PAPER 3

The engineer's place in the political scene

T is notable that in Britain professional engineers play little part in the political life of the nation. It is hard to see why this should be so, although it is worth noting that one of the recurrent complaints of the British engineer is of his lowly status in our society.

This has not always been so. The great Victorian engineers were men of substance in the Britain of their day, and some of them were active in public life. Robert Stephenson, for example, was a Member of Parliament for a time.

However that may have been then, discontent is widely felt nowadays on this indefinable question of status. It was much in the air when I first entered Parliament in 1963, and I illustrated it in my first speech there when I said: . . engineers never become Lords, not as engineers. They sometimes do because they are businessmen, but as engineers they are never ennobled. Engineers are never selected to be heads of Royal Commissions. These are matters of status which the Government can attempt to put right.' I have to say that not much has changed in the seven years that have passed since then, and this is a criticism of both sides in the picture. Neither has government moved very far, nor has the professional engineer pushed himself forward with enough vigour.