Part of Orders of the Day — Finance Bill – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 17 Mehefin 1947.
We are likely to have a shortage of steel for the next four years, before the Socialist reforms in which some of us believe come into full effect. We must, therefore, if we are responsible people, look forward to this. Within the next two or three years we must have a reorganisation of the industry, whose last excuse for not reorganising is removed by the Chancellor's speech. The hon. Member for King's Norton (Mr. Blackburn) said earlier in the Debate that, after all, price did not matter, we had quality. I would point out to him that even an article of quality has a price, and we have to compete in price with the rest of the world. Our 18 horse-power car has to compete with its American opposite number, and any one who went to the Geneva exhibition knows what we are up against. Our cars are competing against their opposite numbers which cost half as much. I do not mean opposite numbers in horse power, but opposite numbers in the sense of which a similar class of customer will buy—for instance, the Buick compared with the Humber. American cars are roughly half the price for the same sort of vehicle. We have to face that fact; we have to have competitive prices, and they will not be produced simply by a change in financial or fiscal legislation.
The Chancellor has removed the fiscal shackles, but the trouble is that there are a great many worse shackles, which the industry has set upon itself and to which allusion has been made, which it must remove. If those shackles are not removed in time, we shall have heavy unemployment in Coventry. We shall have heavy unemployment if we do not get ahead with the export drive, if we do not improve our models and cut down the prices so that, when we come to the buyers' market, we shall really be able to compete. If we do not do that the Midlands will be faced with a very serious situation, and it is therefore with a grave heart that we look forward. We thank the Chancellor and everybody who has helped us, but we know that the real job is up to the industry. If the industry is not willing and able by voluntary agreement to put its house in order, some of us at least would expect this Government to put some pressure on the industry, in the national interest and in the interest of the workers, to put itself in order by carrying out the necessary rationalisation, without which this change of fiscal policy will be completely nugatory.