Shipbuilders among new list of axed quangos

Vince Cable announces changes due to take effect from next year

Business secretary Vince Cable has announced that four more industry quangos will be abolished next year.

The organisations affected are the British Shipbuilders’ Corporation, the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP), Simplifying International Trade (SITPRO) and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Advisory Body.

The functions of SABIP will pass to the Intellectual Property Office, while the operations of the other bodies will be taken over by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). 

Defra is also shutting down 30 environmental quangos, a third of the number under its control. 

The British Shipbuilders’ Corporation owned and managed the UK shipbuilding industry from 1977 and through the 1980s. It was founded as part of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act of 1977, which nationalised all the major British shipbuilding companies. Three large aerospace firms became part of British Aerospace under the act.

British Shipbuilders was privatised in 1983. The various divisions that had survived under nationalised ownership were divested throughout the 1980s as the company wound up operations. The British Shipbuilders’ Corporation continues to exist in statute but will be abolished in 2011. 

Simplifying International Trade, a body which has worked for almost 40 years to make international trade easier, said it regretted the government’s decision.