Parliament of the United Kingdom |
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| Long title | An Act to provide for the establishment of two bodies corporate to be called British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders, and to make provision with respect to their functions; to provide for the vesting in British Aerospace of the securities of certain companies engaged in manufacturing aircraft and guided weapons and the vesting in British Shipbuilders of the securities of certain companies engaged in shipbuilding and allied industries; to make provision for the vesting in those companies of certain property, rights and liabilities; to provide for payments to British Aerospace and its wholly owned subsidiaries, for the purpose of promoting the design, development and production of civil aircraft; and for connected purposes. |
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| Statute book chapter | 1977 c. 3 |
| Introduced by | Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn 30 April 1975[1] |
| Territorial extent | England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland |
| Dates | |
| Royal Assent | 17 March 1977 |
| Commencement | 17 March 1977 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amendments | British Aerospace Act 1980 |
| Status: Current legislation | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Official text of the statute as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database | |
The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that nationalised large parts of the UK aerospace and shipbuilding industries and established two corporations, British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders (s.1).
Nationalisation of the two industries had been a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom general election, February 1974. It met immediate opposition from the industries, including from Labour politician and Vickers Chairman Lord Robens[2]
The nationalisation was announced in July 1974 but the compensation terms were not announced until March 1975.[3] The Bill had its first reading on 30 April 1975 but ran out of parliamentary time in that session.[4] Subsequent Bills had a stormy passage through parliament. Ship repairing was originally included in its scope but removed because of the findings of examiners that the Bill was hybrid. The Bill was rejected by the House of Lords on three separate occasions. It was possible that the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 could have been employed to enact it, but the legislation was approved following concessions by the Government, including deletion of the 12 ship repairing companies.
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The assets of the following companies vested in British Aerospace on 29 April 1977 (ss.19(1) and 56(1)/ Sch.1):[5]
The assets of the following companies vested in British Shipbuilders on 1 September 1977 (ss.19(1) and 56(1)/ Sch.2):[6]
Note: Harland and Wolff, Belfast was state-owned but did not form part of British Shipbuilders.
Section 35 of the Act provided for compensation to the original owners. Compensation was to be by government bonds against a valuation of the shares over a relevant period of 6 months up to the Labour Party's election on 28 February 1974. For companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, this was the average quoted price over the relevant period. For non-listed shares, the government would negotiate with a shareholders' representative to establish an hypothetical market valuation. If no agreement was reached, the shareholders had recourse to arbitration (ss.36-41).[3] However, section 39 controversially included a provision to make deductions from this base value if a company had dissipated its assets by declaring dividends in anticipation of nationalisation, or by other means.[7]
Section 42 of the Act established the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Arbitration Tribunal to hear appeals over valuation but not challenges to the fairness of the statutory formula. The Tribunal was governed by rules made respectively by the Lord Advocate for Scotland and the Lord Chancellor for the remainder of the UK.[8][9] There was a right of appeal to the Court of Session in Scotland and to the Court of Appeal in the remainder of the UK (Sch.7), with a possible further appeal to the House of Lords. There was also provision for judicial review of the original compensation offer.[10]
As of 2008[update], the Tribunal continues in existence but was described by the Council on Tribunals in 2006 as "Rarely Convened/ Moribund".[11] On 1 November 2007, the Tribunal came under the supervision of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council and will be rationalised as part of the reforms put in place by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.[12] The quango will be abolished under the UK Government's comprehensive spending review (2010 UK quango reforms).
The Conservative Party had been critical of the compensation proposals but, after being elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1979 did not change the arrangements. All shareholders had been paid out by the end of 1980.[3] In 1980 unsuccessful applications to the European Court of Human Rights over the compensation were made by Vosper, Vickers, Yarrow and shareholders including English Electric, M&G Securities, Prudential, and Sir William Lithgow.[13]
They complained, in the end unsuccessfully, that the compensation scheme breached several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, namely:[9][14]
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