HC Deb 01 November 1911 vol 30 cc846-7
Mr. KEIR HARDIE

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what contracts for steam coal have been placed by his Department with colliery firms in South Wales, specifying the name of each colliery and the number of tons at present contracted for?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara)

It has always been the practice of the Admiralty in the public interests to treat the details of the coal contracts as confidential, and I am not in a position therefore to furnish the hon. Member with the particulars which he desires.

Mr. KEIR HARDIE

Might I ask whether it is possible to publish the names?

Dr. MACNAMARA

We publish no official list of the names in which the contracts are held, though I believe some of them are, not authoritatively, published in the newspapers.

Mr. KEIR HARDIE

Can the right hon. Gentleman say how the Fair-Wages Clause can be enforced if the workmen do not know what firms have the contracts?

Dr. MACNAMARA

The Fair-Wages Clause is not in these contracts. As my hon. Friend knows, there is a special sliding scale, and it would be very difficult indeed to apply it.

Mr. KEIR HARDIE

asked the right hon. Gentleman whether in August last his Department referred to the Advisory Committee the question as to whether the work done by moulders at Dowlais in making parts of the machinery used for rolling plates for the Admiralty by the same firm at their works at Cardiff brought the said workmen within the protection of the Fair-Wages Resolution; whether any decision has yet been arrived at by the Committee on the point; and whether the First Lord of the Admiralty adheres to the decision of his predecessor in office that the non-payment of fair wages generally by a firm is a good ground for the non-retention of that firm on the list of Admiralty contractors?

Dr. MACNAMARA

The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirma- tive. To the second the reply is that the Committee recommended a detailed inquiry on this point on the spot in connection with the general inquiry into wages at Dowlais. In the meantime the Committee did not recommend any exclusion from the Government list of other works of the firm than those at Dowlais. The exact position, both as to Cardiff plant and the general inquiry, was stated in replies by the President of the Board of Trade and myself to the hon. Member's questions of 27th October. From those replies the hon. Member will have gathered that the inquiry as to Dowlais wages has been in progress for some time, but is not yet completed, owing to the very intricate nature of the questions involved; and as regards plant at Cardiff, that the Admiralty is assured that no work of any kind is done at Dowlais that has any connection with work under Admiralty contracts at the Cardiff works of the firm in question. The last part of the question presumably relates to the general principle stated by the late First Lord of the Admiralty on the 15th and 17th August, in which I entirely concur.