CLAUSE 1.—(Hours of employment in coal mines for boys.) (Hansard, 26 July 1937)

§ Mr. C. S. Taylor
I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment." I do not want to dwell on the past. We all know that less than 100 years ago there was a Royal Commission sitting on conditions in coal mines, and that before that Commission there appeared a boy of seven who had been working in coal mines for three years and a girl of six who had been working in a mine for 18 months. I do not want to dwell on the past; I want to look to the future. I do not want to yield to sentimentalists. The 2817 Bill was introduced to remove an anomaly, and only for that purpose. I did not mean to reform the whole coal industry, and I feel that the Bill as it stands is what I meant it to be, whereas when it left this House to go to another place it really did take a step which would have reformed the whole of the industry. The Bill as it stands is supported by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain and is not opposed by the coal-owners. The original Bill prohibited employment during the night between the hours of 10 and 5. The hour of 5 was amended by a Committee of this House to 6. No objection in theory was raised against the hour of 6 by myself or the Secretary for Mines, but it was brought out that difficulties would arise in the actual working of the mines. On Report I moved an Amendment which was not perhaps worded as it should have been and it was not pressed. The Bill was sent to another place and there an Amendment was introduced which embodied the material points of the Amendment which I had intended to introduce in this House. That Amendment has been accepted by myself as the Mover of the Bill and by the Secretary for Mines, and it provides the elasticity which we had hoped would be provided for in this Bill. I repeat that the Bill was intended to remove a certain anomaly.
I would remind the House that boys under 16 may work underground during the night time but they may not work overground during the night time. I say again, as I said on the Report stage, that I, as a Member for a south coast resort, would not dream of introducing a Bill about an industry of which I know very little unless it were to bring about some reform in the industry which was agreed by all to be necessary. I represent Eastbourne. As I have said before, the sun always shines in Eastbourne, so much so that the Secretary for Mines spends many a holiday there, and as the summer holidays are coming on no doubt many other Members will also go there. I hope that the Opposition will not challenge this Bill to-night, because although it does not go so far as they want it to go I feel sure they would not want to lose it merely for the sake of adding an extra hour to the hours specified in it.

§ Mr. Paling
It is true that the Bill is better than nothing, but it is a poor, weakly thing. It is true that the Miners' Federation have agreed to it, but on the same grounds that we are agreeing to it. We cannot get anything better. It is equally true that when the Ball came before this House and before the Committee, this House and the Committee thought that 6 o'clock was much better than 5 o'clock and said so unanimously. It has been left for the other House to bring it back to 5 o'clock. That is a measure of their consideration for the children of the poor.
My last point is that we have been discussing mines to-day, and that the figures quoted have shown that the accidents to children from 14 to 16 years of age, both killed and seriously injured, are twice as high as for adults over 18 years of age. Yet in spite of that, we are to have this penalty. The hon. Member should have made it 6 o'clock instead of 5 o'clock. Do hon. Members realise that this will mean that children of 14 will have to be at the mines so early, that it will be necessary for them to be out of bed before 4 o'clock in the morning?

§ Mr. Lyons
May I as the one who moved the Amendment to make the hour 7 ask whether it is a fact that the Mineworkers' Federation agreed to the figure which my hon. Friend now suggests, long before the Bill came before the Committee upstairs? If so, I should like to know the circumstances in which they arrived at that figure.

§ Mr. Tinker
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. C. S. Taylor) is taking this line. I was one of those who supported him in bringing the Bill forward, as I believed that he wanted to do something for the mining industry. This has been one of the anomalies for a long time, and, as one of my hon. Friends said, the system has been cockeyed. That is quite a good definition of what has been taking place. Boys of 16 years of age have been working on the surface, but not at night time, but boys underground could work at night time. The Committee decided that the hours from 10 to 6 should be put into the Bill, It appears to be altogether wrong that we 2819 should be considering now agreeing to this Lords Amendment. On both sides of the Committee to-night, the question of boy labour in the mines has been discussed, and it has been felt that no boy under the age of 16 years ought to be in the mines at all, yet now we are proposing to agree that boys can work during the night between 10 and 6, at certain times. That seems altogether wrong. To those who believe in democracy it seems wrong that the other place can take advantage of the time, so to speak, and can say: "It is the end of the session, and if you do not accept this Amendment, whatever little advantage it gives will go by the board." It is a kind of threat to the House of Commons. If a Division is forced, I shall go into the Lobby against the proposal to agree to the Lords Amendment.

§ Mr. Thorne
And so shall I.

§ Mr. Tinker
I hope the House of Lords will take note. It is a deathknell to the House of Lords to try to carry this kind of thing on.

§ Mr. Lyons
Might I ask the hon. Gentleman a question before he sits down? I moved the original Amendment upstairs, and I want to know whether it is a fact that the Mine Workers' Federation agreed to five o'clock when the Bill was discussed?

An Hon. Member
We are not concerned whether they did or not.

Hon. Members
Answer!

§ Mr. T. Edmund Harvey
Before we come to a decision on this question, might we have the considered opinion of the Secretary for Mines? This is a really serious matter, affecting the lives and the health of thousands of boys, and when there is a difference of opinion between the two Houses we ought not to come to a decision without having the views of the Minister.

§ Captain Crookshank
This is a Private Member's Bill, and I am not concerned with it. I have spoken already on it in the House. The Bill was agreed to on Second Reading and there was a Debate in Committee. The object was to 2820 abolish the work by boys on night shifts, and that only. That is why the original period was from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. In Committee it was changed from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and I said at that time that I had not had any consultation with the owners or the Mineworkers' Federation. On Report I told the House that in the interval I had been in consultation, and indeed the hon. Gentleman himself said that some elasticity would be required if the original principle was to be adhered to, which was merely to remove the anomaly that boys could be employed at night underground whereas they could not be so employed on the surface. This Bill of course has nothing to do with the question of whether boys under 16 should be employed on the day shift or the afternoon shift; it simply removes an anomaly. As a result of my inquiries, I had ascertained that the industry, as it spoke through the joint Consultative Committee thought that there should be such elasticity. But at the time of the Report stage in this House no provision for elasticity was made. It was because of the need for elasticity that a Noble Lord in another place, acting as spokesman for the joint consultative committee, moved this Amendment that there should be seven hours covering the night shift, during which the employment of boys should be completely barred. There is no great difference of opinion as between the two Houses. Both are agreed as to the main objective, namely, to remove an anomaly and not have boys working underground during the night shift. In order to make it a practical proposition my hon. Friend is asking the House to agree with the Amendment which the Lords have inserted in the Bill.