Mr President, this resolution is seriously misleading. A fair resolution would have said that British Telecom has spent £20 billion on new technology and that many new jobs have appeared in the hundred other companies which have sprung up because of the loss of its monopoly. If the authors of this resolution had been fair, they would have referred to the fact that all BT's job reductions have been voluntary and have been made with the full agreement of the trade unions. Tony Young, the General-Secretary of the National Communications Union, has gone on record as saying that he wants to work with the tide rather than fight against it.

I now turn to Caterpillar. Why does the resolution conceal that 90% of management grades and 70% of weekly paid staff voted for the package of benefits which replaced union recognition, and why does the resolution not mention that that package included the establishment of a joint consultative council, which is now up and running? This misleading resolution is accompanied by flawed proposals, and British Conservatives will not vote for it.