House of Commons Hansard Debates for 24 Apr 1991

(b) which is a subsidiary of a company which would be caught by paragraph (a) above, or

(c) which does not fall within paragraph (a) or (b) above, but which nevertheless appears to the Secretary of State to be under the effective control of a person or a company defined in paragraph (a) (i) or (ii) above,

and if paragraphs (a), (b) or (c) above apply to a contractor at any time, then any arrangements made by the Secretary of State with that contractor shall be terminated forthwith, any contract between the Secretary of State and that contractor shall be void forthwith, and no compensation shall be payable to a contractor on account of such termination or voiding.'.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 10, in page 2, line 21, at end insert

"relevant share capital" means the company's issued share capital of a class carrying rights to vote, and as further defined in section 198(2) of the Companies Act 1985 ; and a percentage holding of such relevant share capital shall be calculated as set out in section 200 of that Act.'.

Mr. Rogers : This group of amendments deals with the ownership of the companies involved in the privatisation. Ownership was and is a matter of great concern and we discussed it a number of times in Committee. The Opposition hope to convince the Government of the foolishness of their proposals. We want to ensure that any contract made between the Secretary of State and a contractor would contain a proviso in relation to any transfer to a person or persons not in the United Kingdom of any shares in such a company, so that if a transfer took place, it would be notified to the Secretary of State. In addition, we wanted to ensure that, where the transfer exceeded 5 per cent. of the income or value of the total share capital of such a company, the Secretary of State should terminate the contract. Obviously, ownership is a major security worry. It would be of great concern if the company running the AWE were owned or controlled from overseas. There is nothing in the Bill, and we have received no assurances

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about this from the Government, stating that the contract must provide that the ownership of the production of nuclear warheads at Aldermaston, Burghfield, Foulness and Cardiff should not be in the hands of a foreign company or that there should be no foreign nationals working there.

Concern on this issue was expressed not merely by Opposition Members. Conservative Members, in particular the hon. Member for Hampshire, North- West (Sir D. Mitchell), voiced deep fears. The hon. Gentleman mentioned security, and said :

"secondly, the protection of the national interest, in that secrets which are involved in the high technology production of atomic weapons should not be penetrated by any outside commercial or foreign power interests."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee F, 31 January 1991 ; c. 77.]

Earlier in Committee, the Opposition had moved an amendment in an attempt to ensure that legitimate national interests could be protected against the vagaries of the stock market and money lenders. Although we pressed it hard, the Government rejected the amendment and the reasoning behind it-- that, in the exceptional sphere of arms production, it was necessary to maintain not only accountability to Parliament, but domestic ownership of the companies involved in production.

In the third sitting of the Committee, the Minister stated in response to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) :

"I accept that share ownership details must be spelt out in the contract. It would be possible to set out in the contract who should own the shares and how many and provide for the Ministry of Defence to give prior written consent to any changes of ownership and shareholding. That would cover any takeover of the contracting company, and I guarantee that such a provision will be made in the AWE contract when it is drafted. That will meet the Committee's fears on that score."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee F, 31 January 1991 ; c. 85.]

It is significant that there was no mention of a special share in either that quote or anywhere else in the Minister's answer. Obviously, there was no intention at that time to introduce the concept of a special share.

Even that statement by the Minister was unsound. The Government will not have any control over the purchase or sale of shares in the contracting company in which the Minister will have a special share because that special share is in the employing company. The contracting companies are Hunting Engineering, Brown and Root and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, so how can the Minister have a special share in those companies? The only place where he can have a special share is in the employing company.

Mr. McWilliam : What about the contracting company?

Mr. Rogers : My hon. Friend mentions the contracting company, but the contracting company is Hunting-BRAE. Hunting Engineering, Brown and Root and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority are private companies. The Minister intends to set up another company, which will be the employing company. It will operate within Aldermaston and will be a company with no assets. The Minister says that the Government will have a special share in that company. It will not even be floated on the stock market, so how can the Minister buy a special share? In Committee, in response to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East, the Minister said that it

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would be possible to set out in the contract who owned the shares. Perhaps the Minister can tell us the mechanics of a special share. This is another example of the Government's muddle-headedness over the Bill. They have not thought the matter through. The Minister has an opportunity to put the record right, or will we have long letters later, as we had in Committee, giving the explanation? When we raised matters in Committee, we were often told that the Minister would write, and a day or two later we got lengthy explanations. The trouble is that the Minister is running out of time. He must stop dithering and decide what he will do.

In Committee, we moved an amendment proposing that the Government retain a majority holding in the company so that there could be accountability to Parliament for the production of nuclear warheads. We thought that we had lost that undertaking. Then, after the fourth sitting of the Committee, we had a letter from the Minister saying that the Government would retain a special share. How can they retain a special share in something they do not own? Is the Minister going to create a special share? Perhaps he can satisfy us on that point and say how he will stop shares being sold. If he can explain how he can prevent shares in Brown and Root being sold on the Dallas stock exchange, I will be more than pleased. I was pleased at first sight by what seemed to be a return to sanity, but after closer examination of what the Minister had said, I realised what a sham the announcement was.

The Minister gave reasons in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes). My hon. Friend has asked me to apologise to the House for his absence. His wife had an operation yesterday and he has had to return home. I thank him and all my hon. Friends for their enormous support in Committee. Had my hon. Friend been here today, he would have been speaking from the Front Bench on some of the issues.

In his letter, the Minister said :

"The Secretary of State's special share in the employing company will give him certain rights, including the power to prevent the company being dissolved or sold to outside interests. This means that he can ensure that the company will continue indefinitely to fulfil its sole function of acting as the employer of AWE staff." At one time, the Minister says that he will retain a share to ensure that the company does not fall into foreign ownership, and at another he says that its only function will be to act as the employer of AWE staff. Of course, it will not have shares that can be bought or sold, because it will not be a registered company. There will just be a contract cooked up between the Minister and his friends in big business. The Government have done nothing about control of ownership of the contractor, about foreign ownership or about access by foreign nationals into this most sensitive of defence areas. Those matters were of fundamental importance in our amendments in Committee. The Minister scoffed when I talked about control of ownership of the contractors and friends of the Conservative party. He should look at where the money comes from to elect him. Millions and millions of pounds are paid by big business to ensure that Conservative Members are elected. Surely the Minister does not think that he has been elected because of his great charm.

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5.45 pm

The shares of Hunting and of Brown and Root will be sold on stock markets-- the shares of Hunting in London, and the shares of Brown and Root, a wholly owned subsidiary of an American company incorporated in Dallas, on the Dallas and other American stock exchanges, although not in London. Our amendment may be too late, because part of the management control of the production of our nuclear weapons is already in the hands of a foreign company. However, the Minister said that he would not mind Americans being in control. He does not regard Americans as foreign nationals.

Mr. Kenneth Carlisle indicated dissent.

Mr. Rose : It is no good the Minister shaking his head. He should know by now that I read Committee proceedings. If he wants me to, I can quote what he said about not objecting to Americans because they are friends of ours. If they turn into enemies, perhaps something will be written into the contract to cover that. Perhaps it will say, "If the Americans become enemies, the contract will be null and void."

In that context, we must remember that an important statutory function of our Atomic Weapons Establishments is to carry out research and development. Such is the production facility that all our basic nuclear research and nuclear secrets may be in the hands of foreign nationals. The special share could not prevent that, and the Minister knows it.

Let me quote from the same letter to my hon. Friend :

"I should first say that this special share does not run counter to anything that I said about the ownership of the contractor during the debate on amendment No. 3. We do not intend that the Secretary of State will hold shares in the contractor. The employing company is a separate company, formed by the Secretary of State solely for the purpose of employing the AWE work force. When a contract is awarded for the operation of AWE, the contractor will be required to acquire the employing company which will thus become a wholly owned subsidiary but only for the duration of the contract. If that contract were to change hands, the employing company would be acquired by the new contractor."

How the special share means that there will be any public accountability, or that the company cannot fall into the control of foreign nationals, is absolutely beyond me.

The ownership of the company is a matter of great concern to Conservative Members, as I mentioned when we were debating the last group of amendments. Compensation and possible litigation in the event of accidents were matters raised in Committee by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East and by my hon. Friends the Members for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). Against whom will there be litigation if there is an accident? Will it be against the company with no assets, which exists only to employ staff, against the foreign-owned company or against the Ministry of Defence, which will be the landlord or janitor, depending on how we want to describe it? Perhaps the Minister can tell the House.

We tabled the amendments because we are concerned about the matter. The problem is that the Government have allowed their party political dogma to shroud the national interest and to prejudice their judgment. They have not thought this through. The experiment is doomed to failure ; that is why I hope that hon. Members will support our amendments.

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Sir David Mitchell : I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), to the extent that there is a need to ensure that nuclear secrets remain secrets and that the contractor is United Kingdom-based. However, the amendments go much further than that and pursue an extraordinary course of action. They would have three principal effects. First, they would bar a company in which 10 per cent. or more of the shares are held by a non- United Kingdom citizen from having the contract ; secondly, they would ensure that, if 11 per cent. of the shares are owned by a non-United Kingdom citizen, the contract is void ; and, thirdly, they would ensure that no compensation will be paid if the contract is made void in such a way. That is different from ensuring that a foreign citizen does not have a majority shareholding, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will resist this group of amendments.

These amendments are especially revealing about the Labour party's attitude in 1991. They exemplify its narrow-minded, anti-foreigner attitude. It is a party prepared to accept the United States's nuclear umbrella but not prepared to allow a 15 per cent. shareholding by a citizen from that country. It would not allow a 15 per cent. minority shareholding by a NATO citizen, or by an Irish national, but it would allow--

Mr. Rogers : Does the hon. Member agree that it also would not allow Saddam Hussein to acquire a 15 per cent. shareholding, in the way that he did with Matrix Churchill and other companies that provided the armaments to kill British soldiers?

Sir David Mitchell : It is perfectly reasonable to ensure that the contractor company does not fall into foreign hands, but that is quite different from saying that no more than 10 per cent. of the shares can be held by any citizen of the various countries that I have described, which are friendly to us in so many ways. The hon. Member for Rhondda is saying that a CND supporter can have more than 10 per cent. of the shares, but that a citizen of a NATO member country cannot.

I recall that the hon. Gentleman is a former card-carrying member of CND, as was his No. 2 spokesman in Committee. All his CND colleagues would be allowed to hold shares through his amendment, but a staunch supporter of NATO would not be allowed to. That strikes me as a pretty nonsensical amendment to table.

Mr. Rogers rose --

Sir David Mitchell : I have not finished with the hon. Gentleman yet.

One wonders why the hon. Gentleman takes such a view. Is it because he is desperately anxious to ensure the confidentiality of everything that goes on at Aldermaston?

Mr. Rogers : I assure the hon. Gentleman that, if I bought shares in such a company, it would be as an ex-member of the Welsh Regiment and not as an ex-member of CND.

Sir David Mitchell : The hon. Gentleman does not deny that he is an ex-member of CND--a former card-carrying member--and, if I recall correctly, he said that he was proud of it.

I asked whether the hon. Gentleman was anxious to secure confidentiality in what happens at Aldermaston--I

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see that he nods as an indication of his support for that view. Therefore, I shall quote from the Basingstoke Gazette :

"A Labour MP leading the fight against bringing in private management at the Atomic Weapons Establishment has asked workers for information about the Aldermaston plant."

Apparently the former card-carrying member of CND went down to Silchester, which is just outside my constituency on the borders of Aldermaston, and asked workers for information about the plant. Now he is tabling an amendment seeking confidentiality.

I quote again from the Basingstoke Gazette :

"Mr. Rogers promised confidentiality for information received". It is a fine kettle of fish for the hon. Gentleman to come here now seeking to protect confidentiality, when he has gone to Aldermaston asking people to give him information about the plant.

The other aspect of this pair of amendments that I find extraordinary is that no compensation will be given to the contractor if it finds that 11 per cent. of its shares are held by any of these offending citizens from America or from NATO countries.

The hon. Gentleman has proposed that, if someone buys additional shares on the stock exchange and so acquires more than 10 per cent. of the shares, which the company has no power to prevent--it cannot control who buys and sells its shares--the contract becomes null and void. Not only that, but no compensation is paid. The shareholders who own nearly 90 per cent. of the shares will lose a valuable contract, with all that that implies, but will receive no compensation. The hon. Gentleman should take his amendment away, because it is rubbish.

Mr. Menzies Campbell : I hope that I shall not be disqualified from participating in this debate by virtue of the fact that I have never been a card-carrying member of CND and have never had the honour to serve in the Welsh Regiment ; nor am I a regular subscriber to that compelling organ of public opinion, the Basingstoke Gazette. The amendment seeks to examine--in the context of Report stage--the circumstances in which control of a company which had obtained a contract under section 1(3) of the Bill might raise questions of national importance in the minds of the people of the United Kingdom. It is right and proper that, when one considers the contractorisation of the production and development of weapons of mass destruction, which form a significant part of United Kingdom defence policy and are likely to do so for a long time to come, we should examine with some scruples the extent to which the control of any such company might pass into hands which are not entirely sympathetic to the objectives of the people of the United Kingdom.

That seems an entirely proper issue for the House and the Select Committee to consider. The hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell) might have had something to say about the detail of these amendments, but may I respectfully say that he gave scant consideration to the principle behind them, which seems to me to be of considerable importance.

I have re-read the Minister's observations in column 105 of the report of the fourth sitting of the Standing Committee. As I understand it, he said that the special, or golden, share, will apply only to the company formed for the purpose of employing those who will work at

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Aldermaston. Apparently there is to be no attempt to create or retain for the Government any similar control in the company which may win the contract. That might raise questions of national importance.

If the shares of a company that won the contract for the production and development of nuclear weapons were to fall into the hands of other companies--or companies formed by national Governments ; we know that that is by no means unusual--circumstances might arise in which control of the company at Aldermaston rested with another company or with a nation whose interests were wholly antagonistic to those of the people of the United Kingdom. How could we then guarantee that the company fulfilled the responsibilities placed upon it by the contract? It would be simple for the company to walk away from the contract during its lifetime and to say that it did not want to continue with it.

We should be left--as hon. Members have said--to seek recourse on the Strand to try to compel them to continue with it. In legal terms, that would be extremely difficult, and the Government's remedy would be to try to obtain damages. In the meantime, the production and development of nuclear weapons--which is, and is likely to continue to be, a central part of the United Kingdom's defence strategy--might be brought to an end, prejudiced or dealt with in such a way as to make it difficult for us to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent. We are dealing with a substantial issue of principle, which we raised with the Minister in Committee. With respect, it seems that, in spite of his courtesy and tact, he did not contrive to deal with it in a way that could be considered intellectually compelling. It is now incumbent on him to explain to the House what remedy he believes that the Government would have in the circumstances that I have outlined. He might be dismissive of the amendments, but he must at least direct his attention to the principle they raise and give us what assurances he can about how the United Kingdom's national interest would be protected in such circumstances.

Sir Michael McNair-Wilson : If we were to follow the principles outlined by the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) to their logical conclusion, we should not buy the missile from America or from General Dynamics, but should make it in this country. We depend on the good will of the Americans for the missiles to carry the Trident warheads. Without that good will, we should not have nuclear missiles.

6 pm

Mr. Campbell : The hon. Gentleman is right. Since the Nassau agreement, the United Kingdom has depended on the good will of the United States for the provision of nuclear missiles. Some people regard that as politically acceptable and some do not, but it is a fact. I am concerned that we should have to rely not merely on that good will, about which I am reasonably confident, but on the good will of unknown companies or unknown Governments whose commitment to the same ideals as us might be, to say the least, lukewarm. They may not be members of NATO or share the aspirations of the western alliance ; indeed, it might be in their interests to prejudice the production and development of nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman's intervention has, if anything, crystallised the argument. It has made even more sharply

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the point that the Minister must consider. I hope that the Minister will share with the House his doubtless extensive discussions with colleagues from the Ministry of Defence about how the interests of the United Kingdom can be protected if the contract is won by a company the control of which may pass out of hands that the United Kingdom would regard as entirely friendly.

Mr. McWilliam : I listened carefully, and with some surprise, to the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell). I thought that Senator Joe McCarthy was dead. Clearly, his descendants still exist in some form. He asked, "Are you now or have you ever been ?" If the hon. Gentleman wants to know, yes, I was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and I probably still am. I do not know. If not, I should be sorry because I should like to vote against some of its policies. One of the reasons for staying in an organisation is to change its policies.

Mr. Menzies Campbell : Like the Labour party.

Mr. McWilliam : Yes, like the Labour party. We are members of all sorts of organisations, not because we agree with all of their policies-- although we agree with most of them--but so that we have the right to change things.

The hon. Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) was right--I have been around Aldermaston. I probably have a higher security clearance than he has. That is not something to worry about.

I worry about what the application of section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 to the selling of secrets about atomic production to a foreign national. There is an ugly word for that--treason. The Act does not differentiate between selling to a country that is friendly or unfriendly. It applies only to the passing of information. Our nuclear programme was founded on American technology and on American transfers of information, but it has come a long way since then, and it is not based on that technology or on those transfers now. Much of the research on which it was based was carried out in this country, so there is plenty of room for co- operation. The hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West asked whether we should allow one of our NATO allies to acquire shares. I should be extremely worried if, for example, the Belgian company that refused to fill our 155 mm artillery shells, which we needed for the Gulf, was allowed to acquire shares. Belgium is a member of NATO, and that company could legitimately acquire shares if we accepted the hon. Gentleman's argument. I do not believe that that company should be allowed to do so.

I realise that the drafting of the amendment is extremely tight, but it has to be. Hunting Engineering is owned by Brown and Root (UK). Brown and Root (UK) is a myth. It is registered in the United Kingdom, but it has no British shareholder, unless those shareholders have acquired shares in the United States as it is an American-owned company. I am not anti-American. I should object if it were any other company.

In Committee, we pressed the Minister at least to recognise that it was not a good idea to allow foreigners to acquire sufficient control of our atomic weapons production so as to jeopardise it. What is more, we said that it was not a good idea because the more foreign control there was, the more the security of information was compromised. The Minister did not accept those

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arguments. I am willing to bet that the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West will not tell his constituents that he fought for the right of foreigners to own shares in Aldermaston. I have news for him. I bet that the Basingstoke Gazette is hanging on my words, and I hope that it uses them.

Sir David Mitchell : My point was that the amendment prescribes 10 per cent. as the barred level--so to speak which seems ridiculous. Surely there can be no objection to a minority shareholding. There is an objection to a majority shareholding, which is why the Minister has introduced the golden share. That is different from the minority of 10 per cent.

Mr. McWilliam : I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention, because it makes it clear to me that he has not even begun to comprehend what the debate is about. It is not about the niceties of who owns a company that makes ping-pong balls. If it were, I should leave the hon. Gentleman and his friends in the City to carry on--as they have since time immemorial--doing what they like. I am pleased that for the moment at least, such manipulation does not apply to the Atomic Weapons Establishment, but it will unless the amendment, or something similar, is adopted. We must prevent some of the things that happen in the City happening in the interesting area of protection.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) spoke about the Minister's letter about the golden share. I recall reading a newspaper during the Easter recess. Something in that letter triggered my memory, and I am reminded to ask the Minister a question. Which of the members of his private office is a medium, because I am convinced that Lewis Carroll wrote that letter?

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : I listened to the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell) with a good deal of interest. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. McWilliam) said, the hon. Gentleman sought to make membership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament some sort of criminal offence. I remind the House that 139 states are in effect members of an international campaign for nuclear disarmament. Perhaps the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West would like to turn his attention to them and make similar sneering remarks about other NATO countries such as Norway and Denmark which refuse to have nuclear weapons on their soil. The Canadian Government, which is under Conservative control, also refuse to have nuclear weapons on their soil.

The Government of Canada and the Governments of 139 non-nuclear countries share the views of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They believe that it is sane and sensible not to have nuclear weapons on their soil. I should be interested to know whether any Conservative Members here today wish to persuade any of those 139 countries to take nuclear weapons into their possession. I should be interested to receive any recommendations to that effect. Of course those countries will not take nuclear weapons. They know that the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation treaty is an important treaty to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Who can deny the assertion that, if nuclear weapons spread to other countries, there will be a greater danger of them being used? The rationale behind the amendment is that, because the weapons manufactured at the AWE are the most dangerous on earth, there should be some control by the Government.

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The Government wish to continue the policy- -with which I disagree--of manufacturing nuclear weapons here in the United Kingdom. We cannot provide absolute prevention of foreign domination through legislation, but we can try. It seems to me that 10 per cent. is not an unreasonable limit on any shareholding. For example, if Saddam Hussein's front men had 10 per cent. of a company--Nuclear Weapons Manufacturing (Basingstoke) Ltd., for instance--the Tories would be slavering at the jaws and saying how dangerous it was that this Hitler-like person had obtained 10 per cent. of the company.

Mr. Rogers : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Cryer : I shall continue with my remarks, if I may. The danger of someone like Saddam Hussein gaining more than 10 per cent. of such a company is one of the important reasons for the 10 per cent. limit. I shall come to Matrix Churchill in a moment, if that is what my hon. Friend has in mind.

The 10 per cent. limit is also a safeguard against the shifting sands of other Government's policies. We all remember less than a year ago the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, not attacking Saddam Hussein as a potential tyrant, but attending a garden party organised by the Iraqi embassy at which he encouraged our manufacturing industry to sell equipment --weapons were embargoed during the Iran-Iraq war--to the Iraqis. That was why a perfectly good manufacturing company in the machine tool sector-- Matrix Churchill--was bought up without the Government raising an eyebrow.

Why did they not raise an eybrow? It was because their ideology is that capital should be free ; there should be no impediments on it. It should move between countries, gaining its 5, 10 or 15 per cent. return as profit. Therefore, they believed that it was wrong and arbitary for a Government to intercede between the capitalist and the object of his investment. Lying beneath their policy is the ideology expressed time and again by people who are still in the Government. The present Minister is a perfectly polite and pleasant man, although he has wrapped a shroud around some nasty policies. However, he may not be in his job for long and some free-booting free- market Minister may be put in his place who might not treat the safeguards so conscientiously as the present Minister does.

6.15 pm

The hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West was saying succinctly that the rights of capital are superior to the United Nations nuclear non- proliferation treaty. Let me deal with another argument that he used. He suggested that the Labour party was anti-foreigner because Labour Members wished to exclude foreigners from ownership of the company. I am one of the those people who do not like pointing nuclear weapons at foreigners. By and large, nuclear weapons are pointed at foreigners. The hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West is prepared to point a whole range of nuclear weapons at foreigners, so that on the scale of concern and affection for foreigners I rank higher than the hon. Gentleman. I am not prepared to exterminate foreigners on a greater scale than civilisation has ever achieved.

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I remind the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West that when we were friendly--when I say "we", I mean the Government--

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to refer his remarks to the amendment. They are rather too general at present.

Mr. Cryer : My remarks deal with an amendment which is designed to protect against the purchase of an important contracting company by foreign owners through the penetration of foreign capital in a highly sensitive area--the manufacture of the most dangerous weapons that mankind has, sadly, discovered.

The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) suggests that there are grave dangers in not including some legislative provision other than a golden share. We have often heard Ministers make the case for retaining a golden share in a company. One by one, Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box and told the House that the Government intended to get rid of the golden share. They did so in the case of Jaguar Cars, which was supposed to be an important pinnacle of British manufacturing industry.

There are other considerations. One is the nature of this area of manufacturing. That is why I am pointing out, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we had friendly relations with Iraq not long ago. Matrix Churchill was bought up under the eye of the Government to export good quality machinery for manufacturing weaponry. Some people understood that. I want to demonstrate that, even with this legislation there cannot be an absolute guarantee of protection. All we can do is to seek to influence behaviour and make it conform with the aim and spirit of the Bill.

The perfectly decent firm of Sheffield Forgemasters was involved in the manufacture of a super-gun which the Department of Trade and Industry could not recognise. The Department could not recognise a super-gun if it was sprayed on its eyeballs. Yet we are to depend on the Government. If the gun had been assembled outside the DTI on Victoria street, the civil servants would have looked at it and said, "What a super piece of oil piping." It took the Iraqi civil service to tell them that the oil piping was more expensive and of a higher standard that the average bit of scaffolding, which was what the DTI thought it was.

Mr. Rogers : My hon. Friend talks about companies being encouraged to export to Iraq materials that could be used for the production of armaments. International Military Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ministry of Defence, actively encouraged Astra to purchase PRV of Belgium, which produced the propellant for the big gun, so that it could export the propellant to Iraq, or siphon it through Jordan into Iraq. Of course, this country's main producer of the propellant is Royal Ordnance plc, which was handed over to British Aerospace. Even the present Government would have looked a little sad if they had encouraged Royal Ordnance to supply the propellant for the big gun. However, they certainly encouraged Astra to purchase PRV so that it could do so. So far as this business is concerned, the Government's hands are very dirty indeed.

Mr. Cryer : My hon. Friend makes an apt point.

If the amendment were accepted, breach of the legislation would preclude compensation. Its purpose is to

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encourage greater scrutiny by the people operating this company. They would realise that, if they did not exercise scrutiny, their pockets would be hurt. I am afraid that one of the traits of some sections of humanity is that, in the absence of a prod of that nature, they turn a blind eye, especially when they get no guidance from a supine and inert Government willing to sell pretty well anything at any time to anybody anywhere, so long as the people who contribute to Tory party funds make a fast buck. That may seem a little crude, but it is the reality, even if the Government try to avoid it with grand words.

At Question Time today, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said that he supported the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the 139 non-nuclear signatories to the NPT want some assurance. They get no assurance from this country, as it is embarking on the manufacture of Trident nuclear weapons. That is what this legislation is about. I do not want people to be put on the dole ; I want expertise and skills in this field to be transferred to projects that would preserve and benefit life instead of having the potential to destroy it.

I certainly want to see the end of the manufacture of Trident nuclear weapons in the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, so do those 139 non- nuclear nations. They keep telling us that it is unfair that the nuclear signatories, including the United States and the Soviet Union, should be negotiating some reduction--as they have been, through the INF treaty-- while the United Kingdom does nothing of the sort. In review conferences, they keep asking, "Why should we get rid of nuclear weapons, and refuse to manufacture or deploy them, when the United Kingdom sets no example at all?"

Sir Anthony Durant : I have been following very closely the hon. Gentleman's remarks about atomic weapons throughout the world. Does he advocate the closure of Aldermaston?

Mr. Cryer : I thought I had made it absolutely clear that I should like to see the Aldermaston expertise and skills used in the development of materials and equipment for the preservation and development of life. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that getting rid of nuclear weapons would necessarily result in many people being put on the dole, he is mistaken. We can--indeed, we must--plan the change. It is the absence of planning that has resulted in so much redundancy following the so-called peace dividend.

I want to return to the detail of the clause. The 139 non-nuclear nations to which I have referred are not impressed by the record of the present and previous Conservative Governments, who have spent £10,000 million on Trident nuclear weapons. If they see the manufacture of nuclear warheads handed over in a sloppy manner to private contractors, who, with regard to proliferation, may be subject to rather less Government control, they will be even less impressed. If the Government are to continue this manufacture, which I steadfastly oppose, and if they are to continue with this legislation, as I have no doubt they are, even though I steadfastly oppose and deplore it, we should at least have some safeguards. Perhaps one day the Minister will get a trip to Canada under Government auspices. If that should happen, would he not want to be able to say, "We are providing every possible safeguard"? If the people there said, "But Labour put forward some decent safeguards,

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and you rejected them," he would have a perfectly reasonable answer. He would be able to say that the safeguards had been rejected in the Commons but would be accepted in the Lords.

I dare say that all legislation is flawed to some degree. However, the Minister should be in a position to say that the House of Commons at least tried to provide some control over the manufacture of weapons capable of causing more death, more destruction and more lingering horror than occurred in the whole of the Gulf war and the subsequent Kurdish crisis. These are important safeguards, and I ask the Minister to accept the amendment.

Mr. John Home Robertson (East Lothian) : I regret that I was unable to be present for the debate on the first group of amendments. I was attending a meeting of the Select Committee on Defence, which was considering the threatened closure of the Rosyth naval base. Having been a member of the Standing Committee that considered this Bill, I am glad to be able to contribute at this stage.

It is with a feeling of unreality that we see the Government, in their dying weeks--we hope that these are their dying

weeks--introducing legislation to commit the ultimate folly of privatisating the manufacture of nuclear weapons, having privatised almost everything else. In these circumstances, we can always depend on the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West (Sir D. Mitchell) to extend the unreality. He has certainly done so today. Evidently, he is prepared to go to the wall for the rights of any number of foreigners--people from Iraq, Argentina, the Soviet Union, or anywhere else--to purchase any number of shares in the operating company of the Atomic Weapons Establishment. The hon. Gentleman's party regards itself as the party of patriotism. It is the party that wraps itself in the flag.

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