HC Deb 01 May 1963 vol 676 cc1092-115
Mr. Whitelaw

I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, to leave out "two years" and to insert "twenty-six weeks".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

I think that it will be convenient to discuss with this Amendment the next two Amendments in line 8, the Amendment in line 10, the two Amendments in line 14, the two Amendments in line 18, the two Amendments in line 22, the Amendment in Clause 2, page 2, line 13, and the second Amendment in Clause 2, page 2, line 19.

Mr. Whitelaw

Thank you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I think that all these Amendments hang closely together.

The effect of the Amendments is to alter Clause 1 so that both employer and employee will be obliged to give at least one week's notice of termination after the employee has been continuously employed for 26 weeks. The employee's right to have at least two weeks' notice after two years, and four weeks' notice after five years, remains unaltered.

The Bill as it stands gives the employee a right to a minimum of two weeks' notice after two years, but it does not give him any right to notice until two years have been completed. In Committee, we had a detailed discussion on whether an employee should be entitled to a week's notice after a period substantially shorter than two years. During the course of the discussion it was argued by hon. Members on both sides that many employees in certain industries with a fairly high labour turnover, for example, shipbuilding, ship repairing, and construction, would not benefit from the right to notice in the Bill because they would not have the necessary record of continuous employment.

Moreover, it is these very employees who for the most part form the minority who do not have even a right to a week's notice. This point was also stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), and other hon. Members, on Second Reading. I think that it constitutes a powerful argument for introducing into the Bill a right to a week's notice after a reasonable qualifying period, and in these Amendments we have accepted that argument.

At the conclusion of the discussion on this point my right horn. Friend gave an undertaking to consider carefully what had arisen in the debate, and he also said that he wanted to find out the views of the British Employers' Confederation and the Trades Union Congress. The views of the B.E.C. and the T.U.C. differ. The B.E.C. thinks that the question of the right to notice after a shorter period than two years should be left to voluntary negotiation.

If, however, there were to be a statutory right to a week's notice after a shorter period than two years, the qualifying period should not, in the Confederation's view, be less than one year. The T.U.C. has indicated that it thinks the qualifying period should be much nearer to one month. The House will see that the proposal in these Amendments for a qualifying period of 26 weeks' continuous employment falls roughly midway between those opposing views.

I do not suggest that for that reason alone it is necessarily right, but I think that it is worth pointing out as a strong argument in its favour a recent development in the building industry. A right to a week's notice after six months' employment has been agreed in principle by the industry's National Joint Council. We all welcome this progress, and I note that the right to a week's notice appears at the same point as is proposed in these Amendments.

Mr. John Diamond (Gloucester)

The hon. Gentleman has shown himself to be courteous and honest throughout our proceedings. Would not he immediately recognise that the building industry is the one industry which is singled out as being the most difficult for giving long periods of notice because of the essential conditions attaching to it, and that that is why it has been one of the very few industries, if not the only one, in which up to this point in time it has been possible to sack a man at an hour's notice?

Mr. Whitelaw

I would not be so definite, but I accept that the building industry is one of the difficult ones. Far from detracting from my argument, I think that what the hon. Gentleman said adds great strength to it, because I remind him that what we are doing is laying down a statutory minimum. Of course, we hope that people will do better voluntarily, but when we are laying down a statutory limit we must have regard not to one aspect but to the whole field of employment, as has been said very often. Therefore, I feel that the point raised by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) has added weight to my argument, and I am grateful for the help that he has given me in raising it.

The Bill confers a statutory right to notice where the employee can be regarded as having earned it by a qualifying period of service. I would say that six months was about the shortest period in which an employee could be thought to earn a statutory right of this kind. I emphasise again, as I remarked to the hon. Member for Gloucester, that I am speaking only of the statutory right, and the last thing that I would want to do would be in any way to discourage the granting of a week's notice for less than six months' employment, where it is appropriate, under voluntary arrangements. Indeed, I believe that one helpful outcome of the Bill will be that by laying down a statutory limit better arrangements by voluntary agreement will be encouraged.

In laying down a statutory limit we must be careful not to go too low. I believe that it would be difficult to justify going below a period of 26 weeks. In view of what I have said, I cannot invite the House to accept the Opposition Amendments, which would provide a right to a week's notice after one month's employment.

I am a little surprised that the Opposition should have put forward these Amendments. In Committee I thought that it had been clearly shown that if we reduced the period to one month we would run into great difficulties in respect of the casual and temporary workers. I emphasise that I do not base the decision to make the qualifying period one of six months on the need to exclude these workers, but if we imposed a qualifying period of only one month we would run into some very severe difficulties in this matter. These difficulties would occur in agriculture, building, civil engineering, and many other employments. In my view, it would be unreasonable to provide for a week's notice to be given to someone who had been taken on for five or six weeks for the purpose of a little fruit picking.

I agree that in their Amendments hon. Members opposite are consistent, since they provide that the employee should also be bound to give a week's notice after a month's employment. I suggest that many employees not only do not expect to receive a week's notice, but certainly do not wish to give a week's notice, either. We must beware that in our anxiety to give the employee rights we do not saddle him with obligations which he does not want. I suspect that that would be one of the dangers of reducing the period to one month, as suggested by hon. Members opposite.

I think that hon. Members opposite will agree that, following the discussions in Committee, the Government have accepted the general principles of the arguments put forward, and in those circumstances I hope that the House will agree that we should give employees the statutory right to a week's notice, and that for the reasons I have given that right should accrue after 26 weeks' employment.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice (East Ham, North)

I welcome the Government Amendments, as far as they go, but I want to speak in favour of the Opposition Amendments, which express the views of my hon. Friends and myself that the Bill should be altered to a much greater extent, and should provide for a week's notice after one month's work. In my view, one of the worst features of the Bill as originally drafted was that it did nothing whatever for those people whose employment was least secure. It was ostensibly designed to provide extra security for people at work, but it failed to deal with those whose need was greatest.

As originally drafted it was rather a mess. In this respect and in others it has had to be considerably amended, in Committee and now on Report. The fact that there was originally nothing in the Bill to improve the position of those with less than two years' service was attacked by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by both sides of industry in their submissions after the publication of the Bill. This was a symptom of the fact that the Bill was produced very quickly, without the normal consultation that one would expect to have taken place with people on both sides of industry.

The object of the Opposition in seeking to provide for notice after one month's employment is to try to get the matter right. We want to bring about a situation in which hardly anyone working in this country can be dismissed at a few hours' notice. We believe that there is something basically wrong about a situation in which a man can be turned out of his job and deprived of his living without the necessary civilised opportunity to look round for another job. If we could do so, we would like to legislate in such a way that every employee, in all circumstances, was entitled to one week's notice, but we have had to recognise, as a matter of practice, that some kind of time limit must be introduced.

There are some kinds of employment in respect of which a week's notice could not be provided. There are people—casual workers in the extreme sense—who do a day's work here, or a few hours' work there, perhaps in casual gardening, or, in the case of a woman, casual domestic work. It would be ridiculous in such cases to think in terms of a week's notice. Furthermore, in other forms of employment there must be some kind of period during which the employer can judge whether a worker is likely to be satisfactory, and the worker can judge whether the employment is satisfactory to him. Clearly, if either party is dissatisfied within the first few days the other party should be able to bring the employment to a close without a week's notice.

Having considered many alternatives, we have come to the conclusion that a period of four weeks' employment is about right for a week's notice. It would cut out the most casual forms of labour and would also provide a period in which both worker and employer could decide whether the employment was a reasonable proposition. After that period, we feel that a week's notice should be obligatory. We do not run away from the argument that it should be obligatory both ways, and that the employer is also entitled to a week's notice from the worker. A week is not an onerous period either way, and it should be an obligation on the parties concerned.

The period of four weeks is contained in the national agreement in the engineering industry. I do not suggest that the practices of that industry can be followed in every other industry, but it is a very large industry—in fact, it is a conglomeration of industries—and this arrangement has been found to work satisfactorily there, in practice. Under the agreement, those who have worked for four weeks are entitled to one week's notice, and themselves have to give one week's notice if they wish to leave their employment.

If hon. Members opposite consider that four weeks is too long, the onus of proof is on them. The Parliamentary Secretary said that he thought that a man ought to work for six months in order to earn the right to a week's notice. I believe that he was putting the argument the wrong way round. Surely it is a basic human right to have notice, and a week is not very long in which to look for other work. It may be quite inadequate in some circumstances, especially in the conditions that now exist in some parts of the country, with heavy local unemployment. The onus is upon hon. Members opposite to prove that the period we suggest is wrong.

The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the building industry. We are glad that a new situation has arisen in that industry, because it has been notorious for its quick dismissals—certainly, by some firms in some parts of the country. This has been a bad thing. But the period of six months in the building industry is still probably not quite enough, in view of the conditions which exist in that industry. I have been in touch with some of my trade union friends in the industry and they suggest that the pattern that exists in its works like this: for a great number of projects the period of construction tends to be about two years, depending upon the size of the project and on the weather.

A period of two years is a common period for a major building project to last, and within that period of two years there are certain phases of work. There is the excavation phase, and all the other phases that follow. These phases last for some months and it is the tendency for people to be laid off at the end of a phase. From the sort of timing which we are here considering, I should have thought that six months would be an advantage on some occasions, and on others it would not. Some work would last for six months and some would not. Our Amendment would be helpful to the building industry for which there ought to be some such period as one month, although it would not relate only to that industry.

The Parliamentary Secretary referred to those who work in agriculture, and the fruit and hop pickers about which we heard so much during the Committee stage discussions. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman did not quote the example which the Minister gave to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman said that this period would be unreasonable in relation to temporary work at Christmas. He suggested that an employer would not know when Christmas Day was coming and how to give seven days' notice, because he would not know when the employment was likely to come to an end. I gather that this argument has been dropped and I am glad of it.

There is, of course, a case in relation to agriculture, and we must admit that. Because of weather conditions and other factors, a farmer may not know exactly when a particular job of work is likely to end, and if he was required to give seven days' notice it might mean that he would be obligated to employ a man for a day or two longer than he desired to employ him. I think that that must be admitted, and that we must say it is not sufficient reason for resisting our Amendment.

Those who go to work for periods of more than four weeks on a farm, as those who work elsewhere, are entitled to at least a week's notice so that they will know when their employment is to be terminated, and have some chance to make other arrangements. It is not good enough for people to be told an hour or two before that their employment is about to come to an end. We ought to do better than we are doing.

For procedural reasons, it will not be possible for us to vote for the Amendment to leave out "two years" and to insert "one month", because, the first Amendment having been accepted, that one would fall. That is a pity because, if it is not accepted, as it ought to be, we would have liked to vote on it. I hope that the debate will be conducted with that in mind. We invite support from hon. Members opposite. We hope that some of them will join with us in urging that the Government, having gone so far, ought to go further. No convincing case has been made out for the Parliamentary Secretary to take the half-measure that he is proposing to the House.

Mr. Nicholas Ridley (Cirencester and Tewkesbury)

I welcome the series of Amendments put down by my right hon. Friend and I should like to thank him for having listened to the views and the arguments advanced during our Committee stage discussions and taken such notice of them. In my opinion, he has found the right answer.

I should like to thank my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend—we are all sorry that the Minister is not present today—for the very accommodating way in which the whole of the Committee stage discussions were conducted. I think that the period of 26 weeks is the right answer and that my hon. Friend is right to reject the period of one month suggested by hon. Members opposite. I am certain that the acceptance of the Amendment to this effect, which the hon. Member for East Ham North (Mr. Prentice) wishes to press upon the House, would have some serious results. I say this not on behalf of the employers, whether in the migrant trades or in farming enterprises, but on behalf of the employees.

I believe that a serious reason, among the many good reasons given by my hon. Friend, why this Amendment should not be accepted is its acceptance would prevent people employed in these occupations from moving rapidly from one employment to another when the old employment terminated. The arguments adduced during the Committee stage were very strong. Whether in shipbuilding, civil engineering, building, or the gathering of crops, the first person to appear on the scene usually gets the job. It would be unfair to say that someone who had worked for less than four weeks could get away from one area in order to go to another for a new job quicker than someone who had worked for a longer period than four weeks, and had, therefore, to delay for a week before going.

I strongly support the Government Amendment, and I commend it to the House.

Mr. Diamond

The speech of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has convinced me, even more than the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, that the Amendment which all hon. Members on this side of the House—and I hope some hon. Members opposite—wish to support is the right answer in the national interest and in support of the Government's present propaganda.

There is only one assumption on which we all ought to agree. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) so wisely put it, every employee has the right to be treated like a human being and not to be cast aside unnecessarily without adequate notice. If he is treated as a human being, he will be given reasonable notice of the termination of his employment wherever the circumstances permit. So often people differ because of their basic assumptions.

The Parliamentary Secretary said, the second Report of the N.E.D.C. stated, and the Minister has stated that one of the major ways to avoid redundancy is to plan labour requirements ahead. We are sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not with us. We all wish him an early and rapid recovery. The same thing that has happened to him happened to a more distinguished person than most back in classical times.

On page 10 of the second Report of the N.E.D.C. it is stated: To some extent unnecessary redundancy can be avoided by the forward planning of labour requirements. The Minister of Labour has referred to the necessity for doing this. It is a vital necessity because far too many employers, out of long practice, accept the idea that labour, like stock, is a disposable quantity. We put it on the shelf when not needed, and if it is needed, we use it. But labour and stock are two entirely different things. One is men and the other materials, and we do not treat them alike. It should be the desire of the Government to inculcate into employers the need to regard labour as human beings and to plan their requirements ahead. The arguments of the Parliamentary Secretary and the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, and what is implicit in the Government Amendment, is a libel on most employers. No efficient employer is so haphazard with his labour planning as to be unable to say, until an employee has been with him for six months, whether that employee is to be dispensed with at an hour's notice or a week's notice. To say the contrary is to libel the average employer. It reveals a confusion of thought on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary.

If we wish to avoid redundancy and have formal planning, and if we wish to have efficient labour planning, surely the only argument is, at what point of time has the employer to satisfy himself that an employee is acceptable? And, vice versa, at what point of time has the employee to satisfy himself that the job he has taken on—as a result of answering a newspaper advertisement, or from advice given at the employment exchange, or because of a notice on a door, something external—is a desirable job and one in which he would like to remain? Surely one week is sufficient for that.

I apologise. I meant to say "one month". Surely one month working in a job is sufficient for the employer to know the employee and the employee to know the employer. Four weeks of long working and overtime working, and conversations with his friends, are sufficient for the employee to know the employer, and surely they are sufficient for the employer.

5.0 p.m.

The question which the Parliamentary Secretary posed is, with the greatest deference, misconceived. He asked what would happen about the person who is engaged to do some fruit picking which lasts five or six weeks. May I tell him what would happen? He seems to have some difficulty about the question. If he wants to dispose of a man who has been engaged for five weeks on a week's notice, then he will give him notice after four weeks. May I help him further? If he wants to dispose of a man who has been engaged for six weeks fruit picking on a week's notice, he will give him notice after five weeks. Six minus one equals five. This is on the same level as the argument about not knowing when Christmas would be. We had to offer him a calendar. Thank heavens that argument has been dropped.

It is simply not the case that the average efficient employer needs to keep an employee for six months before he knows what will happen about continuing the employment of that man. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North said, the Government's reliance on the argument about the casual worker is misplaced. If an employer takes on a casual employee for a day's work, which by definition is less than a month, or for an hour's work, which by definition is less than a month, then the fact that the employer is taking on a casual employee for less than one month means that this issue does not arise. Once an employer takes on a man and keeps him for more than a month, why not give him adequate notice?

The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury advanced an interesting argument about the man getting a job in shipbuilding. He asked: why should a man who has been employed for more than four weeks suffer a disadvantage by comparison with his fellow man who has been employed for less than four weeks by not being able to leave immediately, at an hour's notice, and to take a new job which is available? The answer is this: what is the difference between that distinction and the distinction between a man who has been employed for five months and three weeks and a man who has been employed for six months and one week? Wherever we draw a line, some people will fall on the other side of it. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury is apparently not showing his usual alacrity in understanding the argument. May I repeat it? Under the Clause which he supports, a man who has been employed in the shipbuilding industry for five months and three weeks can leave at one hour's notice.

Mr. Ridley

The point is that in the itinerant trades, where this quick movement arises from job to job, we avoid all these men if we take a period of six months, but we do not avoid them if we take one month.

Mr. Diamond

I do not understand the argument about itinerant trades. This is not an argument about itinerant trades. This is an argument about when a man has passed his period of probation and whether one month is sufficient for that purpose. An employee having passed his period of probation, it is only a question whether the employer can look ahead for one week. Any suggestion that he cannot look ahead for one week must be proved. The onus of proof is on that side. Once we accept the basic assumption that it is right to treat a human being who is employed with the dignity which allows him one week's notice—

Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)

The hon. Member is a little too casual about casual work when he refers to a period of five months and three weeks. How would he deal with casual labour taken on for snow clearing? The employer does not know a week ahead how long the snow will last. It could last for four weeks.

Mr. Diamond

It is odd for the hon. Member to suggest that the local authority does not know whether it will need its employees for more than four weeks. I will deal with his question immediately.

What is the difference between a local authority which does not know, because of the vagaries of the climate whether the snow which has been there for three-and-a-half weeks will continue for four-and-a-half or five weeks and the local authority or the building contractor who has employed a man for twenty years and does not know whether climatic vagaries will require him to be there for one week, three weeks or more to finish digging a ditch or clearing some snow? The climatic vagaries exist in both cases. The only difference is the attitude of mind of the employer to the employee.

I admit, I say that we should all admit, and every employer admits and should accept that there are circumstances arising out of the weather under which either the employer makes less profit or the em- ployee gets the sack without notice. Which do hon. Members opposite want? It is a plain fact of profit and loss which any accountant can calculate. If the weather goes against him, the employer will either sack his men without notice or make less profit by having to pay them when they are not working because of the weather.

The Parliamentary Secretary knows that one of the reasons why this agreement was reached with the building trades was that there are difficulties with the weather in that trade which are specially catered for in terms of minimum pay no matter what the weather is. Because the notice, even under a six months' period, has to be given on a Friday, for building trade purposes this has almost the same effect as giving a week's notice, because Friday is the day on which people move from one job to another. There is, therefore, no difference between a man who has been employed for five weeks and a man who has been employed for five years or fifty years. The only question is, what is the attitude of the employer to be?

I very much hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reconsider what he said, especially having regard to our procedural difficulties. I hope that he will accept, first, that we want to treat men reasonably by giving them a week's notice as soon as we can and, secondly, that every employer can look one week ahead except in respect of such vagaries of the climate as are a fair risk which he takes into account in his costing, whether the employee has been employed there for a short time or a long time. Humane considerations therefore require us to coincide this provision with a later provision in the Bill and to say that four weeks is the right period.

Mr. David Renton (Huntingdonshire)

I also wish to thank my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for the careful and sympathetic thought which he and the Minister have given to this series of Amendments. In my opinion the Government have got this matter about right, although it is a matter of judgment.

Both sides of the House have made valuable contributions to the thought on this matter. Possibly the fears expressed by the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) about people who are engaged for particular pieces of work or short periods of labour are to a great extent met if the following is the proper interpretation of the Bill. I put the interpretation of the Bill as I see it to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary in the hope that he may be able to confirm that the position is as I believe it is.

Clause 1 applies only to continuous employment. Therefore, it is important for us to understand what continuous employment is. The First Schedule says that there are certain things which cannot be continuous employment. Apart from that, it seems that employment is not continuous if it is for an agreed period limited by the employer and employee by voluntary agreement, nor if it is for a particular piece of work as, for example, the completion of a ship or a building, work in picking the hops of a particular hopyard or other piece of farming work. None of those things is continuous employment.

Employment is continuous only if it is for an indefinite period and is not limited to the completion of a particular piece of work. If that is the position, the fears expressed in the two interesting speeches we have heard from hon. Members opposite are completely met. I therefore hope that my hon. Friend will be able to confirm that the interpretation I have given is the correct one. If it is not, and if the matter needs clearer definition, I ask him to consider the point further with a view to that being provided when the Bill reaches another place.

Sir Spencer Summers (Aylesbury)

I am very glad that the Minister has responded to the pressure from hon. Members on both sides of the House to bring down the period from two years. Two of my hon. Friends have said that the Government have got this about right. I am not quite sure that I would not have liked the period to have been a bit shorter. That is partly because I believe it could have been shorter and still excluded the casual worker, and partly because if it were thirteen weeks it would have enabled the same date to be chosen for the presentation of the written terms of contract to the employee.

I imagine that one of the factors which the Government have had to take into account is uniformity of treatment for all occupations. We have learned that the building industry, after considerable discussion, has settled on the period of six months. I shall not say that that industry ought to have done something different, because I do not know enough about the industry to know whether the obligations in this Bill could have been introduced at a lesser period than six weeks. Although I should like the period to be shorter, I accept the arguments based on uniformity for sticking to twenty-six weeks.

Mention has been made of the Amendment, which suggests four weeks. I want to put a point apropos of such a relatively short period which has been touched on, but which has not been sufficiently emphasised. A number of employers, farmers and others, would not wish to pay a man who worked for them five or six weeks more than the actual work the man normally did. It is not a question of whether the employer takes 4, 13 or 26 weeks to discover whether the man should be regularly employed, or whether the man wishes to be regularly employed in that job. That is a very small factor to be borne in mind in settling the period. Since such people do not wish to be obliged to pay for time beyond the actual hours worked, they will seek by every means at their disposal to avoid doing so in respect of the person who will work for them only for a short time.

If the Amendment proposing four weeks were introduced, I am confident that in many instances the effect would be that a week's notice would be given regularly at the third week, or, if the employment were longer, at the fourth or fifth week. The advantage foreseen in the Amendment would be nullified by that action of the employer. It could be given in the middle of a week, and when it was found that work had to go on beyond the seven days hence for the sake of getting the job done, no doubt the employee would willingly comply with the retracting of the notice.

Such a step would be thoroughly artificial and undesirable. It would be a feature whose introduction into industrial relations would be very much regretted. It that risk is real, as I believe it is, I should deplore reducing the period to as low as four weeks. We ought not to attempt to obtain from non-regular workers a week's notice which probably they do not want to give and do not expect to be given to them. This is a two-way traffic. I hope the time may come when industries which are particularly affected by the weather will feel able to go below twenty-six weeks. Until such time arrives, I do not find fault with the answer which the Government have provided.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith (Brentford and Chiswick)

It is intolerable in this day and age that any honest man prepared to work to the best of his ability in any industry should be only an hour, or perhaps a week, away from getting the sack. We all agreed on that in Committee, but, having agreed on it, we have to decide the best minimum period. On the whole, I agree with most of my colleagues that about six months is right and not just one month.

This gives a greater scope for many semi-freelance workers. There are far more of them than we realised when we discussed this matter in Committee. We heard about agricultural and building workers and fruit pickers, but there are lorry drivers who do certain jobs on particular sites and freelance chauffeur drivers employed by particular firms. All these would feel hampered if they had to give a week's notice. They are prepared to accept the definition of a general six months' notice.

It is well established in many professions and businesses that people have a month's trial. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) said that after a week one got to know an employer or an employee, but even after a month one is not quite certain that a person will settle down or suit that particular employer.

Mr. Diamond

I used the term "one week", but I tried to withdraw and correct it and to make clear that I meant a month. I agree with the hon. Member about a month's trial.

Mr. Smith

Even so, if in such circumstances we imposed a month instead of six months that would affect a number of people possibly disadvantageously while far more would be hampered when they are genuine freelance workers. They would rather have the position in which they did not have to give a week's notice. Many of these jobs last for only about six months. Many of these people are itinerant workers. If the period is six months it will be generally acceptable throughout the whole of industry for employers and employees.

Mr. J. Robertson

I always understood that it was bad to legislate for the exception. It seems that all the arguments, including those made at the Dispatch Box, by hon. Members opposite have been concerned with the exceptional case. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell the House how many work people and how many industries already have the right of seven days' notice after four weeks have been worked. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary would find that there are very few exceptions.

What we are trying to do is to legislate for such workers, as the casual agricultural workers, the people who are engaged in picking hops, or serving in shops at Christmas time. This is the argument which has been trotted out. The most important aspect of what the Parliamentary Secretary said was in relation to the period of time and the reasoning behind this. He said that the right to a week's notice was a reward, or should be looked upon as a reward. We would never accept this. This is completely foreign to trade union thinking. We think that people have the right to receive reasonable notice as soon as possible, not as a reward for being good boys or for something else. The Parliamentary Secretary should think about this again.

I could not understand the Parliamentary Secretary when he said that the Standing Committee was in difficulty on casual workers. I thought that we dealt very adequately with this position in Committee. It seems that the difficulty has been all on the other side. It is rather strange—or is it?—that the difficulties have all been on the other side, because the difficulties we have heard about are in shipbuilding and agriculture. How many people in shipbuilding would not be able to get a week's notice? The number must be very few indeed. Therefore, we are concerned only with agricultural workers. Is it right that a man should have to work for six months before he has the right to a week's notice merely because hon. Members opposite have an interest in agriculture? This is what is suggested. It is preposterous that a man should have to work six months before he becomes entitled to a week's notice of termination of employment. I do not see any argument which can justify that. I was not impressed by the Parliamentary Secretary's answer.

Mr. Frederic Harris (Croydon, North-West)

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that Members of Parliament are suspended and get no notice whatsoever after many years' service?

Mr. Robertson

I would accept that, but the working conditions of Members of Parliament should be the subject of a trade union agreement. I am prepared to submit them to such an agreement at any time. Our working conditions are terrible and deplorable. If the hon. Gentleman can devise ways and means of sorting that out, I will gladly help him. Here we are dealing with people working in industry. The Parliamentary Secretary should accept our Amendment.

Mr. William Shepherd (Cheadle)

I did not have the advantage of serving on the Standing Committee, one reason being that I was unable to catch the eye of the Chair on Second Reading. Therefore, I have not had the opportunity of listening to the arguments which were deployed, evidently with some vigour, upstairs. I welcome, as my hon. Friends have done, the improvements in the provisions which my right hon. Friend has made, but I must voice some regret that these improvements have not gone even further. I am in the unhappy position of not knowing how far the itinerant worker argument is valid. I must therefore leave it aside in anything I say, because I have no special knowledge of it.

I say this as an employer. I do not believe that the requirement to give a week's notice after a month's employment is unreasonable having regard to the generality of employment. I am not able to pronounce upon how far this is impractical in terms of the itinerant worker. The arguments which are adduced against providing notice are without any solid foundation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) said that if employees had to give a week's notice they would not be able to move around rapidly and get another job. The point is that if everybody is in this situation it simply does not arise. It means that two things happen. First, if the requirement to give notice is laid upon employers, they are more careful in the selection of those they take on, which is a very good quality to induce in employers. Secondly, they plan their activities more carefully than they otherwise might do. The extent to which we have accepted until this date the right of an employer to dismiss a man at a minute's notice, despite the social consequences of that act, is deplorable. It is not consistent with a civilised and organised society.

I realise that my right hon. Friend has gone perhaps as far as he can go in all the difficult circumstances, because employers' associations are like trade unions; they go at the pace of the slowest. It only requires one man to rise at a meeting of employers and say, "This is outrageous. It will ruin all of us", for everybody else to follow suit just as at meetings of trade unions it happens in reverse.

Parliament is in the position that it must take advice from outside. This advice would impose a standard well below that which the majority of intelligent people would be prepared to accept. I hope that my right hon. Friend would consider this matter further between now and some other stage of the Bill. He may be able to decide that the itinerant labour argument has less validity than we imagine. If it has, I should like to see a shorter period written into the Bill.

Mr. Bence

I had not intended to speak, but I want to pay a compliment which is richly deserved to the contribution just made by the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd). I was a member of the Standing Committee. I do not think I heard the point about selection of labour made in the Standing Committee. I have certainly never heard it put so well as the hon. Member put it. When only an hour's notice applies, executives in industrial plants tend to take on labour which they know may not be suitable, but they know that they can get rid of them within an hour. People working in industry are often astonished to see the type of men taken on by the personnel department. Men working alongside such men know that they will not last a day or a week, as the case may be. I have experienced this many times. It is deplorable that we permit a situation to exist in which men work in a department for a week or ten days, although their fellow workers know that they will not last because they are not up to the job. Because they can be got rid of at a hour's notice, there is a tendency to take on unsuitable labour.

I followed the remarks of the hon. Member for Cheadle with great interest. I agree with him entirely that we are passing legislation, the form of which is not in advance of many of the best employers. I worked for many years in an industry that gave a lead in working conditions and wages, not only in this country, but in the whole world. It probably was the spearhead of advancing working conditions in the light engineering industry. This is a disadvantage to us when we are discussing a Measure which is behind the standard adopted by the best employers.

We have come down now to twenty-six weeks. I am glad that the hon. Member for Cheadle supports our request for a month. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) was right in saying that most executives in industrial plants can accurately assess how long they require labour. I should think that this applies to farmers, especially large farmers. I should imagine that it applies to civil engineering. Many of them are in a position to assess accurately how long they will require gangs of labour, or even one person. Very few good employers and good managers are unable in these days to assess the length of time for which they will require labour.

I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) was right on the ball when he said that if we were going to examine legislation as it affects every variation in the type of labour employed we should never get legislation passed at all. We really cannot pass legislation for every specialised field. We have to accept a general minimum. I should have thought that a month was adequate. From my own experience I know that even before the war many employers in the light engineering industry always gave their skilled employees a week's notice and a chance to find another job. That was done between the wars, in the bad old days.

I believe that in 1963 we should be able to pass legislation which was in keeping not with the slowest forces in the industrial complex but with those forces which are running at the fastest speed, and I am sorry that we are not up to their standards.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. Ray Gunter (Southwark)

The Parliamentary Secretary, and, indeed, his right hon. Friend the Minister, whose absence we so much regret today, journeyed to Damascus a few times during the Committee stage and the light has descended upon them. I am rather hoping that after the short debate which we have now had and in view of the fact that the most responsible elements in the House cast some doubt on whether 26 weeks is the right period, the Parliamentary Secretary will have another look at the problem. I think that there will be a general consensus of opinion, even, among those who strongly advocated 26 weeks upstairs in Committee, that it is not a hard and rigid matter. There is always an element of doubt and balance about it.

Our Amendment proposes one month, and we should like to have the period set at one month. We think that it is a reasonable proposition, but in the light of the debate today and the demands that have come from both sides of the House, and from the best of motives, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at the matter and to consider whether 26 weeks is not too extended a period and that he might at a further stage of the Bill give us something better.

Mr. Whitelaw

The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter) is, as always, most persuasive. I should like to start by thanking all hon. Members who have spoken for the welcome which they have given to what the hon. Member for Southwark described as "seeing the light". Of course, some hon. Members do not think that we have seen enough light, but at least it is accepted on both sides that we have seen some light, and I am grateful for the welcome that has been given to that.

I should like to add that we all start—and I assure the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) of this—from the basic agreement that we are trying to ensure that men are treated as human beings, that they are given proper notice and that they are not put out on the street at a minute's or an hour's notice. When I heard some hon. Members speaking I began to wonder who had introduced the Bill. Surely it was for that specific purpose that my right hon. Friend introduced the Bill—to give longer periods of notice. That, I certainly think we can all agree, is a desirable objective.

The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), in seeking to argue for a month instead of 26 weeks was uncharacteristically a little vague from time to time. I hope that I have taken down some of his phrases correctly. He said that four weeks was a desirable period because it was followed in the engineering industry, as indeed it is. But, of course, this practice is not, and perhaps could not be, followed everywhere else.

Then the hon. Gentleman came to the building trade and said that for some people it was suitable for the period to be less than six months, but that, of course, there were difficulties for others. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it is this vagueness which produces the real problem about the period of time. I also suggest the same to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd), whose intervention I very much welcome. I know that my hon. Friend is interested in these subjects and I am very glad that we had the benefit of his advice and views today.

I must remind the House that what we are doing is setting down a statutory right. The hon. Member for East Ham, North said that I had referred to "earning a right". With all possible respect, I referred to "earning a statutory right", and I think there is a very considerable difference between the two. However, I accept absolutely what the hon. Gentleman says about a right. I accept too what he says about the desirability of employers, where appropriate, giving the week's notice at a period considerably earlier than six months. I further accept that the great majority of employers do so, and this is very welcome indeed.

I would draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact that the Bill has as its purpose the fixing of a minimum, and that by doing this it will encourage everyone to do much better than they do at present. That, I think, has already been one of the purposes of the Bill and one of its great values. In laying down the statutory minimum, whether we like it or not—I must remind the hon. Member for Paisley of this—we have to have regard to the practice in all fields of employment. That is something from which we simply cannot escape.

The hon. Gentleman said that it was bad law to legislate for exceptions. In the Bill we are laying down a statutory minimum which will affect all fields of employment, and it is really for that reason that we have fixed the period of 26 weeks. Of course, we know that many people do better, and we hope that more and more will do better.

Mr. Prentice

I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary will bear in mind the suggestion made on Second Reading by his hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), who is one of his predecessors in his office, that every worker should be entitled to seven days' notice but that the Minister should take power under the Bill to make regulations about exceptions? If the hon. Gentleman would consider that, it might enable him to meet the point made by hon. Members on both sides. If there is provision to exclude people in special circumstances, surely it should not only be six months because there might be isolated cases where that would not work out very well.

Mr. Whitelaw

I note what the hon. Gentleman says. Before I come to my conclusion I should like to say that I also noted what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Renton) said. I should like to look at it in HANSARD tomorrow before expressing a final view. So I cannot assure him whether his interpretation is the right one; but I will certainly investigate the matter for him. I would say in passing that I deliberately did not include all of the various categories of temporary and casual workers—and I was twitted by the hon. Member for Gloucester for that—because I thought I gave sufficient examples.

In conclusion, and following what the hon. Member for East Ham, North has said about noting the feelings of every- one who has spoken in the debate and the welcome that has been given for what we have done, I would say that, as so often in life, when one does something good people want one to do more of it. This is one of the things that we have to accept. I really believe that there are great difficulties in reducing the statutory minimum below 26 weeks. However, I noted what the hon. Member for East Ham, North said, but I think that there are great difficulties in that approach, too. That is why after very careful consideration we fixed the period of 26 weeks.

I note what hon. Members opposite have said, that they would have divided in favour of their Amendment if they were able to do so. The fact that they are not able to do so indicates, of course, that one can consider the debate without having expressed a final view on it in a Division. There may, in fact, be merit in that. However, I must tell the House that we gave very careful consideration to all the points put to us, and, indeed, to most of those which have been made today, in coming to our decision on the 26 weeks. I believe that it is the right decision. I am grateful for the welcome which has been given, but I note the reservations of hon. Members opposite and will consider their views.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 1, line 8, at end insert: (a) shall be not less than one week's notice if his period of continuous employment is less than two years, and,

In line 10, after "is", insert "two years or more but".

In line 14, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".

In line 18, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".

In line 22, leave out "two years" and insert "twenty-six weeks".—[Mr. Whitelaw.]