The Opposition welcome the opportunity to have this debate. It is appropriate that hon. Members on both sides of the House should have time to make their comments.

We welcome the inquiry report from Sir Monty Finniston and its significant recommendations. It is only fitting and proper that tribute should be paid to Sir Monty Finniston and his committee of inquiry for producing what must be regarded by hon. Members on both sides of the House as one of the most significant reports on manufacturing industry that we have seen this century.

Having welcomed the time that the Government have provided for the debate, I must say that many Opposition Members would have preferred the Secretary of State to be here this morning. I recognise that the Under-Secretary of State is a competent reader of briefs and that he must talk to his right hon. Friend from time to time, but the maintenance of the momentum described by the hon. Gentleman will require a great deal of interest, enthusiasm and pressure from the Secretary of State. This matter cannot be left to an Under-Secretary of State. It has to be taken up as a cause by the Department of Industry and the Department of Educaton and Science—in fact, by all Departments.

The Under-Secretary touched on several recommendations in the report. I wish that he had touched a little more on some of the symptoms of what we consider to be the disease. The hon. Gentleman glossed lightly over some of the problems that led the previous Labour Government to set up the Finniston inquiry in July 1977. He also glossed over the symptoms that led many institutions to press for some kind of inquiry. Indeed, some institutions, such as the Institution of Electrical Engineers, made no secret of the fact that they wanted an inquiry because they were concerned about the situation in engineering. The Institution of Electrical Engineers was one of the foremost campaigners in pressing for the inquiry to be set up.

Therefore, without dwelling on the matter for too long, we must look at the symptoms and the problem. I put it in the Bank of England's words, which are quoted in the report : The relative industrial decline of this country is now widely seen as a matter of grave concern. If allowed to continue it would seem only too likely to lead to growing impoverishment and unemployment in years to come. I do not always agree with the Governor of the Bank of England, but I think that the Bank has put its finger on what many of us regard as the key symptom.

The TUC has elaborated that slightly by saying : For many years Britain's performance as a manufacturing and trading nation has been in relative decline with her major competitors. Many reasons can be identified as to why this is so, but a central cause of our decline must be our failure to unlock the full contribution of those working in manufacturing industry—or to attract into manufacturing those with a contribution to make. That is perhaps a contemporary interpretation, but I believe that the problem is more deep-seated than that. I believe that it is more deep-seated than merely being a post-war or twentieth century problem. I believe that if we go back to the Industrial Revolution we can find some of the first causes of this relative decline.

There has always been a myth in this country that in the past we have been the great workshop of the world, but the Industrial Revolution was a low-level technological revolution. It was not an advanced industrial revolution. It dealt with concepts and machinery at a low level of technology. Even at the turn of the century, much of the equipment and engineering skills that were used, for example, to build the London Underground system were not English. They were German or American. So, even at the turn of the century, other countries had already overtaken us in advances in engineering concepts.

If we look at the great Victorian educational tradition, we see that there was not very much emphasis on training and education. That was a post-war development. Throughout the English classical education system, the emphasis—