LOCAL AUTHORITIES (CLOSED SHOP)

HC Deb 12 August 1966 vol 733 cc2060-88

1.28 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn (Sheffield, Hallam)

Is it in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for me now to start the next Adjournment debate?

Mr. Deputy Speaker indicated assent.

Mr. Osborn

I had hoped that some of my hon. Friends would be here to support me. If I am a little slow in the early part of my speech, I hope that you will understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I wish to raise the question of the operation of closed shop policies in local authority departments, with particular reference to problems resulting from a rigid and disastrous policy being put into operation by the Socialist council in the city of Sheffield. My observations will, therefore, include a summary of what has happened in this city as a result of resolutions put forward by the city council within the last 12 to 13 months and the disastrous outcome of the policies resulting from these resolutions.

First, I ventilate this problem in the House—a problem which is essentially a local issue as a result of policies strongly opposed by Conservative aldermen and councillors in the city council—not to debate again detailed issues which are the concern of the local council but because there is a need for the nation, through the House of Commons, to clarify the principles on closed shop employment policy by local authorities and the powers which city councillors are asked to exercise.

I wish to make it clear that I do not believe that the central Government should interfere with the autonomy of local government and, therefore, that in this instance, as in any other instance, the central Government should not dictate to the Sheffield City Council what action to take. Hon. Members on this side will support the view of the former Minister of Housing, given in a Parliamentary Answer not long ago, that it is not his intention to interfere with the operation of local government.

Why, therefore, have I, as a Member of Parliament, involved myself in a wrangle which is taking place on the City Council of Sheffield? First, letters have been written by the general public to Members of Parliament. A letter resulting from articles in the Yorkshire Post was sent to my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), who then asked me what steps I had taken to help Conservative members on the city council. Other letters from constituents, friends and acquaintances who are familiar with Sheffield and local politics asked me what I, as a Conservative Member of Parliament, was doing about it. It has been inevitable, therefore, that during the past few months there has been close collaboration and discussion between Conservative aldermen and councillors and the Conservative Member of Parliament.

It is well known that owing to a recent series of unfortunate accidents I am the only Conservative Member of Parliament in the City of Sheffield and, for that matter, the only Conservative Member of Parliament in a large area of South Yorkshire and the West Riding. I have been fully into this whole case and the problems resulting from these policies and I have extracted leading newspaper articles, mainly from the Sheffield Morning Telegraph and the Sheffield Star. From this information and discussions with councillors, I was prompted on 19th July to ask certain Questions in the House. I asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government how many county, borough and urban councils are now operating closed shop policies and whether he will inquire into the machinery of county, borough and urban councils for enforcing closed shop policies". The Minister replied that There is a well established tradition that local authorities should be left to manage their staff employment matters without interference from me", and this we have to accept. The right hon. Gentleman also drew my attention to the terms of reference of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations.

I was grateful for that information and I asked a series of supplementary questions about the operation of closed shop policies in local government. I asked: Is it right that trade union members who are also councillors should sit on a committee and decide whether an individual should get the sack? Is it also right that the decision of such a committee should result in an individual having without justification to hand back payments to a benevolent society as an alternative to a union subscription? The Minister replied: Having said that I will not interfere, I shall not do so by commenting on the hon. Gentleman's question."—[OFFICIAL REPORT,19th July, 1966; Vol. 732, c. 366–7.] The Minister went on to answer the other issues, but at no time was he willing to express a firm view.

Subsequently, the Minister wrote to me on 3rd August and said: I am not prepared to interfere in this matter It is for the electorate to decide whether or not they agree with the action taken by the council in their name. They have the means to secure that any councillors who have failed to represent their views are not re-elected That is a challenge. That paragraph invites a hotly-contested municipal election in the city next May, largely because of the new ward boundaries. Unless this fiasco is resolved, I believe that the Socialists in Sheffield local government will be in for a shock. The Minister also stated: On the question of a possible change in the law concerning the operation of closed shop policies, I must ask you to await the Report of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, which has this subject within its terms of reference. It is natural that before embarking on the situation in Sheffield, we in this House must fully understand the position of the closed shop. I am grateful for the help that I have had from the Industrial Society. In addition, I have found a book, "The Closed Shop in Britain", by Dr. W. E. J. McCarthy, published by Blackwells, of Oxford, to be a most valuable work of reference in helping me to clear my mind as to the operation of the closed shop policy and the extent to which it has advertently—or, may I put it, inadvertently—been accepted as normal practice in many industries.

Reference is made to that book in the written evidence of the Ministry of Labour to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, and I think that it will interest the House if I dig into that evidence and refer to it. Some of the evidence is interesting. It estimates that 3¾ million workers, or about 16 per cent. of employees in Great Britain, are affected by the closed shop. For employees who are trade unionists, the figure is higher: two out of every five are employed in closed shops. The proportion of the labour force affected by the closed shop varies from about 26 per cent. in manufacturing and extractive industry and 22 per cent. in transport to 10 per cent. in distribution.

Dr. McCarthy explains, however, that what is meant is not that it is impossible for a non-unionist to remain within certain select trades, although the great majority would find it impossible to remain outside a union for any length of time and that the amount of non-unionism is very small. He states that it is accepted that if a worker declines to belong to a trade union where there is a closed shop, normally he will not be taken into employment or he will be dismissed from employment. I have had to bear this conclusion in mind.

In a situation where an employer has not agreed to a closed shop and declines to dismiss a non-union member, he may be brought under pressure to do so by a strike of his other workers. What is most interesting is the questions which the Ministry of Labour evidence goes on to ask. For example, is it reasonable that trade union membership should be made a condition of employment? Is it reasonable that trade unions should seek agreement with employers to this end? Is it reasonable that unions should use the strike weapon to force employers to make such agreements?

The Ministry of Labour evidence, which I have had to bear in mind, goes on to state that, on the other hand, a more practical approach to the whole problem might be to recognise the importance of the closed shop to the unions and the justification for it and to provide, where it is established, safeguards for the individual. I stress "safeguards for the individual".

Four cases are enumerated in which safeguards for the individual are required. The first is when workers have a conscientious reason for not belonging to a trade union. My view is that the definition of "conscientious objection" should be wide and not narrow. The second type of case is when workers, although willing to belong to a trade union, are refused admission to it or are expelled from it reasonably. The third case is when there are irregularities in the conduct of affairs of the union operating a closed shop, and the fourth is when a closed shop is introduced in an establishment where there is not already 100 per cent. union membership. There is a case, as the evidence states, that existing employees who are non-unionists should continue to have freedom of choice and that the requirement of trade union membership should be extended to new employees only. Paragraph 57 of the evidence finally states: It seems desirable in any case that employers should encourage their workers to join trade unions as is done in the Civil Service. I come back to the point that existing employees who are non-unionists should have freedom of choice and that the requirement of trade union membership should be extended to new employees only. While evidence was being given to the Royal Commission, this last safeguard has been deliberately and arrogantly disregarded and ignored by the Sheffield City Council. That is why I have brought the matter to the House.

In the evidence to the Royal Commission, reference is made to the advantages of employers collecting membership subscriptions by deduction from wages. This is in the evidence. It is the check off to trade unions.

We have some useful outside comments. In a leader in The Times, written by The Times labour correspondent on 20th April, 1965 reference is made to this book: The first comprehensive study of the trade union closed shop in Britain has reached the conclusion that while capable of misuse it is justified". Alan Fox, in New Society on 16th December, 1965 referred to this book by McCarthy and particularly to the "discharge of existing non-unionists on the job who refuse to join, and he suggested that such a discharge might be prohibited".

Recently in the House I attended an all-party meeting on industrial relations which was addressed by representatives from the United States of America. I am grateful to the Library of the United States Information Services for sending me information on the Canter decision on the illegality of the closed shop. It is taken from "Labour Law Legislation" by Mueller and Myers published in 1962. But Section 14(b) of the National Labour Relations Act, 1947, reads: Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorising the execution or application of agreements requiring membership in a labour organisation as a condition of employment in any state or territory in which such execution or application is prohibited by state or territorial law.'' I have tried to obtain outside information. I have tried to obtain information about the attitude of the Association of Municipal Corporations and my informant tells me that the question of the closed shop in local authorities has not been discussed by that body since 1946 The recommendation of that body then was that the interests of local authorities and their staffs are best served by individual officers joining their appropriate organisations it being understood that the organisation he joins is a matter for the unfettered judgment of the individual officer. In my view the A.M.C. should be much more informative and knowledgeable about the operation of the closed shop in local authorities, and I take this oppor-might well be put on their agenda at tunity of suggesting that this matter some suitable meeting in the near future and that Sheffield be a case study to be studied.

Examples of attempting to force a closed shop have occurred in the recent years in the West Riding County Council, Lambeth Borough Council, Greenwich Council, Crayford Council and Islington Borough Council. If the imposition of the closed shop by councils is successful in respect of manual workers and similar employees, this is by no means the case with professional workers. There is the case of the teachers in Durham in 1952 and subsequently the advertisement for the post of medical officer of health in Fulham, which have been drawn to my attention.

If I may reach a conclusion, what is interesting is that Socialist-controlled local authorities attempted to apply the closed shop when there was a Socialist Government in office in the period 1945–52. It is also fair to say that closed shop policies have not been pursued so energetically recently. If the Minister has evidence to prove to the contrary, I should like to hear it. It is strange that one year after the re-election of a Socialist Government the Sheffield Socialist City Council should once more attempt to impose a closed shop policy.

The Conservative Party has always made its views very clear. In the evidence to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions this year it stated: We are in favour of 100 per cent. trade unionism but we feel this must be achieved on a basis of recruitment and example. We are utterly opposed to make trade union membership a condition of employment, i.e. the closed shop. We regard this as an abuse of elementary human rights. In 1946 the late Mr. Arthur Deakin said: You must apply discretion to establish 100 per cent. organisation. In April, 1959 the late Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Socialist Opposition, wrote in the Daily Telegraph that he did not approve of people being sent to Coventry for not joining a trade union. He said, I do not approve of trying to bring about a closed shop by any means except persuasion. In July, 1959, the Manchester Guardian quoted Mr. Frank Cousins—he was not then the right hon. Member for Nuneaton so I use his name—as saying at the conference of the Transport and General Workers Union at Douglas that the executive believed in organising towards 100 per cent. membership but in establishing it by conviction and not by compulsion.

There have been debates in the House about it, and I refer immediately to the Trades Disputes Act which was passed following the Rookes v. Barnard case. On the Report stage my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) moved a number of Amendments which he said were intended to remove the provision making it legal for someone to try to compel another person to join or remain a member of a trade union or employers' association.

When he wound up the debate on this series of Amendments the Minister of Labour—and I am quoting from The Times—said that the whole argument had been about the closed shop. He had made his position clear on that, he said; he had always taken the view that trade unions were voluntary bodies and it was far better for them to build up their membership by voluntary means. The Minister of Labour said that the closed shop, with all its complications, was precisely the sort of problem which needed to be studied by the Royal Commission and that to try to legislate for it without having the benefit of such study was like trying to read without learning the alphabet.

As reported in column 195 of HANSARD of 10th November, 1965, the Minister of Labour said, I am not advocating a closed shop. I have never advocated a closed shop."—[OFFICIAL REPORT,10th November, 1965; Vol. 720, c. 195.] I am taking it a little out of context because he was then referring to men not in unions, not bound by collective agreements, benefiting from union membership. As reported in column 1019 of the report of the debate on the Trade Disputes Act, he referred to the closed shop as causing unnecessary hardship for individuals. There were Questions and debates in the House in 1960 on the case of N.A.L.G.O. in Salford. My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) raised it in connection with B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. There have been other instances.

I have discussed the merits and demerits of a rigid or less rigid closed shop policy with hon. Members opposite and many trade unionists, and most sensible trade union leaders reflect the philosophy of the Minister of Labour.

I will try to collate my own views. I think that it is fair in the context of industrial relations in industry to say that requests for a closed shop are less likely to arise if management is already taking the line of encouraging trade union membership. I have been a manager of a non-union shop, as I have told the House, and I admit that the absence of members of a trade union probably accounted for one of the fastest technological breakthroughs in the industry with which I was concerned at the time, about ten years ago. But I also say that there are advantages in having a union shop, which ultimately arose in that firm.

My own view at present is that there is even a case to support some modified and more tolerant closed shop policy but that it will have to be looked at and studied very carefully as a result of any report by the Royal Commission. It could be that it is right that all new starters should be told that trade union membership is one of the conditions of employment in a company, but it could be equally right that if management wished to run a non-union shop in a free society, then the conditions of employment could prohibit membership of a trade union in a free society. It is right that existing employees who are not union members should, in the event of an agreement to have a closed shop, be encouraged to join but they should be allowed to remain non-members if they cannot be so persuaded to join a union. I believe that it is right that genuine conscientious, religious and other similar objectors should be excused from joining a trade union where a closed shop policy prevails. There is the argument that those who contribute to a trade union provide benefits for those who do not contribute to the trade union and, in such instances, a contribution to charity as an alternative in my view is right.

Having clarified my own mind and, I hope, helped the House on the principles, and bearing in mind that nationally those principles have still to be deliberated on by the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, I now find that in the middle of all this uncertainty and controversy the Socialist Council of Sheffield have declared a rigid closed shop policy in the City. What folly to do this at a time when there is so much uncertainty about the closed shop policy and when this situation is being looked into by the Royal Commission on Trade Unions.

What has happened in Sheffield? On 4th August, 1965, a resolution was debated in the city council, and I will outline some of its main points. It stated: … all appointments of officers or servants made by the Corporation shall be subject to a condition that each such officer or servant shall be required to join such a union not later than 14 days after taking up duties". The resolution also stated: … each officer or servant in the employment of the Corporation shall be required to join such a union and thereafter continue in membership thereof. An exception was to be made in the case of employees who belonged to religious organisations which did not allow their members to join trade unions, in addition to certain other cases to be determined from time to time by the establishment committee.

This establishment committee, a subcommittee of the city council, met on various occasions to discuss whether people who did not wish to join a trade union on conscientious or other grounds should or should not be sacked. Is it right that a council, let alone an establishment committee which consists of trade unionists who are councillors, should judge whether people should be sacked or kept on because they do not wish to join a trade union? This is going on in Sheffield—in this city in a country which is supposed to enjoy a free society. Further, the resolution stated: … no action should be taken in relation to the above except on the written representation, to the Town Clerk, of a trade union or other body claiming to be an appropriate trade union". Various cases have arisen and, to the best of my knowledge, the first concerned five Sheffield firemen last January. I understand that the second, the following May, concerned two men in the Sheffield Transport Department and one in the water department.

Arising from this, it appears that one individual, Mr. Kenneth Platts, wrote to a Conservative councillor pointing out that he was a non-union member of the city transport department. If I recount in detail the case of Mr. Platts it is because I have looked into this case personally, although the other cases which have been dealt with by the Conservative councillors on the city council are, I am sure, equally relevant and important. I have sent to the Minister of Housing and Local Government a complete report on this case, including all the relevant newspaper cuttings dealing with the closed-shop policy in Sheffield. Most of the cuttings come from the Sheffield Star and Sheffield Telegraph but also from other local newspapers. I also tried to contact the Parliamentary Secretary this morning and I am sure that he will have had the advantage of taking note of this survey.

Shortly after the debate on the Resolution to which I have referred, in September 1965 there was correspondence between Mr. Platts and the Secretary of the Sheffield Branch of the Transport and General Workers Union and, in a concluding paragraph of one letter, the Secretary, a Mr. Cox, clearly stated that he would accept contributions to a convalescent home in lieu of membership subscriptions to that union. I sent a copy of the this letter to the Minister of Housing and Local Government. As the result of a suggestion at a city council meeting, Mr. Cox is reported in the Sheffield Telegraph in May to have decided that these contributions were no longer acceptable. They were returned to Mr. Platts by his shop steward without explanation. There was not so much as a "thank you very much". No reason whatever was given and I remind the House that the contributions to a convalescent home—a benevolent contribution as an alternative—had been accepted in terms of the evidence put by the Ministry of Labour to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions.

In Sheffield the position is even more confusing because of the close alliance between the Sheffield Trade and Labour Council and the Socialist Party and it accounts for the fact that many trade union officials ultimately become Socialist councillors on the Sheffield City Council.

It is impossible to describe in detail the convulsions that have taken place on the city council in Sheffield in the last few months, but the leader of Sheffield's Labour-controlled Council, Alderman Ronald Iremonger, is reported in the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers on 3rd August as having come to the conclusion that the closed shop policy was wrong. The whole question was reviewed in a useful article by Michael Crouch in the Sheffield Telegraph on 2nd August, in which he began by stating: The operation of Sheffield Corporation's closed shop policy, the largest of its kind in Britain, has become a farce. The leading officials in the city's Labour movement are beginning to recognise this fact. There was a very heated debate in the city council on 3rd August, when it was decided that all action under Sheffield's closed shop policy was to be suspended pending a review of its operation. However, the leader of the Conservative Opposition, had a broadcast or television interview with the Socialist Leader, Alderman Iremonger, and there is a feeling among the Conservative Opposition there that Alderman Iremonger had modified his view that it was wrong, and it is suspected as put to me by certain councillors that he had been nobbled by the co-called Sheffield Trades and Labour Council. This is the way in which Labour-controlled local government is being operated under Socialism.

Despite all these events, there has been a catastrophe and tragedy going on in Sheffield because it has been decided that the latest decision should be delayed. Employees who have been part-time and full-time workers and who have not wanted to join a trade union have received notices of dismissal and, in particular, Mr. Kenneth Platts, a conductor—who, incidentally, is not a constituent of mine but of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom), who has asked to be excused from attending the House this morning—has also been dismissed.

I spoke to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside, who told me that if Mr. Platts approached him he would be pleased to hear his case. However, the hon. Gentleman is an official of a trade union and Mr. Platts may reasonably feel reluctant to approach his M.P. When I met Mr. Platts last weekend he showed me a notice signed by the General Manager of the Sheffield Transport Department. Dated 1st August, it stated: In accordance with the conditions relating to your employment, therefore, I have to give you four weeks' notice to terminate your employment as a conductor on 29th August, 1966. If, at the end of this period of notice, you join an appropriate trade union and thereafter continue in membership thereof, you will be offered re-employment with the Corporation". Mr. Platts has served the Sheffield Corporation as a conductor for about 20 years and has carried out his duties efficiently and well. There has been a non-contributory pension scheme and he asked me last weekend what would be the position of his pension—earned, remember, over 20 years. Inquiries at this stage are being made to ascertain the position, but I have been given an authoritative statement which leads me to believe that a pension which would have amounted to about 30s. a week on Mr. Platts reaching the age of 65 will be denied him because of his dismissal. Thus, I understand that he will receive no pension for his 20 years' service and no compensation for his dismissal. Is this right and does the Parliamentary Secretary approve of such a situation?

Having given these details, I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary will answer a number of questions of which I have given him notice. Is he satisfied with the standards and conditions of employment, particularly in regard to pension arrangements, existing in local authorities? Is he satisfied that they meet the standards set in the Contracts of Employment Act, a Conservative Measure, which we debated at considerable length? Does he approve or disapprove of the circumstances in which an employee of a transport department is entitled to neither pension rights nor compensation in the circumstances I have described, and will he do something about it?

During a debate in the city council, Conservative councillors were accused by certain Labour councillors of inciting a strike and attempting to disrupt the public transport services of the city. What does this incitement mean? Does it mean that certain councillors will now prevail upon certain shop stewards in the Sheffield Transport Department to stir up trouble? I have a better opinion of the attitude and judgment of the employees of that department, and I hope that they show more sympathy for a colleague summarily dismissed after twenty years' service, and a man who has offered to pay the equivalent of his union dues to a charity—a gesture which presumably would have had the backing of the Ministry of Labour.

I hope that such organisations as the Society for Individual Freedom and even the New Daily which has recently circulated to Members of Parliament will look into this situation. In the absence of members of these organisations, it would seem that those who are fighting for their own rights as individuals in society have not been able to turn to their Members of Parliament, where these have been Socialist Members of Parliament, but have to turn to Conservative aldermen, Conservative councillors and, of course, myself as a Conservative M.P. in the area.

It was in 1947 that I made my first political speech, on. the Conservative industrial charter, about the rights and dignity of the individual in industry. It occurs to me that the dignity of the individual has been totally disregarded by a Socialist council under a Socialist Government.

Does the Minister of Housing approve or disapprove of the operation of closed-shop policies by Socialist councils? I do not want any weak reference to not interfering; we want to know what the Minister's attitude is. The Minister of Labour has been bold enough to let us know what his attitude is, and his Department has given very clear evidence that a closed-shop policy is not approved without safeguards—safeguards that have been ignored in this case by the Socialist Sheffield City Council.

Is the Minister of Housing and Local Government satisfied with the pension arrangements and conditions of employment in local authority departments? Can he give any indication of how closed-shop policies operate in other local authorities? Is he aware that an opinion now would be of great value to the Sheffield City Council, where there is conflict between trade unionists and non-trade unionists, and convulsions within the Socialist majority party? Good advice now would be very valuable.

Does the Minister approve or disapprove of these circumstances? Does he approve or disapprove of a committee consisting of trade unionists amongst other councillors deciding whether or not an employee be sacked for not joining a union? Is not this an abominable imposition in a free society that these political convulsions are going on which have resulted in dismissals of those not willing to join the trade union? Does he approve or disapprove of the fact that there is forfeiture of pension rights, and no compensation?

The first debate when Parliament reassembles will be on the appointment of a Parliamentary Commissioner. Is not this one of those issues which make a Parliamentary Commissioner so essential—an issue resulting from the fact that in many parts of the country we have Socialist councils operating under a Socialist Government? Does the Minister of Housing and Local Government approve or disapprove of the fact that the Sheffield City Council has declared a closed-shop policy when the whole subject is being reviewed by the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations?

Will the Minister use his good influence to ameliorate the hardship of those who are the victims of Socialist policy and muddle in the Sheffield City Council? Will he see representatives of the party in power in the city council and ensure that they do change their mind before the next council meeting? I am certain that, if this situation has not been satisfactorily dealt with meantime, it will be one of the first tasks which the Parliamentary Commissioner will have to face if the relevant Measure becomes law.

In the meantime, I, as a local city Member of Parliament, and Conservative aldermen and councillors, will be providing a case history of this ghastly fiasco for the Royal Commission, carrying out the advice of the Minister of Housing and Local Government in July.

But, in the final issue, I would quote the words of the Minister of Housing and Local Government in his letter addressed to me: It is for the electorate to decide whether or not they agree with the action taken by the council in their name and they have the means to secure that any councillors who have failed to represent their views are not re-elected. I have tried as fairly as possible to represent the dilemma facing Sheffield. I recognise that many Socialist councillors have had severe qualms of conscience as to what is the right thing to do in the circumstances, bearing in mind that loyalties to the trade unions they represent can conflict with loyalties to other people, but I believe it is right that the electorate should be aware of the dilemma that is facing the city council in Sheffield, and particularly the majority Socialist party there.

I ask the Minister of Housing and Local Government or the Parliamentary Secretary to intervene with advice and guidance, so that these councillors may reach a right decision and ameliorate what in my view is an unjustified hardship.

2.5 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)

We are all indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield. Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) for the thoroughness with which he has discussed this important and controversial subject of the closed shop, which has engaged our attention a good deal during the past two or three years. The present Minister of Labour has expressed himself on a number of occasions in very forthright terms about the practice of insisting on trade union membership. As a member of the Standing Committee which dealt with the Trade Disputes Bill, I referred to the closed shop, which was highly relevant to that Bill, on more than one occasion. On every such occasion the Minister of Labour expressed his disapproval of the practice.

The trouble is—and, of course, speaking on the Adjournment we are concerned with administration—that these declarations of principle, so often reaffirmed, do not seem to have been carried forward into the realm of action and influence of Her Majesty's Ministers. I appreciate my hon. Friend's hope in raising this subject today, but I do not think that it is a very bright hope. On the other hand, having known the Parliamentary Secretary for a long time, I am not without hope for him; he has his flashes, and it may be that today will be one of his better days and that he will say that he will advise the Minister of Housing and Local Government to do something about this case. I am afraid, however, that the Minister of Labour has contented himself with forthright declarations.

The whole policy of the Government on this subject of the closed shop must cause us the gravest disquiet. Many such issues of trade union policy have been referred to the Royal Commission. I was never in favour of the appointment of that Royal Commission, though I know that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends were. I regarded it as something too slow in its operation to be helpful to us nowadays, when events proceed as such a pace. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself referred to it as a body which would take minutes and waste years. That is exactly what is happening.

Far from doing anything about it, the Minister of Labour introduced the Trade Disputes Bill, now an Act, which arose out of the case of Rookes v. Barnard. That case went to the House of Lords. It was concerned with the operation of the closed shop. It was a straightforward case of a man being dismissed, just as was the man mentioned by my hon. Friend, for no other reason than that he was not a member of a trade union. He had been, but he resigned. Then the other workers banded together to exercise threats on the management and the management weakly dismissed them and the case of Rookes v. Barnard followed.

What I understand is happening in Sheffield, although, of course, I have not the local knowledge which my hon. Friend has, is that it is not so much a case there of the trade unions directly bringing pressure on the council as that the trade unions have some degree I suppose taken over the council. Whether it happens that way or by trade union leaders bringing pressure to bear on the council is not the great materiality. The fact is that men are being induced by threats to join a trade union, or, if they are members of a trade union, not to resign from it. The threat that is made to them is that they will be dismissed.

There is nothing unlawful in that threat, of course. There could have been, even before the Trades Disputes Act, no legal remedy for that, but I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider whether this is not something which falls at least partly within the sphere of Ministerial responsibility. One can have various different views about the part which trade unions play and ought to play in the national life. My hon. Friend has indicated sympathy at any rate with a somewhat advanced view, which is that membership of a trade union is something which one can accept as desirable and that it might even be a good arrangement of our national affairs if an employer should say to a new employee, "Membership of a trade union is a condition of your working here."

Mr. J. H. Osborn

I was quoting from books and other references that there is a case for this. I am not saying that necessarily I approve of it. I should like that to be clear.

Mr. Bell

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was not trying to disapprove too strongly of his point of view, because the theme of my argument is that there are many points of view about this question of trade union membership, whether compulsory or optional. To me, it is simply a point of view, whatever point of view it is, to be allowed and tolerated. I do not mind someone thinking that universal trade union membership is a good thing, provided he does not try to force that point of view on others. I am not sure that universal trade union membership is a good thing. I am more inclined to the view that membership of any private society, even one which has statutory recognition, like trade unions, is best left entirely to the will and whim of the individual.

Some men are very much inclined to rely upon their trade union for regulating the conditions of their employment, the rate at which they shall be paid and generally the environment in which they work, just as some men rely upon the State a great deal in matters of that and allied kinds. To me, that is all bad, except for the weakest brethren who, perhap, do need some crutch or help. But it is surely much better if men take the responsibility of all these matters upon themselves and rely upon no one else's help, and certainly not upon the help of any organisation.

If we want to see a self-reliant and stiff-necked nation, we should look a little askance at powerful bodies which might do for a man tasks which he should be doing for himself. After all, the responsibility for his progress in the world, the application of his energy, the services acceptable to his fellows, must depend upon each individual man. It is very dangerous indeed when the outline of personal responsibility is blurred, as I believe that membership of a trade union can quite often blur it.

So I am not a great admirer of these organisations, although I recognise that for men who are not perhaps men of great strength of character or ability, organisation together can perhaps be of some assistance, but I feel that these are matters which ought to be left entirely to the individual. Whether a man wants to fight his own way, or likes to go in concert and fight it on a sort of gang principle, is a matter for each man to decide according to his assessment of his own nature. What I understand is happening in Sheffield is that men are being told that unless they join up in one of these groups they may not work for the corporation at all.

Believing as I do, in and out of season in this House—as those who know me will agree—in freedom of the widest character and of paying the highest price for it, as I am always willing to do, it may be said, "Why should not the employer have the freedom to say that he will run a shop which shall be open or closed? Why should he not be free to say, 'My employees must be members of a trade union', or 'My employees may please themselves', or 'My employees shall not be members of a trade union'?"

Of course, he can say, "The man need not work for me unless he wants to do so; there are lots of other employers for whom he can work." That is a possible argument, but it is an argument which is not open to statutory bodies which occupy a monopoly position, and a local authority is a statutory body and it does occupy a monopoly position. Bodies which are so situated are, in my view, under a duty to take the middle course, which is the one of tolerance leaving it to the employee individually to decide whether he shall or shall not be a member of one of these industrial groups which have become so important in our industrial society.

The Parliamentary Secretary may say, "All this is very interesting, but what do you expect me to do? There is no law about this. All I know of is a Royal Commission about it. Why should you expect the Minister of Housing and Local Government to take positive action or persuasive action when he has no constitutional duty, perhaps no constitutional place, to do so?" My answer to the hon. Gentleman is that I think he has a constitutional duty here to exercise persuasion. I put it to him in this way. Let us consider other matters where he has no legal powers at all. There is, for example, a Race Relations Act, which was passed by the House during the last Session of Parliament, certainly not with my approval. I could not disagree more strongly than I did with that Act, but it is not outside my knowledge that a Minister of the Crown has been appointed simply to persuade people whom he cannot force to follow out the policy of that Act, bad though it be.

I should not be a bit surprised if I were told that the Minister of Housing and Local Government, dealing with local authorities answerable to him, perhaps at the request of the Joint Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, tried to bring influence to bear on local authorities not to discriminate in their employment on grounds of race. I should think that wrong, but I should not be in the least surprised if they did it. What about the graduated systems of rents, differential rents—I forget what they are called? Authorities, I understand, are entirely free to charge differential rents or not. Although the Minister of Housing and Local Government cannot force an authority, he has a policy; he tries hard to persuade local authorities to do just that.

The Parliamentary Secretary knows that the policy of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour is as I have described—that people should be free. The Minister of Labour does not take quite the same view of membership of a trade union as I do. The Minister of Labour regards 100 per cent. membership on a voluntary basis as a good thing, but he is against compulsion. So be it. Let us take that policy. Why should not the Minister of Housing and Local Government, knowing that the Government's policy on the closed shop is that it is wrong—that 100 per cent. union membership on a voluntary basis may be good, but compulsion is wrong—seek to persuade local authorities to implement the policy of the Ministry of Labour?

I may be pushing at an open door. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary has been saying this to local authorities for months. If so, that is splendid. Then this debate will have served a very valuable purpose by giving the Parliamentary Secretary a platform—the Dispatch Box—from which to say this, and to clarify and publicise his Department's attitude. This may have a salutary effect in Sheffield, where it is obvious that some kind of good influence and salutary effect is badly needed.

In case the Parliamentary Secretary still has any slight hesitation, or is thinking of expressing himself in guarded words which will wound no feelings in Sheffield, I say again that what is at stake is, quite simply, personal freedom—the proper and responsible personal freedom of a country which I hope will always be one of free, independent and stiff-necked people, hard to govern, but worth while governing. The Parliamentary Secretary can play his modest part if he advises his new master—I do not even know who it is; the Government changes come so fast; I remember who it was this morning—to play a positive part in the situation which has so unhappily arisen at Sheffield and which has caused actual injustice to individuals.

2.23 p.m.

Mr. James Allason (Hemel Hempstead)

The House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) for raising this important subject. There have been a number of difficulties of a similar nature in the past, but they have not received such full consideration in the House in relation to local government. I recognise that trade unionists resent non-unionists getting the benefit of improved conditions won by union action. However, anyone with a sense of fairness must regard it as intolerable that a man should be forced out of his employment by the action of a powerful union.

It is a pity that keen trade unionists should want to force into their association those who are unwilling. Such action is in contravention of the Declaration of Human Rights, Article 20(2) of which states that No one may be compelled to belong to an association and Article 23(1) of which states: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment. I cannot see how those Articles can tie up with the closed shop.

Like the Minister of Labour, I dislike the closed shop. If there has to be one, it should be because the overwhelming majority of workers want it and it should allow for a conscience clause. Especial considerations should surely arise when the closed shop is introduced in relation to those who are already employed.

The conscience clause should go beyond strict religious grounds to general grounds—moral, ethic, or even plain bigotry. Many people have resigned from a union in disgust at that union's performance. This should be recognised.

I do not see why a man should be forced to remain in a union of which he strongly disapproves.

In the case of local authorities special considerations arise. Local authorities should act as model employers, since the employers here are the trustees of the local public. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) pointed out that here the employer is a statutory one, occupying a monopoly position, and it even more behoves such an employer to be very careful about how he acts.

If a closed shop is introduced by a local authority, two special considerations arise. First, there may be the danger of political prejudice in appointments and in getting or keeping a job. Secondly, there is the difficulty for the trade unionist where his union representatives and his employers may be identical people. It appears from what my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam has said that in Sheffield there is considerable doubt whether the employer is giving the orders about the closed shop or whether it is the trade union, because they are virtually the same people.

Advice has been offered to local authorities by the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Administrative, Technical and Clerical Services and several of the Provincial Councils of the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Services (Manual Workers). The latter have announced: Local authorities support the system of collective bargaining in every way and believe in the principle of solving problems by discussion and agreement. Local authorities apply the terms and conditions negotiated by the aforementioned bodies and honour the decisions that are made from time to time. In the opinion of the representatives of the local authorities and of the trade unions on the above-named bodies, if collective bargaining of this kind is to continue and improve, to the benefit of both employers and employees, not only should local authorities be members of the Provincial Council, but employees should also be members of the appropriate trade unions representing them on the negotiating bodies". The National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical Services' pronouncement is printed in its Scheme of Conditions of Service, and is as follows: The National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical Services is a joint organisation of employers and employed and constitutes the recognised machinery for the application of collective bargaining in the Local Government Service. Negotiations between individual local authorities and unorganised officers are impracticable. The National Council recommends local authorities to recognise all the organisations represented thereon. On both sides the National Council agrees that the interests of local authorities and their staffs are best served by individual officers joining their appropriate organisations, it being understood that the organisation he joins is a matter for the unfettered judgment of the individual officer. This makes it clear that it is desirable that members of staffs should join their appropriate union, but that the choice of organisation must be unfettered.

In the particular case of Sheffield, as my hon. Friend has described it, the situation appears to be, "Join the correct union, or you cannot be employed". It seems that a conscience clause is permitted, principally on grounds of religion, and other grounds rather at the discretion of a body, but I was not quite clear from the description of my hon. Friend whether that body represented the employers or the trade unions.

Mr. J. H. Osborn

It is the establishment committee, which is a sub-committee of the city council, and that body consists primarily of councillors although it might also include aldermen. The Minister of Housing and Local Government has a list of the people involved.

Mr. Allason

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that that makes the situation clear.

The Parliamentary Secretary has been urged very strongly to give directions to the local authority in this case. I believe that local government should be local and that interference from the central Government should be kept to a minimum, but that does not absolve the Government from indicating their view on the closed shop as operated in the way described by my hon. Friend.

The Parliamentary Secretary is here not only as a representative from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, but as a representative of the Minister of Labour and of the whole Government. Consequently, while I do not believe that local authorities should receive a direction from the Minister on this matter, I believe that advice should be offered, and offered in no uncertain terms.

2.32 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl)

The hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) referred in moving terms to the intolerable position one was in if one was forced to join a trade union. The hon. and learned Gentleman and I have both had to pay circuit dues and I expect that, like me, he still pays them. He may have been luckier than I, but I do not remember being asked to contract out of any of the fees which I had to pay, either to be heard in any particular court or to practise at the Bar.

But perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman suddenly thought of that, because he checked himself and said, "Of course, there is a special case where one is dealing with men of no great character or ability". It is just possible that the hon. and learned Gentleman was including the legal profession in that qualification.

Mr. Ronald Bell

I always marvel at the skill of the Parliamentary Secretary in talking with his tongue in his cheek, which is not an easy operation. He knows perfectly well, as I do, that whether one pays circuit dues or not is a matter of taste. A member of the Bar can appear in court whether or not he is a member of the circuit.

Mr. MacColl

He cannot be heard if he is a solicitor, and if he has not paid his barrister's due and he cannot appear in the High Court, either. He cannot be heard in a court unless he has qualified by the rules of the game. But this is a rather more serious matter than the hon. and learned Gentleman made it appear to be in his intervention.

I have seen the dossier which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn) sent to my right hon. Friend. He raised a particular question about pension rights, of which I have not previously heard. As far as I know, we have not been approached about that, and, therefore, I am not in a position to express any opinion on it. But it may well be that that is a matter within our responsibilities which I shall look at.

Mr. J. H. Osborn

This has happened only in the past week and unless he has been kept informed from local Press reports the Parliamentary Secretary might well not know of it. I discovered that the person concerned would not get his pension, or was not likely to get it, when he asked me about it. The notice is short, but would the Parliamentary Secretary not agree that it is singularly unfortunate that a person who has served a corporation department extremely well for 20 years should not, because of an anomaly in the contributory or non-contributory pension arrangements, be entitled to a pension due to him for that 20 years' service?

Mr. MacColl

I am not criticising the hon. Member for not mentioning the matter earlier. I simply meant that this illustrates the difficulty and unwisdom of committing oneself, as it were, to a value judgment on something when one does not know all the circumstances. That is something that I would like to look at, and about which I should like further advice.

The hon. Gentleman raised one or two other points to which I now come. There is a great distinction between the question of the closed shop and what my right hon. Friend, now the Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, said in his White Paper about rent rebate, because on the latter he has, through the subsidy, and particularly the new subsidies, a very important financial responsibility. That is a different position from the question which we are now to discuss.

I wish to make the legal position clear, because there has been a certain amount of confusion about it. The Local Government Act, 1933, which sets out the general constitution of local authorities, gives a local authority power to appoint such officers as it may think necessary for the efficient discharge of its functions. There are two exceptions to that. One is that county clerks, medical officers of health and public health inspectors cannot be dismissed without Ministerial approval, but otherwise local authorities are free to dismiss staff as they wish within the provisions of the law. It may be that if they did that they might endanger the efficiency of the service, and in certain cases my right hon. Friend would have responsibilities there. The other exception is education. The hon. Member for Hallam rather gave the impression that Mr. Tomlinson was a tough, good radical, and that he stood up for the rights of the teachers of Durham, whereas my right hon. Friend was feeble and weak, and had done nothing about these problems. But the position in the case of education is quite different, because under the Education Act, 1944, a duty is placed on the local education authority in connection with appointments of staff in primary and secondary schools, though not in further education or special schools, where there is a narrower power. There are powers in section 68 of the Act for the Minister to give directions on the carrying out of the local authorities' duty under Section 24. The Durham case was a very special one where there was a specific duty on the local authority and on the Minister. It was under Section 68 that those directions were made.

I accept what the hon. Member said as being an accurate summary of what happened in Sheffield. I have no amendment that I would want to make of his interpretation of it, but he rather implied, following out the theme about the Durham teachers, "Well, of course, all these Socialists come to power and trouble arises, because after Durham nothing happened. Then suddenly we get it all happening again". So far as I know, there were three cases during the period of office of the last Government in which the matter was raised, two in 1962 and one in 1964. The attitude of my predecessor in these matters was one pretty well the same as mine now, that this is not a matter in which the central Government have any right to interfere.

The hon. Member also asked about trade union members voting on the closed shop. I am advised that this is not a pecuniary interest and that they are entitled to vote but, as the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) probably knows, my right hon. Friend started a review of the question of pecuniary interests, the standards of reputable behaviour for local authority members and so on, and discussions with the local authority associations are still going on. Therefore, this is not something which we have ignored or swept under the carpet.

The hon. Member for Hallam rebuked the A.M.C., saying that it ought to have done more about it. No doubt, the A.M.C. will consider that and will take his rebuke to heart.

The hon. Gentleman quoted my right hon. Friend's letter of 3rd August, in which he said that this is not a matter in which he was prepared to interfere but that: it is for the electorate to decide whether or not they agree with the action taken by the council in their name and they have the means to secure that any councillors who fail to represent their views are not re-elected. The hon. Gentleman, rightly and understandably, took up my right hon. Friend's advice painstakingly and in great detail, and it is quite clear that he is warming up for the election campaign in May. I hope that that campaign does not have the result for which he hopes, but one cannot blame him for that. We are all political animals, and we all try to make the most of a good opportunity if we have one, or think we have. But to try to combine that exercise with an academic, dispassionate "much research in the Library" type of discussion on the pros and cons of the closed shop is a little difficult. This has been turned into a political matter and an electoral issue. Let our masters decide it then by all means.

I want to say a little more about the situation as it now stands. The Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Associations was announced in February, 1965. Its terms of reference were: To consider relations between managements and employees and the rôle of trade unions and employers' associations in promoting the interests of their members and in accelerating the social and economic advance of the nation, with particular reference to the law affecting the activities of those bodies; and to report. The Commission considers that the operation of the closed shop policy is a matter which comes within its terms of reference. The terms of reference are wide-ranging, as will be seen. The Commission is not giving special study to any particular sphere of employment, but any recommendation which it may make on any of the subjects it is studying, including the closed shop, are expected to apply to local authorities in common with other employers. Evidence has been received by the Royal Commission about local authorities from members of the public and from various bodies connected with local government such as the A.M.C., N.A.L.G.O. and the Local Authorities Conditions of Service Advisory Board. I do not know when the Commission is likely to report It says that the inter-relation of many of the major problems it is studying is an obstacle to the production of an interim report. In parenthesis, I would add that it is an obstacle also to the Government butting in, as it were, in this delicate matter at his stage when it is under careful examination.

As the hon. Member for Hallam said, the Sheffield City Council has not said its last word on the matter. It is at present reviewing the application of the policy during the last 12 months. But, whatever may emerge from the review, I ask the House to accept that the policy in this matter and the detailed application of it are matters which should be left to the discretion of individual authorities.

In this connection, as so often in others, the cry is always for freedom and independence for local authorities, until something happens which people do not like. As soon as something happens which people do not like—my postbag shows this time and again—one is asked immediately to issue a direction, to interfere, to apply default powers, or whatever it may be. But one has to accept that this is a matter within the public responsibility of local authorities.

As I have said, the question is being considered by the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Association. Any recommendations on the subject which the Royal Commission may make will be considered most carefully by the Government. But at this stage, while it is under consideration, it would be most unwise for the Government to take any further steps.

Mr. J. H. Osborn

Does the Ministry of Housing and Local Government share the views which have been expressed by the Minister of Labour, to which both my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) and I have referred? Specifically, will the hon. Gentleman persuade the local authority concerned to withdraw all notices while it is conducting its review of the situation, as many people are being sacked while the question is under review? I hope that the Minister will say something more definite about what he approves and disapproves before he concludes.

Mr. MacColl

On the first point, there is such a thing as collective responsibility in Government. Views which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour expresses in the context of his responsibilities are views which I would accept, just as, I hope, my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour would accept something said by my right hon. Friend in our field of responsibility. This is one Government, and we act as one.

On the other question, the answer is "No, I would not". As I said, while this matter is under review, a matter essentially for the local authority, a responsible elected public body entrusted by Parliament under the 1933 Act with power to make such appointments as it needs in the carrying out of its functions, it is not for the central government to interfere and start lecturing it on how to carry out those responsibilities.

Mr. Allason

Will the Parliamentary Secretary agree that, pending the review by the Royal Commission, the Minister of Labour's view holds good and that is the view which the hon. Gentleman himself takes?

Mr. MacColl

I shall not add to what I have said on that point. It is on the record.

On the other matter, I refer again to the difficulty to which I referred earlier, that, in the atmosphere in which the hon. Member for Hallam deployed it, this is becoming an issue which will be very actively taken up by a minority on the council, by Conservative candidates and by Conservative Members of Parliament. That sort of atmosphere makes it extremely important that the Government do not get involved in local politics. It is not for the Government to intervene in these matters. It is for the electorate and for the local people to settle.