HC Deb 23 May 1947 vol 437 cc2725-35

1.10 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

I desire this afternoon to raise a question, certain aspects of which have been discussed recently, but the precise point which I desire to raise has not been discussed for some little time The subject is the deferment of call-up of apprentices at present, and during the period which must elapse before the National Service Bill comes into force on 1st January, 1949. I want at the outset to make it clear that the question which I am raising has nothing whatever to do with the Bill which the House has been recently discussing. It concerns the exercise of the powers of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour with respect to those young men who are called up, which powers, of course, derive from the emergency powers taken by the Government during the war.

I am very glad to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place. I very much regret that after his very considerable labours in the last fortnight, it has been necessary to raise this matter with him this afternoon. He knows as well as I do that it would have been disposed of earlier had it not been for the somewhat strenuous hours which the House has been keeping. I am particularly glad he is here this afternoon, because I know he has personal knowledge of the case to which I desire to refer by way of illustration of the main argument. I make no apology for raising this general issue because the matter is one of very great importance to the young men concerned, and it is also of some considerable importance to industry generally. It is, of greater importance to the young men concerned than will be a similar situation after 1949 for the reason that the young men concerned today are subject to a call-up of greater length than their successors will be after 1949, and, therefore, anything affecting the interruption of their apprenticeship at the moment is proportionately of greater importance to these young men than it will be to their successors a little later on.

I had hoped a little time ago that this matter would be satisfactorily settled. The hon. Gentleman, on 1st April, when he was good enough to intervene in certain observations I was then addressing to the House, said: Students and apprentices may have their calling up deferred during 1947 and 1943 in the same way as after the Bill comes into effect in 1949."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 1st April. 1947; Vol. 435; c. 1854.] Were that in fact, in literal truth, being done at this moment I do not think that it would have been necessary for m to raise this subject this afternoon. It will become apparent to the House from the example which I am now going to quote that that is not in its fullest sense a full and strictly accurate description of the position.

May I now trouble the House with the details of a particular case? I will put them briefly, because the right hon. Gentleman has given full and careful consideration to the case, and, therefore, is himself in possession of all the details. What has given rise to this is the case of a young man, Mr. R. R. Hall, who lives at 26, Park Road West, in the royal and ancient borough of Kingston-upon-Thames. This young man was born on 26th November. 1928, and is, therefore, at the moment approximately 18½ years of age. His parents, who are not people with any great means, made a very great sacrifice to secure that he would receive at elaborate training to enable him to earn his living in the important trade of dental mechanic. He was apprenticed on 7th February, 1944, being then 15 years of age, to a dental mechanic who is, as think the right hon. Gentleman knows, in a very substantial way of business in the vicinity. I understand the normal period of apprenticeship for dental mechanics is five years. Under war conditions and with the agreement of the Ministries of Labour and Health that period was shortened to four years, and, therefore, it followed that this young man to conclude his apprenticeship requires deferment till February of next year. Under the existing machinery the normal way is to apply for that deferment, which he did a few months ago.

I want to emphasise this because it is material to the merits of this case. In making this application this young man was, I am fully satisfied, making no attempt whatsoever to evade performing his military service and by way of supporting that I may quote the fact that he is a corporal in the Army Cadets attached to the East Surrey Regiment, which will commend itself to the right hon. Gentleman. This young man made application and it was rejected for reasons that were not made particularly clear to him or indeed, on reading the documents, to me. I understand that the basis of the decision of the hardship committee at that time was that he could not conclude his apprenticeship within nine months of becoming 18 years of age, which was perfectly true, for he would require approximately 14 months. Therefore, some regulation of the Ministry prevented the granting of deferment. I need not trouble the House with the intervening details. I raised this matter in the normal way, as all hon. Members do, with the Minister and I received, as hon. Members generally do from the Ministry of Labour, courteous and punctual replies. Not being satisfied with the position I put down a Question to which the right hon. Gentleman gave a written answer on 4th March. The Question was merely to ask whether he would reconsider the question of refusal and I would like to read the right hon. Gentleman's answer: In view of his age, Mr. Hall is not eligible for deferment as an apprentice dental mechanic Deferment on industrial grounds could only be granted to a man of his age and occupation if the work he was doing was regarded as vitally necessary for the civilian needs of the country. After consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, I am satisfied that this condition is not fulfilled in Mr. Hall's case. Mr. Hall applied for postponement of his call-up on grounds of exceptional hardship, but his application wasrefused by the Military Service (Hardship) Committee, and there are no grounds on which I can contest their decision."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1947; Vol. 434, C. 226.] The House will immediately see that the right hon. Gentleman, as he says in the first part of his answer, acted in a manner quite reasonable under wartime conditions when the national need would not be helped by deferment, but to my mind those are not relevant grounds today, because it is in the interest of this young man that he should be allowed to finish his apprenticeship. It is because there seems to be in the interim period between the war and the coming into effect of the National Service Bill this clash between the war-time doctrine of the national interest and what I hope will be the peace-time doctrine of priority for the interest of the apprentice, that I think that this matter has some importance even beyond its obvious importance to the young man in question individually. Further discussions went on and the right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to see me on the matter. Then, on 14th April, the right hon. Gentleman gave an answer which I think shows clearly his reasons for refusing deferment—reasons which, I hope he will allow me to say, are not valid at the moment however valid they may have been a little time ago. In 2 letter on that date the Minister made this point with regard to deferment: The provisions under which deferment may be granted to apprentices in 1947 and 1948 are set out in paragraph 9 of the White Paper … (Cmd. 6831). The apprentices concerned are those who were born in 1929 and later, i.e., those who reached the age of eighteen on or after 1st January, 1947. The conditions under which deferment may be granted to such apprentices are set out in detail in the attached leaflet. Further on, the letter continues: Mr. Hall was born in 1928 and his case is therefore not covered by the provisions of paragraph 9 of the White Paper and the attached leaflet. In order to be eligible for deferment, he was required to fulfil the more stringent conditions that apply to apprentices born in 1928 and earlier. As I understand it, that is the basis of the Minister's ruling, and it amounts in my submission to an injustice to say that if a young man happens to have been born, as Mr. Hall was, six weeks before the end of 1928 he has, even now in 1947, to satisfy what the Minister himself calls the more stringent conditions that previously existed before he can be deferred, whereas had he been born six weeks later there would have been very little difficulty in his obtaining deferment. The right hon. Gentleman's statement to the House of 31st March which I quoted, and which, needless to say, I accept as being given in perfect good faith, does not clear up the point about this young man. As I understand it, what the Minister meant was that deferment on these easier conditions would be given in 1947–8 merely to young men born after 1st January, 1929. That distinction seems to me indefensible. If we are to apply now, as we should, the doctrine of priority for the interests of the man in all—to use the right hon. Gentleman's phrase—bona fide cases of learnership, it seems absolutely wrong to take that right away from that class of man who is a little more than exactly 18 years of age at the moment, having been born before 1st January, 1929.

Finally, in his answer to me, which was expressed with all his usual courtesy and helpfulness, the right hon. Gentleman said that he did not feel able to defer Mr. R. R. Hall because he did not think it right to make an exception. I agree with him, but I do say that it would be right to apply this principle—which he himself is applying to those born after 1st January, 1929—not only to Mr. Hall, who happens to have been born in November, 1928, but to all young men in the same position who make similar applications. It would not be fair to this very public spirited young man, nor consistent with my duties as a Member of this House, to press for a particular privilege for a particular young man. I have merely quoted his case in support of what is, in my view, the general plea that all young men who are in course of apprenticeship at this moment should be given the chance to conclude their apprenticeships provided they are bona fide and genuine, before doing their military service.

I make that appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not only for my own constituent but for all young men in a similar position. What public interest is served by breaking the period of apprenticeship and by putting a man into the Army, or wherever he may go, with the knowledge at the back of his mind that when his military service is over he will still not be trained to earn a living? Surely he would do his service more happily, and the public interest would be better served if he did his apprenticeship, qualified for his trade and went into the Army knowing that when he came out his future was assured. He would have that feeling of confidence which I know the Minister appreciates and which any man feels if he knows he is master of a trade at which he can earn his living. Not only on behalf of my own constituent but of everybody else in the same position I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to modify his ruling.

1.25 p.m.

Mr. Basil Nield (City of Chester)

I should like briefly to support the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd Carpenter) in its general aspect. So long as compulsory national service obtains in this country there must necessarily be some degree of hardship among young people whose working lives are just starting. Our task should surely be to mitigate that hardship if it is possible to do so, and I think the House will be in complete agreement that certain categories of people are in a position of special difficulty. We are not concerned in this Debate with the position of students but with that of apprentices, and I think it must be quite clear that a young man who is in the course of serving his apprenticeship suffers a particular hardship if that apprenticeship is interrupted. I am therefore asking that most careful consideration should be given to the arguments which have just been advanced.

I have some concern in this matter because I recall, in the early days of the recent war, asking the then Minister of Labour—the present Foreign Secretary—for an assurance that members of the Forces who had had their apprenticeships interrupted by their service might be enabled to complete those apprenticeships after their release. That assurance was, of course, given and arrangements were made. That seems to me to recognise the real importance of this matter. Finally, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider most sympathetically endeavouring to assist to the utmost those young men who, as I have said, have already embarked on their period of training under a genuine apprenticeship.

1.28 p.m.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) for raising this matter, and I appreciate the careful and courteous way in which he and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Nield) have approached the question. I am satisfied that they are both moved by the urge to help these young apprentices and to have these matters straightened out. That is also our own objective. It must nevertheless be borne in mind that war-time circumstances and legislation have placed certain obligations on Ministers, but within our duty to the Government and without detriment to it it has been, and will continue to be, our anxiety to help these young men on whom the industrial efficiency of the country in the future will depend. The young man to whom reference has been made is a dental mechanic, but no doubt it has a bearing on industrial efficiency that we should have skilled dental mechanics. When the war was over and we began to consider the intake into and maintenance of the Forces there was a tremendous desire for demobilisation, and we were urged to get everybody who had served a long time out of the Army and back into civilian life, and to see that if possible interrupted apprenticeships should be resumed. It is to the credit of the wartime Government that they carried out a number of excellent schemes in conjunction with industry for picking up broken apprenticeships. The trade unions, the employers and the State joined together, with valuable results.

I appreciate the hon. Member's action in raising this matter because it gives an opportunity to set out briefly the situation as it stands, so that those concerned can see how the matter has developed. During the war, the deferment of call-up was granted to apprentices only if they were in occupations of vital national importance, and provided they satisfied certain other conditions concerning age of entry into apprenticeship and so on. In these circumstances, deferments were granted until the apprentice's 20th birthday, or until the completion of apprenticeship, whichever date was the earlier. That created a bit of trouble, because in many industries apprenticeship was not completed until a man had reached 21 years of age. We had many apprenticeships broken at a most important time, and many apprentices called up before they had completed their training. The position was carefully considered when we came to the end of the war, owing to the need for young men to maintain the Forces at proper strength, while men with long service were being demobilised. We had to impose more stringent conditions, and under these arrangements deferments were confined to apprentices in a limited range of occupations. In other words, we had to go into other occupations to pick up men. This limited range was confined mainly to engineering, building and civil engineering. Besides being in one of these occupations, the apprentice, other than an apprentice in building or civil engineering, had to qualify for the deferment by showing that he had attained certain educational qualifications, or that he would attain these qualifications within a specified time limit. The qualification required was possession of the ordinary certificate for mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry, naval architecture, or building.

In considering the call-up arrangement for 1947–48, the Government examined the question of deferment of apprentices, and these arrangements were announced in the White Paper entitled "Call-tip to the Forces in 1947–48." That White Paper was issued in May, 1946, with the aim of encouraging efficient schemes of professional and industrial training. The Government decided, as from 1st January, 1947, that apprentices in the 1929 and later age classes should be eligible for deferment for the period necessary to complete their training. There is a proviso there, but you have to draw the line somewhere, which puts a man just in or just out—that cannot be avoided. Wherever we draw the line, someone will be on the border. The proviso is that the apprentice is able to show a genuine apprenticeship existed, that it was entered into at the customary age for that occupation, and that the period of deferment was necessary for the purposes of apprenticeship. The result of this decision has been that since January, 1947, two separate sets of rules have been temporarily in operation, one applying to men born in 1928, who became liable to call-up in 1946, and the other to men born in 1929, who became liable to call-up in 1947. This transitional situation is largely disappearing. Apprentices born in 1928 cannot be granted deferment, unless they satisfy the stringent conditions laid down during the immediate post war period. The majority of the apprentices, not granted deferments, were called up in 1946, and in the few cases where call-up was delayed because of exceptional circumstances, the men did not become available for call-up until 1947. If the few apprentices born in 1928 who have not yet been called up because of exceptional circumstances, were allowed to qualify for deferment on the same conditions as those born in 1929 and later, it would be unfair to those other apprentices born in 1928 whose deferment was refused and who were called up in 1946. That is the situation generally.

In regard to the special case which has been mentioned, this man is an apprenticed dental mechanic, born in November, 1928. He made application for postponement, and a separate application to enable him to complete his apprenticeship. The application for deferment was refused on the ground that the occupation of dental mechanic is not one which satisfies the conditions already mentioned. The young man in question was therefore not eligible for deferment as an apprentice. His application for postponement on grounds of hardship was refused by the hardship committee, on the grounds that he could not qualify for postponement because of one of the conditions laid down by the Umpire, who is the final authority, that the apprenticeship must terminate within nine months of the applicant's 18th birthday. The umpire is an independent statutory authority, and the Minister has no power to alter his decision.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

This is very important. Does that mean that a decision of the umpire, which some of us regard as unsuitable today, cannot be challenged in any way?

Mr. Isaacs

That is so. The umpire's decision is absolutely final, and on many occasions that has been very useful, because of the pressure Members have put on me to do this that and the other. It was felt in the early days that the Government should take this matter outside any possibility of political influence, and that that was best done by making the umpire the sole authority in the matter. This provision was not satisfied in the case in question, because the young man would not complete apprenticeship until 14 months after his 18th birthday. Apprentices born in 1928 or earlier, whose training has been interrupted, are in certain circumstances eligible for assistance under the Government's interrupted apprentices training scheme, which enables them to complete their training and qualify as craftsmen on their return to their civil jobs. Under the scheme agreed to by the J.I.C. of the craft of dental technicians, which includes dental mechanics, those called up in the last year of their apprenticeship qualify as journeymen on their return to civil employment. This apprentice is in the last year of apprenticeship and therefore should benefit under this arrangement.

It is a tragedy that it should be necessary to interrupt the career of anyone, whether it is in the case of an industrial career or of a scholastic career, but while the State requires that there shall be this service, these cases of hardship have to be faced. I can assure the hon. Member, however, that wherever the Minister of Labour, acting for the Government, can ease the burden, it will be done. There is some feeling as to whether a lad would be better if he was left to complete his apprenticeship before going into military service, and then coming back, having no contact with his trade, or whether it would be better if he went into such service now, came back, and had another year or so at his trade. The Government's refresher courses and training schemes are designed to enable such lads to pick up where they left off.

Perhaps owing to the persuasiveness of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, I have tried to see whether I could get this young lad into the dental section of the Army. If we have a young lad who is an electrician, or an engineer, or is a skilled artisan in some other respect, we have to try—and we ought to continue to try—to put him into a Service where he can continue his training, where he can give useful service to the branch of,the Service in which he goes. That we shall continue to do. Where it is absolutely impossible to make a concession without being unfair to others these apprenticeship and training schemes, and other schemes, will be worked in such a fashion as to give the best possible assistance to the individual. I am glad that an opportunity has been given to me of explaining the position, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way he put his case.