I was Regional Director from 1972 until 1974, based in Newcastle, where shipbuilding was one of the major industries, but had no particular responsibility for it. My second involvement was as a Deputy Secretary in the DTI between 1975 and 1980.

I became involved as Deputy Secretary just when the nationalisation Bill for aircraft and shipbuilding [the two were never separated] was under attack for hybridity in Parliament. I was there throughout the following period involved in the return of the Bill after its defeat. There were problems with the Examiners of Bills [on various challenges on hybridity over the inclusion of ship repair firms] and eventually the compromise that enabled nationalisation to take place. If I may make one comment, my recollection is that the Conservative Party Opposition at one late stage was prepared to reach an accommodation with the Labour Government if they would exempt ship repair, if not most of the significant ship repairers were knocking on my door immediately afterwards to be brought in. Perhaps the Conservative Party had made a misjudgement. What they might have done instead was to concentrate on the compensation terms of nationalisation which proved very difficult. When the chips were down, and because Labour were not prepared to compromise on ship repair, the Bill fell, and it had to be reintroduced.

The Organising Committee under Admiral Griffin was the shadow Board that was brought in immediately after the Second Reading of the Bill. They had the task of planning for the new industry, and I used to see them regularly. Then there was the division in the Department, the under Secretary, Mike Casey, originally, then Arthur Russell. Shipbuilding had been a major issue in the DTI for years, and it was an extremely tough division to run. The whole history of the industry, apart from the warship firms, had been one of desperate trouble for it to compete.

The obvious difficulty was that the industry was not competitive, and it was impossible for it to get orders without public subsidy, and not small subsidy either. The second difficulty was persuading the Commission of the European Economic Community to allow us to subsidise to the extent that we wanted to. The third factor, at that particular time, was a recession in shipbuilding orders, which had existed for some years.