HC Deb 23 January 1962 vol 652 cc58-60
Mr. Strauss

I seek your permission, Mr. Speaker, to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the disruptive intervention of the Minister of Transport in the negotiations between the British Transport Commission and the railway unions.

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing an urgent matter of public importance, namely, the disruptive intervention of the Minister of Transport in the negotiations between the British Transport Commission and the railway unions. I would like some help about the facts. Is it not the fact that the relevant parties are meeting today to discuss whatever it is they discuss?

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples)

It might assist you and the House, Mr. Speaker, if I say that the Transport Commission and the unions are due to meet this afternoon to discuss the matter.

Mr. Strauss

The unions and the Commission are meeting because they arranged to meet, but, quite plainly, when they meet both will be aware that they will have to adjourn, because the Commission has said that instead of there being discussions there is to be arbitration.

Mr. Speaker

I follow the argument, but it presents a difficulty for the Chair. I have no doubt that the appropriate or inappropriate character of the epithet "disruptive" is a matter in issue, so I cannot treat that as something definite. I assume that at the moment no one is in a position to say, with sufficient definition to assist the Chair, what the effect of the intervention is, or will be, while the parties are actually meeting. No doubt that is a matter for argument between the two sides of the House.

I cannot find anything approaching a precedent for allowing an application of this kind while the parties are still in apparently active discussion. I am definitely not ruling about it, in order that the right hon. Gentleman should hear what I am saying in case he should want to submit something about it. At present, it appears that the parties are meeting—for what reason it would not be right for me to speculate. While they are, the effect of the Minister's intervention would seem to be quite indefinite from my point of view.

Mr. Strauss

Supposing it is found that, as a result of the Minister's intervention, discussions are abruptly brought to an end and no effective meeting takes place today, would I be in order in submitting to you tomorrow, Sir, a similar Motion for the Adjournment?

Mr. Speaker

I would rather rule about that when the occasion arises, that is to say, tomorrow, in the light of the circumstances then. I hope that nothing I say will give any encouragement to anybody to think that some disruptive process is going on. I do not mean that. I would not like by contrast to have committed myself to saying that this is the only point on which it may be that this application would have to be rejected today. My view is that in present circumstances, for the reason I have indicated, I should not put the matter to the House.

Mr. Albu

May I put to you a further point which is relevant to the difficulty in which you find yourself, Mr. Speaker? I gather that if the Minister had given a direction which had made it quite clear what the actions of the Commission were to be, that would have been a definite matter on which you could have ruled, but that you find yourself in difficulty because the Minister has given only advice and so the matter is still open, as it were. May I put it to you that that is not the case? The Minister's advice has been shown time and time again, for instance, by a Select Committee to be equivalent to giving a direction to the board of a nationalised industry.

Mr. Speaker

I have not been proceeding on the kind of distinction which the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) has in mind. I am sorry if I did not make myself plain.