Introduction

The National Enterprise Board (NEB) was charged with ‘bailing out’ several major firms that were experiencing economic troubles and with giving assistance to other undertakings for purposes such as increasing jobs and exports and reducing dependence on imports. The direct institutional antecedent of the NEB was the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, set up by the Labour Government in 1966 and abolished by Heath’s Tory Administration. The Labour Party’s Election Manifesto for autumn 1974 incorporated the White Paper’s thoughts about the NEB, even though the President of the Confederation of British Industries had declared that the prospect of the NEB’s spreading state control across the private sector would dismay business. Even before the creation of the NEB, the UK did accord considerable help to specific companies or to specific sectors of the economy. The NEB adopted a divisional structure that to some extent reflected the areas of interest specified in the Corporate Plan.