The Chancellor, The Chief Secretary And Statistics

EDM number 550 in 1991-92, proposed by Alan Williams on 23/01/1992.

That this House notes that Treasury Ministers are so embarrassed by the Government's manufacturing investment record that they are trying to hide behind the local fish and chip shop; notes that, at first, they tried to create a smoke-screen by talking about business investment which includes new office blocks even if they are standing empty, but now are skulking behind the figures for investment in plant and machinery, core investment, as if it is synonymous with manufacturing investment; points out that much of the expansion in plant and machinery has been in the service sector and reflects the change in information technology during the 1980s and includes the replacement of office typewriters by word processors as well as the computerisation of office accounts, of supermarket checkouts and even of betting shops; notes that it could include the cooking-range in a fish and chip shop and the equipment in the ubiquitous take-aways as well as agricultural tractors, oil rigs, mobile cranes and warehouse forklift trucks; notes that even office telephones, fax machines, telephone lines, electrical equipment and electrical cables can be included; calls upon Ministers to stop using statistics in a way which at best displays their own ignorance and at worst reveals the distortions they will use to disguise their and their government's failures.

This motion has been signed by a total of 49 MPs.