Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977
he Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that nationalised large parts of the UK aerospace and shipbuilding industries and established two corporations, British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders (s.1).
Nationalisation of the two industries had been a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom general election, February 1974. It met immediate opposition from the industries, including from Labour politician and Vickers Chairman Lord Robens[2]
The nationalisation was announced in July 1974 but the compensation terms were not announced until March 1975.[3] The Bill had its first reading on 30 April 1975 but ran out of parliamentary time in that session.[4] Subsequent Bills had a stormy passage through parliament. Ship repairing was originally included in its scope but removed because of the findings of examiners that the Bill was hybrid. The Bill was rejected by the House of Lords on three separate occasions. It was possible that the provisions of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 could have been employed to enact it, but the legislation was approved following concessions by the Government, including deletion of the 12 ship repairing companies.
Compensation
Section 35 of the Act provided for compensation to the original owners. Compensation was to be by government bonds against a valuation of the shares over a relevant period of 6 months up to the Labour Party's election on 28 February 1974. For companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, this was the average quoted price over the relevant period. For non-listed shares, the government would negotiate with a shareholders' representative to establish an hypothetical market valuation. If no agreement was reached, the shareholders had recourse to arbitration (ss.36-41).[3] However, section 39 controversially included a provision to make deductions from this base value if a company had dissipated its assets by declaring dividends in anticipation of nationalisation, or by other means.
Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Arbitration Tribunal
Section 42 of the Act established the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Arbitration Tribunal to hear appeals over valuation but not challenges to the fairness of the statutory formula. The Tribunal was governed by rules made respectively by the Lord Advocate for Scotland and the Lord Chancellor for the remainder of the UK.[8][9] There was a right of appeal to the Court of Session in Scotland and to the Court of Appeal in the remainder of the UK (Sch.7), with a possible further appeal to the House of Lords. There was also provision for judicial review of the original compensation offer.[10]
As of 2008[update], the Tribunal continues in existence but was described by the Council on Tribunals in 2006 as "Rarely Convened/ Moribund".[11] On 1 November 2007, the Tribunal came under the supervision of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council and will be rationalised as part of the reforms put in place by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007
European Court of Human Rights
The Conservative Party had been critical of the compensation proposals but, after being elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1979 did not change the arrangements. All shareholders had been paid out by the end of 1980.[3] In 1980 unsuccessful applications to the European Court of Human Rights over the compensation were made by Vosper, Vickers, Yarrow and shareholders including English Electric, M&G Securities, Prudential, and Sir William Lithgow.[13]
They complained, in the end unsuccessfully, that the compensation scheme breached several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, namely:[9][14]
* Art.1 of Protocol 1, right to peaceful enjoyment of one's possessions;
* Art.6(1), right to a fair trial;
* Art.13, right to an effective remedy;
* Art.14, prohibition of discrimination;
* Art.17, prohibition of abuse of rights;
* Art.18, limitations on permitted restrictions of rights.
