Orders of the Day — Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 15 April 1964.

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Photo of Mr Harold Wilson Mr Harold Wilson , Huyton 12:00, 15 April 1964

I am sorry to interrupt again, but it is very hard to get the right hon. Gentleman even to first base on this point. Will he understand that the argument which I was putting yesterday and which I have put in many speeches recently—I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not got it yet—is that it is not a question of putting import controls on this machinery; it is a condemnation of the Government in the exercise of their responsibility over the past 12 years that we have not created the dynamic in these firms and industries so that the balance has not developed in the way it should? Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the figures I gave yesterday for machine tools show that we are, by and large, importing the sophisticated machine tools and exporting the more old-fashioned types? Is he really complacent at out the fact that over the last two, three, five or ten years we have been losing ground in the most modern types and that it is a question of encouraging the production of the most modern types and not a question of controls or Gladstonian free trade?