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Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): May I push the Secretary of State on that last answer? As I understand it, the £152 million was a sum negotiated between the Government and BMW for the aid for the investment at Longbridge, and now the Secretary of State has arbitrarily plucked that figure out of the air as a sum necessary to fund the taskforce's recommendations. May I press him urgently to say that if the taskforce--about which I have serious reservations, not because of some of its members but because of its leadership--comes forward with a workmanlike programme, additional money will be available, if necessary, to undo the disaster at Longbridge?
Mr. Byers: The £129 million was available to be committed immediately because it was money that was tied to BMW's further investment in the R30 at Longbridge. Given BMW's decision to dispose of Longbridge to Alchemy Partners, that was money that was then freed up, so I can make an immediate commitment of that funding to the taskforce. As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), if good proposals emerge from the taskforce that require additional funding, £129 million is not a cap; we can of course go higher if there are good proposals coming forward that will assist the economic regeneration of, and job creation in, the west midlands.
Mr. Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Hall Green): With two notable exceptions, Conservative Members are
seeking to make cheap political capital out of this issue. Their remarks do not reflect how we are feeling in the west midlands.
I welcome my right hon. Friend's assurance that he will do all that he can to bring additional resources and new industries to the area. Will he consider holding talks with the banks and the building societies so that Rover workers and their families are spared the additional concern of losing their homes as well as their jobs?
Mr. Byers:
I can fully understand the concerns of those who might be affected by a redundancy programme about how they will pay their mortgages. My hon. Friend has already raised with me the issue of trying to get the banks and the building societies to look sympathetically on people who might have short-term difficulties. Certainly, we are prepared to do that, and the taskforce will consider specifically what help can be given to firms in the supply chain to overcome cash-flow problems that many of them will have as a result of BMW's decisions in relation to Longbridge. Those are practical measures that we are putting in place. We are not being distracted from our course by the smoke and the political arguments from the Conservative party. We are committed to putting the interests of those workers and their families first and we will continue to do that. They have to be the focus of our attention at present.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham):
The Secretary of State has failed to deliver a crucial grant to Rover, he has upset BMW, he has upset the new owners of Rover and he has put off many people who were thinking of buying cars. It is diplomatic incompetence on a scale that the Foreign Secretary would be proud of.
Will the Secretary of State answer a simple question today? Should an individual wanting to buy a new car in this country delay their purchase for longer in the belief that the right hon. Gentleman will force further cuts in car prices, or not? The right hon. Gentleman's indecision about car prices and his incompetence about the grant is destroying Rover and is destroying the British motor industry. He has made the dog's breakfast of it. Will he now go before it gets worse?
Mr. Byers:
There is a delicious irony in such an anti-European trying to make a political comeback out of the actions of a German car company. That is what is happening and people will see it for what it is. I tell Conservative Members that I feel far more secure in my post than the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) feels in hers.
On the right hon. Gentleman's specific point, I make no apology for having referred the question of car prices to the Competition Commission on the advice of the Director General of Fair Trading. We will respond to its findings within the 10-week administrative period that is laid down and we will respond before Easter. We will put the interests of consumers first for the simple reason that strong and assertive consumers build strong companies. That is the American experience; it now needs to be the British experience as well.
Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak):
May I remind my hon. Friend that, when the former Tory Prime
Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government will give every possible support to any credible alternative to the Alchemy deal that will maintain volume car production at Longbridge, and that he will encourage BMW to co-operate with any such proposal? Will he also consider whether it might be appropriate to strengthen the rights of British workers, so that they are not always the first to be made redundant when European and multinational car companies seek to cut back?
Mr. Byers:
What is interesting in this case is that there is a European works council for Longbridge and the workers at Rover, but it was not consulted as part of the process, so clearly there are flaws in the existing structure.
On an alternative to Alchemy Partners, the Government have made it clear that if Rover has to be sold, and Longbridge has to be part of that sale, we want a new owner who is committed to maintaining the maximum number of jobs and to maintaining car production. That is the objective that we have set ourselves, and we hope that someone may come forward to achieve that. However, as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, Professor Samann said in his evidence to the Select Committee last week that at present Alchemy Partners is the only show in town.
Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex):
Why, in respect of the tragedy that has befallen Longbridge, has the Secretary of State been so dilatory in appearing in Parliament to brief us about the awful events at Longbridge? What lessons has he learned from the dismal, negligent way in which he has handled this matter, in respect of the hard and heavy rumours that are emanating from Ford at Dagenham?
Mr. Byers:
The hon. Gentleman may like to base his decision making on rumours and speculation; I would much rather base my decision making on answers that I receive to clear questions. When I have asked BMW clear questions, I have received clear, precise replies, but none of them indicated, or even hinted, that the disposal of Rover was one of the options that it was considering. That is the reality. I am looking forward to giving evidence before the Select Committee on Wednesday, when I will have a further opportunity to go through, in detail, exactly what was said when and where.
I can understand why Opposition Members are on this detective chase: one, because they have no policies of their own which would deal with a situation such as this; and two, because they do not care about the impact on the individuals and communities affected. It is worth reminding ourselves that they are the party which in the early 1990s presided over an economic situation in which millions of manufacturing jobs were lost, tens of thousands of them in the west midlands. We shall not repeat those mistakes.
Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield):
Is the Secretary of State aware that everybody outside knows that the
Are not there lessons to be learned from this to which the Government should turn their attention? Is it right that our industrial future should rest in the hands of foreign companies without any requirement from the Government to oblige them to enter into agreements with them of a kind that have been contemplated in the past?
Is it not a fact that the exchange rate, although perhaps not the only consideration, was a serious consideration in this case? I know of a potential closure in my constituency where the exchange rate was the dominant consideration. Is it prudent to have a financial policy that endangers manufacturing? Would not it be right for the Government to offer support by way of investment in shares in companies, so as to get a commitment to manufacturing?
After Harland and Wolff, Dagenham and now, possibly, Honda, is it not clear that there needs to be a plainer statement of commitment by the Government not only to workers in difficulty but to the maintenance of manufacturing industry in Britain, on which our whole past strength was built and our future depends?
Mr. Byers:
I agree with my right hon. Friend about the importance of manufacturing to the United Kingdom economy. The Government have already taken a number of steps to support manufacturing. There are many great successes in UK manufacturing, and the great danger when we face particular problems, whether at Harland and Wolff or, in this case, with BMW's decision about Rover, is that we will lose sight of those success stories. The manufacturing sector can learn from the strengths that exist. The skills and innovation in the UK need to be developed because that is where our future prosperity lies.
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