British Steel Bill Ready ‘Soon’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31088, 17 June 1966, Page 9

British Steel Bill Ready ‘Soon’

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, June 16. The Government’s bill to nationalise the British steel industry was reported yesterday to be ready for introduction, in spite of a lastminute offer by the industry that would have allowed more State participation.

The Labour Government, committed to reorganising and controlling the industry, turned down the offer because it would have involved State investment without State control.

Government officials said the nationalisation bill would be introduced in the House of Commons in a week or so. It reportedly follows the lines of last year’s White Paper, which outlined a Government take-over of the 14 major steel companies at share prices which some Labour members of Parliament judged too generous. Mr E. T. Judge, president of the British Iron and Steel Federation, said he had been told by Mr Wilson that the steel industry’s compromise would not be acceptable to the Government.

The companies said they were following the organisation of the European coal and steel authority in their proposals. *

Mr Judge said he was “disturbed and dismayed” by the Government’s attitude, and described its thinking as outdated. Mr Judge said that the Minister for Power, Mr R. March, wrote to him several weeks ago, saying the Government felt that the continued existence of separate steel companies with their own stockholders would bar central planning of investment, production and marketing by the industry as a whole.