CBI keen on fresh crack at Heseltine

Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, is to to produce another White Paper on competitiveness as a follow-up to the original document published last May.

The announcement, expected today, that a White Paper will be prepared will open the door to a new round of lobbying by industry groups that failed to win all the improvements to taxation and other policies they demanded last time.

Howard Davies, director-general of the CBI, said yesterday after a meeting of his governing council that although British companies had been performing very strongly in export markets since the first White Paper, there were a signs of a fall in relative competitiveness.

British unit labour costs had fallen 1.8 per cent but those in Germany had fallen by 8 per cent, so Britain's competitiveness against Germany had slipped.

The CBI has been pressing for a follow-up exercise, and Mr Davies said restatement of the competitiveness case would be useful to keep the message in front of companies and staff.

Proposals such as learning credits and modern apprenticeships would be given additional impetus if the Government returned to the subject, Mr Davies said.

The CBI is also likely to reopen its case for new tax incentives for investment, which were an important part of its competitiveness policy but failed to appear in the Budget.

However, the employers are likely to revise the details of their rejected plan, which was for 100 per cent investment allowances up to a £200,000 limit.

Sir Colin Southgate, chairman of Thorn EMI, is to become the next president of the CBI in 1996, following his nomination yesterday as deputy to Sir Bryan Nicholson.