Investment grant policy attacked
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TORY and Liberal criticism of the Government's decision not to include vehicles in the new scheme for investment grants failed to move Mr. Douglas Jay, President of the Board of Trade, this week. He told the Commons that manufacturing and extractive industries were being given the additional incentives because they contributed a higher proportion of their output to exports or to import saving than did the service trades.
Opposition Front Bench speakers condemned the Government's attitude to transport, and Mr. Anthony Barber gave examples of the loss of cash benefits in vehicle purchase. Mr. lain Macleod asked on what basis road haulage, which carried something like 80 per cent of the freight tonnage within the country and was part of the country's production line, could be equated with curtains, cutlery and television rental, as indicated by the White Paper.
Mr. Jo Grimond said it was an old-fashioned idea for a Government to hold that there was something intrinsically better about manufacturing than about services--especially as the latter were taking up more and more of national effort in sophisticated countries.