‘A Confusion of Aims’. Defence Manufacturing and Industrial Policy in the Early 1950’s. A Case study

This paper looks at the difficulties experienced by both government and industry with the imposition of an accelerated defence programme in the early 1950’s. Shortages in manufacturing capacity, labour and resources forced government to interfere in industry at a time when it was believed that in order to regenerate Britain’s export potential industry had to be freed from the legacy of wartime controls. The impact was not, however, evenly spread but tended to cluster around the engineering industries. Apart from the obvious damage that this would cause to the export drive there was the added and less easily quantifiable problem that directing defence manufacturing to these industries rigidified a regional industrial structure despite government’s realisation of the need for a reevaluation of Britain’s industrial/regional heritage. This paper questions the thesis that the impact of the defence programme was marginal. While accepting the evidence that industry was at times reluctant to observe direction from Government and that indeed much of the programme was not fulfilled, examination of material from the government departments concerned with the programme shows that a confusion of aims may well have helped to undermine industry’s development in this crucial phase of post-war reconstruction.