HC Deb 08 May 1969 vol 783 cc672-7
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond)

With your permission Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement about the industrial dispute at the Cornwall House publications warehouse of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

After a pay claim by Her Majesty's Stationery Office employees at the warehouse who are members of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, discussions have been proceeding about a proposed pay and productivity agreement.

The S.O.G.A.T. chapel at the warehouse came out on strike last week. It has refused to return to work until a final agreement is concluded. The details of an agreement have been extensively discussed in negotiations which are temporarily adjourned while various points are considered.

The House will understand that it is difficult for me to say more at this stage without possibly prejudicing the negotiations. In the meantime, all possible arrangements are being made to avoid undue inconvenience to Members.

Mr. Iain Macleod

On the industrial dispute side of that statement, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that as discussions are proceeding the only comment that I wish to make is to invite the right hon. Gentleman to keep the House closely informed, either through himself, or through the Department of Employment and Productivity, whichever is appropriate?

Can the right hon. Gentleman go a little further on the point about undue inconvenience to Members? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this is not just a case, for example, of the Finance Bill, but that this afternoon there were no copies of the Hunt Report, or of "Task Ahead", although both were vital to the Questions before the House this afternoon?

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the only way to deal with this is for Ministers to look ahead to see when their business is coming before the House and to make advance arrangements so that the minimum inconvenience is caused? Can he assure us that those instructions have gone to all Ministers in the Government?

Mr. Diamond

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his opening comments.

On the second question, the right hon. Gentleman is right when he says that one should take every possible step to anticipate difficulties as they arise. This has been done for the Finance Bill itself, and more particularly for the Clauses which are to be debated, and no doubt amended, in Committee. The same comment applies to the Bill that we are to discuss this afternoon, and to other Bills.

I take the point made by the right hon. Gentleman. Instructions have gone to all Departments that the very thing requested by the right hon. Gentleman should be done. I hope that the inconvenience of hon. Members will be minimal. I regret that it is not possible completely to avoid inconvenience.

Mr. Murray

Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the Government and Parliament should do nothing that encourages any blacklegging against the printers of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and that Government servants should be placed in no different position from other industrial workers? On whose initiative have the talks been adjourned? When does my right hon. Friend expect them to be resumed?

Mr. Diamond

Talks cease when two parties find it inconvenient to carry on talking. I regret that talks are not proceeding, but they are not for the moment. It is not a question of printing. It is a question of the warehouse; it is a question of distribution only. Printing is continuing. Distribution direct from the printers to the House under customary procedure is carrying on. Public distribution which goes through the warehouse is not taking place.

Mr. Thorpe

Without in any way intruding upon the merits and the details of the matters which are the subject of discussion, as we are dealing with a dispute in Her Majesty's Stationery Office and as there is, therefore, Ministerial responsibility, may we know whether the Government are in any way represented at those talks, and, if so, by whom and in what capacity?

Mr. Diamond

Yes; there is Ministerial responsibility. I am speaking as the responsible Minister, because H.M.S.O. is the departmental responsibility of the Treasury and, therefore, I appear as the employer, as it were. In the usual way, officials of my right hon. Friend the First Secretary's Department are participating in the discussions.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Does the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary answers to the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Murray) mean that the copies of the Finance Bill have been printed, but that the Government find themselves unable to obtain possession of what is, I suppose, their own property from their own servants?

Mr. Diamond

A number of copies of the Finance Bill were printed and distributed to all right hon. and hon. Gentlemen—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am sure that the House would wish me to give a full reply—to all right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who applied for them.

This left those other right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who had not applied in the position that they could go to the Vote Office. After a certain amount of time the number of copies ran out at the Vote Office. There were clearly some hon. Members—it does not matter how many, because it is great inconvenience, as I explained when I moved the Second Reading of the Finance Bill—who suffered inconvenience. That position is now changed. A number of copies have been recovered. Arrangements have been made to distribute them to every right hon. and hon. Gentleman. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] Arrangements have been made to distribute a copy to every right hon. and hon. Gentleman who did not apply individually for a copy.

Sir Harmar Nicholls

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he seemed to be evading the principle behind the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter)? Were these documents—Government property—in the warehouse and available? Could not someone have had authority to collect them, or was the position that they were there but because the right hon. Gentleman was taking a very understandably cautious line Parliament's priority had to go by the board?

Mr. Diamond

Parliament's priority is a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, and you have ruled on it.

As to Ministerial responsibility, I am sorry if I did not make it absolutely clear that the strike is taking place at the warehouse, and therefore there is no distribution from the warehouse. Before attempting to interfere in that situation one must think carefully whether interference would be beneficial in the long run.

Sir A. V. Harvey

How many hon. Members received Bills automatically by post or delivered to them out of the 630? The impression gained on this side was that a great number of hon. Members did not receive a copy of the Bill. Will the Chief Secretary confirm that on Tuesday there were several hundred copies of the Finance Bill in the warehouse? What attempts did the Government make to obtain possession of those copies?

Mr. Diamond

I cannot give the precise number, but my understanding is that approximately 600 Members received their copies direct.

Sir A. V. Harvey

No.

Mr. Diamond

If the hon. Gentleman has better information, I do not know why he asked me. The best information I have is that it was approximately 600 and that there were at that time 30 Members seeking copies. Fifty Members have been sent copies. Some Members get a copy and then part with it, as was explained at the time.

Mr. Iain Macleod

Will the Chief Secretary return to the very important point which was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) and which has been taken up by others of my hon. Friends? Are there copies available in the warehouse? Have the Government sent for those, and, if so, have they been refused?

Mr. Diamond

There are copies in the warehouse both of this Bill and of other matter which has been printed and which goes to the warehouse as part of the normal method of distribution.

If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that one should take the power into one's own hands to take a van and go there and take copies and start distributing them, without going into the question, as I am not a lawyer, of whose property they are, although I assume that they are the Government's property, all I would say is—and I return to what the right hon. Gentleman first said—that when negotiations are proceeding the least one says and the least one does may be the most helpful in the long run.

Mr. Russell Kerr

On a point of Order. Would you tell us, Mr. Speaker, how it is possible for the House to protect itself against this spate of triviality, particularly as we have a very important Bill to discuss this afternoon?

Mr. Speaker

Order. That is not a point of order. The hon. Gentleman will know, as every hon. Member knows, that the House is facing some very difficult problems of having the literature that it needs for its work, and hon. Member have a right to ask questions. I hope that the House will not press questions on too long, however.

Sir D. Walker-Smith

The right hon. Gentleman said that he was not a lawyer. Is the position that the Government are prepared to acquiesce in the tort, certainly of detinue and probably of conversion of Government property, indefinitely, without taking any action?

Mr. Diamond

As I am not a lawyer, I would not like to pronounce on detinue precisely. One has to take the responsibility of taking the view that the House would like this strike settled and the inconvenience ended in the shortest possible time. I have to take the responsibility of deciding which is the best method of achieving that. I am fully aware of the inconvenience to which the House is being put. More importantly, perhaps, I am aware of the much greater inconvenience to which the public is being put, because, whereas we are getting many copies, and sometimes all the necessary copies, the public is getting precisely nothing. I am doing everything that I can to bring this strike to as early an end as possible.

Mr. Michael Foot

Does not my right hon. Friend think that if we put all these and kindred delicate matters into the hands of the lawyers we would very quickly have industrial chaos from one end of the country to the other?

Mr. Thorpe

On a point of order. May we take it that it would be your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that whatever the merits of this case there is no wish to subvert the law and, therefore, the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), who suggested that there might well be an actionable tort, wholly overlooked Section 3 of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906?

Sir D. Walker-Smith

indicated dissent.

Mr. Speaker

What the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) has said is not a matter for me.

Mr. Ronald Bell

Why does not the Chief Secretary come clean over this? Why not send somebody to collect these documents? If one set of people will not deliver them, why not get another set to do so? Or is the truth of the matter that the right hon. Gentleman is afraid of certain trade union jungle rules?

Mr. Diamond

I am not sure that I heard all of the last part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's supplementary question, but I gather that in the first part he asked why I had not sent a van to collect the documents. The short answer is that any fool could have done that.