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Dunnachie, Jimmy

Eadie, Alexander

Eastham, Ken

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Fearn, Ronald

Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

Flannery, Martin

Foster, Derek

Fyfe, Maria

Galloway, George

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Golding, Mrs Llin

Gordon, Mildred

Graham, Thomas

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Hain, Peter

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Haynes, Frank

Hinchliffe, David

Hood, Jimmy

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Hoyle, Doug

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Lamond, James

Leadbitter, Ted

Litherland, Robert

Livingstone, Ken

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Loyden, Eddie

McAllion, John

McAvoy, Thomas

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

McKelvey, William

McLeish, Henry

McMaster, Gordon

Madden, Max

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Marek, Dr John

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Martlew, Eric

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Meacher, Michael

Meale, Alan

Michael, Alun

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Mullin, Chris

Nellist, Dave

Patchett, Terry

Pendry, Tom

Pike, Peter L.

Primarolo, Dawn

Redmond, Martin

Rogers, Allan

Rooker, Jeff

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Rowlands, Ted

Skinner, Dennis

Steinberg, Gerry

Stott, Roger

Strang, Gavin

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Trimble, David

Wareing, Robert N.

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Wigley, Dafydd

Winnick, David

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Wray, Jimmy

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Tellers for the Noes :

Mr. Harry Barnes and

Mr. Bob Cryer.

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Roger King : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will right hon. and hon. Members have an opportunity tomorrow to study carefully the voting in that Division to ascertain how many members of the Opposition Front Bench supported or opposed my very modest measure ?

Mr. Speaker : That is not a point of order for the Chair to consider.

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Opposition Day

[20th Allotted Day]

Manufacturing Industry

Mr. Speaker : I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. Because of the late start, I regret that I shall have to impose a limit of 10 minutes on speeches made between 7 and 9 o'clock.

5.12 pm

Mr. Gordon Brown (Dunfermline, East) : I beg to move,

That this House strongly condemns the economic incompetence of the Government which has caused a decline in manufacturing output, investment and jobs, has brought very high levels of bankruptcies and closures, and caused fast rising unemployment in every sector of industry and every region of the United Kingdom ; and demands that the Government now take seriously the needs of manufacturing industry with policies, both nationally and for the regions, to halt the huge decline in manufacturing investment, to bring unemployment down, and to improve the skills base of the economy.

The motion demands urgent action on jobs and training to end the disgrace of the fastest-rising unemployment this year in western Europe. It seeks immediate action on improving investment in industry, which is the real test of economic competence, with a new manufacturing investment programme. The aim is to bring to an end a collapse of investment which in the last year has been the worst since 1932.

Yesterday, the most recent figures showed that manufacturing production was not rising but falling by 1.1 per cent. Industrial output is not rising but falling by 1.6 per cent. No one denies that unemployment, which officially has already reached 2.4 million--and is an absolute disgrace at that level- -will rise yet again. It will rise in the north and in the south ; it will rise among skilled, unskilled, and professional workers ; and it will rise in high-tech as well as traditional industries. On the Chancellor's own admission, when he was interviewed on the "Today" programme last week, unemployment will rise next month and the month after that unless the Government take the action that our motion proposes.

According to the British Textile Confederation, redundancies in the textile industry will rise by 10,000 in the next few months, and the Engineering Employers Federation states that job losses in engineering will increase by 90,000. The Motor Agents Association says that there are 40,000 more redundancies to come in the vehicle industry, and another 100,000 job losses are expected in the construction industry. Those affected will be men in their 50s who will never work again, girls and boys in their teens who will be denied their first job, and family men and women who face the loss not just of their jobs but of their homes as well. Many of them are among the three-quarters of a million people who have mortgage arrears of two months or more. Business men and women who invested their life savings now feel abandoned by banks and by the Government.

This is not the failure of some other Government, some other Cabinet, or some other Prime Minister--today's failures are the failures of this Government, this Cabinet, and this Prime Minister. If Ministers had the courage to defend themselves, today's debate would be taking place

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not just in this Chamber but throughout the country, in a general election--in a nationwide debate in which the Government could no longer continue to cower behind their temporary parliamentary majority. Instead, the Government would be subjected, as they should be, to the full and direct scrutiny of the electorate. Such a debate would encompass not only the Government's failures in manufacturing but the importance of electing a Labour Government to rectify those failures.

The reason why a general election is not being fought at this time is abundantly obvious from everything that we heard at the Conservative party conference. It is not that the Chancellor has a new economic programme for Britain to implement, or that there is a new policy for the 1990s for which the Government want to legislate in the next Queen's Speech--the Conservative party has run away from an election that it knew it would lose.

The country knows that the Government are going down. The tragedy is that they are taking much of British industry with them. Let us examine the scale of the manufacturing crisis which confronts this country. Manufacturing employment is now below 5 million for the first time this century, after huge job losses of 250,000 in only 18 months. Industrial output is 3.3 per cent. lower than this time last year, and manufacturing output is down 5.7 per cent. It is not just one trade or sector that is affected, but almost every trade and sector. Engineering output is down 6 per cent., and output in investment goods by 6.6 per cent. Consumer goods are down by nearly 4 per cent. That is not an industry-led recovery or investment-led growth. Ministers argue that Britain is undergoing a weak recession that will give way to a strong recovery, on the road to the permanent elimination of inflation. The neglect of industry, however, means that Britain is moving from a deep recession towards only a shallow recovery, on the road to a permanent reduction of the country's industrial capacity.

Britain's manufacturing economy is already smaller than that of France and Italy, and half that of Germany. If the Government do not act on the supply side measures that we recommend, Britain will fall further behind in the more competitive Europe of 1992. I am sure that most right hon. and hon. Members agree that if we are to succeed in the new Europe, and if we are to be leaders in European industry, the real test of Britain's prospects--and of the jobs of tomorrow, not just of today--is the quality and quantity of investment. However, not only has overall investment fallen this year, but according to all estimates it will fall again next year by 2 per cent., in contrast with a general rise throughout the rest of western Europe.

Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : The hon. Gentleman says that he wants to see more investment, and presumably he also wants to encourage savings. How will savings be encouraged by Labour's pledge to impose a 9 per cent. surcharge on them?

Mr. Brown : The measures that we have outlined will encourage people to invest in manufacturing industry. Our small business scheme includes provisions whereby individuals can invest, and therefore save with tax relief, to put small business in this country on its feet. It is no use Conservative Members posing as the friends of small

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business men and women, and of savers, when they have been responsible for 40,000 businesses going down this year alone. Business investment in Germany is rising by 7 per cent. this year, in Spain by nearly 5 per cent., and in Japan by just under 7 per cent. According to the Confederation of British Industry, business investment in Britain is falling by 11 per cent. this year--19 per cent. in total in manufacturing. I can think of no other European competitor country experiencing such a big collapse in its basic manufacturing investment this year. Worse than that, I can think of no other western European country where the Government's response to falling investment has been to withdraw the little help that they have rather than to offer the best that they can do. We are not merely the only major country in Europe in which business investment has fallen this year by significant amounts--we are also the country in which investment will fall in 1992.

Let us be absolutely clear about what is happening to manufacturing in this country. According to the Confederation of British Industry, investment in manufacturing was £12.4 billion in 1989 and £12.1 billion in 1990 ; it is only £9.4 billion for this year and in real terms it will be only £8.5 billion in 1992. In other words, in three years investment in manufacturing will have fallen by 30 per cent. Whom do business blame for what has gone wrong? Do they blame the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the European Community, world conditions, or the trade unions? Do they blame the BBC, as Ministers now seem to? Does not business in fact believe that the Government have no one to blame but themselves?

Mr. Peter Gill, director of the Builders Merchants Federation, said :

"As a result of a combination of ineptness and sheer arrogance, the Treasury and Government were responsible both for the depth of the slump and its seemingly endless course."

Mr. John Harris, chairman of the policy unit of the National Federation of Self Employed and Small Businesses, said :

"A little more sympathy and humility would not come amiss". The managing director of Marlborough Ceramic Tiles said : "This time round we have no such benign feelings towards the Government. We regard the recession as being the result of unforgivable incompetence by the Government."

The Secretary of State, who is before us today, knows all that. He has been on a regional tour, as he told us earlier this afternoon, meeting business people. Perhaps he should tell us what business has been telling him. Clearly he was impressed by what he heard in the north-east at a meeting on 17 September, almost exactly a month ago. He met Mr. Carl Watkin, the managing director of Crabtree in Gateshead which was a winner of the Queen's award for export achievement, and exporter of the year. The Secretary of State described it as a tremendous firm. What did the director of that tremendous firm say? Did he thank the Secretary of State for all his work? Did he express confidence that the Government had revived manufacturing industry? Did he say that there was any sign of uplift? Did he blame the BBC for all the bad news and start to jam the BBC switchboards, as Mr. Patten has suggested? No, I have here the cutting entitled :

"Award Winner in Fierce Attack on Government".

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