Leaked Defence report urges ‘privatisation’

Press, 24 March 1984, Page 30

Leaked Defence report urges ‘privatisation’

NZPA-Reuter London Britain’s defence chiefs have been advised in a secret report to hand over repair work on warships, including Polaris nuclear submarines, to private firms, said the Defence Ministry. The report was written by Mr Peter Levene, who is on a six-month assignment as adviser to the Secretary of Defence, Mr Michael Heseltine, a Ministry spokesman told Reuters. He is also chairman of a company which makes armaments and vice-chairman of the Defence Manufacturers’ Association.

The report ssys that private firms should take over refits and repairs, worth

about £5OO million (JNZIIIS million) a year, at two Naval dockyards. The work is now done by about 25,000 civilian Government employees. Mr Levene’s report, leaked to a Labour member of Parliament, was published recently in the “Guardian” newspaper. With the leaks from Conservative Government fast becoming a downpour, the Defence Ministry made what is now the routine announcement that the police were hunting the civil servant responsible. Mr Levene was quoted by the “Guardian” as saying his plan had been informally accepted by the Roval Navy, although the

Defence Ministry said they were only preliminary proposals.

Full consultation would follow, said a spokesman. It was too early to speculate on the outcome. Mr Heseltine now faces 17 Parliamentary questions from Mr Gordon Brown, the Parliamentarian to whom the report was leaked. If implemented, it would be the most startling piece of “privatisation” by the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, who is engaged in reversing decades of nationalisation by Labour governments, and returning such key industries as the telephone network, North Sea Oil, and British Airways to private hands.