HC Deb 18 November 1966 vol 736 cc886-908

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fitch.]

2.52 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Royle (Richmond, Surrey)

I want to raise a matter which involves the working to rule by limb-fitters employed by J. E. Hanger and Company Ltd. They work in premises next door to, and really part of, the hospital at Roehampton. I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health for being present to reply to this debate, and I apologise for, perhaps, delaying his return to his constituency where he does so much work.

What I have to say follows Early Day Motion No. 233 which I put on the Order Paper, with many of my hon. Friends, on 2nd November, 1966. It is a sad and tragic story, and there are four main aspects to which I should like the Minister to reply.

The first aspect—and though this is, perhaps, not strictly a matter for the hon. Gentleman's Ministry, I have no doubt that he has consulted his right hon. and hon. Friends—is the dilatoriness of the Ministry of Labour in tackling the problem. Approximately 28 limb-fitters are involved. These are the men who, when disabled persons come to have limbs fitted, do the skilled work of adjusting and fitting the limbs. The go-slow, which is due to a pay dispute with their employers, started on 2nd September. The men are members of the union known as A.S.S.E.T.

The "work to rule" is causing great distress and misery at present to hundreds of disabled people who visit Roehampton, some of them for the first time, to have a limb fitted, others seeking limb adjustments or alterations because their artificial limbs are making their lives difficult at home or at work. This misery was admitted by the Ministry of Labour in a Parliamentary Answer given on 31st October.

As a result of the "go-slow", about a thousand patients are now waiting for the fitment of artificial limbs instead of the normal 350. I believe that it is now difficult to get an appointment for limb-fitting until well into the new year. In the week beginning 24th October, the last period for which I have figures, treatment was given to 483 patients and 52 of them had to be turned away because of this work to rule.

I am very concerned that nothing was done to bring the two sides of the dispute together with the Minister of Labour until, as far as I can ascertain, I tabled a Parliamentary Question on 27th October. Why was there this long delay from 2nd September to 27th October before the Ministry of Labour deemed it right to intervene? Action has been taken over the last few weeks, but the Ministry's attitude appears to have caused the dispute to drag on for very much longer than might have been the case had it acted sooner.

As I appear to have plenty of time this afternoon, I want to refer to something else, about which I have not given the hon. Gentleman notice. I do not necessarily expect an answer now, but I should like the Ministry to look into it. I refer to the difficulty that patients are having, quite apart from the work to rule, in regard to the ambulance service to Roehampton. That service was apparently very good, but since it has been managed by the local authority all patients from the London area are collected in one ambulance, irrespective of where they live. The journey now takes so long that by the time the patients arrive at Roehampton the fitters are often fully booked for the day. The patients, most of whom are not strong, must spend a great deal of time waiting and have a similar worry on the journey home. One lady wrote to me saying that on her last visit it took her three and a half hours to travel from Roehampton to Finchley. The ambulance crews are very good, but they are having a difficult time because of the organisation that exists for the picking up of patients.

The second, even more grave, matter I wish to raise in connection with this case concerns the Press. It also concerns the press officer at the Ministry of Health, and I have with me a record of what took place. On 26th September the chief reporter of the Richmond and Twickenham Times, which is published in my constituency, discovered certain facts, some of which I am revealing today. He intended to print them in the edition of the Thames Valley Times, which is part of the same group of newspapers, on 28th September.

Having discovered the facts from various sources, he was referred by the hospital to the press officer of the Ministry of Health. He telephoned the press officer and, some time later, received a call back and, on that occasion, the press officer requested the non-publication of the facts which the chief reporter had ascertained. Naturally the press officer regarded what he was making as a request, and no more than that. I am not in any way suggesting that he made a demand.

Apparently the press officer said that other newspapers had made similar inquiries—remembering that this was towards the end of September—and he implied that after it had been pointed out that the publication of the details at that stage might harm patients attending the hospital, those other newspapers were complying with his request.

While I accept that this was only a request on the part of the press officer at the Ministry of Health, I feel that it was not, shall we say, an irresponsible thing to request but an unwise thing to do. It is now becoming clear that if the Press had printed the story at that time, the whole of the facts of this case would have been exposed to public opinion; and I have no doubt that the Ministry of Labour would have taken immediate action to bring the two sides together— action that was taken after I tabled Parliamentary Questions. In making this last point I am not criticising the Parliamentary Secretary who will reply to this debate, because from the point of view of negotiating between the two sides, his Ministry is not affected.

It may be said that the reporter could have gone ahead and printed the story anyway. That is true, but he is an honourable and decent man whom I know well. Like any ordinary member of the public, when informed that harm might be done to disabled people if the story was printed, he felt that it would be wrong to print it. In view of the circumstances I have described, the story did not get into the Press until a month later. This episode of stifling comment, albeit by request, resulted in grave delay in action being taken. I would be grateful if the Parliamentary Secretary would explain how his Ministry explains this.

The third and equally grave aspect of this matter concerns the action of the union A.S.S.E.T., under the leadership of its general secretary, Clive Jenkins. From the information I have received, it is disgraceful to think that this union's attitude, which is encouraging the men to work to rule, appears to be causing the entire trouble. By A.S.S.E.T. backing the men in the action they are taking— indeed. I am told inciting them to it— it is not only damaging the trade union movement, but is also harming innocent people who are suffering as a result of the work to rule.

To those who feel that I am being unreasonable in making this charge, I quote from a report which I read at the end of last month. Mr. Bob McCuster, assistant general secretary of A.S.S.E.T., said on 28th October: The Association"— that is, A.S.S.E.T. has done everything possible to avert the situation because we do not wish to cause inconvenience to patients. All that the fitters are doing is to attend to one patient at a time, instead of several. That is exactly the issue which is causing distress. Whereas in the past patients attending Roehampton to have their limbs fitted have found that one fitter would deal with six, seven or eight patients at a time, getting them dealt with at a quick pace, under the work to rule action each fitter is dealing with only one patient at a time, and this is causing real hardship.

Mr. McCusker went on to say that his union had reached agreement with the employers on a £2 a week increase for the men. He added: We feel the money is due to our members and we have done as much as possible through negotiation. The Ministry of Labour is seeking to bring about a meeting between the company and ourselves which we are willing to attend". This underlines the disgraceful attitude of the union. It is surely quite wrong that, by asking its members to work to rule, the union should take it out of disabled patients coming to this hospital from all over the London area. The union should take it out of the Government, for it is the Government which produced the pay freeze, not Messrs. Hanger, or the hospital authorities at Roehampton.

Hon. Members will appreciate that I do not make a practice of attacking the trade union movement. I have never done so in this House, and I should not wish to make a practice of it, but I feel that this union is using the misery of hundreds of disabled people for its own ends. I implore the union to think again, and to think very carefully, about the damage it is doing, not only to the many disabled people who attend this hospital, but also to the trade union movement as a whole, because the view of the general public about the behaviour of the union is very low indeed.

I am certain that the House will be very disappointed that there was no agreement reached yesterday when there was a meeting at the Ministry of Labour of the fitters' representatives and, I gather, the company and the Minister. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he can let me know what the latest position is.

Perhaps the main cause of this whole unfortunate situation, the main cause of this distress, must lie basically in the decision of Her Majesty's Government to institute the pay freeze. This underlines the carelessness of the rushed measures announced by the Prime Minister on 20th July. It is quite clear that agreement was reached at one time between the fitters and the employers in the pay dispute. There is no need for me to go into the details this afternoon. It is clear that agreement was reached, although there is some comment reported in some newspapers that the employers are now doubtful that that was so. All my evidence shows that an agreement was reached but it could not go ahead because of the pay freeze announced on 20th July. It seems extraordinary that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister got together and instituted the freeze no provision was made to exclude serious compassionate cases.

I know the difficulty. I know that the fitters are not compassionate cases and they are a party to the dispute; not the disabled patients who go to the hospital. But the dispute between the fitters and the company, which apparently comes under the pay freeze, affects the patients and it is they who are now suffering as a result. If this is correct, it seems to be a matter for the Government to answer as to why arrangements could not have been made for a compassionate exception to have been made in this case. It seems to many of the patients who attend this hospital, and to many of the devoted people who work in the hospital looking after the patients, that the Government's measure of 20th July was panicked, rushed and not carefully thought out. That is why innocent people are being involved and are suffering.

Obviously, this distressing dispute must be settled. That is why I have taken the opportunity—and I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for it—of raising this important matter in the House. I beg the union and the employers to stop this damaging squabble. I beseech the Minister and the Government urgently to continue their efforts, which I know are being made at present, during the hours and days ahead to obtain a solution as quickly as possible.

3.10 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Charles Loughlin)

May I deal, first, with one point which is secondary to the debate to which the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) referred, namely, the question of the ambulance service which he says was not directly connected with the debate but about which he was concerned. We appreciate the difficulties about the ambulance service. We are looking at the problem, and I should be grateful if instead of pressing me on this matter the hon. Gentleman would allow me to write to him after we have considered it.

It does not give me a great deal of pleasure to have to make the statement which I shall have to make. I have been a member of the trade union movement for many years and an official of a union for a number of years. I have always deprecated the eagerness with which some people—I completely exonerate the hon. Gentleman on this score—have been prepared to attack the trade unions irrespective of the circumstances in which an industrial dispute takes place.

I have to reply to a debate and to state the facts, in connection with a dispute of this kind. I hope that after this debate the men in the fitting centres will give very serious consideration to the situation with which we are faced, bearing in mind all the difficulties which are being imposed on the patients attending the centre. I hope that they will reconsider their attitude and will cease to pursue the policy which they have pursued during the last few weeks.

In drawing attention to the regrettable state of affairs at the centre, the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity of expressing the deep concern of my right hon. Friend the Minister. We as a Ministry are responsible for ensuring that the centre at Roehampton and other centres throughout England and Wales provide a reliable and efficient service to the limbless. We have to ensure that the best artificial legs and arms which can be produced in this country are not only made available as quickly as possible, but are properly fitted and maintained so that those who rely on these aids can make the best use of them.

I cannot express too strongly the regret of my right hon. Friend and of myself that this service has been so deplorably hindered and that so many disabled men, women and even children have been not only put to serious inconvenience, but have had to endure additional and unnecessary suffering because of this dispute.

I wish, briefly, to set out the facts of the situation. The fitters at Roehampton and elsewhere are employed by the firms with which my Department has arranged contracts for the supply of artificial limbs, and these fitters are, as the hon. Gentleman said, members of the Association of Supervisory Staffs, Executives and Technicians. In April last the union presented a claim to Messrs. Hanger & Co. Limited—that is the largest of the firms concerned—that the fitters' jobs should be revalued and their salaries should be substantially increased.

The employers argued that the fitters' jobs had not changed in any material way since 1963 when the Industrial Court had revalued their responsibilities and had made an award which at the top of the salary scale amounted to about £170 a year. There were, however, a series of discussions, and eventually on 9th August the employers agreed in principle to a salary increase of £100.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the Government had by this time called for a standstill on prices and incomes. The hon. Gentleman has criticised this policy and I think that it is true to say that he and I could debate at great length the implications of the Government's economic policy, but, with all respect to him, I do not think that this afternoon is an occasion on which to debate this issue.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the hurried way in which the policy had been introduced resulted in the failure of the Government to take into account the possibility of special cases of a compassionate kind. But I notice that he himself really answered the point, because he went on to say that he appreciated that the compassion in the context of this situation applied not so much to the employees as to the patients.

Even if the Government, whether it be the present Government or any other, had spent a lot of time examining the kind of situations that are likely to arise, it is very questionable whether they would have got to the point of drawing the fine, sophisticated, subtle differences between the forms of compassion that one could envisage coming into play. In any case, I think that the hon. Gentleman must accept—here I go back to the point that I made when I said that I did not want to discuss economic policy today—that the Government have taken the view that once one breaches the economic policy or the standstill it becomes increasingly difficult to carry through the policy as it stands.

Mr. A. Royle

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Of course, I fully understand the point he is making. But it seems to me that it would have been possible for the Government to have said that if any specific compassionate case arose which had the wholehearted backing of the Minister of the Department responsible for the area in which the compassionate case arose—in this case his right hon. Friend—then if that Minister approached the Chancellor of the Exchequer an exception could be made. This should not involve the Government in a snowball against their basic policy.

Mr. Loughlin

The only difficulty is that one can think of an enormous number of categories of work people who would be involved, particularly in my field.

If one considered the various categories of medical, nursing and ancillary staff in the Health Service, one would be faced not with one category of workers —but with an enormous number of people. This applies equally to all the Departments that are service Departments as distinct from the normal Government Department. When I say "service Departments", I am thinking in terms of the social services, for example of pensions and National Insurance.

The employers behaved properly. They told the union that they had intended voluntarily to observe the incomes standstill and would not be able to put an increase into effect, nor would they discuss, as the union wished, back-dating the increase to the previous 1st May. The union protested vigorously, but the employers remained firm. On 2nd September, an official dispute began, and the limb fitters began to work to rule.

But, in practice, there are no rules in this sense, so they themselves laid down two rules to govern their conduct. One is that if a fitter is for any reason unable to attend a patient previously allocated to him, no fitter will attend to that patient. The second is that a fitter will deal with only one patient at a time, though this may mean that there are periods when the fitter is idle because the patient's limb is being adjusted in the factory.

The results of this action have been the long delays, inconvenience and hardship to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Both we and the employers hoped at this stage that the situation would soon improve, and particularly that when the fitters, in daily contact with the patients, saw the effects of what they were doing they would have second thoughts.

However, the Department acted immediately to ease the situation by reducing the number of patients called to the centre to match the reduced amount of fitting time available. These measures lessened the hardship to patients, but, nevertheless, there were still too many distressing incidents where patients who had waited many hours had to be turned away because no fitter would give them the attention they urgently required.

At the end of October, A.S.S.E.T. offered to call off the go-slow if the employers agreed to a number of proposals, the chief of which were that the £100 increase should be put into effect from 1st November, 1966, and that the employers would discuss payment of arrears back to 1st May. Meetings between the unions and the employers followed, but the latter still felt themselves bound to act according to Government policy. They continued to ask for a return to normal working, and, in return, pledged themselves to consider the union's demands as soon as a relaxation of Government measures would enable them to do so.

However, the union would make no concessions, but on 8th November presented the employers with a fresh set of proposals that went even further than its previous demands. It is true that the union did not ask for the cash to be paid out immediately. What it said was that as soon as the employers were allowed to make an increase—and the union asked for a substantial increase— the fitters' pay should immediately be lifted to the stage it would have reached if the union's proposals had been accepted and operative from the date it specified. It is rather playing with words to say that the fitters were prepared to forgo their arrears of pay, because in fact there never was an acceptance of an agreement except the prior one in principle, to which I referred earlier.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that there was a meeting yesterday and asked me what was the result, and what we could possibly do in the future. Discussion at that meeting went on for some hours. There is still no sign of agreement being reached. What we can do in this situation I do not know. We can only undertake, in concert with the Ministry of Labour, to watch the position as closely as we can, but, obviously, if the Government's policy is involved, it is difficult to get a successful set of negotiations under way in this situation. I think that the only thing we can hope for is that, as a result of the debate today, the appeals which I shall make before I finish will evoke a response.

The hon. Gentleman criticised the Ministry of Labour for not playing a more effective part. I am sorry to have to do so, but I must tell him that what he said is not absolutely true and I completely reject his criticism of the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry was consulted during the early negotiations. In September, as I have said, the employers thought, with every justification, that the fitters would not persist in their unreasonable attitude, but, as soon as A.S.S.E.T. presented its proposals at the beginning of October, the employers informed the Ministry of Labour and sought its advice.

A senior official of the Ministry spoke directly to the general secretary of the union and pointed out that the action his members were taking was having a serious effect on disabled people who were in no way connected with the matter in dispute. Unfortunately, this appeal was rejected. Subsequently, the Ministry of Labour called the employers and the unions to a meeting, but I am sorry to say that it was not possible to secure any change of attitude.

Mr. A. Royle

On what date was that?

Mr. Loughlin

Early in October the Ministry was in touch through one of its senior officials, and the meeting was called subsequently, but I do not know the precise date.

Mr. Ian Mikardo (Poplar)

1st November.

Mr. Royle

The hon. Gentleman said that I was not correct in what I said, but, apparently, I was. Apart from the conversation with the general secretary of A.S.S.E.T., the Ministry called the meeting of both sides only on 1st November, which was after I had tabled Questions and a month after the details of the case were originally found out by the chief reporter of the Richmond and Twickenham Times.

Mr. Loughlin

I may have misunderstood, but I inferred from what the hon. Gentleman said that he made the point— it is an important point and it is on this that I contradict him—that the Ministry of Labour did not intervene in any way until 1st November, after the Motion had been tabled. The hon. Gentleman will realise that in industrial disputes the decision on how soon one should undertake formal discussions with employers and unions is a matter of judgment. Sometimes, one feels that it might be better to wait a little before making formal approaches, and this is one judgment. Sometimes, one feels that it is best to go in quickly, and this is another judgment.

In this case the Ministry of Labour did not, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, sit back. It made an approach to the union through a senior official of the Ministry. There is no real chance in any industrial dispute, quite apart from this one, of the Ministry of Labour doing anything until it sounds out the parties to the dispute to see whether the circumstances are right for some form of conciliation, some form of getting together to get an agreement. The mere fact that a senior official of the Ministry of Labour was in touch with the union concerned puts a slightly different complexion, if I may say so with due respect, on the case deployed by the hon. Gentleman.

In the meantime, we have done, and will continue to do, everything that we can to maintain the best possible service at Roehampton. As I mentioned earlier, we have reduced the number of patients being called for attention to about 800 a week, instead of the 900 with whom we normally expect to deal, and our doctors are doing their best to ensure that those most in need of attention have first call on the services.

We are writing to all the patients who normally use the centre at Roehampton to ask them not to turn up without appointments, and to make greater use of the facilities which we offer for sending through the post a limb which requires repair. We are watching the situation very carefully all the time, and we will continue to do everything within our power to help to maintain the service for those who look to us for help.

The hon. Gentleman accused us of trying to silence the Press. I appreciate that he qualified this a little, but any suggestion that we were trying to silence, or to muzzle, the Press is to some extent a distortion of the facts. My Department received a number of inquiries from national and local newspapers about this dispute. All the inquiries were dealt with by the press officer who stated the facts and pointed out the inevitable hardship for disabled patients.

In each case the newspaper was asked —and I deliberately emphasise the word "asked"—to exercise restraint in handling the story, because it was felt that undue publicity at the stage when there were strong hopes that some degree of reason might prevail might exacerbate feelings and prolong the dispute, but the decision to publish or not was, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, clearly to be a matter entirely for each newspaper to decide.

I can see nothing reprehensible in asking the Press to handle a delicate matter with restraint. In fact, some newspapers have published the facts, and have done so in a perfectly reasonable manner, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will applaud them for the sense of responsibility which they have shown. I think that the newspapers would be the first to agree that it is absurd to suggest that the Press can be silenced. They make their own decisions about what they print, and I do not think that it is in the least sinister to make a request that there should be restraint.

From my knowledge as a trade union official I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is often done by both employers and unions, and very often done by employers in concert with the trade unions. When negotiations are in progress, and too much publicity might prejudice the outcome, either the union, or the employer—or both—very often tell the Press that, while there is nothing to stop them from publishing the details, they would be grateful if, because of the situation, they would delay publication for the time being. It is greatly to the credit of the Press that in delicate industrial situations it gives full weight to these considerations in deciding what to publish and the manner of presentation.

I want now to return to the qualification which the hon. Member made. I cannot argue this, because I cannot see into the future or even accurately use hindsight, but if publicity had been given to this matter at the early stages, there might have been a quicker solution to the problem. I will concede that that is a possibility, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to concede that it is also possible that by virtue of restraint at that time we might have got an earlier solution.

I know, and I have often had to take these decisions, that what we have to do in these circumstances is to make a judgment and ask ourselves what the effect of action or inaction in these cases would be. On balance, I do not see how the action which was taken by my press officer, with the full knowledge, though not on the detailed instructions, of my right hon. Friend and myself—if there is anything reprehensible, then the criticism is of us and not of our officers— was reprehensible. It could have been faulted only on judgment, and if it is faulted on judgment, it is my judgment and not theirs.

Mr. A. Royle

There is only one basic matter on which the Parliamentary Secretary and I differ about the events which took place on 26th September between the chief reporter of the Richmond and Twickenham Times and the Ministry. The request was not to the chief reporter to act or print with restraint. The request was for non-publication. That is the point. Of course, there should be restraint. Most responsible newspapers would always act with restraint in dealing with delicate labour matters, but this was a request for non-publication.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that he had to make judgments and said that the judgment might have been wrong. My case is that the Minister made a wrong judgment and I think that events have proved me right, because not publishing at that time has not hastened a settlement of this tragic dispute.

Mr. Loughlin

I have the records for a number of newspapers and it is difficult for me to sort out whether we asked for restraint or non-publication, but even granting the hon. Member the sum total of what he says, and conceding that my official said that we would rather that the paper did not publish at that time, he was doing precisely what we feel he ought to have done. Whether we would have got a settlement is a matter for conjecture which we could argue until we were blue in the face, but in my view we did the right thing, because we hoped to mitigate the difficulties with which our patients were faced.

Before I conclude I want to express how deeply my right hon. Friend and I regret that severely disabled people have been made the unfortunate victims of this disagreement with one aspect of the economic policy of the Government. This is the only occasion since the National Health Service began when technicians responsible for patients and in daily contact with them have seen fit to penalise those patients on account of some dissatisfaction with terms of service. I would make a personal appeal to the general secretary of A.S.S.E.T. to consider, in the action taken now—I appreciate the sincerity with which he disagrees with the Government's general economic policy— the difficulties which are being experienced by many unfortunate people.

I should like to quote two cases. I have an enormous number and I am certainly not taking the most difficult—the children with congenital deformities of both legs. The first case which illustrates the difficulties is that of a man of 72. He was examined by a limb surgeon, who ordered adjustments, but no fitter was available. He came again to Roehampton at a later date but again failed to see a fitter. For a man of 72, this need for adjustments is vital for his comfort and peace of mind.

Perhaps the second case is one with which I am more emotionally involved. A girl of 17 had her leg amputated at the hip last March and was supplied quickly by Roehampton with an artificial leg which her own consultant described as excellent. She made good progress and regained her independence and her morale was very high. One of the biggest problems in amputations, particularly for younger people, is the psychological effect of operations of this kind. This girl made excellent progress and became independent. Like any normal, healthy 17-year-old, she continued to grow and early in September she went by appointment to Roehampton for her limb to be adjusted.

Unfortunately, after waiting all day, when she was seen by a fitter, it was for only a short time and he was unable in that time to do anything to help her. The limb was so uncomfortable that she had to stop going to school. She went to Roehampton again at the end of September and saw our limb surgeon, who prescribed a new limb, but, after waiting all day, she had to go home without seeing a limb fitter. It was not until 10th October that we could arrange for her to go again. This time, we made sure that she saw the fitter and was measured for a new limb. She now has to wait for the limb to be made, and her morale has seriously suffered.

I would ask the general secretary of A.S.S.E.T., whose great humanity and understanding I know, to influence, in the name of humanity, the ending of this dispute. I would appeal to the fitters at the centre, whatever dispute they may have with the Government and their economic policy, "Please see to it that the patients who rely on you and us do not suffer in the way in which they are suffering now."

3.44 p.m.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

No one would quarrel with the tone of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech. He was obviously and rightly unhappy about this miserable business and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) was right to raise it in the termperate and moderate terms in which he did.

I wish to add a word as one who was, as the House knows, Minister of Pensions and National Insurance for a number of years and, as such, saw and admired the work of limb-fitting which has been done for many years now at Roehampton. I saw, too, the work done there for the category of war disabled and for other categories of the limbless, and what an immense difference that work makes for them.

I think now, in particular, of two categories—first, the older people, an example of one of whom the Parliamentary Secretary gave and to whom properly fitted and properly adjusted limbs make the difference between mobility and being housebound, between living a life and being miserable prisoners in their own homes; and secondly, the large category of very gallant people, who, in spite of being limbless, do a job of work and earn a living for themselves and their families, and who, as a category, are so remarkably good about not moaning. One is particularly miserable, as the Parliamentary Secretary so well and so effectively said, that this situation should have been allowed to arise.

Having listened to the debate I think that probably the Government have not handled this matter very well. I agree that it is a matter of judgment, but it seems to me that to encourage publicity in the very responsible newspaper in my hon. Friend's constituency would have been helpful rather than the opposite. I am therefore not at all sure about the Government's handling of the problem. But at the moment I do not much care about the question of past handling. What I want to see is this dispute and this state of affairs stopped and this vital service, to some of the most deserving and admirable people in the country, resumed in full efficiency.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the union. As I have said, I have sympathy with all those in industry who have been affected by what I have always regarded as the ham-handed way in which the Government have introduced this freeze, cutting right across what, in this case and many others, were genuine and reasonable negotiations, begun months ago and conducted between union and employer. I have the greatest sympathy with the union over having what I understand was very nearly a firm agreement frustrated by the accident of a few days.

All the same, in this case although they are a wronged party, wronged by the Government, I wonder whether they would not be wise to be generous. I would therefore, as emphatically and earnestly as I can, support the appeal which the Parliamentary Secretary made in what I think were extremely fitting and admirable terms a few moments ago.

After all, we are within six weeks, are we not, of the end of the period of absolute freeze, and we then begin the period of what is called severe restraint. If I understood it aright, that is a period in which advances may be made in some cases. I would hope and believe, although I do not know Government policy about this, that a case in which agreement was almost arrived at before 20th July, was all but signed, sealed and delivered, could be the kind of case which would get priority. I hope so. I hope, too, that this would apply to technicians whose work I saw on the spot and enormously admired. The skill, the sympathy and the sensitiveness with which they do their work—I say this in the presence of the hon. Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo)—is most admirable.

Whether the Government are right or wrong—I think that they are wrong, but they are the Government—within a few weeks the period of their intervention will cease to be an absolute bar. I believe that if the limb fitters concerned were to say, "We do not withdraw our grievance in the slightest, we have been badly treated, but we will not continue to punish innocent people who suffer a severe disability because we have been badly treated", they would gain much public sympathy. Let them say, "We will restore the service".

I confess that I was rather horrified to hear the Parliamentary Secretary say that the number of people going for limb-fitting had been reduced, because no one goes for limb-fitting at all unless it is medically necessary. If these men were to say, "We will restore the full service from now on", I am sure they would be carried forward on a wave of public sympathy that would over-ride any objection by Government or employers. I therefore support the Parliamentary Secretary's appeal.

I do not want to be sentimental in this matter, but I feel very strongly about it. We are dealing with the limbless, with people who really have all they can cope with, and who have suffered all they can bear. I beg all those concerned, on both sides, to get the normal service going in the knowledge, I hope, that those who act generously shall have no cause to regret it on 1st January.

3.50 p.m.

Mr. Ian Mikardo (Poplar)

The whole House appreciates the wholly admirable motives which have led the right hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) to draw our attention to this matter now. We all share the belief that he expressed so well, if I may say so, that people who already have far more than their fair share of misfortune should not have their difficulties added to in any avoidable way.

I hope, however, that he will forgive me if I say—and he knows that I intend no discourtesy—that the strength of his feelings led him, understandably, to depart a little from his normally high standards of clarity and logic. The beginning and the end of his speech did not hang together. He got the point right in the latter part of his speech, but the earlier part was marred by two errors of fact which, with all respect and courtesy, I should like to put to him. I do not altogether blame him for it, because my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary equally got one point wrong, if not both.

The hon. Gentleman's error of fact was to suggest that there was a dispute between the limb-fitters and their employers. He referred to a dispute several times, and my hon. Friend referred to it more often. The key to the situation is that at no time has there been any dispute between Messrs. Hanger and these limb-fitters. As the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) has said, an agreement was negotiated, but at all stages of that process from the claim first being made, there has never been any dispute between the two direct parties. That is the key to the situation.

At the end of the meeting on 1st November the two normal sides, employers and employed—the nigger in the woodpile, who is the Minister of Labour, is on neither side—issued a statement that there was no dispute between them. At this very moment, the two sides are very amicably discussing how to get out of the difficulty that has arisen. So the idea that the present position—which I deplore as much as any other hon. Member—has arisen because of an obstinate employer and an obstinate union not being able to resolve their difficulties has absolutely no foundation whatever.

At the meeting between the two parties on 9th August—and this is not so far been mentioned today—agreement was reached on these changes of pay and, at the same time, the parties agreed to set up machinery for improving and accelerating the work that is being done. We have heard today that the normal backlog of work has been greatly increased as a result of what has happened in the last few weeks, but though no one can take pleasure in that, the fact is that there has been a backlog for years and years.

What needs to be done to get rid of this present difficulty and to improve the operations of the service in order that the backlog may be permanently cut out, as it never has been in some years? It was part of the understanding between these two totally-agreed parties that they would work out some way of doing that. It is a tragedy, among the other tragedies which have been described, that that work of evolving new and better ways is being held up by what has been going on in the past few weeks. I therefore make the point that this is not a dispute between employer and employee. I repeat that, not so much for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman as for the benefit of my hon. Friend who, I thought, in his reply to the hon. Gentleman, was off beam once or twice because of his failure to explain this arrangement.

The second error of fact, of which the hon. Gentleman was, I am sure, inadvertently guilty, was the suggestion—again supported even more strongly and more immoderately by my hon. Friend—that the situation here is that we have a wicked trade union official inciting some chaps, who do not want to do so, into a course of action in order to put some pressure on the Government, or in order to provide some support for the individual opinions of that wicked official.

I can assure the House that if those chaps had not wanted to do what they were doing, Mr. Jenkins would not have been able to incite or persuade them. I appreciate what the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames said, but there is no union in the country whose constitution and practices—and sometimes the day to day practices are much more important than the formality of the constitution—are as democratic as those of the union with which we are now dealing. There can be few unions whose members have such a fierce sense of determination or such a fierce and wholly persuasive unwillingness to be shoved around by their own union establishment. I say that with feeling as a member of that union's establishment.

I have been a member of the executive for more than 20 years. I have negotiated with numbers of members of that union, hundreds of times more than the small numbers here involved, and I can tell the House that any time I wanted any of those members to do something that I wanted them to do and which they did not want to do, I had a very rough time. I have never so far succeeded in doing that. Whatever we may think about these limb-fitters, it was a spontaneous action on their part. It was they who were demanding the support of their union in what they wanted and not the other way around. I hope that what my hon. Friend said this afternoon, which tended to suggest that they are a lot of stooges being pulled by the nose by one man, will not cause so much indignation in their breasts as to impede the chance of a settlement of the difficulties, which members on both sides of the House want to see.

I intend no discourtesy by drawing attention to these two errors of fact. I did not comment on the point made by the hon. Gentleman regarding the holding back of information in the Press because I do not know anything about it. That is a good reason for not commenting on it. It might be that if there is some misunderstanding about the facts in this situation it could be partly due to the fact that there was not as much Press coverage as there should have been. It may be due to the fact that somebody thought it was not a good idea for people to know that there was agreement between the two sides and that there still is agreement to this day between Hanger and its employees on this matter.

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lawson.]

Mr. Mikardo

All the remarks made in this debate have, I am sure, been made with deep feeling and compassion and I hope that our views will not go unheeded. I utter my next sentence with some regret. The appeal made to the people concerned by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames was much more balanced and is much more likely to be heeded than the appeal made by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. Considering the terms of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, I can easily imagine his words striking a chord in the minds and hearts of those to whom they were addressed.

If we are to talk about these chaps, who are very highly skilled men—precision engineers in both methods and human beings; a rare combination, and that is why they are so rare and why we have always had this backlog and difficulty—in a way that suggests that they are mugs and are being shoved around, as someone might deduce from the observations of my hon. Friend, then that will not have a good effect. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey for bringing this matter to the attention of the House and for the terms and manner in which he did so.

4.1 p.m.

Mr. Loughlin

With the leave of the House, I wish to speak again to make certain points clear.

I do not wish to become involved in any arguments and I do not believe that I suggested that the members of the fitting centre were the sort of people who could be led by the nose by anybody, whether it be the general seceretary of A.S.S.E.T. or anyone else.

My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar (Mr. Mikardo) will recall that I began by making an appeal to the limb-fitters and went on to make an appeal to the general secretary of A.S.S.E.T. My hon. Friend can say what he likes, but I assure him that, as a trade unionist, I am aware that any trade union official—and no one will persuade me that Clive Jenkins is not a trade union official who has the confidence of his membership— wields an enormous amount of influence with his union's members. Thus, I appealed to the men and I went on to appeal to the general secretary to use his influence with his men for a cessation of the go-slow, which is called "working to rule", at the fitting centre.

I have no knowledge of an alleged joint statement. It was stated that there was no dispute between Hanger's and A.S.S.E.T. There is a dispute between the two. In fact, what has happened is that agreement has been reached in principle but that there is no agreement at all on the amount that should be paid. A number of proposals have been submitted by the union, but there is no agreement.

Mr. Mikardo rose—

Mr. Loughlin

No. I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to finish what I am saying. In that sense, as my remarks show, there is a dispute.

Mr. Mikardo

Nonsense.

Mr. Loughlin

I described the case as I saw it and I wanted, above all, not to get involved in an acrimonious dispute on this matter with hon. Members on either side of the House. I wanted, and that is my endeavour now, to make these points clear so that, with all concerned realising that I am not attempting to score any points, I may appeal to both the men at the centre and the general secretary of A.S.S.E.T. to end the go-slow.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Four minutes past Four o'clock.