View from City Road: Playing field idea not on the level

MICHAEL HESELTINE, President of the Board of Trade, has been sounding strangely like a chancellor of the exchequer recently. Whatever his reasons, it has left those who hoped for a little old-fashioned industrial intervention disappointed.

Mr Heseltine is, of course, right to say that the best thing a government can give industry is a stable economic environment. He is also right to be sceptical about lower interest rates as a universal panacea. But he is wrong to be so obsessed with keeping his powder dry that he refuses to contemplate supporting anything that costs more than 1s 3d. For there are some things - which might cost as much as 7s 6d - that could have a disproportionate effect on the effectiveness of British industry. Here is one.

The DTI should get to grips with the 'level playing field' syndrome. Those unlucky enough to sit through a CBI conference, or any other gathering of business people, will have heard this expression at least three dozen times.

It is used by any interest group that feels it is losing out because cunning foreigners are cheating while we insist on playing with a straight bat. Anecdotes are wheeled out about how companies have been done down by subsidies or barriers that the British government refuses to counter.

The trouble is, anecdotes are not enough to convince any self-respecting minister and are often wholly misleading. As an example, exporters have complained for many years that export credit insurance support is inferior in the UK to that available elsewhere.

Yet until a few years ago anyone who talked to foreign exporters would find that they were deeply jealous of the British system. After attention from Treasury hyenas, the British system probably is much worse than others in Europe now - but, having cried wolf for so long, exporters have little chance of being listened to any more.

Mr Heseltine should demand a series of proper international studies on such areas of contention. The Institute of Exports wants to do just this and even hopes to find private-sector sponsors who will pay for it.

The DTI should say it will look at them seriously. Even better, it should contribute 7s 6d towards the project itself - that way it can be sure the sponsors are not tipping the playing field their own way.