I am glad to support the new Clause proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. Shawcross) and advocated with such expert knowledge and valuable detail by the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Sir P. Bennett). I think we are all agreed that the fundamental purpose of this proposal, which is to change the principle of motor taxation, is one which commands the support not only of the whole of the motor industry but, I believe, of most people who had ever applied their minds to the question of motor taxation. The system of relating taxation to design is completely out of date in the light of the industry's current needs. At one time a motor car was considered a luxury or, at least, a vehicle for sport and recreation, fabricated by craftsmen. Today it is the product of a vast industry of vital concern to our export drive.

Because of that, it is essential that we should establish a divorce between design and taxation. There is no connection whatever between the two, in logic, nor should there be a connection in fact. At the same time, if, as I hope, the Chancellor accepts a new principle of taxation in order that we might create the type of car which will, at one and the same time, be suitable both for the home and export market, then indeed the motor manufacturers will be given the opportunity of doing what they have claimed they want to do for so long—to develop without artificial restraints a flourishing mass production industry which could be of the greatest service in connection with our export programme. I would add one word of warning. It is that in itself a change in the system of taxation will not be enough to give us the exports we need. In the long run that will depend on the new type of cars which the motor manufacturers evolve.

In the past, when design and taxation were closely linked, taxation was a sort of bed of Procrustes into which the designer had to fit his car. If the car was too big he simply had to cut it down. One of the results of that, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Edgbaston, was that the very fact of these limitations helped our designers, engineers and workers to produce a highly developed type of engine and a car of specialised value, popular not only in this country but in many other parts of the world. That was much to the credit of the British motor industry. But today, now that the emphasis is primarily on the export market, we must obviously produce a different kind of car. Unless the form of taxation which the Chancellor introduces will have the effect of compressing the variety of models at both ends—in other words, concentrating the whole weight of the industry behind the manufacture of cars of between 14 and, say, 18 h.p.—then the new tax, if there is to be one, will have failed in its purpose. In those countries abroad where the Americans are sending the surplus of their four million annual production of motor cars, one sees large, high-powered American cars being sold at exactly the same price as British 12 h.p. cars exported to those areas.

I fully agree that there are countries where the small car can do its job more effectively than a larger car, and I think the reputation of the British motor industry stands very high today on the Continent. But the fact remains that in those hard currency areas where we have to compete with the Americans we are unable to do so because we have not got the sort of car, namely a medium horse power car of high efficiency to compete with the powerful and ostentatious cars which the Americans are producing. I agree with the hon. Member for Edgbaston when he says that it is impracticable to produce a car specifically for export at present. I do not think that that is the way to tackle this problem of the export industry. But one thing which is absolutely certain; the motor industry, if it is to compete in the markets of the world, must rationalise and standardise.

I would like to quote what was said by Mr. Lucas, who, I believe, is Chairman of the company in which the hon. Member for Edgbaston has some interest, and who was speaking on the question of standardisation of electrical components in motor cars. Although he himself is a director of a company which has a virtual monopoly of the production of these electrical components, he most vigorously attacked the diversity and multiplicity of designs which the motor manufacturers require. May I give a few examples of this over-multiplication of different components for motor cars? Messrs. Lucas have been asked to produce, and are in fact producing, 68 different kinds of distributors for cars, 60 different kinds of direction indicators, 133 different kinds of headlamps and 98 different kinds of windscreen wipers. In the 58 different cars which are produced in this country, there are 45 different types of starters produced by Messrs. Lucas.

It is time that we had a simplification of the different types of components. Not only is it the case that, while our car manufacturers are producing all these electrical components, they are never going to have that system of a flow of production which the manufacturers of this country admire in America, but the motor manufacturers are continually going to get the delays, of which they are continually complaining, in the supply of electrical components.