HC Deb 06 July 1966 vol 731 cc582-5
Mrs. Shirley Williams

I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 16, to leave out lines 28 to 31.

This is one of a group of Amendments concerning the question of the two-year registration condition and the possibility of an employer coming to the business in order simply to acquire compensation. In other words, this is to try to meet the difficulty which arose in the original Bill and was pointed out by one or two hon. Members in Committee—from both sides, I think—over the phrase about continuous registration. Clearly, if there is continuous registration over two years during which the qualifying period of work, which is laid down, has to be reached within this continuous period of two years, an employer who for some minor breach of the regulations was suspended for a matter of a few days would not be able to satisfy this condition in regard to the continuous period of registration, Therefore, this also would be a disproportionate penalty for what might have been merely a minor suspension of a day or two.

There is also the other difficulty, for an employer who comes into the industry with a genuine desire to contribute to the industry and to be a good employer, that as the Bill stands it would make it not possible for such an employer to be compensated. It is our view that he should be able to be compensated should he have come into the industry on a perfectly genuine basis. We believe that the type of employer who comes in solely with an eye to compensation would be the type of employer who would not invest enough in the business to justify any compensation at all.

I wonder if we can take at the same time the Government Amendments No. 5, No. 6, No. 7, No. 8, No. 20 and No. 43?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

If the House wishes, but they must be moved separately, though that can be done formally.

Mrs. Williams

The further point which rises is in Clause 14 (1, a). Amendment No. 5 would delete this particular provision about registration. I am trying to make clear, on what is, I am afraid, a very complicated group of Amendments, that the condition with regard to the period under which the labour force must have been employed in terms of hours stands, but the condition regarding the 104-week period during which this must take place falls, and, therefore, this will make it possible to deal with the employer and also deal with the case of somebody suspended for a brief period. Therefore we are dropping the first condition.

Amendment No. 8 merely rewrites subsection (4) which, as it stands, safeguards the position of an employer who amalgamated with another employer during the period between the introduction of licensing. The employer can count the period which was required before the business was amalgamated towards the qualifying period. This is again an important Amendment, because we wish to encourage amalgamations, and a great many have been taking place.

Generally, the dropping of the earlier condition is one which will commend itself to the House, because it will make the position in equity a fairer one in terms of the employer who arrives in the industry within the two-year period and the employer who, for some technical reason, may have been suspended for a short time.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: No. 5, in page 16, line 37, leave out from "has to "or" in line 41 and insert: as a registered employer employed dock workers in the port in question for some time during each of not less than eighty weeks during the qualifying period". No. 6, in page 17, line 2, leave out from beginning to first "is" in line 3 and insert: 'the qualifying period ' means the period of one hundred and four weeks ending with whichever of the following dates". No. 46, in line 5, after "made", insert: or a person who was both a registered employer and a registered dock worker". No. 7, in line 6, after "Act", insert "the date of".

No. 8, in line 24, leave out subsection (4) and insert: (4) If within the qualifying period the dock business of any person has been transferred by agreement or operation of law to another person, the person in whom it is vested at the end of that period shall be treated for the purposes of this section as if he had been a registered employer on those days on which any person in whom the business was vested during that period was a registered employer and as if he had employed the dock workers employed in the business on any of those days or, as the case may be, as if he had done any work on any of those days by any registered employer in whom the business was then vested.—[Mrs. Shirley Williams.]