I will leave that subject, and will only gay, with regard to the Shipbuilding Crisis, that nothing could be more serious than what we have heard, and if the Government is not strong enough to put this thing right we shall lose the War.

namely, the Shipbuilding Crisis with which we are faced.

Will the Chancellor note that Northern Ireland is in a special category because, in addition to the Shipbuilding Crisis which it has had for so long, there is now an appalling problem in the aircraft industry?

He is meeting me tonight at five o'clock and with me will be a member of the Government, who is the Member also for the constituency next to Govan - Craigton - and Govan is principally concerned with the Present Shipbuilding Crisis in Glasgow.

So we are coming to a Shipbuilding Crisis.

The Shipbuilding Crisis is world-wide, and we must have a national policy to deal with it.

The purpose of the directive is to prevent unfair competition between member States, whilst permitting appropriate aids to deal with the Shipbuilding Crisis.

The draft directive, like its predecessors, also takes account of the general desire of the OECD shipbuilding countries in dealing with the Current Shipbuilding Crisis to avoid a credit and subsidy race.

The draft directive, like its predecessors, also takes account of the general desire of the OECD shipbuilding countries in dealing with the current Shipbuilding Crisis to avoid a credit and subsidy race.

It is this deliberate deflation of demand that is causing the Crisis in Shipbuilding, steel, engineering, textiles and one industry after another; and we cannot cure such a crisis by special remedies applied to the particular industry when the cause is a general one covering the whole economy.

At present in Scotland there is a Crisis in Shipbuilding, the coal mining industry, the energy industry, the motor car industry and other industries.

In the Glasgow Herald of, I think, last Friday there was reported a speech by councillor John Young, a very senior Conservative, who was talking specifically in the context of the Shipbuilding Crisis.

Thus the Shipbuilding Crisis becomes more intense.

As the House knows from the announcement last week, new measures to help cope with the Shipbuilding Crisis also include an extra £1 million for the city action team, £ 1 million for the reclamation of derelict land and a further £2 million to be added to the urban programme allocation for the region.

It has exploited the Crisis in Shipbuilding to inflict further humiliation on a work force that has already made great sacrifices.

It would be helpful if the Minister had some influence on, and consultations with, his colleagues to see whether the Commissioner responsible for shipbuilding policies in the EEC can bear in mind that the north-east should be considered a less-favoured area within the Community and therefore have some priority in efforts to meet the Crisis in Shipbuilding.

Our willingness to allow the Bill to go through quickly has nothing to do with complacency about the Crisis in Shipbuilding, but is a measure of our concern about the crisis affecting shipbuilding and our determination that measures should be taken as quickly as possible to allow the existing yards to flourish and maintain a merchant shipbuilding capacity.

When the Chancellor draws up the Budget, will he take note of the British shipping taxation proposals and create a level playing field for our merchant fleet, bearing in mind the terrible Crisis in Our Shipbuilding at the moment?