CLAUSE 7.—(Meaning of expression "former employer.") (Hansard, 17 February 1944)

§ Dr. Peters (Huntingdon)
I beg to move, in page 5, line 42, to leave out "within," and to insert "during at least."
The object of the Amendment is to raise a matter of some importance, which I dare say my right hon. Friend will say bristles with difficulties. The correspondence which he has had with the Council of the Law Society does raise the point whether there should be a minimum time. A man who has changed his employment very shortly, it may be only a few days, 451 before his calling up, is not in the same position as a person who has been employed much longer. I think the Minister may possibly be able to give some assurrance that he will deal with it under the regulations which he will have the power to make under Clause 16, and I hope he may give that assurance to meet the position.

§ Mr. G. Griffiths
I hope the Minister is not going to accept this Amendment. I would give a concrete case why he should not accept it. I had a man in my division who was working down the mine. A doctor told him he must come out of the mine, because he was not physically fit for the work. He came out of the mine and asked the management if they would find him a job on the top. The management said, "We have not got any." This man was employed on the railway the next week. He was called up for examination and passed A.1 into the Army, by the same doctor who told him he was not fit to work down the pit. He was employed on the railway only for about eight days. If the Minister is going to accept this Amendment that man will not have any chance at all.

§ Mr. McCorquodale
I cannot ask the Committee to accept this Amendment. The consideration is really the one we discussed with regard to the Civil Defence forces conscripted under the 1941 Act. The opinion of the House appeared to be one of unanimity that, having once granted rights under a Bill, they should be left to take that course again. In the 1939 Act we granted reinstatement rights to these people with regard to the last job they had before they were called-up without any limit as to how long they had been employed in it. If we accepted the Amendment, it would be taking away rights of a very large number of people, and I therefore suggest that the same observations apply to this as to the other case, and I ask the Committee not to accept the Amendment.

§ Mr. Molson
This would not, I take it, apply to the employer if the man had passed out of his service before he joined the Armed Forces, even though he had been employed at some moment during the four weeks before service.

§ Mr. McCorquodale
The obligation is only on the last employer before he joined 452 the Forces. There is no obligation on the previous employer.

§ Mr. Molson
Supposing that he was unemployed before he joined the Forces?

§ Mr. McCorquodale
If he had been unemployed less than four weeks before he was called-up and had not been employed somewhere else more recently, the man with whom he was employed before he became unemployed would be the employer under the Bill.

§ Dr. Peters
I understand from the discussion how difficult it would be to put the Amendment into effect, and having regard to what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Major Manningham-Buller
I beg to move, in page 5, line 43, at the end, to insert: or if such employer can show that by reason of the applicant's misconduct he terminated his employment the employer by whom the applicant was last employed within four weeks prior to entering the employment immediately preceding the beginning of his war service. The purpose of the Amendment is to deal with a small point which may cause some difficulty and friction. Let me put the case of a man employed in the four weeks preceding his call-up for a short time by one employer. They had a tremendous quarrel and they parted. It would be rather unfortunate if the burden were thrown upon that employer, and the purpose of the Amendment is to provide that where that has happened the applicant can put the obligation on the preceding employer by whom he was employed in that period.

§ Mr. Bellenger
I hope that my hon. Friend will resist the Amendment. I think that the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment will realise that it would almost be impossible to work it. We should not put provisions into any Bill which would be likely to cause considerable litigation. Considering the nature of the Bill—and we all understand the difficulties that will be encountered unless the Government come forward with the plans that the Minister has promised to-day of, what I understand to be, a full employment policy—we do not want to clutter up the Measure with Amendments like the present one. We had better let it rest 453 where it is. What would be the result if the Amendment were included? The war has gone on for nearly five years, and may go on for a considerable number of years. We have to go back to establish certain facts, namely, that four weeks before the man was called up he had some quarrel with his employer, who dismissed him for misconduct. The employers can always establish some sort of a case that they have dismissed a man for misconduct but I think, if the war does go on for that time, and this is included, the only effect will be to provide a lot of work for lawyers, and I would rather provide work for the men.

§ Mr. McCorquodale
The Amendment as drafted, of course, we could not accept, but I do not think I could advise the Committee to accept the idea behind it. Suppose a man has been dismissed for misconduct just before the war. Since that time he has fought for his country for five years. I should have thought in a normal case the employer would be liable to overlook any small fault for which a man was dismissed before the war, and before the service he has given to the Crown. If, of course, he had been dismissed for something very serious—supposing he was the cashier and had embezzled the funds—it could not be accepted as reasonable and practicable that he should be reinstated as cashier. I do not think anyone would agree to that. Therefore, the employer is safeguarded against the more difficult type of case. I hope, for those reasons, the hon. and gallant Member will not press his Amendment.

§ Mr. Gallacher
I think the hon. and gallant Member who moved this Amendment should rise and make an apology to the Committee.

§ Major Manningham-Buller
I will rise, but not to take the advice of the hon. Member opposite, whose acquaintance with this Bill is not very deep, if I may say so. The object of the Amendment was quite clear. It was not the object attributed to it by the hon. Member opposite, but I will not go further into that. However, in view of what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, I would like with the leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. G. Griffiths
I want to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to a question I put to him when he was dealing with the Second Reading of the Bill. This will affect a lot of local authorities all over the British Isles. The Government have taken into their employ hundreds of employees of local authorities, clerks and other people. Some of them have been in the employment of the Government now for over two years. Will the Government be regarded as their last employer, or are the Government going to say "Your last employer was the Royston Urban District although we called you and have paid your salary or wages all along the line"? The Parliamentary Secreary said he would answer that point later, and I feel that now is the time to answer it, because if Clause 7 is passed I cannot put my question at any other time.
In replying to an hon. Member the Parliamentary Secretary said he could not accept this four weeks. I am very pleased he did so. I want to know whether these people whom the Government have called, not directly into the Forces but into Civil Defence and from the Civil Defence into the Forces, when they come back, are to go to their last employer? If they are going back to their last employer, then the Government must find these people employment, and they will not go back to the local authorities, county councils, municipal authorities and urban districts all over the country. As a member of the Urban District Councils' National Executive, I have been asked to put this point. They want to know where they stand when the men come back from the Forces and not out of Civil Defence. If you had taken them out of Civil Defence and sent them back to the local authorities, and then from the local authorities to the Forces, they would have belonged to the local authorities as employees. If you shifted men from Civil Defence back to the local authority and then from the local authority into the Forces they would belong to the local authority as employees. I cannot see how they would belong to local authorities when they have been out of the service of the authorities for, in some cases, more than two years.

§ The Attorney-General
The position which the hon. Member has put is that of a man who having been a local authority servant, goes, say, to the N.F.S.—that is, a national service which is under the Crown—then goes into the Armed Forces. Who, asks the hon. Member, was the last employer before the man went into the Forces? The answer is that it is the Crown and, therefore, the man comes under the pledge given just now by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. It would be for the Crown to look after him. No doubt he would want to get back to the local authority, but the Crown would behave as other employers have to behave.

§ Mr. Griffiths
Thank you. I will have a cup of tea on the strength of that.

§ Mr. Douglas (Battersea, North)
Will the Attorney-General explain the converse case of a man who is employed in Civil Defence work by a local authority, who is called up and goes into the Armed Forces? The Civil Defence Service will, of course, be disbanded after the war. Is the local authority then to be under the obligation of dismissing its permanent staff in order to make room for such men?

§ The Attorney-General
That is the type of case which arises under the Bill on the question of whether it was reasonable or practicable to offer the man an alternative job.

§ Mr. Bellenger
It seems to me that we are in a rather strange situation. The Attorney-General has cited the case of the man leaving a local authority, passing on to the Civil Defence Service and then on to the Armed Forces of the Crown. He said the man would have a right under this Bill when he leaves the Armed Forces. He stated that the employer who has to compensate the man is the Crown.

§ The Attorney-General
I want to make it clear that he has no right under the Bill but that he would come under the pledge which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary gave.

§ Mr. Bellenger
The Committee must understand what right the man really does have. Let us assume that the man goes back to the Crown. What will the Crown do? Suppose the National Fire Service, or the Civil Defence Service is in process of being disbanded; does that mean that 456 the man's compensatory rights will amount to a money payment? There will be no employment for him because these Services, I imagine, will be disbanded when the time comes for demobilisation. Could the Attorney-General tell us, even though the Crown are not included in the Bill, whether the man will be able to get a money compensation the same as a civilian employer has to pay if he does not reinstate the employee under this Bill? A man will want to know, not the words uttered in this House but what he is going to get out of it, employment or compensation in lieu of employment.

§ Mr. McCorquodale
I should like to correct the hon. Member in case that goes out from this Committee. The Bill does not lay down that, if an employer cannot employ a man, he has to pay him compensation. That does not enter into the Bill at all. If he cannot employ him, that is the end of it.

§ Mr. Bellenger
So we have got to this point. We have got to the real value of the Bill itself. I have long had doubts about the value of certain guarantees under the Bill. The Parliamentary Secretary now says that if the Crown, or any employer, cannot offer a man employment he can then pass him on to someone who will give him something—perhaps the Public Assistance Committee. I would put this point to the Minister in all friendliness that, if the Crown can offer nothing more under the Bill than the Attorney-General has offered us, it is a further argument for him and the Government to produce plans more substantial than the words uttered by the Parliamentary Secretary.

§ Mr. Bevin
It is most unfortunate that these speeches should be made. It does not matter about Parliament, but I think it is quite unfortunate from the point of view of the men in the Services. No Member of the Government has ever for a moment pretended that this Bill provides employment. I have said three times to-day that it is merely trying to make an Act of Parliament work, nothing more or less. My hon. Friend was in the House when that Act was carried in 1939 and never rose to say what was going to happen. The Department was saddled with the administration of the Act and there was no machinery to carry it out. Thousands of men have gone 457 into the Forces in the belief that that Clause really meant what it said. I have said over and over again that to attempt to lead men to believe that the Clause secured them a return to their jobs was wrong. I have tried to clear the ground in a limited way by explaining how much the Clause means and how far it goes. It is grossly unfair to suggest that the Government regard this as a solution of the great problem of resettlement or that it is intended to provide a complete resettlement for men returning from the Forces. I ask my hon. Friend to be fair. I do not mind him scoring off me, but I do not like men to be misled who are perhaps just going into battle. I would ask hon. Members to have regard to the words they utter. The Government have no intention of letting the men down or of regarding this as their final obligation, but to work out a Measure better than the Act of 1939, because it clothes it and gives it something to work with. I ask my hon. Friend not to imply that the Government regard this as their final conclusion and say they must produce other schemes. Three times to-day I have indicated that other Measures will be brought before the House.

Several Hon. Members
rose—

§ The Chairman
This discussion has gone far enough. We are getting far too wide on this Clause.

§ Sir I. Albery
On a point of Order. You have allowed the Minister, Major Milner, to make certain statements, some of which are definitely controversial, on matters arising indirectly out of the Clause. In these circumstances are we not to be allowed to reply? The Minister has referred to what occurred on the Second Reading, as have other hon. Members. I do not wish to go back on the Second Reading, but certain statements have been made which should be further elucidated.

§ The Chairman
The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) made certain remarks, and I permitted the right hon. Gentleman to make a short reply. In strictness he went farther than he was entitled to go, and I cannot allow further debate on those lines, which would partake of a Second Reading nature. Any hon. Gentleman who wishes to deal with points arising out of the Clause will be in Order.

§ Sir I. Albery
I sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman and the Government in the difficulty in which they find themselves. The difficulty which arises on this Clause is due to the fact that in a certain period some well-intentioned but ill-considered legislation was passed, and we are now trying to put it right. I regard it as imperative that we should take every care as this Bill passes from the House that ex-Service men should be under no delusion about what it contains and does not contain. The right hon. Gentleman will later have an opportunity of explaining, especially in view of the remarks he has just made, why the Title of the Bill is Reinstatement in Civil Employment Bill.

§ Mr. Gallacher
I am glad that this Clause has not been amended because I know of men who have been called up after having been employed for a considerable time with a firm which went bankrupt, and who for a week or two before they were called up were employed by another firm. If the Clause had been altered as was suggested, those men would have had no employer to call upon for employment. I appreciate that it does not automatically follow that the employer referred to in the Clause will be in a position to absorb men, but everything will be done to get employers to employ men on their return if it is reasonably possible to do so. We know that there are circumstances in which it will be impossible for employers automatically to take men back. Nobody understands that better than the Minister. I want to warn Members that when they are dealing with a Clause such as this, although there may have been a measure of collaboration between the young Tories and myself on the Education Bill, I will have nothing whatever to do with them on this question.

§ Sir A. Southby
This discussion has I think shown the sort of difficulty that does arise in this matter. I certainly accept the pledge given by the Minister to the effect that the Government do mean in the case of Government employment to do their very best to find a man a job, but what we are all trying to do is to improve what many of us think is not a very good Bill. It was unfortunate that the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger), voicing what I am sure he believed would be the effect of the Bill, should be told he was not 459 being fair. I think he was being fair to the Serviceman, and I would like to emphasise that it is up to us not to let the ex-Service man think he is going to get something which he cannot get.