An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

ANNEX I 233Declaration of Intent. In the end, we were able to find one remaining window of opportunityat the QE II Conference Centre and a successful event was held with speakers that includedSir Michael Heseltine and Sir Alastair Morton.Mike HeathDirector General 1995-98Council member John Lyons contributes this to the political history:Of course, others had been pressing for an inquiry. But the TUC resolution [see Chapter 1]was the catalyst, the event that tipped the argument in Callaghan's mind when it mattered. Atthat time he had good cause to want to find something that he could do for the TUC, given allthe difficulties between the unions and the Government there were in that period. That wasmy motivation in submitting our motion to the TUC in 1976). It is why Bernard Donoughuegot involved. Donoughue was Wilson/Callaghan's political adviser. We were in contact onand off about the industrial relations scene as it affected the electricity supply industry, andalso became friends as a consequence. Following a meeting I had with Sir Peter Carey, thenthe Permanent Secretary of the DTI, when he told me he saw no point in the inquiry the TUCand others were pressing for, I talked the issue over with Donoughue, ending by asking him ifhe would be prepared to brief Callaghan on it and get him on side. As he records in his book(Prime Minister – The Conduct of Policy under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan –Bernard Donoughue, Jonathan Cape 1987), he agreed to do so.That intervention was decisive. I drafted terms of reference for consideration that I gave toDonoughue, and they were as close to those finally adopted (about which I was also formallyconsulted by Callaghan) as made no material difference.What was absolutely essential was that the Institutions should be kept at bay. I thought at thetime, and have not changed my view, that creating a Chartered EC was a fatal mistake,though I did hope -I really did - that the work of the EC would demonstrate that I was wrong.Creating it as a Chartered body encouraged the Institutions, quite naturally, to think that theEC's modus operandi was essentially complimentary to theirs and, therefore, that it was anorganisation which one day they should and would be able to bring under their wing once thefounders of the EC and their immediate successors had done their stuff.It is a very great pity that the Engineering Council was set up just too late. If it had been donein Callaghan's time I think it is reasonably likely it would have been created as a statutorybody. Bernard (now Lord) Donoughue, doesn't think so, but a statutory body would havebeen much more in tune with the mind-set of the Callaghan Government and, of course, tradeunion influence would have still carried weight, whereas by the time Keith Joseph was incharge, we were completely out of the loop. However, whether, in the face of Institutionaland departmental pressures, a Tory Government would have continued to finance a statutorybodyafter say the first five years is another unknown.© Engineering Council UK 2004