TITLE. (Hansard, 15 September 1939)

§ Mr. E. Brown
I beg to move, in page 1, after "Labour," to insert "and National Service."
This Amendment is consequential on previous Amendments.

§ Mr. Buchanan
Although it does not relate directly to this Bill, I hope that in the special circumstances I shall be allowed to raise a point arising out of a remark made by the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks) yesterday, with which I am in complete agreement. I refer to the tendency at the present time among the new group of officials to be bureaucratic, standoffish and almost unapproachable. I, like almost every Member of this House, have had contact with employment exchanges, and I have found the officials sympathetic and easily accessible, but I am sorry to say that I am not finding anything like that now, but rather a tendency to be met by a refusal at the hands of people who really have no right to adopt such an attitude. 917 I am not making any general charge, but 1 would like the Minister to do what the Postmaster-General does, namely, to ask his officials to be less officious. I know that many of them are overworked and under a great strain, and I am prepared to make allowances for that, but the Minister should see to it that, in their new-found posts, officials should not regard themselves as little fellows "drest in a little brief authority" and refuse access.

§ Mr. J. Griffiths
I support what the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has said. Our lives are now becoming controlled and regulated to a degree of which we had not previously dreamed. This Bill involves an enormous amount of control of the lives of our people, and I press upon the Minister that very great care should be taken and exercised in the choice of officials. I know that they have a lot of work to do, and that a good deal of it will be new work. There will be misfits and mistakes and a great deal of interference. Workmen resent outsiders coming in and trying to put them in their place. A great deal of this control is very necessary, but I hope the Minister will bear in mind that, when new officials are appointed under a scheme of this kind, they shall be men who are experienced as far as possible in the kind of work they will have to do. I hope that he will pay some attention to their personal nature and to the methods of approach in the appointment of inspectors and all the rest of these bureaucrats.

§ Mr. MacLaren
State Socialism.

§ Mr. Griffiths
We cannot leave the people in the hands of those who own the wealth. We must come inside and help to control it. If that is necessary in crisis time, it cannot be very bad in normal times. I hope that the Minister will exercise his influence and take full note of the fact. This is a very difficult matter and will interfere with our people in many vital ways. I trust that the Minister will—in fact, I am sure he will—pay attention to the words that have been uttered by hon. Members on this side of the House, that if this thing is to be a success he must obtain the good will of the workers of this country. I hope that he will impress that fact upon all his officials.

§ Mr. E. Brown
I readily respond, and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has noted any change. I shall do all in my power, and I am sure that the headquarter's staff of the Ministry of Labour will do all in their power, to see this sort of thing does not occur. I will look at it myself and try and make it very clear that there ought not to be any change in attitude. Hon. Members were very good to say that officials were working under extraordinary stress. They have had during the last year two additional pieces of work placed upon their shoulders, and I think the House will admit that they have done the work with great devotion and skill. Members of Parliament sometimes get irritable.

§ Mr. J. Griffiths
Not without cause.

§ Mr. Brown
Sometimes it is without cause and sometimes without sufficient cause, which is not quite the same thing. I can assure hon. Members that it will be my endeavour to see that this work is administered in such a way that those who have to carry out this difficult job will not act as men "drest in a little brief authority," but, as they have always done, as officials who regard themselves as servants of the public and, more than that, as friends and public advisers of those who come within the ambit of their work.
I may add that there is no likelihood of the appointment of a number of new officials. It has been arranged, as I explained on the First Reading of the Bill, that, subject to any enlargement of staff that may be necessary later, we shall use the present inspectors who have a knowledge of work under the Mines Act, the Trade Boards Act, the Insurance Act and the Factories Act, and who are accustomed to deal with employers and workmen in their various spheres. If and when the times comes that the new orders become so many that we have to add to the staff, I give the assurance that I will bear fully in mind, in the appointments made, the points that have been raised to-day.

§ Mr. Bevan
The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that what we are attempting to do to-day is to raise a general rather than an individual complaint. While we have addressed our remarks to 919 the Minister of Labour, they are intended to cover a somewhat wider field. There has grown up in the last few weeks a very great deal of irritability at what is happening, and it is causing the inevitable reaction. I hope, therefore, that what has been said by my hon. Friends will be very carefully noted not only by the Ministry of Labour but by other Government Departments. We know in this House how Ministers in the last fortnight have had a particularly easy time in one respect. All that they have had to do has been to stand at the Box and mumble: "abacadabra, we are in a state of war, and this must be done." Then all tongues are silent. I am not saying that there is a tendency on the part of Ministers to abuse the position, but I am afraid it is true of officials outside that they expect private citizens to bear burdens which are sometimes quite unreasonable, and to answer criticisms merely by appealing to the national emergency. That can easily be abused. Therefore, I hope that we shall not have a lot of petty irritations created which may give rise to serious trouble.
Our experience very often is that an industrial dispute is not really caused by the incident that starts it. The incident 920 is symbolical of a large number of petty incidents that have gone before, the atmosphere becomes inflamed and embittered, and it is impossible for people to look rationally at the particular incident that has caused the dispute. I hope that the newly-born officials will realise that not merely have they to carry out their duties, but that they have to carry them out in a proper way in their relations with those with whom they come into contact. I hope that these little homilies will be taken seriously to heart by those who are "drest in a little brief authority," otherwise they may call down upon themselves cyclones of wrath which they may not be able to meet.