Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977

Aircraft and Shipbuilding Act 1977

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to provide for the establishment of two bodies corporate to be called British Aerospace and British Shipbuilders, and to make provision with respect to their functions; to provide for the vesting in British Aerospace of the securities of certain companies engaged in manufacturing aircraft and guided weapons and the vesting in British Shipbuilders of the securities of certain companies engaged in shipbuilding and allied industries; to make provision for the vesting in those companies of certain property, rights and liabilities; to provide for payments to British Aerospace and its wholly owned subsidiaries, for the purpose of promoting the design, development and production of civil aircraft; and for connected purposes.
Citation	1977 c. 3
Introduced by	Secretary of State for Industry Tony Benn 30 April 1975[1] (Commons)
Territorial extent	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Dates
Royal assent	17 March 1977
Commencement	17 March 1977
Other legislation
Amended by	British Aerospace Act 1980
Repealed by	Deregulation Act 2015
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 (c. 3) 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 February 1974 United Kingdom general election and was part of the programme of the 1974–1979 Labour government. 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. Michael Heseltine used the mace in the House of Commons to show his outrage at the Labour Party winning the final vote due in part to its failure to comply with the traditional requirements of a parliamentary pair. 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 twelve ship repairing companies.^{[citation needed]}