Clause 48.—(REFERENCES OF DISPUTES ABOUT MEANING OF "DOCK WORK" TO A TRIBUNAL.) (Hansard, 6 July 1966)

§ Mrs. Shirley Williams
I beg to move, Amendment No. 32, in page 36, line 30, to leave out from "Board" to "and" in line 35 and to insert: or a licensing authority that there is a dispute between the Board or the licensing authority, as the case may be, and any other person about a question to which this section applies, or it appears to any person other than the Board or a licensing authority that there is such a dispute between him and the Board or a licensing authority about such a question".

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Would it be convenient for the House to discuss, at the same time, Amendments No. 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37?

§ Mrs. Williams
Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a rather complicated matter which, basically, concerns the type of dispute which can be referred to an industrial tribunal. Under the Clause as drafted it would be possible to refer a dispute only between the Board and an employer. This series of Amendments would permit the reference of disputes between the Board or licensing authority and any other person.
Perhaps the best instance one could give of the need for this Amendment is exemplified by the recent dispute on the Tyne between two unions as to what constituted dock work. That was clearly not a dispute between an employer and a union, but between a trade union and another party. This alteration to the Bill would allow that type of dispute to be referred to an industrial tribunal. There is a rapidly changing nature in dock work as new types of mechanised equipment are brought into the ports, and the question of a definition of dock work can be very complex in some cases which involve parties not concerned with what is commonly known as dock work at all.
The Amendment also refers to disputes which might arise between a licensing authority and another person. There might, for example, be a dispute about dock work in the context of licensing because of the dock labour scheme. Perhaps, to give a possible instance, as a dock was extended, what was dock work could be the subject of an argument and the question of licensing of employers 595 could arise. This matter could then be referred to a tribunal.
The second main effect of this Amendment is to meet criticism from some hon. Members opposite, and that is that an employer should not be denied access to a board if the union has not stated a case. What we are now doing means that he could go to the board without any further delay.
The third reason for the Amendment has a bearing on tribunals, and remedies an omission in this Clause as it stands. The dock labour scheme can apply only to workers in a port, or in the vicinity of the port, and there has been dispute at times about what is meant by "vicinity". Under this Amendment, matters which arise in whatever part of the port can be referred to a tribunal.
I should like to make it clear that all this is a fairly free alteration in the powers of tribunals, and it may be that we should wish to consider this group of Amendments further with both sides of the dock industry. If so, the Government are prepared to put down a more suitable Amendment in another place in order to meet any difficulties. At this stage, we should prefer, however, to err on the side of generosity in order that a tribunal should be open to as many people as possible who might wish to refer matters to them.

§ Mr. Ridley
We welcome these Amendments. They go further than the point which I raised when I urged the hon. Lady in Committee to remember that it should not only be the board which could refer a dispute to a tribunal. This widening of access, if I may put it that way, is a great improvement and is, as she has said, a matter of some importance. It is important in that this is the first time there has been a tribunal to decide what is dock work and what is not. When one is dealing with so restricted a class of work as dock labour, hedged about as it is by boards, and regulations, and Acts of Parliament and, one might add, by restrictive practices, it is necessary to have a fair way of deciding what work comes within one definition and what is within another. The hon. Lady, responding to our prod-dings in Committee, has greatly im- 596 proved her own Clause with this Amendment.
She mentioned the dispute on the Tyne. I entirely agree that if anything in this Clause as it now will be could have helped to have avoided that dispute the whole House would have been the more pleased. Whether the hon. Lady feels that the mere definition of a certain class of work as dock work and not any other sort of work would have automatically convinced the two unions that it was so is a slightly further assumption for her to make than, perhaps, is borne out by the facts. It does not necessarily follow that even if a tribunal classifies work as dock work that classification would be accepted by the unions which, in this case, were parties to the dispute.
This is a very interesting extension of the work of the Industrial Training Act tribunals into this completely new field of, as it were, demarcation settlement and industrial dispute. It might well be the forerunner of a great development of this sort of idea of providing immediate and quick access to a tribunal or to some form of arbitration which could well spread into other forms of industry. It is an interesting experiment, as well as a welcome one. We wish the whole conception of the tribunal well in its desire to define dock work, and we accept these Amendments because we think that they make the Clause altogether better.