Orders of the Day — Motor Vehicle Industry

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:23 pm on 1 July 1981.

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Photo of Mr David Bevan Mr David Bevan , Birmingham, Yardley 8:23, 1 July 1981

My constituency of Birmingham, Yardley, is surrounded by and embraces many British Leyland car plants, and a few yards up the road there is the Rover plant that is to be closed.

This has been a fascinating debate, and I appreciate many of the points that have been made. The hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes) said that he had experience of the DS 1. the Rover car that I drive. To judge from his absence, it looks as though he likes it so much that he has gone to have another drive in it. It is a good car, and I should like to see certain matters concerning it redressed. That is not to say that I agree with the wording of the amendment, although I agree and have some sympathy with Members on both sides of the House who are frightened and worried about the British car and component business.

I do not think that Government policy is entirely wrong, but surely part of it must be wrong, or the collective implications of what happens by virtue of its not having been remedied must be wrong. The decisions of successive Governments from the early 1960s onwards, and the Labour Government led thereafter by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), must have been wrong. The policies that were aggregated, inherited and perpetuated must be wrong in certain respects.

It is no answer to say that there must be tariff barriers. That will affect nothing. It will be counter-productive. Indeed, there will eventually be a world rebuttal of those who put up tariff barriers against us. Temporary expedients and temporary restrictions are the politics of desperation, but they become progressively more attractive as the situation worsens.

I remind the House that the Italians, who have been so much quoted, had a bilateral treaty with Japan prior to entering the Common Market, and when they signed the Treaty of Rome they insisted that that agreement should be honoured and included. We were not around to make a similar stipulation. We know the Frenchman's normal de Gaullean sang froid and bloody-mindedness. He, of course, is making the administration of the entry of Japanese cars as difficult as possible.

Over the past decade Britain's capacity has been reduced to almost 50 per cent. In a similar period, Japanese capacity has risen roughly ninefold. Moreover, as has been said, we were importing precisely that amount from two European manufacturers. I point out to the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fletcher) that the voluntary agreement that we have with Japan at about 11 per cent. is almost on target. It is about ½ per cent. off, and we hope that it will shortly be completely on target.

In the present situation we might well be as difficult as the Japanese in the administration of what they import and be as perpetually partisan as the French. I suggest that we should, if that is the medium that we have to use to achieve a more reasonable balance.

I am not so much concerned, however, with international or even national policy, except, as I have said, to the extent that since the early 1960s it has resulted in injury to my part of the world—the heartland of Britain, the iron heart of England, the motor manufacturing centre of this country. It is particularly harming my constituency of Yardley, where I suspect that the majority of the 2,000 people at the Rover plant currently live, and possibly many of the 2,000 others who will be thrown out of work as a result of its closure.

My part of the country has from time immemorial been a manufacturing centre—from swords to buttons, through the whole range of metal goods to carriages and then motor cars and bicycles. With the grant of assisted status to other parts of the country and the restriction of IDCs in the past, my area has been particularly disadvantaged. Yet no other area has been particularly advantaged. The strategic decision to remove car manufacturing from the West Midlands, which was taken in the 1960s and has been carried through, has not assisted other regions. It has not benefited Cowley. Nor has it benefited Speke or Linwood. Many of those plants have closed. But it has certainly disbenefited Birmingham and the West Midlands.

The dictum adopted by successive Governments of "strengthening the weak" has come back like a boomerang to "weaken the strong", and the strong are now themselves very weak. Of four car manufacturing companies in this country, three are now foreign.

We are in danger of becoming mere assemblers of offshore Meccano sets—foreign motor jigsaw puzzles—with an unknown quantum in respect of British components. The car components industry is already decimated, particularly in Birmingham, where at the beginning of this year I undertook an examination of small and medium-sized components firms. Many of those companies do not know where their next orders will come from. In many cases, they do not know where next week's wage bill will come from. On top of that, we have heard the news today that Rubery Owen, whose largest customer was BL, is closing down, with the loss of another 1,000 jobs.

The West Midlands must retain its skills, work force, designs and genius. They must not be diminished by dissipation to those industries abroad which in the main were subsidised by American aid immediately after the war. American money was pumped in in vast quantities, which provided those industries with new plants and factories and gave them a basis for building motor cars that Britain did not possess. Except in a few cases we carried on with our old outworn plant. In those circumstances it is no wonder that those companies could achieve a higher degree of productivity. Of course they found it easier to produce. As a result, labour relations were better than ours.

Bus production has been transferred, for example, from Coventry to Cumberland, with resultant inefficiency and job losses in the West Midlands. My neighbour, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Davis) referred to the Metro Cammell bus. In my previous capacity as chairman of the transport committee in the West Midlands I had the honour of ordering several million pounds worth of those buses to get them into use, and very good buses they are. As a result of Birmingham and the West Midlands ordering mainly Metro Cammell buses, a few redundancies will be avoided.

Production of the TR7 has been all around the place. It went to Cowley, to Solihull, and then to Speke, and it is now to die. We have seen the demise of the MG for no apparent reason, at a time when customers are buying a copy that is selling like wildfire in the United States.

Rover, possibly helped by the falling value of the pound, has picked up 82 per cent. more American orders during the past year. Those astounding facts are before us.

In addition, Birmingham possesses an indigenous industrial genius. Many hon. Members have spoken about research and development. Great things are happening in the West Midlands. There is experimentation by Lucas with electric cars, which will perhaps take five years to develop. If there is a breakthrough with a smaller battery, my word, what ramifications there will be.

There have also been new concepts for motor cars, such as revolutionary engines like the Wainwright Butterfly. There has been the development of a gearbox by a totally new method. The box will be placed where the differential is now located. There has been the development of a sub-floor mounting for the engine, which will allow for left-or right-hand drive. Revolutionary new ideas in ignition, such as plasma arc burning, have already been developed and are available.

If it is moral to preserve and back the nationalised sector so that it is given a chance, it is equally moral that a tithe of the amounts that go into that sector should go into the private sector. If my hon. Friend the Minister would like to know, I should be happy to suggest the companies that could benefit. If he wished to hold industry's hands there might be a splendid partnership.

I speak for Yardley. Birmingham used to be a city of 1,000 trades. It was car-oriented. Hon. Members ask that our skilled workers should not be made redundant and should not be sold to the highest overseas bidder. We must look carefully to find where our Achilles heel is and to see whether, by exposing it, a shaft will be fired into it that will do irreparable harm—even worse than that experienced today—to the industry.

I am banging a drum for Birmingham, which has been mortally wounded by a geographical disprivilege that has been sustained by successive Governments. The famous Austin 7 was made by a Birmingham entrepreneur in a garage in one of the town's back streets. Such activities could still be fostered. I drive the car that was called "The Car of the Year" the Rover 3.5, and it is excellent. It does not need to be replaced by an alternative model at this stage. It does not need to be moved to Cowley, when there is an engine and body shop a couple of miles away in Castle Bromwich.

I bang the gong for Birmingham and I yell for Yardley. My people can and should work. The grand strategy to remove the car manufacturing capability from the West Midlands is wrong. Our growing rate of unemployment is at least three times that of any other area in the United Kingdom. At present, unemployment in Birmingham amounts to 13·4 per cent. Opposition Members pointed out that unemployment might rise to 30 per cent. God help us all if that happens.

About 10 years ago British manufacturers made 40 per cent. of the cars sold in Britain. They now make half that amount. No one believes in interfering with industry. Let managers manage. However, when the Government invest £1 billion they are in the position of a bank manager, standing behind a company chairman. The bank manager is entitled to tell the chairman, that, having put up the money, he does not expect to see one of his finest plants immediately closed and some of his most skilled people put out of work.

I commend a series of articles on the Rover DS 1 that appeared in the Birmingham Evening Mail. Indeed, I recommend that my hon. Friend the Minister looks at them. I refer in particular to the magnificent editorial in this morning's Birmingham Post. We must follow a trade policy of some sort, but it must be based on repricocity. There must be some element of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The value of the barter between the two willing parties must have some indentity. We are worried, because the imbalance is growing. If it continues to grow I shall, regretfully, have to rechristen my constituency "Hardly—hardly any work". Birmingham is fast becoming "Blightedham" and the West Midlands will have to be renamed "the Mid Wastelands".