§ Question again proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
§ Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)I think that the hon. Member was casting his mind back to the Second Reading debate. The whole point is that unless there is agreement, there is no new contract. The position is not that if both sides do not agree it is legally binding. Unless both sides agree, there is not a contract in the first place.
§ Mr. StoddartI think that if the hon. Member reads it correctly, he will find that I am right and he is wrong. The Minister appears to be confirming that. Before the interruption, I was saying that this could create obstacles to agreement and harmony in industry. That is why I and my hon. Friends, most of whom have had experience in industry at shop floor level, violently oppose the Clause.
I do not know whether it is generally realised that throughout industry, as in many other walks of life, there is great difficulty in getting people to serve. I am sure that my hon. Friends will have had experience that it is not easy to get people to serve on works councils, works committees and similar bodies, which are voluntary in nature but nevertheless carry great responsibilities. The fact that the contracts are made legally enforceable will make it even more difficult to get people to serve on a voluntary basis on these important bodies in industry.
Make no mistake about it: works committees, with the participation of shop stewards at local level, are the sort of bodies that make industry tick. Without these bodies and without trust and mutual confidence, industry will collapse at local level and the difficulties for management and worker alike will be increased beyond measure.
I urge the Government, even at this late hour, to have another look at the Clause and take it out. It will do far more harm than good, it will cause a great deal of injury in industrial relationships and the worker on the shop floor simply will not have it.
§ Mr. McBrideThis new Clause, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) so rightly emphasised, 1468 lays great stress on legal enforceability of contracts as between employers' representatives and trade union representatives, and this concept is not British. It is totally foreign to our way of life and our way of doing things. Large employers in Britain will not welcome this Lords Amendment because it would induce a sense of rigidity, as the Secretary of State is well aware, because he is a former industrialist and knows this to be so. The rigidity which this would introduce into British industry would be in contrast to the flexibility which now exists and joint committees, if this new Clause were carried into law, would not function so efficiently as they do now.
In my estimation this new Clause abrogates the principles of common sense. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has ever thought how day-to-day bargaining between employers and shop stewards takes place. There are effected daily thousands of oral agreements. I have been a party to many of them. One comes from the shop floor and listens to hon. Members opposite arguing about industrial relations and one knows that they are not able to earn their living with their hands; the great majority of them have never done so; they have no concept of the relationships on the shop floor. It is staggering beyond belief that it should be so, but it is.
§ Mr. Kenneth Lewisrose—
§ Mr. McBrideWhen I want the advice of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) I will ask for it.
§ Mr. McBrideNo. I would say to the hon. Member that if he were to offer advice he would devalue it at the moment of giving it.
Very often employers cannot wait, and it is only by the very nature of the flexible methods of the day-to-day consultation between shop stewards and managements in industry that industry proceeds on its way, and that will continue if this Bill is enacted, because I believe that a great many of the larger employers will simply ignore this.
§ Mr. R. CarrA few moments ago the hon. Member was talking about the 1469 making daily of oral agreements. This new Clause does not affect oral agreements at all. It is specifically limited to written agreements. It has no effect at all upon what the hon. Member is talking about.
§ Mr. Kenneth LewisMay I say to my right hon. Friend that——
§ Mr. McBrideNo. The presumption of some hon. Members opposite is beyond belief. I remind the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford of a proverb which we have in this House and which has been mentioned very often, that good manners are for the Labour Party but not for the Tory Party.
§ Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North)That is being proved now.
§ Mr. McBrideThe right hon. Gentleman was talking about agreements and I draw his attention to the new Clause which says, in subsection (4), "any decision". I would presume that in law, as that is not qualified, "any decision" would be an oral or written decision and that the term "any decision" would embrace oral agreements.
Must we have a multitude of case law precedents which would shackle industry and delay work and—let us be frank about it—increase the costs of industrial products? There is the creation of the problem in industry of making the ramifications of these proposals fully known throughout the whole of industry, and I venture to suggest that there will be widespread evasion of this legal enforceability.
As I say, this is the abrogation of the principles of common sense, and the very terms of this Lords Amendment suggest the Government should have thought this out. I am bound to say that the Government have failed to do so, and that the common sense and give and take principle which is so essentially British, and which has helped industry so much, will be deliberately thrown away because of the legal rigidity of this Lords Amendment.
Subsection (4)(b) provides that unless a decision is stated not to be legally enforceable it shall be legally enforceable. Subsection (5) contains the definitions, and it affects committees at all levels and illustrates the sweeping nature of the 1470 Clause. Every body will be involved, from the national executive council and the national joint committee in the great industries to the smallest joint committee in the smallest shop in the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. David Stoddart) says, the difficulty of getting people to serve on these committees will be increased by the operation of the Clause. This great British tradition of people serving on joint committees because they feel that they are responsible to the community and to the industry to which they belong will be swept away.
The right hon. Gentleman is no legal theoretician, but he will have the job of explaining to industry precisely how the Clause will affect it without the benefit of his legal adviser at his side. Industry will look for his help to escape from the morass of the Bill's legal complexity, but the legal implications of the Bill are completely lost on the right hon. Gentleman.
Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite thought that this would be a vote winner but, curiously enough, the man who is defeated is the Prime Minister who supposes that we shall go into the Common Market. When the British people understand fully the nature and content of the Bill they will regard it as another stage in their reckoning with the Government.
§ 10.15 p.m.
§ Mr. E. Fernyhough (Jarrow)In introducing the new Clause the Secretary of State pretended that it was to meet the criticism made by this side of the House of the original Clause. He has changed a noun there, a verb here, and an adjective elsewhere, but the end result is precisely the same. He has made no concession to the arguments and pleas put forward in Committee. He has, therefore, wasted the lawyers' time because we are in precisely the same position after his concessions as we were before.
The Secretary of State said that we were trying to learn from the experiences of other countries. He is a pro-Common Market man, but has he learned anything about strikes from Italy, France or Belgium? One would think that the British worker was the most strike-prone worker in the world. Although we may be bottom of the league in some respects 1471 and at the top in others, we are neither bottom nor top in respect of strikes. We come somewhere about half way up the table. In other words, there are some better and some worse but, on average, we are as good or as bad as the rest of the industrial workers in the world.
Why should the right hon. Gentleman believe that these measures will reduce industrial unrest in this country? Wherever legally enforceable agreements apply, it does not follow that this automatically brings down the number of days lost through strikes—as anybody knows who looks at the league table and takes account of those countries in which legislation on the lines of this Bill is already in existence.
When agreements are entered into in this country as between trade union officials, shop stewards and management, both sides believe that in future they will be able to interpret those agreements to their mutual satisfaction. It is just like the electorate last June who thought that the Tory Party manifesto was an agreement that, if the British people gave the Tories their support, the Tories would deliver the goods. The further we get away from 18th June the less they believe this.
We have had legislation in the past to deal with strikes and the breaking of agreements. My right hon. Friend said that the Secretary of State has become a prisoner of the legal profession. This is quite true. It may be remembered that there was a Minister of Labour during the war—a not unknown figure on these benches—who occupied the position now held by the right hon. Gentleman. That Minister of Labour decided that, because an agreement had been broken, the law should be brought in. Never was a Minister of Labour, as he was then called, more humiliated when he tried to introduce the law into this field.
The right hon. Gentleman knows—and I know the circles in which he moves, and I say this in no condemnatory manner—that none of the large employers will bother with this provision. Does anybody believe that there will be legally enforceable agreements in the I.C.I., the National Coal Board, British Railways, the gas and electricity industries and the motor car industry? Of course, there will not. The people who will be hit will be 1472 the little people—the people who are not very strong and in relation to whom trade union leaders are not able to bring the same pressure to bear on employers. Those people probably will have to accept legally enforceable agreements.
But for the vast majority of British industry, particularly that part with which the right hon. Gentleman wants to deal—the strike-prone part—this will be completely ineffective because none of the employers in those large, basic, fundamental industries will even attempt to get the unions to sign legally enforceable agreements.
§ Mr. Adam Butler (Bosworth)Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the American-controlled car industry at least, from my experience in America, would be prepared to push for legally enforceable agreements for a period of perhaps two or three years, as in the United States?
§ Mr. FernyhoughAll I know is that the vast majority of British employers would not like a strike record as bad as that of the United States. America is almost at the top of the strike league table. If American industrialists only had the size of our strike problem they would be happy, because theirs is far worse. If he believes that the introduction of American methods would be beneficial here, the hon. Gentleman should look at the number of days lost in America compared with the number lost here and he will appreciate that our people are good boys.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerIn Committee we also had this comparison between the American motor industry and ours. I threw out a challenge to hon. Members opposite then. I asked them to compare the strike record of my workers at the Ford plant in Doncaster with any American Ford plant. I wagered that the Doncaster boys would have the better record. I am still waiting for that wager to be taken up.
§ Mr. FernyhoughI am sure that my hon. Friend will wait a long time because he is on a certain winner, while those who challenge him know that they are on a certain loser. I know that it is the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour, but I ask the right hon. Gentleman, who I know has a good 1473 measure of common sense, even now to reflect upon what he is doing to future negotiations and to be big enough to do the sensible thing and withdraw this Clause entirely.
§ Mr. Hugh Jenkins (Putney)I make it clear that even those unions which have incorporated an element of enforceability into some parts of their own agreements are absolutely opposed to this Clause and endorse every word which has been said on the subject by my right hon. and hon. Friends. Negotiating in certain circumstances an element of enforceability of part as an agreement by agreement between the two parties is quite different from proposing to enforce by law, unless everybody opts out on specific occasions a universality of enforceability.
What the right hon. Gentleman is doing is rather ironical. He is forcing everyone to contract in automatically unless specifically they decide to contract out of enforceability. It is ironical that he should seek to impose a sort of contracting in on the entire trade union movement. Up to now what I have said is of universal application, but I am sure that my hon. Friends would be disappointed if I were not to illustrate my case from Equity, whose name I have not mentioned so far in this speech. They would like me to illustrate from the case I know best. I want to illustrate the immense variety of the trade union movement which the right hon. Gentleman always underestimates in trying to create this cage in which we are all supposed to operate.
It is the case that Equity and its members accept in certain circumstances that contracts are not only enforceable as between the union and the employers' organisation but are also individually enforceable, as indeed are all contracts between the employer and the employed. So there is an enforceability of contract between employee and employer. What is done in collective agreements is to provide circumstances in which the contract between the employer and the employee becomes non-enforceable. It is in this respect that I want the right hon. Gentleman to give me an undertaking. It is important that he should do so. Will it be possible to provide for circumstances in which the contract between the employer 1474 and employee ceases to be enforceable? That is the position at the moment.
In the example which I have given, if any employee is not a member of the union the contract between the employer and the employee ceases to be enforceable. Equally, if the employer is not a member of an employers' association, again the contract ceases to be enforceable between the employer and the employee. This is the method by which a union shop is organised. In consequence, the moment that a person who is not a member of Equity appears on the stage the contracts of everybody cease to be enforceable. Therefore, the star can and will walk out of the show.
Is the right hon. Gentleman seeking to get the best of both worlds? Is he trying to make a universality of enforceability between trade unions and employers' associations without permitting the breaking of non-enforceability? Does the Clause, as drafted, prevent non-enforceability being written in? Can it become part of an agreement that in all circumstances all members in this area of employment shall be members of the trade union? Can it be part of the agreement that all employers in this industry shall be members of the employers' organisation? If the right hon. Gentleman can give that assurance, it will not remove the objection to the Clause as a whole, but it will certainly make it somewhat more palatable.
§ Mr. Kenneth LewisI must intervene. If I am tedious in speaking to the House at least I do not have to sit and listen to the same speeches again and again from hon. Gentlemen opposite. I get a rest by listening to my own voice.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. McBride) indicated that we know very little about this matter. I assure him that, having listened to the debates in the last few days, if we did not know anything at the beginning, we certainly know a good deal more now. [An HON. MEMBER: "We know a good deal less."] My hon. Friend complains that we know a good deal less. We have heard many times from hon. Members opposite that the legal Members of the House and the lawyers who will be concerned will complicate matters in industrial relations. Having listened to the speeches by hon. Gentlemen opposite today, I have heard 1475 more complications from laymen about what the lawyers are proposing than the lawyers could possibly conjure up.
§ New Clause 33 is extremely simple. How could it be made so complicated by hon. Gentlemen opposite I fail to understand. I am particularly pleased that my right hon. Friend took out the word "oral". We had a fierce debate on this word in Committee. Some hon. Members on this side of the House could not understand how an oral agreement could be made legally enforceable. It is interesting to note that the other place, doubtless with the guidance of my right hon. Friend and his Department, finally decided that we were correct in suggesting that this word should be removed.
§ 10.30 p.m.
§ Mr. Ronald King MurrayWould the hon. Gentleman tell the House where the word "oral" appears in the original Clause?
§ Mr. LewisWe discussed this earlier, and my right hon. Friend mentioned it.
Legally binding contracts are voluntary. No group of trade unions or workers need to have a legally binding contract if they do not wish it. It is 1476 as simple as that. The complications that have been suggested by hon. Gentlemen opposite simply do not exist. There are no complications at all. There are no difficulties. If there is a legally binding contract, it has been made because it is acceptable to both sides. I have no doubt that such a contract would not be acceptable to a trade union unless it believed that it was in its interests and in the interests of its members to make the contract legally binding. If the employers were to offer a deal which the union thought it was worth accepting as legally binding, it would do so. If it did not wish the agreement to be binding, it would simply accept the present situation, make an agreement with the employers, and the courts would not come into it.
We discussed this issue in Committee, it was mentioned on Second Reading, and yet hon. Gentlemen opposite still seem to want to introduce their own complications. It is my belief that once the Bill is on the statute book, unions and employers will work this provision to their benefit in the way in which they want to work it, and not in the way in which we think they will want to work it.
§ Mr. Ronald King MurrayOne good thing about the new Clause is that subsection (2) makes it clear that the provisions of the Clause are not intended to apply to proceedings which take place before the Bill comes into force. But for the rest the new Clause replaces the bad by the worse.
I should like to underline the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) about subsection (3). My hon. Friend said that whereas the original corresponding subsection was restricted to procedure agreements, there is no such restriction in the new Clause. It means that the impact of the new Clause is greatly extended. Indeed, it is extended to an extent which nobody can foresee.
The extension may be very wide, indeed, and may lead to all kinds of things being regarded as legally enforceable agreements which previously no one conceived to be in that category at all. While there was a restriction to procedure agreements one could keep one's feet pedestrianly on the ground. Now that contact with the ground has been lost nobody can predict where the Clause will lead, but it can be said with certainty that it will lead to trouble.
There is another respect in which the Clause has been revised. The right hon. Gentleman said that he took some pride in the fact that the word "functions" had replaced the words "purposes for which it "—that is the body—"was established". In some respects I accept that that is an improvement, because functions are things one can test by an examination of facts. One can see what the body does and judge from that what its functions are.
But any advantage which that appears to provide rather appears to be lost when one looks at the definition subsection, subsection (5), because there it says that functions
in relation to a decision of a joint body … means its functions under that agreement as it has effect at the time of that decision.When we look at that it seems clear that we have to consider "functions" as they are effective at the time of the decision. In other words, a joint body of the type conceived by the Clause may be doing a great deal more than it was originally set up to do; it may operate 1478 over a much wider sphere than the purposes for which it was originally set up. Whereas the original Clause 33 confined the ambit of this operation to the purposes for which it was established we are now dealing with functions instead of getting precision. There is a spurious precision. When we examine the realities we may find that it is doing something wider than the purposes for which it was set up. We have gone from some precision to a great extension of the ambit of the Clause.I do not want to go into too much detail about the difficulties that we discussed with a great deal of anxiety in the earlier stages of the Bill, but hon. Members opposite will remember that the subsection corresponding to the present subsection (4) in the new Clause was the one that gave rise to enormous difficulty. It started with great difficulty, because the Solicitor-General himself assured the House that it did not mean what it apparently said, namely, that legally enforceable agreements would be spelt out of the minutes unless there was a disclaimer for each entry. It is fair to point out, however, that the Solicitor-General withdrew that interpretation at a later stage in Committee.
That subsection (4), with all its ambiguity and unfortunate consequences, remains unchanged, and the reasons canvassed previously in relation to the two points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walton, about collective agreements, and myself, about the question of functions, are cogent reasons why the new Clause should be abandoned by the Government before it is too late.
I want to give an illustration of the extent to which the Amendment may be going when taken in conjunction with the Amendments we discussed with Amendment No. 267. My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) posed a question that the Government Front Bench did not seek to answer. He asked what would happen after the Bill had come into force if a situation arose corresponding to the "work-in" now taking place in John Brown's yard in Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.
It seems to me that on a strict reading of the Bill, as it will stand with these two Amendments, the arrangement under 1479 which the workers in John Brown's are at present operating in the shipyard may be a collective agreement that is enforceable under the Bill. Amendment No. 267 defines "collective agreement" as
an … arrangement made … by or on behalf of one or more organisations of workers and either one or more employers".There is no doubt that there is an organisation of workers who are seeking to run John Brown's yard at the moment. There is an organisation—not a trade union. It may be an ad hoc organisation, but I conceive it to be covered by the new Clause.One finds what "employer" means in Clause 158, in paragraph (a) or (b). If it is said that the definition contained in paragraph (a) does not apply, it seems obvious that the alternative definition contained in paragraph (b) applies, because it says that an employer
in any other case, means a person regarded in that person's capacity as one for whom one or more workers work or have worked or normally work or seek to work.That definition would apply to the shop stewards' management committee in John Brown's.One has only to postulate one further step to get the application of Amendment No. 64. The shop stewards' management committee must have minutes of its decisions. Therefore, after the Bill has come into effect, a work-in like this could be a legally enforceable collective agreement within the meaning of the Bill. That is a measure of the absurdity to which this Clause and the previous one can carry us.
§ Mr. James Tinn (Cleveland)We have heard few speeches from hon. Members opposite, and, to judge from the speech of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis), that might be because they find it astonishingly difficult to argue in favour of this Clause or the one that it will replace. The Government seem to rely on the argument that the new Clause can be disregarded by writing disclaimers into collective agreements. This is true, but what a negative argument !
The Secretary of State did argue that, even if this contracting out procedure is adopted- -as it will be on a wide scale— 1480 it will at least add greater precision and clarity to industrial agreements. We have just had a wonderful example from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) of what legal precision and clarity can mean in this context. Negotiators, on both sides, will not have the benefit of the Government or their advisers. The people doing the day-to-day jobs in industry will have to rely on their own common sense and the increasingly expensive and growing amount of legal advice which they will come to need.
But in the end it will be disregarded. I imagine that the first management negotiator who forgot to insert a disclaimer would quickly be shown the door—because management will not like this any more than the unions will.
But we cannot be sure that the new Clause will do no harm. It may do great harm. I believe that the C.B.I. is very worried about this. It is not difficult to envisage firms coming to this country from abroad, perhaps from the United States, from a different industrial relations system where legal enforceability is taken for granted, and assuming that they can stand on their legal rights in this country too. Just as they are beginning to get their enterprises off the ground, they will run headlong into totally unnecessary clashes with the trade unions.
10.45 p.m.
It is sometimes suggested that similar provisions exist in other countries, though little has been said about foreign experience to justify legal enforceability. It is important to consider the way in which this system was introduced in other countries. Indeed, that is crucial in determining whether it is likely to succeed here.
A similar system was introduced in Germany after the war, during which the trade union movement there had been destroyed. A whole new system was being formed, and an essential feature of the process was that the system was acceptable to the unions. On the rare occasions when it has been used, such as during the strikes in the coal and steel industries a couple of years ago, the legal terms of the agreement have not been used against the unions. In other words, the German system is essentially voluntary.
1481 These provisions in Australia date back to the last century and were adopted in an entirely different climate. At that time the small, fragmented trade unions of the Australian sub-continent were under attack, and the legal enforceability provisions have been used by them more as a defence, but that situation does not apply here.
While these provisions may not prove as damaging as their critics make out—because they will be largely ignored—I fear that they will not ease the conduct of industrial relations and that they could be potentially damaging when foreign firms are involved.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerI led the debate on this subject from this side of the House when we discussed the original Clause 33 in Committee. Hon. Members may recall that on that occasion my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. David Stoddart) described the reaction of the trade unionists and shop stewards in his constituency to the proposal.
I had exactly the same reaction when I first read the Clause. My emotions were disbelief, incredulity and anger. My hon. Friends have made it clear that there is no reason now, in view of the Amendment, for us to change our attitude or emotional reaction to the original Clause. In other words, we have no reason to change our fundamental objection to these provisions.
I will not go over the ground that has been eloquently covered by my hon. Friends, except to remind the House that whereas some people might think that here is an example of the Government responding to pressure to change the Bill, in fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Tinn) pointed out, the Amendment is likely to create as much difficulty for employers as for trade unions.
I have evidence to support this view. The starting point in the process is the Royal Commission's Report, made after two and a half years' consideration of the subject. This distinguished Commission, which sat for three years and which gave the question of legal enforceability the most careful scrutiny, said this in paragraph 475 of its Report, talking about the kind of unofficial strikes about which the Government are concerned: 1482
… the root of the evil is in our present methods of collective bargaining, and it is in the absence of speedy, clear and effective disputes procedures. Until this defect is remedied, all attempts to make procedure agreements legally binding are bound to defeat themselves.The Commission said this in paragraph 476:Any attempt to deal with unofficial and unconstitutional strikes in isolation must be deprecated. This applies to the legal enforcement of procedure agreements as much to the proposal to eradicate these strikes….Paragraph 506 states:We thus reject the proposal to make collective agreements—whether substantive or procedural—enforceable at the present time. We do so, not because we think that the law could not in any circumstances assist in the reduction of the number of unofficial strikes. It cannot do so in this country today—that is the point.These are the Commission's words:To take steps in this direction today would be not only useless but harmful, and they would undo a great deal of the good we hope to see done through the reform of the collective bargaining system which we recommend.My hon. Friends, whether consciously or subconsciously, have echoed that theme. What the right hon. Gentleman proposes will do irreparable damage to our system of industrial relations, because it will put shop stewards and trade unionists in a position where they will unwittingly enter into legally binding collective agreements.The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) said that nobody needs to enter into a legally binding collective agreement if he does not want to. The proposed Clause will provide that if the disclaimer is entered into the agreement will not be legally binding. That presumes that the parties to the negotiations will have read and understood the Bill and will know what they are about.
§ Mr. Kenneth LewisOf course they will.
§ Mr. WalkerHow many of the thousands of trade unionists and shop stewards and managers who sit round the negotiating table in industry to discuss matters of mutual concern have read any of the Statutes relating to the negotiations or affecting industrial relations? The Lord Chancellor confessed his difficulty in dealing with the complexities of the Bill. We have all acknowledged the complexities of the Bill. I wonder how shop stewards 1483 will deal with the complexities of the Bill if indeed they ever read it at 90p a time.
We have not at any stage during our lengthy proceedings on the Bill referred to the evidence submitted to the Royal Commission by the Engineering Employers' Federation, paragraph 37 of which says this about the proposal to make collective agreements legally enforceable:
To introduce a system of general legal enforcement in the civil courts would involve making fundamental changes in our system of industrial relations without any certainty that such changes would effectively deal with the problem of strikes in breach of agreements.Paragraph 38 states:The reason why the Federation takes this view is that it does not consider it practicable or desirable for employers to be put in the position of having to sue their workpeople in the civil courts to secure the observance of an agreement. Many employers would be extremely reluctant to take such action.The Confederation of British Industry raised a number of objections and said to the Royal Commission about the proposal to introduce enforceability:We cannot assume that the contracts to be enforced would be similar to the present agreements. Trade unions might well be reluctant to accept as a legal liability certain undertakings which are now given voluntarily and honoured in the main.They went on to say:The British system of industrial relations is founded upon the principle that the parties at every stage accept responsibility for their actions and agreements and that resort to outside bodies is strictly limited. Legal enforcement would undermine this responsibility and lead to constant references to the Courts whenever one or other of the parties was dissatisfied.The C.B.I. then said:Enforceability of contracts would almost certainly be accompanied by a host of other legal provisions as in the American system. British employers would be most reluctant to envisage a system under which almost all their actions in the industrial relations field might be challenged in the Courts—or under which they themselves would regularly be the plaintiffs in suits against their employees or the trade unions with which they negotiate.Finally they said:The legal remedies likely to be available would not be well adapted to the industrial situation. What the employer wants is a good day's work willingly performed; this cannot be obtained by legal action. Fines might well not be paid, and action for contempt of court become necessary.Those were the views of the Confederation of British Industry submitted 1484 to the Royal Commission. They are powerful arguments. They are not arguments advanced by the trade unions or by hon. Members from this side of the House. They are the arguments of people with deep knowledge of industry, who can see what problems these proposals would present.
§ Mr. R. Carrrose—
§ Mr. WalkerWill the right hon. Gentleman forgive me for not giving way? I am about to conclude. There is etched on my mind the memory of the discussions that were held at the Department of Employment and Productivity following the publication of the Royal Commission's Report when the views of the Confederation of British Industry were expressed and reinforced orally. It was pointed out by the C.B.I. that legal responsibility would be unlikely to lead to any improvement in our industrial relations system. The then Director-General of the C.B.I. is the present Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
I recall the words which I used on the occasion of our last debate on Clause 33, in Committee, which seem as appropriate as any:
The proposal is impractical to the point of absurdity. Furthermore, it will have a harmful effect on industrial relations at shop floor level, and it is inequitable in the extreme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st February, 1971; Vol. 810, c. 1358.]
§ Mr. R. CarrWith the leave of the House, I should like to try to deal with some of the points which have been raised. May I first deal with the closing remarks of the hon. Member for Don-caster (Mr. Harold Walker). Two things need to be said about them. First, the quotation of evidence that he read out was anticipating fines on individual workers. We are opposed to fines on individual workers just as much as anybody else. It was the hon. Gentleman's party, when they were in power, who thought of imposing fines on individual workers. We never proposed that. It is nowhere in our Bill.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerThe right hon. Gentleman must not misrepresent me or the employers' organisations who submitted evidence. The employers were anticipating the kind of legal enforceability that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind and is proposing now, where 1485 the agreements will be turned into contracts, for which people will be accountable in the civil courts. As to the right hon. Gentleman's reference to fines, it is a lot of nonsense, and he knows it.
§ 11.0 p.m.
§ Mr. R. CarrIt is not a lot of nonsense, but I shall not embark on an argument about that. I am sure that if the hon. Member looks it up he will see that fines for workers was part of what he read out. The other and more substantial point is that he did not tell the House when that evidence was given. Does he have a date by him? It was given certainly five or six years ago, or that sort of time, and, of course, he must remember that the Donovan Report was published——
§ Mr. Harold WalkerIt was 1968.
§ Mr. CarrThe Donovan Report was published in 1968 but I am fairly sure that the evidence about which he is speaking was given considerably earlier than that. As the Donovan Report was published in 1968, a good bit of it must have been written and the conclusions reached probably in the last half of 1967, and I suspect, a great deal of the evidence, including the evidence he mentioned, may well have been given even earlier than that.
The House will remember that it was the rapid and serious deterioration which took place in the number of strikes in the latter half of the 1960s which led the party opposite when in power to a complete reversal of its previous policy.
§ Mrs. CastleCan the right hon. Gentleman tell the House the date on which the document of the Society of Conservative Lawyers, "A Giant's Strength", on which the proposals for the right hon. Gentleman's Bill are based, was published? Was it not 1959?
§ Mrs. CastleOf course it does.
§ Mr. CarrNo. Many of us have been feeling for a very long time that legislation of this kind was necessary. I personally, I think, went on record around 1959 expressing the view that legislation was necessary. Some of us, we believed, were some way ahead and showed more 1486 foresight as to what might have been necessary in this respect than others. I make no apology for that. But there are many people, including many employers and many from all parties and all walks of life, who went on maintaining the view that I once held but gave up around the end of the 1950s, that legislation would not be helpful. Many of us have changed our minds. I make no secret of the fact that I have changed my mind. I changed my mind somewhat earlier than some others changed theirs.
In this debate we have been doing what one of my hon. Friends graphically described to me in the Lobby last week, having listened to another similar debate, as "sawing sawdust". He said it seemed to him that we were, at the choice of the Opposition, sawing it up over and over again, finer and finer, and not getting on to all the new things the Opposition are always complaining there is no time to debate. This is exactly what we have had.
In the last debate, a long debate, the main object was to discuss principles of enforceable agreements. We had a substantial debate to which my hon. and learned Friend replied. Yet throughout most of this subsequent debate the main subject has been, believe it or not, the principle of legally binding agreements. We have discussed this twice this evening, in two successive debates, and goodness knows how many times in the past 400-odd hours that this Bill has been before the House.
All right; if that is what hon. Members wish to debate over and over again, they are at liberty to do so. We have arranged the procedure to give the Opposition every opportunity. [An HON. MEMBER: "We are doing our best with the right hon. Gentleman's Bill".] I am not complaining. It is hon. Members opposite who make a habit of complaining that they never have a chance to get on to the new matters which they could discuss, yet, at the same time, they go on talking about some things over and over again, sawing sawdust, as I have said.
I shall not go into detail on the general principle again. I have done that several times already, and my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General did it earlier in the evening. I shall now take up some of the separate points which were raised. The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh 1487 Jenkins) asked me a question. I am sure that he quite well knew the answer when he asked it, but I shall give it none the less. Of course, if an employer makes an agreement with a union that he will employ only union members, he will lay himself open if he discriminates against a would-be employee by refusing to take him on, because of Clause 5 of the Bill. That is absolutely clear.
The right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), in arguing against the principle, cited the experience of one of my most illustrious predecessors, Ernest Bevin, a man who will always rank among the most illustrious Ministers at my present Department. I take it that the right hon. Gentleman was thinking of the attempt to bring action against the Kent miners during the war. But, when he stops to think about it, he must know that that was an entirely different sort of law. Ernest Bevin at that time was trying to enforce a criminal law which laid down that it was illegal to strike. That is not a law which one can enforce. Perhaps one had to have that experience to discover that it is an unenforceable law, but it was discovered, and, because it was, there is nothing approaching a similar law in our Bill. Therefore, the experience of Ernest Bevin and the Kent miners is not remotely relevant to the sort of proposals which we are discussing now. They are as different as chalk and cheese.
§ Mr. FernyhoughAt a time when the whole nation believed that anything which offended against what one called the war effort was unpatriotic and pro-Hitler, even in those circumstances men felt so aggrieved that, despite the whole of public opinion and the law, they took that step. What I was trying to explain to the right hon. Gentleman is that there will be occasions when, despite any legally enforceable agreement, men will be so outraged and so frustrated that they will not consider what the consequences may be; and there will be consequences—they have been spelled out—if they do it.
§ Mr. CarrWe have never claimed, and I have often gone to the point of underlining that we have never claimed, that this or any law can create a state of perfection. We are talking about making 1488 things better or worse, about pressures and incentives to make things less imperfect in what, no doubt, will always be an imperfect world. We are talking about creating pressures and incentives to make things more nearly perfect, or less imperfect.
What the right hon. Gentleman says is right. He is right in our experience of contract law and the other fields in which people enter into binding agreements. Such agreements are sometimes broken. But, just because they are sometimes broken, it does not follow that they are without influence or that, if there were no binding agreements, there would not have been even more agreements broken than is the case now. The law has a general influence for the better, and people enter into agreements with more seriousness if they have the general belief that they are agreements which should not be broken and that, if they blatantly or carelessly break them, they may have to suffer some liability for the damage they cause to the other party by their action. We have discovered in every other sphere of human activity in this country, as other countries have discovered it in this sphere as well, that such liabilities on the whole leads to better, more precise agreements, which people think about more seriously before entering into them, and having entered into them they take marginally, but importantly, more care in trying to keep.
That is our claim, but we believe that it is important. It is why for many years we have been convinced that among the proposals—by no means alone, or even perhaps the most important single proposal—for the reform of industrial relations in this country, in a new legal framework, is the concept that both sides should in future come to the negotiating table with the presumption that unless they wish to say otherwise they will enter into an agreement that they will both feel bound to keep to the best of their ability. If we have that concept, of course we shall still have failures to keep agreements—employers will fail, trade union leaders will fail, shop stewards will fail. We shall go on failing, but perhaps a little less often than in recent years. If we can get even a marginal improvement, even a slide in the right direction of better agreements, better kept, it will be to the enormous 1489 benefit of this country and the people most directly involved.
That is what we are after here. Let the House remember, however sceptical hon. Members may be of things like public opinion polls—and we can all, thank goodness, be pretty sceptical of them—we have had opinion poll after opinion poll, taken by all sorts of different people and organisations, all of which have shown that the ordinary people of this country including the ordinary rank and file trade union members and industrial workers, all approve of this proposal—[Interruption.]—I should not have said that they all approve, but over and over again a substantial majority have said that they
§ approve. They may say that they do not like the Bill as a whole and that they do not like the Government of which I am a member, but over and over again, when the right hon. Lady and her party were in power, and still today, the polls have shown that a substantial majority believe that, among other proposals, the making of collective agreements legally binding is sensible and something they would like to see in this country. That is what we are providing.
§ Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 261, Noes 226.
1493| Division No. 458.] | AYES | [11.13 p.m |
| Adley, Robert | Dean, Paul | Hiley, Joseph |
| Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash) | Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. | Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.) |
| Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead) | Dixon, Piers | Hill, James (Southampton, Test) |
| Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian | Dodds-Parker, Douglas | Holt, Miss Mary |
| Astor, John | Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec | Hooson, Emlyn |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Drayson, G. B. | Hordern, Peter |
| Awdry, Daniel | du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward | Hornby, Richard |
| Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone) | Dykes, Hugh | Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia |
| Baker, W. H. K. (Banff) | Eden, Sir John | Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate) |
| Balniel, Lord | Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) | Howell, David (Guildford) |
| Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony | Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.) |
| Batsford, Brian | Elliott, R.W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.) | Hunt, John |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Emery, Peter | Hutchison, Michael Clark |
| Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay) | Eyre, Reginald | James, David |
| Benyon, W. | Farr, John | Jessel, Toby |
| Berry, Hn. Anthony | Fell, Anthony | Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead) |
| Biffen, John | Fenner, Mrs. Peggy | Jopling, Michael |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Fidler, Michael | Kershaw, Anthony |
| Blaker, Peter | Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead) | Kilfedder, James |
| Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.) | Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton) | King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.) |
| Body, Richard | Fookes, Miss Janet | King, Tom (Bridgwater) |
| Boscawen, Robert | Fortescue, Tim | Kinsey, J. R. |
| Bowden, Andrew | Fowler, Norman | Kirk, Peter |
| Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John | Fox, Marcus | Kitson, Timothy |
| Braine, Bernard | Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone) | Knox, David |
| Bray, Ronald | Fry, Peter | Lambton, Antony |
| Brinton, Sir Tatton | Galbraith, Hn. T. G. | Lane, David |
| Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher | Gardner, Edward | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry |
| Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) | Gibson-Watt, David | Le Marchant, Spencer |
| Bruce-Gardyne, J. | Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.) | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) |
| Bryan, Paul | Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.) | Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone) |
| Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M) | Glyn, Dr. Alan | Longden, Gilbert |
| Buck, Antony | Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B. | Loveridge, John |
| Burden, F. A. | Goodhart, Philip | Luce, R. N. |
| Butler, Adam (Bosworth) | Goodhew, Victor | McAdden, Sir Stephen |
| Carlisle, Mark | Gorst, John | MacArthur, Ian |
| Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert | Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.) | McCrindle, R. A. |
| Channon, Paul | Gray, Hamish | McLaren, Martin |
| Chapman, Sydney | Green, Alan | Maclean, Sir Fitzroy |
| Chichester-Clark, R. | Grieve, Percy | McMaster, Stanley |
| Clark, William (Surrey, E.) | Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds) | Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham) |
| Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Grylis, Michael | McNair-Wilson, Michael |
| Clegg, Walter | Gummer, Selwyn | McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest) |
| Cockeram, Eric | Gurden, Harold | Maddan, Martin |
| Cooke, Robert | Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley) | Maginnis, John E. |
| Coombs, Derek | Hall, John (Wycombe) | Marten, Neil |
| Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Hall-Davis, A. G. F. | Mather, Carol |
| Cormack, Patrick | Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) | Maude, Angus |
| Costain, A. P. | Hannam, John (Exeter) | Mawby, Ray |
| Critchley, Julian | Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. |
| Crouch, David | Haselhurst, Alan | Meyer, Sir Anthony |
| Curran, Charles | Havers, Michael | Mills, Peter (Torrington) |
| Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford) | Hayhoe, Barney | Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W) |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Hicks, Robert | Mitchell, David (Basingstoke) |
| d'Avigdor-Coldsmid, Maj.-Gen. James | Higgins, Terence L. | Moate, Roger |
| Molyneaux, James | Rees-Davies, W. R. | Tebbit, Norman |
| Money, Ernie | Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David | Temple, John M. |
| Monks, Mrs. Connie | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon | Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth) |
| Monro, Hector | Ridley, Hn. Nicholas | Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.) |
| Montgomery, Fergus | Ridsdale, Julian | Tilney, John |
| More, Jasper | Roberts, Wyn (Conway) | Trafford, Dr. Anthony |
| Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm. | Rost, Peter | Trew, Peter |
| Morrison, Charles (Devizes) | Russell, Sir Ronald | Tugendhat, Christopher |
| Mudd, David | St. John-Stevas, Norman | Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin |
| Murton, Oscar | Scott, Nicholas | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Neave, Airey | Scott-Hopkins, James | Vaughan, Dr. Gerard |
| Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael | Sharples, Richard | Vickers, Dame Joan |
| Normanton, Tom | Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby) | Waddington, David |
| Nott, John | Shelton, William (Clapham) | Walder, David (Clitheroe) |
| Onslow, Cranley | ||
| Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally | Simeons, Charles | Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester) |
| Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Skeet, T. H. H. | Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek |
| Osborn, John | Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington) | Wall, Patrick |
| Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.) | Soref, Harold | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Page, Graham (Crosby) | Speed, Keith | Weatherill, Bernard |
| Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.) | Spence, John | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Peel, John | Sproat, Iain | White, Roger (Gravesend) |
| Percival, Ian | Stanbrook, Ivor | Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William |
| Pink, R. Bonner | Stewart-Smith, D. G. (Belper) | Wiggin, Jerry |
| Pounder, Rafton | Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.) | Wilkinson, John |
| Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch | Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L. | Stokes, John | Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard |
| Proudfoot, Wilfred | Stuttaford, Dr. Tom | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Pym, Rt. Hn Francis | Sutcliffe, John | Worsley, Marcus |
| Quennell, Miss J. M. | Tapsell, Peter | Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R. |
| Raison, Timothy | Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne) | |
| Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter | Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Redmond, Robert | Taylor, Frank (Moss Side) | Mr. Paul Hawkins and |
| Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.) | Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.) | Mr. Hugh Rossi |
| NOES | ||
| Albu, Austen | Delargy, H. J. | Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund | Howell, Denis (Small Heath) |
| Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis) | Dempsey, James | Huckfield, Leslie |
| Ashton, Joe | Doig, Peter | Hughes, Mark (Durham) |
| Atkinson, Norman | Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.) | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.) |
| Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Douglas-Mann, Bruce | Hughes, Roy (Newport) |
| Barnett, Guy (Greenwich) | Driberg, Tom | Hunter, Adam |
| Barnett, Joel | Duffy, A. E. P. | Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill) |
| Beany, Alan | Eadie, Alex | Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas |
| Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood | Edelman, Maurice | Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n & St. P'cras, S.) |
| Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton) | Edwards, Robert (Bilston) | Jenkins, Hugh (Putney) |
| Bidwell, Sydney | Edwards, William (Merioneth) | Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford) |
| Bishop, E. S. | Ellis, Tom | John, Brynmor |
| Blenkinsop, Arthur | English, Michael | Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) |
| Boardman, H. (Leigh) | Evans, Fred | Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.) |
| Booth, Albert | Faulds, Andrew | Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.) |
| Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur | Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E. | Jones, Barry (Flint, E.) |
| Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland) | Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Lady wood) | Jones, Dan (Burnley) |
| Bradley, Tom | Fitch, Alan (Wigan) | Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.) |
| Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.) | Fletcher, Ted (Darlington) | Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen) |
| Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan) | Foley, Maurice | Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.) |
| Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury) | Foot, Michael | Kaufman, Gerald |
| Buchan, Norman | Ford, Ben | Kelley, Richard |
| Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn) | Forrester, John | Kerr, Russell |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Fraser, John (Norwood) | Kinnock, Neil |
| Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James | Freeson, Reginald | Lambie, David |
| Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.) | Galpern, Sir Myer | Latham, Arthur |
| Cant, R. B. | Garrett, W. E. | Lawson, George |
| Carmichael, Neil | Gilbert, Dr. John | Leadbitter, Ted |
| Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles) | Ginsburg, David | Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick |
| Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara | Golding, John | Leonard, Dick |
| Clark, David (Colne Valley) | Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C. | Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold |
| Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S) | Gourlay, Harry | Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.) |
| Coleman, Donald | Grant, George (Morpeth) | Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) |
| Conlan, Bernard | Grant, John D. (Islington, E.) | Lipton, Marcus |
| Corbet, Mrs. Freda | Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside) | Loughlin, Charles |
| Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.) | Hamilton, William (Fife, W.) | Lyon, Alexander W. (York) |
| Crawshaw, Richard | Hamling, William | Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.) |
| Cronin, John | Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill) | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson |
| Cunningham, G. (Islington, S. W.) | Hardy, Peter | McBride, Neil |
| Dalyell, Tam | Harper, Joseph | McCartney, Hugh |
| Davidson, Arthur | Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) | McGuire, Michael |
| Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith | Mackenzie, Gregor |
| Davies, Ifor (Gower) | Hattersley, Roy | Mackie, John |
| Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.) | Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis | Maclennan, Robert |
| Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove) | Heffer, Eric S. | McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.) |
| de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey | Horam, John | McNamara, J. Kevin |
| Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.) | Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange) | Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham) |
| Marks, Kenneth | Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred | Stoddart, David (Swindon) |
| Marquand, David | Pendry, Tom | Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John |
| Marsden, F. | Pentland, Norman | Strang, Gavin |
| Marshall, Dr. Edmund | Perry, Ernest G. | Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley |
| Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy | Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg. | Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.) |
| Meacher, Michael | Prescott, John | Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery) |
| Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) | Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.) |
| Mendelson, John | Probert, Arthur | Tinn, James |
| Millan, Bruce | Reed, D. (Sedgefield) | Torney, Tom |
| Miller, Dr. M. S. | Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.) | Tuck, Raphael |
| Milne, Edward (Blyth) | Rhodes, Geoffrey | Urwin, T. W. |
| Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen) | Richard, Ivor | Varley, Eric G. |
| Molloy, William | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire) | Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon) | Walker, Harold (Doncaster) |
| Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe) | Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees) | Wallace, George |
| Morris, Charles R. (Opsnshaw) | Roper, John | Watkins, David |
| Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon) | Rose, Paul B. | Weitzman, David |
| Moyle, Roland | Sandelson, Neville | Wells, William (Walsall, N.) |
| Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick | Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne) | Whitehead, Phillip |
| Murray, Ronald King | Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney) | Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.) |
| Ogden, Eric | Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.) | Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin) |
| O'Halloran, Michael | Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich) | Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton) |
| O'Malley, Brian | Silverman, Julius | Wilson, William (Coventry, S.) |
| Oram, Bert | Skinner, Dennis | Woof, Robert |
| Orme, Stanley | Small, William | |
| Oswald, Thomas | Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton) | Spearing, Nigel | |
| Paget, R. T. | Spriggs, Leslie | Mr. Ernest Armstrong and |
| Palmer, Arthur | Stallard, A. W. | Mr. James Hamilton. |
- Clause 34
- BREACH OF COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT 3,771 words
- Clause 36
- PROVISION FOR EXTENDING SCOPE OF REFERENCE UNDER S. 35 461 words
- Clause 37
-
cc1493-503
-
cc1503-5