The Act, in the words of Treasury civil servant Leo Pliatzky, was intended to "strengthen our industrial capacity so as to take advantage of membership of the Common Market" which Britain would join in 1973.

However, Jock Bruce-Gardyne warned that "we are on a slippery slope once we start providing individual industries with inflation subsidies"[11] but he was unable to find another MP to second him in order to force a vote.

An amendment that subsidies worth more than £1 million should be laid before the Commons was supported by Biffen, Normanton, Bruce-Gardyne, Trevor Skeet and the Liberal MP John Pardoe but it was heavily defeated.

[13] However, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Henry Legge-Bourke, warned the government in July that there was considerable opposition amongst distinguished and older party members because it was "a Socialist Bill by ethic and philosophy...obnoxious for many reasons".

[15] The Labour MP Tony Benn welcomed the Act, praising it in an article titled "Heath's spadework for socialism": [The Act is the] most comprehensive armoury of government control that has ever been assembled for use over private industry, far exceeding all the powers thought necessary by the last Labour government...Heath has performed a very important historical role in preparing for the fundamental and irreversible transfer in the balance of power and wealth which has to take place.