To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received from industrialists urging the Government directly to intervene in the strategic direction and management of companies.

The CBI report "Competing with the World's Best" rejected the notion that Government could or should

"be in the business of picking winers, or of engaging in direct intervention in the strategic direction and management of companies".

Yet is that not exactly what the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and his hon. Friends are advocating, through the establishment of a national investment bank and a host of other measures—despite the fact that the hon. Gentleman has never done a day's work in industry in his life? Clearly, the British people do not want a return to the failed interventionist, socialist policies of the 1960s and 1970s—and that is another reason why Labour will be defeated at the next general election.

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is extraordinary that only last week the Leader of the Opposition confirmed that the Labour party is still wedded to bodies such as the national enterprise board, despite the fact that, of the 102 companies in which that body invested, about 35 went bust, 38 were sold at a loss and only the remainder managed even to return taxpayers' money.

Will the Secretary of State have some regard for companies like Lawtex, a firm in my constituency that went into liquidation, resulting in the loss of 120 jobs? Six months later, those people are still waiting for their redundancy payments. Why are the Government sitting on their backsides and failing to see that they are paid now?

With regard to the example that the hon. Gentleman has given, if there is any question of the law of the land not being obeyed I shall ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Employment to look into it.