NEW CLAUSE.—(Compensation for employees of mineral agents in case of loss of employment or diminution of emoluments) (Hansard, 8 February 1938)

§ Mr. Ridley

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

This Clause is designed to avoid what otherwise would be a considerable hardship and disability. I wish that the provisions of the Bill covered the whole consequences of the Bill, and not part of them. I shudder to contemplate what the effect of widespread amalgamation will be in terms of unemployment without protective provisions such as were put in the Railways Act, 1921. Since all the appeals made to the Government for that purpose from this side of the Committee have elicited no response, but have produced from the Minister the comment that the proposals to protect the miner against the consequences of the Bill were fantastic, I will limit myself to the terms of the new Clause. Parliament has 994 always insisted on adequate compensation for dismissal or other unfavourable circumstances arising out of amalgamations which Parliament has approved. Those provisions have usually been based on the local government legislation of either 1888 or 1933, as was the case of the Railways Act, 1921, and of the London Passenger Transport Board. It has been assumed by legislation that all employés of the amalgamated undertakings become the employés of the amalgamated undertaking itself, and the acquisition by the amalgamation of rights and property has also meant the acquisition of liabilities, and in acquiring those liabilities it acquired the employés of the amalgamated undertakings. It was bound in consequence either to compensate them for loss of office if it failed to continue to employ them, or, if it continued to employ them at a lower rate of remuneration, to compensate them for the difference between the two standards.

The State now proposes, through the medium of the Commission, to acquire mining royalties and property, and if the new Clause I submit is not accepted, that acquisition will have serious consequences for the people covered by it. The existing relationship between the royalty owner and the mineowner requires the engagement by the royalty owner of a body of men known as mineral agents, mineral surveyors and mineral engineers. They are technical men with special qualifications for doing a special job. They are a small number, amounting, so far as I can make out, to between 250 and 300. Their job is to make surface and underground surveys, to prepare plans for royalty owners, to inspect workings, to measure up sections and share the area of coal worked, to calculate and agree with the colliery companies the amount of royalties to be paid to the royalty owners, to agree with the colliery company the amounts to be deducted for dirt and inferior coal, to keep plans, to make valuations, to collect royalties and to disburse them to whoever may be entitled to them. The expectation and the fear are that this Bill will eliminate the need for the continued employment of this small body of people.

995 Inevitably there will be a number of dismissals, and that will mean the placing permanentliy out of industry of a proportionately large body of men, with no hope that they will ever again find a job in the professional occupation within which alone they can hope to earn a reasonable standard of life. In that sense they will join the unskilled labour market. More than that, few, if any, of these men, because of the small size of the firms, are members of statutory superannuation funds. On the contrary they have been employed by firms which have been accustomed to make ex gratia pension allowances to them, and those also will go. I ask the Committee to observe that the number of men concerned is small. The aggregate amount of compensation required under the terms of the Clause is infinitesimal compared with the global sum which will be paid to the royalty owners themselves; and I ask the Committee to agree that only the barest justice will be done by requiring the royalty owners, who are themselves to be generously compensated, to compensate in their turn these people whose services they will no longer require.

I would only add that the global compensation figure is based upon the gross revenue of the royalty owners, and that is a basis which must include the expenditure undertaken by the royalty owners in the employment of the men referred to. Therefore, in my view the global sum includes a figure which could properly be attached for compensating these people. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, and I suffer his negation for the moment. I submit, finally, that we should not take a step under Part I of this Bill which will place out of employment a very considerable number of men with professional and technical qualifications who will have no hope again of ever being able to employ those qualifications in a way which will enable them to earn an ordinary reasonable standard of life. The House should not do that without requiring the royalty owners, whose employés these people were, to compensate them for the disturbance and the loss of office.

Mr. Stanleys

The Clause refers to a small class of people who number, I should imagine, from inquiries I have 996 made, something like 100, or perhaps rather more than that, who serve either in a wholly or semi-technical capacity mineral agents now employed by the mineral owners. The hon. Member has confined his Clause to such people as are employed by firms wholly or mainly dealing with such property, and they are, therefore, quite a limited class of people, whose skill, I agree, is of a rather limited technical character and who might find it difficult to get employment in a different kind of work. Let us consider what will be the reactions of the passage of the Bill upon the employment of those people. For four and a-half years there will be no difference at all, because it is not suggested that until the actual vesting of the property in the Commission takes place there is any reason to anticipate any loss of employment among them. Therefore, to begin with, they have four and a-half years' notice. After that the Commission will have to do with respect to their properties exactly the same thing as the royalty owners now do with the same properties when in their hands. Exactly the same kind of work will have to be done by someone for the Commission as is now being done by these people and those who employ them for the individual royalty owners.

Therefore, not only is there 4½ years' notice, but there is at the end of it every prospect of continuing employment in exactly the same kind of work. I think, though, it is right that these people in their capacity, just as the employers in their capacity, should have the first chance of the jobs that are going under the Commission, and that priority should be given in employment to those who may be losing their employment because of the Act. I think the Government should give an assurance that it will represent to the Commission the desirability of offering priority of appointment, whether as a staff, which covers the case raised by this Clause, or as agents, which covers the case of my hon. Friend, to competent persons or firms who have had experience in a technical or semi-technical capacity and who for not less than 10 years prior to the passing of the Act have been wholly or mainly engaged in that class of work. They will also suggest to the Commission that in the interests both of themselves and of the classes of persons concerned, it will be desirable for them to invite a committee representing the professional 997 interests of such persons or firms to cooperate with them in a consulative capacity in regard to the offering of these appointments. I think that offers a very fair chance of the continuance of the employment of these people under the new employers.

I must correct a statement that the hon. Member made. He said that the global figure which forms the subject of the agreement between the Government and the royalty owners for the purchase of coal was arrived at before the deduction of these expenses. That is not the case. The net average annual figure, upon which the global sum is finally determined, was arrived at after the deduction of a sum representing the expenses of management of the property. In any case, therefore, I could not accept that this compensation should be deducted from that global sum agreed with the royalty owners.