HC Deb 07 February 1978 vol 943 cc1379-400

"(1) When formulating a scheme for Great Britain the Secretary of State shall consider any representations made to him by a relevant company and shall not make the scheme if he is satisfied, after considering those representations, that the scheme would discriminate unfairly against that relevant company or against a substantial number of the persons employed by that relevant company.

(2) In this section 'relevant company' means any body corporate (other than a relevant company) being a body corporate which has its principal place of business in Great Britain and which, since 1st January 1976, has in Great Britain—

  1. (a) constructed a ship with an overall length of not less than 60 feet measured between the perpendiculars; or
  2. (b) repaired, refitted or maintained a ship in a dry-dock or graving dock in which that body corporate has had since that date an interest in possession or a licence to occupy that dry-dock or graving dock for a period of not less than 60 days."—[Mr. Norman Lamont.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

10.16 p.m.

Mr. Norman Lamont (Kingston upon Thames)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The purpose of the new clause is to return to the point that we considered in Committee—namely, the effect of the redundancy payments scheme on different industries and firms outside the scope of the Bill. The new clause reads: (1) When formulating a scheme for Great Britain the Secretary of State shall consider any representations made to him by a relevant company and shall not make the scheme if he is satisfied, after considering those representations"—

Mr. Speaker

Order. It is not fair to the hon. Member who is addressing the House if this noise continues.

Mr. Lamont

I think that after that admonition, Mr. Speaker, it will not be necessary for me to read the whole of the new clause. Suffice it to say that we have put down a softer version of the new clause that we moved in Committee because we are concerned about the effects of the scale of payments on particular companies in the private sector which are not covered by the Bill.

Perhaps I should emphasise to hon. Members who may not have been present during earlier debates on this matter that the reasons for the new clause have been strengthened and increased by the latest developments today. The Minister of State has informed me and other hon. Members that the Bill will be very different because the payments will be on a larger scale than has been indicated hitherto.

On Third Reading we want to take up the scale of payments, because the way in which we have been notified about this is a matter of very serious concern. The fact that the scales of payments have been raised so dramatically means that the arguments that we put forward on Second Reading and in Committee for considering the effects of these redundancy payments on the private sector have been very much strengthened, and the fears for the companies affected have become worse.

I do not want to go over all the arguments that we have rehearsed before. I shall refer to them only briefly. We approached the Bill and the post-nationalisation period on the understanding that the Government would have an arm's-length relationship with British Shipbuilders and that there would not be any direct subsidy for British Shipbuilders for any particular purpose. But here we find in the Bill specific aid for a specific purpose—that of giving redundancy payments in order to shed the labour force.

Inevitably, once that principle is accepted it will have an effect on the private sector companies. Ten per cent. of shipbuilding output is still produced by the private sector, and 25 per cent. of ship repairing is still done by the private sector. These companies, quite understandably, are very worried that, if the State is to give a large amount of money to British Shipbuilders in order to slim off some of its surplus labour, inevitably the private shipbuilders will be faced by their unions—the same unions—with precisely the same demands. That is their fear, and we have been asking that the same principle should operate here as for the Intervention Fund.

The Minister has taken pride in the fact that the Intervention Fund applies to both the private and the public sides of the shipbuilding sector. We are saying that if there is to be aid to an industry it should be to the whole industry and not just to the public sector part of it.

The only argument which, I think, was advanced in the Committee stage was that this was a problem of larger ships and that the world shipbuilding crisis was particularly concentrated in the area of larger ships. But that is not where the demarcation line is drawn under this legislation. British Shipbuilders builds both small and large ships. The ship repair firms are largely outside the public sector and they repair the biggest ships. They are the biggest ship repairers. I do not really think one can argue that the demarcation line drawn here is that between large and small ships.

Then we have the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) that British Shipbuilders and its subsidiaries include a very wide range of different activities—concrete, steel, marine engineering, house building, ferry boats and even motor cycles—so that the scheme is being extended beyond the narrow confines of the shipbuilding industry.

Those are the basic fears that were expressed to us by the small but important number of private companies affected, and we felt it right to raise them.

The only argument that the Minister of State came up with in the Committee stage was that it would be extremely difficult for him to consult all the different companies and that he would spend an enormous amount of time rushing around the country consulting, taking note and seeking out those who might be affected. He seemed to find the argument of bureaucratic difficulty one which came very naturally to him. But, in paying attention to the practical arguments that the Minister put forword, we felt it right to return to this subject and to put for ward the new clause in a softer and more acceptable form.

The clause simply requires the Secretary of State to consider the representations made to him and not to carry out the scheme if, after consulting the companies, he comes to the conclusion that it discriminates unfairly and will have an adverse effect on them. The words "relevant company" in the new clause are tightly drawn, but if the Minister of State wishes to suggest an amendment we shall be happy to consider it.

This is a small but serious matter. We have received a lot of representations about it. The CBI is also worried about it and has asked me to make this clear in the debate on the new clause. It considers that the scheme ought to be extended to the private sector as well as to the public sector if there is not to be an element of unfair competition.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I think that the whole game has altered because of the changes in the figures which the Minister announced today and which we shall consider on Third Reading. We could have small private companies which are not able to stand up to the unions within their industry facing considerable bills for redundancies. One example which has been given is that if they wanted to make 100 men redundant they would face a bill of perhaps £600,000.

Despite the fact that we have already gone over this ground on Second Reading and in Committee, I think it is an important matter and I ask the Minister to consider it carefully.

The Minister of State, Department of Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman)

The passage of the Bill so far has been a good-tempered occasion. I hope that it will continue in that vein.

I thought it a little churlish of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) that, after I had made great efforts to provide the House with information in time for this debate—including calling an emergency meeting yesterday with the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions and British Shipbuilders—far from acknowledging that fact, he simply hurled it in my face. I did not expect thanks, but I took that pretty badly.

The hon. Gentleman said that the new clause is a softer version of what he and his hon. Friends put forward earlier. I must point out to the hon. Gentleman, and to hon. Members representing shipbuilding constituencies in Great Britain and Northern Ireland—because, although the new clause mentions only Great Britain, it will have a serious effect on Northern Ireland—that, far from being a softer version, it is a wrecking clause which could destroy the Bill. If Opposition Members do not want a shipbuilding redundancy payments scheme, it would be much more open if they voted against the Third Reading instead of wrecking the scheme by the new clause.

As I shall explain clearly to the House, if the new clause is incorporated into the Bill it will vitiate the Bill and prevent any scheme whatever being operated in Great Britain and Northern Ireand.

Since the hon. Gentleman has said that this is a softer version of what he was proposing upstairs in Committee, it may well be that he is unaware of the implications of what he is proposing.

I shall therefore have to spell them out to the House. It is important for the House to know that, if the new clause were accepted, it could prevent any shipbuilding worker, whether in British Shipbuilders or in Harland and Wolff, from having a shipbuilding redundancy payments scheme. That includes workers in Harland and Wolff who have already been declared redundant and ship repair workers who will be declared redundant. Hon. Members should have no doubt about what they are doing if they seek to insert the new clause into the Bill. They would be seeking to wreck the Bill.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames talked about an unwillingness to consult. Here again, he seems unaware of the facts. In practically the closing minutes of the Standing Committee, the hon. Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls) asked for an assurance that I would consult the private sector body, the Association of Independent Ship Repairers and Shipbuilders. I immediately and without hesitation gave him an assurance that I would consult it.

10.30 p.m.

I immediately issued the invitation to the association to come and see me in fulfilment of the undertaking that I had given. The association said that it did not want a meeting. Similarly, the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions told me that it had tried three times to arrange a meeting with the association, without success. It does not seem to me, from either reaction, that the association believes that it has a case to make. When it comes to consultation, we have been willing to consult and the association has refused.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames is living in a world of unreality. He talks of the possibility of firms in the private sector being faced by similar demands from the unions. The confederation has accepted throughout that the scheme should apply only to the public sector. It has not asked that it be applied to the private sector. Therefore, this phantasmagorical fear that the confederation will make demands on the private sector is unfounded. The hon. Member seems unaware of the real situation.

I shall spell out this "softer version" of the new clause, and its practical effects. First, it gives powers to make representations to any company which has built just a single 60-ft. ship at any time within the last two years or so, or has repaired one ship in a dry dock or graving dock during any period of 60 days. That means that the new clause is seeking power to deny special redundancy benefit to employees of companies which have been in existence for decades and whose employees have given a lifetime's service to the industry. That alone seems an incredible proposal; but the more closely we look at it the more incredible it becomes. We are looking at a proposal not to protect the private sector but to insert into the Bill a veto for a number of small businesses.

The scheme that we are likely to put forward will pay benefit only to those who have been employed for 12 months or more. This might lead one to expect that unfairness could be established only when the private sector company making the representations had also had employees in its service for at least 12 months. But would it? There is no definition of "unfairness"; no discretion is given in its interpretation. Any kind of unfair discrimination, of whatever order or degree, would apparently disqualify the Secretary of State from making the scheme. Therefore, we cannot even be sure that it would not become effective in the case of representations from a company which had built only one 60-ft. ship in its entire existence and had been in being only long enough to build that ship, or, worse, had repaired only one ship in a period of 60 days.

Moreover, the representations are to be made by the company, whether it is the company that feels unfairly discriminated against or the employees. That means that the company could decide not to pay more than the statutory minimum benefit to redundant employees and could then make representations that these employees were being unfairly discriminated against because it would not pay them more.

What does it add up to? It adds up to a situation in which, for example, the owner of a small ship repair company of any size, whether it repaired 10-ft ships or 1,000-ft. ships and if it had been in existence for only two months, could make representations to the Secretary of State that his employees were being discriminated against unfairly simply because he, the employer, would not give them more than the statutory minimum redundancy payment. It would not matter if the owner had made no serious effort to try to find more work for his employees; it would not even matter if he were winding up the company for his own selfish ends. It would not matter if the two months that he and his employers had spent repairing the ship—a tiny ship, perhaps—were the only two months in which they had had anything whatever to do with the ship repair industry.

If it so happened that, through a disastrous world order shortage, several thousand workers on the Clyde were suddenly to find themselves redundant, they would not get a penny in special redundancy payments under the Bill simply because of the actions of that single owner of that tiny, fly-by-night ship repair company, which might well have been established for the owner's personal convenience. These things happen, and Opposition Members know that they happen and they know who does these things.

Because of such a person, all the employees of Swan Hunter, Govan, Scott Lithgow, Cammell Laird, Sunderland, Hall Russell, Robb Caledon, Smith's Dock and all the other famous, long-established names in British shipbuilding, whose employees have given them a lifetime of service, and all the employees of the 75 or so British Shipbuilders' subsidiaries, would be denied a penny in special redundancy payments under the Bill. That is what could happen as a result of the new clause.

But that would not be the end of the matter. As is plain, the clause seeks effectively to rule out the making of a scheme for Great Britain. The Government would obviously not then be able to make a scheme for Northern Ireland, since to do so would clearly produce even greater unfairness.

If we were prevented from making the scheme for all the great shipbuilding companies but were asked to make a scheme for Harland and Wolff, one has only to imagine what the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions would say if a similar scheme were not made for Swan Hunter and other companies.

The clause, by referring only to Great Britain, would give a veto to the tiny fly-by-night ship repair firms, and it would affect workers in Northern Ireland and most of those in Great Britain. The consequence of including it in the Bill would be to deny a special redundancy payments scheme for the United Kingdom shipbuilding industry in the face of the greatest shipbuilding crisis the world has ever known.

Mr. George Grant (Morpeth)

I wish to express surprise that the new clause should come in at this stage. My hon. Friend the Minister says that men will be denied their redundancy pay. Is it not true that, because of the time that has elapsed in waiting for this provision, many agreements in the industry have been held up, affecting worker participation and the review of manpower in the industry? This is important to the industry, and I am surprised that this proposal has come forward at such a late stage.

Mr. Kaufman

The workers in the industry have been awaiting details of the scheme for some time. My hon. Friends the Members for Barking (Miss Richardson) and Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) are here representing ship repair workers who are waiting for the scheme because of redundancies in their areas. The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford) is awaiting the scheme for workers in Harland and Wolff who have already been declared redundant. As the hon. Member for Belfast, South was not in the Chamber a short while ago, I repeat what I have already told the House. The clause could prevent a redundancy scheme being introduced in Great Britain, and, even though no reference is made to Northern Ireland, it would impose a veto on Northern Ireland schemes too.

If Opposition Members want to wreck the scheme, if they want to prevent the scheme, they should do so openly by voting against Third Reading. They should not seek to insert a wrecking clause. If they seek to wreck the scheme either by inserting a wrecking clause or by voting against Third Reading, it will not be me or the House that they have to answer: it will be the shipbuilding workers in the whole of the United Kingdom. They will be depriving those workers of their redundancy payment.

Miss Jo Richardson (Barking)

I ask my hon. Friend to clarify an issue as he has been kind enough to mention my interests and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). Some of my constituents who work in the industry in the London Dock are worried that their long service in the industry, as distinct from the firm for which they now happen to be working, will not be taken into account. They are anxious for some reassurance about that. They are not against the Bill. They are in favour of it. However, they want some reassurance that their long-term service in the industry will be taken into account.

Mr. Kaufman

I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance. I say to my hon. Friends the Members for Barking, for Newham, South, for Thurrock (Dr. McDonald) and for other London constituencies, especially in the Thames area, who have made representations that we have responded to their representations. The scheme as originally presented to us by British Shipbuilders and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions inadvertently did not deal with the problem to which my hon. Friend has drawn my attention. We in the Department of Industry made it our business to deal with the matter. As a result of the amendments to the scheme of which I informed the confederation at the meeting yesterday morning, such interests will now be included

As you have allowed my hon. Friend to put the question to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will give me some leeway to enable me to answer her. I think that that will be for the benefit of a number of workers outside the House as well as my hon. Friends.

I received a number of representations from my hon. Friends about the definition of "total continuous service" as the basis for determining entitlement to benefit. My hon. Friends and others pointed out that certain ship repair workers traditionally found employment on a casual basis and might, therefore, have great difficulty in establishing a period of continuous employment which properly reflected their true service to the industry.

The proposition that was originally put to me did not, inadvertently, take account of that problem. Obviously the confederation wished to include it, but the proposal did not achieve that. However, such a situation is well known in other industries and frequently arises in the context of the Redundancy Payments Act 1975, under which there is a well-established and successful procedure for dealing with such cases.

Shipbuilding and ship repair workers will be entitled to the ordinary statutory redundancy benefit in addition to the benefits under the shipbuilding scheme, and casual employees will be able to establish a period of continuous employment for the purposes of their entitlement under the Redundancy Payments Act. We are proposing that a period of continuous employment so established will also be the period of continuous employment for the purpose of calculating benefit under the shipbuilding scheme. We believe that that is a fair and sensible way of ensuring that the relatively small number of casual workers in the ship repairing industry will not be put at a disadvantage compared with their colleagues.

My hon. Friends will be able to return to their constituencies and say that, as a result of their representations and the case that they have presented, we have decided to deal with the problem in the manner that I have outlined. In that way they will be able to give reassurance to their constituents.

Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

rose—

Mr. Kaufman

If my hon. Friend will permit me, I prefer not to give way. As I shall be explaining, if need be, on Third Reading, the scheme has yet to be worked out in detail. It may be that I am not in a position to answer the detailed questions that he wishes to put to me. I merely tell the House that if the clause is inserted it is likely that my hon. Friend's constituents, together with shipbuilding workers in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, can wave goodbye to a redundancy scheme.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright (Colne Valley)

Liberal Members have no complaint about the proposed scale of redundancy payments, about which the Minister was good enough to notify me, and we do not hold a brief for the independent association which has not been very adroit in the negotiations. It was very late coming into the field.

I also appreciate that Government spokesmen are always well armed to riddle the drafting of any new clause with a lot of well-informed arguments. Despite all that, we think that when the State, with its vast resources, enters an industry, as occured in this case, it should do so in a neighbourly manner in regard to the remaining private elements in the industry and should not come in as a great big moneybags, dislocating all other relationships in the industry in a thoroughly overmighty and overbearing manner.

The question of the rights of workers—not owners—in the private sector was raised in Committee, and, although the relevant amendments could not be debated, the Government could have taken notice of the point. We are disappointed that they have not recognised this problem, not only for the sake of the industry but as a precedent. I hope that we shall have no more nationalisation of manufacturing industries, but who can say what the electorate or the electoral system may produce? If it happens again, the rights and proper relationships of the remaining private element of the nationalised industry should not be overborne in this way.

The Government are open to the charge that they are behaving in an unneighbourly manner and are throwing their wealth and weight about in a manner which is unfair on the workers in the remaining private sector.

Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is speaking for those employed by Bristol Channel Ship Repairers. Countless numbers of those workers, who had never heard of me, found out that I represent a shipyard constituency and wrote saying that they wanted nothing to do with the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, that they wanted to remain employees of their lovable and desirable employer who had looked after them so well, that they did not want any Government money and so on. Is the hon. Gentleman speaking for them?

Mr. Wainwright

No. Since the nationalisation statute got its Third Reading, I have not heard a word, verbally or in writing, from Bristol Channel Ship Repairers. From the rumours I hear, I am not sure that those employees are terribly pleased with Liberal Members, who, apparently, did not always behave in the way that the firm would have liked. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will acquit me of trying to further the interests of a particular company. I am concerned with the interests of all the workers.

There are serious grounds for believing that the Government have behaved a little shabbily towards workers in the remaining private sector.

Mr. David Hunt (Wirral)

I should like to take the Minister to task on the information that he has made available. In Committee I made the criticism, to which the hon. Gentleman responded rather testily, that I felt that the Bill had been rushed. He tried to explain that it had not, and he undertook to make available as much information as possible before Report. The information which we have received today is brought to us at the last moment. It is precisely the sort of information which we should have had in Committee.

Mr. Kaufman

The hon. Member is talking me out of making another effort to fulfil assurances about providing information. The Committee stage ended 12 days ago. In that 12 days, in an effort to respond to the Opposition, I have rushed my officials and rushed other Departments to achieve an agreement. At great inconvenience to them, I called a meeting with the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions and British Shipbuilders to get this information in detail. Now the Opposition throw it in my face. They need not think that I shall go to such trouble again.

Mr. Hunt

The Minister was too swiftly on his feet. The information should be made available to a Committee which is discussing a scheme. Now we have all the details which we should have gone through in Committee. We do not have that opportunity tonight. I applaud all those who have responded so quickly to criticism. If they made sacrifices, I pay tribute to them.

I blame the Minister. Why did he not gather this information before the Committee stage? Why this sudden rush? Would it not have been possible to undertake this exercise with urgency before the Bill reached Committee?

I make this criticism because the scheme has been altered. We were talking of a different scheme in Committee. The sums mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum are different from those which are now involved. Surely, if the Minister is a true democrat, he will not countenance a Committee on an important Bill being given misleading information.

In the document which the Minister kindly passed to me he says: The scheme is of a fundamentally different kind to that on which the figures in the Memorandum are based. Why were these figures not given to us in Committee? The Minister should have known the figures and conducted the investigations earlier.

What the hon. Gentleman now says differs from what he said in Committee, when I thought he said that he was sympathetic to the private sector. I recall that he admitted that the scheme that he proposed was not entirely satisfactory. The reason that he gave was that drawing the boundaries of a scheme to cover the public and private sectors would be difficult. What opportunities has the Minister taken in the last 12 days to see whether it is possible to draw up a scheme to cover the private sector? Has he closed his mind to extending the scheme to the private sector, or has he kept his mind open? This new clause is an attempt to do that which he and his officials should be doing. Surely, in a scheme which is as important as this, we should exhaust every avenue to try to get it right.

It is sad for the shipbuilding areas that we should have to introduce a scheme such as this, but it is even more important that we should get it right I do not believe that the Minister has got it right. It should be given further thought.

Mr. Frederick Willey (Sunderland, North)

I intervene to support my hon. Friend the Minister of State and to thank him for bringing the facts before us at this stage. We all know that he is in no way to blame for our not being informed. We know that he could not inform us because he did not know the facts himself. This matter has been negotiated between the confederation and British Shipbuilders. If blame there be, that is where it lies. I know from experience the difficulty that my hon. Friend has encountered in providing us with the information. We should congratulate him on recognising that his parliamentary duty as a Minister is to inform the House.

We have to face up to the fact that when an industry is nationalised it remains accountable to the House. When it asks for a legislative measure to be taken, it is all the more accountable. We must drive home to the parties involved that they are accountable to us and that we are entitled to fuller information than has been forthcoming. I absolve my hon. Friend from any responsibility in this. He was clearly without information when we discussed the matter in Standing Committee.

I regard the Bill as a desperately urgent matter. Quite near to my constituency well over 1,000 redundancy notices have been issued. We want the order under the Bill as soon as we can get it. We want certainty in the matter. People in my constituency have asked me what the position is, but I have not known. All I have known is that negotiations have been continuing.

I assume that when the order is published my constituents will be well satisfied. They will think that this is a good scheme which is beneficial to them. It is unfortunate, however, that we are legislating without knowing what the result will be. This is not a difficult matter. We have only to read the heads of agreement to realise that. Decisions have to be taken on figures, but the precedents are well set. That is why I oppose the new clause.

We all know that the clause would be a provision for procrastination and delay. We want the Bill to pass through the other place as soon as possible. Then we shall pester my hon. Friend the Minister to see that the order is quickly laid. We are aware of the difficulty that we cannot amend it, but we have some idea of what it will provide. We are anxious only to see it approved.

Mr. Robert J. Bradford (Belfast, South)

Obviously, time is the most important factor of the new clause. There are those who recognise the retrospective nature of the Bill and feel that time can be taken to consult the private sector. But the vital question is how many companies will have to be consulted. How many people will the Minister have to see or receive submissions from? Will this add years rather than months or weeks to further consideration of the scheme? That question dominates my thinking. If it would be only a matter of weeks, I would be keen to involve the private sector. It would be wrong to exclude from the scheme men who have given much of their lives to the industry.

If, however, that would mean protracted discussions, it must be borne in mind that 142 people in my Province are awaiting payment. It is not easy to find other jobs for them in Northern Ireland, and many of them are anxious to get the money due to them. The question for me is whether the consultations, if we accept the new clause, will go on for weeks or for rather longer than that.

11 p.m.

Mr. Kaufman

We have great difficulty in knowing how many companies there are. We have so far been able to trace about 60, but we have no idea whether that is the total. We should have to make great researches to see whether there are more. There might be many more—we just do not know. Our problem is that, while we have sought to consult the association, it has refused to come to see me.

Mr. Michael Grylls (Surrey, North-West)

May I refer back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) said about the scheme and the fact that it is being presented today? I must say that I liked the Minister of State better in Committee. He was in better humour then—he even called me "Larry Adler". He is a little cross tonight.

We take the Minister's point, and we understand it, that he had the negotiations yesterday and could not produce the scheme before today, but I remind him that in Committee on 26th January I asked him to delay the Report stage. On reflection, the House will probably think that that would not have been too difficult. But the hon. Gentleman gave the excuse of the parliamentary timetable. However, Where there's a will there's a way. We are grateful to the Minister for introducing the scheme, but we have had not time to digest it. It is a totally different scheme from that launched before. What we are criticising is his refusal to delay the Report stage. That would have been fairer to the House. However, we will pass that over now.

In Committee the hon. Gentleman said that one of the difficulties about bringing in the private companies was in drawing the boundaries. He said: The problem is in drawing the boundaries of a scheme."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 24th January 1978; c. 13.] We therefore put down New Clause 1 on Report. No Opposition have a perfect ability to draft a new clause or amendment. All we are saying is that other private companies should be included, otherwise they will be put at an intolerable disadvantage. The House must recognise that fact.

The hon. Gentleman may criticise the drafting of the new clause, but he has had plenty of time to draft a better one to bring in the private sector. We do not, therefore, accept his criticism of the drafting of the new clause. He may be right or wrong in his criticism, but he could have come to the House with a new clause of his own before now. He cannot just pass that matter over.

We strongly contest the hon. Gentleman's claim that we are trying to wreck the Bill. Such a claim is unworthy of him and we firmly reject it. He knows that the Conservatives, the Liberals and the United Ulster Unionists have supported the Bill in principle, but we are also here to improve the Bill. Putting down amendments in Committee and on Report does not mean that we have to accept the hon. Gentleman's allegation that we are trying to wreck it. I hope that he will apologise for having said such a thing. Let him have a smile on his face, as the song says, and get away from his bad humour.

We are trying to bring all the people in the industry who might be affected by redundancy within the scope of the scheme. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Hunt) that the Government could have done it better, with all the mountains of parliamentary draftsmen at their disposal just longing to draft new clauses and amendments. But the Minister says that it is all too difficult, that it is a question of drawing a boundary and that the Government cannot do it. The workers who work in the private sector will not take that as good enough.

The Minister of State referred to the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions and said that it was not asking for this scheme to be extended to private sector companies. Is he prepared to give a cast-iron assurance about an agreement with the confederation that it will never at any time ask for similar redundancy terms for workers in private shipbuilding companies?

If the Minister is saying that he has an absolutely cast-iron agreement with the unions and that the confederation is clear, and that it is in writing and legally binding, we might look silly in putting forward the new clause. But all that he has said—and it is very easy to say it very glibly at the Dispatch Box—is "Well, they have not so far asked for it", or whatever words he used. I do not believe that that is good enough. It is certainly not good enough for people in the private sector, in small companies that are not at all well off and are going through difficulties like those of the big companies in exactly the same way. It is certainly not enough for them to bank that type of assurance.

I hope that the Minister will either withdraw that or give a clear undertaking tonight that will perhaps satisfy us that the confederation and the Government are absolutely clear that at no time will they press private companies to ask for this scheme.

The Minister also referred to the question of a meeting with the association. I want to clear this up because on the face of it, it was a very compelling point when the Minister said that he had invited the Association of Independent Ship Repairers and Shipbuilders to meet him but that the association had not even taken the trouble to reply, or had said that it did not want to meet him.

That is not exactly the story that we have had. The president of the association met an official of the Minister's Department on 6th January and raised this same point, before the Committee stage started, and he was promised that he would have a written answer about it all, but nothing very much happened. Then, when the Committee stage came to a conclusion, suddenly the president of the association was rung up by an official of the Department who said that he had suddenly remembered—apparently—that the Minister of State had given an assurance to me in the last stages of the Committee, on 26th January, and that the Minister of State had promised to arrange a meeting with the association, but that there was not much point in having a meeting because it was a political decision, the decision had been taken and, therefore, there was no point in having a meeting. As far as the Department was concerned, it would have been a waste of time.

If that is what the Minister describes as the association refusing to meet him, he is speaking in a language that is different from mine. It is one thing for officials to ring up and say that they believe that there was some promise to have a meeting, but it is another thing to say that the whole thing would be a waste of time because it is a political decision.

Clearly, there has been some misunderstanding. The Minister had better deny that or tell me that I have got it wrong. He should write a proper letter and not simply get an official to ring up. In Committee he gave a clear assurance that he would meet the association. That was on the last day in Committee. I think that the Minister should write properly, as he did in December, when he again said that he would not change the decision of the Government. He should have written to the association before the Committee stage and invited its members to have a proper meeting without any preconditions so that he could hear their side of the case. If he will give an assurance that he will do that now, he will put them in a better light.

We stand by this important new clause. Unless the Minister of State can give us these proper assurances tonight, the question mark will remain over what the action of the private sector will be and whether the workers in the private sector should get the same amount of redundancy pay, as the Opposition believe, on the perfectly good trade union principle of equal treatment for equal workers in industry. We are standing by these people. I believe that the Minister will see that there will be a great deal of trouble in the years ahead.

Mr. Fernyhough

I am rather surprised at the line being taken by the hon. Member for Surrey, North-West (Mr. Grylls) on behalf of the Opposition. The hon. Gentleman must know how vigorously and energetically the whole principle involved in the original Bill was opposed by the Tories. He must know that they gave the House the idea that the employers in the very yards to which he has referred wanted nothing to do with the Government or their nationalisation Bill. He must know, too, that if the clause were accepted it would, as the Minister made clear, leave Belfast out in the wilds. The Bill refers to Great Britain, and not Northern Ireland, so it would cover only the former.

This is not the first industry that has been nationalised and for which, ultimately, a redundancy payments scheme has been introduced. The steel industry is discussing the question of redundancy payments. I wonder whether there will be a plea on behalf of those who are outside the nationalised steel industry that they should be embraced within the scheme for the industry.

The mines were nationalised, and ultimately a redundancy payments scheme was introduced for miners working for the NCB. There was no call for protection for those in the small privately owned mines. I do not remember any amendments being moved or any arguments being advanced on behalf of those people. Why do the Tories think less of miners working in privately owned mines and of steel workers in the private steel sector than they do of workers in the private shipyards?

Mr. Norman Lamont

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the EEC scheme for redundancy payments to steel workers does precisely what we are calling for? It applies to the private steel makers as well as to the publicly owned ones. It is a sectoral scheme, and we are saying that that is the principle that ought to be in the Bill.

Mr. Fernyhough

I very much doubt whether the scheme which the BSC will be putting to its employees for whom it can no longer find work will be identical to the EEC scheme. As one who opposed our going into the EEC, I hope that when we are dealing with issues of this nature we shall not be dictated to by the EEC, the Commissioners, or by anybody else. The House will make up its own mind on how it will be fair and just to those who, because of its legislation, are made State employees.

I do not believe that those who resisted being embraced in a scheme for the public ownership of the shipbuilding and aircraft industries can now say that we have an obligation to include them in any redundancy payments scheme just because they think they will benefit from it and are powerful and vociferous enough to make such a claim. I do not think that such an argument is rational.

If those people had not opposed the original Bill I could understand the Opposition taking this line, but I cannot understand their doing so after all that they did to encourage those who wanted to sabotage the Bill. Had they succeeded we should not have been discussing this measure tonight. The Tories are now shedding crocodile tears on behalf of those employers who were opposing the Government's proposals and saying that they could stand on their own feet and did not need Government help or intervention. They cannot now say that the Government are being unfair to those people and that they will be crippled unless they are embraced within this scheme. To do so is nothing less than two-faced.

Mr. Neville Trotter (Tynemouth)

Had the right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) been in the Committee upstairs he would have heard us say that many of these companies had no opportunity of being State owned. The vast majority of them were never considered for State ownership. They are small companies, way below the wishes even of British Shipbuilders.

I do not accept that this is a wrecking clause. It says that if the Minister is convinced that there has been unfairness to a substantial number of people in the private yards he cannot go ahead with his scheme. He appears to be accepting that the scheme will be unfair, and it means that his logic is wrong.

I find it surprising that after a two-month delay between the Bill's being published and receiving a Second Reading it is suddenly being rushed through with such urgency tonight.

11.15 p.m.

Those of us who served on the Committee have received, through the customary courtesy of the Minister of State, a lengthy memorandum setting out the substantial changes that have been made since the original memorandum of November last year, and showing that this is a quite different Bill. The hon. Gentleman says that he is publishing the details, in answer to a no doubt planted—and fairly planted—Question today, so that hon. Members will have the opportunity to read in Hansard tomorrow the amendment to the scheme. But, with the exception of the 20 or so hon. Members who served on the Committee, the House does not have the opportunity to debate the subject tonight in the knowledge that we are debating a different scheme. Perhaps if they had known the other 600 hon. Members would have been here.

Mr. Kaufman

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman says. I distributed the Written Answer not only to right hon. and hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee but to the hon. Mem ber for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain), representing their parties. I also placed it in the Library, because I wanted it to be made available. I am very anxious to provide information to hon. Members.

Mr. Trotter

I am sure that all hon. Members go to the Library every day to see what unknown documents have been deposited there. That seems to me a very odd way in which to inform the House.

Nobody wants the Bill to be delayed. It is essential to introduce the scheme, but as there was a long delay between publication of the Bill and Second Reading, surely it could have been delayed for another few days. Arguments have been going on for months and months about this. Surely we could have delayed the matter until next week, so that all hon. Members could have before them the facts that some of us have before us tonight, at the last minute, that the average payment will be two-thirds more than was originally intended and the maximum nearly twice as great as was originally intended. It is not fair to hon. Members to have had a selective distribution of this information at the eleventh hour in this way.

Question put and negatived.

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