41 - Cliff Baylis. Ministry of Technology, SRNA

Summary

I took up my duties at the Ministry of Technology on the very day the Geddes Report was published [March 1966]. I was in charge of the shipbuilding desk for three years, during which time we were trying to implement the policy recommendations of the Geddes Report. Then I moved on to other work in the Civil Service. In 1973, when I was coming up to retirement, until Tom Mclvor and Ross Belch approached me and asked me to take up the job of Director of the Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association, in order, really, to lead the defence against nationalisation. I was happy to do this, holding the post for three years until the SRNA was dissolved. I then did a number of part-time jobs in retirement, including international work on behalf of British Shipbuilders for around five years, and was also a non-executive director of Harland and Wolff at their invitation.

I suppose I can summarise the general government attitude to the industry by saying that it was grossly inefficient and non-competitive in world markets. By the time I was involved it was already in steady decline and was down to ten percent of world output or less. It was generally viewed as pretty old-fashioned and inefficient.

Management was weak, it was inbred. In relation to management, it had one distinguishing characteristic. Shipbuilders quite genuinely believed in what they were doing. They were fanatical about being shipbuilders. They really thought that they were different from others. They really believed that they were the best shipbuilders in the world. To a certain extent, that made them more likeable than many industrialists I had to deal with. It meant, secondly, that it made them much more difficult to convince that what they were doing was not necessarily the best for their future.

The Geddes Report was the bible. At the time I thought it was a good report. I thought it held out good prospects for reforming the industry, although we did not achieve them. I got to know a number of shipbuilders and trade unionists. I read a lot, I talked to a lot of people, and I formed my own judgement. My summary of the situation, I think, would have been generally endorsed by the government departments who got involved.