Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977
The assets of the following companies vested in British Aerospace on 29 April 1977 (ss.19(1) and 56(1)/ Sch.1): The assets of the following companies vested in British Shipbuilders on 1 September 1977 (ss.19(1) and 56(1)/ Sch.2): Note: Harland and Wolff, Belfast was state-owned but did not form part of British Shipbuilders. Section 35 of the act provided for compensation to the original owners. Compensation was to be by government bonds against a valuation of the shares over a relevant period of six months up to the Labour Party's election on 28 February 1974. For companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, this was the average quoted price over the relevant period. For non-listed shares, the government would negotiate with a shareholders' representative to establish a hypothetical market valuation. If no agreement was reached, the shareholders had recourse to arbitration (ss.36–41). However, section 39 controversially included a provision to make deductions from this base value if a company had dissipated its assets by declaring dividends in anticipation of nationalisation, or by other means. Section 42 of the act established the "Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Arbitration Tribunal" to hear appeals over valuation but not challenges to the fairness of the statutory formula. The tribunal was governed by rules made respectively by the Lord Advocate for Scotland and the Lord Chancellor for the remainder of the UK.<ref name="Application 9482/81">Application 9482/81</ref> There was a right of appeal to the Court of Session in Scotland and to the Court of Appeal in the remainder of the UK (Sch.7), with a possible further appeal to the House of Lords. There was also provision for judicial review of the original compensation offer. Having been described, in 2006, by the Council on Tribunals as "rarely convened/moribund", the tribunal was abolished in March 2013 under the UK Government's public bodies reforms. The Conservative Party had been critical of the compensation proposals but, after being elected in the 1979 United Kingdom general election did not change the arrangements. All shareholders had been paid out by the end of 1980. In 1980 unsuccessful applications to the European Court of Human Rights over the compensation were made by Vosper, Vickers, Yarrow and shareholders including English Electric, M&G Securities, Prudential, and Sir William Lithgow. They complained, in the end unsuccessfully, that the compensation scheme breached several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, namely:
Compensation
Nationalisation of the two industries had been a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the February 1974 United Kingdom general election and was part of the programme of the 1974–1979 Labour government.