Orders of the Day — Political Parties (Accounts)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 15 Rhagfyr 1949.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Major Geoffrey Bing Major Geoffrey Bing , Hornchurch 12:00, 15 Rhagfyr 1949

And of course, the Aims of Industry do distribute from time to time entirely impartial statements of the case of that nature. They are the body who conduct Messrs. Tate and Lyle's anti-nationalisation campaign, and as they explain in their report, Aims of Industry are now well organised to carry out campaigns of a similar nature for any industry who may want to take protective action. Of course, it is non-political.

As I did not want to do him an injustice I took the opportunity of calling on the director of this organisation, and he asked me to make a statement to the House which would put their position very clearly, and I will read it: The Aims of Industry do not support any political party, have no affiliation with any political party, and receive no funds from any political party, nor do we supply any political party with free literature in bulk. We are independent of Conservative policy since we oppose municipal trading, and, for example, are opposed to the holding of the Festival of Britain. According to the report sent to their members in 1948, these non-political activities included in the Aims of Industry are: A sustained attack upon bulk buying, municipal trading, nationalisation, unnecessary controls, Purchase Tax, and bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the director has not felt at liberty to give me the names of the members for whom these particular activities were carried out, but I have been fortunate enough to obtain from another source a list of the 187 principal subscribers to the Aims of Industry, Ltd. Mr. A. J. Rank is near the head of the list, and he is closely followed by the Brewers' Society. I think it is fair to say that this juxtaposition is due more to equality of contributions than to identity of aim.

Among the other non-political activities of this organisation was the arranging of some 39 meetings in the first month of this year for the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards), who recently crossed the Floor of the House. I do hope that when the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) comes to move the Amendment he proposes to move to this Motion, he will say whether this body is one of the organisations which he considers to be political. I will give way to him now if he likes.