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British Gas (Executive Salaries)
15. Ms Corston: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from the south-west office of the Gas Consumers Council about the salary provision of the chairman and chief executive of British Gas. [18703]
Mr. John M. Taylor: I have received no such representations.
Ms Corston: The chairman of British Gas has just retired on £250,000 a year, with a pension package worth £3 million, while complaints against British Gas in the south-west region doubled to 3,000 last year. Does the Minister think that the decision to axe 25,000 skilled jobs in the gas industry has contributed to the soaring number of complaints? Why does boardroom pay continue to go through the roof while people are expected to put up with poorer service?
Mr. Taylor: First, the chairman of British Gas has not retired. Secondly, why does the hon. Lady not consider instead the best interests of consumers in her constituency? We believe that competition is the consumer's best friend, and it is about to commence in her area, with a pilot scheme starting on 29 April. That is eagerly awaited by consumers, who stand to gain considerably from it.
Sir Michael Grylls: Is my hon. Friend aware that my constituents in Surrey would very much like the opportunity to choose an alternative supplier for their gas and would welcome competition? Will he and his colleagues in the Government do all that they can to bring about and spread competition as quickly as possible?
Mr. Taylor: So far as I am concerned, we cannot spread competition fast enough. However, we need to complete the pilot in the south-west which begins on 29 April, and learn the lessons from it with all speed so that the advantages can be spread to my hon. Friend's constituents as well.
Trade Balance
16. Mr. McAvoy: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what measures he is taking to improve the visible trade balance in the forthcoming 12 months. [18705]
Mr. Oppenheim: Through Overseas Trade Services, the DTI provides the best ever package of information, advice and practical assistance to all British companies wishing to explore new export opportunities.
Mr. McAvoy: That entirely complacent answer from the Minister totally ignores the ever-widening deficit. Is the Minister aware that 1995 was the 13th successive year that the United Kingdom had an annual world visible trade deficit? Whereas we welcome proper measures to reduce that deficit, is not the Government's record appalling and is not the best and only way to improve the country's economic performance for the present Government to go?
Mr. Oppenheim: The hon. Gentleman will not expect me to agree with his last comment, although I agree with him about the importance of the trade balance of the manufacturing sector. I remind him that in the 1960s and 1970s our trading position deteriorated steadily under Governments of both colours, but since the mid-1980s we have maintained our share of world trade for the first time in many decades and exports of manufactured goods have increased at twice the rate they did under the last Labour Government.
Mr. Garnier: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways to improve the visible trade balance is to continue the Government's strong economic policies, to discourage the imposition of a minimum wage and to discourage the introduction of the social chapter?
Mr. Oppenheim: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. The best way to empower workers and increase their bargaining power at the workplace is not by intervening artificially in wage contracts, but by ensuring that workers have a good education and good training so that they are valuable and productive to their employers. It is fundamentally dishonest for the Opposition to pretend to British workers that there is an easy, painless way to increase wages without a commensurate increase in productivity. Come the general election, people will be asking members of the Labour party at what level they intend to set the minimum wage; unless they can answer that question, no one will take that key Labour policy seriously.
Export Contracts (Language Barriers)
17. Mr. Rendel: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the proportion of British export contracts lost because of communication difficulties caused by language barriers in the most recent year for which information is available. [18707]
Mr. Oppenheim: A survey of UK companies carried out in 1995 as part of the DTI's national languages for export campaign showed that 25 per cent. of exporting companies had lost trade due to language barriers.
Mr. Rendel: Given that that must mean a considerable loss of export revenues, what does the Minister plan by way of incentives to British companies to ensure that they train their employees more effectively in languages?
Mr. Oppenheim: Uncharacteristically, I agree with that great German socialist Willy Brandt about that. He was a socialist in the days when socialists really were socialists and one knew where they stood. He said-- I hope that the House will excuse my accent:
- "If I am selling to you, I speak your language; if I am buying, dann mussen Sie deutsch sprechen."
Mr. Viggers: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is easy for us to become complacent because English is the language of international trade? There is a remarkable disparity, for instance, in the number of Japanese learning English and the number of English learning Japanese. Will my hon. Friend encourage English people to study Japanese?
Mr. Oppenheim: I agree with my hon. Friend. People sometimes go too far in taking advantage of the fact that English is the lingua franca--to coin a mis-phrase-- and become complacent. As a result, it can be a disadvantage rather than an advantage. It is important that British exporters should take the trouble to learn the languages of their customers, and I am pleased to say that the number of Japanese language courses in British schools and universities has increased dramatically in recent years.
Mr. MacShane: An earlier German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck--who spoke Russian, French and English--said that learning foreign languages was a matter for head waiters. He was quite wrong, of course, and German business men speak very good English. As we have Trade and Industry Ministers on the Government Front Bench who are barely capable of speaking English, perhaps I should ask the Minister whether he could conduct this Question Time in a foreign language. If he cannot, will he go and learn one after he loses his seat in the next general election?
Mr. Oppenheim: I know from my various experiences with the hon. Gentleman on the ski slopes that he is an expert linguist and fluent in French, German and, I think, Spanish, which might qualify him for a job as a maitre d'. When he gets that job, perhaps he will produce a menu with prices rather than a menu without prices, which characterises Labour's minimum wage policy.
Nuclear Electricity
18. Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the current timetable for nuclear privatisation. [18708]
Mr. Eggar: Privatisation of the nuclear power generation industry is expected in the summer.
Mr. Prentice: Why was there no mention of nuclear privatisation in the 1992 Conservative manifesto but only a reference to a review of it? Is it not a deceit and a deception of the British public for £2.5 billion of assets to be handed over--perhaps to the dodgy American company, Duke Power, whose safety record has been absolutely deplorable?
Mr. Eggar: There was a reference in the manifesto to a review, and it was carried out. It concluded that we should move forward to privatise the nuclear industry. As for the outrageous comments towards the end of the hon. Gentleman's question, there are few things that I despise more than people who bring safety fears into the Chamber of this House.
Metrication
21. Dr. Wright: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the effects on business and consumers of the recent metrication of weights and measures. [18711]
Mr. John M. Taylor: My Department carefully assessed the costs to business of complying with the latest metrication changes. Between 1988 and 1993, we consulted business organisations, consumer groups and others, who generally supported further metrication because of the very real savings and other benefits that this would bring. The latest changes are part of a process started by the Labour Government in 1965.
Dr. Wright: Has not metrication of weights and measures produced a great increase in burdens on business and confusion for consumers? Is it not even more disgraceful that the over-regulation of an EU directive by the previous deregulation Minister--the former President of the Board of Trade, now the Deputy Prime Minister--was responsible for this measure in the first place? Is it not an outrage that we have the measure, an outrage that it was introduced without discussion in Parliament and a further outrage that it was introduced by the deregulator-in-chief?
Mr. Taylor: That is quite a lot of outrage for one afternoon. The fact is that it is extremely important for British trade to sell in metric units throughout the world. The hon. Gentleman would not make much headway if he tried to sell in quarts, for example, in Italy. The British people and British consumers wanted metrication. Consumers seem to be taking it in their stride, and I am not aware of a single criminal prosecution being brought by a trading standards department.
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