The Government’s Position

Abstract

When looking at the NFC buy-out, the most obvious question to ask is why it became a political cause célèbre in the first place. After all, a Conservative Party committed to returning as much of British nationalised industries to the private sector as possible had much larger fish to fry than a £50 million company that — although the biggest single company in the road haulage industry — still controlled not much more than 7 per cent of the market. As events have subsequently proved, there were organisations at least 10 times that size which had far more commanding market shares in other areas of the public sector and which could be sold off.

One justification of Shadow Ministers in Opposition is that it gives them time to study problems they may eventually have to deal with in Office.

Quote from an interview with Norman Fowler, Minister and then Secretary of State for Transport through most of the denationalisation and staff buy-out negotiations.