HC Deb 13 November 1957 vol 577 cc952-5
59. Mr. Collins

asked the Minister of Labour if he will give an undertaking that the Government's declared policy on wage increases will not involve any attempt by him to cancel any decision by a joint industrial council to alter wages or conditions of labour, or any interference with the freedom of members of joint industrial councils in the making of such decisions.

Mr. Iain Macleod

Joint industrial councils are bodies concerned with collective bargaining and we have already informed the House that the Government have no intention of interfering with such arrangements.

Mr. Collins

In that event, will the Minister agree that the right of workers and employers to negotiate freely on wages and conditions is absolutely fundamental to our industrial structure? Will he say, therefore, why, if he takes that attitude with regard to the joint industrial councils, the Government have made their recent decision regarding the Whitley Council for the Health Service? What is the fundamental difference?

Mr. Macleod

Although I should like to look at the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question when it appears in HANSARD, I do not think that I should disagree. Of course, in the case mentioned, the fundamental difference is that the management or official side who have had the responsibility for making the recommendation are not in the ordinary position of employers in that they are not responsible for finding the money.

62. Mr. Awbery

asked the Minister of Labour on how many occasions and in what trades the decision of a Whitley Joint Industrial Council has been nullified by any body of employers or by the action of any Minister of the Crown.

Mr. Iain Macleod

About 180 joint industrial councils or similar bodies operate at the present time and many of them have been in existence for a long period. I cannot say what action has been taken on the decisions of these councils over the last forty years as no record is kept in my Department. It is clearly unlikely, however, that any body of employers would nullify an agreement which they had freely reached in negotiation. It is, of course, only in a very few cases in the public sector that Parliament has decided that a Minister's approval is necessary before an agreed recommendation can be put into effect.

Mr. Awbery

Is the Minister aware that, since Whitley Councils were established in 1917, this is the first occasion that an agreement has been nullified by the Government? Is he aware that he has created a precedent which will be adopted by employers and lead to chaos in industry and that all he is getting out of it is £604,000 a year? Will the right hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the Minister of Health to reconsider his veto on the recent decision?

Mr. Macleod

I note what has been said without agreeing with it. My right hon. Friend will also see in HANSARD what has been said. Obviously one cannot tell—because no records have been kept, and there are 180 of these councils going back forty years—whether such action has been taken before. The important point is that in the vast number of cases of joint industrial councils concerned with industry no Minister comes into the picture at any stage. It is only in a few cases that Parliament has decided he should, and presumably Parliament did not intend Ministerial approval to be a rubber stamp.

Mr. Lee

Would the Minister care to resolve the anomaly which now faces us? Can we take it, the Whitley Council having made its recommendation and the Minister having vetoed it, there is now no opportunity for the trade union side to go to arbitration on the matter? Would the Minister accept that the anomaly works out in a way which means that the trade union side must now present its case so very badly as to be sure that the official side will turn it down, so that the matter can go to arbitration? Is that the position?

Mr. Macleod

The position is that, as there is no arbitrable issue at present, arbitration does not arise. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] There is no dispute, and therefore there is no arbitrable issue. It is possible that such an issue will arise in connection with this particular claim. Nothing I have said today, and nothing that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health said to the deputation on Monday, excludes that possibility.

Mr. Lee

The Minister has said that there is no issue to go to arbitration. Would he not agree that the trade union side of the Whitley Council made an application which was agreed to at the Whitley Council, and because there was no failure to agree the matter cannot now be taken to arbitration? It does not alter the fact that the trade union side is insisting on its right to get a 3 per cent. advance. Will the right hon. Gentleman say what he means by his observation that there is no case to go to arbitration?

Mr. Macleod

There is no case to go to arbitration because at the moment there is, in this particular instance, and in the technical sense, no dispute. Therefore there can be no arbitration. The hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well. I have made it quite plain that nothing I have said today excludes my consideration of an arbitrable issue if one is put before me.