We should remember that we are talking only of replacing beds that will be lost. Yet we know that there is an urgent additional need for extra beds, particularly for respite care to help many carers who look after elderly relatives and who desperately need the opportunity to place their relatives in a caring environment so that they can get away for a week or two weeks’ holiday from time to time. Those are the units that will, to an extent, be replaced under the proposal. I want now to deal with those that will not.

    The nurses home will be lost, and that will be a loss of desperately needed accommodation in the area. The obstetrics unit will be lost without replacement under the proposal. That is clearly motivated by a wish to make savings. There can be no other possible explanation of why that has been put forward. The consultation paper suggests that that will provide savings of approximately £2,250,000 out of the total projected revenue savings coming from the closure of the hospital of £2,750,000. So the lion’s share of the total savings is attributable to the closure of the obstetrics unit without replacement.

    What possible justification can there be for doing this? It may be argued that the West London hospital building is old, in need of maintenance and repair. It is an old building. It has a long and distinguished history going back 126 years, during which time the hospital has been located on this site. However, I hasten to add that there have been many additions and improvements to the building during that time. It is not simply a building that dates back to the 1860s.

    Everyone who has been there or who has accompanied patients there knows what is really important is not its bricks and mortar but the standard of care. The West London hospital’s reputation is without equal in that respect. It has an immensely high standard of care and concern for patients. It is also one of those smaller hospitals which can achieve a more friendly and intimate environment than is possible in larger hospitals. The physical fabric of the hospital might justify the relocation of the unit elsewhere, but it certainly does not justify the closure of that unit without replacement.

    What other justification could be advanced for the closure of the unit? Undoubtedly the claim will be advanced—I suspect the Minister has been briefed to this effect—that there is an over-provision of maternity beds in the district”. Such a claim can be substantiated only by a juggling of the statistics to suit the argument. There are only two maternity units in hospitals managed by the district health authority—Westminster hospital and the West London hospital. Between them they provide for about 3,000 births a year—about 2,000 at the West London hospital and about 1,000 at Westminster hospital. The birth rate for the Riverside area is about 3,500 and the forecast, based upon a midpoint projection, is about 3,700 a year.

    Local needs can be met adequately only because of the two other maternity units, which do not come under the district health authority, but come under the special health authority. I refer to Queen Charlotte’s and Hammersmith hospitals. Beds there are not primarily available to local residents. The North West Thames Regional Health Authority’s maternity patients flow data show clearly that only a small proportion — about 17 per cent. —of maternity patients at Queen Charlotte’s come from Hammersmith and Fulham. Most come from other areas.

    There is no catchment area for obstetrics and no priority is given to local patients. Many of my constituents are refused access to Queen Charlotte’s hospital. The letter that is sent out states simply: Your doctor has written to us requesting a booking for your confinement at Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital. We very much regret that during the time of your expected confinement we are fully booked and suggest that you return to your doctor immediately so that alternative arrangements for your confinement can be made. Letters like that are being sent out in large numbers. According to recent evidence from Professor Elder, 150 applicants a month are turned away by the special health authority. So much for the argument about over-provision.

    Furthermore, the argument ignores consumer choice. West London and Queen Charlotte’s hospitals are both excellent in their way, but they represent entirely different poles of maternity care provision. The West London hospital has a national reputation for progressive maternity care, for natural child bith and for taking account of the woman’s needs and wishes. My three children were born there, so I know of the extraordinary sensitive care that my wife received during her confinements.

    The consultation document admits as much. It says: The West London unit is justly famous. It has been in the forefront of the development of more liberal and sensitive approaches to maternity services and has become known as a leading centre for natural child birth. It is also regarded as a major centre for teaching and research. That is a tragic comment on the state of the Health Service under this Government. An outstanding maternity unit is threatened with closure without replacement.

    The third argument which might be advanced for the closure is that patients can go instead to Westminster hospital. That involves the loss of the West London unit and its tradition of excellence. It will involve a substantial aditional journey for people in my constituency that is particularly important if their children are in the neo-natal intensive care unit and they have to be on hand to be close to their babies.

    The fundamental argument is that even if one of those units has to close because of over-provision, West London certainly should not be chosen. West London is the only unit which satisfies the health authority’s criteria for the minimum standards of provision which make the unit viable. The health authority’s planners have made it clear that the minimum standard for viability is 2,000 births per year. The West London hospital achieves that, but Westminster does not. Even with the proposed extra provision, Westminster will still have a capacity for only 1,700 deliveries — far below the minimum level for viability. What an extraordinary proposal.

    There will be a serious potential impact on Charing Cross hospital and its medical school. The closure of the unit at West London will leave a major teaching hospital without an associatud obstetrics unit. That will create an extraordinary situation and, as the consultation paper admits, it will have a knock-on effect on the gynaecological service. The document states: Some impact on the existing provision of gynaecology services could result. Any reduction in the level of gynaecology services would have to be the subject of separate formal consultation. The paper admits that there will be serious potential consequences and that there will have to be further consultation, yet it is still proposed to go ahead with the closure of the West London hospital. That is nonsensical. Furthermore, this could undermine the viability of obstetric teaching at Charing Cross.

    Professor Curzon has said that the closure of the West London unit would have drastic consequences. I shall quote from a paper that he wrote earlier this year, which states: If the West London obstetric unit were to be closed before a definitive solution to the long-term provision of obstetric services had been agreed and implemented, the School’s department would have to move to some other temporary site. This would compound the damaging effects of further uncertainties about the future with the considerable turbulence resulting from the move. The only possible sites to which the department could move would be either Westminster Hospital or Queen Charlotte’s Hospital. It has already been shown that Westminster Hospital fails to meet the essential criteria of sufficient resources for teaching, and provision of obstetrics and gynaecology on the same site. A subsequent note from the Professor states that Queen Charlotte’s hospital will not take the students in question.

    There are all these damaging consequences. The cuts will have an effect on patient care, medical education and related health services. Above all, they will fly in the face of public opinion. When the closure was last proposed, there was generated a massive public reaction. There are many who are associated with the hospital, including patients and nurses in the Public Gallery today to show their concern.

    I hope that the Minister will reconsider this ill-thought out proposal, which will have damaging consequences. If the Government wish to be taken seriously in their claim that the Health Service is safe in their hands, they must provide more funds to maintain the viability of this hospital.

  • Cecil Parkinson – 1986 Speech on the Manufacturing Industry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Cecil Parkinson in the House of Commons on 7 July 1986.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Carlisle) on his choice of subject. It is good that Parliament should debate such an important subject in the unacrimonious atmosphere of a private Members’ day. Whichever party is in power, the manufacturing sector will remain vital. I do not regard today as a chance to score points. Rather, it is a chance to discuss a vital subject.

    I am pleased to join the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) in saying that what is sometimes presented as a choice, but is not, between Britain being a manufacturing or a service country is utterly spurious. We must succeed in both.

    I should like to pick up a point that the right hon. Gentleman made. He talked about our exchange rate policy in 1980–81. I was the Minister for Trade at the time and saw many industrialists who said that if the exchange rate was at $2 to the pound we could sweep the world. During that period the Government never charged the rate of interest that matched the rate of inflation. We never had a real rate of interest paid to savers. The Government did not offer a real rate of interest — they offered one substantially below the rate of inflation.

    The Government had recently been elected on a sound money platform, following a Government who, until they were stopped by the International Monetary Fund, had followed a very unsound money policy. The world’s money markets put a substantial value on sterling. The Government were committed to trying to protect sterling’s value, and they were prepared to charge the borrower a higher rate of interest than had been charged before, but never a real rate. People who argue about our exchange rate policy in 1980–81 are saying that the Government should have perpetrated an even bigger cheat on the saver by having a rate of interest which was even further below the rate of inflation.

    People such as the right hon. Member for Hillhead are arguing that we should have continued to rob the saver so that we could support the borrower. Put in those terms, it is clear that such a view is not nearly as noble as saying in a rather sweeping way that the Government got their exchange rate policy wrong. I do not think that they did get it wrong. They were seen by the the financial markets as prepared to follow sensible policies and to charge a rate of interest which began to approach, but never got very near to, the rate of inflation. I do not accept the rather dismissive argument that everything can be traced back to the Government’s exchange rate policy.

    Nor do I accept the statements that are now made so often that they are almost accepted as true that Britain’s manufacturing industry is in terminal decline. The facts do not support that thesis. Industrial production last year was clearly recovering dramatically from the low point of 1981. I know that Opposition Members say that 1981 was an all-time low, but if manufacturing was still in decline, the figures would continue to fall. We have reversed that trend. Manufacturing production is growing substantially. To the dismay of our opponents, it should achieve all-time record levels next year.

    There is nothing to be complacent about, but the statement that our industry is still in decline is not borne out by any test which any fair-minded person would care to apply. Production has bounced back substantially and is continuing to rise. For the first time, exports of manufactured goods reached a value of £52 billion last year — £1 billion a week. Industry invested nearly £7 billion last year and nearly 6 million people were employed in manufacturing. If we constantly talk about our industry having no prospects, and if we write it off, we will help to produce just what we complain of. Who buys his car or anything else from a business which is about to close down and has no future? For us to dismiss the efforts of the 6 million-plus workers in our manufacturing sector as people who are somehow misguidedly dedicating their lives to trying to breathe life into a corpse is not only to mislead the world and the British public, but to cause damage where we need help and support.

    Mr. Dykes I am sure that we would all agree with that. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that the £7 billion figure that he gave is less than 2.5 per cent. of gross domestic product, the lowest figure of any advanced Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development investing country?

    Mr. Parkinson That may be the case. However, my point is that to dismiss our manufacturing sector as something that people are not interested in and has no future is to mislead the country and the House. The market was prepared to invest £7 billion in its future in 1985. Perhaps we should be investing more, but £7 billion is a substantial sum of money, and it is put up by people who believe that they are investing in something that has a real future, and so do I.
    Let us take the anecdotal evidence. For instance, a constituent came to see me on Saturday who is a director of MFI. He told me that in 1976 MFI imported 60 per cent. of everything it sold. That figure is now down to below 25 per cent. MFI is in fact using more and more British goods because they are excellent value.

    Goodness knows, as Minister for Trade I took part in many debates about the textile industry. Last year textile production was near to an all-time record high and textile exports were at an all-time record high. This year the British engineering industry will invest £850 million in computers and software, and a recent survey suggests that outside Japan the British engineering industry makes more use of high technology and engineering computers than any other engineering industry in the world. British industry was in decline for a time, but the decline has been arrested and the climb back has begun in real earnest. There is a very good prospect for Britain in an area which, far too often, we talk about dismissively.

    If we apply the wrong tests to the statistics that emerge, we can turn success into failure and failure into success. For example, I heard the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) making an interesting speech about the steel industry. He said that we should look at the good old days when steel employed 250,000 people and it now employs only 100,000. To him that was proof that our steel industry was in a state of decline. However, when the steel industry employed 250,000 people it was losing nearly £3 million a day. We had a steel capacity which we simply could not use and which nobody wanted. Therefore, we had 250,000 insecure jobs. We have moved from that position to having the best and most efficient steel industry in Europe producing as much steel with 100,000 people as it used to produce with 250,000. With 250.000 employees losing £3 million a day it is a national asset by the test of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield; with 100,000 employees producing steel at a very competitive price it is a national problem. That is absolutely wrong.

    Dr. Jeremy Bray (Motherwell, South) The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about steel. Is he aware that an even more competitive steel industry in Japan, faced with a similar fall in orders and intense competition from Korea and other new producers, is maintaining its employment and diversifying in order to maintain a policy of lifelong employment? Does he not think that that kind of policy is more relevant in this country today?

    Mr. Parkinson It depends where one starts from. I shall give an example from a different industry in Japan, the motor industry. In 1978 the motor industry in Japan was producing 65 vehicles per employee on average, and we were producing in our worst company, five and a half. At that level of productivity one can start to think in terms of lifelong employment, because one starts at a high level of productivity. However, if one has an industry which is losing substantial sums of money and is unproductive, it is unrealistic to talk of ensuring lifelong employment. The hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), who studies these things carefully, must realise that.

    First, I am saying that it is wrong to talk as though British industry is still in decline. It is starting to recover. It is wrong to draw the wrong conclusions from the available statistics. Industry does not exist to create jobs; it exists to create products. The industries which are efficient at creating viable products produce the best insurance of long-term employment.

    Secondly, we continually draw attention to the fact that we have a huge and growing deficit on manufactures. That is true, but the conclusion we draw from that is the wrong one. We say that we need more Government demand injected into our economy. The bigger the level of our imports, the more evidence there is that there are customers here who want to buy. The argument that a deficit on manufactures is somehow evidence of a need for further demand to be injected into the economy by the Government again seems to be drawing totally the wrong conclusion from the facts that stare us in the face.

    It was interesting to read in The Times today that a survey of British management said that the first priority for a better industrial performance was to improve the product. I thought immediately of Jaguar. Jaguar is now a highly profitable company selling the same range of motor cars as it was selling six or seven years ago. It has moved from being a disaster to a success because it has improved the quality of its performance. The product is the same, the range has not changed, but the prospects for those in the company and for this country, as the country in which Jaguar is based, have changed. The reason is that the quality of the product has improved out of all recognition.

    Far too often in the House, especially in our economic debates, we have arguments about whether an extra £1 billion or £2 billion of Government-injected demand would turn the economy round. If it was as simple as that I might he tempted to join the argument for reflation. However, I hasten to tell the House that I will not, because I think that it is distracting us from the fundamental problem, which is how does this country compete for the business which is there? At home there is a great demand for the whole range of manufactured goods. World trade in manufactures is expanding. The customers are there overseas as well, and the real question which the House, the Government and British industry have to address is how we get a bigger share of the business which is there rather than how we generate artificial demand.

    I do not underestimate the difficulties of trade union leaders at a time of high unemployment having to persuade their members that the way forward may be to reduce employment in industries because with new technology and a whole host of advances we can produce more with less people. I recognise the enormous difficulties that that presents for trade union leaders. I believe that we should pay tribute to the many trade union leaders and members who have co-operated with management in improving productivity in British industry.

    I end as I began. I believe that if we continue to talk down our prospects as a manufacturing country, and if we continue to talk about our decline as if it were terminal, we must not be surprised if people start to believe us and if we produce the results that we do not want. This country has bright prospects. Way into the foreseeable future, we shall have a very important manufacturing sector. We have a strong service sector. We are prolific earners of invisible earnings. We have substantial overseas investments. Although we talk about it as if it is a problem, we still have energy self-sufficiency.

    This country has a very bright future to add to its glittering past, but we shall need, as a country, and especially within industry, to produce that cohesion, that co-operative attitude that is the source of the success of all our major rivals. The question for Britain is: how do we compete? One of the answers—such an obvious one—is: working better together. Britain’s future as a manufacturer stretches ahead of her. She has a fine past, but a very promising and exciting future.