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“Breaking New Ground”: The National Enterprise Board, Ferranti, and Britain’s Prehistory of Privatization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2019

MARK BILLINGS  and
JOHN WILSON
MARK BILLINGS
Affiliation:
MarkBillings is a senior lecturer in Accounting and Business History. University of Exeter Business School, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4PU, United Kingdom; tel: + 44 (0) 1392 722658. E-mail: m.billings@exeter.ac.uk
JOHN WILSON
Affiliation:
JohnWilson is the pro-vice chancellor of the Faculty of Business and Law. Northumbria University Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. E-mail: John.f.wilson@northumbria.ac.uk.
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Abstract

Privatization is closely associated with the ideological turn to neoliberalism and regarded as a cornerstone of Britain’s “Thatcherite project.” Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government did not undertake its major privatizations of state-owned businesses until its second term began in 1983. We argue in this article, however, that the 1980 disposal by the National Enterprise Board of its controlling interest in the engineering and electronics company Ferranti offers significant insights into the development of privatization policy and practice, as well as the changing role of the state in British business. This disposal reflected the early caution of some of the Thatcher government’s actions but contributed to fulfillment of an electoral commitment and provided valuable privatization experience in addressing difficult financial, industrial, and political issues.

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Article
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Enterprise & Society , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 907 - 938
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

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Footnotes

We presented preliminary versions of this article at several conferences: the Association of Business Historians (Newcastle University Business School, 2014; University of Glasgow, 2017), the Economic and Business History Society (University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, 2015), and the Business History Conference Annual Meeting (Portland, Oregon, 2016). We thank participants, especially Armin Grünbacher, Bernard Mees, Andrew Popp, Andrew Russell, Janette Rutterford, Peter Sims, Ray Stokes, Heidi Tworek, and Nicola Tynan for their comments.

References

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Jackson, Ben. “Currents of Neo-liberalism: British Political Ideologies and the New Right, c. 1955–1979.” English Historical Review 131, no. 551 (August 2016): 823–850.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Kay, John, and Thompson, David. “Privatisation: A Policy in Search of a Rationale.” Economic Journal 96, no. 381 (March 1986): 18–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kipping, Matthias. “Business-Government Relations: Beyond Performance Issues.” In Business History around the World, edited by Amatori, Franco and Jones, Geoffrey, 372–393. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Mayer, Colin. “The City and Corporate Performance: Condemned or Exonerated.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 21, no. 2 (March 1997): 291–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Millward, Robert. “State Enterprise in Britain in the Twentieth Century.” In The Rise and Fall of State-Owned Enterprise in the Western World, edited by Toninelli, Pier Angelo, 157–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millward, Robert. “Business and the State.” In The Oxford Handbook of Business History, edited by Jones, Geoffrey and Zeitlin, Jonathan, 529–557. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Millward, Robert. “Business Institutions and the State.” In The Routledge Companion to Business History, edited by Wilson, John, Toms, Steven, Jong, Abe de, and Buchnea, Emily, 274–299. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
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Scott, Peter, and Newton, Lucy. “Jealous Monopolists? British Banks and Responses to the Macmillan Gap during the 1930s.” Enterprise and Society 8, no. 4 (December 2007): 881–919.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shleifer, Andrei. “State Versus Private Ownership.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, no. 4 (Autumn 1998): 133–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Martin. “From Consensus to Conflict: Thatcher and the Transformation of British Politics.” British Politics 10, no. 1 (April 2015): 64–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, Richard. “The Evolution of Privatisation as an Electoral Policy c. 1970–1990.” Contemporary British History 18, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 47–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “Inventing ‘Decline’: The Falling Behind of the British Economy in the Postwar Years.” Economic History Review 49, no. 4 (November 1996): 731–757.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “A ‘Failed Experiment’? Public Ownership and the Narratives of Post-War Britain.” Labour History Review 73, no. 2 (August 2008): 228–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomlinson, Jim. “Thrice Denied: Declinism as a Recurrent Theme in British History in the Long Twentieth Century.” Twentieth Century British History 20, no. 2 (June 2009): 227–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toms, Steve, Wilson, Nick, and Wright, Mike. “The Evolution of Private Equity: Corporate Restructuring in the UK, c. 1945–2010.” Business History 57, no. 5 (2015): 736–768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Wilson, John. “Ferranti and the Accountant, 1896–1975: The Struggle Between Priorities and Reality.” Accounting Business and Financial History 8, no. 1 (1998): 53–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Committee to Review the Functioning of Financial Institutions. Evidence on the Financing of Industry and Trade, Vol. 1: Treasury; Department of Industry. London: HMSO, 1977.Google Scholar
Conservative Party. The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2017: Forward Together: Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future. London: The Conservative Party, 2017.Google Scholar
Ferranti Limited. Annual Report and Accounts. Manchester, UK: Ferranti, 1981.Google Scholar
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