Mr. Hunter asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will now give further details about the negotiations for the purchase of oil from the United States of America to help in the Present Oil Crisis.

Second, production in this country - total production - for almost the first time since 1945 has been stagnating all this year, and was already actually falling before the Oil Crisis occurred.

Every manufacturer is demanding that as soon as the Oil Crisis is over and we are through the misadventure of Suez we should get back to a reduction of the credit squeeze, that we must reduce the Bank rate and that all that has to be behind us so that we can begin to let up.

It is very unlikely that this tremendous disparity between ourselves and the underdeveloped countries in the use of oil will continue much longer In twentyyears, there will almost certainly be a Major Oil Crisis in the world.

In the next ten or fifteen years, there may be Another Oil Crisis arising from an international situation and it may be necessary to reactivate the pits at short notice.

Will he say that he fears Another Oil Crisis and that we must have these stocks doubled up in the next two years?

Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Oil Crisis in the Middle East has given the matter more urgency?

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that an Oil Crisis is building up, and will he in his Department give consideration to the better use and greater use of electric traction?

As to the likelihood of an Oil Crisis, it is possible to exaggerate such matters, I must again say that this is a matter for my right hon. Friend.

If there is an Oil Crisis there must not be too great a reliance on diesel oil and there is a case for increasing electrification more rapidly, but such a crisis in this country is by no means certain.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire and the hon. Member for Bolton, East have discussed the implications of the Oil Crisis in some detail.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Laurance Reed) and the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) more on being able to raise the subjects they wish to discuss in this debate on the Oil Crisis, thus allowing them to go to sleep a little earlier than they might otherwise have expected.

Reverting to my right hon. Friend's answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr Scott-Hopkins), does my right hon Friend accept that the Oil Crisis, unfortunately, is not likely to be a nine-day wonder?

I emphasise that in 1973, in spite of the threat of an Oil Crisis in Europe, there is an increasing use of road transport.

Why for some months past has his Department issued one statement after another denying that there was Any Impending Oil Crisis?

I suspect that the real reason is that they are waiting for a Major Oil Crisis - promoted in part by their own refusal to act now - to produce a smoke screen under which they can make yet another reversal in their whole style of economic management.

I want to return to the balance of payments and to some remarks about the Oil Crisis.

It consists of the Oil Crisis, the crisis about raw materials, the crisis about shortages of feed grains and the crisis about the shortage of newsprint.

On the question of general energy supplies, there was a case for taking precautionary action to deal with the Oil Crisis.

Mr. Sydney Chapman asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between all Government Departments and Ministers with respect to the Oil Crisis.

That will not solve the Present Oil Crisis, but in future it could prove to be a small but significant source of oil fuel.

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that these discussions were, in part, about the possibility of the world turning into a deflation as a result of the Oil Crisis?

Faced with the likely prospect of an Oil Crisis in the Middle East it was right for the Government, I believe to decide as they did a year ago, to pursue the only sensible energy policy available to the country, which was swiftly to increase the supply of energy from every available indigenous source.

I agreed with the brief middle section of it in which he dealt with the Oil Crisis and oil shortages, but the political knockabout at the beginning and end seemed to be strangely out of line with the few brief remarks he made about the oil crisis.

One thing that I learned from Adam Smith - I might not have learned this if there had not been an Oil Crisis after Suez - was that if we were to produce enough oil from the North Sea for our own needs we could hardly use it if its value was substantially greater by selling it abroad than using it here.

It is clear that the Oil Crisis has badly jolted phase 3.

Since these figures were and are most encouraging, will my hon. Friend say to what extent he feels they may have been dented by the Oil Crisis and the miners' overtime ban?

In this time of Oil Crisis I was hoping that my hon. Friend the Minister would say something about the problem of bunkering.

We have a new problem in the Oil Crisis.

We have to look carefully at the Committee's findings because here we are dealing with something which, particularly in the light of the Recent Oil Crisis, is of paramount importance.

Is the Secretary of State aware that his statement and the measures contained in it will do little to reassure the people, who seem to be much more aware of the gravity of the Oil Crisis than he is?

It has been increasingly apparent, even to laymen, that this project is technically possible, economically viable and necessary, and here one comes to the Oil Crisis which underlines the need, long felt by many people, for a high-speed link between the Midlands of this country and the middle of Europe, and that link can be powered by two nuclear power stations.

] - and in times of an Oil Crisis such as we have now, the task of the Government and the process of supply and legislation have to go on.

What plans have the Government for dealing with the Oil Crisis?

The present Government must understand that the Oil Crisis which they face can be solved only by a national energy programme which, so far as we on this side of the House are concerned, means the nationalisation of North Sea oil.

Then we will have a most serious situation - not only an Oil Crisis but, on top of that, a coal crisis.

In the Present Oil Crisis should not we all, on both sides of the House, look at the interests of the British people as a whole and not make speeches at weekends suggesting that the answer to the crisis is a General Election?

I should like to consider very briefly two aspects: namely, the Oil Crisis and the lessons that the war may hold for our future equipment programme and tactical thinking.

Would my right hon. Friend agree that if British foreign policy on the Middle East, enunciated so clearly over three years ago, had been accepted there would not be an Oil Crisis today?

I am glad that the Chancellor at last gave us a more realistic assessment of the implications of the Oil Crisis, although it gives a different impression from his earlier statement and, above all, from that given by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

In addition, our domestic inflation is the reason for the catastrophic trade deficits, antecedent altogether to the Oil Crisis, which everyone recognises are a signal set at danger, past which it is absolutely impossible for any Government or any country to drive.

It is that the economic crisis justifies their measures, that the Oil Crisis has complicated the situation, that industrial disputes have made necessary the measures announced by the Prime Minister, and that the whole nation should now, in duty bound, support the Government.

Of course, the Oil Crisis makes the situation worse in almost every respect, and particularly our balance of payments deficit.

As every hon. Member is aware, the Present Oil Crisis is unpleasant and unpredictable for British industry.

It is tragic that not only does an expanding economy have to come to a halt because of the Oil Crisis but now, due to industrial action, we may have to switch off to the point that our gross domestic product will fall much faster than elsewhere.

There are, in addition, too many Government supporters who know that the time for skilful political jobs is over, who know that the methods of the past few years have been responsible for the slither into a financial mess at home and abroad which was there before the Oil Crisis, before the coal crisis and, as the Chancellor made clear in a perhaps unguarded reply on Monday, would still be there if the immediate issues were fully resolved.

Is it because this is a retaliation against the very unforthcoming British position on the medium-or short-term response to the Oil Crisis facing Western Europe?

The link between the arguments about the Oil Crisis and those about the coal crisis has tended to be the relative costs and prices of both coal and oil.

The Oil Crisis is essentially international and its impact will be felt in the Western world and by all the OECD countries.

We faced severe trouble even before the Middle East war sparked off the Oil Crisis - certainly before the current industrial disputes.

Why, almost overnight, with the Oil Crisis, all the relativities were changed again: the relative importance of various occupations, various forms of production, were shifted, and shifted unpredictably - shifted not once and for all but in a way which went on progressively.

lower than would have been anticipated had there not been an Oil Crisis.

Further to the questions raised by my hon. Friends the Members for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and Hey-wood and Royton (Mr. Joel Barnett), can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether in the discussions on Community response to the Oil Crisis there was any consideration of unilateral oil-for-arms or oil-for-commodity deals by member States and, in particular, whether the Franco-Saudi deal was discussed?

Regardless of the coalminers working a five-day week, and irrespective of the Oil Crisis, we now know from the Governor of the Bank of England that this country, after more than three years of profligacy and mismanagement is running a deficit on the balance of payments of £2,500 million a year.

The visit was arranged many months ago, well before the Oil Crisis and the hostilities in the Middle East last October.

Other problems of success are, "How to conceal the fact that the disaster developed before the Oil Crisis and before the miners' overtime ban.

Yes, but is the Chancellor of the Exchequer not aware that the trade figures which were published yesterday affect a situation which developed before the Oil Crisis had time to feed through into the balance of payments, and which existed long before the industrial disputes began in the middle of December?

In the later part of last year - but before the Oil Crisis and before the disastrous miners' dispute began - the Government's economic strategy was working out well.

Even if the Chief Secretary is right and it was all planned it is still a serious problem when in the last quarter of 1973 the visible trade deficit was running at an annual rate of £3,000 million with very little to do with the Oil Crisis.

Indeed, the terms have become worse, owing to the Oil Crisis.

It must be admitted that the Oil Crisis has changed the outlook of the Western world.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) that there is just as much chance in the long term, not in three or four years, that the Oil Crisis will recede because the OPEC countries might see the difficulties, in international monetary terms, arising from their inability to make fruitful investments with the funds flowing to them.

Secondly, we have the Oil Crisis.

The Oil Crisis, thanks to our Arab friends, has greatly enhanced the value of these assets.

The most recent estimate of semi-submersible drilling rig capacity - made before the Recent Oil Crisis - foresaw a world-wide shortage of 20 rigs by 1982.

In view of the adverse effect of the Oil Crisis on Jamaica, have the Government received any request for extra aid from Jamaica?

We have now had the Oil Crisis and other problems, producing a sharp fall, and if the fall is maintained it will mean perhaps a 25 per cent.

I agree with a great deal that the Chancellor said at the beginning of his speech about the implications of the Oil Crisis for the behaviour of the consumer countries.

Economists knew these to be the facts well before the end of last year, but the sudden public recognition of the Oil Crisis presented the economic problem in a completely new dimension to public opinion.

I should have thought that a hard-headed businessman like the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry would at once recognise the validity of the miners' claim to sell their labour at the market rate, especially now that the Oil Crisis has made coal even more essential to the economy, or, to put it another way, that the miners should be paid the market value of the coal that they mine.

It is no coincidence that the power workers, the railwaymen and the miners had their industrial actions simultaneously in the middle of winter, especially when the nation was confronted with the Oil Crisis.

The other advantage to the Government following from the Oil Crisis is the loss by the multinational oil companies of their traditional control.

The Oil Crisis broke, so the British attitude was "To hell with the Dutch.

As a result of the Oil Crisis and the consequence flowing therefrom, the balance of comparable economic advantage appears to be swinging in favour of most South American countries, particularly those such as Venezuela and Ecuador, which produce oil, and Brazil, which exports many valuable commodities.

By the end of the year, as the Oil Crisis broke, the problems were piling up on every side.

They started in July long before the Oil Crisis.

The American time scale in approaching the Oil Crisis is very different from our own.

The second stage of this reduction programme was due by 1st January but unfortunately, because of the Oil Crisis, had to be postponed.

The Oil Crisis of last autumn, which could recur at any time, has concentrated our minds wonderfully.

The Select Committee, at one stage before the Present Oil Crisis, was putting heavy emphasis on this as its favourite.

It has been argued that the Oil Crisis and its effect on electricity generating costs means that an across-the-board increase of 0.

It might be helpful if my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary were to make proposals to ease the financial difficulties of the French balance of payments in the face of the approaching Oil Crisis.

Mrs. Hart: The Council considered the question of a Community contribution in response to the United Nations' proposed emergency measures for the countries hardest hit by the Oil Crisis, and referred a final decision to the Council of Foreign Ministers on 25th June.

They were going places when the Oil Crisis hit them.

]—Although relations between the Community and Asian Commonwealth countries were not discussed specifically at the Council I would expect those countries to benefit substantially from Community actions in favour of developing countries hardest hit by the Oil Crisis and under a Community policy for a world-wide distribution of its aid.

No one who has studied the problem is in doubt that the Oil Crisis will cause no more than a temporary hesitation in the graph reflecting the upward trend of air travel.

For example, in present circumstances we can seek to influence countries in surplus to adopt policies which will ease the adjustment process in the wake of the Oil Crisis.

At the same time we have to bear in mind that world demand is not expanding as rapidly as it has done in recent years, partly because of the Oil Crisis and partly because of the general economic situation, but we feel that our motor car industry, with its wide range of smaller cars, is well placed to meet this demand.

Then came the autumn, the Oil Crisis and the miners' dispute.

Mr. Blaker asked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will make a statement about the proposed EEC contribution towards the special United Nations Fund for developing countries worst hit by the Oil Crisis.

asked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will make a statement about the proposed EEC contribution towards the special United Nations Fund for developing countries worst hit by the Oil Crisis.

Furthermore, will she say whether her Department has considered whether there is a rôle for private capital and private investment in assisting the developing countries most badly hit by the Oil Crisis to reach higher standards of development?

World-wide reactions to the Oil Crisis justify some concern that the prospect further ahead is for recession.

That was before the Oil Crisis.

The simple world of gentle waves on the graphs of the various statistical series came to an end in the latter half of the 1960s, well before the Oil Crisis.

Many of us feel that the "trade not aid" approach is one which we should usefully follow now, particularly for those countries most affected by the Oil Crisis; namely, India.

If we add to that the intensification of those long-term problems by the Oil Crisis and the effect of the rise in oil prices last year, the confrontation associated with earlier legislation, and the three-day working week, we get some measure of the magnitude of the task that confronts us as we debate our industrial problems.

But never more so than it does today, with the Oil Crisis coming on top of an already serious adverse bal-ance, and with a very high rate of inflation.

I have offered this brief and oversimplified outline of the impact of the Oil Crisis on the economy of the industrial world—ignoring for the moment its even more tragic impact on the developing world where 800 million people are condemned to permanent hunger—because 245 nothing we in Britain do at home can succeed if the world as a whole does not adjust successfully to the impact of the increase in oil prices.

Although we entered the era of the Oil Crisis with a worse inheritance than most of our competitors, we entered it with better prospects in one key respect.

The right hon. Gentleman will also be aware that, between the survey published by the CBI last year and the one this year, we have had a Massive Oil Crisis.

He will see in column 281 of the OFFICIAL REPORT that my right hon. Friend referred to the challenge presented by the Oil Crisis.

Most unfortunately, when the Oil Crisis first broke out the then Prime Minister, now Leader of the Opposition, seemed to take a sort of Gaullist lurch, which was in grave danger of wrecking our relations with the United States.

Next, the new local authorities were told by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hexham to keep their eyes tightly shut against the realities of the Oil Crisis and world-wide inflation, and to rate for only a 9 per cent.

There are strict limits in our capacity to spend resources because of the Oil Crisis and the deficit facing us.

In this case naturally, in view of the Oil Crisis, the Government of India are anxious to exploit their own coal reserves rather faster than otherwise would have been the case.

This was followed by the Oil Crisis and the massive push that that gave to the inflation of costs throughout agriculture.

The Oil Crisis last October has meant a major reappraisal of taxation policies, licensing and conservation measures.

Some of the countries which are hardest hit by the Oil Crisis and the shortage of food are those which are already suffering deprivation and premature deaths, on the one hand by drought and on the other hand, tragically, by floods.

It has carried on ever since with even greater emphasis following the Oil Crisis last year.

It says that different countries face the problem in different ways because of the impact of the previous balance of payments situation, before the Oil Crisis.

After all, the Government have been in office for 10 months, and that is surely more than enough time to present a set of proposals to deal with so vital a problem, which is part of our most intractable problem today - the Oil Crisis, which arose exactly a year ago.

We are going through a period when power is in short supply, but when I listen to Opposition spokesmen I wonder whether there is an Oil Crisis.

In the circumstances of the Oil Crisis and the fluid situation of world currencies we may well be floating many of our local government services with the aid of Arab oil money.

There have been significant changes in the world economy since the project was launched, brought about, of course, by the Oil Crisis, in particular.

The Oil Crisis should have taught the West the vital importance of securing our raw materials and the safety of our sea routes.

I suggest to the House that if we had maintained our modest presence in the Persian Gulf, at the expense of the local State, instead of having it removed by a previous Socialist Defence Minister, we may not have seen the development of the Oil Crisis to the present extent.

That forecast was drawn up in the autumn of 1973 in a very different economic climate, before the three-day working week and before the Oil Crisis - at a time when at least one hon. Gentleman opposite was talking about Britain suffering from the problems of affluence.

The Oil Crisis and the deepening world recession have plunged the industry everywhere into difficulties.

But in the past 12 months it has had the three-day working week, the Oil Crisis, falling demand, and foreign competition, which in recent months has reached enormous proportions.

It might be thought an outrageous proposal in these times when people even balk at the thought of using their cars a little less in the face of an Oil Crisis.

Certainly, credit terms are central here, and the Indian Government have very good internal economic reasons, because in the aftermath of the Oil Crisis they face a quadrupling of oil prices, for wanting to get the aircraft as cheaply as possible.

Mr. Hooley asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a summary of discussions held at Ditchley Park over the weekend 1st-2nd February concerning the impact of the Oil Crisis on the Western financial system and the British balance of payments.

But we cannot accept the idea of Community arrangements if Governments do not adopt liberal policies for offshore development; common rules for imports and exports of oil and gas; price policy which went beyond transparency towards harmonisation; and Community measures for dealing with an Oil Crisis - especially that point - which do not accord with the International Energy Agency emergency oil-sharing scheme.

The Commission proposes in an Oil Crisis emergency demand restraint covering all energy forms and Commission surveillance of intra-Community oil movements by means of an automatic licensing system.

That is the crucial nature of the decision before us, and some reference to it must be made, particularly in the light of the Oil Crisis dating from the latter months of 1973.

It is clear that the reason is a sudden neurotic obsession with the Oil Crisis and some of the consequences for the Common Market organisation.

In my opinion and the opinion of many of my hon. Friends representing constituencies in the Greater Manchester area, the Oil Crisis and everything else that has happened since 1970 confirms the soundness of this decision.

In the midst of an Oil Crisis, has my right hon. Friend considered how much traffic could be moved from the private motor car to the rail system if the go-ahead were given?

It started well before the Oil Crisis of 1973.

the purchase of two bum under-pricing holiday firms, Clarkson and Horizon; too many directors; lack of delegation; a complete reliance on new aircraft; an overextending of the company's financial position with the purchases of Caribbean Hotels, TriStar and an aviation company in the Leeward Isles; financial control systems that daunted even an expert like Rupert Nicholson; a failure to consult staff over important issues; and finaly a refusal to adapt to the decline in bookings, Oil Crisis, etc".

Inflation and uncertainty at home were dramatically compounded by the Oil Crisis and the impact of the three-day working week.

The insolvency came about through the calculated and disastrous policies of the management; the purchase of two bum under-pricing holiday firms, Clarkson and Horizon; too many directors; lack of delegation; a complete reliance on new aircraft; an overextending of the company's financial position with the purchases of Caribbean Hotels, TriStar and an aviation company in the Leeward Isles; financial control systems that daunted even an expert like Rupert Nicholson; a failure to consult staff over important issues; and finaly a refusal to adapt to the decline in bookings, Oil Crisis, etc.

I am afraid that I do not accept that argument, in that the so-called "Barber boom" had come to a halt by the summer of 1973, before the Oil Crisis.

The Oil Crisis has not made matters any easier.

The balance of payments has suffered enough because of the Oil Crisis.

There can be no question that the theme behind this debate is the question of the impact of the Oil Crisis on the grants we are considering.

Last summer I was fortunate enough to spend 10 days in India as the guest of the Indian Government and to travel around that vast country and see something of the problems which existed before the Oil Crisis but which have been heightened and sharpened by the vastly increased difficulties which that crisis has created for the Indian authorities.

We are also getting some of the side effects of the Oil Crisis.

Has my hon. Friend actually heard that the Oil Crisis has not helped those who make motor cars?

What happened when the Oil Crisis arose and there was the problem of recycling oil revenues?

The corollary of his criticism must be that if the Community did have a foreign policy it would be able to exert the kind of pressure which he correctly pointed out it was unable to exert during the Oil Crisis.

The Oil Crisis has to some extent widened the scope of international trade and the possibilities for British industry, so long as we take our eyes off this magic Paris-Bonn axis and look around us at the real opportunities in the world.

The point 1 was making was that when the Oil Crisis hit the European Community it was totally helpless to cope with it.

Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree thatin the Oil Crisis the end product was that no member of the European Community went short of fuel, as a result of the decisions taken by Ministers within the Community, although they were unable to make them public at the time?

But there has been something of a revolution in world food supplies and prices comparable to the Oil Crisis, which itself was responsible for major increases in the costs of food production, processing and distribution, through its effects on fertilisers, fuel, transport and shipping costs.

This population now expects a high standard of living, education and social welfare in which, even in the aftermath of the Oil Crisis, most sections anticipate improvement rather deterioration.

Coincidentally with entry - it is one of the great tragedies that it has worked out this way - there was the Oil Crisis and the dramatic rise in world food prices.

However, I was very impressed during the Oil Crisis last year at how ready everybody to whom I spoke seemed to be to make some kind of sacrifice on petrol.

This was the point I had in mind when I said that in the Oil Crisis last year there was considerable public support for petrol rationing.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that the forecast made by British Railways was based on estimated coal carrying before the Oil Crisis and before the heavy increase in the amount of coal carried?

The effect of the Budget measures on employment has given me great concern, since I absolutely reject the use of mass unemployment as an instrument of policy, and this year employment will be seriously affected in any case by the world recession springing from the Oil Crisis.

Both the three-day week and the Oil Crisis created uncertainties about the development of our economy which made prediction dangerous and policy precarious.

The third major impact of the Oil Crisis is one which affects the whole world but which I think we in Britain foresaw more clearly than many of our partners.

That aim has not been realised, and for various reasons—price restraint in previous years, heavy increases in operating costs, and a lack of buoyancy in traffic as a result of the Oil Crisis and of general economic conditions—the operating deficit on these services has risen to a level which the STG cannot support from its own resources.

The whole philosophy behind that approach is dangerous, because it assumes that the Oil Crisis is temporary, that we can ignore it and overcome it, that we have only to deal with our trading position in commodities other than oil.

The Government's Transport and Road Research Laboratory's forecast of vehicle traffic in Great Britain was revised as recently as the end of 1974, and that, of course, was after the Oil Crisis and the increase in petrol prices.

In this Budget we have seen that we are paying the price for the approach of the Labour Party at the February General Election in putting forward an unrealistic programme in relation to the problems and prospects that we faced as a result of the Oil Crisis, and its approach which said: "Vote for us, and we shall get you back to work without considering the costs".

Since November 1973 when the Oil Crisis really started to bite, we have had a succession of misfortunes.

No one can deny that the Oil Crisis of 1973 has presented the oil-consuming Western nations with the need to restrain demand for high-cost imported oil as well as with the need to pursue the maximum exploration and development of their own energy-producing resources.

The Defence Estimates were produced in the autumn of 1973 in a different economic climate, before the three-day week and before the Oil Crisis, and at a time when the Prime Minister was still talking about Britain suffering from the problems of affluence.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although the Oil Crisis has been serious for us, it has been disastrous for many developing countries, particularly the Asian countries?

Does the Minister agree that many countries affected by the Oil Crisis also suffer from natural disasters affecting food?

The hon. Member will remember that the Conservative Government had to announce its public expenditure cuts one month after the Oil Crisis had started, on 17th December 1973 - cuts greater in real terms than those which the Chancellor has now announced.

The right hon. Lady and the right hon. and learned Gentleman know as well as anyone in this country that there are three major criteria of economic success in which Britain has done well in recent months by comparison with almost any of her competitors, all of whom faced the same problems created by the Oil Crisis and the world recession but none of whom entered the oil crisis with the handicaps that we inherited.

This is due to the biggest world depression - a depression caused largely by the Oil Crisis - since the 1930s.

Indeed, by his action inthe recent Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer provided proof of this Government's determination to correct the structural weaknesses in the United Kingdom economy, made considerably more serious by the Recent Oil Crisis.

That report was produced before the Oil Crisis.

It might be like that for 1975–76, because member countries were all worried about the worldwide recession and the way in which their budgets got out of line following the Oil Crisis.

In substantiating my claim of humbug it is worth pointing out that the Conservatives were still in office in 1973 shortly before the General Election and faced economic difficulties which were not so severe as those confronting thecountry when the full pressure of the Oil Crisis was upon us.

Although the Community allows help to deal with the Oil Crisis, here the Minister has done nothing to help the fishing industry, and trawlers continue to be tied up.

As far as unemployment is concerned, the world recession following the Oil Crisis hit every advanced country, many of which had higher unemployment figures than at any time for 30 years.

After that, there were the problems of the Oil Crisis, the three-day working week, and the slumps in the shipping and tourist markets.

In my constituency there is a new and expanding - at least, expanding until the Oil Crisis - horticultural development, and some of those buildings are certainly in excess of 10, 000 sq.

However, the air transport industry, both in the United Kingdom and worldwide, has been hard hit by the Oil Crisis and general recession of the last two years.

The problems of that economy are exacerbated by the world economic climate, the Oil Crisis, and the world recession, which is hitting Rhodesia hard.

The White Paper does not go far enough in bringing out the appalling effect of the Oil Crisis on the developing world.

Because when the right hon. Gentleman left office, when he left this job, the Oil Crisis had not begun to bite on the British economy.

The coming of the Oil Crisis and the world commodity explosion destroyed industrial confidence - and who can blame industrialists for that?

We are still in the depth of the world recession created by the Oil Crisis.

Moreover, the right hon. Gentleman must understand - this is extremely important - that one of the main causes of the recession throughout the country and the Western world has been the Oil Crisis and the increase in oil prices and, perhaps even more, the way in which different countries reacted.

The serious situation is due partly to the Oil Crisis and partly to the recession which is taking place world-wide.

Then there was a debate on the Oil Crisis, involving my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

The Oil Crisis caused a reversion of the process, but we saw in 1974 the effect of the policies undertaken in the period 1971–73.

The fact is that the short-lived recovery generated by the reflationary measures of 1971 and 1972 was strangled in the autumn of 1973, even before the Oil Crisis hit us.

limit imposed at the time of the Oil Crisis applying on major roads is to be made permanent.

I accept that the Government have been unfortunate, in this time of severe economic restraint, in meeting an Oil Crisis that is outside our own control, and with one of the downturns in capitalist economies.

The deficit in the balance of payments, including oil, is now very much less than it was under the Conservatives in their last year before the Oil Crisis hit Britain.

First, the Oil Crisis at the end of 1973 had radically changed the airline industry's future prospects.

This may have been justifiable during the Oil Crisis of 1974 but I am doubtful whether it is necessarily true of the future.

It is sufficient to say that if Skytrain - this is a valid argument which has been made - had been allowed to go ahead in the conditions likely to prevail in the North Atlantic market in the next few years following the Oil Crisis, it would have been particularly damaging to British Airways.

The same applies to the Oil Crisis.

Stage two as proposed for 1st January 1974, but that was postponed until 1st November 1974 because of the Oil Crisis.

As all this is so innocuous and so unnecessary, can my hon. Friend explain why it was that this country had every intention of proceeding to the 0·40 level until the Oil Crisis, and we abandoned that not on health grounds but on economic grounds only?

These events included a reflation of the economy, the Oil Crisis, accelerating inflation, a major cut in public expenditure and a new Government with rather different priorities.

We would have done so if we had not suffered the Oil Crisis.

We entered the Oil Crisis withan economy that was far weaker than that of any other industrial country in the world.

If it is cut, as occurred during the Oil Crisis and as nearly occurred during the last war, life itself will collapse.

In 1973, before the Oil Crisis really hit us, the OECD countries, collectively, were in surplus to the tune of $2·5 billion, the OPEC countries had a $3·5 billion surplus and the non-oil developing countries a deficit of $5 billion.

It was irrelevant to the Oil Crisis which occurred in 1973.

In just a few moments the hon. Gentleman glossed over such matters as taxation, investment, the Price Code, the Oil Crisis, profitability, unemployment, productivity and dividend restraint.

Not on economic grounds but on health grounds it was proposed to come down to that level, but unfortunately, with the onset of the Oil Crisis, we changed our minds and did not take that action.

Even before the Oil Crisis hit us in 1973, growth had come to a halt in Britain, our balance of payments deficit by the end of 1973 was already racing up, and inflation, fuelled by a grossly excessive increase in the money supply, was already rising rapidly.

We estimate that lower speeds, together with other changes in driving behaviour since the Oil Crisis, are reducing consumption of motor spirit by 3 per cent.

The caravan builders had a good export record, but following the Oil Crisis of autumn 1973 they have had a depressed market both at home and abroad from which they have been recovering only very slowly.

We then had the Oil Crisis, but in spite of the oil crisis and the three-day working week, the pound was at $2·22 when the Conservative Government left office, and when that Government left office that was the pound's lowest point during the Government's lifetime.

With the Oil Crisis, inflation all but doubling costs, cars beyond the reach of many more families, bus companies giving up country routes, and with 70 per cent.

That is a remarkable achievement in view of the fact that we entered the world recession in the year of the Oil Crisis with an economy more severely distorted by the profligacy and economic mismanagement of the Conservative Party than that of any other major country.

To turn to the energy conservation aims of the Bill, the Government's objective following the 1973 Oil Crisis and the ensuing sharp increases in energy prices has been to encourage greater efficiency in energy use and stimulate consumers to help themselves by saving energy.

Several years have passed since the Oil Crisis in 1973.

(2) whether he will authorise resumption of work on the HS146 aircraft, in view of the fact that the market for an aircraft of this type remains despite the Oil Crisis and the financial troubles of major route airlines.

When Lord Barber, as he now is, came to this House in December 1973 in response to the Oil Crisis and announced his intention to introduce expenditure cuts of £1,200 million, what thanks did he get from the right hon. Gentleman and his party?

There were first, the Middle East War; secondly, the Oil Crisis; thirdly, the miners' strike; fourthly, the three-day working week; fifthly, the run-up to the General Election; and, sixthly, price and dividend control throughout the period.

The hopes expressed in the documents that we need not worry about the cancellation of Maplin, because aircraft noise will be greatly reduced over the years, have been undermined by the Oil Crisis and the recession.

It is true that there has been a small drop this year as a result of the Oil Crisis, but anyone who has studied the problem will know that that is no more than a temporary hiccup in the upward trend in the number of aircraft moving in and out of Heathrow.

Mr. Marten asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will now abandon the 50 mph speed limit imposed during the Oil Crisis.

asked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will now abandon the 50 mph speed limit imposed during the Oil Crisis.

It was they who put party before country in 1974, and it was they who abandoned the public expenditure cuts introduced by Mr. Barber, as he then was, in the wake of the Oil Crisis.

The hon. and learned Member for Abertillery (Mr. Thomas) said that Britain had to face the Oil Crisis.

I do not want to be controversial, but it is only fair to mention it—and won the GLC election, we should at this moment be throwing up massive ringways around London to take still more people by motor car and absorbing still greater amounts of public expenditure on roadways, when clearly 877 the situation since the Oil Crisis and in the environmental sense has changed.

I was surprised at some of the things said by the hon. Gentleman, because if some of his friends at County Hall had had their way some time ago - indeed, if his party had had its way; I do not want to be controversial, but it is only fair to mention it - and won the GLC election, we should at this moment be throwing up massive ringways around London to take still more people by motor car and absorbing still greater amounts of public expenditure on roadways, when clearly the situation since the Oil Crisis and in the environmental sense has changed.

cut in real living standards for the people of this country that followed from the Oil Crisis of three years ago.

My first conclusion is that the total nuclear programme for which we plan ahead need not and should not be anything like as large as that for which the UKAEA originally bid in the immediate panic atmosphere engendered by the Oil Crisis more than two years ago.

There was impetus at the time of the Oil Crisis, but that has now gone, and those who see further ahead can lee even more reason for an active programme now.

Neither do we appear to have learnt the lesson of the 1973 Oil Crisis, and still lack any coherent common energy policy.

It is true that we were still in an Oil Crisis in early 1974 and that the Tory Government had created a large supply of money in the easiest way - by printing it.

Then came the Oil Crisis and the consequential increases in the price of oil and commodity prices generally.

(2) if he now plans to discontinue the speed restrictions temporarily introduced during the 1973 Oil Crisis.

Until the Oil Crisis the speed limit in this country was 70 m.

These were two good things that came from the Oil Crisis.

I was also interested to hear him apply the argument to the European Community because I am sure that he would not deny that since Britain became a member of the Community - and there has been the problem of the Oil Crisis and the world economic crisis - developments within the Community to some extent have stalemated.

If he recollects the position, the Oil Crisis had struck the country in the autumn of 1973.

There has also been a pretty significant shift in the balance of wealth and power between the developed countries and the Third World countries, of which shift the Oil Crisis is only the first of a number of manifestations.

If so, perhaps it could do so with a little more vigour, drive and imagination and retreat a bit from the state of passionate attachment for nuclear power which followed the Oil Crisis.

if he will also publish the figures for Japan in December 1973 after the Oil Crisis; and how these rates compare with the present rates of inflation in these two countries.

There is now a theme, a policy throughout the Community, especially after the Oil Crisis, that we should be more independent of the rest of the world and not be so vulnerable through our need to import oil and materials.

The Oil Crisis in late 1973 and early 1974 made a temporary rise in unemployment inevitable.

It was the weakest economy in the Western world in terms of equipment for dealing with the 1973 Oil Crisis.

The Oil Crisis led us to consider seriously the need to ration petrol.

However, they had to meet in 1973 because of the Oil Crisis, and then they agreed to have meetings every six months.

Our seventh pledge was to the world's poor, for whom the impact of the Oil Crisis and the world recession has been devastating.

Since the Oil Crisis and the world recession sacrifices have been necessary, but the discriminatory way in which sacrifices have been inflicted on people vital in our economy has caused an intolerable amount of damage.

Mr. Hooley: I welcome the beginnings that have been made, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the Oil Crisis has hit a great many developing countries far more savagely than it has hit the Western world?

And, despite the slowing down of growth, particularly in the two years following the Oil Crisis, air transport remains a growth industry and one in which the United Kingdom is still a major force.

But at the time there was an Oil Crisis and people could not see how that would develop in the decades ahead.

Projections indicate that by the mid-1980s the western world will be approaching an Oil Crisis.

The first is the aftermath of the Oil Crisis, which has disrupted the economiesof both rich and poor nations, but those of the poor most of all.

I worked out some figures a year ago - I was not then in the Ministry - which showed that if from 1980 to 1985 we were to assume a 5 per cent, rate of growth in developing countries - that was a rate of growth which they achieved in the 1960s before the Oil Crisis hit them - and were to take the present base line of doing only our present proportion of trade with the developing countries as being valid - I am basing myself on the 1974 statistics, which I think the Select Committee also did - according to my figures there would be a 65 per cent.

Mr. Skeet asked the Secretary of State for Energy, under the European Community arrangements for sharing indigenous oil in the event of an Oil Crisis, which authority designates the cuts to be made by member countries and which authority authorises the retrenchment to be made.

If Saudi Arabia decides to hold its production at 9 million barrels a day, there could be an Oil Crisis in the early 1980s and prices will escalate.

The way that it is distributed is partly connected and partly separate, but even that can be decided at a political level in a satisfactory way if the member States' economies do what they should have done - and what they always did up to the time of the Oil Crisis at the end of 1973 - namely, by and large and with some detailed exceptions in performance, move together.

The Oil Crisis of 1973 and the unprecedented price increases that followed brought about a fundamental change in the circumstances of this country as of others, and during the past two years the country has made the adjustment that was necessary to reflect that change.

It was only when America went protectionist in 1971 and when the Oil Crisis came along that one began to appreciate the weakness of our steel industry.

This is compounded by the dramatic change in relative prices caused by the Oil Crisis.

Yet we still had a crippling balance of payments deficit before the Oil Crisis.

Whenwe talk about the next five or 10 years we must realise that unless the Americans can come to grips with the Current Oil Crisis facing them there will be a hideous slump in the United States, which will drag us down as well.

Production has risen in other OECD countries, notwithstanding the Oil Crisis.

The inflationary imbalance in 1973 and 1974, which I freely grant was substantially caused by the Oil Crisis, is a cause.

That is why the Chancellor cannot expect to see this country's economy recovering from the Oil Crisis in the way that others have done.

At that time we had just suffered a Great Oil Crisis.

The committee decided that, in view of the serious impact of the Oil Crisis in the autumn of 1973 and the months that followed, it should switch to a study ofits implications on the economies of developing countries and on the British aid programme.

The effect of the Oil Crisis has been to reduce worldwide demand for new merchant ships to about 13 million gross registered tons annually, and virtually to eliminate demand for new tankers altogether.

We could find ourselves in the same situation as we were in during the Oil Crisis.

5519) by the previous Government was accompanied by the announcement of downward revisions to programmes in the context of the Oil Crisis.

He came to office when there was a world-wide recession, brought about by the Oil Crisis.

There was the bubble, the boom, that occurred well before the Oil Crisis.

It is an international problem, and one which has come about since the Oil Crisis of 1973.

The Oil Crisis would have hurt our economy severely whenever it came.

growth in money supply in a period of two years led to inflation before the Oil Crisis and that that inflation amounted to over 10 per cent.

However that may be, the Minister appeared to be arguing that, in the absence of the Oil Crisis, the miners strike and so on, a reduction in the standard of living was necessary.

before the effects of the Oil Crisis were felt.

I do not believe that that is so, I believe that it was due to the Oil Crisis and the effects of the miners' strike.

When the Oil Crisis hit the world in the autumn of 1973, the world was deprived of a massive amount of purchasing power.

The Oil Crisis through which we have lived since 1973 should have taught us some lessons.

It is a bit absurd that in real terms the price of petrol at the moment is lower than it was before the Oil Crisis.

One of the few good things about the delays in the HS146 has been that they have coincided with the recession in the world market for civil airliners, and a delay of three and a half years, which could have been fatal had it not coincided with the Oil Crisis and its consequent effects on airlines and their buying policy, has not been destructive of the project.

It is to do with the change in the economic situation which followed the Oil Crisis in 1973, so there would always have been problems.

The British industry has been starved of money and when the Oil Crisis and the world recession started, everyone looked for someone to blame and the BSC took the blame.

For example, it is in some respects simplistic about the profound effect of the Oil Crisis on steel investment.

It is disappointing that it has taken five years, since the Oil Crisis in the autumn of 1973, for us to get really substantive action out of the Government.

The housing industry, which was suffering, as all other industries were suffering, from a temporary relapse as a result of the Oil Crisis, has now turned into a permanent cripple.

I gave the figures for a four-year average and not during the period of the Oil Crisis.

It was rather hypocritical of the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) to condemn the Government and in the same breath to say that the reason why the figures for 1973 were bad was the Oil Crisis.

We have recognised their difficulties over the Oil Crisis, but the figure of 1·4 million unemployed has now been with us for two years.

It was also influenced by the Oil Crisis.

Does not that emphasise the tragic contrast between four years of private enterprise recovery from the Oil Crisis in Germany and four years of Socialist slump in Britain?

This was all before the Oil Crisis had really hit us.

average rate of inflation - the latest average rate of inflation for these major industrial countries- is much nearer to the average 12-months rate for the period 1973–77, the period following the Oil Crisis, when it was 9·1 per cent.

Three years ago, almost to the day, he spoke to us in this House with all the authority of a man who had only just left the Prime Minister's office and he told us that the Oil Crisis faced us with a cut in living standards of 5 per cent.

In the case of Occidental, substantial development had taken place before work stopped as a result of the Oil Crisis in 1975.

In fact, at the time of the Oil Crisis in the autumn of 1973 and the beginning of 1974, it was a joke that while we were printing petrol coupons with a view to introducing a rationing scheme, petrol was freely available in Salisbury.

The greatest single issue which dominated this six-month period was undoubtedly the worldwide effort to achieve growth without inflation in a period of gradual recovery from the Oil Crisis and other setbacks of recent years.

The worsening employment situation has been accentuated by the decline in world shipping requirements since the beginning of the Oil Crisis.

I hope that my hon. Friend will bear in mind that one of the contributory factors was the 1973 Oil Crisis.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I have already referred to the problems that were caused by the Oil Crisis.

We have had the Oil Crisis, the commodity price explosion, the worst inflation since the war and mass unemployment.

in November 1973, before we faced the world recession and Oil Crisis.

When it next puts its hands into the taxpayers' pockets, which it undoubtedly will do at some stage or other, the public sector will merely say that the loss was due to the Oil Crisis or the failure of the anchovy crop off the coast of Patagonia, in which the Giro had invested heavily, or that it was blown off course, or something of that sort.

Of course, there has been a fall in the growth of productivity throughout the industrialised world since the Oil Crisis of 1973.

That has been the result of a Labour Government, irrespective of outside factors such as the Oil Crisis and the world recession.

We realised the strength of our position long before the Oil Crisis.

The Oil Crisis is most serious.

9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,the refusal of the Government to set priorities for emergency and public services during the Present Oil Crisis".

9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,the refusal of the Government to set priorities for emergency and public services during the Present Oil Crisis".

Mr. Skeet asked the Secretary of State for Energy what specific directions he has given the British National Oil Corporation under section 4 of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Act 1975 since the beginning of the 1979 Oil Crisis.

The Tokyo round negotiations were launched before the Oil Crisis - and by that I mean not the 1979 oil crisis but the 1973–74 oil crisis - so many of the objectives that Ministers set themselves in Tokyo proved incapable of complete fulfilment in the light of the recession that followed the oil price increase in the middle of the 1970s.

The Prime Minister referred to the realistic approach in Tokyo to the Oil Crisis.

There is an Oil Crisis, and that was discussed at the Tokyo conference.

It would look very bad if the Government, after their handling of the Oil Crisis, sold it.

Has the hon. Gentleman seen the recent memorandum of the Transport Users Consultative Committee for Wales about the implications for county structure plans of the Oil Crisis?

Is he aware that since the Oil Crisis British Rail has withdrawn some of those services?

Mr. McElhone asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will approach our EEC partners and other developed country members of the general agreement on tariffs and trade to relax the barriers on commodities coming from the poorest developing countries affected by the Oil Crisis.

Our experience in 1973, when we had the Oil Crisis and we introduced 50 mph and 60 mph limits, was that there was a sharp reduction in road accidents.

I refer, of course, to the Oil Crisis.

There is an Oil Crisis.

] I suppose that no one has heard of the Oil Crisis.

and whether, in the light of the Oil Crisis, he now considers the provision of rail-connected industrial sites a major priority.

Secondly, I do not see that the motor car industry in demand terms has very strong prospects in the next two or three years, especially following the Recent Oil Crisis.

We should not be afraid of the proposed major road schemes simply because of the Oil Crisis.

However, despite this upward trend, the NCB still has insufficient naturally smokeless fuels to meet all requirements, mainly because of an upsurge in demand following the Oil Crisis earlier in the year.

The Recent Oil Crisis, the energy problems that we face, the limitations on heavy road traffic in this country and other developments are making their competitive position more attractive and giving British Rail a great deal to aim for.

The situation in civil air transport has changed radically since the Oil Crisis of 1973.

Are the Government aware that if this forecast proves to be accurate - and, of course, hon. Members know that the Treasury never gets its figures wrong - we shall have experienced the largest single drop in national output in any year since the 1930s, larger even than the contraction which followed the 1973 Oil Crisis?

Faced with an Oil Crisis of gathering dimensions, the free world must receive from the prime technical nations of the West the technology to provide new fuel sources, the ability to replace scarce traditional raw materials with new ones such as carbon fibres, and the development of new resources of pharmaceuticals and food, derived from genetic engineering.

After all, since the Oil Crisis in 1973 we have had to live in a world economy full of difficulties for exporting countries.

Without being too optimistic, I venture to suggest that what has been remarkable since the Oil Crisis of 1973 has been the resilience and powers of survival of some of the newer industries.

It is important that we agree that if the Community and the rest of the world are plunged into an Acute Oil Crisis there should be sharing arrangements.

En 1975 the airport strategy for Great Britain, in the immediate aftermath of the Oil Crisis, took a bracket between 67 million and 107 million passengers a year.

However, in 1974 we were faced with the Oil Crisis and a world recession, which caused yet another contraction in the figures.

Fuel prices went up following the Oil Crisis of 1973, and for a time there was a slowing down in the pace of development of international aviation.

Nothing brought about a greater reduction in fatalities and accidents than the 50 miles an hour speed limit which was imposed during the Oil Crisis.

Yet the astounding thing is that the United Kingdom's prospects in this new phase of the Oil Crisis are not better but worse than those of all our competitors.

It owns partly or in whole many important oil fields, the value of which increases year by year as our finite oil supplies are used and the world's Oil Crisis escalates.

We considered that project before the Oil Crisis hit us.

Following the Oil Crisis in 1973, diesel prices rose steeply and the board began to incur losses on its diesel generation.

The first is the substantially lower forecast of world-wide demand for vehicles following the 1979 Oil Crisis.

Mr. Ross wrote: Optimistic forecasts during the 1960s and early 1970s, which made expansion of social security programmes seem possible and desirable, were dealt unforeseen blows by the Oil Crisis and the combination of recession and inflation.

The Government then, through cuts in authorised expenditure on housing, force authorities such as Sheffield drastically to reduce or abandon ambitious, far-reaching and sensible plans for insulation to cope with the special problems of all-electric blocks built 10, 15 or 20 years ago - long before the Oil Crisis.

No tax or licence fee, for example, could cope with the enormous windfall profits that were being earned as a result of the Recent Oil Crisis.

In one thing I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup, and also with the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore), namely, that we cannot afford to ignore the problems of the world and that the Oil Crisis is a key to many of them.

Whatever the reasons - they are largely attributable to the Oil Crisis - I have cited on a previous occasion the status report by Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins Incorporated, a very reputable organisation, which, having recited the situation at the present time, concluded:All this should mean lower airline earnings in 1980 and no big earnings recovery in 1981.

The slump of 1973 followed by the Oil Crisis of 1974 marked a turning point for our energy policy as much as for our economic policy in general.

But I do not believe that full employment will ever again have the same meaning as it had in the years up to 1973 - not that it was the Oil Crisis that brought about the change.

Add to that the way in which the terms of trade have affected many raw materials and the producers of those raw materials, the volatility of the price of raw materials - copper has been referred to in the debate - the heavy unemployment that pervades the developed world and the effect that has on markets for the developing world, and bear in mind as well the Oil Crisis, and one begins to realise the appalling position of the developing countries and the failure of the world economic system to cope with the problem.

Again, we see our membership of the EEC as being more fundamental than that, but I am glad that one of the original reasons for going in - to develop a strong and cohesive Common Market - has occurred, despite all the difficulties and the sombre fact that we joined in 1973 when the basic world economic scene changed because of the Oil Crisis.

The Oil Crisis in the Middle East had a disastrous effect on the world economy.

As a proportion of the total price of petrol, it is now lower than it was throughout the decade up to the Oil Crisis of 1973.

One of the most profound effects of the Oil Crisis on the foreign policy of the West may be the realisation forced on the United States that it was no longer self-sufficient in oil and other resources.

Although most of the countries experienced a substantial decrease in road accident fatalities in the years following the 1973 Oil Crisis, the decrease was greater in those countries without a compulsory seat belt law than in those countries with one.

We also have an Oil Crisis and economic stagnation.

I agree with my right hon. Friend that, in order to have more perspective, we cannot ignore the fact that the Western world is still in the throes of solving the problems of the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.

It was not until 1973–74 that the first checks to that increase took place, largely as a result of the Oil Crisis and the effects of the Labour Party.

The CEGB must have realised, following the Oil Crisis of 1973, that activity in our economy would tend to decline.

Recent history has shown that during the Oil Crisis new attention was paid to the conversion of plant equipment, less dependence on oil and the provision of alternative power plant construction.

Capital gains tax has borne especially heavily on agriculture because of the phenomenal inflation of land prices since the Oil Crisis of 1973.

Until the Oil Crisis, it worked, up to a point, fairly well, but we have had three goes at a policy such as that and the experience has not been altogether happy.

In the aftermath of the Oil Crisis of 1974 a British Rail advertisement showed a decayed motorway garage and stated that this was the age of the train.

Instead of giving us yah-boo answers, does the Minister agree that it would be a disgrace if we were not spending more on alternative sources of energy following the Oil Crisis of 1973–74?

That was followed by the Oil Crisis.

The problems with which we have had to deal include all the factors that the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned, but especially the uncompetitive nature of so much of British industry compared with more successful companies and countries overseas at a time of world recession, caused in large part by the Oil Crisis, and of very fast-moving technological change.

With the exception of a short-lived recovery in 1980, the shipping industry worldwide has been in the doldrums since the Oil Crisis of 1973.

At that time other EC countries such as Germany and France realised the difficulties that the world faced because of the Oil Crisis and took firm steps to sort out the problems of the steel industry.

I remind the Minister of the Tory manifesto, which said, that the Labour Government'sfavourite but totally false excuse is that their appalling record is all due to the Oil Crisis and the world-wide economic depression".

We can all be extremely wise after the event, but the two power stations at Inverkip and Peterhead were commissioned before the Oil Crisis in 1973.

I reject the idea that somehow we should leave half-built power stations as some kind of monument to the 1973 Oil Crisis.

It does not seem to have occurred to the Falkland Islands Government, or whatever section of the Foreign Office that is responsible for these matters, that alternative energy sources might have been useful or important when the Oil Crisis hit the world economy.

We shall not see a repetition of the Oil Crisis.

Here I do not refer to the world scenario, as we have now moved from the Oil Crisis os 1973 into a period in which the recession in Britain has made its mark in reducing demand for all types of energy.

Dramatic increases in fuel prices since the Oil Crisis have also contributed to that problem.

First and foremost, we in the SDP say that Britain should take a lead in calling for and working for a rejection of the restrictive economic policies which, together with the Oil Crisis, have driven the world into slump.

Their favourite but totally false excuse is that their appalling record is all to the Oil Crisis and the world-wide economic depression.

If Nigeria has difficulty with its oil sales, the chairman of BNOC has warned us that we might have an Oil Crisis, even over 50 cents.

Throughout the 1970s, and particularly following the fundamental shift in the world economy after the 1973 Oil Crisis, the newly industrialised countries financed development by borrowing, and increasingly that borrowing was from the private sector.

The fallacy of the Minister's argument is that in handling an Oil Crisis such as that which occurred - even a bogus one - in 1979–80, it is not a question of the total amount of oil being produced but rather how much oil can be redirected at any time into the national oil market.

There are many reasons for this but a major cause was the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.

After the Oil Crisis, pits became more popular and we wanted more coal.

Yet I still do not believe that monetarism would ever have gained hold but for the Oil Crisis in 1973.

The first ingredient is that the nations of the Western world adopted the wrong response to the Oil Crisis of 1973.

Then came the 1973 Oil Crisis and terrified bankers, officials and Governments around the world stretched out for something on which to hang.

I said that there were three factors in the breakdown of the international monetary system: the response to the Oil Crisis in 1973; the floating exchange rates and free trade no longer enabling the countries of the Western world to return towards full employment; and the acceptance of monetarist doctrine in our society.

In 1973, at the time of the Oil Crisis, when the Department of Energy told us to "Save It"!

A Crisis in Oil is on the cards.

The shock of the 1973 Oil Crisis made everyone conscious of the need to conserve energy.

We might need that coal sooner rather than later if there is Another Oil Crisis in the middle east.

There were, for example, too many tankers in the early 1970s before the Oil Crisis, and too many bulk carriers in the late 1970s.

That general situation was exacerbated by the Oil Crisis, which led to a recession and to countries drawing their oil supplies from fields nearer home, thus making largetankers redundant.

The development of containerisation has meant fewer and larger ships with smaller crews, and the Oil Crisis of a decade ago has had a dramatic effect on the pattern of the oil trade.

The ultimate absurdity was when the Norwegians managed to create the last Oil Crisis.

Having made those blunders,Their favourite … excuse is that their appalling record is all due to the Oil Crisis and the world-wide economic depression.

The 1974 Oil Crisis showed everyone how wrong it was.

What they do know is that they are worried about the Oil Crisis and its effect on our economy.

The right hon Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) will recall - he is the man who was in the hot spot during the Oil Crisis - his statements in the summer of 1979.

Any right hon. or hon. Member who could predict whether there will be an Oil Crisis next week would be a rich man.

That has nothing to do with the Oil Crisis or the world recession during the past decade.

All the indications are that we are now entering a fifth year of increased economic activity—the longest period of continuous growth since the 1973 Oil Crisis.

One is that, between 1974 and 1979, Britain and other western countries responded to the 1974 Oil Crisis by attempting to restrain oil prices.

All the indications are that we are now entering the fifth year of increased economic activity — the longest period of continuous growth since the 1973 Oil Crisis.

We forget too easily that 1979 was the middle of an Oil Crisis, yet the DHSS, despite that crisis, ignored the question of energy saving.

Towards that objective, at a time when the Oil Crisis is considerably less and the pound is competitive with the deutschmark, would it not be helpful to consider urgently the possibility of joining the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system?

Indeed, it will make an interesting speculation for future political historians whether, had the right hon. Gentleman won the 1974 election, our path into Europe would have been very different and whether we would have ridden the Oil Crisis that coincided with our entry quite differently.

since the Oil Crisis of the early 1970s, and, to give further impetus to improvements on energy efficiency, I have recently set up a steering group of senior officers to oversee implementation of an energy efficiency programme with a target of a further 25 per cent.

Is it not of greater significance that since the last G5 meeting the British economy has weathered the Oil Crisis elsewhere without any serious crisis, just as it weathered the miners' strike?

The third generation of new towns came along after the Oil Crisis and it was then that the problems really started.

It also took account of the fuel cost adjustment which was part of the cost that had to be paid for the Oil Crisis of the early 1970s.

If we had retained our presence in the Persian gulf and had been in communion with the Arab rulers who were friendly towards us, would the Oil Crisis have taken quite the same form that it took?

Obviously, after the Oil Crisis in the 1970s Japan had to look for an alternative source of energy.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his consistency in pursuing a realistic and practical approach to the management of our economy, which has brought it into a position whereby he has withstood not only an Oil Crisis but a coal strike lasting a year and the recent fall in equities.

It is perfectly true that, in the 1970s, the world recession, sparked off by the Oil Crisis, led to severe problems in certain obsolescent industries.

Will he take into account the present level of international stocks as they reflect the investment in 1973, after the Oil Crisis, and how that price reflects the current weakness of the dollar, which is causing great concern when compared with European currencies?

As this oil-producing and exporting country now has the worst balance of payments and balance of trade deficit 486 since the Oil Crisis year of 1974, will the Leader of the House provide time in the near future for a debate on the economic and trading position of Britain, given that our loss of domestic and international markets continues unabated?

Another danger is that which is faced when a country destroys its own industry and is left in the hands of its foreign competitors, just as we were left in the hands of the Arabs during the Oil Crisis.

Opposition Members, when they are under pressure, immediately try to call the Oil Crisis to 'their aid, but that is no longer a possible excuse.

Nine years ago this month, when I was elected to the House, the shipbuilding industry was suffering the impact of the Oil Crisis.

It could be argued that the natural changes and improvements that should have taken place were blocked, first, by the Oil Crisis of 1973 and then by the first coal strike in 1974.

My hon. Friend made an important point about the Oil Crisis with which the Labour Government of the 1970s had to deal, whereas this Government have had the revenues from North sea oil and the sale of the family silver at their disposal.

There is no mention of the Oil Crisis of 1974–75 or of the fact that the index of manufacturing production for the Labour Administration was always higher than under the Conservative Administration between 1980 and 1986.

It has already been stated that the original reasons for introducing energy conservation were financial and wereconnected with the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, although I was trying to refrain from discussing the Oil Crisis and the subsequent inflation, and to stick to the narrower topic of corporation tax relief.

Following the 1973 Oil Crisis, energy costs soared in the Province and areas such as artificial fibres went into terminal decline.

We saw what happened during the Oil Crisis.

Although much of that evidence comes from other countries, it is notable that when we reduced our motorway speed limits from 70 mph to 50 mph because of the Oil Crisis in 1973, there was a 33 per cent.

In the mid-1970s, because of the Oil Crisis, it fell to 1·5 per cent.

I do not agree with almost anything that they do, but I recognise that, following the Oil Crisis in 1973, and faced with the shift in the world economy that that brought about, the end of the 25-year world boom and a much more rigorous future, the Tory party acted swiftly.

He says that everything that went wrong under the Labour Government was because of an Oil Crisis, while everything good that has happened under this Government has also been due to oil, never to anything that the Government have done.

Does he not realise that there was an Oil Crisis then and that billions of pounds were being passed across the exchanges for oil?

I remind the hon. Member for New Forest (Sir P. McNair-Wilson) that in 1973 the Conservative Government were defeated because of the Oil Crisis.

There was Another Oil Crisis in 1979.

The Current Oil Crisis means that Jamaica will have to pay an extra !

It was right that Ministers should show support for the Jewish state, and it was right that sales of British oil, suspended since the Oil Crisis of 1979, should be resumed.

The Council also considered the Commission's proposals on Oil Crisis measures and contingency oil stocks.

An article appeared in the New Scientist a couple of years ago which referred to the record in the United States from 1973 - the onset of the Oil Crisis - to 1986.

Ministers will also discuss the related hot water boilers directive, proposals to amend the existing Commission powers on Oil Crisis management and oil stocks, and accession by the Community to the IEA.

The Commission was invited to present revised proposals on Oil Crisis measures and to adjust its mandate for Community accession to the International Energy Agency.

- that was before the Oil Crisis hit us -and the balance of payments was in deficit again.

Since the Oil Crisis of the mid-1970s and the increases in oil prices and generally greater volatility of the oil markets that followed it, the choice of oil as a fuel for power generation has become increasingly unattractive, as hon. Members pointed out.

A mandate for the Commisson to open negotiations for Community accession to the IEA was deferred pending detailed examination of the proposed directive on Oil Crisis measures.

Oil Crisis measures; Community accession to the IEA, and harmonisation of hydrocarbon licensing regimes.

Political agreement was reached on the proposed directive on Oil Crisis measures.

If one examines closely the record of the last Labour Government and makes allowances for the disastrous overhang that they inherited from the Anthony Barber boom regime which preceded them and for the Oil Crisis, it is fair to conclude that unemployment was being reduced as they left office to just below 1 million.

The Oil Crisis led to the opening of opencast pits all over the world.

We had the Oil Crisis in 1975–76 -[Interruption.

It is no use Labour Members trying to rewrite history and blame the Oil Crisis of the mid-1970s for their manifold sins and wickednesses.

on coal and ignored the uncomfortable fact that the industry was already heavily in the red even before the Oil Crisis and the miners' strike.

We all remember what happened during the Oil Crisis and with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, but Conservative Members forget such things.

We worked overtime on Saturdays and Sundays, when the Oil Crisis meant that every car manufacturer in the world wound up stacking up cars that they were unable to sell in the American prairies.

Members of some families in my constituency, who were children in the recession in the early 1970s during the Oil Crisis, have not worked.

As he knows, Bretton Woods was blown away by the Oil Crisis, just as every other system of fixed exchange rates has been blown away by one factor or another.

We might have Another Oil Crisis.

Imagine, for example, what might happen in our part of the world if, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border said, there were a recurrence of the Oil Crisis.

By any definition, those are economic crises that would make it next to impossible for some businesses to stay viable and to pay a national statutory minimum wage, which might have been determined in circumstances where any of those things seemed completely remote: power cuts, computers failing, a Massive Oil Crisis or international developments leading to war.

As a result, we have lived through a generation, from the Oil Crisis onwards, of high inflation, persistently high unemployment and high and rising Government debt.

Does she recognise that competitiveness, level playing fields and market forces are not the basis on which a nation can preserve its long-term policy, as the Oil Crisis of 1973 should have taught us all?

The second time a real interest was taken in energy saving was during the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.

Some of our major economic crises in the past 20 years stemmed from the Oil Crisis in the early 1970s.

Because of the Oil Crisis, there was a national awareness campaign.

We had had the Oil Crisis and everyone was worried about his financial situation.

Where the benefit is uncertain and strategic in nature, such as defending the nation from the effects of an Oil Crisis, the benefits are such that they cannot be accommodated within our present systems of financial appraisal.

The problem is whether, if an Oil Crisis arises, electricity will be in plentiful supply.

As has been mentioned, a UK Government research and development programme was started in 1974 as a response to the Oil Crisis.

There was an OPEC-induced Oil Crisis and the Government were interested only in getting the oil out and resolving the balance of payments position; they would worry about the regime later.

Unfortunately, the policy of active relocation of industry was one of the early victims of the Oil Crisis, and latterly of Thatcherism.

Another avenue has to be the full cancellation of the external bilateral and multilateral debts, which date from the era of the Oil Crisis and structural adjustment policy lending, of Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Lesotho, especially debt owed to the World Bank and IMF.

We saw that in the Oil Crisis of the early 1970s.

Mr. Redwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans the EU has to share oil stocks in the event of an Oil Crisis.

Things were more difficult in the 1970s because of the Oil Crisis in 1973, when we were all trying to cope with a 25 per cent.

Indeed, I believe that it was introduced as a temporary measure due to the Oil Crisis of the time.

The limit of 70 miles per hour on motorways was introduced at a time when most vehicles had drum brakes and there was an Oil Crisis.

The second was the Oil Crisis of 1973, which sent huge inflationary shockwaves throughout the world economy.

Then, at the height of the Oil Crisis in 1973, the United States adopted daylight saving time all year round under the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act 1973 - a two-year experiment.

I hope that the G8 and other international forums will consider such interventions and restraints, and examine whether we could incentivise responsibility among those who seem to be having a significant impact on the Oil Crisis.

These things were driven primarily by the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.

It would make an enormous difference if that obligation applied to all 27 member states, just as the measures adopted after the crises of the 1970s helped us to deal with an Oil Crisis.

This is interesting because in the pre-existing cases of countries that get a high proportion of their electricity mix from renewables, such as Denmark and Sweden-they were driven by energy security considerations in response to the Oil Crisis of the late 1970s-it took something like 25 years for their policies to unfold.

This happened during the Oil Crisis of 1974.

President Carter won a mandate from the public to pass laws to restrict energy consumption at the time of the Oil Crisis, but that was frustrated.

First, importing gas contributes to greenhouse gases and the speeding-up of climate change, but secondly, following the Oil Crisis in the '70s, surely we must understand the volatility of oil prices and, linked to them, gas prices.

We know that, in the past 10 days alone, the Oil Crisis has been one of the many issues that have wiped £113 billion off the FTSE market.

I am certain that if we leave the EU in the next few months, especially with an Oil Crisis on our doorstep, we could face financial catastrophe.