House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 Mar 1990

Mr. Devlin : No, I do not. However, those activities were directly related to the port and its activities and fell into category B, which I read out at the beginning of my speech.

At the moment, 37 million tonnes of goods come into and go out of the port every year. It made a profit last year of £9.246 million. That profit is accumulating. There is a fantastic return on capital of 17.6 per cent. What will happen to all that money if the port remains a trust port? It will not be used. It is a wasted opportunity for the people of Teesside to have on their doorsteps a cash-rich

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authority that is unable to spend money on a variety of projects within its area, although it could and should do so.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell : Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that this private Bill has been introduced so that 5 million tonnes can be brought up the river? It would also mean the closure of Hartlepool coalfield, which would lead to at least 6,000 miners losing their jobs.

Mr. Devlin : I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) for raising the matter of coal. When I challenged the hon. Member for Hartlepool earlier on that matter, he read out a document which he then refused to show me when I came across the Floor to ask him. From which newspaper did it come? When the hon. Gentleman read it out, he said that it was a press release, yet I could see from where I was sitting that it was a press cutting. He did not say from which journal it had been drawn. I took advice on this point this afternoon from the Tees and Hartlepool port authority. I was assured--I have no reason to doubt its word--that it had no plans at present to expand the port in any way.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell : At present.

Mr. Devlin : The hon. Gentleman shouts at me. I shall be perfectly frank. A feasibility study was carried out by PowerGen on Chatham and Teesside. No decision was made as a result of that study. It is only right that such feasibility studies should be undertaken. Opposition Members see the Bill as a vehicle for bringing in more coal on the River Tees. The authority can do that already. Powers already exist for coal to be brought in on the River Tees. As I said earlier, a considerable amount of coal is already imported from Australia, Canada and other countries to British Steel on Teesside and at present 30 million tonnes are coming in. That point has already gone by the by.

No provision in the Bill will bring further coal on to the River Tees. The discussion is pointless, because whether the port is in the private sector or continues as a trust will make no difference to the import of coal. The hon. Member for Hartlepool raised the question of the Shell depot being used. That depot is widely recognised by anyone who knows anything about the Tees port as the daftest place on the entire river to bring in coal.

Mr. Jimmy Hood (Clydesdale) : I was looking at "Dod's Parliamentary Companion" and I came across a charming young photograph of the hon. Gentleman. The first thing that hit me was that he has a majority of 774, which explained why he must now be losing some sleep. The hon. Gentleman's biographical details described him as interested in regional development.

I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that nobody believes that the port authority does not want to use the Bill to import massive amounts of coal. It is part and parcel of the Government's policy for the privatisation of the coal industry--that is not a problem now, because they will not win the next election--to be able to import 40 million tonnes, so that they can close down all the peripheral coalfields and privatise the central coal belt. It is all part of that plan. The hon. Gentleman admits, rightly, that he is young and inexperienced. Opposition Members--who in my case

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are a little bit older, although not a lot older--have considerable experience of the deviousness of this Government. We know what they are up to.

Mr. Devlin : That has nothing to do with the Bill. I am so interested in the development of my region that I want it to have a major facility that can move goods in and out of the north of England at a competitive cost, organise transport throughout the European Community and the north of England, and that can create thousands of jobs in doing so.

Opposition Members are ignoring that. They are interested not in new opportunities, but in old opportunities. All we ever hear about from them is the old, traditional industries and the way things were done 100 years ago. The Bill is about the future of our region, the transport infrastructure, jobs and the prosperity of the people of the north-east. I will not sit here and listen to any Scotsman telling me what should or should not be brought in on the River Tees. I shall leave that to people who know what they are talking about and to business men who are ready to make decisions.

Mr. Hood : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Devlin : No, the hon. Gentleman has had his opportunity. The Bill will enable the port authority to own and invest in property throughout the region but outside the port area. It is in a good position to spot and to exploit the many exciting investment opportunities that exist in the north of England and that is entirely due to the work of the Teesside development corporation and the Tyne and Wear development corporation.

Following the attacks made on the port authority by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell), Port News, the journal of the Tees and Hartlepool port authority, said :

"Every opportunity to invest in port facilities in Teesside has been taken up and will continue to be so. But trade goes where the major transport operator goes, not where the port goes, and if THPA wishes to develop, it must develop as a transport operator." Investment in that new undertaking will be securely in the hands of Teessiders. There is no question that the aspersions cast by the hon. Member for Hartlepool will come to fruition. The shares will be so dispersed among the people and the pension funds of Teesside that it will simply not be possible for a major operator to acquire the lot in one fell swoop. That must be the sort of safeguard which will protect the future of the port and to which the hon. Gentleman referred when he talked about the 1966 Act.

The investment will be securely in the hands of Teessiders. It will be there for the benefit of local people and it will ensure the continued commercial success of Great Britain Ltd. I urge the House to support the Bill.

9.41 pm

Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough) : I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin). I listened with great interest to the incandescent way in which he made his points. Earlier this evening, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we had the remarkable spectacle of the hon. Member for Stockton, North crossing the Floor of the House. I do not think that you were in the Chair at the time.

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Mr. Frank Cook : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Stockton, North did what?

Mr. Bell : I apologise. My gaze was fixed on the hon. Member for Stockton, South.

We had the interesting spectacle of the hon. Member for Stockton, South crossing the Floor of the House. He came and sat on the Opposition Benches. My recollection of constitutional history is that when an hon. Member crosses the Floor of the House he should make a speech so that we can hear why he did so. However, your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, said that we should not use the word "poppycock" too often in the Chamber, so it would not be appropriate to ask the hon. Gentleman to comment on why he crossed the Floor of the House. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) says from a sedentary position, he got lost. He got lost in the debate and in the brief that he was reading.

I am glad to see the hon. Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw) in his place. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) said that we could not get a fish and chip shop in the Tees and Hartlepool development area from which to buy the excellent fish from Whitby. According to the hon. Member for Stockton, South, property development is the major aim of privatisation, so we can look forward to the day when the first property development of the newly constituted body is a fish and chip shop to accommodate the hon. Member for Scarborough. We shall all live in hope.

The hon. Member for Stockton, South made our points for us. He told us how successful the Tees and Hartlepool port authority was. If that is so, why does it have to be privatised? If it is so successful that it has about £30 million in cash in the bank, why must it be privatised? We have not had an answer to that point.

We heard at great length from the hon. Member for Stockton, South about the proposed shareholding of the newly privatised company. It was significant that the hon. Member for Langbaurgh did not mention what the shareholding would be. It was left to the hon. Member for Stockton, South who, with a briefing note, gave us these proposals. The last I heard of this was that the port authority had no idea how it would privatise the company, and to whom the shares would belong. I was told that it had appointed chartered accountants, in the shape of Peat, Marwick, McLintock to advise it. If we understand what the hon. Member for Stockton, South said, it is that the port authority has received advice but not passed it on to the hon. Member for Langbaurgh, because he did not say anything about it.

The hon. Member for Stockton, South made great play of the fact that there is already a terminal for coal on Teesside. He mentioned the 2 millon tonnes coming into British Steel and other users of coal in the area. He did not say something that has been forcefully said from the Opposition Benches : that what is being proposed is a common use terminal, to which coal can be imported on spec and kept in a depot until it is sent anywhere in the country, north or south. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) said, the Durham coal field has at least 12,000 employees, and two pits the size of Horden colliery closed recently. We can get no assurance about whether there will be a common use coal terminal.

The hon. Member for Stockton, South said that my Adjournment debate was an attack on the Tees and

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Hartlepool port authority. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh rightly said that I praised the authority, which put the matter into perspective.

The hon. Member for Langbaurgh said that everyone in the area supported the privatisation of the port authority. I have here a letter from a distinguished solicitor on Teesside who said : "In my lifetime, this Authority has been regarded as a semi public Authority which although it is autonomous in many respects it was set up for the benefit of the area. Many people must now be concerned that what has been a public body is endeavouring to privatise itself'. From the point of view of the people working for the concern it may well be a good thing if it comes off but whether it will be for the public benefit is quite another question."

Mr. Holt : Will the hon. Gentleman say that that solicitor was a Labour county councillor?

Mr. Bell : I can say quite emphatically that the solicitor who wrote this letter, whom I have never met, is neither a politician, nor a member of the county council or of any political party. His name is a matter for him. I am simply responding to the point made by the hon. Member for Langbaurgh. I have the letter here. It is in my file, but I have not asked the solicitor whether I can give his name on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Devlin : I shall be interested to know what authority a solicitor, who wishes to remain unnamed, and who has some thoughts on the matter, can add to the progress of the debate. I can produce letters from barristers, solicitors and business men who think that the privatisation is a jolly good thing. I have not bothered to read them all out because they have no locus in the debate.

Mr. Bell : The locus is that the hon. Member for Langbaurgh said in an intervention that the measure had the support of everyone in Teesside. He may have added the proviso that anyone with any sense would support it. I am refuting that categorically by quoting a letter written by a solicitor. I have not spoken to him about the letter and he has not told me that he wishes to remain unnamed. As a member of the public, he is entitled to express his view through a Member of this place on the Floor of the House.

I shall refer briefly to some of the other comments of the hon. Member for Langbaurgh. He said on two occasions that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I are morons. It is interesting that he used that expression, which I presume is fully parliamentary because nothing was said to suggest that it was otherwise. The hon. Gentleman then said that I cleverly introduced a point in my Adjournment debate. It seems that, on the one hand, one can be a moron and, on the other, clever. The two terms, if I may use a legal expression, are mutually exclusive. It seems that the hon. Gentleman wished to get his own back on me for calling him a "Champagne Charlie" not long ago. I used that description because he had authorised and sponsored a function within the House for Conservative Members to persuade them to support the Bill.

Mr. Holt : The hon. Gentleman said that the soire e was for Conservative Members. He and all his hon. Friends were invited, and none of them had the courtesy to attend.

Mr. Bell : Ideology must be sparse in the Conservative party if Conservative Back-Bench Members have to be invited to drink champagne in the House to encourage

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them to support an ideological commitment to privatisation. After 10 years in office, it may be that privatisation is no longer the mode with the Tory party. Why did the hon. Gentleman have to bring along champagne to persuade his hon. Friends to support the Bill tonight?

Mr. Leadbitter : Do I understand that the champagne party took place? I received an invitation and I asked how much it would cost. The public relations people in London referred the matter to the THPA but I still did not receive an answer. I was genuinely worried about the Bill coming into the House. I was also worried that free drink and some biscuits and cheese, or whatever, were on offer. Was my hon. Friend told what the cost of the freebie was?

Mr. Bell : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh was right to say that I was invited to the party. As I understand it, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Cook) was not. No Labour Member attended the function. That shows that there is still principle within the Opposition, if there is not among Conservative Members.

Mr. Alan Meale (Mansfield) : I am worried because during debates on a previous privatisation of our ports there were suggestions about champagne and smoked salmon being made available so that Conservative Members could nip out of the Chamber to drink and eat at their leisure free of charge. Perhaps you will give some thought to the matter, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with a view to determining whether such practices by those who are engaged in the privatisation of our ports are correct in parliamentary terms.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Let us continue with the debate. That issue has nothing to do with the Chair.

Mr. Bell : I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I thought that you were about to answer the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield on my behalf. He has made the valid point that we are concerned about the use of facilities within the House in an effort to influence Members of this place on how they should vote. As this point has been raised, I shall quote from my statement to the press, which reads :

"Richard Holt is inviting a host of Champagne Charlies in order to gain support for the privatisation of the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority. It is a common and often condemned Tory practice to wine and dine those they seek to influence when Bills are before Parliament. Labour MPs will boycott the function and hold it up for the ridicule and contempt that it deserves."

That answers the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield. I congratulate the hon. Member for Langbaurgh because when I described him as a "Champagne Charlie", he came back to say that he was an orange juice addict.

Mr. Frank Cook : If it is acceptable for the promoters of the Bill to seek support from the payroll vote by offering champagne suppers in the House with the odd touch of sherbet, perhaps it would be equally fair for Opposition Members to seek to force a vote on each of the Estimates tonight, in which case there will be about seven votes, which will keep Conservative Members here until about midnight. Mr. Bell : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising a point that had not occurred to me until now. The so-called payroll vote may be wheeled in at some time this evening

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to assist the hon. Member for Langbaurgh. Without in any way challenging the earlier ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have two points to make about that. First, the hon. Member for Langbaurgh categorically stated that the Minister, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin), cannot take a view on the Bill. Those are the very words that he used. Nevertheless, the Under-Secretary of State then took an extremely clear view, which we can all read in tomorrow's Hansard. The view that he has expressed many times is that, in the offing, in some form or another, is the privatisation of nearly 50 ports, ranging from London and Dover to small fishing harbours. Apparently, that is what the Government are considering. Transport Ministers are studying whether legislation is needed to pave the way for trust ports, which handle nearly half the country's seaborne cargo trade and a lot of passenger traffic, to be converted into private companies. Therefore, the Government's position is clear.

I quoted earlier from what the Under-Secretary is reported as saying in Hansard. I now refer to a press statement, which reads : "Last week in a House of Common's debate Shipping Minister Patrick McLoughlin made clear his support for converting trust ports into commercial companies. A spokesman for the Department of Transport confirmed that ministers were looking at options', but indicated that it would be a struggle to find the immediate time for the necessary enabling legislation."

We have had several accounts suggesting that this is a Government measure. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock) has made it clear that the hon. Member for Langbaurgh was flatly contradicted by the Under-Secretary. It is probably a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Secondly, the former Secretary of State for Transport was in the House earlier this evening. If we refer back to press comments, we are left in no doubt that it was the former Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon), who instigated this Bill. That is made clear from a speech that was reported on 11 March 1988 in a local newspaper, which reads : "Private eyes focus on us".

The article clearly states :

"Transport Secretary Paul Channon caused some ripples on the Tees when he raised the spectre of privatisation this week. Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority chief executive John Hackney was in London to hear Mr. Channon say that Britain's 74 publicly owned ports are prima facie candidates for going into private hands."

The THPA did not leave the matter there, at simply listening to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. A further press cutting of 5 April 1988 said :

"Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority is seeking clarification on why the Government has asked for its views on ports going private. At present the THPA is an independent body, with board members drawn from local industry, local councils and the TUC."

So we come again to one of the central points of the Bill--whether there is any local accountability. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh said that there was no accountability at all to the local community. Yet we see clearly that Tees and Hartlepool port authority, while an independent body, had board members drawn from local industry, local councils and the TUC. It is therefore clear that this is a Government-inspired, Government-instigated and Government-backed Bill. We shall see as we go on, in Committee and out of Committee, just how much support the Government give to the Bill.

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I fully accept the Government's commitment to privatisation. I do not accept that the Executive ought to use the legislature for their own purposes. I made very clear my own view of privatisation as a Government measure in a speech that I made on the Budget in 1988, when I said that from the point of view of the Conservative party "The concept of privatisation is legitimate. It was an ideological commitment that the Conservative party made at the time of the 1979 general election."--[ Official Report, 15 March 1988 ; Vol. 129, c. 1027.]

Mr. Frank Cook : My hon. Friend introduces a study of the concept of privatisation, but is it not a fact that privatisation as we normally understand it suggests that people pay money in order to acquire property? In this instance it will be quite different. People will be paying money for shares that will be going into a company which will then become their property. So they will be putting money into their own bank. Is not that exactly the same as if I were to sell my hon. Friend my house for £100,000, guaranteeing him that the £100,000 would be in my house when he came to occupy it?

Mr. Bell : My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) has said that any fool can sell a company at half price, and we have seen over the years, under the Government's privatisation scheme, a consistent underselling of shares in companies being privatised. Then we have seen those shares move into pension funds and banks, again to the detriment of the community.

The hon. Member for Stockton, South, who is not in the Chamber at the moment, made the point that the shares would stay within the community, but he could not guarantee that. He can no more give us a guarantee than Mr. Tiny Rowland could receive a guarantee from Mr. Fayed. When Mr. Rowland arranged for Mr. Fayed to buy the shares in House of Fraser, he suddenly discovered that Mr. Fayed not only held those shares but had bought others and become the majority shareholder. We can see clearly that, once shares are in the public domain, we do not know and cannot tell where they will end up. One thing that we know, and we have seen it in the sale of public assets over the past few years, is that the City of London ends up with the shares.

Mr. Harry Barnes : Does my hon. Friend feel that many of those shares will be bought in the area, which will be affected by not just this change, but the subsequent change that will lead to the mass importation of coal into the area? So will people in places such as Keir Hardie Terrace, Shotton colliery, which is nearby, or Easington, where my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) was born, be the prime candidates, as they get kicked out of their jobs, to pick up those shares so that they have a rake-off from this development? I doubt whether anything such as that will occur.

Mr. Bell : My hon. Friend makes a valid point, which brings me back to the speech by the hon. Member for Langbaurgh, when he made the point about those who lose their jobs. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) pointed out that about 70 jobs in Hartlepool had been lost and that those who had stayed in the industry had had to take pay cuts. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh talked about the twin curses of trust ports and the dock labour scheme. We have seen the nefarious

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effects of the abolition of the dock labour scheme, in the shape of a reduced labour force, both on the Tees and in Hartlepool, and a reduction in salaries. My hon. Friend has a valid point. What will people be able to do? Will they be able to buy shares at half price and, possibly, sell them to the City of London? Will the City then decide the appropriate investment policy for Tees and Hartlepool?

Mr. Jack Thompson : Suppose that local people acquire shares and, after a year or two, sell them to others with a particular industrial interest, such as the importation of coal. In those circumstances, control of the port would ultimately be in the hands of people who had only one thing in mind--the importation of coal. Or it might be radioactive waste or a whole range of other things. That would be a monopoly. It is what happened in the old days. The port that is shared by my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) was owned by the coal owners. It was they who determined what should happen. That is exactly what could happen in this situation.

Mr. Bell : My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Some of us remember Mr. Eric Varley, who at one time was Secretary of State for Energy in a Labour Government. Mr. Varley left to become chairman of Coalite. But Coalite was taken over, and Mr. Varley is no longer doing that job. What will happen to the Tees and Hartlepool assets if asset strippers move in? It would not be necessary, in order to secure control, to buy 51 per cent. of the company ; a controlling interest could be secured by acquiring something like 29 per cent. We are talking about the swinging '90s, but what will happen after that--or perhaps even during the '90s--if people, having acquired a controlling interest, decide that there are richer pickings elsewhere in the country or on the continent? They might decide that they would be better off if they had their headquarters in Brussels. Where are the guarantees? Once a company is privatised, once it becomes a company in the public domain, once its shares are being traded in the City of London, no one can tell where the shares will end up. No one can tell who might make share raids. No one can tell what course the company will take. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Thompson) said, it might even go into a business such as nuclear waste or the importation of coal, and the House could do absolutely nothing to stop it. In the context of this legislation, there is no such thing as a golden share. The Government have no power to prevent any of the things that we know could happen.

I want to come now to some of the more important points that were made by the hon. Member for Stockton, South. I am sorry that he is not in the Chamber at the moment. He said that, in the past, the investments of Tees and Hartlepool were all related to ports or port authority work. He was quite specific. If he thinks again and looks at the facts, he may come to regret that statement. Tees and Hartlepool invested in Tac Display Co. Ltd. On 13 January 1986 a document was prepared for the chairman and members of Tees and Hartlepool port authority, explaining

"Tac Display Co. Ltd., a privately owned company based on North Shields, whose business is the design and manufacture of shop display units".

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The hon. Member for Stockton, South said very clearly that the company invested only in port-related projects. That is not the case.

Mr. Frank Cook : In Cleveland.

Mr. Bell : Yes, in Cleveland, which is our esteemed county. The business of this company was the design and manufacture of shop display units. It had five divisions. It had a jewellery display manufacturing division. I should like the hon. Member for Stockton, South to tell me what that has to do with a port authority. It had a retail display manufacturing division. The hon. Member for Stockton, South might like to tell us what that has to do with a port authority. It had a shop fitting division. The hon. Member for Stockton, South might like to tell us what that has to do-- [Interruption.]

Mr. Frank Cook : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Some of us have been here since the beginning of the debate. We have been paying great attention and participating in the exchanges. Some hon. Members are doing neither ; in fact, they are causing great disturbance to those of us who want to continue our interest in the Bill. I ask you to take them to task.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : Perhaps those hon. Members will have regard to what has just been said.

Mr. Bell : I am grateful for your intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and for the intervention of my hon. Friend.

I was analysing an investment of Tees and Hartlepool port authority--Tac Display Co. Ltd. It also had a manufacturing of vacuum forming and joinery division. Again the hon. Member for Stockton, South, who has just returned to the House, might like to tell us what that has to do with a port authority. Earlier the hon. Gentleman made a categorical statement that the investments of Tees and Hartlepool port authority over the past few years were related entirely to port matters. Therefore, he might like to tell me what that division has to do with port investment.

Mr. Harry Barnes : What is happening elsewhere in the House is interesting. The hon. Members for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) and for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) are having a discussion. One is the sponsor of the Bill and the other was the sponsor of the Associated British Ports legislation that allowed millions of tonnes of coal to be brought into the country. This is a similar measure. It is designed to try to kill off the north-east coalfield, just as the other legislation was designed to kill off the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire coalfield.

Mr. Bell : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right in his reference to a relationship between the Associated British Ports Bill and this Bill. It is a copycat Bill. It would not be before the House if Tees and Hartlepool did not want to follow the route taken by Associated British Ports. The Bill has a similar design and concept. It will affect the mining industry in Durham and in Yorkshire. As I develop my theme, I shall show that there is no way that the hon. Member for Stockton, South can wriggle out of the fact that there is potential for a common use coal terminal on Teesside.

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Mr. Devlin : I thought that I answered that when I made my speech. It does not matter whether the port is in the private sector. I take issue with the hon. Gentleman's description of the Bill. It is not a copycat Bill. The legislation sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) was to extend the port of Immingham--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. It would be unwise for us to have a rerun of the Associated British Ports (No 2) Bill. That has nothing to do with Tees and Hartlepool.

Mr. Bell : I am grateful for your protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should have preferred the hon. Member for Stockton, South, who made a categorical statement about the port authority investing only in port- related matters, to respond to the fact that the authority has invested in TAC Display Co. Ltd., which has five divisions--a jewellery display manufacturing division, a retail display manufacturing division, a shop fitting division, a vacuum forming and joinery division and a design division. I shall give way if he wants to recant what he said earlier, or rephrase it. As he does not want to do so, I shall continue.

Mr. Frank Cook : I am astonished that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) should be so surprised at the lack of consistency in the statements made by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin). After all, he did a 180-degree turn on northern arts between 28 November and 13 March ; he got it totally wrong on the poll tax ; and the other evening he voted in one Division and then did not bother to vote in the next.

Mr. Bell : It is appropriate for my hon. Friend to refer to the inconsistency of the hon. Member for Stockton, South. I am simply responding to his earlier statement that all the investments of Tees and Hartlepool port authority were port-related. Let me refer again to the investment in TAC Display Co. Ltd. Let me quote from an interesting and revealing document circulated to the chairman and members of the THPA :

"The question must be asked as to why should the Authority invest in a company which has performed so poorly over the last two years? The first point is that there has been a marked turnround over the past few months, output has increased, productivity has improved, and a loss at the end of October of £12,000 has more than been offset by profits in November and December and it is realistically expected that the projected profit will be in the region of £20,000. The company is very highly geared and therefore any equity investment will reduce the high cost of financing which has reduced its ability to grow, and probably the most important feature is that management has now got control over the company and is exercising financial disciplines with the assistance of a regional manager of a major bank."

It was so successful that it lost £150,000. We are hearing so much tonight about the need to pass this privatising measure because the port cannot invest in other companies.

The hon. Member for Langbaurgh phrased his argument very cleverly. At no time did he say that any of the investments made in the 1980s were illegal, or ultra vires the company ; at no time did he seek to address the question whether powers already existed for the THPA to do everything that it has done for several years. The Under-Secretary is listening carefully and attentively

Mr. Harry Barnes : In fact, the Minister is listening to his hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown). There is a three- way connection : the

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Minister, who represents a constituency in west Derbyshire, with which masses of ports are associated, is tied in with the Bill. We are discussing a Government measure tonight.

Mr. Bell : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It has arrested the attention of the Under-Secretary, who is now listening with great attention. His predecessor as shipping Minister, Lord Brabazon of Tara, was fully apprised of the facts about the THPA's investment in TAC Display Co. Ltd.

The Minister's predecessor was written to by the predecessor of the hon. Member for Stockton, South, Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth, who wrote expressing anxiety about the investment. The Minister's answer was significant. He made it clear that investment in a company such as TAC Display Co. Ltd. was entirely a matter for the authority. He said--in a ministerial letter--

"As I understand it, the Authority has the statutory power to make such an investment."

If the statutory power exists for a private authority or the trust port to invest in jewellery, in retail display manufacturing, in shop fittings, in a vacuum forming and joinery division, and in design work, and if the Minister of the Crown says that the investment is in order, why are we here tonight? Why is it necessary for us to go through the process of this debate, to have to listen to the hon. Member for Langbaurgh and the Minister, whose remarks, to his credit, were all about privatisation, a subject to which we had referred earlier?

Mr. Leadbitter : I, too, brought to the attention of the House the list to which my hon. Friend is referring, and I reached the same conclusion as he. It is important for my hon. Friend to impress on the House the fact that that list of activities poses an important question. If the authority can undertake all those activities under present legislation, what does privatisation have to offer? It seems that nothing new could be undertaken, so we are left wondering whether there is a reason for the measure other than privatisation. Perhaps the hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) has not told us that reason.

Mr. Harry Barnes : A hidden agenda?

Mr. Bell : My hon. Friend says, from a sedentary position, that there might be a hidden agenda. After some months of public debate, we have not been able to get to the real hidden agenda.

I explained that the company lost £150,000. A liquidator was appointed in August 1986, and one is left wondering what happened to that £150,000. Did it represent a dead loss to the Tees and Hartlepool port authority, which provided an independent report to the board of that authority prior to the investment being made, how and why did the investment go wrong and why did the authority get involved in it in the first place?

The hon. Member for Stockton, South said that all the investments of that authority at that time were port-related. There was a company named Mercury Maintenance Ltd., which proved to be another fine investment by the authority. The hon. Member for Langbaurgh was right to say that, in an Adjournment debate, I praised the Tees and Hartlepool port authority, but my praise was for its programme for disabled workers. We are now considering the financial side of the authority, where a different picture emerges.

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Mercury Maintenance Ltd. changed its name to Hercules Security Fabrications Ltd. The authority invested £30 in that company, but a loan of £136,000 was given. The directors in September 1986 were Mr. John Hackney, who is the present chief executive, and Mr. John Tholen, who was the former chief executive. The company was found to be hopelessly insolvent as at November 1987.

The authority invested in another company, in accordance with the powers that it has had since 1966. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool was instrumental in incorporating the Hartlepool port into the Tees and Hartlepool port authority, and credit is due to him for his efforts in that matter many years ago.

There was a £25,000 investment in LPC Elements Ltd. by the Tees and Hartlepool port authority in December 1985. The director remained unchanged, Mr. John Hackney and Mr. John Tholen. According to the company's accounts, it lost £10,534 as at 1988.

We come to Casair Aviation and an investment of £5,000, with £25, 000 given by way of mortgage for an aircraft. Again, the directors were as previously. In other words, Tees and Hartlepool port authority board members find themselves on boards of companies in which they have invested. Casair was hopelessly insolvent when it was finally bought out by Northern Aviation Limited, but the accounts were not to hand.

Another company in which Tees and Hartlepool port authority has invested in accordance with its powers under the 1966 Act is called Boldpath. It was given a loan of £510,000. The hon. Member for Stockton, South said that the authority wanted to become a property developer on Teesside or in the north. He said that it could not develop into property because it did not have the powers. But Boldpath is a property company in which the authority invested in September 1986. Against a company with capital of £100, the authority lent £510,000. It is not surprising that, when we ask for statements from the authority about the variety of its investments, we do not find them in the balance sheets or its public accounts and we cannot elicit specific information on each company in any statement. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark) back in his place, no doubt hot from the 1922 Committee Thursday night meeting. Another company in which the authority invested in accordance with its powers was Quality Pipework Services. What does the hon. Member for Stockton, South think that Quality Pipeworks Services has to do with a port authority? The authority invested £40, 000 in that company and lent it £80,000. Again, the directors were Mr. John Tholen and Mr. John Hackney, the former and present chief executives. That investment was so good for Tees and Hartlepool that it got its investment back at the price it paid for it.

Why should we stop at one, two, three or four companies? Let us examine the entire record of the authority as it relates to its bid for privatisation. What about Storefreight, a company in which the authority invested £100,000? Again, the directors were Mr. John Hackney and Mr. John Tholen. It was the only investment out of ten which turned out to be profitable.

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