Factory Closures — 10 Nov 1998

Mr Bill Michie MP, Sheffield, Heeley voted with the majority (No).

I beg to move,

That this House is concerned about the continued spate of factory closures and job losses; condemns the Government's failure to take urgent action to give manufacturing a chance; believes that this Government's actions in increasing business taxes and regulation have made the position worse; asks the Government to explain how far they will go in implementing the McKinsey Report on productivity; and urges the Government to change policy before more jobs are lost.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"recognises that the last thing business wants is a return to the boom and bust policies of the past, with interest rates of 15 per cent., inflation above 10 per cent. and a budget deficit averaging £41 billion a year from 1992 to 1996; welcomes the Government's decisive action in taking politics out of interest rate decisions, a move which the Opposition clearly does not support; notes that employment is currently 400,000 higher than it was when the Government came into office, and that long-term interest rates are at their lowest for 35 years; welcomes the measures that the Government has taken to encourage enterprise, investment and innovation, and to help unemployed people into jobs; welcomes the McKinsey Report as an important contribution to the productivity debate and notes that, unlike its predecessor, this Government acted to increase competitive conditions through a new Competition Act; and condemns the Opposition for its own record in government, when manufacturing employment declined by 2¾ million and Britain went into deficit on manufacturing trade for the first time ever in peacetime."

Question put, pursuant to the Order [5 November]. That the original words stand part of the Question:--

The House divided: Ayes 154, Noes 323.

Historical Hansard | Online Hansard |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con0 120 (+2 tell)075.3%
Independent1 00100.0%
Lab322 (+2 tell) 0077.7%
LDem0 33071.7%
UUP0 1010.0%
Total:323 154075.6%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive