Commons Sitting of 28 July 1971

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ENVIRONMENT

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will describe the principal effects of the European Economic Community membership on the United Kingdom's transport industries.
    The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): Measures already adopted by the Community will apply. Much of the common transport policy is still under discussion among member countries: its main principles are fair competition and no discrimination. British transport will share in opportunities to carry increased trade.
    Mr. Montgomery: Does my right hon. Friend consider that the measures so far adopted by the Community to limit Government intervention and to establish competition between the different forms of transport are consistent with the free market conditions under which United Kingdom transport operates?
    Mr. Peyton: One of the points which emerge in considering this problem is that the Community has not gone very far along the road to establishing a common transport policy. It would be an advantage if we could have some influence on the formation of such a policy.
    Mr. Spearing: If, in concert with any Government's national policy for the regions, British Railways should decide to give preferential rates for Channel Tunnel
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    traffic to the development regions, would that be allowable under the terms of the Treaty of Rome, or not?
    Mr. Peyton: I can only describe that question as magnificently hypothetical.
    Mr. Fryasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what aspects of transport policy have been included in Great Britain's negotiations for membership of the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Peyton: The major issue has been that of driving hours in road transport. We are seeking an adequate transitional period.
    Acceptable arrangements have been agreed on the manner and the times at which a number of other Community rules concerning transport should apply here after accession.
    Mr. Fry: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Would he give an assurance that if we join the Community we shall still be able to refuse entry to those extra large commercial vehicles which at the moment are allowed in parts of the Continent but are not allowed here?
    Mr. Peyton: At present I have no powers to stop vehicles from coming here. I have already said that I shall be obliged to come to Parliament to seek those powers. At present, the most that the law can do is to summon a driver who is in breach of United Kingdom laws, an exercise which does not seem to be very valuable or very useful when it has to be carried out several hundred miles away, involving proceedings against a person who is not coming back here anyhow.
    Mr. Carter: On the subject of transport policy and our possible entry into the E.E.C., does the right hon. Gentleman think that the prospects for the Channel Tunnel will be advanced or retarded if we enter?
    Mr. Peyton: It is very difficult for anybody to assess human responses to such a challenge. All I can say is that it would appear that the Channel Tunnel is a project of such merit that it will commend itself even to those who presently oppose it.
    Mr. Mulley: Reverting to the question of the size of vehicles and drivers' hours, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will find himself able

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    to make a clear statement on the Government's position on these issues? It is causing concern, both to the trade unions and to road haulage concerns, not knowing, first whether the Minister will seek powers to prohibit the entry of large vehicles and, second, what his policy is about drivers' hours.
    Mr. Peyton: I have already said that I am going to seek powers in respect of larger vehicles. As regards drivers' hours, the right hon. Gentleman is in a good position to understand how difficult a problem this is. Some anomalies have been created, and consultations are taking place between my Department, the unions and operators.

    Railways and Motorways (Costs)
    Mr. Cockeramasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he makes, when considering applications from British Rail for additional public finance, of the length of motorway which could be built for equivalent sums.
    Mr. Peyton: Notional comparisons of this kind are not a practical way of getting the right balance between road and rail investment. Decisions are based on assessments of the benefits to be achieved by specific projects which are seldom straightforward alternatives.
    Mr. Cockeram: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Would he agree that it is wrong to state, as was recently claimed by British Rail in an advertisement, that motorways cost 92 times as much to build as do comparable railways?
    Mr. Peyton: The House would probably agree that pure truth is not always enshrined in every advertisement. Perhaps in this case there was something in those advertisements that did not commend itself to my hon. Friend. I am sorry that this should be so, but I do not think that one should interfere.

    Council House Rents
    Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many contracts for the sale of council houses to sitting tenants were completed in 1970 and what is the estimated number of sales for 1971 and the target for 1972.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): Local
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    authorities sold 6,231 council dwellings in 1970 and 2,729 in the first quarter of 1971. I have made no estimate of future sales, nor set any target.
    Mr. Rost: I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Would he not agree that it will not be very encouraging to the many thousands of occupants of council houses who are hoping to buy their homes now that Labour-controlled councils are deliberately frustrating the efforts of those who wish to buy—particularly in those cases in which they have already started negotiating to purchase but the councils have defaulted on the contracts? Would he not consider a special study to see whether financial aid could not be given as an incentive to those councils prepared to proceed with sales and also to tenants prepared to proceed with purchase?
    Mr. Amery: I would think it wholly wrong if any local authority were to interrupt a contract which was already in the pipeline. I would think it very regrettable if any local authority were to suspend the policy of selling council houses. For the time being, I would rather leave it to the judgment of the local authority. I find it very difficult to interfere in their local judgments—[HON. MEMBERS: "School milk?"] Local authorities must be careful about this. Public opinion is getting very worried about it.
    Mr. Wellbeloved: What is the Minister's estimate of the number of tenants of the G.L.C. Thamesmead estate who are likely to want to buy their damp-ridden new houses? Does he not think it would be better for the Conservative G.L.C. to concentrate on making these new houses fit for decent families to live in, rather than wasting his energy selling council houses elsewhere?
    Mr. Amery: I shall, of course, want notice of the particular estimate of the number of families who would be prepared to buy in Thamesmead, but I regret that the hon. Member should try to decry that estate, which will be a very fine housing estate.

    Rent Rebate Scheme
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many tenants out of the 2½ million in the

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    private sector he expects to derive direct benefit from the proposed rent rebate scheme; and what will be the total cost of this particular scheme to the Exchequer.
    Mr. Tebbitasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of tenants in the private and public sectors, respectively, who will live rent free in the first full year following the implementation of his proposed rent rebate scheme.
    Mr. Ashtonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment to what extent he estimates, as a result of his White Paper, that tenants at present drawing their full rent from social security will have part of their rent paid by local authorities out of their rates; and how many of these cases are included in his figure of 2½ million tenants who will benefit.
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for the Environment approximately how many tenants will incur rent increases, and by what average amount, as a result of his housing finance proposals; how many will benefit; and by what amount.
    Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the total number of council tenants and private tenants, respectively, who will be entitled to a rent allowance under the "Fair Deal for Housing" proposals; what is the estimated national cost of rent allowances by the time the scheme is fully implemented; and how many council and private tenants, respectively, are expected to benefit from rent allowances in each local housing authority area.
    Mr. Amery: I have not made these estimates. There will be so many variations in both rents and tenants' circumstances that national calculations of this kind would not be meaningful.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that we are getting accustomed to this Government issuing White Papers that contain no real estimates of the cost? Does he also realise that the net effect of this scheme is to transfer money out of the council tenant housewife's purse, straight into the landlord's pocket? When he brings forward his legislation next Session, will he bear in mind what the
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    C.B.I, has said about 5 per cent. increases and compel local authorities not to increase rents by more than 5 per cent.?
    Mr. Amery: The net effect will be to take the money from those who can afford it to help people and areas in need. This is the basis of the reform. The increases in rents which are suggested are only marginally above those authorised by the previous Government.
    Mr. Tebbit: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that, however many people come into the net of the help which will be offered to enable them to live rent-free, this will be the first time that any Government, despite all the conscience-stricken protestations, have gone that far in offering that sort of aid to the people that hon. Members opposite pretend they care for?
    Mr. Amery: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for denouncing in those words the hypocrisy of hon. Members opposite who protest against the White Paper.
    Mr. Allaun: But have not the Government several times declared that they will reduce subsidies by up to £200 million a year compared with what they would be in 1975? So will the right hon. Gentleman admit that this inevitably means huge rent increases for millions of families? If he is saying, as his hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Tebbit) says, that some of them will get a rebate, why is it that only one in four of those expected by the Government to apply for F.I.S. relief have done so?
    Mr. Amery: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not wish to misrepresent the Government. We have said "between £100 million and £200 million", and I am not at all sure that we shall save more than £100 million by the middle of the decade——
    Hon. Members: Oh!
    Mr. Amery: The Chancellor of the Exchequer said between £100 million and £200 million. We do not know, because we do not know how many people will apply for the rebate. [An HON. MEMBER: "Then why say it?"] He said between £100 and £200 million. I shall take every step possible to publicise to the tenants in both private and public sector the opportunities which are open to them for claiming rebates.
    Mr. Crosland: The net effect of this will be a doubling of council rents on average, an increase of council rents for three or four years ahead of virtually 25 per cent. a year, means-testing on a mass scale for the first time and a large saving in Government subsidies. The right hon. Gentleman must be able to estimate—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."]—these actual effects. Will he not give some of the figures which have been asked for? If he can estimate the likely saving in Government subsidies, is he not also able to estimate the amount by which rents will rise?
    Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman has given us his estimate. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that it would be between £100 million and £200 million savings by the middle of the decade. We do not know within £100 million what it will be—[Laughter.]—nor do we pretend to know. We are not putting forward this reform as a means of saving money. [Interruption.] We are putting it forward as a means of helping people and areas in need. This is the point which the Labour Party has not yet cottoned on to. It is to help people and areas in need.

    Housing Costs
    Mr. Costainasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is aware of the continuing concern amongst local authorities at the level of the housing cost yardstick; and whether he will introduce a more regular system of monitoring costs than exists at present.
    Mr. Amery: I appreciate that local authorities are concerned that the yardstick should be kept at a reasonable level. The yardstick is already under continuous review.
    Mr. Costain: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the fact that he is asking for a two-year fixed price contract may be adding to the costs which builders are putting in? Now that the C.B.I, has agreed to a 5 per cent. limit, would it not be more sensible, and result in more reasonable prices, if he adopted the same procedure?
    Mr. Amery: I am inclined to think that the measures announced by the Chancellor and the recommendations of the C.B.I. will make firm price tendering as
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    a policy a little more acceptable to the industry than it has been hitherto—and that only time will tell.
    Mr. Cant: While everybody wants to see price restraint in this area as elsewhere, would the Minister not accept that the housing cost yardstick plus the two-year firm price tendering regulations might have a very serious effect on the quality especially of council houses? As these have been leaders in house building, will he keep this under review?
    Mr. Amery: This matter will certainly be kept under review and will be watched carefully. So far I see no signs of deterioration in quality or any reluctance to tender.
    Mr. Allason: As there is distinct disquiet in the G.L.C. on this matter, may I ask my right hon. Friend to look at the differentials that exist between London and various other areas and try to help at least London?
    Mr. Amery: Official discussions are at present going on with the G.L.C.

    Housing
    Mr. Carterasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, in view of his White Paper, "A Fair Deal for Housing", he will reconsider his refusal to have a target figure for housebuilding.
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir.
    Mr. Carter: That is a disappointing reply. Bearing in mind the title of his Department, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the best contribution that could be made to the environment of any family or individual is a decent home? Does he appreciate that none of the wretched measures that the Conservatives have so far introduced in housing has added one new unit of accommodation to the existing total? Does he not agree, therefore, that he should reconsider his answer.
    Mr. Amery: If the hon. Gentleman will consult his right hon. Friends who had responsibility for housing in the Labour Government and who set targets and failed to meet them, he will understand that targeting is not the best way to approach this problem. From the point of view of having a national overall target, while there are certain areas of

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    acute stress where targeting might have a rôle to play, I would personally hesitate to adopt targeting as a policy.
    Mr. Denis Howell: As the right hon. Gentleman has accepted a target in relation to costs and is requesting everybody to keep price increases down to 5 per cent., may I ask him to say whether rents will be exempted from that national target?
    Mr. Amery: Our proposals about rents have been announced in the White Paper.
    Mr. McCrindle: Would my right hon Friend agree that, as achievements are far more important than targets, no matter how badly this Government may do they are bound to do better than the Labour Government?
    Mr. Amery: I think my hon. Friend will be able to give us even better commendation at the end of the day.
    Mr. Fowlerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the number of houses started in the private sector to the latest date in 1971 for which figures are available; and what relation this bears to the number of starts in the corresponding period of 1970.
    Mr. Amery: In Great Britain 73,700 houses were started in the private sector up to the end of May, 1971, as against 60,000 in the corresponding period in 1970, an increase of 23 per cent.
    Mr. Fowler: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Will he confirm that private starts have been greater in every month this year than they were in the equivalent month last year, and does not this show the success of the Government's policy of encouraging home ownership?
    Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir; I think we can claim that our policy will restore confidence in the private sector.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Is it not true that unless a breadwinner has an income of over £30 a week he cannot get a mortgage? Will the Minister, therefore, halt the decline in the number of council houses being built, because council houses are what the majority of the population require, since they cannot afford to buy their own houses, however desirable that may be?
    Mr. Amery: The majority of the population are already owner-occupiers. I have the hon. Gentleman's point very much in mind. The problem varies from area to area. We shall encourage public sector building, especially under our new reforms, where there is a need for slum clearance or where there is stress. We shall also encourage owner-occupation.
    Mr. Fry: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that, although the private sector figures are very encouraging, some local authorities have held up contracts in the public sector and have even put them out for re-tender, and that this is causing disquiet to certain suppliers to the building industry?
    Mr. Amery: It has caused some anxiety to me, but it was the inevitable consequence of the decision to reform the basis of housing finance. Until our White Paper proposals were announced, a number of local authorities held back. Those particularly concerned with a big slum problem or with overcrowding will now move forward faster than ever before.
    Mr. Freeson: Will the Minister give the figures for the first three months of this year and the first three months of last year of public sector starts? He has been asked this question on several previous occasions and has so far failed to give an answer. Will he do so now?
    Mr. Amery: If the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question, of course I will answer it.

    Trees (Preservation)
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has for discouraging the destruction of trees, particularly in urban areas.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I am concerned at the low number of tree preservation orders in some towns and I am consulting the local authority associations about this.
    Mr. Chapman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that trees are being chopped down and mutilated at a dramatically increasing rate in towns and cities, where they are most needed, and that this is causing concern and bitterness to many hundreds

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    of thousands of people? Will he consider making it obligatory for local planning authorities to carry out surveys on trees of amenity value and, where necessary, to put tree preservation orders on them? On the positive side, would he be prepared to sponsor a national tree planting year in 1973?
    Mr. Walker: I will give careful consideration to the latter part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, which is interesting. The answer to the first part is that I wish to discuss the matter with local authorities. A considerable amount of tree planting is going on in n number of improvement areas.
    Mr. Loughlin: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to see what can be done to deal with the scourge of Dutch elm disease, which is decimating elm trees in urban and rural areas?
    Mr. Walker: I am well aware of this problem and I am consulting my right hon. Friend to see that everything possible is done. I gather that this is a difficult problem to overcome; but we are well aware of the situation.
    Mr. Rees-Davies: Will my right hon. Friend consider giving local authorities, through country planning authorities, some guidance about the destruction of amenities in our towns? Is he aware that, in addition to the need to preserve trees, we need to preserve flint and stone walls and other beautiful things that go with trees, and that there appears to be depressingly little real emphasis coming from the centre to local authorities about this?
    Mr. Walker: Considerable conservation powers are available, but I will look into the point raised by my hon. Friend.

    Advanced Passenger Train and Hovertrain
    Mr. Michael Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that there is a requirement for the complementary development of both the advanced passenger train and the National Research Development Corporation hovertrain; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peyton: Yes, Sir. The time-scales and applications of the two projects are different.
    Mr. Roberts: In any decision taken by my right hon. Friend, will he take into account the export potential of both these projects, particularly to the E.E.C. countries?
    Mr. Peyton: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Whitehead: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the two projects are in no way comparable, in that the advanced passenger train now being developed at Derby uses existing track and, therefore, does not destroy any more of the environment, that it has proved export potential and is being developed within the original cost estimate?
    Mr. Peyton: Nothing in my answer contained any reflection on the advanced passenger train.

    Docks (Transport Drivers' Hours)
    Mr. Foxasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is satisfied that the limitations on road haulage operators imposed by the Drivers' Hours Regulations are not inhibiting the achievement of increased productivity in the docks; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peyton: The difficulties which arose initially from the Drivers' Hours Regulations appear to have diminished. The search for better productivity in the ports is a continuing process.
    Mr. Fox: Bearing in mind the exemptions that have already been made to the 1968 Act, would my right hon. Friend consider discounting waiting time at the docks as part of the 10-hour working day, and thereby at a stroke—[Interruption.]—help to achieve speedier deliveries to customers and avoid massive frustration to road hauliers and drivers?
    Mr. Peyton: I will consider what my hon. Friend said. He will appreciate that it is not easy to assess waiting time.
    Mr. Mulley: Does the Minister agree that the Government could play some part in increasing productivity at the docks? Are we to get before the Summer Recess a statement of Government policy

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    following the review which we understand has been going on for a year?
    Mr. Peyton: I shall hope to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman before very long.

    House Purchase (Professional Costs)
    Mr. John Hannamasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will institute an examination, in co-operation with the various professional bodies involved, of how legal and other professional costs incurred in the course of house purchase might be reduced.
    Mr. Amery: I have no departmental responsibility for the charges made by professional bodies.
    My right hon. Friends the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, however, have received the Report of the Monopolies Commission on professional services. They are, respectively, considering the report's comments about charges made by solicitors and surveyors.
    The Law Commission is also currently examining the system of conveying land with a view to its modernisation and simplification.
    Charges by estate agents have already been dealt with by Statutory Instrument.
    Mr. Hannam: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information about investigations into the question of house purchase. Will he urge his right hon. Friends to treat this as a matter of urgency, as I believe that many prospective house purchasers, especially the young, are being deterred by the high initial cost of legal and other charges from purchasing their own homes?
    Mr. Amery: I am keeping in close touch with my right hon. Friends on this subject. My hon. Friend will have seen in the White Paper "A Fair Deal for Housing" that we have accepted that local authorities should carry the conveyancing charges of the sale of houses to sitting tenants.
    Mr. Kaufman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he could, to use the elegant phraseology of his hon. Friend
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    the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox), at a stroke satisfy his hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. John Hannam) by persuading the Attorney-General to implement the Report of the Prices and Incomes Board on solicitors' conveyancing fees which he has had for four months and about which he has done nothing whatever?
    Mr. Amery: That question should be addressed to my right hon. and learned Friend.

    National Building Agency
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has received the report of the inquiry into the National Building Agency; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amery: The Department has completed its examination of the current work of the National Building Agency. I am now studying its report.
    Mrs. Short: In view of the valuable work which the National Building Agency has done in developing new house designs and helping both the industry and local authorities, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman for an undertaking not to reduce the grant in aid which the N.B.A. receives, but instead to encourage it to develop its work for, in particular, local authorities?
    Mr. Amery: I agree that the N.B.A. has done very valuable work in the past. What I am concerned with now is to discover what work it can and should do in future, both on its private account and for the Government; and I am not yet in a position to make a statement about this.

    Keep Britain Tidy Campaign
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secreary of State for the Environmnt whether he will make a statement on his recent official action taken to publicise the Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I am encouraged by the interest which the hon. Member is showing in the Keep Britain Tidy campaign. I am grateful, too, for this further opportunity of commending to all hon. Members of the House the work of this enthusiastic national campaign body.
    Mr. Lewis: I pay tribute to the Minister for dancing around the city with the dolly girls, without in any way being jealous of him, but would he not be able to fulfil his intentions if his enforcement officers carried out the law, which already enables them to keep Britain tidy, instead of dodging their responsibilities?
    Mr. Walker: I am very much in favour of law enforcement. Penalties have recently been increased. I have advised the campaign that if it wants someone else who is light of foot the hon. Member would be a suitable candidate.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Since such industries as the can, bottle and paper manufacturers create the raw material for litter, is my right hon. Friend satisfied that they are making an adequate contribution to the Keep Britain Tidy campaign?
    Mr. Walker: I should like them to make a greater contribution. I should also like housewives to discriminate more against buying goods which are heavily packaged.

    Crops (Contamination by Poisonous Metals)
    Mr. Hornbyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what evidence he has of contamination of crops by poisonous metals close to industrial areas.
    Mr. Peter Walker: The evidence available to date has given no indication of any significant contamination of crops by heavy metals. I am, however, very much aware of the potential dangers and am keeping the situation under continual review.
    Mr. Hornby: Has my right hon. Friend studied the reports last month in The Guardian of investigations carried out in South Wales, which give cause for concern about the considerable fall-out from heavy industrial development?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir. Various Departments, including my own, are co-operating in preparing for the further research which these results show may be necessary.

    Derelict Land Clearance
    Mr. Kenneth Clarkeasked the Secretary of State for the Environment
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    which industrial cities have indicated to him that they are making efforts to clear their stock of derelict land in the next decade.
    Mr. Peter Walker: The general target for the priority areas is 10 years. The individual local authorities concerned, including the industrial cities, have been asked to prepare and submit appropriate programmes. These are now awaited.
    Mr. Clarke: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. In the light of the investigations he has made, is he satisfied that his declared aim of the clearance of derelict land within the next decade remains a realistic target, and will he continue to press local authorities to submit their plans and to make such a target their own so as to get rid of this blight?
    Mr. Walker: On Friday I am going to Cumberland to discuss this matter. Next year we shall be spending twice as much on clearing derelict land as we did last year, and I believe that the 10-year target is attainable.
    Mr. Bagier: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that some areas have bigger problems than others, particularly old coal mining areas where pit heaps have to be shifted, and that if the local authorities go in for large-scale plans, the 15 per cent. payable by them in development areas such as mine is still a fairly heavy drain on their finances?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, I agree, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, County Durham is doing extremely well on this and is ambitious. Because of the rate support grant, the 85 per cent. frequently comes up to 91 per cent.
    Mr. Crosland: I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has taken over the 10-year target set by the previous Government. Will he tell the House whether the difficulties which were raised by Circular 2/70 in respect of clearing dereliction have now been resolved?
    Mr. Walker: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. The difficulties have certainly been resolved, and I have undertaken that next year clearance of derelict land will be in the key sector. There is no reason why

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    local authorities should not go ahead with the most ambitious programme.
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has further to expedite the clearing of derelict land in England and Wales.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I have organised conferences in the six counties most affected by derelict land and I have given local authorities in the priority areas the assurance that expenditure this year on expanding derelict land reclamation programmes will not be restricted by other demands on their resources. The response by the local authorities has been very encouraging.
    Mr. Dormand: Although I believe that the Secretary of State has a general interest in this matter which is so important to those of us who live in the North-East, does he not agree, in spite of what he has said, that in the last 13 months there has been more talk than action? Does he not further agree that the new financial arrangements which the Government have introduced are tending to slow down the rate of clearance rather than accelerate it?
    Mr. Walker: No, Sir; I do not agree with either point. The speed with which derelict land is being cleared is fast accelerating. There will be a substantial increase next year compared with this year, and this year there has been a substantial increase over last year. As to the effect of Circular 2/70, I am immediately informing the authorities concerned that if they are in any difficulties with derelict land as a result of it they should contact my Department. Many of them have done so and arrangements have been made, and as a result there has been no hold-up.
    Mr. J. H. Osborn: Is it not a fact that much of this land is still in private hands? What steps can the Minister take to persuade others to develop assets which for too long have been written off?
    Mr. Walker: We are happy to cooperate with local authorities on this problem. I see no reason why scheduled derelict land should not be cleared within this period.

    Trunk Roads and Motorways (Lighting)
    Mr. Benyonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy concerning the lighting of trunk roads and motorways which pass through rural areas.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Present policy is to light only those lengths which present special problems for drivers at night.
    Mr. Benyon: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but does he accept that there have been strong rumours that, given the money, his Department would like to light every mile of motorway, and would not this be extremely detrimental in areas of high landscape value?
    Mr. Walker: Like most strong rumours, this one is entirely ill-founded.
    Mr. Jopling: Does my right hon. Friend remember that last November he gave me figures of the enormous initial and maintenance cost of lighting a rural stretch of the Al north of Doncaster? Does he realise that this is an extravagance, and that he would be far better spending the money on central crash barriers to prevent loss of life?
    Mr. Walker: The policy is to light only those areas where the figures show a high incidence of night accidents. I will take note of what my hon. Friend has said.
    Mr. Bradley: To help us to form a judgment on this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman give an estimate of the installation cost per mile and the maintenance charges per annum of this proposal?
    Mr. Walker: I will drop a note to the hon. Gentleman giving him details.

    Allotments (Thorpe Report)
    Mr. Maddanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the Thorpe Report and on his proposals for the future of allotments.
    The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I must apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and the House for the length of my reply.
    Yes, Sir, we welcome the concept of giving allotment gardens a new look.

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    Local authorities can do much to tidy up existing sites and improve their facilities, and some local authorities are already taking action to promote schemes for leisure gardens on the lines recommended in the report.
    We have concluded that the extent of allotment gardens for which provisions should be made should, in the future, be for local authorities, including parish authorities, to decide in the light of local needs. The detailed Ministerial controls over allotment authorities, which were introduced nearly 50 years ago, are not consonant with our policy of leaving local affairs to be decided by local authorities. We intend in due course to introduce legislation to remove these controls. We consider that the arrangements under which some local authorities, mainly in the rural areas, provide allotments for commercial purposes should be maintained broadly as at present.
    Mr. Maddan: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply, the details of which will require careful consideration. Will he comment on the view that many areas of allotments contain land that is going to seed, is a blight to the neighbourhood and could be better used for other purposes?
    Mr. Page: Yes, I think that is so in many districts, and local authorities are looking into that at our request.
    Mr. Rost: Whilst declaring an interest as having been one of Professor Harry Thorpe's students at Birmingham University, may I add my thanks to the Minister for having given this report such favourable consideration and urge him to implement it as speedily as possible?

    Historic Buildings
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsbergasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if, in his review of the need for additional powers in regard to the preservation of buildings, he will consider streamlining the listing of buildings of historic and architectural interest.
    Mr. Peter Walker: A new system for issuing statutory lists has already been adopted and further improvements are being pursued. I am pleased to say that this has been particularly helpful as far as emergency listing of threatened build-
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    ings
    is concerned and several hundred such buildings have been listed in the last quarter.
    Mr. Finsberg: I thank my right hon. Friend for his helpful reply. Is he aware that there is disquiet at the procedure not working as well as it might in a few cases, and will he issue a circular to local authorities impressing on them the need to take action?
    Mr. Walker: Yes, I will. Further improvements are being pursued, and the whole system of listing will by the end of this year be far better than ever before.
    Sir E. Bullusasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to safeguard historic buildings threatened by demolition in conservation areas.
    Mr. Graham Page: Consent is already required before any building on the statutory list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest may be demolished. My right hon. Friend has undertaken to introduce legislation in due course enabling other buildings which are important to conservation areas to be safeguarded.
    Sir E. Bullus: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but will he give an undertaking that he will keep a watchful eye on those buildings which are not already on the list and are of historic or other interest?
    Mr. Page: This is the purpose of the legislation which my right hon. Friend undertook to bring into operation. I assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the listing of historic buildings is going on very well. In the last quarter, ending 30th June, 2,055 buildings were added to the list.
    Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Will my hon. Friend agree that it is not enough to limit this control to conservation areas and that it might be a good idea to extend it to people's homes which might otherwise be destroyed? For example, the semidetached house next door to a person's home can at the moment be pulled down without any notice whatever. Ought we not to be concerned not only about preserving the past but about preserving the homes of the people of Britain?
    Mr. Page: That is a rather different problem. On this Question I am dealing with buildings of historic or architectural value.
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how the percentage increase in funds made available for the repair of buildings of outstanding historic and architectural interest this year compares with percentage increases over the past five years.
    Mr. Graham Page: The £300,000 increase my right hon. Friend recently announced is more than the total of all the increases made in the last five years, and greater than the percentage increase for any other year.
    Mr. Stokes: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, which I am sure will give general satisfaction throughout the country.

    Building Land
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for the Environment in his attempts to obtain the release of additional building land, what investigation he has made of the surplus holdings of municipal authorities and nationalised industries; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Graham Page: The decision on whether land is surplus is a matter for the individual local authority or nationalised industry. Local authorities have been asked in Circular 10/70 to re-assess the needs in their areas and their land holdings and to dispose of land for private housing development wherever possible. Since 1966 all the nationalised industries have been offering their surplus land to local authorities.
    Mr. King: How much longer will it be before we can be given some firm figure of the additional amount of building land which has been released for that purpose and, above all, a figure—which should follow from that earlier information—of the amount by which the price of building land has been reduced?
    Mr. Page: So far as local authorities are concerned, the follow-up to the circular is still being assessed. I hope it will not be long before I can report on the results. On nationalised industries,
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    the figure I have before me is that in 1970 British Railways land sales totalled £14 million. This is encouraging.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I must draw the attention of the House to a phenomenon which does not often happen. It would appear that, perhaps because of the all-night sitting, the electric clock has stopped.
    Mr. Freeson: Will the Minister bear in mind the statement made in this House a few weeks ago by his right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction, that he was consulting his colleagues in the Department to investigate the possibility that surplus land held by nationalised industries, in particular by British Railways, could be used by his Department for housing purposes, particularly where a local authority was experiencing difficulties in meeting housing demands? What investigations have been made to establish the availability of land in the major conurbations?
    Mr. Page: May I say in parenthesis that I have never before succeeded in stopping the clock! If I may answer the question, the investigations are proceeding in detail with both local authorities and nationalised industries.

    West Midlands Region
    Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his planning policy for the West Midlands Region in relation to the introduction of new industry as an insurance against obsolescence.
    Mr. Graham Page: I am at present considering the economic appraisal by a working party set up by the West Midlands Economic Planning Council. This expressed views on the need for further industrial development in the region, and I shall not be ready to make a statement on planning policy until our examination of the various factors involved is complete.
    Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that the West Midlands is at present dependent on the old traditional industries, and that the present I.D.C. policy is discouraging the growth of new industries in major regions such as this? Will he consider doing what he can to attract new industry to the West Midlands

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    by some policy or other different from the I.D.C. policy?
    Mr. Page: I.D.C. policy is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but we are indebted to the economic appraisal by the West Midlands Working Party set up by the West Midlands Economic Planning Council for proposals on this matter. The measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 19th July should strengthen demand and encourage industry to invest in new plant and machinery.
    Sir Harmar Nicholls: Bearing in mind the original decision as to the areas which should have I.D.C. priority, which applies not only to the West Midlands, does not my hon. Friend consider that in view of the new town expansion in Peterborough we ought to be up-graded for consideration for the granting of I.D.Cs?
    Mr. Page: I would ask my hon. Friend to put that question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

    British Railways (Ticket and Reservation Centres)
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has now received from the Chairman of the British Rail Board to set up ticket and reservation shops or centres to sell air, sea and rail tickets; and what submissions have been made to him relating to the capital cost.
    Mr. Peyton: None, Sir.
    Mr. Osborn: Although I accept that British Railways must promote sales of railway tickets, will my right hon. Friend make clear to the Board that the policies which have been announced are inconsistent with Government policy?
    Mr. Peyton: So far as I am aware, no policy has been announced. There may have been various speculations in the newspapers, but I am not responsible for them.
    Mr. Bradley: Will the Minister confirm that this matter comes within the managerial competence of the British Railways Board and is not a matter for his interference?
    Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman puts his question in such a challenging way that if it were to come up I might be tempted out of my normal rôle and character of being very reasonable.

    British Railways (Ancillary Activities)
    Mr. Redmondasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue a general direction to British Rail to ensure that all its subsidiaries include in their annual reports particulars of the profit or loss made on their trading with outside persons.
    Mr. Peyton: No, Sir. The British Railways Board already publishes very full information about the profit and loss of its ancillary activities.
    Mr. Redmond: I thank the Minister for that statement. Would he look at the 1970 accounts of British Rail Engineering Ltd., which appears to have made only a small marginal profit on container manufacturing activities in so far as they concern sales to outside bodies? Would he confirm this and investigate the matter with a view possibly to introducing fair competition by hiving off these activities to private enterprise?
    Mr. Peyton: I looked at the particular contract to which my hon. Friend refers. I considered that it would be wrong to interfere with something which was a commercial enterprise already in operation and on which money had been spent. It is a little too early to make a judgment on this point.

    Transport Assets (Disposal)
    Sir G. Nabarroasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a further statement on disposal of assets such as Thos. Cook and Son, railway hotels and other similar transport enterprises, and the sum that he anticipates realising in total, for replenishment of public funds in 1971–72 from disposal of such State assets.
    Mr. Peyton: I have nothing to add to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson) on 7th July about the disposal of the Transport Holding Company's subsidiaries. The National

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    Freight Corporation is continuing negotiations for the sale of its shipping interests. I cannot forecast how much is likely to be realised from disposals this year.—[Vol. 820, c. 374–5.]
    Sir G. Nabarro: While warmly embracing my right hon. Friend and his denationalisation policies, may I reproach him for his inordinate slowness and lethargy in this matter? In case he is tempted to plead legislative indigestion in the forthcoming Session with Common Market Bills, will he consider allowing me to bring in a Private Member's Bill to denationalise these assets and give it his Ministerial respectability and support?
    Mr. Peyton: Although I am most grateful for my hon. Friend's embraces, I hope that they can be allowed to remain metaphorical. As regards the disposal of Thomas Cook and Son, I can only tell him that I am very ready to take action as soon as the legislative programme allows——
    Sir G. Nabarro: What about my Private Member's Bill?
    Mr. Peyton: —and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be the first to realise the immense amount of good works to which this Government have put their hand during the Session, which have constituted some obstacle to what he has in mind.
    Mr. Milne: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the British travel trade has troubles enough of its own at the moment without his adding to them, and will this not make him and his Department look again at the policy of hiving off publicly-owned travel agents at this stage, realising that they have already put the clock back enough, without making matters even worse?
    Mr. Peyton: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not tempt me into giving answers which are only too easy. One of the reasons determining the Government's policy in getting rid of Thomas Cook and Son was that in public hands it has not been doing well enough.
    Mr. Jopling: Will my right hon. Friend tell any prospective purchaser of Thomas Cook and Son that he need not expect to have a monopoly of travel business in this Palace?
    Mr. Peyton: I very much doubt that anyone will aspire to a monopoly of travel business here; the responsibility is altogether too great.
    Mr. Bradley: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's earlier rebuke to me, I ask him as calmly as I can to take this opportunity to confirm that it is not the Government's intention to hive off the British Rail hotels, which also are mentioned in the Question.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Of course it is.
    Mr. Peyton: I am only too anxious to reciprocate the hon. Gentleman's calmness. If the Government came to the conclusion that it was in the national interest to hive off British Transport Hotels, they would do that. At this moment, we have not reached that decision, although the hon. Gentleman could well push up into it.

    Public Paths (Signposting)
    Mr. Boothasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will consider seeking powers to impose a time limit within which county councils must carry out their statutory obligations under the Countryside Act to signpost public paths at their junctions with metalled roads.
    Mr. Graham Page: No, Sir.
    Mr. Booth: Is it not the case that those county councils which do not signpost footpaths are not complying with their legal obligation under the Countryside Act, and will the Minister accept that, in the absence of such signposts and definitive footpath maps, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for certain citizens to exercise their rights of access to our countryside?
    Mr. Page: This is a responsibility which Parliament allotted to the local authorities, and it is for the local authorities to decide what action they should take in the light of the resources available to them. I have no power to intervene.

    Public Buildings, London (Cleaning)
    Mr. Spenceasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is ready to announce the cleaning of further public buildings in London.
    Mr. Iremongerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take steps to clean the classical facades in Horse Guards Parade and St. James's Park.
    Mr. Amery: I have arranged for the cleaning of the facades looking on to Horse Guards Parade. This will be followed by completion of the cleaning of the facades overlooking St. James's Park.
    My immediate programme in London also includes further work on Buckingham Palace, cleaning the rest of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office, the former Ministry of Housing and Local Government office facade in Whitehall, the Government buildings overlooking Great George Street, the rest of the old War Office building, the Tower of London, the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and Burlington House.
    Mr. Spence: I thank my right hon. Friend for that excellent list, and I ask him to say whether it represents an improvement on the past. Second, will he accept that there is such an improvement to be gained by the urban environment from the cleaning of public buildings that he should set himself a time target to clean the lot within the next year or two?
    Mr. Amery: We have set ourselves a timetable of about 18 months. The effort represents four times the expenditure previously incurred.
    Mr. John Silkin: Will the Minister consider either cleaning Richmond Terrace and New Scotland Yard or pulling them down?
    Mr. Amery: The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my right hon. Friend's statement on the Willis Report.
    Sir J. Rodgers: Is there any chance of this building in which we are sitting today being cleaned in the near future?
    Mr. Amery: There are particular problems associated with the Palace of Westminster. I am having an experimental feasibility study made, and the first report will be available in the autumn.

    Government Offices, Stanley (Design)
    Mr. David Watkinsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what
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    representations have been made to him by the Royal Fine Art Commission on the design of the Government offices now being built at Stanley, County Durham.
    Mr. Amery: None, Sir.
    Mr. Watkins: Is that because they have been rendered speechless by the sheer ugliness of the building? It is a concrete box to end all concrete boxes. Is it not thoroughly depressing that the first building taking shape in what is to be a rebuilt town centre should be so singularly unattractive?
    Mr. Amery: I am advised that it is a characteristic example of what might be called the Mellish-Silkin period. [Laughter.] I hasten to assure the hon. Gentleman that as it has not been completed it has not yet been listed for preservation.
    Mr. John Silkin: Is not beauty in the eye of the beholder?
    Mr. Amery; And, no doubt, in the eye of the creator.

    Rural Bus Services
    Mr. Longdenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has yet received the results of the pilot surveys into the provision of bus services in rural areas; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Peyton: I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Sir E. Brown) yesterday.—[Vol. 822, c. 65–6.]
    Mr. Longden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in some parts of the country public transport is not able to do the job, and will he remove some of the obstacles in the way of private enterprise, for example, by revising the licensing system, and let private enterprise get on with it?
    Mr. Peyton: I hope to make a statement of the licensing system in the near future, and I hope to go some way to satisfy my hon. Friend.

    Building Contracts
    Mr. Trewasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will now permit some provision in fixed-price building contracts to compensate

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    contractors for unforeseeable and disproportionate increases in the costs of key materials.
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir.
    Mr. Trew: Would my right hon. Friend consider that if he were to relieve builders of the more extreme risks of firm price tendering in the limited way which I suggest he would almost certainly get keener tender prices and save the Exchequer money?
    Mr. Amery: I have been carefully studying my hon. Friend's suggestions and several others which have been put to us. We still see no reason to vary our present policy, but, as I have assured my hon. Friend previously, we are keeping this matter constantly under review.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Mr. Fitt: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the deteriorating political situation in Northern Ireland, and in particular the rôle of the security forces and the danger of increased violence."
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, I sat through the hours of last night and early this morning in the House in the hope that the subject I had sought to debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill would be reached. That was not to be, but I believe the House will agree that there is a very dangerous situation in Northern Ireland at present. There is an almost total and tragic polarisation between the communities in Northern Ireland. We have recently heard of the threat to create private armies, and we are all too well aware that there is a Right-wing Unionist campaign, ably supported by the Daily Telegraph and some of its leader writers, calling for the removal from office of no less a person than the Home
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Secretary. There is also the ever-increasing danger and possibility that throughout the coming days and weeks there will be an escalation of violence, bringing with it loss of life.
As we have only a few sitting days left before the recess, I urgently ask you and plead with you, Mr. Speaker, to grant this Standing Order No. 9 debate so that the House may be able to bring some pressure to bear and ensure that the tragedy which I see facing Northern Ireland does not occur.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the deteriorating political situation in Northern Ireland, and in particular the rôle of the security forces and the danger of increased violence."
The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to give me considerable notice that he would make this application. I have considerable sympathy with him, because it was only due to the selfishness of certain Members who made speeches of inordinate length during the night that he did not reach his item in the Consolidated Fund debate. But I am afraid that I cannot give the present application precedence, although I have indicated another possibility for ventilating the subject.

STANDING ORDER No. 9
Mr. Milne: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I had intended to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, but in view of the urgent and important business that is about to come before the House, and as I may have the opportunity to raise the subject of the plight of British holiday-makers on a Private Notice Question at a later stage, I withdraw my application.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME)
3.33 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): I beg to move,
That the Order [25th January] be supplemented as follows:—
1. The proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments shall be completed in five allotted days, and shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at midnight on the fifth of those days.
2. In accordance with the Order [25th January], paragraph 6 of that Order (which relates to dilatory motions), paragraph 7 of that Order (which relates to extra time on allotted days), paragraph 8 of that Order (which relates to motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at the commencement of public business), paragraph 9 of that Order (which relates to private business), and so much of paragraph 14 of that Order as relates to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall have effect in relation to the Proceedings mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order.
3.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order, if those Proceedings have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall proceed forthwith to put the following Questions (but no others), that is to say,—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

(b) Mr. Speaker shall designate such (if any) of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall then forthwith—

(i) put the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments except those designated by Mr. Speaker or, if none of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, in all the remaining Lords Amendments, and

(ii) if any of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, put separately, with respect to each of those Amendments so designated, the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
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(3) If, on the fifth of the allotted days mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order, a Motion is made under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), the bringing to a conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.
4. In paragraph 11 of the Order [25th January] (which relates to Supplemental Orders) any reference to that Order shall be construed as including a reference to this Order.
5. In this Order 'the Bill' means the Industrial Relations Bill and 'allotted day' means any day (not being a Friday, but including the day on which this Order is made) on which the Bill is put down as the first Government Order of the Day.
The Motion supplements the original Allocation of Time Order for the Bill, which the House approved on 25th January. I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I mention briefly the procedure which is proposed.
The original Order provided for a timetable at this stage of the Bill. Under the supplemental Order now proposed, discussion of the Lords Amendments would take up to a maximum of five days of debate, each day's proceedings ending at midnight. There would not be a day-today timetable providing for Divisions at midnight. Instead, all the remaining Amendments, except where privilege is involved, would be subject to a single vote taken at the end of the fifth day. This procedure is in accordance with sound precedent on the consideration of Lords Amendments.
The exceptions would be the Amendments which you, Mr. Speaker, have selected as raising questions of privilege. I understand that there are nine such Amendments. Some or all of them may be reached and voted upon before the end of proceedings on the fifth day. If they have not been so dealt with, they will fall to be voted upon separately at the end of the fifth day. The House will note, therefore, that the number of possible Divisions at the end of the proceedings under the Motion is strictly limited.
I proposed five days for consideration of this stage of the Bill because I accept that there are a number of Amendments, 343 in all, many of them Amendments proposed by the Government—[Interruption.] Just wait a moment; there is more to come. It is right that there should be a generous allocation of time

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for this important and valuable Bill. The House will find if it studies the precedents that the amount of time allotted compares very well with that on some previous Bills. Let me give some examples.
In the case of the Town and Country Planning Bill, 1947, the 309 Lords Amendments were taken in 7½ hours on a single day. There were 240 Lords Amendments to the Transport Bill of the same year. They were taken in under 12 hours, spread over two days. The 272 Lords Amendments to the London Government Bill, 1963, occupied under seven hours on a single day. On the Transport Bill, 1968, of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), there were 258 Lords Amendments. They were taken in 22 hours, spread over three days.
As I have said on a previous occasion, the allocation of five days for this Bill is, so far as I have been able to discover, the longest time provided for the consideration of Lords Amendments in the whole history of Parliament.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on, will he explain in a little more detail what the arrangements are for voting on outstanding Amendments, apart from the privileged Amendments, at the end of the fifth day, and tell us the precedents for the procedure suggested?
Mr. Whitelaw: I thought I had made that clear. In the first instance, all those Amendments, except those where privilege is involved, which are outstanding at the end of the fifth day will be taken in one single vote.
Mr. James Wellbeloved: Steamroller.
Mr. Whitelaw: The precedents are the London Government Bill, 1963——
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: One of yours.
Mr. Whitelaw: Certainly, but it is a perfectly good precedent none the less. There was also the Transport Bill, 953——
Mr. Heffer: Another one of yours.
Mr. Whitelaw Mr. Whitelaw Certainly, but they are perectly good precedents for what I have done.
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In view of all that was said inside and outside the House, I am surprised to find hon. Members objecting to a sensible procedure for voting and Divisions. [Interruption.] Perhaps I might continue with what I was saying.
I have conceded that the number of Amendments is large. It is equally fair to point out that many of them, some 135 out of the 343, are either non-Government Amendments which the Government have accepted or Amendments which they have themselves put down to meet Opposition points. Some 32 other Amendments seem to be of a purely drafting nature, and no fewer than 137 are Amendments which are consequential on others.
It is also worth pointing out that in this House alone the Bill has had 200 hours of discussion—21 days, all of them on the Floor of the House, in addition to the five now proposed for the consideration of the Lords Amendments. It certainly makes it a very generous allocation of time, as Labour Members seem to concede.
When the original timetable Motion was tabled in January, the House went over the general arguments for and against this course, and I do not propose to repeat those arguments now. I only re-emphasise that the amount of time now allocated is the longest for Lords Amendments in the whole history of Parliament. This is a generous allocation of time, and I challenge any fair-minded person to say otherwise. On that basis, I commend the Motion to the House.
Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), may I point out that although the clocks have started again, it is still P.A.N.S. time—post all-night sitting time? The clocks are about 25 minutes slow.
3.41 p.m.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: The Leader of the House is in a self-congratulatory mood this afternoon and has clearly been working very hard to try to dazzle the House with a whole flood of precedents to prove that he is the most generous man living today, though I noticed that he was a little coy about the exact precedents for the new procedure that we shall be facing at the end of the fifth day.
The most endearing quality about the right hon. Gentleman is that he loves to be loved. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about you?"] Perhaps I succeed more easily than the right hon. Gentleman does. It is a very appropriate quality for the Leader of the House, because if the Leader of the House arouses animosity and antagonism and mistrust in any part of the House, he fails in his job. The right hon. Gentleman has obviously worked hard this afternoon to retrieve the affections which he realises he has forfeited in recent weeks on this side of the House, and this allocation of five days is a desperate exercise to try to win back the trust of the Opposition in him as an impartial Leader of the House.
But, for reasons which I shall explain, this exercise will not be sufficient to restore him to the high opinion which we once had of him, because, apart from anything else, that will not happen until the right hon. Gentleman has the honesty to stop shielding the Government over their abuse of public funds by the free distribution of their propaganda material through the Post Office. I warn the right hon. Gentleman that that is a serious blot on his reputation and it will mean that our high opinion of him will not be restored until it is removed.
The right hon. Gentleman is not clearing his good name by giving us five days to consider the Amendments from another place. The allocation of time which he has just announced is a confession of guilt, because it is a tacit admission that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government has mishandled this whole matter from the very moment the Bill first came before the House. They mishandled it by rushing the Bill through in the first place as the overriding priority in their legislative timetable, and they have mishandled it by giving us a grossly disproportionate allocation of time between the two Houses of Parliament.
The Bill was a monstrous growth in the first place—150 Clauses and eight Schedules. That was its size when it first came, but by the time it left the Commons it had already been expanded to 160 Clauses. Now it has come back to us from another place 170 Clauses and nine Schedules long. The right hon. Gentleman cannot find any comfort for his argument by calling in aid my own
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Transport Bill. There are two profound differences between that Bill at this stage and this Bill at this stage. First, my Transport Bill actually shrank during its process through Parliament. It ended up three Clauses shorter than when it started, not 20 Clauses longer. Secondly, and I return the challenge to the right hon. Gentleman when he quotes the amount of time spent on that Bill, he knows perfectly well that the Lords Amendments to the Transport Bill of 1968 were never timetabled by the Labour Government.
Mr. Whitelaw: That is a very fair point and I do not seek to disguise it for a moment. Has it occurred to the right hon. Lady that the reason for that—and it may be the position at the moment—was that the Chief Whip of the time was very reasonable in the matter? If the right hon. Lady and her hon. Friends do not want a full five days on the Bill, it is perfectly possible for them not to have the full five days but just as much time as is needed.
Mrs. Castle: The right hon. Gentleman knows that what we are objecting to is the time table Motion. I repeat what I have said before during our discussions—at no time have the Government approached the Opposition about this important constitutional Bill to try to reach a voluntary timetable. That was our complaint in the earlier stages of the Bill, and our complaint this afternoon is that this timetable Motion, which hon. Members opposite are being asked to support so lightheartedly, is in fact a derogation of some of the basic rights of Parliament, as I will proceed to show.
It is in the interests of every hon. Member who cares about the rights of the Commons in our constitution to note that we have suffered from a treatment amounting to contempt of the rights of the House of Commons itself. Under the guillotine Motion which the right hon. Gentleman introduced almost at the beginning of our proceedings, the House was allowed a total of 170 hours to discuss what by common consent was a highly complex, highly legalistic and deeply constitutional Bill. We were allowed 170 hours for all the stages through the House of Commons. About 1,300 Amendments were tabled. Only a fraction, thanks to

581
the guillotine, were ever discussed, let alone accepted.
At the end of our proceedings, only 100 Amendments had been made. That was not because the Bill was so perfect that the Government had admitted that it needed no altering. On the contrary, a lot of our time was spent discussing Government Amendments and hundreds of Amendments we wanted to press were never reached. When the Bill went to another place it was largely undiscussed because of the guillotine. In addition, in Committee a succession of new Government Clauses came pouring in. We have had this imbalance in the use of Parliament to debate something like over two-thirds of the Bill. Over 100 Clauses of the original Bill were not discussed at all by Parliament. Their Lordships had to take up the task. Because they do not have to suffer what we have to suffer—restrictive orders on their discussion by the Government—they spent, not 170 hours as we did, but 237 hours discussing 1,113 Amendments compared with the limited number which we were allowed to discuss.
The Bill did not leave this House in a state fit to enable it to go on the Statute Book, because of the 351 Amendments made in another place. Of those, 294 were Government Amendments introduced either to tighten the net still further or to remedy the drafting and policy muddle into which the Government had got themselves by imposing on us an intolerable, restrictive guillotine.
We now have before us a Bill which was longer in Committee and on Report in the Lords than any Bill since before the war; a Bill to which more Lords Amendments have been made than to any Bill since the war; a Bill in which one line in three has been amended in another place; a Bill to which whole new sections have been added so that this House now receives virtually a new, additional Bill.
It is a Bill which, since it left us, has acquired new and even more iniquitous principles, such as the contemptible new provision slipped into Schedule 2 to amend the redundancy pay scheme. It is something that ought to have been contained in a Redundancy Pay Bill. It has nothing to do with the Industrial Relations Bill. It is a contemptible scheme, with advantage taken of another place to slip
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this change into the law under which an employee who is off sick when a redundancy notice is served on him will no longer be able to draw the sick pay due to him under the firm's sick pay scheme because the employer will be able to deduct it from his redundancy pay.
I do not suppose that half the hon. Members opposite who were cheering on the Leader of the House have any idea what has happened to the Bill in another place or what new principles have been added while our backs were turned, and how it has been extended even further into a petty little "Employers' Benefit Bill".
Take another vital matter of principle and policy. Consider whether the Government will take their petty revenge against unions which refuse to register to the point of robbing them of tax relief on their provident funds. This was a matter which—I was going to say we debated it at length, but we did not get the chance—we had to debate hurriedly under the guillotine Motion. We told the Secretary of State that what his Bill meant was that if a union did not register it would be fined, probably to the tune of some millions of pounds in toto. The right hon. Gentleman staked his honour on assuring us that this was not——
Sir Harmer Nicholls: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is the right hon. Lady not cheating? I thought we were discussing the guillotine, not the Bill. It is taking time away from the House to discuss the Bill and she knows that she is taking an unfair advantage.
Mr. Speaker: If the right hon. Lady is out of order I shall call her to order.
Mrs. Castle: I am trying to discuss whether the timetable Motion is inadequate for us to discuss and supervise changes in the Bill as it comes from another place. When we discussed this we received an assurance from the Secretary of State that this was the last thing he intended. He assured the House that had he thought it necessary to set up a special register, for example, for those trade unions which did not wish to register in an industrial sense but wanted to keep their provident fund tax relief he would have done it. But he said, "I am assured that it is not necessary." He had gone into it most carefully and

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had been told that there were no technical, constitutional or legal difficulties.
This matter was re-ventilated in another place because in the meantime the T.U.C. also had been taking advice which was that the tax relief on such funds would be forfeited, that there were legal, technical and constitutional difficulties. After all, the T.U.C. is not exactly anxious to exaggerate the disabilities of not registering. The T.U.C. is concerned with the protection of its members' funds. There were long discussions in another place and an Amendment was moved to clarify the position and negatived on the assurance of the Lord Chancellor that he did not see any reason to believe that the Solicitor-General was wrong in this case.
Are millions of pounds of trade union money to rest on that frail barque, or shall we have the opportunity in these five days to discuss vital new developments such as this? The right hon. Gentleman retorts that he is giving five days and that it is more than has been given during such a stage to any equivalent Measure. This House has not discussed a Bill of such far-reaching implications or such constitutional importance as this for many a long year, and none of the right hon. Gentlemen precedents covers a similar Bill. Moreover, it is five days not just for drafting Amendments dealing with Government second thoughts about their own phraseology but five days for dealing with all the stages of important new Clauses and vital matters of principle. There are 351 Amendments to start with and this House has a right to amend Lords Amendments if it pleases. The number of Amendments could rise much higher. Most serious of all, we know why this apparently generous allocation of five days is being given. It is to cloak the surreptitious introduction of an undemocratic principle, a principle of preventing this House from voting on Amendments individually. This is really the key to this Motion.
Mr. Ian Lloyd Mr. Ian Lloyd (Portsmouth, Langstone) rose——
Mrs. Castle: I cannot give way. The hon. Gentleman may be able to intervene later. This is what the Motion means. At the end of the fifth day all the Lords Amendments which are not privileged, that is to say which do not involve
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money, are to be put en bloc, and the rights of this House of Commons to amend the Bill adequately already denied us are taken away from us yet again. Some of the Lords Amendments are, naturally enough, concessions to points raised during our debates either by the Opposition or by back-bench Members opposite. Therefore, we would not wish to vote against them. But we would want to go into the Lobby against other Amendments, such as the iniquitous Amendment No. 301 about sick pay.
Suppose that we are asked on the fifth night to accept a whole block of Amendments, some of which we wanted, some of which were as repugnant to us as Amendment No. 301? Where will the rights of the Opposition have gone then? Are we not reducing Parliamentary activity, at least in this place, to a farce which makes us the subject of ridicule in another place?
The Leader of the House has said a lot about precedents. There are no precedents, except Conservative precedents, for this procedure. From time to time the House has agreed to adopt a compressed procedure for hurrying Measures on to the Statute Book. For example, it adopted such procedures during the war when the Germans were at our gates. We had emergency procedures then for voting in globo and we adopted them voluntary. In fact, they were not necessary, because Parliament was united in its anxiety to clear the decks to prosecute the war. What war do the Government think they are prosecuting now? As Erskine May says in the Fourteenth Edition,
"ߪ such procedure is clearly inapplicable beyond the end of the war ߪ"
Erskine May reckoned without the present Government.
It was two Conservative Measures which were earlier treated in this way by a Conservative Government—the Transport Bill of 1952 and the London Government Bill of 1962. The Minister has not been able to produce a single other precedent. But I say advisedly that there is no precedent for the mutilation of the rights of this House on the proposed scale. The right hon. Gentleman knows why he has done it, just as we know. There were no protests from right hon. and hon. Members opposite against the earlier guillotine on our debates. They

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were only too ready to acquiesce in restricting the House's freedom of action. But then they found with a shock that, although they had suppressed debate, they had not been able to suppress the voting. That soon woke them up. They were only too ready to support the counter-revolution as long as they personally did not have to man the barricades as we voted night after night, exercising our democratic right to vote on Amendments which were to be embodied in the law.
When that stage was over, the murmurs began. I heard them from a number of hon. Members opposite. It was said, "What is all this old-fashioned nonsense about proposals not becoming law unless Parliament has had a chance to vote on them? We have stopped them debating. Do you mean to say that we cannot stop them voting, too?" [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes. I heard it in the House only last Thursday, when the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) challenged the Leader of the House about his timetable Motion, asking whether the right hon. Gentleman would produce a Motion which made it absolutely clear that when the debating had been silenced at midnight the voting could be silenced too. The right hon. Gentleman, who has forfeited the high opinion which we once held of him, has been only too happy to acquiesce.
This apparently generous allocation of five days is just a smokescreen for the further entrenchment of a dangerous new principle. Why does not the Leader of the House say, "Remove this bauble and have done with it"? We oppose the Motion, first, because we object to this miserable, shambling Bill. We object to it in globo as being malicious and irrelevant. We object to the wasted time in the last 13 months which this House has had to spend on the Bill while other urgent matters piled up. Secondly, we object to the Motion because—and I say this advisedly—it erodes the freedom of all of us on both sides of the House. We should stop and think rather more carefully before we create this additional, massive precedent for Governments claiming the right, because they have a majority, not only to restrict debates but to stop hon. Members voting.
The Government have proved that they can get their Measures through only by
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perverting the procedures and rights of Parliament. That is why we shall vote against the Motion.
4.5 p.m.
Sir Harmar Nicholls: The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has fooled nobody. She has used her histrionics but has produced no facts which are contrary to the statement that the Motion proposes a very generous allocation of time if the House decides to use it properly. It is completely within the power of the House to use the proposed five Parliamentary days to ensure that the Amendments are properly examined or to waste time. The right hon. Lady's histrionics have done no more than give a hint that the Opposition intend to waste time purely for propaganda purposes, as they did during earlier stages of the Bill.
Mrs. Castle: Has the hon. Gentleman made any calculation of how much time was taken in Committee by hon. Members opposite compared with the time taken by the Opposition? Does he agree that it was equivalent and in some cases more? If so, does he think that his hon. Friends were wasting time?
Sir H. Nicholls: It is well within my recollection that many excellent, constructive speeches were made by the right hon. Lady's colleagues and by my hon. Friends. But it is also within my recollection that for sheer propaganda purposes others wasted time in order to delay the passage of the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name them."]
This is an important Bill. It concerns a fundamental matter. It is right that the House should give it detailed and careful consideration. I ask for co-operation to ensure that that happens. If Members follow the line taken during the earlier stages of the Bill, Parliament will not be doing its duty. Five full parliamentary days will allow detailed examination to be made even of the number of Amendments on the Notice Paper. If Members are genuine in their belief that Amendments should be made and that other provisions should be thrown out, and if they are prepared to spend the time allocated wisely and properly and according to their duty. But if the Opposition continue to make this a great national propaganda exercise in order to keep the

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friendship of their trade union paymasters, the time will be wasted. The responsibility for ensuring that we do our duty is in the Opposition's hands.
I make this appeal to the Opposition. I ask them to ignore the histrionics, exaggeration and venom of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn. I ask them to act as responsible Members dealing with a responsible Bill. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) always does that. He is not one of the time-wasters. I suggest to the House that it should do its duty and should spend the five days allocated to the Bill properly. If it does so, the Bill will be examined in the sort of detail upon which Parliament should always insist. But if the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr), who is an acknowledged and self-confessed disrupter, has his way, that will not happen.
Mr. Heffer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in order to examine the Bill in detail over five days we would have to examine 60 Amendments per day? Does he think that that is possible and that at the same time we can examine the Amendments in the detailed way he suggests?
Sir H. Nicholls: I compliment the hon. Gentleman because his reputation soared during the earlier discussions on the Bill. He was a worthy occupant of the Opposition Front Bench.
As for the hon. Gentleman's intervention now, his right hon. Friend admitted that quite a number of Amendments included in the calculation were needed in any case and should take no time. The right hon. Lady made that perfectly clear.
I have had some experience of this House, and I would say that if these five days are properly used by both sides we can do our duty and do it properly, and my appeal to hon. Members opposite is to see that they do just that.
4.10 p.m.
Mr. James Tinn: I had not intended to speak at this moment, but the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) has certainly provoked me and I want to rebut the allegations he has made about time wasting by this side.
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I cannot imagine any task more difficult than that which confronted the Opposition during the Committee on the Bill, faced as we were with a whole range of Amendments, most of them Government Amendments—and only an hour and a half before a sitting of the Committee. The Opposition tried desperately to allocated the time so that those aspects which we felt most vitally concerned our constituents and our members could be discussed. We were faced with an utterly impossible task, but we did our utmost to deal with it. Indeed, a very strong restraining influence was exerted on back-bench Members on this side, and I can tell the hon. Member that there was considerable resentment among many back-bench Members on this side, because they were constantly restrained by our Front Bench and asked not to speak on some Amendments, because, while the Front Bench realised that those Amendments were of importance, there were others which were thought to be even more important and it was hoped they could be reached and debated. That was the dilemma which we faced throughout, and with which we did our utmost to grapple. It presented us with a problem which it was entirely impossible to resolve and it is entirely wrong for hon. Members opposite to accuse us on this side of wasting time.
There was no need to waste time even had we been so disposed, because the Government themselves felt required to introduce regularly a wealth of Amendments of their own to so many of the contentious and damaging Clauses. So there was no need to waste time.
Indeed, if we on this side had confined ourselves to speeches of no more than two or three minutes' duration each on each Amendment we still could not have concluded proper discussion of the Bill in the period which was allocated to it. That proper discussion has been denied not only to the Opposition but to the House as a whole, and that on a complex Bill, because of the narrow restrictions of the procedural Motion so that we had no opportunity to deal with the Bill at all constructively.
I speak now as one who has spoken only infrequently during the debates on the Bill, and I hope that on those occasions when I did speak I did so constructively, even though there were times

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when I felt it almost impossible to be constructive because the Bill was so inherently bad in its drafting and in its intentions and would be so inefficient in its application.
I will end on a cautionary note. My right hon. Friend has pointed to the absence, with one or two exceptions, of Members on the opposite side. Remembering the votes which they were called upon to make and their reluctance to register their votes we should bear in mind that the Government are now setting a precedent of which a future Labour Government might want to take advantage. No Labour Government have ever confronted the House of Commons in this manner; we have always had our parliamentary conventions; but we must reserve our right likewise to act should at some future time a Labour Government be faced with obstruction from the other side.
4.15 p.m.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: Like the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Tinn) I had not intended to intervene, and had the right hon. Lady given way when I rose to interrupt perhaps 1 should not be on my feet now, but it seems to me that there is nothing more difficult for hon. Members on such occasions as this than to distinguish between two things, the one, the genuine indignation which we all know, acknowledge and respect, and the other, synthetic indignation with which in this House we are all familiar because we know that both parties at times have shown synthetic indignation. Sometimes back benchers expect it and sometimes Governments expect it.
There are occasions when we ought to deal with the facts as they are, and one of the facts, especially apparent when we have a complex Bill of this type, is simply this, that in the last two or three years the Government have put more legislation before the House than our procedure is really equipped to deal with. It is a fact, clear and unequivocal, that many of our procedures appear obsolete. Alternatively, when matters of high principle are involved—and no one would dispute that this Bill is a matter of high principle—we are forced, because of our procedure, and because, in some sense, of the generosity of our procedure, to behave in a
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fashion which the country regards as ludicrous.
The right hon. Lady said she was defending the reputation of Parliament, but the reputation of Parliament does not reside only in this Chamber and is not contingent only on the respect held for it by Members of Parliament but also upon the respect in which Parliament is held in the country as a whole. It is not only respect in this House of Parliament. If we are honest with ourselves, we here all know, and the country is beginning to know, that the majority which a Government have is required systematically and automatically time after time to go through the process of walking through the Lobbies, and that that automatic majority is conferred upon the Government of the day at a General Election; and that majority, as the right hon. Lady knows, and most hon. Members know, with a few exceptions which, I would concede, may be significant and important, and perhaps adjusted by such devices as pairing, will lead on every single occasion to a predictable result, and we know it.
The essence of the matter is quite simple. Are we to regard our procedure, and its effects in relation to legislation, as the sole, dominating criterion? Or are we to pay some attention to the fact that the country looks at what it regards as our antics—and I would share that view, that hundreds of Members walking round the Lobbies between midnight and 4 a.m. is nothing more than our antics—and wonders whether they are the only way of governing the country?
4.18 p.m.
Mr. Robert Hughes: I speak as one who has not generally spoken during the previous stages of the Bill, not because I had no desire to speak but because many of my trade union colleagues and others of my hon. Friends wished to speak in the limited time available and I exercised a sort of self-denial to allow them to get on with the job. I hope that the Leader of the House is not leaving us, because it is a most important matter. I am glad that he has come back again. What concerns me most is that, if I understand the Motion correctly, there is in it a very significant point which the right hon. Gentleman did not mention and which, I believe, derogates from respect for the

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House in a most significant and sinister manner. As I understand the Motion it is not possible for hon. Members to raise Standing Order No. 9 Motions on four of the five days of discussion of these Lords Amendments.
Mr. Whitelaw: That would be perfectly in order. Perhaps I had better explain. It is perfectly in order for anyone to raise a Standing Order No. 9 Motion and perfectly in order for Mr. Speaker to grant it if he wishes, but, of course, the three hours would come out of the total time allocated to the Bill. But it is perfectly possible for such a Motion to be raised.
Mr. Hughes: In a sense, that is an answer to the point I had intended originally to make, that I thought that the Motion entirely denied hon. Members the right to move Standing Order No. 9 Motions and took away from hon. Members the right to raise important matters, but, in a sense, it makes the matter worse.
Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman correct in what he is saying? I am advised, following discussions through the usual channels, that the Motion means that there can be an emergency debate under Standing Order No. 9 on the fifth day only. That is the child's guide to the right hon. Gentleman's Motion which was given to me by a source whom I understood had had it explained to him by the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Whitelaw: I understand that that is not so. I will check it at once. My understanding is that an Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 can be moved on any one of the days during the passage of the Bill and not on only the fifth day. That is my understanding, but I will check the facts.
Mrs. Castle: Will the right hon. Gentleman intervene to inform the House of what the position actually is?
Mr. Whitelaw: Either I or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will at the end.
Mr. Hughes Mr. Hughes rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. If I may just give a hint, it might be different if the
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Motion were granted for the same day rather than for the next day.
Mr. Hughes: As a comparatively new Member, and after that multiple intervention, I am not quite sure if I remember exactly where I was. Whichever is the case, and it has been suggested by my hon. Friends who have considerably more experience in the House than I have that my interpretation of the Motion is correct, it would be a serious matter; because I do not believe that the House has a right, whether it wishes to or not, to take from Mr. Speaker his duty as the servant of the House to decide whether an hon. Member's application for an emergency debate on matters of extreme public importance should be granted. I should be very pleased if I am wrong on this matter.
I hope that the Leader of the House will tell us the result of the advice which he is so urgently taking. It is a very serious matter. We come here to represent our constituents. We believe that we have the right at various times to raise matters which are beyond the planning stage. We are all subject to the disciplines of the rules of order, and to the procedures of the House. We must try to plan our work ahead. We have to put our Questions in at fortnightly intervals. I interpret the Motion as meaning that Private Notice Questions will be out of order on these days. We should not allow these two things to pass without serious discussion and, if I am right, serious dissent.
On the other hand, if my interpretation and that of others is wrong and it is possible for the Adjournment of the House to be moved under Standing Order No. 9 or for a Private Notice Question to be asked, in a sense it puts the individual Member in an intolerable position, because he will have to judge whether the matter he seeks to raise is of such importance that it should hold up the discussion on this very important Bill.
We have made our protests that the five days which are being allocated are not sufficient time to enable us to give all the Amendments serious consideration. If a Private Notice Question were to be asked or an Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 granted, from the five days we should be taking the three hours, the six hours, or the nine hours, as the case may be.

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I accept that it is a good thing that hon. Members should not apply for a Private Notice Question or for a debate under Standing Order No. 9 without the case being very urgent and compelling. It is a good thing that this fact is brought to the attention of hon. Members. What this will also do is place on Mr. Speaker the intolerable burden, not only of having to decide whether to grant a debate under Standing Order No. 9, but also to weigh in the balance how far he will be the servant of the House in allowing a debate under Standing Order No. 9. It places Mr. Speaker and hon. Members in an invidious position.
I hope that the matter can be cleared up by the Leader of the House. It is impossible to go further than the Motion, which allows us on the fifth day only the possibility of a debate under Standing Order No. 9, but then the proceedings would be pushed forward by three hours. Some of my hon. Friends may be able to enlighten me as to whether there can be more than one Standing Order No. 9 debate on any one day. If it is possible for there to be two or three debates under Standing Order No. 9 on one day, on the fifth allotted day the debate on the Bill could be postponed for as long as nine hours which would mean that we would be discussing all through the night the Bill the important points of which we are only now beginning to see. I hope that the House will reject the Motion.
4.26 p.m.
Mr. Cranley Onslow: Two things are clear. First, the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) arrived at the House today with a lengthy speech, carefully written out, which she was determined to read. She read it. The whole House must now hope that she feels better for having read it. I do not believe that it was a contribution to a debate. It was immensely predictable and largely repetitive, and we have heard batches of it before.
Second, she had the mortification of delivering her speech to benches on her side which were almost totally silent, except for one dutiful "Hear, hear" uttered by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). She had the extra mortification of having to listen to an additional point
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raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes), which had apparently been overlooked by her.
The right hon. Lady's speech today cannot be counted as one of the greatest triumphs of her parliamentary career, and it is best forgotten on that account. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House commended the Motion to the House as one which would be supported by all fair-minded hon. Members, he was right. No one who before she spoke would have judged the right hon. Lady to be fair-minded would have put her in that category when she sat down. By these criteria, it is clear that this is a Motion which the House should support.
4.27 p.m.
Mr. John Golding: During the course of this year, many of my hon. Friends and I have had to argue with our trade union colleagues in the country that they should not take industrial action in opposition to a political matter. We have told them that the importance in this issue Is that of letting Parliament discuss the issue democratically. We have dissuaded them from taking industrial action on the ground that elected representatives would have the opportunity of discussing the Bill and expressing their opinions of it and of voting on the provisions of the Bill.
Neither of those conditions can prevail. We shall not be able to vote on each of the Lords Amendments, nor will it be possible for us to speak on all of them. I do not share the cynicism of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd), who discounts the voting procedure in the House entirely by saying that, because of pairing arrangements, the result is always known in advance. If that attitude were to prevail, we might as well, after a General Election, forget voting in the House until the next General Election. This is a nonsensical argument. We on this side think that we owe it to our trade union colleagues, whose feelings are so high, to have the right to vote on the Clauses in the Bill. But this Motion will deprive us of the opportunity.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted my view of the rubber-stamp philosophy. It is not my idea that the House should not vote between one

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election and another but that it should vote a substantial number of times on a substantial number of issues, and that is all.
Mr. Golding: A number of my hon. Friends want to pursue that point but I think that the hon. Gentleman himself has seen the absurdity of his argument and that is why he has made this qualification, for which I thank him.
If there are no speeches on the Government side, we on this side of the House will have four minutes per Amendment and we do not, in these circumstances, believe that we can go back to our trade union rank and file and tell them honestly that we have debated the Bill as thoroughly as we should have done. For these reasons, I oppose the Motion very strongly.
4.31 p.m.
Mr. Tom King: We seem to be embarking on a self-elongating exercise in that every speaker provokes two from the other side into replying.
I can only endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls). [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is he?"] Those of us who spent so many hours on the Bill earlier in this House can see the same process evolving again. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) quotes yet again the statistic of four minutes per Lords Amendment. We all know perfectly well that many of the Lords Amendments are the fruits of our own earlier efforts in this House, while another batch are consequential. It is bogus for hon. Members opposite to approach the subject in that way.
I believe that if we were making proper use of our time, we would not be spending so long on the Lords Amendments but would be debating the Code of Industrial Practice, and I am disappointed that there has not been more information from the Opposition about the possibility of debating the code. The best use of our time would be by genuinely attempting to create the best possible Act out of these provisions. I appreciate that a number of hon. Members still wish to speak on the Motion, but I hope that we can now get down to debating the Lords Amendments and constructively applying ourselves to creating the best possible final result.
4.33 p.m.
Mr. Stanley Orme: It is interesting to note that some of the lectures by hon. Members opposite to which we have been subjected have been brief and that the lecturers, having made their points, have left the Chamber. The question of how many hon. Members have been in attendance in the House has been raised. The table is now reversed in the light of the number of hon. Members opposite compared with the number of hon. Members present on this side of the House. It is somewhat odd that the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) should lecture us about the Bill, since one does not remember him taking part in the debates earlier, apart from the equity debates. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King) knows that this is true because he took part in the Committee and Report stages in a serious manner.
We regard this Bill as very serious indeed. We reject its philosophy. We have opposed it as strongly as we could and will continue to oppose it. No one can level charges at us that debate has not been carried on in a parliamentary way. I believe that it has, indeed, been a credit to Parliament itself—almost too creditable in view of the manner in which the Government have introduced and forced the Bill through.
We in this House were unable to discuss very many important Clauses in detail. Indeed, it was left to a non-elected Chamber to discuss the basic points about agency shops and so forth. The Lords Amendments are now back here, but we still cannot discuss in detail many of the basic facts. We shall have to attach our arguments to some of the Amendments and not have the frontal debates that we wanted. The result is that when the Bill finally reaches the Statute Book large sections of it will not have been debated properly by the elected assembly of the country, and that is a disgrace.
The hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Ian Lloyd) and the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow)—who has also left the Chamber—have criticised the voting procedure. When we were deprived of the right of discussing this Bill properly, many of us felt that we had to register every form of constitutional opposition, and we exercised

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our right of voting. If the truth were only known—and perhaps the Leader of the House and the Government Chief Whip could tell us—the restriction to voting only on the Amendments involving privilege has been brought about because back-benchers opposite revolted and insisted that there shall be no voting during these five days.
Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I can correct the hon. Gentleman. The suggestion that there will be no voting during these five days is not correct. Whenever an Amendment is reached and a Division is desired on it, there will be a vote.
Mr. Orme: I accept that point. We shall be able to vote seriatum as we go through the Amendments, but nevertheless we shall be debarred from voting on a very large number of them.
Mr. Tom King: I specifically exclude the hon. Gentleman from the comment that I am about to make. He feels strongly about the right to exercise his vote, but do not the voting figures of the last day of the Bill in this House before it went to the Lords show that an awful lot of hon. Members opposite do not feel as strongly as he does?
Mr. Orme: We registered our votes, but whether the voting be one or 630 no one has the right to deny the opportunity to vote to hon. Members. It is an antidemocratic proposal. It says, in effect, "Do not let us vote because we want to get on with business." We see this sort of tendency under all Governments. Hon. Members opposite should guard their constitutional rights a little more carefully. I would point out to them that, assuming the proposal to join the Common Market is carried in the substantive vote on 28th October, we shall then have a year of legislation to implement that decision. What if the Leader of the House introduces legislation to curtail the democratic rights of the House? What will some hon. Members opposite do then? They know very well that voting habits are not fixed from the time one enters this House until the next election. Indeed, many hon. Members opposite abstained on certain Amendments during the Committee and Report stages of the Bill in this House. One or two hon. Gentlemen opposite told me that for cer-
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tain reasons they had not supported certain Amendments. The hon. Gentleman is trying to deprive us of the opportunity of expressing our opinions and upholding parliamentary democracy.
Mr. Ian Lloyd: What the hon. Gentleman is saying is that if we are to have what is virtually an infinity of legislation we must have an infinity of time. That is not possible. All I am saying is that we have to choose between a maximum of discussion and a maximum of voting. Surely the House and the country want a maximum of discussion?
Mr. Orme: Certainly we want a maximum of discussion. That is what we are trying to get on this controversial Measure. When the Bill was introduced we pointed out that the 1906 Act, which contains only five Sections, took the best part of a parliamentary year to get through Parliament. This Measure involves vital constitutional matters. That is why it has been taken on the Floor of the House. It is creating a new high court. It is creating precedents and new laws, and the House has not been able properly to debate the issues involved. One cannot get round that fact.
It is not a question of wasting time on pinpricks or small matters of detail. Every word of the Bill, when it becomes law, may well have to be tested in the courts. These matters will have to be discussed outside the House. When the trade union movement sees the whole issue reduced to a farce in the House, why should its members take notice of legislation to which they are bitterly opposed? They know that their opinions have not been properly presented in the House.
The hon. Member for Bridgwater need not exclude me from his criticisms. All my hon. Friends who have taken part in the debate on the Bill are a credit to the Labour Party, and the fight that we have put up is one of the best parliamentary fights that has ever been seen in the House.
Mr. Tom King: The hon. Gentleman knows why I excluded him. I think he felt the strength of his principles so strongly that he wished to vote on every occasion, as did many of my hon. Friends, but he will note from a study of the

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majorities that he was not adequately supported by many of his hon. Friends.
Mr. Orme: I am satisfied with the action taken by my hon. Friends who voted throughout the night and the morning. I am satisfied, too, that those of my hon. Friends who were not here were absent on the direct instructions of the Labour Party. I am convinced that those who stayed here to carry on the fight did so out of a sense of conviction. I am satisfied with the fight that my Parliamentary colleagues put up before, and I know that they will continue it.
What worries me is a remark that I heard during the Committee stage of the Bill. During one of the all-night sittings I heard a Conservative Member say to a group of his hon. Friends, "This situation is intolerable. We are the boss party, why are we putting up with it?". That is the attitude to which we are opposed. That is what we are going to fight.
I took part in the struggle against the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, which my Government introduced. I should take just as strong action again if I were on that side of the House and thought that parliamentary democracy and institutions were being removed. I am not expressing the view that I am today merely because I am on this side of the House. I expressed much the same view when I was on the benches opposite, and I shall express that kind of view again if once more I find myself on the benches opposite and it is necessary to do so.
This is not just a fiddling debate about an unimportant matter. This Motion is the final act of a guillotine procedure that has operated in the House since the Bill was first introduced. We are opposed to this Measure in principle. We shall discuss the Amendments as far as we can, and as economically as we can. We are determined to fight to the very end for what we consider to be our rights.
I said in the absence of the Patronage Secretary that it was the pressure from his hon. Friends behind him that had brought about this change in voting procedure. If we cannot speak and we cannot vote, we are in the position of being a rubber-stamp Parliament, and it is that to which I am opposed. Those who are
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showing indignation about this issue this afternoon are doing so because they regard this matter as extremely important. The Bill will affect millions of working people. It will affect their working lives. It will affect democratic institutions which have been fought for, created and nurtured over the last century and a half. My hon. Friends and I are not going to allow to go through this House this sort of Measure, this sort of guillotine Motion, this sort of farce. That is why we are opposing it this afternoon, and we shall continue to oppose it until the Measure is removed from the Statute Book.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): I think that perhaps I should acquaint the House with the fact that, as far as I know, both the time-pieces of the House are right now.
4.47 p.m.
Mr. John Nott (St. Ives): As a member of what the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) calls the boss party, I can understand the hon. Gentleman getting very heated on this issue because these are, after all,
"matters of great importance to the vested interests which are financing the campaign which is currently being launched in the country against the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th March, 1968; Vol. 760, c. 1748.]
I am quoting the words of the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) during the debate on the Allocation of Time Motion on the Transport Bill. I would not myself cast such aspersions across the Floor of the House.
As an hon. Member who foddered the Lobby throughout the course of the Bill, and as this is the first occasion on which I have spoken on it, I thought it might be appropriate if I were to say a few words in its concluding stages.
I think that it has been a very worthwhile political exercise. Why hon. Gentlemen opposite should complain when they are given five days by the Government in which to re-create unanimity in the Labour Party, I fail to understand. There is evidence enough from the short debate that we have had already that five days will be more than enough to re-create happiness and harmony in the Labour Party on this and other important issues. Also, if I may say so, the right hon. Lady will have further opportunities during these five days on which once again to

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stand on her head and thereby give further precedents and examples to her leader, the Leader of the Opposition.
I cannot understand why hon. Gentlemen opposite should complain after my right hon. Friend has given the noble Lords plenty to do to occupy their time at night by considering Government Amendments. What would the noble Lords have been doing during the long summer nights had they not had more than 300 Amendments to debate in the other place?
The hon. Member for Salford, West mentioned the Parliament (No. 2) Bill. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote one passage from the speech of the former Member for the Cities of London and Wesminster during that debate. Mr. John Smith said of the House of Lords:
"It is an illusion that it will have any power.ߪ It is much betterߪ to settle down to the ideaߪ that it is a highgrade debating society, or Press Conference.ߪ It is in a way a high-class version of Speakers' Corner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1969; Vol. 781, c. 262–3.]
Perhaps the hon. Member for Salford, West is right. Perhaps this is what the House of Commons could become should we enter the E.E.C. We shall be watching the Government on this matter. But I am sure that the Leader of the House does not need to be lectured by the hon. Member about the problems which he will have when the long Bill to ratify the regulations comes before the House. We are all conscious of the parliamentary and procedural difficulties which that will create. So I am sure that my right hon. Friends need no warnings on that score.
Five full days is plenty of time in which to debate the Lords Amendments; the Government have been very generous.
Mr. Heffer: Has the hon. Gentleman actually looked, for example, at Amendment No. 301, which raises the whole question of redundancy payments? This is a Bill within a Bill and would require at least two days debate and Amendment itself.
Mr. Nott: The right hon. Lady also mentioned Amendment No. 301, which is certainly interesting and important. But I am sure that my hon. Friends will not interfere if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to have practically the whole of one day on a particular Clause
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within the guillotine Motion. [Interruption.] That is reasonable: right hon. and hon. Gentlemen can do that. He will have a whole day, if he so wishes, to debate Amendment No. 301.
The Opposition are
"… panting for a martydom in a great cause, demanding to sit all night."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 14th March, 1968; Vol. 760, c. 1746.]
Again I quote the right hon. Lady in her allocation of time Motion on the Transport Bill. We have been around this course on several ocasions——
Mr. Harold Walker: Was the Transport Bill guillotined on Lords Amendments?
Mr. Nott: I was merely quoting from the right hon. Lady's words.
We have been round this course on several occasions. We are all convinced of the sincerity of hon. Members opposite, just as we are convinced of the intellecutal integrity and sincerity of the Shadow Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition on the Common Market. I am convinced of it, of course, but I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to debate Lords Amendment for more than five days. They do not wish to be here all summer. In the circumstances, five days is perfectly adequate for the Amendments to be properly discussed.
4.53 p.m.
Mr. James Sillars: We have had three flippant and superficial speeches from the party opposite. We had one from the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), who is clever enough to know exactly what he was doing and to know that he was evading the central core of my right hon. Friend's argument with the Leader of the House. We had the speech of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), who said that the performances of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) today was not one of her greatest parliamentary triumphs. His own performance was hardly a glittering success. And we have just heard the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), who again has evaded our central argument.
The hon. Member for Peterborough gave us a lecture, and then left the classroom—and we have not seen him since. He accused us first of histrionics this

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afternoon and, more important, of wasting time in Committee. It is a fault of all of us—we all think that all other hon. Members waste time but never ourselves. It is certainly a fault inherent in the hon. Member for Peterborough.
I remember the Equity debate. I said that I did not object to the House spending a considerable time arguing about roughly 20,000 people, but I was most concerned that, having argued about 20,000, we should have no time to argue about another 10 or 20 million people. The hon. Member for Peterborough took up at least 30 minutes in that debate and would have been prepared to argue over and over again on something which he was most concerned. We have disciplined our speeches very well, which is more than can be said about some hon. Members opposite.
There are arguments about guillotines. I have only been here a year and a half, and I have experienced one or two guillotine debates. There are always arguments. I do not believe that they are synthetic, because the Opposition, whatever their political complexion, are bound to argue that they are not getting enough time. Any Opposition will argue that genuinely. But that is not my concern. I want to bring the Leader of the House back to the central point—the important issue of the massive new precedent that the House of Commons is not allowed to vote individually if it so chooses.
Mr. Whitelaw: I accept the hon. Member's point. When he says that this is a new precedent, he is wrong. It has been done on two occasions before, and I gave the precedents. I admit, as I did at the start, that both were under Conservative Governments, but it is not right to say that this is a new precedent.
Mr. Sillars: I accept that factual correction and would point out that we have had these dangerous precedents only under a Conservative Government. I notice that the Labour Party Chief Whip is in the Chamber now. I would say to him and to anyone else who is in the next Labour Government that, no matter what precedents are settled this afternoon, the next Labour Government should not be tempted to operate this provision.
I give my right hon. Friend notice that it, at any time, we attempt to introduce
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a Motion of this sort, I will vote against it. I regard it as very important—[Laughter.] I am not making a joke: this is very important. Governments can be of different complexions and have different majorities. If we give any Government the right to present the House of Commons and their supporters with a package deal of this sort, we would be giving an administration far too much power.
Mr. Tom King: I speak with all the extra wisdom and seniority of having been one week longer in this place than the hon. Member. I was intrigued that, in his right hon. Friend's great denunciation, there was no equally firm announcement that this procedure would never ever be invoked by a possible future Labour Administration.
Mr. Sillars: However unhappy it may make me, I cannot commit a Labour Government on this or a number of other things. I can only say what I believe. We are all politicians of varying experience, and not many politicians would commit to themselves as categorically as I have done on this issue. I repeat—if a Labour Government tried to do what the Tories are trying to do today, I would vote against them on a democratic principle.
I urge hon. Gentlemen oposite to bear in mind what I said about Governments sometimes having small majorities. I urge them to think twice about the way they vote tonight because the time may come when they will have to vote on a package of decisions taken by their Government when they may not approve of the entire package. The Government are set on a dangerous course and this is why I will vote against them.
I noticed that when my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn was speaking about the danger of these precedents the Leader of the House showed concern. It has been said in the Press that the right hon. Gentleman has the most expressive face in politics. I am not being discourteous in saying that. We have found it to be one of his most helpful and endearing features.
When his Cabinet colleagues sit stone-faced—when we were not sure whether the Prime Minister bankrupt Rolls-Royce as a matter of policy—we are able to look at the face of the Leader of the

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House and know current feeling in the Cabinet. We want an assurance that the Conservatives will never again be tempted to use this undemocratic procedure.
5.2 p.m.
Mr. J. R. Kinsey: It is clear that the central core of this discussion is the desire of hon. Gentlemen opposite to vote. I, too, am jealous of my right to vote, and my record in this matter is there for all to see.
On the last night of the Committee stage of the Industrial Relations Bill I voted on every Amendment. I walked through the Lobby throughout the night and during the following morning. We should bear in mind the tactics of hon. Gentlemen opposite on that occasion. It was a propaganda and disruptive exercise on which they were engaged—[Interruption.]—because half their number were off duty.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have a peculiar sense of democracy. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) admitted that only 50 per cent. of her colleagues were voting. That is the sort of part-time democracy we get from the Labour Party. Fifty per cent. of them voted for 50 per cent. of the time, whereas, with many of my hon. Friends, I was here the whole time while they called the tune.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I was under the impression that we were working double time.
Mr. Kinsey: We were, but even when we are working one-quarter of the time, that looks like double time compared with hon. Gentlemen opposite. [HON. MEMBERS: "Get on."]
We were told that hon. Gentlemen opposite would oppose the Bill line by line. What a miserable job they made of doing that. If the unions contributed to their party by results, they would get part-time contributions.
Mr. Paul B. Rose: As we were given no alternative but to vote in that way, may I ask the hon. Gentleman how else we could have made our opposition to the Bill manifest? Is he aware, therefore, that the Government, rather than the Opposition were calling the tune?
Mr. Kinsey: We are now giving the hon. Gentleman a different opportunity, and he should grasp it with both hands. He and his hon. Friends were embarrassed sufficiently on that occasion. We had large majorities and won hands down every time, showing up the sleepy Opposition.
5.6 p.m.
Mr. J. D. Concannon: That was one of the most frivolous speeches I have heard since coming to Parliament. It is clear that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Kinsey) does not understand the position. I urge him to read a few books or consult some of his senior hon. Friends.
Mr. Kinsey Mr. Kinsey rose——
Mr. Concannon: Sit down. I have not started yet.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friends were extremely genuine that night. Indeed, I had quite a job calling a halt to the voting. Many of my hon. Friends would have gladly gone on for much longer in an effort to prevent the Bill going through. I had to order quite a lot of them to call it a day. The question of majorities aside, we simply must have the chance to register our disapproval and objection to Government policy, if that is the step we wish to take.
One might get the impression from the remarks of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), the hon. Member for Perry Barr and others that we were filibustering. I recall the unique occasion when I had to move the Closure because it was only too obvious that hon. Gentlemen opposite were filibustering. If I had moved it five minutes earlier we would have won because the Government majority on that occasion was down to two. In other words, what matters is the opportunity for individual hon. Members to register their votes and not the size of the majority.
I have had some responsibility in handling the Bill on this side. There have been many occasions when I should have liked to have spoken. I spoke once and left it at that because I wanted to allow more time for my hon. Friends. In view of the guillotine, I wished to set a good example.
I have been asked why the Prime Minister did not guillotine the Bill in

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the House of Lords—from where, incidentally, this new proposal undoubtedly comes—and the answer is simple. The right hon. Gentleman could not find a way to do it. The Prime Minister has set his masculinity on getting this Measure through Parliament within a certain time, come hell or high water, no matter the democratic needs of Parliament.
I wish to be brief and I give no secrets away in saying that there is a guillotine on my speech. I am anxious that my hon. Friends should have an opportunity to speak. I recall that when we were in power the Conservatives were continually telling us to be fair. In endeavouring to be fair, we often leaned over backwards and hammered our own supporters. I am now beginning to learn a few things from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are teaching me some bitter lessons. I am taking them in. Some day we on the Opposition Benches will be on the Government Benches, and my right hon. Friends will be on the Government Front Bench. I hope that they are all taking in these lessons. I shall not be as soft as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars)——
Mr. Sillars: I assure my hon. Friend that I have no intention of being soft on policy, but if one is a democrat one sticks to democratic principles on procedure as well.
Mr. Concannon: That is fair enough, but I do not like running my head against a brick wall. I do not complain about guillotines, because the Executive at times must use them, but only sparingly and wisely. The Government are not using the guillotine wisely today by setting this precedent of voting in globo. We shall remember this precedent, as we shall many other precedents set by this Administration. When we are in Government hon. Gentlemen must not come crying to us with synthetic indignation. Our indignation on this Bill is not synthetic.
Amendment No. 301 was slipped into the Bill at 2.30 one morning in another place. The right hon. Gentleman has had a fast one worked on him by the Department of Social Security. The Amendment has no business in the Bill and the Department of Social Security has done as much damage as it can. It
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is disgraceful, but I will have my say on that when the Amendment is discussed. In case it is not discussed, I will get in my main point now. The only argument used for the Amendment was that it was at the request of the National Coal Board. The Government do not realise what they are doing to 65-year-old miners, and if this is the last act of Alf Robens at the National Coal Board I shall make sure it goes on his tombstone.
5.13 p.m.
Mr. Harold Walker: My hon. Friends have chastised and rebuked quite properly, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), who I regret after an intemperate speech has left the Chamber, and the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King). I will not cover the same ground, except to identify the Front Bench with the condemnation the hon. Gentlemen deserve, particularly the hon. Member for Peterborough for his splenetic outburst. It is deeply offensive to my hon. Friends and to me, with our clear recollection of the events in Committee and on Report, that we of all people should be accused of time-wasting and filibustering. When my right hon. Friend was Chief Whip, to the great irritation of my hon. Friends he went round telling them to shut up, and was to be seen leaning across to the Solicitor-General saying "Get up", so that we could wind up the debates. The entire Report stage was occupied with the Government's new Clauses and it ill lies in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite to condemn us.
One of the crucial Amendment debates was on Clause 5, which deals with the closed shop. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) said to me, "Harold, you do it". I said that I would take 15 minutes on it, and she said, "No you will not, you will do it in 12 minutes", and I took no more than 12 minutes. That is in sharp contrast to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the night before, which lasted for 50 minutes. When we contrast the length of the speeches which alternated between the two sides of the House, we see that we behaved with great restraint.
This is the first guillotine debate in which I have participated and I sincerely hope it will be the last. It is a sad and sorry business that discredits Parliament.

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In Committee and on Report parliamentary democracy was reduced to mere head-counting, but now, when we consider the Lords Amendments, there will not even be head-counting. No wonder parliamentary democracy is discredited.
The need to introduce a guillotine Motion to enable the House to deal with the enormous number of Lords Amendments proves two things. It proves, first, that the Bill was conceived in haste and was dedicated to the proposition that all trade unionists should be clobbered and, secondly, that the Bill is far too long. I know this point always arises when guillotine Motions are introduced, but the Bill could have been sub-divided into separate Bills running parallel through the House, so that Parliament could have dealt with them properly. If we were to allow this monstrous steamroller to go through without massive protest, it would be a clear indicator to every Minister that the way to get through the House a controversial Bill would be to make it as long as possible by padding it out. Ministers could then say to the House that because of the enormous length of the Bill and the need to get it through during the Parliamentary Session they would have to introduce a guillotine Motion. This is an affront to parliamentary democracy.
I wonder how many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have studied the Bill itself, apart from the Amendments. I spent two years at the Department of Employment and Productivity and for the whole of my adult life before then I was involved with industrial relations, but the enoromus complexities of the Bill demand of me hours and hours of study. Adequate time is needed to get to grips with what is involved but, instead, discussion of far-reaching and fundamental issues is to be crammed into five days. There are Amendments which raise issues of greater consequence than some of the matters which have recently been allocated a whole day's debate.
Reference has been made to Amendment No. 301, but what about the monstrous constitutional issue of the proscription of political strikes? In the ordinary way that would be the subject of a Bill on its own, which would be a source of major controversy and pro-
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longed debate, but we are expected to let this proposal go through at the snap of our fingers, perhaps on the nod late at night, and never debated.
It has been pointed out that only on three occasions since the war have Lords Amendments been subject to a guillotine Motion and that on each occasion they were Tory Government Bills. What distinguishes this occasion from the two precedents is the far-reaching, fundamental and biased transformation that the Bill makes in our industrial relations system. Because it is biased, because it reflects the hostility of the State towards one section of the community, those who are on the receiving end, and their representatives in Parliament have a right to protest. But the Government want to stifle even the screams of protest. The Government must not underrate the strength and depth of feeling on this side of the House about the denial of the right to vote on these issues. By voting we should declare our opposition to our friends outside and to the community at large and our view would be on record.
At earlier stages of the Bill it was doubly insulting for some of us to be told, "You did not oppose the matter at the time", when all that happened was that we did not oppose for the sake of making progress. We merely decided not to move certain Amendments, and it will be remembered how many times we did that.
We repeatedly pointed out during earlier stages that if this Bill were passed we would be paving the way to the creation of a corporate state. This view has been more than confirmed by the fears which have been expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn. I believe that the approach of the Government, which has led to a stifling of discussion and denial of free expression in the House, is the sort of philosophy which led to the eventual destruction of the German and Italian corporate states. Therefore, we shall vote against this Motion tonight.
5.22 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr): I hope that it will be convenient for the House if I deal first with what would be the situation following a Standing Order No. 9 debate, which was a matter raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes)

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and also by the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). I can confirm that there is nothing in this procedure to prevent a Standing Order No. 9 debate on any of the five allotted days. A Standing Order No. 9 debate could take place on any of those days.
However, there is a difference between what could happen in the first four days and on the fifth day. On the first four of the five allotted days, if Mr. Speaker were to allow a Standing Order No. 9 debate on the day on which the subject was raised, that is to say at 7 o'clock in the evening—which Mr. Speaker normally does only in regard to matters of gravity and immediate importance—the time taken up by such a Standing Order No. 9 debate would be added after midnight for our debates on the Bill.
If, however, Mr. Speaker were to follow the more normal practice nowadays of granting time for a Standing Oder No. 9 debate on the following day at the beginning of business, the time taken by that debate would not be allowed after midnight. However, if a Standing Order No. 9 debate were to take place on the fifth day, whether at the beginning of the proceedings or at 7 o'clock, the extra time would be added after midnight.
Mrs. Castle: Does not this mean that if on three of the five allotted days any hon. Member wants to exert his normal rights and seek to obtain a Standing Order No. 9 debate, which is taken in the usual way the following day, he will be able to do so only by robbing other hon. Members of the right to discuss this Bill in the time which the Government say is appropriate for it?
Mr. Carr: The right hon. Lady is quite right. On the other hand, if Mr. Speaker regarded the matter as sufficiently urgent and important, he could grant the debate the same evening and in those circumstances the debate on the Lords Amendments would carry on after midnight. The House must look at that provision in the context of the number of days which have been given to Lords Amendments to this Bill. I feel that by any standards the time allowed is reasonable.
Mr. Robert Hughes: What is the situation in regard to time taken by Private Notice Questions?
Mr. Carr: They are not affected by this Motion in any way.
Mrs. Castle: May we be clear as to the net time likely to be taken by Private Notice Questions and statements? We are now in the last few days of the parliamentary Session when all sorts of issues tend to be raised as matters of urgency, since this is the last chance to do so. If such matters are raised, then the amount of time allotted by the Government to this Bill will be reduced by that amount. Is that not a fact?
Mr. Carr: The right hon. Lady is right that the time taken by a Private Notice Question or statements would not be added after midnight—any more than they have ever been in any other guillotine Motion introduced by the Labour Party when in Government and by the Conservative Party when we were previously in power. We are therefore following a perfectly normal procedure.
I come to one of the main issues in the debate, the denial of the right to vote on individual Amendments after the guillotine falls. I notice that the Opposition has taken great care to avoid giving any commitment that they themselves would not follow this precedent if they were ever in power. If the right hon. Lady would like to give such a binding commitment for her Party for the future, I should be delighted to give way to her.
Mrs. Castle: If we were to give such an undertaking, would the right hon. Gentleman withdraw this timetable Motion?
Mr. Carr: Certainly not. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I am answering the question, which is more than the right hon. Lady did. We have tabled this Motion and are standing by it. Since the right hon. Lady and her hon. Friends seem to take such objection to this feature, I am giving her the opportunity to say that the Labour Government will never do this in future.
Mrs. Castle: This is a matter of great seriousness to Parliament. The Labour Government have never introduced such a procedure to gag Parliament and prevent voting. Can we not make a bargain on both sides of the House? We think that this is bad for Parliament and that neither of us should do this. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to respond.
Mr. Carr: This has never been done, except in regard to Lords Amendments. But it has been done before on Lords Amendments, and we are doing it again. I notice that the right hon. Lady is wriggling away. [Interruption.] She is refusing to say that the Labour Government would not do the same thing. We must leave it there.
I should like the House to consider the time allowed for the number and nature of the Amendments we have before us. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House in moving this Motion gave examples of other Lords Amendments on various Bills produced by both parties when in power. These showed that in comparison with those Bills the time allowed on this Bill is generous by any standards. My right hon. Friend gave chapter and verse on the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, of the first postwar Labour Government and the Transport Act, 1968, introduced by the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn. Both these examples show that the amount of time we are providing for consideration of Lords Amendments is more generous than has ever been the case in parliamentary history.
I have only three minutes to make my final remarks—[HON. MEMBERS: "Four minutes."] I understand that the clock is a minute slow. I should like to consider the Amendments which we have before us. There were 343 Amendments made to the Bill when it left the other place. Of these 44 were either proposed or supported by the Opposition in the other place. Again, 91 were Government Amendments specifically put forward to meet points coming from the Opposition and the cross-benches in another place. So there we have nearly 150 of the Amendments—not far short of half of them—designed to meet points put to the Government by the Opposition in both Houses.
Of the remaining half, or thereabouts, 32 are really nothing more than drafting Amendments. Another 18 are Government Amendments which, though significant
are not controversial. Only 21 basic Amendments are of a major controversial nature. There are 137 consequential Amendments, but only 21 are basic Amendments of a controversial nature.
We have five days in which to discuss these Amendments. The timetable Motion has been designed to allow maximum flexibility for debate, to give the right hon. Lady leading for the Opposition maximum opportunity to lead the debate and take the time which she, in the name of the Opposition, would wish to have in those five days.
We have here a period of time allocated which, in relation to the number of Amendments, is more generous than ever before, and also a form of timetable Motion which gives the maximum freedom to the Opposition to use the time as they think best. I believe that the House as a whole, and those who study our affairs outside, will regard this as a most reasonable time for the business before us. If we use that time constructively, we can in the coming five days, I believe, cover in a proper manner all the major points which the Opposition wish to discuss.
It must be remembered that, when this stage is concluded, the Bill will have had 56 days of parliamentary debate, occupying no less than 481 hours. In addition, we had a full one-day debate on the Consultative Document. I do not believe that in the history of our Parliament—certainly not in the history of any other Parliament—this can be said to be any sort of denial of democracy or be objected to in the kind of claptrap which we have heard from the Opposition this afternoon. By any standards, the Bill will have had adequate time for constructive and detailed debate, and it is without any doubt or lack of confidence that I commend the Motion to the House.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 308, Noes 263.

Division No. 439.]

AYES

[5.33 p.m.

Adley, Robert

Awdry, Daniel

Bell, Ronald

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Balniel, Lord

Benyon, W.

Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Berry, Hn. Anthony

Astor, John

Batsford, Brian

Biffen, John

Atkins, Humphrey

Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

Biggs-Davison, John

Blaker, Peter

Green, Alan

Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

Grieve, Percy

Miscampbell, Norman

Body, Richard

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

Boscawen, Robert

Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Bossom, Sir Clive

Grylls, Michael

Moate, Roger

Bowden, Andrew

Gummer, Selwyn

Molyneaux, James

Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

Gurden, Harold

Money, Ernle

Braine, Bernard

Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

Monro, Hector

Bray, Ronald

Hall, John (Wycombe)

Montgomery, Fergus

Brewis, John

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

Brinton, Sir Tatton

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Hannam, John (Exeter)

Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Mudd, David

Bruce-Cardyne, J.

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

Murton, Oscar

Bryan, Paul

Hastings, Stephen

Nabarro, Sir Gerald

Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

Havers, Michael

Neave, Airey

Buck, Antony

Hawkins, Paul

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Bullus, Sir Eric

Hay, John

Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Burden, F. A.

Hayhoe, Barney

Normanton, Tom

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

Nott, John

Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray&Nairn)

Hicks, Robert

Onslow, Cranley

Carlisle, Mark

Higgins, Terence L.

Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

Hiley, Joseph

Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

Cary, Sir Robert

Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

Osborn, John

Channon, Paul

Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

Chapman, Sydney

Holland, Philip

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

Holt, Miss Mary

Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

Chichester-Clark, R.

Hordern, Peter

Peel, John

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Hornby, Richard

Percival, lan

Clegg, Walter

Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

Cockeram, Eric

Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Cooke, Robert

Howell, David (Guildford)

Pink, R. Bonner

Coombs, Derek

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

Pounder, Rafton

Cooper, A. E.

Hunt, John

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

Cordle, John

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Iremonger, T. L.

Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

Cormack, Patrick

James, David

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Costain, A. P.

Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

Critchley, Julian

Jessel, Toby

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Crouch, David

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Raison, Timothy

Crowder, F. P.

Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

Curran, Charles

Jopling, Michael

Redmond, Robert

Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Rees, Peter (Dover)

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.James

Kershaw, Anthony

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Dean, Paul

Kilfedder, James

Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

Kimball, Marcus

Rhvs Williams, Sir Brandon

Digby, Simon Wingfield

King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

Dixon, Piers

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Ridsdaie, Julian

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

Kinsey, J. R.

Rinpon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrev

Drayson, G. B.

Kirk, Peter

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

Kitson, Timothy

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Dykes, Hugh

Knox, David

Rodgers. Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Eden, Sir John

Lane, David

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Russell, Sir Ronald

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

Rost, Peter

Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

Le Marchant, Spencer

Royle, Anthony

Emery, Peter

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Farr, John

Lloyd, Rt.Hn.Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

Fell, Anthony

Lloyd, lan (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

Scott, Nicholas

Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

Longden, Gilbert

Scott-Hopkins, James

Fidler, Michael

Longden, Gilbert

Sharples, Richard

Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

Loveridge, John

Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh ߪ Whitby)

Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

Luce, R. N.

Shelton, William (Clapham)

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Simeons, Charles

Fookes, Miss Janet

MacArthur, lan

Sinclair. Sir George

Fortescue, Tim

McCrindle, R. A.

Skeet, T. H. H.

Foster, Sir John

McLaren, Martin

Smith, Dudley (W'wick ߪ L'mington)

Fowler, Norman

Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

Soref, Harold

Fox, Marcus

McMaster, Stanley

Speed, Keith

Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford ߪ Stone)

Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

Spence, John

Fry, Peter

McNair-Wilson, Michael

Sproat, lain

Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Gardner, Edward

Maddan, Martin

Steel, David

Gibson-Watt, David

Madel, David

Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

Gilmour, lan (Norfolk, C.)

Maginnis, John E.

Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

Glyn, Dr. Alan

Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

Marten, Neil

Stokes, John

Goodhart, Philip

Mather, Carol

Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

Goodhew, Victor

Maude, Angus

Sutcliffe, John

Gorst, John

Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

Tapsell, Peter

Gower, Raymond

Mawby, Ray

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)

Gray, Hamish

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

616

617

Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

Tebbit, Norman

Viewers, Dame Joan

Wiggin, Jerry

Temple, John M.

Waddington, David

Wilkinson, John

Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

Walder, David (Clitheroe)

Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

Woodnutt, Mark

Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

Wall, Patrick

Worsley, Marcus

Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

Walters, Dennis

Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

Tilney, John

Ward, Dame Irene

Younger, Hn. George

Trafford, Dr. Anthony

Warren, Kenneth

Trew, Peter

Weatherill, Bernard

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Tugendhat, Christopher

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Mr. Reginald Eyre and

Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

White, Roger (Gravesend)

Mr. Jasper More.

van Straubenzee, W. R.

NOES

Abse, Leo

Eadie, Alex

Kerr, Russell

Albu, Austen

Edelman, Maurice

Kinnock, Neil

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Lambie, David

Allen, Scholefield

Edwards, William (Merioneth)

Lamond, James

Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

Ellis, Tom

Latham, Arthur

Ashley, Jack

English, Michael

Lawson, George

Ashton, Joe

Evans, Fred

Leadbitter, Ted

Atkinson, Norman

Faulds, Andrew

Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

Leonard, Dick

Barnes, Michael

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

Lestor, Miss Joan

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

Barnett, Joel

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

Beaney, Alan

Foot, Michael

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

Ford, Ben

Lipton, Marcus

Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

Forrester, John

Lomas, Kenneth

Bidwell, Sydney

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Loughlin, Charles

Bishop, E. S.

Freeson, Reginald

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Galpern, Sir Myer

Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

Boardman, H. (Leigh)

Garrett, W. E.

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Booth, Albert

Gilbert, Dr. John

McBride, Neil

Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

Ginsburg, David

McCann, John

Bradley, Tom

Golding, John

McCartney, Hugh

Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

Gourlay, Harry

McElhone, Frank

Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

McGuire, Michael

Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch ߪ F'bury)

Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

Mackenzie, Gregor

Buchan, Norman

Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

Mackie, John

Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

Mackintosh, John P.

Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Maclennan, Robert

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

Hamling, William

McNamara, J. Kevin

Cant, R. B.

Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

Carmichael, Neil

Hardy, Peter

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E)

Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfietd)

Harper, Joseph

Marks, Kenneth

Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Marquand, David

Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

Marsden, F.

Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

Hattersley, Roy

Marshall, Dr. Edmund

Cohen, Stanley

Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

Coleman, Donald

Heffer, Eric S.

Mayhew, Christopher

Concannon, J, D.

Hilton, W. S.

Meacher, Michael

Conlan, Bernard

Horam, John

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Mendelson, John

Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

Mikardo, Ian

Crawshaw, Richard

Huckfield, Leslie

Millan, Bruce

Cronin, John

Hushes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Miller, Dr. M. S.

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Milne, Edward (Blyth)

Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

Dalyell, Tam

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Molloy, William

Darling, Rt Hn. George

Hunter, Adam

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Davidson, Arthur

lrvine, Rt.Hn.SirArthur (Edge Hill)

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

Janner, Greville

Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Davits, Ifor (Gower)

Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H' b'n & St.P'cras, S.)

Murray, Ronald King

Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Ogden, Eric

Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

O'Halloran, Michael

Deakins, Eric

John, Brynmor

O'Mallcy, Brian

de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Oram, Bert

Delargy, H. J.

Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

Orme, Stanley

Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

Dempsey, James

Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

Padley, Walter

Doig, Peter

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Paget, R. T.

Dormand, J. D.

Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir EIwyn (W.Ham, S.)

Palmer, Arthur

Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

Parker, John (Dagenham)

Driberg, Tom

Judd, Frank

Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Kaufman, Gerald

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Dunnett, Jack

Kelley, Richard

Pendry, Tom

618

619

Pentland, Norman

Sillars, James

Wainwright, Edwin

Perry, Ernest G.

Silverman, Julius

Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg

Skinner, Dermis

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Prescott, John

Small, William

Wallace, George

Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

Spearing, Nigel

Watkins, David

Probert, Arthur

Spriggs, Leslie

Weitzman, David

Rankin, John

Stallard, A. W.

Wellbeloved, James

Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

Stoddart, David (Swindon)

White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

Rhodes, Geoffrey

Storehouse, Rt. Hn. John

Whitehead, Phillip

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Strang, Gavin

Whitlock, William

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n & R'dnor)

Swain, Thomas

Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

Taverne, Dick

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Roper, John

Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

Rose, Paul B.

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

Sandelson, Neville

Tinn, James

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Tomney, Frank

Woof, Robert

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

Torney, Tom

Short, Mrs. Reneé (W'hampton, N.E.)

Tuck, Raphael

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

Urwin, T. W.

Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

Varley, Eric G.

Mr. James A. Dunn.

Ordered,
That the Order [25th January] be supplemented as follows:—
1. The Proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments shall be completed in five allotted days, and shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion at midnight on the fifth of those days.
2. In accordance with the Order [25th January], paragraph 6 of that Order (which relates to dilatory motions), paragraph 7 of that Order (which relates to extra time on allotted days), paragraph 8 of that Order (which relates to motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at the commencement of public business), paragraph 9 of that Order (which relates to private business), and so much of paragraph 14 of that Order as relates to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall have effect in relation to the Proceedings mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order.
3.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order, if those Proceedings have not previously been brought to a conclusion, Mr. Speaker shall proceed forthwith to put the following Questions (but no others), that is to say,—

(a) Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion. That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

620

(b) Mr. Speaker shall designate such (if any) of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall then forthwith—

(i) put the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments except those designated by Mr. Speaker or, if none of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, in all the remaining Lords Amendments, and

(ii) if any of the remaining Lords Amendments have been so designated, put separately, with respect to each of those Amendments so designated, the Question on any Motion, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
(3) If, on the fifth of the allotted days mentioned in paragraph 1 of this Order, a Motion is made under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration), the bringing to a conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.
4. In paragraph 11 of the Order [25th January] (which relates to Supplemental Orders) any reference to that Order shall be construed as including a reference to this Order.
5. In this Order 'the Bill' means the Industrial Relations Bill and 'allotted day' means any day (not being a Friday, but including the day on which this Order is made) on which the Bill is put down as the first Government Order of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY]
  Lords Amendments considered.

  INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL
    Clause 1

      GENERAL PRINCIPLES
      Lords Amendment: No. 1, in page 1, line 10, leave out "and responsibly conducted" and insert:
      "conducted on behalf of workers and employers and with due regard to the general interests of the community."
      5.45 p.m.
      The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      I need scarcely say anything in explanation of the Amendment. In Committee a number of points were raised by Opposition speakers who objected to the words
      "responsibly conducted".
      In another place the Opposition moved the Amendment to meet the point, and the Government were happy to accept that Amendment. It certainly met our requirements, and appeared also to meet the Opposition's objections. I therefore hope that without more ado the House will be able to accept the Amendment.
      Mr. Eric S. Heffer: We do not wish to take up too much time on the Amendment. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was put forward by the Opposition in another place and accepted by the Government. But I should like to make one or two brief points, because we are reaching the closing stages of the Bill. It has been a long haul. Before we plunge into the detail of all the Amendments, we want to make it absolutely clear, as we have throughout, that we are totally opposed to the Bill. We shall continue to be opposed to it when it becomes an Act, and we shall want to get it off the Statute Book at the earliest possible moment.
      I should also like to say something about the Prime Minister's speech last Saturday at Gloucester, in which he claimed a great deal for the Bill. He amazingly claimed that it has been very
      622
      successful—before it has passed through all its stages here. That is not instant Government; it would be miraculous Government. He says that the Bill has already led to a reduction in the number of strikes. He also says that the reflation of the economy has come about as a result of a Bill which has not yet passed through the House. That would be miraculous Government, and we do not accept it. It is a fallacy, and we believe that the right hon. Gentleman knows it. The Bill has had no real effect on industrial relations, except in a negative sense, because workers opposed to it have been involved in industrial action in which they would not otherwise have been involved.
      We are considering an Opposition Amendment which was supported by the Liberals and accepted by the Government. But I want to make it absolutely clear, because of something the Secretary of State said in the previous debate on the guillotine Motion, that whilst we put forward certain Amendments in the other place, some of which were accepted, that did not mean that we accepted the Bill in principle. In other words, we were getting the best we could from the situation as it stood, and it is important that that should be absolutely clear. We shall not divide against the Amendment, but we accept it in the spirit which I have described—that it is not basically in line with what we want, but is the best that we can get in the circumstances.
      It must be understood that the trade union movement is part and parcel of the community as a whole. It represents 10 million working people out of the total population of just over 50 million, so it is one-fifth of the community. The general interests of the community are therefore very much in line with those of the trade union movement. We emphasise that, because too often it is suggested that the interests of the community and those of the trade union movement are different. The community is the trade union movement and when we are talking about the general interests of the community we are equally talking about the general interests of trade unionists as a whole.
      Mr. Stanley Orme: It is interesting to observe that the Amendment deletes the words "responsibly conducted" about which we had a long

      623
      philosophical debate at an early stage of the Bill. The Secretary of State then stoutly rejected our arguments. The debate ran for about eight or nine hours and was the forerunner of the guillotine which was introduced shortly afterwards. It is interesting to note that although concessions have been made on minor points, they were made in another place and the Secretary of State did not have the courtesy to make them here and to accept our arguments. We felt that we were addressing a blank wall because of his cavalier attitude to our suggestions.
      Mr. R. Carr: Did the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends move an Amendment remotely like that to which we have now agreed?
      Mr. Orme: We debated this principle and we debated the words "responsibly conducted", and one after another three eminent lawyers from both sides of the House gave different interpretations of the meaning of the words.
      Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that a different form of words had to be found to replace the word "responsibly"? The Opposition did not suggest an Amendment at the time—that is not a matter of complaint; they just did not. None of us at the time was able to find the correct legal formula to provide the meaning. This has now been done by saying that the workers and employers must pay due regard to the general interests of the community, which is another way of saying, "responsibly".
      Mr Orme: That is a lawyer's interpretation. I accept that these words say much the same thing.
      Mr. Harold Walker Mr. Harold Walker (Doncaster) I recall the debate very clearly, because I participated in it. It was not that we were seeking to find a synonym. While accepting in principle, as a matter of common sense and everyday behaviour, the need to behave responsibly and with due regard to the general interests of the community, we pointed out that such a pejorative word had no place in legislation, because it threw the onus to decide what was responsible behaviour on to a judicial body. Even in this case a court will still have to determine what is
      624
      in the general interests of the community. We said that it was wrong of the Government to do that. We said that the responsibility for determining what was in the general interests of the community rested with the Government and with Parliament.
      Mr. Orme: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Secretary of State asked whether we had sought to amend those words; we sought to delete them, as he will remember. We had a long debate on Clause 1, which contains much of the philosophy of the Bill to which we still completely object.
      I know that this Amendment was suggested in another place by supporters of my party, but one is entitled to ask what the Government mean by the interests of the community and who will define those interests. I remember the Wilber-force Committee throwing almost this definition in the face of the Government and saying that it was not for it to decide.
      Are the trade unions to take as a starting point in this exercise of determining what is in the general interests of the community the Government's actions in the last 12 months, actions which have sorted out the pay claims of workers in the public sector for special treatment, and the claim by the Post Office workers is a classic example?
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: And the engineers today?
      Mr. Orme: There was a U.P.W. strike which resulted in an award of 9 per cent., but the Post Office engineers are now awarded 13 per cent. In the U.P.W. now in a position to argue that there should be due regard to the general interests of the community? As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) said, the trade unionists are members of the community. The Government's actions on wage awards have been directly against the interests of members of the community.
      For instance, the Social Security Bill will abolish the three waiting days for unemployment benefit and industrial injury and sickness benefit, and that will affect millions of trade unionists. We shall later reach Amendment No. 301, which is one of the most pernicious to be inserted in another place. Are the general interests of the community duly

      625
      regarded when certain sections are singled out for special treatment, for the unfair treatment displayed by the Government in their attitude to public service employees and to social security benefits?
      6.0 p.m.
      It is all very well sending a Bill like this to the trade unions and using in Clause 1 words saying that the negotiations shall be
      "… conducted on behalf of workers and employers and with due regard to the general interests of the community."
      If that is so this Government are not setting a very good example. We have got to take this into account and I hope that the Minister does not think that this loss of words and the acceptance of the Amendment in another place absolves the Government from the responsibility for this pernicous legislation, this anti-social legislation which discriminates against sections of workers. This does not take into account the general interests of the community but gives preferential treatment to some and discriminates against others.
      Clause 1 is the philosophical base of the Bill. The Amendment has not improved the Bill because the Government's policies are so wrong. If the Government think they can get away with such phraseology and climb on to the band-wagon they are mistaken.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I did not intend to intervene in the debate at this point but I feel that I must say a word of rejection of what the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) has said about the Minister being like a brick wall. In Committee no Minister was more careful in the consideration he gave to the cases made by the Opposition as well as by his own back benchers. The very length of the number of Amendments accepted by the Government is a sign of this. The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) drew attention, in another context, to the very large number of Amendments. This is a vindication of the way in which the Minister has kept a receptive ear and it is a total rejection of the comments by the hon. Member.
      Mr. Kevin McNamara: I apologise to the Secretary of State for being a few minutes late when
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      he opened the debate. Having heard what the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) has said I must confess that whatever consideration the right hon. Gentleman gave to our Amendment, that consideration always ended up with a flat "No". The only Amendment we wanted was that the Bill should be taken out completely. With regard to this new phrase
      "… with due regard to the general interests of the community"
      I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme). He said that the Government had paid no attention to the interests of the community recently. They have. They have just conducted negotiations with the Six and capitulated to them. Apart from the community if we look at this term
      "… the general interests of the community"
      who I ask is to distinguish between the person as a member of society and say that his desire to improve his living standards and those of his family is against the general interests of the community? Who will be the arbiter of the general interests of the community?
      It should not be the trade unions or the employer. The person who decides what is in the general interests of the community must be the government of the day and not a person who is introducing the negotiations. He looks to what is in the interests of his members and identifies his members with the community as a whole and negotiates in their interests.
      This Amendment is no better than what we had before. To say that the negotiations must be conducted responsibly or in the proper interests of the community is all very well. Every trade union negotiator who knows his business presents his claim responsibly. Everyone goes in with the interests of the community at heart, because they see the interests of their members as part and parcel of the community. These words neither improve nor help the Bill. They are a nonsense.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I too, did not intend to intervene but I wish to say this briefly, once and for all. We have listened to two more Second Reading speeches, one from the Opposition Front Bench by the hon.

      627
      Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the other by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme). If they continue to abuse the processes of the Lords Amendments instead of getting on with the argument attendant on each Amendment I for one will speak in other debates. If we are going to have this used as a stalking-horse with all the old arguments, all the old claptrap about whether it is good for certain unions, all the speaking to the general public outside once more instead of getting on with the job, then we on this side will mark our opponents opposite. I will not sit here and hear a lot of general argument like the speech from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara).
      It was a wholly unnecessary speech from beginning to end. It said nothing. We have an Amendment here for which the Opposition asked. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) was perfectly justified in saying that he may not accept the Clause. This was an improved Amendment. It could have been taken on the nod. It was no more and no less than a different use of the word "responsible" by the words set out. It is to do with the principle of collective bargaining; it is nothing to do with the general argument as to who does and who does not decide it. The question is whether the Amendment is acceptable. It is acceptable to all parties. We could have by now been dealing with the fifth or sixth Amendment.
      There are over 300 Amendments and it will be to the advantage of the country if as many of them as possible are properly debated. I appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite not to waste the time of the House on Amendments which are wholly unexceptionable—[Interruption.] Wasting time on Amendments which are entirely acceptable and because of that we do not get on with matters—[Interruption.] It is an Amendment well known to be acceptable on behalf of the Opposition and regarded as a substantial improvement.
      Mr. Heffer: We are entitled to speak.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Yes, entitled to say "We accept it", but not to deliver a great diatribe about the generalities of the Bill and then go on, when my light hon. Friend does his best to find a for-
      628
      mula which is acceptable, to make it a launching pad for an attack upon the Bill as a whole. What is the effect? My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) gets up and says that he has to put the record straight and having heard this I too get up. As a result this Amendment which ought to have been and should have been disposed of in one minute and a half to two minutes has taken half an hour.
      I merely say this. We have five days to do good business. I am certain that we on this side will not interrupt and will not speak more than is necessary. If hon. Members really want to make certain that the whole of this gets into a turmoil and ends up with a lot of party warfare instead of what is for the benefit of the community, then let them start this game on the first Amendment by making unnecessary speeches. It will merely mean that those on our side will take their full share of the time.
      On this first Amendment there would have been no speakers at all. It could have been passed in two minutes. Hon. Gentlemen know in their heart of hearts that this is true. Let us try to get on with those Amendments that are acceptable so that we can talk briefly about these important matters. Where there is controversy on an issue let the contest be decided as quickly as possible.
      Mr. Harold Walker: It is not for the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) to make decisions on behalf of the House, as he presumes to do. It is for hon. Members to judge what is or what is not important. He suggests that all we are talking about is a general principle. I remind him that our objection, powerfully expressed in Committee and in another place, has been to the fact that the National Industrial Relations Court might well have to take this matter into account. This is one of the obligations imposed on it by the Bill.
      We have said before, and we say now, that, while we accept the general principle, our objection is to this being written into the legislation as something to be determined by the National Industrial Relations Court. Hon. Members have a sense of obligation to constituents, and if they have views on this matter they should express them. That is what they have been sent here to do.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: The hon. Gentleman must be deliberately missing the point. This is not the occasion on which we should again debate the general principles of the Bill. The question before us is whether we agree with the Lords in the said Amendment. We all agree with the Lords. Hon. Members are merely dealing with the minutiae of a legal formula as to whether the terms are sufficient. It is agreed that they are sufficient. Therefore, let us get on with the debate.
      Mr. Ronald King Murray: I regret the remarks of the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), because he has tried to curtail a debate which has already been curtailed by the guillotine and to introduce a free enterprise guillotine on his own judgment and responsibility. I do not intend to let his remarks distract me from making any comments I am entitled to make in probing the Government's thinking behind the Amendment.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Sal-ford, West (Mr. Orme), in his pertinent remarks, pointed out that the National Industrial Relations Court might have to adjudicate about the general interests of the Community and decide to what extent parties to industrial negotiations should have them taken into account. Clause 1 deals with a much wider sphere of industrial relations than simply the question of the National Industrial Relations Court.
      I ask the Secretary of State—and I hope that he will do me the courtesy of replying—whether the Government contemplate any institutional arrangement before matters reach the National Industrial Relations Court to ensure that the general interests of the community are protected. Will the Government wait until a case is referred to the Court, or do they contemplate that steps may be taken by a third party at an earlier stage in the general interests of the community if they are thought to require representation?
      Mr. David Stoddart: It is absolutely intolerable that hon. Members opposite should be so mealy-mouthed and hypocritical in their remarks about Opposition speeches on this Amendment. The
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      answer was in the Government's hands when they drafted the Bill. The verbiage in the Clause has caused all the argument about it.
      This is a matter of some importance because the National Industrial Relations Court will have to pronounce on whether something is in the interests of the community. As one who has negotiated at national level, I see in the Clause another argument to be used by the employers in negotiations. Not only will figures have to be produced making comparisons with other industries, but we shall have to answer the criticisms——
      Mr. Raymond Gower: The hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. Does he not appreciate that we are not here concerned with the Government's thinking? We are concerned with the thinking of Lord Diamond, who moved the Amendment in another place. The Government have simply moved to accept it. It is the hon. Gentleman's party's thinking which is embodied in the Amendment.
      6.15 p.m.
      Mr. Stoddart: I am speaking as a backbench Member, and as a trade union member and representative.
      I see real dangers in the Clause for the reasons which I have given. It represents another argument which will have to be answered by trade unionists when they negotiate at national level and local level, because the employers will say, "We should love to give you an increase, but it would be against the general interests". I worked in the electricity supply industry and subsidised low-cost electricity for many years. Electricity supply workers will be told by the employers that it is not in the general interests of the community that electricity prices should increase although perhaps they should have as great an increase as car workers.
      I am not happy about the Clause. I was not happy about it before. I say, with apologies to my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, that I am less happy with the Amendment than I was with what was proposed originally.
      Question put and agreed to.

    Clause 3

      APPROVAL BY PARLIAMENT OF CODE OF PRACTICE AND REVISIONS OF CODE
      Lords Amendment: No. 2, in page 3, line 1, after "shall" insert:
      "after consultation with the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry".
      The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The Amendment will oblige the Secretary of State to consult the Trades Union Congress and the Confederation of British Industry before preparing a draft revision of the Code of Industrial Relations Practice or of any part of it. The Amendment was made in another place at the suggestion of an Opposition Peer. It does not mean that only the two bodies I have mentioned will be consulted by the Secretary of State. It has always been my right hon. Friend's intention to consult as widely and fully as possible those concerned with industrial relations over the preparation of the draft code and the subsequent revisions which are bound to be made from time to time.
      That has been made clear many times, and nothing makes the point better than the Consultative Document which was published not long ago. My right hon. Friend said in the foreword:
      "I hope these proposals will be most carefully studied by management, trade unions and all others concerned with relations between employers and employees. I shall welcome the fullest possible discussion and consultation. In the light of this discussion and of the comments received, I shall be preparing a further version of the code which 1 hope to submit to Parliament for approval before the end of this year."
      Mr. Ronald King Murray: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that this House is to have no opportunity to debate the code until the Bill is enacted?
      Mr. Smith: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that that is not a matter for me. It is for the Leader of the House, and no doubt the hon. and learned Member will wish to ask my right hon. Friend about it. It would be wrong or me to pass an opinion on it. My right hon. Friend is having the widest consultation before evolving the code
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      which will be debated in the House. I am sorry that the Trades Union Congress has not agreed to give its comments on the code. I hope very much that it will do so, because we want it to have the widest possible currency before the Government finally pronounce on it.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: On a point of order. The question of the code of conduct has been raised by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) in a question he put to my hon. Friend. It would seem that this matter is now being pursued. I respectfully submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that it must be out of order to consider on this Amendment anything other than consultation with the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. The establishment of the code and the question whether it is debatable do not arise on this Amendment.
      Mr. Paul B. Rose: Further to that point of order. Is it not bad enough to be guillotined without being gagged before being guillotined? The hon. Gentleman seems to have set himself up as a temporary Mr. Speaker. Is it not right that the Minister was dealing with the Lords Amendment perfectly properly and right to introduce this matter of the code so that the Lords Amendment might be properly debated?
      Mr. Speaker: I think it much better that Mr. Speaker should be left to decide what is in order.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I was only endeavouring to be helpful. I was about to give way to the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin).
      Mr. Loughlin: I wanted information about consultation. The hon. Gentleman said that it is the intention to consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I, as far as possible. He then made play with the fact that he would consult other people, other bodies, other organisations. Will he tell us who are those people?
      Mr. Dudley Smith: They are a very wide range of many interested parties. Already my right hon. Friend has had quite a number of submissions on the draft of the code of industrial practice and there will probably be many more.

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      We are prepared to accept advice and opinions from anybody, from hon. Members, from trade unions, from professional organisations, or indeed anyone who in any way may be affected by the code. I do not want to go too far about it or go out of order, because obviously that would upset certain hon. Gentlemen.
      Mr. McNamara: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I think I have an important point, and I am not seeking to curtail his argument. Under the Bill the T.U.C. cannot register till all the affiliates are registered. Does he mean that he will consult the Trades Union Congress and Congress will be consulted about conditions of work as contained in the code and that, therefore, they will be negotiating about work practices to be employed by unions not affiliated? That would seem to make nonsense of the situation.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I do not think it would. We cannot see the future and what exactly will happen over registration. That is another question to be debated, but my right hon. Friend intends, before deciding to revise this code of practice, to have consultation with the two main bodies which have always been associated with industry in this country, the T.U.C. on the workers 'side and the C.B.I, on the employers' side. I think that any reasonable person would accept that this would be worth while. I thought that, with the Bill as it was before originally, it was pretty plain that my right hon. Friend would have very wide consultations indeed, but to put the matter entirely beyond doubt we have accepted the Amendment moved in another place, and that is why I recommend the House to accept it now.
      Mr. Rose: I should like to preface my remarks by saying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) did, that I do not accept the premises of this Bill and totally reject them. Anything I say will be addressed to the Lords Amendment, and is not to be understood as suggesting in any way that the premises of the Bill are to be acceptable.
      I would also say in rebuttal of the suggestion made by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), who is now, happily, leaving the Chamber,
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      that the matters raised by the Minister were quite properly raised, and that it would be quite wrong to try to deal with this Lords Amendment in a vacuum or in a purely legalistic way divorced from the problems of industrial relations which is what the Bill is all about.
      By accepting the need for consultation with both the C.B.I, and the T.U.C. the Government are giving effect to an Amendment which was first tabled during Committee on the Bill in this House by my hon. and right hon. Friends in respect of two matters where we think consultation to be necessary for good industrial relations.
      We think that repentance is good for the soul and we on this side will always be happy to welcome converts, even on their death beds. What we are astonished at in this case is that repentance has come, as it were, after death, because we debated the Bill in the House, we debated it in Committee, we debated it on Report, and then it was considered in Committee and on Report by the other place; there was the so-called Consultative Document on the Bill and there was the other so-called document on the code of practice. We have had all that, but the one thing we have not had is consultation. Indeed, the first document was aptly termed by many of my hon. Friends "In Place of Consultation". The consultation of which the hon. Gentleman spoke, so far as it related to the T.U.C, has been non-existent. Whose fault it is I will deal with in a moment, but if the Government support this Lords Amendment it means that they have themselves felt the need for repentance. Now their words speak louder than their actions.
      At least they pay lip service to the principle of consultation, and for this, at least, we are grateful and thankful to the Secretary of State, but I hope that he will assure the House that consultation means something more than telling the T.U.C. what he proposes, with advance warning that nothing the T.U.C. will say will move him from his entrenched position which he will have taken up. That has been his attitude all along. He told us that he was prepared to consult hon. Members on details, not matters of principle. Consultation must be about details, but, above all, consultation, if it is to

      635
      mean anything, must be about principles as well, and I hope that he will accept that it means that in this context.
      The Secretary of State has been reluctant to consult, but the documents which have already appeared follow directly from the Bill, and he refused any meaningful consultation with the T.U.C., and there must be grave doubt in the minds of many of my hon. Friends whether this Lords Amendment is other than a pious hope.
      We have to accept that the Government are pledged to consult——
      Mr. Carr: I know the hon. Gentleman likes to be fair, and I think he usually is, but what he is saying about my willingness or unwillingness to consult can be described, within the terms used in this House, only as the opposite of the facts.
      Mr. Rose: The right hon. Gentleman contends that he is willing to consult, but he is not willing to consult in the sense of being willing to consult on the principles of the Bill or of the code of practice, and yet the code of practice is derived directly from the Bill. It could not exist separate and apart from the Bill, and he refuses to consult about the principles in relation to the Bill. Therefore it is impossible for him to say that he is willing to consult about the code of industrial practice when he was unwilling to consult about the principles in the Bill from which the code was derived. I cannot accept his protestations, try as I will to be fair to him.
      As I say, he is now pledged to consult, and I hope that he will realise that he is vulnerable—perhaps legally, but certainly politically. He will be vulnerable if he fails to consult fully with the T.U.C. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that without consultation—and this has been his failing all along—there can be no co-operation, and that without cooperation there can be no peace in industry.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: My right hon. Friend is only too anxious to consult the T.U.C. I tried to make that point in my speech. The door is open, but, so far, unfortunately, no one has come through it.
      Mr. Rose: The door is open to the trap which the right hon. Gentleman has
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      laid, because what has happened is that we now have a Bill which is totally unacceptable not only to us on this side of the House but to the trade union movement. Part of the Bill provides for a code of fair industrial practice, and that is derived from the Bill, and it takes its premise from the Bill. That is not acceptable. There is no point in the Minister saying that he is prepared to negotiate about something which was no longer negotiable. It was negotiable before the Bill was put before the House. At that stage the right hon. Gentleman refused to negotiate with the trade union movement on matters of principle.
      6.30 p.m.
      I will not stray too far beyond the bounds of the Amendment. We accept the Amendment in the spirit in which it was first moved by the Opposition. Although we are sceptical, we are nevertheless generous and, therefore, we are reluctant to disappoint the Minister. We support the Amendment in the spirit in which we believe these words should be taken.
      In doing so I again emphasise that we hope that in future these words will be acted upon and that there will be full co-operation. There have been a few indications that the Secretary of State is beginning to learn that there is a necessity for real consultation and not the open door which he thinks now exists, whereas in fact the door was firmly shut long before the Bill came before the House
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I must intervene to put the record straight, because what was said by the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) is the reverse of the truth. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has followed an open-door policy throughout in the preparation of, and in the revision of, any draft code of practice. He has always indicated that he would be delighted to consult the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. At the instance of the Opposition this is now written into the Bill. The T.U.C. does not want to use it. These are the facts. Having got the facts straight, let us try to get on with another agreed Amendment without another long debate.
      Mr. Gower: I welcome that statement made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that there will be consultation

      637
      throughout and that there will always be consultation when there is any desire to revise. The origin of this Amendment is similar to the origin of the first Amendment. It is the result of an Amendment moved by the Opposition in another place. 1 appreciate the fact that the Government have accepted the Amendment in an honest wish to meet the Opposition's anxieties and views.
      I do not like this wording, because if there is a provision to the effect that the Government must consult two named bodies—the C.B.I, and the T.U.C.—the inference is that the Government have done all that is necessary once they have consulted those two bodies. It would have been better had bodies not been specified and if there had been some general wording requiring the Secretary of State to consult as widely as was deemed necessary. However, to meet the Opposition the Government have gone a little further than they might have felt inclined to go and have specified the bodies suggested by the Opposition. To that extent, I welcome my hon. Friend's assurance that the consultation will be constant and wide.
      Mr. Charles Loughlin: As I read the Bill together with the Amendment, it places upon the Secretary of State the statutory obligation to consult two bodies—the T.U.C. and the C.B.I.; he must do that before he can produce his code of practice. In the event of the refusal of either the C.B.I, or the T.U.C. to consult, is it the position that the Secretary of State is prevented from carrying out his statutory obligations and that the code of practice cannot be published?
      Mr. R, Carr: Of course it does not mean what the hon. Gentleman has implied. It would be totally improper and unconstitutional if a private party in the community, merely by refusing to consult when given every opportunity to do so, could frustrate the will of an elected Government. This provision imposes upon me the duty to consult. I shall do that, and I am sure that my successors will do it, with great genuineness. It cannot be put in the hands of some party entirely outside the House to deny and frustrate the will of Parliament and the will of a properly elected
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      Government acting through Parliament. If people refuse to consult or do not wish to consult, my duty is discharged.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords Amendment: No. 3, in page 3, line 7, leave out from "and" to "shall" in line 8 and insert:
      "shall arrange for any such advice to be published in such manner as he may consider appropriate; and, if the Secretary of State determines to proceed with the draft, he".
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The effect of the Amendment is to require the Secretary of State to publish advice given to him by the Commission on Industrial Relations relating to a proposed revision of all or part of the code of practice. Following what was said in the previous short debate, I make it clear that we wish to be as open and possible over the code and its subsequent revision which may take place from time to time.
      The suggestion was made in Committee in another place that it would be helpful for it to be on the record as to what the C.I.R. had said in its reference to my right hon. Friend. Eventually this Amendment was incorporated in the Bill. We can see nothing against it. We are all in favour of greater clarification. In the circumstances, I hope that the House will see its way clear to accepting the Amendment.
      Mr. Harold Walker: In welcoming the Amendment I wish to raise a small query. I do not challenge the hon. Gentleman's integrity. I hope that I have not got an over-suspicious mind. In view of the Minister's statement in another place that one reason for the Government's original reluctance was that the C.I.R. might not in certain circumstances wish its advice to be made public, will the hon. Gentleman shed a little light on the need to insert the qualification—
      "published in such manner as he may consider appropriate"?
      I hope that there is no intention of seeking to avoid any of the openness to which the hon. Gentleman has just given expression.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I give that assurance. There is no question of trying to dodge the issue. These are the usual

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      words used in such circumstances. There is nothing sinister about them. It will probably be for general agreement between the C.I.R. and the Secretary of State of the day as to how it should be published. I take note of the hon. Gentleman's point. I assure him that there is no question of this being an effort to be selective as to the type of publication that will take place. I look forward to, and hope that there will be, very good co-operation and understanding on matters of this sort between C.I.R. and the Secretary of State.
      Question put and agreed to.

    Clause 5

      RIGHTS OF WORKERS IN RESPECT OF TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP AND ACTIVITIES
      Lords Amendment: No. 4, in page 3, line 35, leave out "if he so desires".
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      It was felt both here during our previous debates and in another place that the words "if he so desires", taken in this context, might unduly accentuate the right not to belong to a trade union. We certainly do not wish to give that impression. I do not necessarily accept that the impression would have been created by the fact that these words were retained. Because doubts have been expressed—I think they were genuine doubts—we were happy to remove the words in another place.
      On the whole, I think that the words are not necessary. It has always been my belief that the Bill will do much to encourage trade unionism and that it is far more favourable to trade unions than many people suggest. Therefore, we will make any Amendment which we can make which will go some way towards encouraging legitimately those who are engaged in industry to join a trade union. My right hon. Friend has been on record on a number of occasions as saying how keen we are to encourage people to join trade unions, provided that they then conduct themselves responsibly within the framework which the Bill builds up. In this situation the Amendment is slightly
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      helpful and I am sure that, in view of the comments made on it in our earlier proceedings, the Opposition will be prepared to accept it.
      Mr. Heffer: I am sorry, but we must make some comments on this Amendment. It is essential to do so in order to make our position clear, for otherwise our acceptance of certain Amendments could be interpreted as being acceptance of the principles lying behind the Bill. It must be stressed again and again that, in accepting particular Amendments, we are doing so on the understanding that we do not accept the principles of the Bill.
      Mr. Dudley Smith: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. We accept that he is against the whole Bill in principle but that he is prepared to support certain Amendments which both sides believe will improve the Bill. Surely we can take that as read.
      Mr. Heffer: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman accepts the point. This Amendment was moved by the Opposition in another place and accepted by the Government. But I must stress that the Government accepted it only because they felt that it did not give away any of the principles of the Bill. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman has himself underlined that point. While the Amendment makes the position slightly better in this Clause, it in no way creates a situation in which the closed shop, which is something which workers want in many industries, can become a right for the workers. The closed shop principle is very much involved. I want to recall the remarks of Lord Windlesham in another place. He said:
      "Do we really need these words in the clause? They are in paragraphs (a) and (b) but, as I have explained, the Secretary of State in another place has made clear that in his view they are not equal and opposing rights. They are very important rights. By adding the new subsection (5). he has put a statement of intent on the Statute Book, to encourage workers to join a trade union. That being so, we feel that we can accept the Amendment…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 4th May, 1971; Vol. 318, c. 203.]
      It must be clearly underlined that subsection (5) does not cut across subsection (1)(b), which gives the worker the right not to be a member of a trade union. Therefore, these are not equal rights. The emphasis is still on the right not to be

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      a member of a trade union, and this in effect is acceptance of American policy which, as we have pointed out before, has the so-called "right to work" law. Whilst this is a concession, it is only minor. It continues and perpetuates non-trade unionism and strikes at the very concept of the closed shop. It does away with certain rights which our workers have enjoyed for a long time.
      The Amendment will continue to make it difficult for trade unions to recruit. It will build up the reserve of non-trade unionists. It will encourage the free riders. As my noble Friend Lord Hoy said in another place, if it had not been for the actions of the trade unions over the years, the workers would not have the good conditions which they enjoy at present. So the Clause and the Amendment do not help to improve the conditions of the workers, despite the fact that the Amendment is a concession.
      6.45 p.m.
      Up to now, under the common law, the employer has had the right to lay down almost all the conditions for those who work for him. He can tell the worker that he must join the superannuation fund or the sick fund. He can tell him that he must not smoke in certain places, that he must clock in or clock off. Under the Bill, the employer will not be able to say in future, "You must belong to the appropriate trade union". I must emphasise, therefore, that this Clause, even with the Amendment, takes certain rights away from the workers. We do not agree with that principle. We accept the Amendment reluctantly and make it clear that we are opposed to Clause 5 as a whole.
      Mr. Gower: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is being less than fair. Subsection (5), with or without the words "if he so desires", puts into the Statutes of this country for the first time the right of an employee to be a member of a trade union as he may choose. This is a very important right. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, there have been cases in fairly recent history of unenlightened employers refusing to employ a person merely because that person has joined a trade union of his choice. Now, for the first time, it will not be in order legally for the employer to act in that way. The hon. Gentleman could at least admit that sub-
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      section (1), with or without these words, is an important landmark in enhancing and widening the right of the employee to join the union of his choice.
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: It would be surprising if a Bill of this length, which is purported to be of benefit to the trade unions and the working people, did not contain one Clause which might have some slight benefit to some members of the community. As a trade union official, before I began to work for the actors, I worked for the bank employees, and it is possible that in their case this right may enable their trade union to deal more effectively than in the past with the banks, which include some of the most reactionary employers in the country. There is no worse employer, from the point of view of conceding rights, although conditions of bank employees are not as bad as they are in other forms of employment. Nevertheless, I repeat that, on the question of conceding rights of employees, banks are amongst the worst employers. So there is something here.
      In Committee, we drew attention to the undesirability of the phrase, "if he so desires", and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) that the words are redundant and that we are glad to see them go. But he is right in saying that the so-called concession is unreal. Indeed, throughout the whole proceedings of the Bill—this Amendment is an example of the general tendency—what the Government have done is to pretend to give away something when they are sure that they are not giving away anything at all. Some hon. Members opposite think that the removal of these few words is a real concession, but in fact it is not. But when Ministers were asked to give practical effect to the removal of these words by making it possible for a trade union to operate a closed shop, they absolutely and entirely refused to make any concession. So an apparent concession is not carried further, and this is bound to deceive some hon. Members opposite.
      A distinguished member of the theatrical profession told me the other day that he had been sold down the river by hon. Members opposite, who had told him that the removal of these words meant that Equity would be able to operate in the future as it had in the

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      past. This is quite untrue. Ministers know it, but not all their supporters do. Ministers know that it will not enable that trade union to work in future as it has in the past. The Amendment may be accepted, but we must not exaggerate the advantages of the change—they are very small indeed.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Will the hon. Member indicate which hon. Members on this side have ever said anything of that kind? We have had a number of long consultations with Equity and with other unions, and as far as I know none of my hon. Friends has ever suggested that they would be in the same position as before. It has been said that they would have certain special concessions which would not apply to other unions, but I am not aware of any hon. Member on this side ever saying that they would be in the same position as before.
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: At a later stage I will quote chapter and verse in support of my statement.
      Mr. Orme: We cannot debate paragraph (b) of subsection (1) because there is no Amendment to it. Paragraph (a) gives a worker the right to be a member of a trade union, and (b) gives him the right not to be a member. The Minister knows that Clause 5 is one of the most contentious of all the Clauses, and it is a pity that we cannot debate it more fully now.
      To say that someone may be a member of such trade union as he chooses sounds very democratic but in practice it may be just the opposite, and probably will be. The Bill will encourage company trade unions. A man could choose a union not relevant to the industry in which he worked. In the engineering industry we have the Toolmakers' Society. We do not look on it as an official trade union and it is not recognised by the T.U.C., but the conflict between Society and the A.U.E.W. has had a detrimental effect on production on a number of occasions. I can see the Clause making that situation worse.
      We all agree that a man should have the right to join the union applicable to his industry and recognised by it. Thus, he might quite rightly choose between the A.U.E.W. and the A.S.T.M.S., or be-
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      tween the A.U.E.W. and the E.T.U. and Plumbing Trades Union. That is a genuine choice, but the ability to choose a trade union not generally understood to be applicable to his industry—it could be a company trade union—could injure industrial relations and lead to fragmentation of trade unions. The Minister, in Opposition, fought long and eloquently for the need to reduce the number of trade unions and to have industrial trade unionism. All that has gone out of the window now, because the Bill will have exactly the opposite effect.
      Mr. Charles Curran: We have heard many speeches from the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), and most of them have been a good deal better than that. His speech was a classic example of how to drop bricks without having the straw to make them with. His grievance, as far as I understand it, is that the Bill gives a worker the right to join as he may choose, but the hon. Member would like him to have that right provided he chooses in accordance with the wishes of the Labour Party or the T.U.C.—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] He apparently thinks that to give the worker unfettered right of choice is very dangerous: the fellow might even exercise his right in a way very unpleasant to the hon. Gentleman and his friends.
      He instanced the worker who might be so very degraded as to want to join a company union. Must that worker be forbidden to do so? If he is so half witted, as the hon. Gentleman would term him, as to want to join such a union, the hon. Gentleman says that he must by law be forbidden to do so. When we give people a choice, it is a choice which in the opinion of some people, may be misused. That is one of the most regrettable effects of a free society. If they can choose even the party they want to vote for, some will be so degraded as to choose to vote for the Tory Party. Are we therefore to take from them their free choice?
      Mr. Orme: The hon. Gentleman has twisted the argument. We are opposed to all the legal paraphernalia in the Bill which compels workers to do this or that, or to jump through this hoop or that. We believe in a free and independent trade union movement, but we are opposed to the Minister writing in terms

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      detrimental to the established trade union movement.
      Mr. Curran: I appreciate that at this stage we cannot discuss the entire principle of the Bill, and I am addressing myself to the narrow question whether we have here a change that we should accept. I dissent from the hon. Gentleman's attempt to argue that the words "as he may choose" are dangerous because, as he tells us, people may choose to join a union of which he disapproves. There are some people, apparently who, he fears, would exercise their free choice instead of joining the union to which he belongs. They may even join a union which does not affiliate to the T.U.C. Does he say that workers shall not be free to choose such a union? Does he think that they cannot be entrusted with the right of free choice, whether or not that choice is to join a union affiliated to the T.U.C?
      7.0 p.m.
      Mr. Dan Jones: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman has got the point. My hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) speaks from experience. Certain trade unions have procedure agreements with employers. That is an accepted fact. If a worker opts to join a trade union which is not a party to a procedure agreement, who will negotiate on his behalf? Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to bring in yet other trade unions to make the situation worse?
      Mr. Curran: I am astonished that that sort of argument should be advanced by the hon. Gentleman. It is simply a repetition of the general proposition that a worker is not fit to choose, and that the choice must be made for him. The hon. Gentleman is telling me that it might happen that a worker will join a union which does not have a bargaining relationship with the employer. Is not that for the worker to choose? The hon. Gentleman says that if we allow a worker the unfettered right to choose it may happen that he will join a union which does not have a bargaining relationship with his employer. That is the worker's funeral, if he chooses to do that. It is up to him. Does the hon. Gentleman seriously say that he should be forbidden to do so? It sounds preposterous.
      Mr. Dan Jones: The worker should be encouraged to join a union which has a procedure agreement with the employer.
      Mr. Curran: There is nothing in the Bill to stop the worker from being, as the hon. Gentleman says, encouraged. I wonder how the word "encouraged" might be defined. We can all think of processes of encouragement. I am taking the argument and seeking to show the hon. Gentleman that it is bogus.
      The hon. Gentleman asks what will happen if a worker wishes to join a union which does not have a bargaining relationship with the employer. My reply to that is that if a worker chooses to join such a union he should be completely free to do so, even if that is something which, in the hon. Gentleman's opinion, it is to his disadvantage to do. That is one of the snags of a free society, that we give people the freedom to choose, and that some of them, in the opinion of some of us, misuse that freedom. But that is no argument against freedom.
      The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind. Regrettably, there are in this country many people who, if they are given freedom of choice, will exercise it in a fashion that will make the hon. Gentleman's eyebrows go up. The hon. Gentleman must not behave with the timidity of a maiden lady finding herself in a disorderly house, which is what he is doing now. He must recognise, and his nose must be strong enough to take it, that, given a free society, many people will use that freedom in ways that will make him shudder.
      Mr. Dan Jones: It would be a good thing if the hon. Gentleman were not to apply for the post of personnel manager with any reputable company. He would not be liked for ten seconds.
      Mr. Curran: That may be a criticism of me but it may, equally, be a criticism of the company which would not employ me. I think that this is very much an open question.
      Having heard the most that can be urged against this proposal I invite the House to agree—and I fancy that hon. Gentlemen opposite in their calmer moments will agree, too—that the attempt to use this Clause and this debate as a

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      basis for challenging the freedom of the worker to please himself about which union he joins is something which cannot be accepted by anybody in this House.
      Mr. James Sillars: I should like to follow one or two remarks of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran). I think he is well aware that in any society a limitation is placed voluntarily on absolute freedom, because of the necessity for organisation, on occasion, so that the society runs as smoothly as possible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) said—and I know that the hon. Gentleman has as much knowledge of industry as anyone on this side of the House—in industry there is a requirement for organisation.
      The hon. Gentleman said that if a man joins a totally inappropriate trade union, it may be his funeral, but we on this side of the House know that eventually it may be the company's funeral. If there are a number of splinter unions in a company, that is not good for the company, nor is it good for the workers involved, and that was the point that was being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West.
      The words frequently used by the hon. Member for Uxbridge were, "the need for freedom". May I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that in Clause 5(1)(a) there is a clear limitation of choice and freedom by a large number of what we in this country call trade unionists in this month and in this year? I say that because subsection (a) says that a worker shall have the right
      "to be a member of such trade union as he may choose",
      and that is a trade union within the legal definition of the Bill. In the next subsection he is given the right not to be a member of a trade union
      "or other organisation of workers…"
      There is an important distinction between paragraphs (a) and (b). A worker who is a trade unionist, a member of the A.U.E.W., a union which has chosen not to register under the Bill, is no longer entitled to the so-called freedom of paragraph (a) which the hon. Gentleman has been extolling with such eloquence. He does not have the statu-
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      tory right to be a member of the A.U.E.W., and I think that we are entitled to have from the Secretary of State a full explanation of why a worker who has been a lifetime member of the A.U.E.W. does not have the right to be a member of that union after the Bill becomes an Act, by virtue of the fact that it will be designated "an organisation of workers."
      Mr. Curran: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's argument, and I am by no means waving it aside. As it stands, the subsection provides the right to a worker to be a member of such trade union as he may choose. If I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument aright, he would like the worker to have the right to be a member of such trade union as he may choose, provided that the union is affiliated to the T.U.C. Is that the change which the hon. Gentleman wants to make?
      Mr. Sillars: I am sure that it must be my fault for not having explained myself properly. The point I am making is that at present we have what are known as trade unions—for example the A.U.E.W., the engineers' union—but, after the Bill becomes law, if the engineering union decides not to register—as it has done—it is no longer entitled to the title of "trade union" and becomes "an organisation of workers". A worker will have the right to be a member of a trade union, but he will not have a legal right to be a member of the A.U.E.W. I suggest that that is grossly unfair, and that it is a proposition that is unsupportable by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I think that I have said enough at this stage.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords Amendment No. 5: In page 3, line 37, leave out from first "to" to "16" in line 38 and insert:
      "sections (Modification of rights by agency shop agreement) and".
      The Solicitor-General (Sir Geoffrey Howe): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      It may be for the convenience of the House if, with that Amendment, we were to discuss the following Lords Amendments.

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      No. 6, in page 4, line 15, leave out "subsections (3) and (4) of this" and insert:
      "the next following".
      No. 7, in page 4, line 24, leave out subsection (3).
      No. 8, in page 4, line 41, leave out subsection (4).
      No. 10, in page 5, line 20, leave out "subsections (1), (2), (5) and (6) of".
      No. 18, in page 8, line 20, leave out from "unions" to "in" in line 21 and insert:
      "or between an employers' association and one or more trade unions, whereby it is agreed".
      It has been suggested that with this group of Amendments we should discuss also Amendment No. 40, in page 14, line 19, at end insert:
      "() Where a worker to whom the agreement applies, and who is specially exempted, has agreed to pay appropriate contributions to a charity, and requests his employer to deduct the contributions from his remuneration and pay them on his behalf, then so long as that request remains in force—

      (a) he shall not be regarded for the purposes of subsection (5)(a) of this section as having refused to pay the contributions to the charity, and

      (b) any failure on the part of the employer to comply with the request shall not be regarded as a failure on the part of the worker to pay the contributions."

      In my view this Amendment is closely related to Amendment No. 11, and I think that it might be more convenient if we were to discuss those two Amendments together in due course.
      Mr. Rose: The only difficulty with that course of action is that my hon. Friend who is dealing with Amendment No. 11 has had no notice of that. The notice that we had was that it would be taken with this group of Amendments. We have acted accordingly, and are prepared to take them as the Solicitor-General first suggested.
      The Solicitor-General: If that be the wish of the Opposition, no doubt it can be done. It will slightly extend the range of the debate on to a matter which could be linked with the new Clause, but I am prepared to deal with it in that way.
      These five Amendments modify the structure of Clause 5 in order to incorporate the subsections there taken out
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      in the new Clause which is the subject of Amendment No. 11. Those Amendments are purely formal, paving Amendments to Amendment No. 11. Amendment No. 18 is one of two which are linked with the new Clause and can therefore be discussed separately. Amendment No. 18 has to be read in conjunction with subsection (3) of the new Clause, which is part of Amendment No. 11, and would mean that an agency shop agreement can be made not only with an employer or employers but also with an employers' association.
      That is in response to an argument urged upon the Government by some of my hon. Friends and in the other place. It is designed to facilitate the making of an agency shop agreement on an industry-wide basis as a result of voluntary agreement between the union or unions and an employers' association.
      If any dispute arises whether such an agency shop agreement should be made, it would still have to be resolved by the procedures, including a ballot, in the Bill. Amendment No. 18 makes it possible, however, for several unions and an employers' association to make such an agreement voluntarily.
      The other substantive Amendment is No. 40, which reproduces subsection (3) of Amendment No. 11. They both achieve the same object and are designed to make it plain that a system of checking off appropriate contributions is admissible in the context of an agency shop. A number of hon. Members and noble Lords urged that some move should be made in this direction. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell), who is not here at the moment, was one who urged that an Amendment on the lines of Amendment No. 40 should be incorporated in Amendment No. 11.
      The object would be to provide that where a worker objects to an agency shop agreement and agrees to pay contributions to a charity or appropriate contributions to the union, and he requests his employer to deduct the contributions from his pay and hand them over on his behalf, he shall not be regarded as having refused to pay the contributions to the charity or appropriate contributions to the union as the case may be. He will have discharged

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      his obligation by notifying his employer that that is what he wishes to have done.
      It seems to the Government, in response to a case urged on us by a number of people, fair and sensible to give the non-member worker in either situation that right to require the deduction of his contribution to the union or to the charity by his employer for him, and then to be protected in accordance with the usual provisions of an agency shop agreement. It is on that basis that we put down these Amendments. I will say no more now about the other aspects of the new Clause, which is the subject of Amendment No. 11, since I understand that we are to debate an Amendment to Amendment No. 11 shortly.
      Mr. John Page: Could my hon. and learned Friend explain that the employer, when the deduction is requested, will inform the union with whom the agency shop agreement is made that this employee is having a deduction made at source? Will that information be made available?
      The Solicitor-General: No doubt that matter will be covered by the agency shop agreement itself. Unions will know better than anyone else each worker in a place of work who is or is not a member. They will know that an agency shop agreement is in existence; they will know those who are members and paying dues to the union, who are required by the terms of the existing agreement to pay their contributions to the union through the employer. The union will also know any particular workers who, for conscientious reasons, will be paying to a charity, because the union will have agreed the charity with them.
      So the union will be well placed to name the work people from whom it requires a contribution through this machinery. It will be an agency shop agreement reached between the union and the employer. If it is an enforceable agreement, the union can enforce it against an employer. If it is not, there is nothing to stop the union taking industrial action to support it.
      So it will be in everyone's interests for it to be perfectly plain who is paying contributions in this way. As I say, the union will know who is not a member. It will go to the employer or to the
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      worker in question and ask what is happening to the contribution. If the worker has assigned it to the employer, the union will know that the employer has it.
      7.15 p.m.
      Mr. Rose: The Solicitor-General will know that we entirely reject the concept of the importation of the agency shop into British industrial relations, but it is clear that Amendment No. 5 is a necessary drafting Amendment to pave the way for the new Clause which is covered by Amendment No. 11. My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) will be dealing with this separately in great detail. We on this side have an Amendment to that Amendment.
      In another place, there was considerable cause for concern on this side about the introduction of this new Clause for the modification of rights of agency agreements, which will be articulated in much more detail when we come to Amendment No. 11. Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 8 are necessary drafting Amendments as a consequence of replacing Clause 5(3) and (4) with the new Clause. There is no need to deal with these except to say again that this will come into the later debate.
      As for Amendments Nos. 18 and 40, apart from the fact that Amendment No. 18 deals with the definition of the agency shop agreement to provide more satisfactory wording to cover employers' associations specifically, I do not see why it has been grouped with the other Amendments, but I see no point of principle at issue. Again, that is a mater to be dealt with under a later Amendment.
      It is on Amendment No. 40 that there is real cause for concern. As I said, we reject the concept of the violation of the closed shop by this Bill. We reject the agency shop. Clause 16 is more of a concession to the knowledge that many employers appreciate the value of the closed shop than to the rights of workers to organise themselves, and there are precious few concessions to that right in this Bill.
      In this context. Amendment No. 40 seeks to protect the worker who elects to pay appropriate contributions to a charity and who requests his employer to make the necessary deductions from his pay and hand over the money on his behalf. If

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      the employer does what the employee requests, then one understands that the employee should be protected from any negligent omission on the part of the employer. He might forget or there might be a mistake in the wages department. A cheque, bankers' order or Giro credit might go astray. All these things are understandable and perhaps inevitable.
      What will happen, on the other hand, if the employer wilfully does not pay out the amount to the charity? What if there is a tacit understanding—let us not use the word "collusion"—that the employer will not pay? How is the employee to know whether the money has been paid unless the necessary information is supplied to him?
      There is an omission in that, not being a party to the contract, the charity might not know that the amount has not been paid to it. It will not be able to take action to recover the sum that should have been paid. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are concerned to protect the interests of charities and will be anxious to know what action will be open to a charity in these circumstances.
      The employee is explicitly exempted. That is the whole purpose of Amendment No. 40. There seems to be no liability whatever on the employer, however, who fails to pay the appropriate sum to the charity. This appears to be a loophole as a result of which a worker who refuses to pay union dues but who gives instructions to his employers to pay the appropriate sum on his behalf to a charity could be left in doubt whether that amount has been paid.
      It should not be the purpose of the Amendment to cosset the free rider or negligent employer. The purpose may be to protect the innocent, and I am prepared to accept that that is the intention of the Government in this matter. Nevertheless, the result may be to protect those who are far from innocent, and who are, in fact, guilty of breaking the spirit of the Clause and offending against the intention of this provision by not making the necessary payments to the selected charity.
      How is the union concerned to know that payments are being made? How can we be sure that this is not a loophole through which a man might avoid pay-
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      ing dues to the union which is working on his behalf merely by electing to pay the appropriate sum to a charity which may be fictitious? Alternatively, how can we be sure that, the employee having honestly elected to pay, the employer fails to carry out his obligations to pay the money to the charity?
      I have studied this matter in some detail and have reluctantly come to the conclusion that whatever the intention of the Government may be in this matter, there does not seem to be the necessary machinery to enforce that intention. Unless the Solicitor-General can give an adequate answer to these questions, I fear that I shall have to advise my hon. Friends to vote against the Government on this issue.
      Mr. Curran: If a worker authorises his employer to make deductions from his pay and hand over the money to a charity, and the employer makes those deductions but does not hand the money over, what will be the legal position?
      Mr. Orme: That is what we want to know.
      Mr. Rose: The obligation is on the Government to tell us the answer to that question. The misappropriation of property is a criminal offence. From the civil point of view, however, it seems that the charity that has been nominated will not be privy to the contract and, as a result, could not take action, but the Solicitor-General is better qualified than I am to deal with this matter.
      Perhaps the employee can take action. On the other hand, he may be unaware of what is happening. Perhaps he is aware but there is some sort of collusion. Again, how is the charity or trade union to know? These are pertinent questions which we trust will be answered before this discussion is concluded.
      If a criminal offence is committed, criminal action can be taken. However, that will hardly be helpful to either the charity or industrial relations—and we are told by the Government that the Bill is designed to help industrial relations. I am naïve enough to believe that that is their intention.
      Mr. John Page: I suspect that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) is making heavy weather of this. I

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      also suspect that if a company defaulted in making payments to a charity, it would be guilty in the same way as if it did not make payments to a trade union or any similar body.
      Mr. Orme: That is precisely what we want to know.
      Mr. Rose: Can the hon. Gentleman be sure?
      Mr. Page: Companies will not, therefore, default deliberately.
      It is clear from the detailed debates that we have had about national bargaining arrangements that many of my hon. Friends and much of industry will appreciate the new arrangements.
      Mr. Loughlin: Whether or not we are making heavy weather of Amendment No. 40, it should be obvious to the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) that the Solicitor-General has a simple remedy at his disposal. He could, if he wished, simply rise to his feet and give my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) the assurance for which he asked.
      The Government say that it is their intention to assist industrial relations. We must remember that we are dealing with a multiplicity of small and medium-sized companies and not simply with large firms. This multiplicity of firms represents, in terms of total production, a substantial amount of the nation's economy and a breakdown in industrial relations among those firms could mean a great deal to the economy. That being so, the Solicitor-General should be aware of the need to include a provision which will allow trade unionists to know that any amount that should be paid by an employer to a charity on behalf of a non-trade unionist is, in fact, being paid.
      7.30 p.m.
      I am not arguing that a man who exercises his right not to belong to a trade union and instructs his employer to pay his contribution to a charity should not be protected, and the Amendment will protect him. But where in the Bill is the remedy against the employer who does not pay that contribution to the charity? The hon. Member for Harrow, West raised the legal implications of whether the charity could sue the employer or
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      whether the worker could sue his employer. The employer may decide that it would be useful to him not to pay the subscriptions to charity immediately. If the Solicitor-General will say what provision in the Bill enables sanction to be taken against the employer who fails to pay the contributions to the charity, there will be no further grounds for discussing the Amendment.
      Mr. Dan Jones: I consider this part of the Bill to be pernicious and damaging to the employee. The Minister appears to be satisfied that he has the free rider taped. The man will not pay his contributions to a trade union but to a charity, so that he is not dodging his obligations. But by the same token the man may easily be dodging his obligations to his family.
      Thousands of men and women suffer industrial injury daily. When they are injured they have to face a cold, calculating administration whose job it is simply to look after the funds. In my experience, a man who has suffered a disability as the result of an accident will be told by the Ministry that the disability is not connected with the accident, and consequently benefit is denied. This is where the trade union plays an indispensable part and sees to it that an independent specialist examines the injured man. That specialist opinion in any tribunal carries tremendous weight. How is a person making contributions to a charity to protect his interests as a disabled man? No charity could possibly look after his interests; no charity would have this right. The trade unions have a clearly defined right——
      Mr. R. Carr: The hon. Gentleman is putting a strong argument for joining a trade union, an argument which I and the Government accept. If a man or a woman is foolish enough not to join a trade union, that is his or her affair.
      Mr. Jones: I accept that, but I do not want the Minister to believe that all is now square and that he has dealt with the free rider. He has done nothing of the kind. It is wrong to encourage the free rider in a way which could be detrimental to his family at a time when he probably needs the trade union more than ever.
      Mr. Joseph Ashton: This provision provides a big loophole. A

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      man who deliberately wishes to be awkward may, after a long dispute, finally agree to pay the contribution, but only to the Conservative Distressed Gentlefolks' Association, or a similar charity, just to antagonise the union. There will then be a controversy whether this is a bona fide charity and a tribunal may take from four to six weeks to decide this. The tribunal may decide that the employer must deduct the money but, after a couple of weeks, the man who is being deliberately awkward may say that he has changed his mind and no longer wants to contribute to the Conservative Distressed Gentlefolks' Association but to the Ian Smith Action on Rhodesia Fund. There will then have to be another reference to the tribunal to decide whether that is a bona fide charity.
      The awkward employee might change his mind half a dozen times, and each time the employer may be told to pay the contribution to a different charity. By deliberately causing this nuisance the non-unionist may make the employer say that he will not pay over any money until the worker has made up his mind which charity the money should go to and how much he will pay. Once the employer says that, the man is in the clear; he knows that the money will not be passed on, and he can easily keep going a perpetual dispute about which charity should receive the money.
      A part-time cleaner who works seven hours a week cleaning a school and who earns about £1 or £1·50 a week may pay the union a special rate of, say, 3p a week. An industrial tribunal might have to sit to decide which charity this money should be paid to. Four weeks later the cleaner could change her mind and say that instead of it going to Oxfam it should go to the local Red Cross Society.
      Mr. Tom King: I thought that this was the present situation. What is new about this? The unions have always recognised that there is this right of conscience and in this situation contributions can be paid by the union.
      Mr. Ashton: In the present situation a man exerting a right of conscience in most cases agrees to contribute to a charity named by the union. However,
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      by this Bill we are legislating to put this in statutory form so that the High Court of Justice may have to decide whether certain sums should be paid and whether the man has a right to change his mind about the charity when he wishes—in which case the employer might well say, "I will not pass on the money".
      There are people on every shop floor who are called "Billy Opposites". If told that something is black, they will swear it is white just for the sake of being a nuisance and trying to throw a spanner in the works. This is what will happen. We shall have the most time-wasting and trivial arguments, which will involve industrial tribunals sitting week after week and month after month deciding these matters. It is a far better system to drop the idea of charitable contributions and to put something in the Bill to provide that, if a majority of the men vote to join a union, every member of it should accept the majority verdict. That is the way democracy works.
      Mr. Orme: We are here dealing with the agency shop provisions in the Bill, which are a real Alice-in-Wonderland concept. They involve the difficulty of how to control the free rider once it is decided to have an agency shop. The provision seeks to narrow the situation in which the employer collects the money by deducting from the man's pay, as opposed to the system in which the shop steward or foreman collects money from the non-unionist and is responsible for paying it to a charity. That responsibility is now to be handed over to the employer.
      An important principle is involved and there will be great resentment in industry if the provision is put into operation. The principle is that the shop steward and trade union will work independently of the employer for the majority of employees who decide that an agency shop should be set up. Workers will then, for their own reasons, opt out of the union. We heard a little earlier mention of the word "freedom", but such people will have to pay a subscription to a named charity.
      The effect of the provision will be that the non-unionist will run to the employer for cover and will pander to that employer. I can foresee situations in which employers may exploit the system. I have lived in various industrial situations

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      for some 25 years and I have seen these things happen. An employer could easily say, "Unfortunately I have an agency shop, but you, the worker can pay your contribution through me to a charity. Is this not a much more acceptable situation?"
      I hope that the Solicitor-General will explain the legal responsibility of the employer, because this is an important point. Will the employer be responsible under common law if he abuses the situation, or will the Industrial Court and all the paraphernalia of the Bill be brought into operation on such a matter?
      7.45 p.m.
      We are dealing here with a workers money which he entrusts to his employer to pay to a charity. It will be extremely difficult for the trade unionist in a factory to discover whether the money has been deducted. Will the trade union in the factory have the right to see the wages slip of the employee? Will it have the right to ask the employer for a receipt showing that the money has been paid to a charity so that it can be seen that the bargain is being carried out?
      When one examines the details of how this will work, it can be seen how ludicrous the situation will be. This is why many unions will not operate an agency shop under the Bill. They foresee the sort of problems which will arise once the Bill is in operation.
      We are entitled to ask the Solicitor-General to spell out the legal implications and responsibilities, and indeed the rights, of the trade unions. We are in this respect moving on to new ground which has never been trod before. If we are to operate on the lines laid down in the Bill, the situation will be quite ridiculous.
      The Solicitor-General: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to this short debate. On the point put by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Dan Jones), I believe my right hon. Friend has already answered his point. The hon. Gentleman has advanced his argument a number of times in the past, and I entirely sympathise with him. If two people persuade a third person to join a trade union, the argument will remain as strong as ever.
      Mr. Dan Jones: Has the employers' confederation, with which I understand
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      the Government have consulted on this point, given its blessing to this part of the Bill?
      The Solicitor-General: I am not quite clear what point the hon. Gentleman is on. If he is referring to the whole agency shop context, I should be out of order if I sought to discuss that matter.
      Mr. Dan Jones: I am on the free rider point.
      The Solicitor-General: The free rider is not an admissible concept. The agency shop provision is designed to prevent the free rider. He will not be riding free. He may be riding light of benefit.
      Mr. Dan Jones: He will so far as the trade unions are concerned.
      The Solicitor-General: So far as the trade unions are concerned he will be riding as a contributor to the union, except when he establishes conscientious grounds not to contribute. Hon. Members opposite have said that they are concerned to continue to protect the rights of the conscientious objector. In the agency shop context this provision does no more than to extend this concept of a free rider. The trade unions have said that they want this since they recognise the right of the conscientious objector to ride free, paying to a charity. But the rest of the agency shop provision makes plain that the union will be getting dues from the man. He will not be riding free in terms of payment, but will be riding without benefit. He will be free of benefit, but not free of cost. This is an important argument which remains open to the union and to union secretaries.
      Mr. Dan Jones: As far as the trade union is concerned, he is still a free rider because, if the money is going to a charity, it is not going to the union.
      The Solicitor-General: With respect, the hon. Gentleman has not taken the point of the distinction which I am drawing. If he is paying to a charity, he is riding free so far as the union is concerned, save that he does not in that context have the advantages of union benefit.
      Mr. Dan Jones: But he has the benefit of having the conditions in the factory negotiated by the union.
      The Solicitor-General: Of course. I do not want to go back over the whole analysis, but this point, surely, is clear. Unions have said, and hon. Members opposite have said time and again, that it is entirely recognised that the conscientious objector should be entitled to object on the ground of conscience. Such a man now pays to a charity. He has the benefit of the collectively negotiated conditions, but he does not have the benefit of the individual advantages available to him through union membership. So a charitable man, so to call him, or a conscientious man, is and always has been a free rider save that he is paying to a charity; and that is exactly what will happen now in respect of exactly the same kind of man. The agency shop contributor will be riding free of benefit but not free of cost.
      Mr. Rose: May I try to assist here? I think that what concerns my hon. Friends is this. Although they recognise that he is not a free rider in the wider sense of the term but a conscientious objector, so to speak, he may become a free rider in the wider sense by reason of the provision here which allows a loophole in that the employer may well not make payment to the charity.
      The Solicitor-General: I appreciate that that is the substantial point made by the hon. Members for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), but I was trying to clear out of the way certain other misconceptions and establish common ground up to that point.
      The hon. Member for Bassetlaw said that, by allowing a statutory scheme for the determination of conscientious objection instead of leaving it to the union in whatever arrangements it may have to establish that, we are making it more likely that more people will object on grounds of conscience, and therefore—this is the point which the hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. Rose) has just raised—there will be more free riders in that sense.
      I deal with that point in this way. If one is dealing with the kind of character whom the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has in mind, the sort of man who will be deliberately awkward—we all know that in all walks of life there are the "awkward squad"—and he goes before
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      an industrial tribunal to establish that he has grounds of conscience for objecting, he may well be able to establish plausibly enough the first time that he is overcome with charitable instincts towards, say, the "Distressed Labour Gentlefolks' Association", and he might conceivably upon a second occasion qualify to contribute to some other charity if he was doing it after a fairly long lapse of time; but in this context, as in any other, conviction would begin to diminish if his charitable instincts changed frequently.
      One must look at this question seriously. He will have to establish his case to a tribunal consisting not of people born yesterday but of people who are considering matters of this kind in a different context in industry the whole time, the kind of people who sit on national insurance appeal tribunals, or the kind of people who used to sit on conscientious objectors appeal tribunals during the war. They will not be persuaded to take seriously that a man's conscientious objection is so powerful that he is determined to attach himself to one charity after another and be persuaded by that. It will, I suggest, be sufficiently difficult, but not too difficult, for the conscientious objector to establish his case at the outset——
      Mr. Ashton: I accept what the Solicitor-General says about the members of tribunals not being born yesterday and not being ready to give permission to change the charity. But will the tribunals not be compelled to give him a hearing, and will this not be an administrative nuisance which could be repealed ad nauseam?
      The Solicitor-General: Of course, he could not be denied a hearing. But this is the kind of case with which tribunals as constituted now have to deal, and, if they thought that a man was asserting rights of this kind frivolously or vexatiously, or because he was an awkward customer, such a case could well be one in which he could expect to have an order for costs made against him. It is only in that very limited area that that would arise.
      I come now to the last question—I do not wish to detain the House too long—how does the union ensure that the employer complies with the wishes of the

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      man as expressed under this Amendment? It is perfectly straightforward. By definition, we are dealing here with a situation in which an agency shop agreement or an approved closed shop agreement exists. Quite apart from any other provisions of that sort of agreement, it would be possible, and, I should have thought, sensible and almost inevitable, that the union which had made the agreement would extract as one of its provisions an obligation upon the employer—an enforceable obligation under Clause 36(1)(b) as it now is, even if no other part of the agreement was enforceable—to that end.
      It is not really for us now to draft the terms of such a clause in the agreement, but I suggest that the effect would be as follows: (1) to tell the union the names of people contributing to a charity; (2) to advise the union of the receipt of the moneys; (3) to pay the money over to the charity. One cannot imagine any real reason why an employer should not agree to that. He would be doing it, after all, in order to establish a broad pattern of industrial peace in his factory or establishment. He is agreeing to an agency shop agreement, and in the overwhelming majority of cases one would expect him to say, "Fine. I shall make a legally binding agreement. I welcome the fact that you, the union representatives, attach importance to legal enforceability being enshrined in this agreement, and I am willing to accept an obligation to tell you about what is being collected and to pay it over to the charity."
      Mr. Rose: But does not the Solicitor-General acknowledge—this is the difficulty we are in—that there is no obligation written into the Bill as it stands which imposes upon the employer the duty to tell the names, to advise the receipt of money, or to give details of that kind? It seems to me, moreover, that there is no means by which the charity itself could enforce payment. In the absence of those matters, it may well be an enforceable obligation could be entered into, but there would be no certainty about it. There is nothing in the Bill which makes it necessary, and, as the Solicitor-General knows, enforceable obligations are something which we on this side find abhorrent in the wider
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      context of the Bill as it relates to collective agreements.
      The Solicitor-General: There is here an inconsistency in the attitude of hon. Members opposite. The hon. Gentleman has expressed again the objection that employers will seek to impose enforceability upon unions, and the unions will have to struggle to escape this idea of enforceability. Yet, in the present context, when they are understandably anxious on this aspect of the matter, they cannot accept the logic of their own argument that employers in the vast majority of cases will be happy to make enforceable agreements.
      If an employer agrees in that way, even if only on this one point, the agreement can be enforceable against him. Under Clause 36(1)(b) as it now stands, an enforceable obligation can be attached to only one part of an agreement, and in that way, as I have said, the union can enforce its remedy.
      The hon. Member for Blackley asked about the position of the charity. The charity could proceed to a civil remedy because it would be entitled to found an action on money had and received; I think that it would probably be an action in quasi-contract. Certainly, if money was being received to the account of the charity by the employer from the contributors, the union would be able to exercise that remedy. If the employer makes such an agreement with the individual worker, and if he declines to pay the money over and the unions discover that, the employer could not sack the man who made the request, because he had done all he could, nor could the union require him to be sacked. But it would be in no sense an unfair industrial practice for the union to take industrial action to require the employer to hand the money over.
      That is the remedy it would assert at present in the absence of an enforceable agreement. So there are all those ways in which it could be done, and I must ask the House to accept that Labour hon. Members are making a tremendous mountain of a modest molehill of no consequence. They have said time and again that they recognise the rights of people not to contribute to unions on grounds of conscience. If they approve

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      of the concept of contribution to charities, they must surely approve such a provision.
      8.0 p.m.
      Mr. Orme: The hon. and learned Gentleman correctly states that at present the question of conscientious objection in the trade union movement is dealt with, but it is a relatively small matter. There has not been much evidence to suggest otherwise. But we fear that the Bill and the terms of the agency shop agreement will widen the whole basis, and there will be far more people applying for those terms than at present—not a fantastic number, but enough to make the system very difficult to work. We can see all sorts of problems which I do not think the Solicitor-General envisages.
      The Solicitor-General: I can see that the fear is expressed with sincerity, and I hope that I acknowledge that it exists. But it is entirely without foundation. The establishment of rights of conscience of this kind will be judged under the Bill by an industrial tribunal whose composition I have described. I cannot conceive that the fears of hon. Members opposite will prove to be justified by the decisions of those tribunals. Conscience is acknowledged on both sides to be worth while, and it will be independently assessed under the provisions of the Bill. We believe it right that a person should be able to establish such grounds in this way, and require his contribution to be routed to the charity as is provided. There is no reason for hon. Members opposite to fear the consequences of that, and no reason for the House to be dismayed or ashamed of the provisions we place before it for establishing the rights of a conscientious objector, without fear or favour, in a way which is entirely acceptable to the people of this country.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Subsequent Lords Amendments agreed to.
      Lords Amendment: No. 9, in page 5, line 8, at end insert:
      "() Where an employer offers a benefit of any kind to any workers as an inducement to refrain from exercising a right conferred on them by subsection (1) of this section, and the employer—

      (a) confers that benefit on one or more of those workers who agree to refrain from exercising that right, and
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      (b) withholds it from one or more of them who do not agree to do so,

      the employer shall for the purposes of this section be regarded, in relation to any such worker as is mentioned in paragraph (b) of this subsection, as having thereby discriminated against him by reason of his exercising that right."
      Mr. R. Carr: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The Amendment makes it an unfair industrial practice for an employer to confer a benefit on some of his workers for agreeing to refrain from exercising the right to belong or not to belong to a trade union while withholding it from other workers who do not so agree. In other words, it makes absolutely safe a worker's right against discrimination by his employer on the important question of belonging to a trade union. It fulfils undertakings given by the Lord Chancellor and other Government spokesmen in another place in response to arguments strongly pressed on them there by Front Bench and other Opposition spokesmen. I hope that in view of that there is no need for me to expand on the Amendment further at this stage.
      Mr. Heffer: The right hon. Gentleman has correctly said that this was an Opposition Amendment accepted by the Government in another place. That acceptance was welcomed by Lady White on behalf of the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, moved what was Amendment No. 39 in another place, supported by Lord Beaumont of Whitley.
      The Amendment shows how impossible is the situation the Government have got themselves into. Subsection (1) confers certain rights on workers either to belong or not to belong to a trade union. An unscrupulous employer, by the use of hard cash, could induce a worker not to belong to a trade union. The Amendment make that an unfair industrial practice, and we are very pleased about that. Lord Windlesham said in the other place on 4th May:
      "Moreover, in Clause 52(a) it is an unfair industrial practice for an employer 'to prevent or deter a worker', and I think that by many members of the Committee the offering of an inducement—perhaps a financial inducement or an inducement of some value—would be regarded as an act by an employer which would deter in the way in which the word is used there.… We agree entirely that the offer of

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      an inducement for such a purpose should be regarded as an unfair industrial practice, and will undertake to introduce words to make this point explicit while avoiding the consequential drafting problems which would arise from simply adopting the terms of the Amendment…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 4th May, 1971; Vol. 318, c. 318–19.]
      In accepting the Opposition's Amendment the Government have accepted the position they have brought about in the Bill by giving the worker a right not to belong to a trade union. But for that, the Government would not have got themselves into the present complicated situation.
      We obviously shall not oppose the Amendment; we welcome it. But we have felt it necessary to point out once again how complicated the situation has become, precisely because of the Clause and the Government's insistence on the right of a worker not to belong to a trade union.
      Mr. Ashton: The first line of the Amendment says
      "Where an employer offers a benefit of any kind…"
      Just how far does that go? For example, would a tied house for a farm worker be classed as such a benefit if the farmer told the worker that he could live in the cottage provided he was a non-unionist? Similarly, what about holidays and so on? Does
      "benefit of any kind"
      literally mean anything appertaining to the job?
      Mr. Carr: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it does.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.

    New Clause "A"

      MODIFICATIONS OF RIGHTS BY AGENCY SHOP AGREEMENT
      Lords Amendment: No. 11, after Clause 5, in page 5, line 23, at end insert new Clause "A":
      "A.—(1) Where an agency shop agreement is for the time being in force, a worker to whom the agreement applies shall not have the right, as between himself and an employer to whom the agreement applies, to refuse to be
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      a member of the trade union with which the agreement was made unless he agrees to pay appropriate contributions to the trade union in lieu of membership of it.
      (2) In accordance with the preceding subsection, it shall not be an unfair industrial practice for an employer to whom an agency shop agreement applies, or for a person acting on behalf of such an employer,—

      (a) to dismiss, penalise or otherwise discriminate against any such worker on the grounds that he is not a member of the trade union with which the agreement was made and has not agreed, or has refused or failed, to pay appropriate contributions to it, or

      (b) to refuse to engage a worker who, if engaged by the employer, would be a worker to whom the agreement applies, on the grounds that he is not a member of that trade union and refuses to become a member of it and also refuses to pay appropriate contributions to it.

      (3) Where a worker to whom an agency shop agreement applies has agreed to pay appropriate contributions to the trade union with which the agreement was made, and requests his employer to deduct the contributions from his remuneration and pay them on his behalf, then so long as that request remains in force—

      (a) he shall not be regarded for the purposes of subsection (2)(a) of this section as having refused to pay the contributions to the trade union, and

      (b) any failure on the part of the employer to comply with the request shall not be regarded as a failure on the part of the worker to pay the contributions.

      (4) In the application of the preceding subsections to an agency shop agreement made with two or more trade unions, references in those subsections to the trade union with which the agreement was made shall be construed as references to one of those trade unions.
      (5) In relation to a person who, in accordance with section 8 or section 9 of this Act, is permitted on grounds of conscience to pay contributions to a charity instead of contributions to a trade union, subsections (1) to (3) of this section shall have effect as if any reference to appropriate contributions to a trade union were a reference to equivalent contributions to that charity.
      (6) In this Act references to an employer to whom an agency shop agreement applies shall be construed as follows, that is to say—

      (a) in the case of such an agreement made by one or more employers, or made by an employers' association and expressed to be made on behalf of one or more employers specified in the agreement, any such reference shall be construed as a reference to that employer or any of those employers, as the case may be;

      (b) in the case of such an agreement made by an employers' association otherwise than as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, any such reference shall be construed as a reference to any employer who is for the time being a member of that employers'

      669
      association, whether he was a member of it on the date on which the agreement was made or not."

      Read a Second time.
      Mr. Harold Walker: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Lords Amendment, leave out subsection (3) and insert:
      (3) Every agency shop agreement shall provide for authorised representatives of trade unions or independent organisations of workers to whom it applies to be provided with, by the employer, at intervals of not more than three months, lists of names, numbers and descriptions of workers who are liable for payment or contributions in lieu of trade union membership subscriptions, and every such agreement shall make provision for the method of payment by the employer to the trade union or independent organisation of workers of such contributions in lieu of trade union contributions such payments to be made at intervals of not longer than two weeks.
      (4) Every agency shop agreement shall provide that the employer shall be responsible for transferring to the union or independent organisations of workers, at not less than the stated interval, such sums as may be due in respect of appropriate contributions in lieu of membership, and facilities shall be afforded to authorised representatives of the trade unions or independent organisations of workers to scrutinise an account which the employer shall make of such payments whenever such representatives deem it appropriate to do so.
      In the debate which concluded a few minutes ago we inevitably travelled over much of the ground relating to this Amendment and its aims. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) and others made absolutely clear in Committee and on Report our fundamental opposition to the agency shop concept. It was a matter of some regret that we had to do that against the pressure of the guillotine with the thunder of the tumbrils rolling in our ears very late at night and for that reason we did so very briefly and inevitably. This debate gives us the opportunity to repair one or two of the omissions of that occasion and perhaps further to expose the weaknesses of what seems to be an attempt to graft an alien concept on the British system of industrial relations.
      The Secretary of State has frequently said—he did so this afternoon, as did the Solicitor-General—that the agency shop provision would check the free rider, a longstanding source of complaint in the trade union movement. We are told that the requirement to pay appropriate contributions in lieu of membership achieves this end.
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      8.15 p.m.
      There is sometimes confusion about the free rider and the effect of the agency shop provision. Sometimes, the conscientious objector is confused with the non-unionist, the non-payer per se. The conscientious objector creates a miniscule problem which the British trade union movement has always been able to take in its stride. The more fundamental problem is that of the very large number—and I confess that with great regret—of those who are not members of trade unions. In spite of the rapidly growing membership of the T.U.C., it is a sad fact that fewer than 50 per cent. of the workers in British industries are organised into trade unions. One would welcome anything which helped to induce, if not coerce, more workers to join trade unions.
      While the Bill sets that out as the proclaimed aim, it is silent about the machinery by which it is to be enforced, and that is why we have moved the Amendment, in spite of the words of the Solicitor-General, to whom I listened with great care when he seemed to be replying to this debate in advance. I am sure that his earlier words will be similar to those with which he replies to this Amendment.
      The Bill does not describe who collects what from whom. The Solicitor-General said that it would be the responsibility of the trade unions to collect the cash from the non-unionist who was paying in lieu of membership. I wonder whether he has thought of the gulf between that hope—and it cannot be much more—and the reality of the workshop floor. In the Amendment we seek to place an obligation in detailed terms on the employer, and we do so because it is the employer and the employer alone who is in control of and who has full knowledge of the situation. The Solicitor-General may believe that in the mixed situation with which we are dealing, with non-unionists and unionists, the unionists will make their identity known to the trade union official, so that all the official or shop steward will have to do is to deduct the known unionists from the global total so that the remainder are non-unionists liable to pay either appropriate contributions in lieu, or contributions to a charity. But that does not correspond with the reality of life in the workshop.

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      First, it would be very nice if that limited facility were accorded to officials and shop stewards, but not only is it not, but it begs the further question of how, even if it were, the official or shop steward would proceed to determine what appropriate contribution should be paid and how it should be collected. Reading through the reports of their Lordships' debates, I noticed that it was assumed that when a union or unions had a shop agency, there was a simple straightforward contribution due to that union or unions; but with my own union—and this no doubt reflects the position of many others—there are differing contributions based on differing classes of membership which are based not merely on an occupational classification, but according to certain wide-ranging friendly benefits. It is therefore extremely difficult for the official at the factory, who under the provisions of the rules is not the one ordinarily charged with the collection of union dues, to determine what the appropriate contribution should be.
      I quote my own union as that of which I have first-hand knowledge, but no doubt it can be paralleled by many others. It has a provision that the member must go to the branch to pay his subscriptions, and that is based on a geographical unit and not necessarily the factory. The rules preclude any moneys from being taken outside the branch, except in certain well defined circumstances, and the proposal in the Lords Amendment would not conform to those circumstances. In that kind of situation, how could we advise the non-unionist to attend the trade union branch to make contributions?
      Mr. David Mitchell Mr. David Mitchell indicated assent.
      Mr. Walker: I see the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell), who knows something of these matters, nodding his head. No doubt he will tell me that the union ought to change its rules.
      Mr. Mitchell: No.
      Mr. Walker: I am glad that we are at one about that. He will share with me the recognition that practical difficulties will arise.
      But that is not the only practical difficulty. When the agency shop has been established, the only individual who will be required to pay the appropriate contributions in lieu of membership is the
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      non-member, but he may be a member of another union. If a union has established an agency and a member of another union seeks employment in that factory, and there may be unions with overlapping recruitment areas—in engineering, for example, we have a plurality of unions and there may be different unions catering for an identical range of workers—he will have to pay double contributions or transfer his union membership.
      The second course may not be easy. For example, in my constituency we are enduring unemployment at a penal level and an engineering fitter may be compelled to seek what would otherwise be uncongenial employment in the coal mining industry as a fitter. But the National Union of Mineworkers has an agreement with the National Coal Board that all manual workers in the industry shall be members of the N.U.M.
      The A.E.U. fitter has to say, "This is purely temporary employment for me. There may well be a Labour Government in three years and employment will take up and I know that I can get back into a decent job out of this rotten industry. Therefore I do not want to surrender my passport, my union membership. I want to keep my A.E.U. membership."
      Equally, he will be reluctant, because contrary to popular belief it is not a highly-paid industry, to incur the financial penalty of paying to both the N.U.M. and the A.E.F. Under Clause 5 he would be entitled to say to both management and union representatives, when asked: "What union do you belong to, if any?", "That is my business and none of yours. I refuse to divulge it." They would not be able to take any action against him. He has the right to be or not to be in his relationships with his employers. It would seem to me that this is one of the attractions of the new Clause, that if the employer were prejudiced against employing a man who refused to divulge then the man might have cause for taking the employer to court.
      Mr. David Mitchell: In the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman's speech he referred to the situation where a man might be faced with having to belong to two unions because he held a union card for one, in the engineering industry, which he did not wish to lose, and was working

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      in what was formerly a closed shop, now an agency shop in the coalmining industry. This would impose financial difficulties upon him. The hon. Gentleman is experienced in these matters and must realise that that situation exists now, except that the man will have to belong to both unions if he wishes to retain his card in the engineering union and wishes to work inside a closed shop in another industry where that closed shop is not the engineering union.
      Mr. Walker: This is true but the hon. Gentleman misses my point. What I seek to expose is the impracticality of the agency shop proposals because——
      Mr. David Mitchell Mr. David Mitchell indicated dissent.
      Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head but it has been our case all along that because of this kind of situation the agency shop is an impractical proposition. I used an argument in Committee to expose that. It was that a situation might arise where there is rivalry between two unions which co-exist uneasily side by side. After enactment one may seek to establish a sole agency in a factory with the result that the union or unions which lose out in that agency shop situation will be confronted with having to tell their members either to transfer to the victor union or to pay a double fee. I exampled the position of the railway workshops at Doncaster where the N.U.M. and the A.E.F.—I am not even sure whether it is the A.E.F. or the A.U.E.W. in these days of change—had over-lapping recruitment areas, geographically and in terms of classification. After enactment one or the other might seek to establish a sole agency.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that we would think this to be a good thing? He might not say so but in his heart of hearts I believe he would accept that if more unions had greater control there would be less inter-union rivalry and greater industrial peace. Secondly, this will work both ways so that while one union will gain at one factory as against another, if it is a majority union, in another area the union which has lost out earlier will gain by becoming the majority union. It will work Box and Cox.
      Mr. Walker: We agree that an important element in this situation is the variety of unions and the overlapping of recruiting areas which often leads to complication. I am on the record when we debated the agency shop arrangement in Committee as saying that the Secretary of Stale was tilting at a problem which undeniably existed. We say that this is not the right way to resolve it. Having diagnosed the problem, this is not the prescription which we would support. It seeks to import from the United States a system of industrial relations in the belief that it will transform our industrial relations. We do not believe that the trade union movement or industrial relations generally can be transformed in that way.
      The movement is an organic thing, it has grown, it has modified itself—perhaps too slowly for changing circumstances. We believe that this is the right way for change to take place, perhaps more rapidly than has been the case. It should happen as an organic thing, responding and evolving through changing circumstances. The trade union movement is changing rapidly. I referred to my confusion over my own union—the A.E.U. the A.U.E.W. or the A.E.F. It is an indication of the rapidity of change.
      Last week I was at a meeting and I had to query the name of a union I had not heard before. I was quietly told that it was the new name for the building trade workers, the General Federation of Construction Workers, I believe. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) is familiar with it, he belonged to the industry that it represents. That is the way evolution should come about, in response to changing circumstances.
      Turning to the second point raised by the hon. Gentleman I am bound to say that he sees this in terms of the abstract rather than the real problems which arise for members. It is no solution for the individual to be told that his union has lost out at the railway workshop and that he has to change his union membership and forfeit the benefits he has paid for for years.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Oh !
      Mr. Walker: With respect, this shows the hon. Gentleman's lack of understanding. He scoffs when I make that point. I would point out that my union operates

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      a superannuation benefit, a pitiful few shillings it is I know, but many A.E.F. super-annuitants are desperately dependent on those few shillings extra because it means the difference between absolute penury at the normal pension level and the odd ounce of "baccy". It is important to him. He may be on the brink of retirement after 30 or 40 years' service and qualifies for superannuation benefit. He will not take kindly to being told, "The union has lost. You will have to join the others or pay a contribution in lieu". The hon. Gentleman seems to think that it will be some consolation for him to be told, "It does not matter because we have won against them down the road, so our union membership will remain balanced. We have lost 200 here, but we have 250 of their lot". If the hon. Gentleman says that it is desirable to have all the workers in the establishment in one union, we agree with him; we see the advantages of it. But the Bill seeks to impose this when there is an agreed agency shop situation——
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: For years we in the House have been talking about the transferability of pensions from firm to firm. [HON. MEMBERS: "We on this side have."] So have we on this side of the House. If that is what we want in industry, surely we may expect that the trade unions, when there is a change, whether arising from this Bill or not, will be responsible for their members' benefit and that they will ensure that their members do not suffer but will arrange the transfer of benefits with the object of having one union to represent one factory. Surely they will ensure that their members do not lose.
      8.30 p.m.
      Mr. Walker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for responding roughly to him. He is usually a most genial debater for whom I have respect. But it ill lies in his mouth to talk about the transferability of pensions when my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) sought to achieve transferability by means of a very large Bill which was received with nothing but abuse from hon. Members opposite. The hon. Gentleman does not understand the reality of the trade union movement when it comes to the transferability of pensions and other benefit provisions be-
      676
      tween unions. Every trade union is a distinctly different animal from the rest. There are deep differences between their rules and other provisions.
      Hon. Members opposite seem to see this as an easy way out every time they come up against the problems of the structure of the trade union movement. Those problems are recognised not only by hon. Members on this side of the House but by trade unions and trade unionists. The movement has inherited problems of structure because it is the oldest trade union movement in the world. We taught trade unionism to the world. It is not good enough for hon. Members opposite to suggest or imply that the unions should change their rules.
      Having realistically posed some of the problems which are likely to arise from the agency shop concept, and recognising the Government's intention to catch the free rider, we say that the sincerity of their aim is tested by our Amendment. One lamentable failure on the part of those who drafted the Bill is the omission from it of machinery for collecting the payments made in lieu of trade union membership contributions. The Solicitor-General said that this was the task of the trade unions. I say in reply that in the majority of cases the trade unions cannot know who are non-unionists and who are unionists. Dual membership, except in a few cases, is a contravention of the T.U.C. Bridlington Agreement. I am sure that that will bring forth the riposte from the Government Front Bench and that the Bridlington Agreement will have to be scrapped. This is the kind of cavalier treatment to which the trade union movement has been subjected by the Bill.
      Reverting to the difficulty which we are seeking to overcome with the agency shop provisions, we say that if the Government are sincere in their intention that the free rider should not be able to evade his obligations, but should meet them, then the right way to do it is to make the employer responsible for taking the money. A union cannot take money from non-unionists. That is nonsense, is it not? Non-unionists cannot attend a union branch meeting. There seems to be running through the whole of the Government's proposal the assumption that employers are falling over themselves to let

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      trade union officials or shop stewards go round catching up with the lads in the factories to collect the money. I wish they were, and the Solicitor-General should address himself to the employers if he really believes it is the job of trade union officials in the factories or on the sites to go round collecting the cash from the boys. However, I do not believe that that is the practical or proper way to do it.
      When this Lords Amendment was debated in another place the Government spokesman said, if I recall aright, that the Government wanted to keep the agency shop agreement provisions in the Bill as simple and free from detail as possible, and he spoke of the difficulties of enforcement of the proposed Amendment. The Solicitor-General made a point of this. He said we were being inconsistent on this point of enforceability. I must point out to him that under terms of Clause 10 of the Bill as it stands at the moment the appropriate contributions for trade union membership will be an integral part of the individual worker's terms and conditions of employment. We are only saying in our Amendment to the Lords Amendment that if this provision is to stay there must be the provision for the machinery by means of which the contributions shall be collected. Note that we are not talking of legal enforceability. We are talking in the same terms as the Bill, and saying that this provision should be written into the agency shop agreement whether that agreement is legally enforceable or not.
      I hope that I have made it clear, and that the preceding speeches of my hon. Friends speaking on previous Lords Amendments have made it clear, that we are opposed in principle and in practice and fundamentally to the provisions in the Bill anyhow, and we recognise the impracticability of these provisions as they stand, but we say that if they are to be there they ought to be able to work properly, and our Amendment to the Lords Amendment is a test of the Government's sincerity.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I rise to welcome the Lords Amendments in this case and to urge upon my hon. and learned Friend the rejection of the Amendment to the Lords Amendment moved so eloquently
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      by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker).
      Mr. Harold Walker: I am deeply sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I rise on a point of order. May 1 assume that subsequently we shall have a separate or further debate on the Lords Amendment itself? I deliberately withheld some remarks which I should like to address later to the Lords Amendment.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): The hon. Member is quite right. It will be in order to have further debate on the Question later, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
      Mr. Mitchell: I trust that that will not prevent us from being able to talk about two matters which are very closely interrelated. I believe that some representations which I passed on to the Solicitor-General from trade unionists and non-trade unionists in my constituency may have played some part in bringing the attention of the Government to the problem which was present in the Bill in the form in which it left this House. I refer to the problem of the non-trade unionist having to pay a subscription to a union and the physical method of transferring the money.
      The hon. Member for Doncaster recognised the problem of the non-trade unionist attending a union branch meeting. It is not only the problem of the non-trade unionist being asked to come on to hallowed ground. The last time I attended a meeting of what is now the A.U.E.W. the main branch meeting which I was addressing was being held at one end of the hall. Union members were entering at the back of the hall, paying their subscriptions to the treasurer and, if they did not wish to take part in the meeting, slipping out again.
      One can imagine the unpleasant reception which the non-trade unionist would have at some of the more militant branches when he turned up to pay the subscription required by law. I do not suggest that he would be wet-towelled, but he would encounter tough picketing and have a tough reception from the more militant members who objected to his non-membership.
      It is therefore essential that the Government should interpose between the non-trade unionist and the union

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      branch and the union membership somebody who is not involved as the collector of the money, who can hand the money over without there having to be a regular personal problem of the type which would face the non-trade unionist. The Government have obviously reached the right conclusions. The only person who is available in a non-personal capacity and who is continually there is the employer. Therefore, that the money should be handed to the employer and that the employer should hand it to the union at appropriate intervals is a logical and sensible way of dealing with a very considerable personal problem which would otherwise arise for the non-trade unionist. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognised at least part of this problem.
      The purpose is to remove bitterness. I am certain that the result of a non-trade unionist's going to a union meeting would be anything but to remove bitterness. It would indeed bring it to a new tension at regular intervals.
      The Amendment to the Lords Amendment is very curious in a number of ways. There is no logical reason for stipulating three months in line 3, two weeks in line 8, and the right of
      "authorised representatives of the trade union … to scrutinise an account".
      Provided that the money was handed over once every six months with a list of those to whom it applied, that should be adequate and could be covered under the Bill's existing proposals. I have no doubt that the worthy Solicitor-General will guide us if I am in any way misinformed.
      I hope that the House will reject the Amendment to the Lords Amendment and accept with alacrity the Lords Amendment.
      Mr. Robert Hughes: I cannot forbear from commenting on the rather amusing thought that entered my mind when the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) spoke of a non-trade unionist going to a trade union branch meeting. He might not exactly be wet-towelled. I come from a trade union background and would not pretend that the language used by trade unionists and the feelings they express towards non-unionists are exactly polite at times; but wet-towelling is one of the
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      things which belongs to the public school sixth-form novels which are not part of the reading and discussion of unionists. That kind of remark clearly shows the background from which the hon. Gentleman comes. I am not suggesting that he should be ashamed of it, but I am saying that it is the kind of background which does not enable him even to begin to understand or have any feeling of what trade unionism is about.
      8.45 p.m.
      Mr. David Mitchell: It will help the hon. Gentleman if I clarify my qualification in this context—six years' membership of the Transport and General Workers' Union, which is not normally classed as an upper-class Tory organisation.
      Mr. Hughes: It is obvious that the hon. Gentleman learned absolutely nothing in those six years. The great shame of it is that his membership did not rub some good sense into him.
      Mr. Mitchell: Since the hon. Gentleman has made that point, perhaps I can point out that the union took the view that I was at least absorbing enough knowledge to send me on a scholarship to its summer school.
      Mr. Hughes: First, the hon. Gentleman needed it, and, secondly, it shows that even in the great trade unions there are aberrations of judgment.
      I come now to the more serious point of the Amendment to the Lords Amendment. Although it really goes against the grain, we on these benches have to try to mount some kind of rescue operation for the Bill and the agency shop provisions. The Government are having their way on the agency shop agreement and probably at the end of the day they will carry the Lords Amendment. Nevertheless, the difficulties involved in the agency shop are such that it is necessary to take such steps as we can to try to remove the kind of bitterness and distress which will arise in factories and which hon. Members opposite fail to understand will exist in even greater degree that now between trade unionists and non-trade unionists.
      The Solicitor-General seemed to suggest earlier that the free rider is being eliminated in the sense that no longer will he be absolutely free of cost, that

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      he will have to pay either a contribution in lieu of membership or to a charity. I do not want to deal now with the problem of the genuine conscientious objector, but with the kind of person whom we regard as a free rider. As I understand the Bill in its present form, the amount of contribution by the non-trade unionist will not be the full cost of trade union membership. It will be at a reduced rate which takes care of the service which is being provided for him by the union.
      Hon. Members may think that that is the end of the matter. One might argue straightforwardly that any man who does not pay his full contribution by becoming a union member is losing all kinds of benefits. My own union—the A.E.U.W. in its latest incarnation—provides in addition to superannuation, unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, tool benefit insurance and various other services. Non-trade unionists, by not paying this element of the subscription, will not only be denying themselves benefit but also denying benefit to trade union members. My union takes the view that the more members it has and the more who pay into its funds, the greater the benefits paid. The rules say that when contributions have reached a certain monetary level the benefits to union members increase. Here is the first source of friction in that the benefits which could be made available to union members will be eroded—although not to any great extent—by people who are not paying the full contribution. We are not arguing now in terms of the actual physical reduction in benefit. What we are talking about is the kind of distress and resentment which will arise and which is to be backed by the full force of the law. That is one aspect.
      The other aspect is that when a person seeks employment in a factory, amongst the things which will have to be explained to him are the regulations if an agency shop agreement is in operation. Some hon. Members opposite have the fond illusion that employers are falling over themselves to get their workers to join a union. My experience in my 16 years of working in factories is the very opposite to that. My experience is that any opportunity an employer finds to discourage people from becoming trade union members he will take.
      682
      It would be quite legal, possible and likely under the Bill for employers to say, "We have an agency shop agreement here, and a trade union, but it will cost you less if you opt out"—because this is what the agency shop agreement amounts to. In explaining the different provisions an employer can suggest that a man will be better off not to join by the very manner in which he speaks, so that the person going for the job recognises the employer's attitude. It is no good the hon. Member for Basingstoke shaking his head: anyone with any real experience of industry knows that this is precisely what happens.
      Mr. David Mitchell: I was not shaking my head at that, but at the interpretation of the Bill. It is wrong to say that the non-trade unionists will not have to pay the full minimum subscription which the trade union member pays, because the only thing he will not have to pay is anything which is voluntary to the full member not to pay.
      Mr. Hughes: That is an interpretation which may be put on the terms of the Bill, but my belief is that by the time the rules of the registered trade union have been examined, we will have to ask ourselves what a full subscription is. In my union the minimum is section 5 membership. That does not carry the full benefits conferred by section 1 membership. Those in the skilled trades can choose either section 1 and have the benefits of full membership, or section 5, in which case they pay the absolute minimum. If the agency shop agreement is in force, it is highly unlikely that the basic contribution will be regarded as anything but the minimum contribution.
      As I was saying, the employer could by the very tone in which he discussed the various conditions encourage the prospective employee not to join the trade union. That would mean a growing number of people not becoming trade union members. I say that they are still free riders even though they are paying something, because they have no responsibility towards the trade union; no responsibility to try to promote its aims and ideas. That is bad for trade union membership.
      The Amendment would mean that conditions would be laid down by which shop stewards or trade union representatives could find out who was not a

      683
      member of their trade union, who was paying reduced subscriptions, and who was a conscientious objector and making a payment to a charity. It is vital that we should know.
      If a shop steward asks a new employee, "Are you a member of the trade union?" the employee can either say that he is not, because he has not got a card—and that is all right—or he may say that he is a conscientious objector, and thus paying to a charity, or that he is paying a reduced subscription to the trade union. On the other hand, the shop steward may get a dusty answer, and be told, "It is none of your business. I am not a trade union member. You have no control over me. You have no right to question me." But if the employee says that he is paying to a charity, how is the shop steward to verify that statement? He may ask the management, but if the management refuses to answer, where does he go to then? If there is an employer who is particularly difficult, he could make out a case of harassment by the shop steward who was continually asking non-unionists whether they were paying any subscriptions. As I understand it, that would be an unfair industrial practice, and things could develop into a real conflict.
      The whole problem of industrial relations is one of psychology. The Government have totally failed to understand the feelings of trade unionists in this kind of situation. The agency concept is bad. It will not work. It is better for people to solve their problems by themselves, but if there has to be conflict, let it at least be among equals, among people on the shop floor. If the law is interposed, and employers are interposed, it results only in greater distrust. It is a prescription for disastrous industrial relations. It is wholly bad, and I think that the Government could begin at least a minimum salvage operation by accepting the Opposition's Amendment.
      The Solicitor-General: I do not propose to take a great deal of time to reply to the debate, because a large part of what the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) said, and almost the whole of what was said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes), was devoted to a general description of the principles of the agency
      684
      shop, and a discussion at any length on that topic would be out of order on this proposed Amendment to a Lords Amendment. In so far as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North covered again the arguments about the growing number of free-riders, I can only reply that that is a topic with which I dealt in my reply to the last debate, at perhaps more length than was necessary.
      The hon. Member for Doncaster warned the House that there was a danger that my reply to this debate would follow closely my reply to the earlier debate. That arose only because the argument put forward from the other side of the House on the earlier debate drew me on to this territory.
      Most of the debate on Amendment No. 11 has been held on an earlier Amendment but, in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell), perhaps I might repeat what I said then. The appearance of subsection (3) in this Amend-mena and a similar phrase in Amendment No. 40 is due to the representations made to the Government by my hon. Friend, and many others, on this very point.
      On the narrow point now being discussed, namely, the Opposition's Amendment to Amendment No. 11, as I said in reply to the earlier debate, it is not necessary for any such provision to be included as a matter of course in an agency shop agreement. Points of this kind can be covered by the collective agreement in which the agency shop agreement will be comprised. They could be the only legally enforceable points covered in such a clause of an agency shop agreement. An agency shop agreement could include, as many union or closed shop agreements do, a provision for the check off system to apply, whether generally or selectively; in other words, for all the people employed in the factory, or only in respect of those who were appropriate contributors.
      The union, of course, would be entitled to ask the employer where there was a collective agreement, whether contributions were being received under the proposals in subsection (3) of Amendment No. 11. The union would be entitled to ask the worker whether he was making a contribution, and if he were ill-advised enough to reply that it was none of the

      685
      union's business he would soon find that that was an unwise response, because it is the union's business to know, just as it is the employer's business to know, whether, in an agency shop, a member is paying his contributions. Either he pays to the union as a member of it, or the union and the employer are entitled to know whether he is paying his appropriate contributions.
      It is in the employer's interest to satisfy himself that these people are paying their contributions. It is in the employee's interest to satisfy the union that he is paying his contributions. But it is in the employer's interest to satisfy the union as well.
      Therefore, quite apart from any agreement, the provisions would follow as a matter of course from everybody's interest in such a situation. Also, collective agreements could provide for it, and, beyond that, if an employer were collecting contributions on behalf of an individual and not passing them on, it would also be open, in the last resort, for the union to take industrial action to enforce payment.
      In fact, one cannot see a situation in which a union would not know its own membership in such a situation. Therefore, it would know that it was entitled to receive contributions from all the employees in the shop or factory who were not its own members or who had not agreed with the union to pay to a charity, and it would know the number of members in respect of whom payments would have to be made, either direct or through the employer to the unions.
      The Opposition fear unnecessarily. Their anxiety about the agency shop is well understood. It is not the subject of this debate. Amendment No. 11 is perfectly reasonable and workable without this complex addition.
      9.0 p.m.
      Mrs. Castle: We are in some difficulty, because we are discussing our Amendment in isolation from the last Amendment. The two obviously hang together. What the Solicitor-General has not answered is my hon. Friend's telling remark that if subsection (3) of the proposed new Clause is necessary and desir-
      686
      able—the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Devid Mitchell) welcomed it and the Solicitor-General applauded it as meeting a valid point—then our Amendment is equally necessary and desirable.
      We cannot be told, "We have that subsection (3) in the new Clause," and then, when we say that this provision is not adequate and that we want a stronger one, be old, "You can do it all through the collective agreement". That is fobbing us off with an attempt to get the best of both arguments.
      My hon. Friend said that we accept that we have to make provision as to whose responsibility it is to see that these contributions in lieu become a valid part of the agency shop agreement. We do not accept that subsection (3) makes that explicit or goes far enough. The hon. Member for Basingstoke welcomed the subsection as getting over the problem that one cannot expect the union to be responsible for collecting from non-unionists, and he said that the Opposition's further Amendment was unnecessary.
      But subsection (3) helps us only where the worker who is making the contributions in lieu or who has applied to make them requests his employer to deduct his contributions from his wage. That is a slightly Alice in Wonderland situation. If a non-unionist chooses on principle not to belong to a union, and if he is a member of the "awkward squad", in a union shop, and if he will be taking advantage of the legal loophole which the Government are giving him to exercise the statutory right not to belong to a union, if he will glory in it and then request his employer to deduct his contributions from his pay, that is not a reasonable solution.
      Mr. David Mitchell: The right hon. Lady will agree that there are circumstances in which it is usual for union subscriptions to be collected at the place of work rather than at a branch meeting, which might occur in a different situation. It may be perfectly reasonable for money to be handed over to the union collector in this case, when and where the other subscriptions are being handed over. The Bill will, therefore, provide flexibility so that either situation can be met.
      Mrs. Castle: It is reasonable for the check-off system to apply, but let us consider the wording of the Bill and not what the hon. Gentleman thinks it says. The Measure talks about the worker requesting his employer to deduct money from his pay, which means that an initiative must be taken. Does the hon. Gentleman think that non-unionists will not wish to sit on their money for as long as they can? Does he believe that non-unionists having decided to make contributions to charity, they will queue up to take the initiative and say to their employer, "Please apply the check-off system to me. I would hate to be outside the law in this matter?"
      The Solicitor-General managed, with one of his usual labyrinthine answers, to avoid answering our questions.
      The Solicitor-General: Perhaps the right hon. Lady overlooks the fact that, labyrinthine or not, I explained the matter clearly when answering the debate on the previous Amendment. She was not in her place at that time. On that occasion I gave a detailed response to a number
      of questitons from her hon. Friends. I do not wish to go over all the steps again.
      Mrs. Castle: I listened to his answer on this occasion, in which he said he was summarising what he said previously. I have also been given some information by my hon. Friends about the earlier answer he gave. I came in towards the end of his answer to the last debate and I challenged him about being on the horns of a legal enforceability dilemma. He wants to lure us into his legal enforceability trap by saying that this is negotiable as part of the closed shop agreement, but that is no answer.
      If it is necessary to spell out this provision in the Bill, then let it be spelt out in the way we suggest and not in the manner he suggests. If the Government wish to achieve a certain end, they will prove their integrity by choosing our, more effective, means of securing that end.
      Question put, That the Amendment be made to the Lords Amendment:—
      The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 286.

      Division No. 440.]

      AYES

      [9.8 p.m.

      Abse, Leo

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Fraser, John (Norwood)

      Albu, Austen

      Cronin, John

      Freeson, Reginald

      Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Allen, Scholefield

      Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Garrett, W. E.

      Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

      Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Dalyell, Tam

      Ginsburg, David

      Ashton, Joe

      Darling, Rt Hn. George

      Golding, John

      Atkinson, Norman

      Davidson, Arthur

      Gourlay, Harry

      Bagier, Cordon A. T.

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Barnes, Michael

      Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

      Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Davies, Ifor (Cower)

      Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

      Barnett, Joel

      Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

      Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

      Beaney, Alan

      Davis, Clinton (Hacknev, C.)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

      Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

      Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

      Deakins, Eric

      Hamling, William

      Bidwell, Sydney

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrev

      Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Bishop, E. S.

      Delargy, H. J.

      Hardy, Peter

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Boardman, H. (Leigh)

      Dempsey, James

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      Booth, Albert

      Doig, Peter

      Hattersley, Roy

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Dormand, J. D.

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Bradley, Tom

      Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

      Horam, John

      Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, w.)

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

      Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

      Brown Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

      Driberg, Tom

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Buchan, Norman

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

      Dunnett, Jack

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

      Eadie, Alex

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

      Cailaghan, Rt. Hn. James

      Edelman, Maurice

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

      Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

      Hunter, Adam

      Cant, R. B.

      Edwards, William (Merioneth)

      Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Ellis, Tom

      Janner, Greville

      Carter, Ray (Birmingham, Northfield)

      English, Michael

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

      Evans, Fred

      Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H'b'n & St.P'cras, S.)

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Faulds, Andrew

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      John, Brynmor

      Cohen, Stanley

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

      Coleman, Donald

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

      Concannon, J. D.

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Conlan, Bernard

      Foot, Michael

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Corbet, Mrs. Freda

      Ford, Ben

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth. C.)

      Forrester, John

      Jones, Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Miller, Dr. M. S.

      Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

      Jones, T, Alec (Rhondda, w.)

      Milne, Edward (Blyth)

      Sillars, James

      Judd, Frank

      Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

      Silverman, Julius

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Molloy, William

      Skinner, Dennis

      Kelley, Richard

      Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

      Small, William

      Kerr, Russell

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Kinnock, Neil

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Lambie, David

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Stallard, A. W.

      Lamond, James

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

      Latham, Arthur

      Murray, Ronald King

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Lawson, George

      Ogden, Eric

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Leadbitter, Ted

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Strang, Gavin

      Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      O'Malley, Brian

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Leonard, Dick

      Oram, Bert

      Taverne, Dick

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Orme, Stanley

      Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

      Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

      Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Padley, Walter

      Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

      Lipton, Marcus

      Paget, R. T.

      Tinn, James

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Palmer, Arthur

      Tomney, Frank

      Loughlin, Charles

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Torney, Tom

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

      Tuck, Raphael

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

      Pendry, Tom

      Urwin, T. W.

      Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

      Pentland, Norman

      Varley, Eric G.

      McBride, Neil

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Wainwright, Edwin

      McCann, John

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

      McCartney, Hugh

      Prescott, John

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      McElhone, Frank

      Price, J. T. (Westhoughon)

      Wallace, George

      McGuire, Michael

      Probert, Arthur

      Watkins, David

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Rankin, John

      Weitzman, David

      Mackintosh, John P.

      Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Maclennan, Robert

      Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Rhodes, Geoffrey

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

      McNamara, J. Kevin

      Richard, Ivor

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Whitlock, William

      Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E)

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Marks, Kenneth

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Marquand, David

      Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

      Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

      Marsden, F.

      Roper, John

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund

      Rose, Paul B.

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

      Meacher, Michael

      Sandelson, Neville

      Woof, Robert

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-uncler-Lyne)

      Mendelson, John

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Mikardo, Ian

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

      Mr. Joseph Harper and

      Millan, Bruce

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

      Emery, Peter

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Carlisle, Mark

      Eyre, Reginald

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Farr, John

      Astor, John

      Channon, Paul

      Fell, Anthony

      Atkins, Humphrey

      Chapman, Sydney

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      Awdry, Daniel

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Fidler, Michael

      Baker, w. H. K. (Banff)

      Chichester-Clark, R.

      Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

      Balniel, Lord

      Churchill, W. S.

      Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

      Flercher-Cooke, Charles

      Batsford, Brian

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

      Clegg, Walter

      Foster, Sir John

      Bell, Ronald

      Cockeram, Eric

      Fowler, Norman

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

      Coombs, Derek

      Fox, Marcus

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

      Cooper, A. E.

      Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford … Stone)

      Benyon, W.

      Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Fry, Peter

      Berry, Hn. Anthony

      Cormack, Patrick

      Galbrarith, Hn. T. G.

      Biffen, John

      Costain, A. P.

      Gardner, Edward

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Critchley, Julian

      Gibson-Watt, David

      Blaker, Peter

      Crouch, David

      Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Boscawen, Robert

      Curran, Charles

      Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

      Bossom, Sir Clive

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutstord)

      Goodhart, Philip

      Bowden, Andrew

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

      Goodhew, Victor

      Boyd'Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

      Braine, Bernard

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. James

      Gorst, John

      Bray, Ronald

      Dean, Paul

      Gower, Raymond

      Brewis, John

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Brinton, Sir Tatton

      Digby, Simon Wingfleld

      Gray, Hamish

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Dixon, Piers

      Green, Alan

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Grieve, Percy

      Bryan, Paul

      Drayson, G. B.

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

      Dykes, Hugh

      Grylls, Michael

      Buck, Antony

      Eden, Sir John

      Gummer, Selwyn

      Bullus, Sir Eric

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Curden, Harold

      Burden, F. A.

      Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

      Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

      690

      691

      Hall, John (Wycombe)

      Maginnis, John E.

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Marples, Rt Hn. Ernest

      Rost, Peter

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Marten, Neil

      Russell, Sir Ronald

      Hannam, John (Exeter)

      Mather, Carol

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Harrrison, Brian (Maldon)

      Maude, Angus

      Scott, Nicholas

      Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Mawby, Ray

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

      Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

      Hastings, Stephen

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Simeons, Charles

      Havers, Michael

      Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Hay, John

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire. W)

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

      Heath, Rt. Hon. Edward

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Soref, Harold

      Hicks, Robert

      Moate, Roger

      Speed, Keith

      Higgins, Terence L.

      Molyneaux, James

      Spence, John

      Hiley, Joseph

      Money, Ernle

      Sproat, lain

      Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

      Monro, Hector

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

      Holland, Philip

      More, Jasper

      Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

      Holt, Miss Mary

      Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

      Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

      Hordern, Peter

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Stokes, John

      Hornby, Richard

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

      Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

      Mudd, David

      Sutcliffe, John

      Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

      Murton, Oscar

      Tapsell, Peter

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Nabarro, Sir Gerald

      Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

      Neave, Airey

      Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

      Hunt, John

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Tebbit, Norman

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Normanton, Tom

      Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

      James, David

      Nott, John

      Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

      Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

      Onslow, Cranley

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

      Jessel, Toby

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

      Tilney, John

      Jopling, Michael

      Osborn, John

      Trafford, Dr. Anthony

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Page, Graham (Crosby)

      Trew, Peter

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Kilfedder, James

      Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

      Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

      Kimball, Marcus

      Peel, John

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Percival, Ian

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Vickers, Dame Joan

      Kinsey, J. R.

      Pike, Miss Mervyn

      Waddington, David

      Kirk, Peter

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Kitson, Timothy

      Pounder, Rafton

      Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

      Knox, David

      Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

      Walters, Dennis

      Lane, David

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Ward, Dame Irene

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

      Warren, Kenneth

      Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

      Proudfoot, Wilfred

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      White, Roger (Gravesend)

      Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

      Raison, Timothy

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Longden, Gilbert

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Loveridge, John

      Redmond, Robert

      Wilkinson, John

      Luce, R. N.

      Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      McAdden, Sir Stephen

      Rees, Peter (Dover)

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      MacArthur, Ian

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Woodnutt, Mark

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

      Worsley, Marcus

      McLaren, Martin

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

      Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

      Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

      Younger, Hn. George

      McMaster, Stanley

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

      FELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      McNair-Wilson, Michael

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Mr. Paul Hawkins and

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Mr. Tim Fortescue.

      Maddan, Martin

      9.15 p.m.
      The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      The substance of all the points in the Amendment has already been discussed. It is largely redrafting. Subsections (1), (2) and (5) take the place of passages which we have removed from an earlier Clause. Subsection (4) makes plain the position where there is more than one union party to a shop agreement. Subsection (6), which I have already explained in connection with
      Amendment No. 18, is designed to make it possible for an agency shop agreement to be made with an employer's association as well as with one or more employer. That provision was generally welcomed when we discussed it in the context of Amendment No. 18.
      In subsection (3), which we discussed during the last debate, provision is made for a form of check-off in respect of contributions by a contributing member.
      The only other change to which I should draw attention is in subsection (2)(b). The words "has refused" are

      693
      replaced by the word "refuses", an Amendment moved by Lord Gray in another place, so as to make plain that it is refusal at the time which is a necessary condition to show that the worker is not complying with the agency shop agreement.
      On that basis, I commend the new Clause to the House.
      Mr. Harold Walker: I have two queries to raise. The Solicitor-General said that he had referred earlier to subsection (6). I deeply regret that I was not here for the opening of his earlier speech, and I missed that reference, so he may well have dealt with the query which I wish to raise on it.
      First, however, I take up the question of subsection (2) and the change to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, that is, that it will not be an unfair industrial practice for an employer to refused to engage an applicant for work who is (a) not a trade unionist or (b) is not prepared to pay his contributions in lieu. Does this mean that an earlier assumption of mine that Clause 5 may well preclude an employer from vetting the trade union credentials of an applicant for employment is ill-founded and the employer may so vet an applicant? In other words, is it open to him to say, in effect, that membership of a particular union is a matter which he is entitled to question, and he will reserve his judgment about whether there is in that respect a valid reason for employing him?
      Now, the question on subsection (6). I can well understand that this has probably been introduced to meet the difficulties of people engaged in the acting profession, for example, in which there is transitory employment and a plurality of employers. But does it at the same time open the door for the Engineering Employers' Federation to conclude an agreement with, for example, the A.E.F. at national level that in all federated establishments, toolmakers, say, shall be members of the A.E.F.? In other words, can a national agency be established along those lines between a union and an employers' federation on behalf of all federated establishments?
      The Solicitor-General: I did not quite follow the question which the hon. Gentleman put on subsection (2). Would
      694
      he be good enuogh to explain it a little further?
      Mr. Walker: Subsection (2) provides that it shall not be an unfair industrial practice for an employer to refuse to engage a worker who is either not a member of a trade union or refuses to pay his contributions in lieu. In other words, if an applicant for employment is neither one nor the other, the employer is entitled to refuse to engage him without incurring penalty. Clearly, that implies that the employer has the right to vet the union credentials of an applicant and to put the question, "Are you a member of a trade union?".
      In earlier debates there had been an assumption, certainly on my part, that the provisions of the Clause could put the employer at some risk if he asked an applicant for employment, "Are you a member of a trade union?" and subsequently wrote regretting that he had been unsuccessful in his application. We never had the position clarified. Would the applicant who admitted he was a non-unionist applying for employment at an establishment with 100 per cent. unionism—not a closed shop—have grounds for telling the tribunal or court, "I believe that there has been prejudice against me because I am not a union member"? It seemed to me that there was implicit in the Clause a disentitlement to the employer to ask that question. Subsection (2) of the new Clause implies that the employer has the right to ask an applicant whether he is a union member, and, if he is not, whether he is prepared to become one or to pay his contributions in lieu. Is my interpretation correct?
      The Solicitor-General: With the leave of the House, I should like to answer the two points the hon. Gentleman raised. His understanding of the effect of subsection (2) is entirely correct. With the small change that I have mentioned, it reproduces the provision in the original Clause 5. The effect is that where an agency shop agreement exists the employer is entitled to ask a prospective employee whether he is a member of Union X. If the man says, "No", the employer may reply, "If you are to enter employment here you must become a member of Union X or agree to pay appropriate contributions". It is in order

      695
      for the employer to ask that kind of question.
      Clause 18 makes it plain that the statement given to the employee under the Contracts of Employment Act would have to tell him the nature of his union membership obligations in the place at which he will come to work, and Clause 7 gives the incoming worker a month in which to join the union or pay the contribution.
      Therefore, the position is that the employer can ask, "Do you belong? If not, will you belong or contribute?" If the man refuses to reply, "Yes", to either of those questions the employer can refuse to engage him. If the answer is, "Yes", the employer can dismiss him if he does not comply with his agreements.
      I explained subsection (6) when the hon. Gentleman was not present in the Chamber, but I will run over it again shortly. It entitles an employers' association, including an employers' federation, to make an agency shop agreement on behalf of its members with a union or unions. The employers' association can do that industry-wide in so far as its membership is industry-wide. There may be some employers in the industry who do not belong to the association, and therefore could not be covered by such an agreement. Let us take, for example, the employers' association in the boot and shoe industry, which made representations to ascertain that it could make an agency shop agreement for all its members throughout the section of the industry that it covered. That association may indeed enter into an agency shop agreement on behalf of all its members. It could not bind people who did not belong to it, but within its membership, acting on their behalf as a result of subsection (6)(b), it would make the agency shop agreement so as to bind any member of the association or any employer who became a member.
      I hope that makes the position clear. Both answers are in the sense that the hon. Member wants. An employer may inquire into the credentials of a prospective employee and encourage him to join the union and the employers' association may make an agency shop agreement on behalf of all its members.
      9.30 p.m.
      Dame Irene Ward: I am getting a little worried about this interchange. I was not able to listen to the introduction to the discussion, and I am probably stepping off on the wrong foot. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am always perfectly willing to declare that I do not know something. The Opposition would be far better if they learned a little more sometimes. [HON. MEMBERS: "You should come and listen."] I had other business to attend to. [HON. MEMBERS: "The House comes first."] It is no good shouting at me, because I will just stand here until I have said what I want to say. In fact, I am rather enjoying standing here, because I can have a good look at all the hon. Members opposite. Where I am is a very good observation post.
      I want to know for certain that this provision will not affect the right of the professional engineers now involved in the C. A. Parsons dispute, many of them my constituents. [HON. MEMBERS: "What a question !"] I can stand up for them if I want to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are not miners."] They are not miners, but they are professional engineers. Hon. Members opposite might as well allow me to go on, because I intend to say what I want to say and it will save time if they let me do so now.
      I want to be assured that what my hon. and learned Friend said in that interchange will not affect the right of professional engineers not to join D.A.T.A. unless they want to do so. I have been told in correspondence that when the Bill is passed, the position of professional engineers will be absolutely clear, and I want to be certain that there is no alteration to that.
      The Solicitor-General: Before my hon. Friend sits down—I hope that I may interrupt her, for I am sure that the House would not want me to speak again——
      Mr. Speaker: Has the hon. and learned Gentleman the leave of the House?
      Hon. Members: Yes.
      The Solicitor-General: I was seeking to interrupt my hon. Friend in order to answer her question. I had hoped to

      697
      catch her before she sat down from her lofty vantage point. I wish to say that a professional engineer covered by an agency shop agreement would be covered by it exactly as the agreement said. The employer could ask him whether he belonged to the union in question and whether he was willing to contribute to the union in question but he would not be obliged to belong.
      Dame Irene Ward: He would have to pay the agency shop contribution?
      The Solicitor-General: Yes, but he could not be compelled, as the union mentioned by my hon. Friend would seek to compel him, to join a union against his wishes.
      Mrs. Castle: May I help the hon. Lady?
      Dame Irene Ward: There is no need to help me.
      Mrs. Castle: May I thank the hon. Lady, who has helped the House by her pertinent question? I want to make it clear, so that we may all benefit from the Solicitor-General's answer, that he is saying about the professional workers in whom the hon. Lady is interested that if an agency shop agreement existed, they could be compelled to contribute to D.A.T.A. as well as to their professional organisation.
      The Solicitor-General: But not to belong.
      Question put, That the House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—
      The House divided: Ayes 285, Noes 254.

      Division No. 441.]

      AYES

      [9.35 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Coombs, Derek

      Gray, Hamish

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Cooper, A. E.

      Green, Alan

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Grieve, Percy

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Cormack, Patrick

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmund

      Astor, John

      Costain, A. P.

      Grylls, Michael

      Atkins, Humphrey

      Critchley, Julian

      Gummer, Selwyn

      Awdry, Daniel

      Crouch, David

      Gurden, Harold

      Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

      Balniel, Lord

      Curran, Charles

      Hall, John (Wycombe)

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Batsford, Brian

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj. -Gen. James

      Hannam, John (Exeter)

      Bell, Ronald

      Dean, Paul

      Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

      Bennett, Sir Frederick (Torquay)

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

      Digby, Simon Wingfield

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Benyon, W.

      Dixon, Piers

      Hastings, Stephen

      Berry, Hn. Anthony

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Havers, Michael

      Biffen, John

      Drayson, G. B.

      Hay, John

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Dykes, Hugh

      Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

      Blaker, Peter

      Eden, Sir John

      Hicks, Robert

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

      Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Higgins, Terence L.

      Boscawen, Robert

      Elliott, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

      Hiley, Joseph

      Bossom, Sir Clive

      Elliot, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

      Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

      Bowden, Andrew

      Emery, Peter

      Hill, James (Southampton, Teat)

      Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

      Eyre, Reginald

      Holland, Philip

      Braine, Bernard

      Fell, Anthony

      Holt, Miss Mary

      Bray, Ronald

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      Hordern, Peter

      Brewis, John

      Fidler, Michael

      Hornby, Richard

      Brinton, Sir Tatton

      Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

      Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

      Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Bryan, Paul

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)

      Fortescue, Tim

      Hunt, John

      Buck, Antony

      Foster, Sir John

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Bullus, Sir Eric

      Fowler, Norman

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Burden, F. A.

      Fox, Marcus

      James, David

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

      Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

      Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

      Fry, Peter

      Jessel, Toby

      Carlisle, Mark

      Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Gardner, Edward

      Jopling, Michael

      Channon, Paul

      Gibson-Watt, David

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Chapman, Sydney

      Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Chichester-Clark, R.

      Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

      Kilfedder, James

      Churchill, W. S.

      Goodhart, Philip

      Kimball, Marcus

      Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

      Goodhew, Victor

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Gorst, John

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Cockeram, Eric

      Gower, Raymond

      Kinsey, J. R.

      Cooke, Robert

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Kirk, Peter

      Kitson, Timothy

      Nott, John

      Spence, John

      Knox, David

      Onslow, Cranley

      Sproat, lain

      Lane, David

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

      Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

      Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

      Osborn, John

      Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

      Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Page, Graham (Crosby)

      Stokes, John

      Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

      Longden, Gilbert

      Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

      Sutcliffe, John

      Loveridge, John

      Peel, John

      Tapsell, Peter

      Luce, R. N,

      Percival, Ian

      Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

      McAdden, Sir Stephen

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

      MacArthur, Ian

      Pike, Miss Mervyn

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Tebbit, Norman

      Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

      Pounder, Rafton

      Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

      McMaster, Stanley

      Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

      Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

      Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

      McNair-Wilson, Michael

      Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

      Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

      McNair-Wilon, Patrick (New Forest)

      Proudfoot, Wilfred

      Tilney, John

      Maddan, Martin

      Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

      Trafford, Dr. Anthony

      Maginnis, John E.

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      Trew, Peter

      Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

      Raison, Timothy

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Marten, Neil

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

      Mather, Carol

      Redmond, Robert

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Maude, Angus

      Reed, Laurence (Bolton, E.)

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      Mawby, Ray

      Rees, Peter (Dover)

      Vickers, Dame Joan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Waddington, David

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

      Miscampbell Norman

      Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

      Walters, Dennis

      Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeenshire, W)

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Ward, Dame Irene

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

      Warren, Kenneth

      Moate, Roger

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Weatherill, Bernard

      Molyneaux, James

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Money, Ernle

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      White, Roger (Gravesend)

      Monro, Hector

      Rost, Peter

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Russell, Sir Ronald

      Wiggin, Jerry

      More, Jasper

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Wilkinson, John

      Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

      Scott, Nicholas

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

      Worsley, Marcus

      Mudd, David

      Simeons, Charles

      Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

      Murton, Oscar

      Sinclair, Sir George

      Younger, Hn. George

      Nabarro, Sir Gerald

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Neave, Airey

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      Soref, Harold

      Mr. Paul Hawkins and

      Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

      Speed, Keith

      Mr. Walter Clegg.

      Normanton, Tom

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

      Driberg, Tom

      Albu, Austen

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

      Dunnett, Jack

      Allen, Scholefield

      Cohen, Stanley

      Eadie, Alex

      Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

      Coleman, Donald

      Edelman, Maurice

      Ashton, Joe

      Concannon, J. D.

      Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Conlan, Bernard

      Ellis, Tom

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Corbet, Mrs. Freda

      English, Michael

      Barnes, Michael

      Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

      Evans, Fred

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Faulds, Andrew

      Barnett, Joel

      Cronin, John

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      Beaney, Alan

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)

      Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

      Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Dalyell, Tam

      Foot, Michael

      Bishop, E. S.

      Darling, Rt. Hn. George

      Ford, Ben

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Davidson, Arthur

      Forrester, John

      Boardman, H. (Leigh)

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

      Fraser, John (Norwood)

      Booth, Albert

      Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

      Freeson, Reginald

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Davies, Ifor (Cower)

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Bradley, Tom

      Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)

      Garrett, W. E.

      Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, c.)

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

      Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

      Ginsburg, David

      Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

      Deakins, Eric

      Golding, John

      Buchan, Norman

      de Freitas, Rt, Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Gourlay, Harry

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'bum)

      Delargy, H. J.

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

      Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

      Dempsey, James

      Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

      Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

      Doig, Peter

      Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

      Cant, R. B.

      Dormand, J. D.

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

      Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

      Carter, Ray (Birmingham, Northfield)

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Hamling, William

      700

      701

      Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

      McGuire, Michael

      Roper, John

      Hardy, Peter

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Rose, Paul B.

      Harper, Joseph

      Mackintosh, John P.

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      Maclennan, Robert

      Sandelson, Neville

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Hattersley, Roy

      McNamara, J. Kevin

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W 'hampton, N.E.)

      Horam, John

      Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

      Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Marquand, David

      Sillars, James

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Marsden, F.

      Silverman, Julius

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund

      Skinner, Dennis

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Small, William

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Meacher, Michael

      Spearing, Nigel

      Hunter, Adam

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Spriggs, Leslie

      lrvine, Rt.Hn.SirArthur (Edge Hill)

      Mendelson, John

      Stallard, A. W.

      Janner, Greville

      Millan, Bruce

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Miller, Dr. M. S.

      Stoddart, David (Swindon)

      Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H'b'n&St.P'cras, S.)

      Milne, Edward (Blyth)

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

      Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

      Strang, Gavin

      John, Brynmor

      Molloy, William

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

      Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

      Taverne, Dick

      Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff, W.)

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Tinn, James

      Jones, Rt. Hn. SirElwyn (W. Ham, S.)

      Murray, Ronald King

      Tomney, Frank

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Ogden, Eric

      Torney, Tom

      Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Tuck, Raphael

      Judd, Frank

      O'Malley, Brian

      Urwin, T. W.

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Oram, Bert

      Varley, Eric G.

      Kelley, Richard

      Orme, Stanley

      Wainwright, Edwin

      Kerr, Russell

      Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

      Kinnock, Neil

      Padley, Walter

      Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

      Lambie, David

      Paget, R. T.

      Wallace, George

      Lamond, David

      Palmer, Arthur

      Watkins, David

      Latham, Arthur

      Parker, John (Dagenham)

      Weitzman, David

      Lawson, George

      Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

      Wellbeloved, James

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Pendry, Tom

      Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

      Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Pentland, Norman

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

      Leonard, Dick

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

      Whitlock, William

      Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)

      Prescott, John

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Lipton, Marcus

      Probert, Arthur

      Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Rankin, John

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Loughlin, Charles

      Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

      Rhodes, Geoffrey

      Woof, Robert

      Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

      Richard, Ivor

      McBride, Neil

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      McCann, John

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Mr. Ernest Armstrong and

      McCartney, Hugh

      Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      McElhone, Frank

      Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

    Clause 6

      PRE-ENTRY CLOSED SHOP AGREEMENTS TO BE VOID
      Lords Amendment: No. 12, in page 5, line 39, at end insert:
      "(1A) Any worker who, on application to an employer, has been refused engagement, and who claims that the refusal was attributable (wholly or in part) to a provision in an agreement which had the effect of precluding the employer as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section may apply to the Industrial Court for an order under the next following subsection.
      (1B) If on such an application the Industrial Court finds—

      (a) that an agreement is in force consisting of or including a provision so formulated as to have the effect specified in subsection
      702
      (1A) of this section, however that provision is expressed and whether it purports to have that effect or not;

      (b) that the refusal of the employer to engage the worker was wholly or partly attributable to that provision; and

      (c) that the provision in question constitutes a substantial derogation from the rights conferred on workers by section 5 of this Act,

      the Industrial Court shall make an order declaring that provision to be void".
      9.45 p.m.
      The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      I suggest that it might be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time Lords Amendment No. 13, in page 5, line 40, leave out subsection (2),

      703
      and Lords Amendment No. 61, in page 24, line 26, at end insert:
      "() knowingly to induce an employer to comply with a provision declared to be void by an order of the Industrial Court under section 6(1B) of this Act, or"
      This group of Lords Amendments, two of them to Clause 6 and one of them to Clause 31, is designed to deal with one point, namely, the situation where although a pre-entry closed shop agreement does not exist as such, another agreement or arrangement has the same effect as a pre-entry closed shop agreement. The House will know that the Government are opposed to the continued existence of the pre-entry closed shop whereby somebody is unable to secure employment unless he is already a member of a given union. It is clear from Clause 6 as it stands that without this Lords Amendment it would be possible for a pre-entry closed shop to be maintained by virtue of an arrangement or agreement which had the same effect. Lords Amendment No. 12 enables a worker to make application to the industrial court if he can show that as a result of an arrangement of that kind he has been refused work and is not therefore able to establish his rights under Clause 5 to work. Clause 6(2) is to be removed by Lords Amendment No. 13 because there is, on further consideration, no need for that to appear there.
      The third Lords Amendment in this group, No. 61, is an Amendment to Clause 31 making it plain that if an industrial action be threatened or taken with the intention of persuading an employer to deny a worker his rights under Clause 6—in other words, if industrial action be taken with the object of enforcing the pre-entry closed shop, whether explicitly or implicitly—that is also industrial action to be regarded as an unfair industrial practice.
      There is no further consequence of this trio of Lords Amendments, which are designed to make clear and effective the clear intention of the Government as originally set out in Clause 6, namely, that pre-entry closed shop agreements are to be void.
      Mr. Heffer: The Amendment is designed to plug what the Lord Chancellor described and what the Solicitor-General has described in a different way
      704
      as an obvious gap. In other words, there could well be a pre-entry closed shop agreement between an employer and trade unions which has existed with amicable arrangements between employer and unions for, say, 20 or 30 years, but, because the Bill when enacted will make the agreement null and void, the unions and employer can make a verbal agreement to continue the long-standing agreement which has worked well over the years.
      The Government realised this and therefore decided that the gap must be closed. Yet the Tories say that they are not against the trade union movement. If ever there was an example of the extent to which the Government are against the trade union movement this is one. The Government therefore produced the Amendment which will secure that any worker who goes to a shop of the type I have described and asks for a job, and who is put off by the employer because he is not old enough or because he is not the type of worker the employer requires, and who thinks there is an agreement between the employer and the unions to perpetuate a closed shop arrangement, can make an application to the Industrial Court.
      Hon. Members opposite are delighted with the Amendment. This is a good example of their class politics. The Solicitor-General used the very words which we have said are in line with American policy. He referred to the right to work. He revealed that the Tories believe in the American concept—the right of the union shop and the right of the non-unionist to have protection under the law. It is right that the Solicitor-General spelt the situation out more clearly than it was spelt out in the other place by the Lord Chancellor.
      Mr. Dennis Skinner: My hon. Friend makes an alarming statement, though I do not deny that he is correct. Perhaps he will take the example of the National Union of Mine-workers. Since nationalisation a form of pre-entry closed shop has been in operation. It seems that my hon. Friend is saying that the Amendment can mean dislocation in the mining industry with men attempting to work underground without being members of the union.
      Mr. Heffer: Of course it can work out like that. Further than that, not only

      705
      are all pre-entry closed shops void, any informal arrangement between a union and employer which appears to be continuing a closed shop equally becomes void as a result of the Amendment. In other words, the Government have seen that there is just a remote possibility that such arrangements could be made and in order to ensure that the gap is closed they have introduced the Amendment. It reveals their real thinking. The Lord Chancellor did not so clearly reveal the situation as it has now been revealed by the Solicitor-General.
      The other point about the Amendment which needs underlining is that the application will have to be made by a worker to the industrial court. Obviously, once the application is made, the worker has to prove his case. But he will not be doing so on his own. At that stage, the lawyers will become involved. We have described the Bill as a lawyers' picnic and this is a very good example of the sort of pickings that the lawyers will be able to get out of the Bill. The trade union will have to employ its lawyer, the worker will be employing a lawyer, and the employer may well have to employ a lawyer. One can envisage an extremely complicated situation which will be totally unnecessary in that it could be destroying an arrangement which has existed perfectly logically and happily for 20 or 30 years.
      We are opposed to the whole concept that the pre-entry closed shop should be destroyed. We are equally opposed to this Amendment because it is a logical extension of the Clause. On that basis, we shall vote against the Amendment.
      Mr. Robert Edwards: I have signed quite a number of closed shop agreements in the chemical industry. I have always been opposed to the closed shop. I think that one must hold union members by the services one gives them and not by any duress. But from time to time I have discovered that the managements of certain chemical factories have thought that, in their own interest, it would be better for themselves and for negotiations to make it a condition of employment that the worker should be a member of the appropriate trade union. I have signed six such agreements. We have never had any trouble in those firms.
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      I do not know how one can apply this Clause, because those trade union members covered by the closed shop will not give up this right without a fight. Many millions of workers are in this kind of situation. If the Government try to apply these provisions, they will witness some of the biggest industrial upheavals this country has seen since the general strike.
      10 0 p.m.
      I give as an example the more than 100 co-operative societies where union membership is a condition of employment. The relevant rules have been confirmed by the membership at their quarterly and annual general meetings. Their reason for having the closed shop arrangement is that part of the union work relates to benefits such as pensions. No retirement pension is payable unless all the employees are union members. Without that, the organisation cannot function. The union negotiations relate not only to wages but to holidays, sickness payments and retirement pensions. Negotiations of this kind create harmony within the service industries, particularly those covered by the co-operative movement, and that work cannot be carried out without the closed shop.
      How will the Government deal with over 100 such powerful consumer organisations? Those co-operative societies have 12½ million members, over half of whom are housewives, and the rules are confirmed by those members at the annual general meetings. How will the Government deal with that situation? Do they think that these societies will change their rules just because a Tory Government bring in this Measure? They will do no such thing.
      You will have trouble in the distributive trades as well as throughout British industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) says that you are fighting class warfare, and I am afraid that lodged in the minds of millions of industrial workers is the firm belief that you do not talk class war—you wage it, once you get power——
      Mr. Speaker: Order. This may be a formality, but, technically, the hon. Member is addressing the Chair.
      Mr. Edwards: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. I would not dream of suggesting that you were waging class warfare

      707
      I therefore hope that it is not too late for new thinking in this respect. The new Clauses will not work. The trade union movement will not give away rights it has won after a hundred years of struggle, as the Government will discover to their amazement once they try to apply this kind of legislation.
      Mr. Orme: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards), who has put an excellent case, I believe that where it can be obtained we need 100 per cent. trade unionism, as opposed to inflicting a closed shop from above, as it were, on trade union members. The interesting point to note is that the majority of the closed shop agreements result from the behest of the employers. For instance, for safety and for other reasons, it is as much in the interests of the National Coal Board to have 100 per cent. union membership as it is for the National Union of Mine-workers.
      Let us suppose that a man seeks work at a factory with 100 per cent. union membership and where there is an agreement that before a worker starts, the management will ask him whether he has a trade union card—always assuming that it is satisfied that he can do the job. He may not have a card. He may have lapsed his membership, or he may have left his trade, or something of that kind. The manager tells him, "We have here a 100 per cent. trade union organisation, but it is not a closed shop". In certain industries prior lack of a card precludes a man from getting a job.
      I can see the argument for this, and I operated this kind of arrangement in industry when I was a shop steward, and a shop steward convenor. If the manager tells the person concerned that he considers him to be suitable for employment in the firm, but asks whether he is prepared to join the appropriate union after he has been at the firm for a week, or three weeks, or a month, and has proved himself to be a suitable employee, how will this provision apply? The person concerned has to give an undertaking, before he starts work, that he will join a union in due course, but he does not have a union card at the time of starting work. In such a firm as that, one often finds that there is an agreement between the trade union and the employer that if
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      either side finds someone unsatisfactory his employment will be terminated.
      In many industries the very fact that a man holds a union card almost guarantees that he has the necessary skill for the job. [HON. MEMBERS: "Almost."] Not always, but almost always. I am not trying to be pedantic: I am saying that in many cases it proves almost overwhelmingly that he has the necessary skill.
      The Solicitor-General: I do not want to seek the leave of the House to speak again, but if I may I should like to answer the question put to me by the hon. Gentleman. The Clause does not affect the situation that he has posed. It affects only the situation in which a worker coming for a job has to be in possession of a union card. If he does not have a union card, and the employer says that he must join a union, that takes us back to the agency shop provisions. An employer cannot tell the man that he must join a union. He must tell the man that he must join or agree to pay the appropriate contributions, but that is dealt with under the agency shop provisions. What we are concerned with here is the position of a man not being able to get a job unless he can, at the moment of application, produce a union card—the pre-entry closed shop.
      Mr. Orme: I understand that, but if that man is refused a job and he feels aggrieved and goes to the industrial court, it will be up to the court to interpret the situation. I think the Solicitor-General will agree that it is likely that the industrial court, which will be an independent body, will reach a decision different from that which the Solicitor-General would like it to reach, but it will be based on the terms of the Bill and on the agency shop agreement.
      The other matter to which I wish to refer is that of the chaos that will be created in industry. Quite often when a difficulty arises over industrial relations, the fact that a man is a member of a trade union, which means that he is a skilled man, is of great assistance to the employer as well as to the trade union. Sometimes people get trade union cards illegally. Sometimes they are filled in wrongly. This has happened. I have known people start work and then the management discover that they do not

      709
      have the necessary skills or qualifications for the job.
      If there has been a previous arrangement with the trade union and the union is satisfied that they are not qualified or satisfactory, an agreement can be reached between the management and the employees which in the interests of industrial relations prevents industrial strife". These are the arrangements which are going on in British industry and they are conducted by shop stewards who are responsible to their members and have as much responsibility as works managers.
      The pre-entry closed shop will be smashed and there will be the problems of the agency shop, of contracting out of a union and of a shop steward chasing around to see whether the subscriptions have been deducted. All these things could be exploited by employers.
      Hon. Members opposite with experience of industrial relations from an employer's point of view know that, in a shop with proper trade union organisation, where agreements are mutually made and kept, there is a far happier atmosphere than in badly organised nonunion shops.
      The Clause will make industrial relations more difficult and create all sorts of problems. Recalcitrant men who want to be genuine trouble makers could create all sorts of problems. This Clause, which says that the pre-entry closed shop is finished, is central to the Bill and must be opposed by this side of the House.
      Mr. John Prescott: I apologise for having been away for the opening speeches on these Amendments. I have been sitting here since the debate started and only retired to eat.
      We are opposed to these proposals. If someone is precluded from employment because he does not have a union card, if an agreement between a union and an employer includes a provision denying him that employment, he will then be able to appeal against this provision.
      Hon. Members look to their own experience. My industry is shipping. The Government have faced considerable difficulties in interpreting the Bill with regard to shipping and have had to adjust it—although they have not done so very well. One of the difficulties in the employment
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      of seamen is the provision of the agency shop or the approved closed shop. There was the difficulty of the seaman who was away and who chose to disobey a master's lawful command. In this situation he faces severe penalties. It is against the law for him to do what he considers is his right, which is to refuse to work with such a person. Any agency shop or closed shop agreement which is reached must include a provision which will prevent this problem from arising, which means that a man will have to make his decision about whether to join a union before the ship sails.
      The Bill says that the Secretary of State will have power to adjust the periods during which men will have an opportunity to decide whether or not to belong to a union, and I understand that the periods envisage are from one to three months. This brings me back to the difficulties that will be faced by a man joining a ship. If he has up to three months to decide whether or not to join a union, all sorts of problems might arise. For example, he might be in another part of the world while problems are having to be faced on the ship itself.
      10.15 p.m.
      It has been suggested that a man joining a ship in this situation will have to make his decision before the ship sails. If an agreement contains a clause to that effect, how will it overcome the difficulty that the man's employment on the ship begins from the moment he signs his contract and joins the ship? Technically, therefore, it is almost impossible for him not to be a member of a union before signing on.
      It seems that a closed shop or agency shop agreement will have to include a provision that men must make their decision about whether or not to join a union before they join their ships. How this dilemma will be overcome it is difficult to see, though we have made it clear that we reject the Bill in its entirety.
      Mr. J. R. Kinsey: We cannot allow this part of the debate to pass without a word from these benches. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Liverpol, Walton (Mr. Heffer) talk about the situation working happily. One of the greatest forms of tyranny that the trade unions exert is.

      711
      the denial of the right to work—[HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."]—and this remains one of the greatest tyrannies that the unions can impose.
      A man who falls foul of his union by one means or another may find his union card withdrawn, and that will mean not only the loss of his job in his present firm but probably an inability to get another job with another firm in the same industry. This applies as much to shipping as to anything else.
      This must be altered. The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) spoke about the "awkward squad". Why should not even the awkward person be allowed to work? If it were not for him, one or two hon. Members would not be in the House of Commons. A constituent of mine has suffered very badly from this and, by ensuring that nobody else suffers as he has done, we shall do a great service to the trade unions.
      Mr. Skinner: The question of the pre-entry closed shop is typified by the coal mining industry and by the industry which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) represents. Ever since nationalisation there has been a pre-entry closed shop in the mining industry, and one cannot visualise how the mining of coal could be carried out without a pre-entry closed shop. If workers in the mining industry were allowed to decide that they would not join the union, many measures would have to be taken by the union and by the management to deal with the situation.
      For instance, there are consultative committees at national area and pit level. In the mining industry consultative committees are set up to represent the National Coal Board, the unions at management and junior official level and the N.U.M. I cannot visualise consultative committee meeting every fortnight to discuss production without being fully representative, as they are at present. Nor can I visualise the safety committee which meets once a month to discuss dust hazards and other safety problems making a decision on the basis that there are some men working underground who are not within the union. It cannot be tolerated, and it will not be tolerated.
      Mr. Adam Butler: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Skinner: I will give way. The hon. Gentleman obviously knows all about the industry.
      Mr. Butler: I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that, if he has experience, as I have, of an industry which is not fully unionised, he will have had experience of works councils. A works council does not automatically represent only union members, but represents members of the unions and workers who are not members of the union. Workers are elected from the shop floor to the works council. The problems which the hon. Gentleman is discussing are those which I assume are discussed at the consultative committee in the National Union of Mineworkers.
      Mr. Skinner: There is a big difference between a works council and the men who represent the unions on the consultative committees at the pit. I can only describe the people referred to by the hon. Gentleman as stooges. The people who represent the miners on the consultative committees and safety committees are of a different calibre from those mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
      To take the argument a little further every three years we elect workmen's inspectors under Section 123 of the Mines and Quarries Act, to see that the safety regulations are being carried out by the management. It would be a farcical situation if the workmen's inspector, elected by the men at the pit had to investigate the activities of non-union members who were contravening the Mines and Quarries Act. Can anyone imagine that the miners' union would tolerate a situation like that?
      Let us take it a stage further. We have joint committees on the allocation of miners' houses. Can any hon. Member opposite in his right mind imagine a joint housing committee, comprising men elected by the respective unions, particularly the National Union of Mineworkers, allocating a house to a man who refuses to join the union? It is not on. I would more than hazard a guess that in some instances that man would not even be allowed to go into the local welfare and enjoy his pint with the rest of the men, and he would not deserve to do so either. Therefore the Clause, affecting the mining industry particularly, cannot work, whether it is lawful or not.

      713
      Had not this long stop, as it was described so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), been introduced by the Government, it is fairly clear to me that the consultations which at present take place would without doubt have resulted in the National Coal Board, the National Union of Mineworkers and the deputies' union—N.A.C.O.D.S.—agreeing in verbal fashion to the pre-entry closed shop continuing as it has done up to the present.
      The people who will be affected in this situation are not men of 20, 30, 40 or 50 entering the mining industry. The people who will join the union in future are the young lads of 15 coming from school. What kind of situation will it be when a young boy turns up at Grass-moor training centre wanting to start work at Oxcroft Colliery—if it is not closed beforehand—and being put in the situation that he is given the privilege of not signing a form which hitherto all miners have signed?
      We at the Grassmoor training centre have put people in the position of lecturer to lecture not merely on mining practices but on the rôle of trade unionism in the mining industry. If the Clause is passed in its present form, we shall need not one lecturer to deal with the rôle of trade unionism in the industry; we shall need another to lecture about how not to have trade unionism in the industry.
      Mr. Robert Redmond: I am bothered about the arrogance that the hon. Member is showing in this matter. In one instance he says that the National Union of Mineworkers does such a wonderful job for its members that it has to keep its members by compulsion and it does not allow anybody the opportunity of not joining the union because it dare not. That is absolute nonsense. I listened to the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) speaking from my own industry; I always feel that the hon. Member speaks with great sincerity, although I do not agree with
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      everything he says, and I follow him with great interest.
      This arrogance on the part of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) in saying that the N.U.M. will demand membership from everyone because it cannot encourage people to join by its example of what it does for its members is the most outrageous conduct I have ever known from a trade unionist and it must be refuted from this side of the House. [Interruption.] The collier is a skilled man—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that interventions must be brief.
      Mr. Skinner: Maybe the hon. Gentleman does believe that I am arrogant. I am not saying that I am, but perhaps that is the result of the environment in which I was brought up.
      The hon. Gentleman talked about compulsion. I am saying, and have said from the outset, that it is not a question of people refusing to join the union in the mining industry. There will be very few idiots who will prefer that course. I am saying that the law as it will be if the Clause and the Amendment are passed will result in chaos in the industry, because neither management nor union could carry it out in practice. It is intolerable to think that a situation could arise whereby 900 men were working underground at the same time as half a dozen who were not in the union. It cannot be done. That is the point I am trying to make.
      Whilst the N.U.M. and other unions, but the N.U.M. in particular, have engaged lawyers over the past 40 years or so to fight for damages at common law and under the old workmen's compensation provisions, there is no doubt that they will not be engaging lawyers to see to it that blacklegs and scabs are kept out of the mining industry. They will resolve that matter in the orthodox way they have used in the past, by stopping the wheels if necessary.
      Mr. Carter-Jones: I am a bit puzzled, because the Solicitor-General has said that we are talking about making it much easier for shop stewards to conduct industrial relations. I am thinking of the ordinary shop steward who goes to a man on the factory floor and says, "Look, Fred, there's a problem for you here. Under Clause 6, at line 39 on page 5 of the Industrial Relations Act, 'Any worker who, on application to an employer, has been refused engagement, and who claims that the refusal was attributable (wholly or in part)'"—and remember that this is a poor guy on the shop floor explaining to his mate why he cannot get in—" 'to a provision in an agreement which had the effect of precluding the employer as mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section may apply to the Industrial Court for an order under the next following subsection'."
      Will the Solicitor-General be there, holding the shop steward's hand, saying to him, "This is what's involved, mate"? No. There is only one Solicitor-General in this country—thank God!—and he cannot be everywhere.
      The Clause is a Eunuchs' Charter. It is a device whereby over the years men with a large number of wives have protected their interests, by castrating those who are caring for them. This is emasculation taken into industrial relations. It is making quite sure that those who can come in under the Clause shall be harmless. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but that is the truth.
      We have a choice. One course would be to multiply the Solicitor-General by one million, and I fervently hope that we do not. But if the Government want Clause 6 to work, every shop steward will have to have a solicitor, pure, unblemished, unsullied, non-Tory. If Clause 6 does not work in that pure and unsullied fashion required by the purists of the Tory Party, it will have to work in the other way.
      It goes to the root of Tory philosophy. It is said to be a method by which to improve industrial relations. I have read it carefully and found it to be complicated, and even the Solicitor-General does not understand it. He is waiting for judges' law. He is waiting
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      for the judges to rule, in the hope that they will grind the unions down. If he cannot now rise to explain it in terms understandable by the simple people who will have to advise about it, ordinary guys in the street, perhaps one in 30, or 100, or even 1,000, he will be openly admitting that he is waiting for judges' law to prevail, hoping that any rulings from the courts will clamp down on union activities.
      He is making sure that all the trouble makers are kept out of the unions. From time immemorial, ladies who have wanted to keep torn cats have treated them in advance, and that is precisely what this Clause will do to active unionists. It seeks to ensure that there are brought into the factories and the workshops people who will not fight and who will not have much regard for human dignity.
      Mr. Ashton: I return to a more serious basis. The Clause is concerned with discrimination. It means that a man who applies for a job and believes that he is discriminated against if he does not get it will have the right to appeal to the court and say that the union and the employer are acting to keep him out of the job.
      The Clause may result in severe embarrassment for personnel officers, and it is one of the Clauses which employers regret. It has the undertones and difficulties associated with other legislation which went through the House about two years ago, the Racial Discrimination Act.
      There will be the feeling, when anyone applies for an unskilled job or one requiring a low level of skill and is refused, that he or she has been discriminated against. This will lead to severe embarrassment among employers. If a coloured man applies for a job and does not get it, because he does not have the qualifications, or is not suitable—and sometimes this happens with the best will in the world—he can allege, perhaps without foundation, that there is a conspiracy between the employer and union to keep him out of a job. He could appeal to the court on the grounds of racial discrimination, saying that there was some sort of tacit agreement to keep a coloured man out of a job. It could be very embarrassing for the employer if he had to explain it in the cold light of day.
      There is another angle to this Clause which will grow over the years, and it is to do with discrimination against women. Suppose there is a vacancy in a police force and a policewoman applies for the job, saying that she can do it as well as a policeman. Suppose too, that the chief constable has decided he wants 20 per cent. policewomen and 80 per cent. policemen. Is she entitled to say that this is discriminating against her because there is a tacit agreement between the chief constable and the Police Federation?
      The same can happen in many other jobs. Suppose there is an advertisement for a journalist to report football matches at the Arsenal. A woman applies and the editor says that he prefers a man. Can she then take the paper to court and say she is perfectly well qualified to do the job but is being discriminated against because there is a tacit agreement with the union? Women are trying to break into engineering. There could be the same thing there. A woman could apply to work in a factory or a coal mine.
      The bureaucratic machine could be built up until anyone could say that there was a tacit agreement between employer and union to keep him out of a job--because he will not join a union, because he was coloured, not qualified, or too old to join a pension scheme. It opens the door wide for anyone to go to the tribunal saying that they have been discriminated against.
      Earlier the Solicitor-General said that there would be certain trouble makers who would always bring these things forward and object on some grounds. I am certain that this is true. There are certain people in the women's liberation movement who would challenge refusal of a job on the ground that they were entitled to do it and were being discriminated against—because they would not be admitted to the union, because the union had a rule which said "men only". The union might not be discriminating against them because they were women but because no women had applied to join the N.U.M. in the past and it had no rule to deal with it.
      This is the lawyers' paradise part of the Bill. Once we begin to examine the ramifications of the Bill and how it can be exploited by any little pressure group which wants to make a nonsense of the Measure it will be seen that the door
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      is open to all who apply for a job. They can stand up and say that there is an agreement between the union and employer and that is why they are not getting the job, because they are women, because they are over 61 years, that they are willing to join the union but are not eligible under the rules. There has been a rule of no women in the Stock Exchange. It probably does not come under the head of "employer". There are certainly many cases where anyone who applies for a job and is refused can invoke clause 6. This is one of the many aspects of the Bill which turn it into a lawyer's paradise and a nonsense.
      Any employer or person with experience will admit that the system of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) is better whereby if a man is a clause 1 member he is a fully skilled engineer and can do the job of fitter or turner or if he is a member of the N.U.M. he is fit to go down the pit. The system has been built up in industry of applying for and accepting jobs by means of a rule-of-thumb procedure which has been accepted through trial and error over a century by personnel officers who are not fools and shop stewards who know whether a man can do the job. The Government are driving a wedge into this system which destroys the established fabric of hiring and firing or hiring and testing for a certain time and leaves the door open to any pseudo women's "lib" organisation to exploit the situation.
      10.45 p.m.
      Mr. Ted Fletcher: I wish to comment on the impact which the Amendment is likely to have on the shop floor. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Ashton), in a very powerful speech, has outlined the consequences which the Amendment is likely to have in the coal mining industry. As a Member for a constituency in the County of Durham, I endorse what he said because I know from my knowledge of the psychology of the Durham miners that as soon as a non-unionist enters the mines in Durham the whole industry will stop. The Government have not considered the consequences of their action in this Clause.
      I wish to give one or two examples from the engineering industry. Imagine a factory employing 1,000 workers in a

      719
      pre-entry closed shop. A man applies for a job. He is not a member of the union, but the employer decides that he is too old for the job or has not enough skill for the job. Consequently he declines to employ him. He can go to the National Industrial Relations Court and claim that there has been discrimination against him. Suppose that the court upholds his case and the firm is told that it must employ him. What will happen in a union-organised shop with 1,000 members when one non-unionist is brought in? Will the 1,000 men cooperate with him—men who have spent their spare time, energy and money building up a union organisation? Will they co-operate with someone who has made no contribution to building up the union but who is prepared to take the benefits?
      Have the Government consulted the Engineering Employers' Federation or any personnel officers about this matter? There is no doubt that if non-unionism is introduced into factories by this Clause, it will cause disharmony in establishments and institutions which perhaps have not had a strike for 30 or 40 years.
      There is a difference between the arid lawyers' approach and the real problems which are understood by millions of people who work in factories. People who were in the mining industry spent 200 years in building up an organisation in face of persecution, deportation, harassment, imprisonment and victimisation to achieve better terms and conditions of employment for the men in the industry. Will the present members allow them to be undermined by individuals who have no allegiance to the union but who take the benefits built up not only by themselves but by their fathers and grandfathers? Will they allow all these benefits to be dissipated by this Clause? Of course they will not. Not one miner will respect this provision. Not one engineering worker in a closed shop will be prepared to welcome with open arms anyone who is not a union member who tries to claim the benefits that union organisation has secured.
      This will be a lawyers' paradise. If there is only one awkward individual in every thousand, in the 10 million trade unionists that is 10,000 cases to be taken to the Industrial Court. I do not often disagree with my hon. Friend the Mem-
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      ber for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), but on this occasion he was guilty of an under-statement when he said that this would be a lawyers' picnic. I disagree. It will be a lawyers' banquet. The only growth industry under the Tory Government is likely to be the legal industry with thousands of cases going before the Industrial Court. When the Court has decided that an employer must take on a particular man whom it has refused employment on grounds of discrimination, hon. Members must not think that the workers will be prepared to accept such a worker. It is not the end of a case when a judgment has been given. Those on the Government Front Bench seem to be pinning their faith in the legal system and in the qualities of capitalist society. These are not the facts of life in the society in which we live.
      The Bill is designed to bring peace and harmony into industrial society, we are told—to make relations between employer and employee more perfect. It is a Bill designed to reduce the number of strikes. I believe that the Bill will produce anarchy. If these provisions are allowed to come into force, they will result in industrial dislocation.
      I advise right hon. and hon. Members opposite to speak to people with some experience in management in the engineering industry. Let them speak to personnel officers and ask them what the consequences will be of a pre-entry closed shop if any endeavour is made—it does not matter about the legal apparatus and the majesty of the law behind it—to introduce non-unionism through the back door.
      Mr. Tom King: As somebody who has worked in management in a pre-entry closed shop, I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's comment. A little earlier in the day complaints were made about the need to deal effectively with the Lords Amendments. The hon. Gentleman is making a trenchant and powerful Second Reading speech on Clause 5, which we have already been through.
      Mr. Fletcher: I am making specific reference to an Amendment. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order if I were not in order. The hon. Gentleman's experience does not accord

      721
      with that of many managers and executives in industry with whom I have discussed the matter. I speak as a former trade union official. Those with whom I have discussed this matter believe that this provision will cause dislocation in industry. They hope that even at this late hour the Government will have second thoughts. I plead with the Government to think carefully about this. This is a recipe not for industrial peace, but for industrial anarchy.
      Mr. James Tinn: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Ted Fletcher), I believe that the Government do not appreciate the disruptive effect this provision will have in many industries. Because the Government have listened to too much of the nonsense which has been spoken about pre-entry closed shops, even recognising the few individual cases which can occasionally occur, the Government have fallen into the trap of ignoring the old saying that hard cases make bad law. I believe that this is a very bad law indeed.
      What representations have the Government received, not just from the engineering industry but from other industries concerned—from employers and managements—for the inclusion of this provision? What contrary representations or doubts have been expressed to them? Few things can be more disruptive of harmonious relations than the existence of the industrial maverick, the person who for one reason or another, will not cooperate with his fellows.
      The motives behind such a provision as this arise, I believe, from a fundamental misunderstanding, or lack of understanding, of how our trade union movement has developed. There is significance in where the pre-entry closed shop conditions have developed. They have developed in certain industries such as shipping and mining, for example. The warmth and vigour of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) in putting his case should not be mistaken for arrogance. Although I do not represent a mining constituency, I come from a mining area. The mining industry is a great example of where history and conditions of work have imposed co-operation—the necessity of working and living and co-operating together. Through these years of struggle
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      and out of the daily necessity for cooperation, there has developed a genuine and worth-while and proud tradition of unity.
      This kind of provision basically offends against some of the deepest instincts of trade unionism by trying to break or impinge upon the fine traditions of unity, and the effects can be incalculable. Even at this eleventh hour, I urge the Government to have second thoughts on this provision. I urge them to forget the prejudices which the Press and propaganda have cultivated over the years. I urge them to look at industry as it really is and see why our movement has grown up as it has and why it has developed these practices as it has done. They will see that they are not as unreasonable as they have been represented. If the Government do that, they will realise that they will be doing far more harm than good if they press ahead with this provision.
      Mr. Alex Eadie: I have felt at times during the debate that it has not been as serious as it should have been. I hope that the Government fully realise the significance of the proposition they are putting forward here, because it is a prescription for industrial and economic anarchy and it gives to some extent the lie to what we are discussing—the Industrial Relations Bill.
      Hon. Members are aware that I have associations with the mining industry. I resent the suggestion that there are trade union representatives in this House who probably would not have been here if they had not been so militant. As an active trade unionist, under successive Governments I have been appointed to Government bodies of responsibility to serve on behalf of the men I have sought to represent.
      11.0 p.m.
      My hon. Friends have pointed out the peculiarities of the mining industry. The Government are putting forward propositions that will mean a momentous change. They are saying that the mining industry, employing hundreds of thousands of men, will help the country to achieve greater economic stability. If we do anything to imperil the Bill it will not merely be a question of miners and their families suffering; the whole country will suffer.

      723
      There always has been discipline in the mining industry. There has to be, from the very nature of the work. As my hon. Friend said, when men are thousands of feet underground they cannot have anarchy; they must have discipline, with co-operation between man and man. They cannot bicker with each other because the moment they do they jeopardise the lives of hundreds of other men. I wish the Government appreciated the significance of the proposition that they are putting forward.
      My first experience of trade unionism in the industry, as a young kid, was the card inspection at the pit gate, to make sure that everyone was a member of the union. That was necessary then, because men in the trade union movement were trying to establish themselves as representatives of the mineworkers. It was not a question of trying to win more wages and economic sustenance; at that time we had a colossal toll of accidents in the industry, with great loss of life. We were fighting to establish safety in the industry.
      We knew that we could not establish safety if the proposals for safety came only from the men; there had to be a combined approach with management. That is not possible if there is anarchy among the employees with some in the union and some outside it. That is a prescription for anarchy in any industry.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis Mr. Kenneth Lewis rose——
      Mr. Eadie: The hon. Member has just come in. He is a sort of scavenger. I would give way to anybody but him.
      The mining industry is a very democratic one. It is not a question of trying to impose our will on people. We have democratic votes. When we appoint a safety committee its members are elected by the men, by ballot. That is a good British tradition—something that this Mother of Parliaments would not resent.
      One of the sad aspects of the situation is that dying with the industry are some of its cultural activities; our pipe and brass bands are dying. They were maintained in the past because we had a vigilant union membership. Something goes out of our lives with the loss of the pipe and brass bands, and the children's galas.
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      It is not a question of our being militant; it is a question of the Government being sensible. If the Government are serious about this being a Bill dealing with industrial relations they should make sure that they are not prescribing industrial anarchy. If there is a fuel shortage the Government will have to take responsibility, and they will introduce a Bill that brings it about at their direst peril.
      Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King) intervened a short while ago to say that he had been employed in management, in a pre-entry closed shop. According to right hon. and hon. Members opposite, the Bill deals with industrial relations. It is imperative that both workers and management should understand, to a certain extent if not wholly and completely, the Bill's implications. It does not make the slightest difference what our views are about the Bill, how good it is or how bad it is, unless we can produce at the conclusion of our deliberations a document which can be readily understood by the work people on the shop floor and by management. Unless we can do that, the Bill is completely abortive. It is no use any Legislature in the world producing what may well be in the legalistic sense perfect legislation unless the terminology used in that legislation is understandable to the ordinary people to whom the legislation applies and there is a high acceptability factor in the law.
      I return to the hon. Member for Bridgwater. He made a claim to which we should pay some attention. [Interruption]. I am willing to give way to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) if he wants to make a reasoned intervention.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I wanted to ask this question of the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) who was talking about unity. We have with us on this side of the House a recruit in the shape of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) who has joined us on this Bill. He is sitting on the Front Bench, below the Gangway.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions really should be serious.
      Mr. Loughlin: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I may return to the

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      hon. Member for Bridgwater. He claimed that he had experience in management of the pre-entry closed shop, and I should like him to give us the benefit of that experience. When I was discussing this Bill in Committee I repeatedly had to complain that there was bound to be great difficulty among people on the shop floor in understanding fully the implications of the Bill. I think the Solicitor-General will agree that I repeatedly complained to him that we ourselves had difficulty in understanding the full implications of the Bill-I wonder whether the hon. Member for Bridgwater could help me. I recognise that there are two parties who will be concerned with the Bill. I have to recognise first that the Bill will affect the individual worker and also that in the generality of British industry there is a multiplicity of small and medium-sized firms which will not have the expertise which might be necessary—and I use "might" deliberately—to enable them to keep within the confines of the legislation we are proposing.
      I should like to know how many ordinary employers, not workers, would be able to follow through the Amendment as it is laid down. For the benefit of those who may want to look at it, it is on page 3 of the list of Amendments—[Interruption.]—The hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), as far as I know, committed only one fact to memory—his majority of three in 1966.
      Mr. Speaker: That is not relevant to this debate.
      Mr. Loughlin: Mr. Speaker, I will stop immediately and apologise to you, but neither was the hon. Member's intervention.
      Mr. Speaker: I did not hear his intervention.
      Mr. Loughlin: That was a pity. I did; but, to be serious, I challenge either the hon. Member for Bridgwater or the Solicitor-General to look at the Amendment and to say categorically that even 5 per cent. of the managements of this country could relate this through its various paragraphs—they should not forget that it relates to paragraph (a) and
      726
      paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this Clause, and goes on ad nauseam.
      If one has legislation of this kind—and these are the words to be used in the Bill—how, in heaven's name can one expect the workers on the factory floor and the employers to understand? This deals with employers' responsibilities and with the right of any worker who, on application to an employer has been refused engagement and claims that the refusal was attributable in whole or in part to a provision in an agreement which had the effect of precluding the employers, as mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b), etc.
      How can one expect any employer, let alone a workman, to understand the ridiculous language and implications of legislation of this kind? I am interested, because I believe—and I may be wrong—that it is the responsibility of the legislature to frame legislation in such a way as to ensure that at least the general principles will be known and will be acceptable to the general populace.
      11.15 p.m.
      We all have to engage lawyers, but this is a riot for the lawyers. It is not a lawyers' paradise, but it is complete and utter nonsense to the layman. If the Government apply this kind of yardstick to industrial relations and say that it will contribute to industry harmony, I say that not only is the Solicitor-General barmy, but the whole House is barmy if it thinks that this will be effective. The most sensible thing for the Solicitor-General to do, even at this late hour, is to take this back and say to his lawyers who are responsible for framing the legislation, "If you cannot do better than this, go and find yourself a job digging trenches."
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I want to intervene briefly to cover three main points. After seven Second Reading further speeches to the Lords Amendment, the speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) was in some degree an exception, and that was a pleasure.
      Once the House has passed and accepted, however strongly it is opposed, that there shall be pre-entry closed shop

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      agreements, it is essential to include protection for the worker, which the Amendment provides. It provides that if a worker is refused an engagement by an employer, he will be able on application to have the matter referred to the Industrial Court.
      However much one may oppose the original principle, which has been opposed in the many speeches we have heard tonight, once that principle has been accepted it is necessary to introduce an Amendment which gives, as the Lords Amendment gives, protection to
      "Any worker who, on application to an employer, has been refused engagement",
      and who complains that that is due to the existence of an agreement which contravenes the main provision, to
      "apply to the Industrial Court".
      Whatever view might have been taken originally, I find it difficult to understand how the Opposition can refuse the Amendment once the principle becomes law.
      It is said, secondly, that the main provisions are a recipe for anarchy. All one can say is that we had a number of synthetic speeches from the members of the miners' union, who have now mainly left the House having delivered themselves of those speeches. [Interruption.] At least, two have walked out having delivered their speeches. Both of them used the same language, that it was a recipe for anarchy, but neither referred in the slightest degree to the Amendment. Neither of them having understood it, they have, no doubt, gone to check their speeches for their constituencies or for their trade union without being interested in whether their speeches were relevant.
      In making those speeches and dealing with the matter in that way, those hon. Members deliberately overlooked a most important fact. They know perfectly well that the National Union of Mine-workers has so far stated that it does not intend to work the Bill when it becomes an Act. The N.U.M. knows that it could constitute itself an agency shop agreement and, if it did, it would not be subject to the pre-entry closed shop agreements envisaged in the Clause. It knows this perfectly well.
      I have seldom heard the like of the utterly hypocritical, insincere rubbish and
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      claptrap that we have sat through tonight.
      Mr. Skinner: We are getting some now.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: It may be that the National Union of Mineworkers does not intend to work the Act. The dilemma for the mineworkers and other unions which do not work it is that if they do not have agency shop agreements or do not have approved closed shop agreements which will apply to certain more professional types of union, it follows that they will be bound by the Clause. It hardly lies in their mouths to complain if a number of the more modern-looking men decide that they do not want to be members of the N.U.M. They may have a constitutional viewpoint and object to being members of a union which is not prepared to uphold the law of the country.
      For how long are we to go on abusing the ordinary constitutional processes of the House of Commons? I have sat here since 4 o'clock this afternoon. From 5.30 until 11 p.m., because this is an industrial Bill, we heard speech after speech which was manifestly a Second Reading speech, and wholly irrelevant and out of order.
      Hon. Members: That is a reflection on the Chair.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Hon. Gentlemen opposite say that, but they have not the faintest interest in the relevance of the debate. They want to go back to Second Reading speeches and at the end, I suppose, to be able to say that there was insufficient time to debate the Lords Amendments. Had they been relevantly contained, everybody knows that the first seven Amendments could have been dealt with within half an hour.
      It is not a question of opposition. Lords Amendments are not designed to be, and were not laid down and intended to be, a cause for going back to Second Reading speeches hour after hour, day after day. They were intended to pinpoint particular issues, and we have to decide whether we agree or disagree with their Lordships. What has happened here is that the Labour Party has taken over the House of Commons, and hour after hour hon. Gentlemen opposite have gone on producing the same arguments

      729
      which they deployed for many hours on Second Reading and in Committee.
      This type of behaviour is very bad for the constitutional processes of this House, and we have had no fewer——
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I doubt whether what the hon. Gentleman is saying is in order by his own standards.
      Mr. Rees-Davies: I have developed the argument, Mr. Speaker, and I leave it with you. If you read the speeches, and if on reflection you think that anything I have said is not in order, I shall be glad to withdraw it. Some of the speeches were made when you were not in the Chair. I think that tomorrow morning, in the light of day, most hon. Gentlemen will recognise that this is a rather special occasion, but it does not comply with the normal rules of order.
      Many of us—and I perhaps most of all on this side of the House—have recognised, and do recognise, the need, in special cases, to be able to have a closed shop. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) and others have fought to obtain the special exemptions contained in the Bill, and which are not the subject of the Amendment. If that be so, it hardly lies in the mouths of hon. Gentlemen opposite, even if they are going back to Second Reading speeches, to twist the Bill and suggest that it does not contain good arrangements to enable unions which want to use the Bill, and not to abuse it, to take up their proper position by having the agency shop agreement.
      I understand the view of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) who says quite frankly that he will have none of this Bill. That is understandable but, when it becomes an Act of Parliament, and when the feelings die down, the trade unions in this country will have to work this Measure, just as the trade unions throughout Europe are effectively working measures there which have——
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Is not this coming somewhere near a Second Reading speech?
      Mr. Rees-Davies: Yes, Mr. Speaker, but as you would not accept that the others were not Second Reading speeches, I take it that exactly the same conditions will apply to me. [HON.
      730
      MEMBERS: "Order."] I was about to say finally that the Amendment merely provides for the worker protection that is essential to give full effect to the Clause.
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: When this Amendment was before the other place it went through without a vote in 20 minutes. I am glad that the issue has been thoroughly debated in this House, and I shall vote against the Amendment.
      In the other place the Lord Chancellor got away with it by saying roughly what the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said—that it was in the interests of the workers. Indeed, when Lord Bernstein asked whether he was right to take it that the Amendment was designed to protect the worker, the Lord Chancellor replied that it was. That proves that our fears are justified, for either the Lord Chancellor did not understand the object of the Amendment or he made an extremely dishonest remark.
      It is as well that we have had this extensive debate. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet is entirely wrong in suggesting that the Amendment will protect the workers. On the contrary, it proves that the so-called concessions which the Government have suggested are being extended to, for example, Equity, do not exist and that, from the point of view of the closed shop, whenever it is challenged it must collapse.
      I will content myself at this stage by saying that I am pleased that this subject has been extensively aired. On another occasion, perhaps on later Amendments, I will speak on this subject at greater length. In the meantime, I will resume my seat to give my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) an opportunity to speak.
      Mr. Heffer: With the leave of the House, I will comment on some of the points that have been raised in this debate, in which I have been pleased to welcome some contributions from hon. Gentlemen opposite. We regard the Amendment as fundamentally against the interests of the trade union movement. That is why we are opposing it with such vigour.
      On this issue we have heard the authentic voice of the Conservative Party. The whole idea of workers protecting themselves and trying to obtain better

      731
      conditions through union solidarity is, to hon. Gentlemen opposite, all wrong. They regard it as a tyranny to other workers who do not wish to belong to trade unions.
      The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) tried to kid us that the Amendment was in the interests of the workers. The Amendment sums up the concept which the Tories have adopted from the United States of the open shop, the right to work.
      11.30 p.m.
      We are debating also Amendments Nos. 13 and 61. Amendment No. 61 is another example of an unfair industrial practice. We are opposed to it as much as we are opposed to Amendment No. 12 and, at the appropriate time, we shall vote against it, as we shall vote against Amendment No. 12.
      There has been talk of the arrogance of my hon. Friends who have experience of the mining industry. Their speeches were not arrogant, but expressed the justified anger and frustration of workers who understand what the closed shop means to the protection of their interests. We have heard not arrogance but the authentic voice of workers in an industry which most hon. Members would never enter even if they were paid £1,000 a week. How many hon. Gentlemen opposite would be prepared to volunteer to work in the mines tomorrow morning? It ill becomes hon. Members who have led a sheltered existence to accuse my hon. Friends, who have worked in an industry which hon. Gentlemen opposite would never at any price enter, of being arrogant. The arrogance shown by the hon. Member for Isle of Thanet typifies the Tory Party view of the trade union movement which is expressed in the Amendment and in the Bill.
      The Solicitor-General: I will not follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) or other hon. Members who have rehearsed during this debate the Second Reading speech they made in Committee and on Second Reading. I will deal with the pre-entry closed shop. Several hon. Members have suggested that the closed shop is a creature which, however and wherever it exists, operates universally for the good of industrial peace. It is worth reminding the House that even
      732
      the Donovan Report said that it must not be supposed that good industrial relations are the invariable accompaniment of the closed shop. On the contrary, the closed shop is widespread in motor manufacturing, ship building, coal mining and the docks, the four industries in which strikes in breach of agreement have been most common in recent years.
      Mr. Harold Walker: Did not the Royal Commission say in paragraph 602 of its report:
      "We therefore reject the prohibition of the closed shop"?
      The Solicitor-General: That is right, but I am dealing with the suggestion implicit in what many hon. Members have said that the closed shop is a prescription for industrial tranquillity. Far from it. We are dealing in the Amendment with a much narrower section, namely, the pre-entry closed shop.
      Again, it is worth reminding the House that the pre-entry closed shop applies to less than I million workpeople. It is rejected in principle, for example, by the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Robert Edwards) as unattractive, and, indeed, the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) acknowledged that a case could be made out against an arrangement which insisted on prior possession of a union card before a man could enter a job. We are dealing with a matter in respect of which there are plainly two views—and on a narrow front. The Amendment deals with the extent to which a pre-entry closed shop can be enforced by a device amounting to the same thing.
      Mr. Orme: I am sure that the Solicitor-General does not wish to misrepresent me. I said that primarily I was in favour of the 100 per cent. trade union shop, which in effect covers the closed shop but which can be more flexible than a rigid closed shop.
      The Solicitor-General: I do not wish to misrepresent the hon. Member. His hon. Friend the Member for Bilston said that he had always opposed the closed shop, and certainly the pre-entry closed shop, and the hon. Member for Salford, West said that he could see that a case could be made against the pre-entry closed shop.
      We are, in fact, dealing with the pre-entry closed shop. The Bill already proscribes it, and the only effect of the

      733
      Amendment is to protect the worker who has been refused employment—refused not because of the manifest existence of a clear pre-entry agreement but because of a provision or arrangement between the employer and the trade union which has the same effect and which operates to exclude him because he was not a member of a pre-entry closed shop. It is entirely logical that this change should be made.
      The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) suggested that the Lord Chancellor had given a dishonest reply to a Question put to him by Lord Bernstein in another place. That is wholly without justification. The Lord Chancellor explained the intention of the Amendment exactly as I have done. He said:
      'the effect … is to give to a worker who is prevented from entering employment on grounds which he claims to be an effective pre-entry closed shop, an appeal to the court to establish that fact."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th May, 1971; Vol. 318, c. 569.]
      Mr. Hugh Jenkins: If the Solicitor-General is saying that the Lord Chancellor misunderstood the effect of the proposals and that what he said was a result of a misunderstanding rather than of a mistake, I entirely accept that.
      The Solicitor-General: I am repudiating utterly the hon. Member's suggestion that the Lord Chancellor gave a dishonest reply.
      Mr. Jenkins: Then it was a misunderstanding?
      The Solicitor-General: That is equally false. I am repudiating both alternatives. The hon. Member cannot get away with it in that way. The Lord Chancellor's explanation was clear—that the provision is designed to help a worker who is being blocked by a device tantamount to a pre-entry closed shop although not recognisable as such.
      I was astonished, as was the House, by the observations of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) suggesting that the provisions would be invoked in the cause of Women's Lib. I thought that he was talking about the Equal Pay Act of his right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle). He referred in passing also to the Race Relations Act. If it were right for the last Government to pass legislation to prevent discrimination in terms of pay between the sexes
      734
      and for the last Government to pass legislation to prevent discrimination on grounds of race, it is surely acceptable for this Government to pass legislation designed to secure—and I have no shame in adopting the words denounced by the hon. Member for Walton—the right of people to work without that right being unfairly impeded or obstructed by a prior requirement to belong to a particular trade union.
      Of course the individual must establish his qualifications for the job. Of course he must establish his qualification for entry to a union. But beyond that there is no cause—this is the heart of the Government's case—for excluding him from the right to work simply because he does not belong to a particular union. The Amendment is designed simply to achieve that end and to achieve it quite plainly.
      The hon. Member for Bilston suggested that managements often insist on this kind of agreement and persuade unions to accept it as desirable. Frankly, one cares not whether a barrier which is being erected in the face of a person otherwise qualified to work is erected by management or by unions, or by a conspiracy between the two We are here concerned with legislation designed to secure people's freedom in that respect. We recognise primarily the point made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that it is necessary in the coalmining industry, as in every other industry, to maintain safety standards, and that one of the ways of doing that is to insist upon achievements and qualifications on the part of people entering the industry. There is nothing in this legislation that would stop that.
      We also recognise the necessity for having consultative committees, whether pit or works consultative committees, to survey and maintain safety standards. All those things exist and are compatible with a system of organisation which does not go so far as to require a pre-entry closed shop. Safety standards and the supervision of safety can be maintained without going in that direction.
      Mr. Skinner: The hon. and learned Gentleman was presumably saying that pit consultative committees could work easily with someone who was not a member of the union. The point I was trying to make was that the committees

      735
      are set up on the basis of representing management and unions, not management and men. That is the distinction that must be drawn. If the provision becomes law, the consultative machinery that has been in operation for about 20 years will have to be drastically revised, and I cannot see it happening.
      The Solicitor-General: I entirely understand that the consultative committees are set up to represent management and unions. So they are in the vast majority of other industries. It is only in a small sector of British industry that the pre-entry closed shop operates. A pre-entry closed shop is not required in order to have a perfectly effective representative joint consultative arrangement between management and unions. There is no case in terms of safety, maintenance of standards or the preservation of established negotiating machinery for struggling to retain the pre-entry closed shop, which is what the provisions are about.
      Mr. Eadie: The Solicitor-General is saying that we do not have to have trade unions in order to man committees for consultation, whether on production or safety. But it is necessary to have disciplined agreement between management and men. Does not he agree that a trade union is in a better position to discipline its members than individuals are to discipline themselves?
      The Solicitor-General: I do not propose to detain the House by going back yet again over the entire structure of the approach to the legislation. All that I am saying in the context of this debate is that for the purpose of maintaining union organisation and effective union representation it is not necessary to have a pre-entry closed shop, nor to have anything of the kind against which the
      Amendment is directed, namely, something resembling, working like and having the effect of, the pre-entry closed shop. That is the simple point.
      I adopt the description of the speech of the hon. Member for Bolsover as having a touch of arrogance about it. To put it bluntly, when we hear a speech like the one the hon. Gentleman made, asserting as aggressively and as uncompromisingly as he did the right of a trade union to enforce its will upon individuals, even to the point of depriving them of access to housing or excluding them from entering a job, we have to struggle to remind ourselves that we are talking about industrial relations in a free society. When it hears such an argument advanced, the House, I feel certain, will be firm in its assessment that the prohibition of the pre-entry closed shop is a profoundly wise measure to include, and that the Amendment is doubly wise to ensure the effectiveness of that provision.
      11.45 p.m.
      Mr. Prescott: The Solicitor-General has not answered my specific question. In view of the complaints of hon. Members opposite, I was careful to keep to the detail of the Bill, and I asked specifically about interpretation. If a seaman working under an agency shop agreement or an approved closed shop agreement has to be a member of the union before he joins his ship, where he has to sign a contract of employment, would he not be in contravention of the amended Clause? Does not that mean that such agreements could not apply to the shipping industry?
      Question put, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment:—
      The House divided: Ayes 291, Noes 250.

      Division No. 442.]

      AYES

      [11.46 p.m.

      Adley, Robert

      Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

      Brinton, Sir Tatton

      Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

      Benyon, W.

      Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

      Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

      Berry, Hn. Anthony

      Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

      Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

      Biffen, John

      Bruce-Gardyne, J.

      Astor, John

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Bryan, Paul

      Atkins, Humphrey

      Blaker, Peter

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)

      Awdry, Daniel

      Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

      Buck, Antony

      Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

      Boscawen, Robert

      Burden, F. A.

      Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

      Bossom, Sir Clive

      Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

      Balniel, Lord

      Bowden, Andrew

      Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

      Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

      Carlisle, Mark

      Batsford, Brian

      Braine, Bernard

      Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

      Bray, Ronald

      Channon, Paul

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

      Brewis, John

      Chapman, Sydney

      Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

      Hornby, Richard

      Percival, Ian

      Chichester-Clark, R.

      Hornsby-Smith, Rt.Hn.Dame Patricia

      Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

      Churchill, W. S.

      Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

      Pike, Miss Mervyn

      Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

      Howell, David (Guildford)

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Clark, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

      Pounder, Rafton

      Clegg, Walter

      Hunt, John

      Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

      Cockeram, Eric

      Hutchison, Michael Clark

      Price, David (Eastleigh)

      Cooke, Robert

      Iremonger, T. L.

      Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

      Coombs, Derek

      James, David

      Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

      Cooper, A. E.

      Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

      Quennell, Miss J. M.

      Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Jessel, Toby

      Raison, Timothy

      Cormack, Patrick

      Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

      Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

      Costain, A. P.

      Jopling, Michael

      Redmond, Robert

      Critchley, Julian

      Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

      Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

      Crouch, David

      Kaberry, Sir Donald

      Flees, Peter (Dover)

      Crowder, F. P.

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Curran, Charles

      Kilfedder, James

      Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

      Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

      Kimball, Marcus

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

      King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

      Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

      d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj. -Gen. James

      King, Tom (Bridgwater)

      Ridsdale, Julian

      Dean, Paul

      Kinsey, J. R.

      Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

      Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

      Kirk, Peter

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Digby, Simon Wingfield

      Kitson, Timothy

      Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

      Dixon, Piers

      Knox, David

      Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

      Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

      Lane, David

      Rost, Peter

      Drayson, G. B.

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Russell, Sir Ronald

      Dykes, Hugh

      Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

      St. John-Stevas, Norman

      Eden, Sir John

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

      Edwards. Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Scott, Nicholas

      Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

      Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

      Scott-Hopkins, James

      Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

      Longden, Gilbert

      Sharples, Richard

      Emery, Peter

      Loveridge, John

      Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

      Eyre, Reginald

      Luce, R. M.

      Shelton, William (Clapham)

      Farr, John

      McAdden, Sir Stephen

      Simeons, Charles

      Fell, Anthony

      MacArthur, Ian

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

      McCrindle, R. A.

      Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

      Fidler, Michael

      McLaren, Martin

      Soref, Harold

      Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

      Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

      Spence, John

      Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

      McMaster, Stanley

      Sproat, lain

      Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

      Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      McNair-Wilson, Michael

      Steel, David

      Fortescue, Tim

      McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest)

      Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

      Foster, Sir John

      Maddan, Martin

      Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

      Fowler, Norman

      Madel, David

      Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

      Fox, Marcus

      Maginnis, John E.

      Stokes, John

      Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

      Marples, Rt Hn. Ernest

      Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

      Fry, Peter

      Marten, Neil

      Sutcliffe, John

      Galhraith, Hn. T. G.

      Mather, Carol

      Tapsell, Peter

      Gardner, Edward

      Maude, Angus

      Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

      Gibson-Watt, David

      Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

      Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

      Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

      Mawby, Ray

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

      Glyn, Dr. Alan

      Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

      Tebbit, Norman

      Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth

      Goodhart, Philip

      Mils, Peter (Torrington)

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

      Goodhew, Victor

      Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

      Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.

      Gorst, John

      Miseampbell, Norman

      Tilney, John

      Cower, Raymond

      Mitchell, Lt.-Col.C.(Aberdeensnire, W)

      Trafford, Dr. Anthony

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Trew, Peter

      Gray, Hamish

      Moate, Roger

      Tugendhat, Christopher

      Green, Alan

      Molyneaux, James

      Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

      Grieve, Percy

      Money, Ernle

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

      Monro, Hector

      Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

      Crylls, Michael

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Vickers, Dame Joan

      Gummer, Selwyn

      More, Jasper

      Waddington, David

      Gurden, Harold

      Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

      Walder, David (Clitheroe)

      Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

      Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

      Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

      Hall, John (Wycombe)

      Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

      Wall, Patrick

      Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

      Mudd, David

      Walters, Dennis

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Murton, Oscar

      Ward, Dame Irene

      Hannam, John (Exeter)

      Nabarro, Sir Gerald

      Warren, Kenneth

      Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

      Neave, Airey

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Harrison, Co. Sir Harwood (Eye)

      Nicholls, Sir Harmar

      White, Roger (Gravesend)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Noble, Rt Hn. Michael

      Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

      Hastings, Stephen

      Normanton, Tom

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Havers, Michael

      Nott, John

      Wilkinson, John

      Hawkins, Paul

      Onslow, Cranley

      Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

      Hay, John

      Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

      Woodnutt, Mark

      Hicks, Robert

      Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

      Worsley, Marcus

      Higgins, Terence L.

      Osborn, John

      Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

      Hiley, Joseph

      Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

      Younger, Hn. George

      Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

      Page, Graham (Crosby)

      Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

      Page, John (Harrow, W.)

      TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

      Holland, Philip

      Holt, Miss Mary

      Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)

      Mr. Bernard Weatherill and

      Hordern, Peter

      Peel, John

      Mr. Keith Speed.

      738

      739

      NOES

      Abse, Leo

      Garrett, W. E.

      Mendelson, John

      Albu, Austen

      Gilbert, Dr. John

      Mikardo, Ian

      Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

      Ginsburg, David

      Millan, Bruce

      Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

      Golding, John

      Miller, Dr. M. S.

      Armstrong, Ernest

      Gourlay, Harry

      Milne, Edward (Blyth)

      Ashton, Joe

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

      Atkinson, Norman

      Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

      Molloy, William

      Bagier, Cordon A. T.

      Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

      Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

      Barnes, Michael

      Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

      Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

      Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

      Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

      Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

      Barnett, Joel

      Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

      Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

      Beaney, Alan

      Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

      Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

      Hardy, Peter

      Murray, Ronald King

      Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

      Harper, Joseph

      Ogden, Eric

      Eidwell, Sydney

      Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Bishop, E. S.

      Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

      O'Malley, Brian

      Blenkinsop, Arthur

      Hattersley, Roy

      Oram, Bert

      Boardman, H. (Leigh)

      Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

      Orme, Stanley

      Booth, Albert

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

      Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

      Horam, John

      Padley, Walter

      Bradley, Tom

      Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

      Paget, R. T.

      Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

      Huckfield, Leslie

      Palmer, Arthur

      Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

      Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

      Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

      Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

      Buchan, Norman

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

      Pendry, Tom

      Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Pentland, Norman

      Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

      Hunter, Adam

      Perry, Ernest G.

      Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

      Irvine, Rt.Hn. Sir ArthuKEdge Hill)

      Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

      Campbell, I (Dunbartonshire, W.)

      Janner, Greville

      Prescott, John

      Cant, R. B.

      Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

      Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

      Carmichael, Neil

      Jeger, Mrs.Lena (H'b'n&St.P'cras, S.)

      Probert, Arthur

      Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

      Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

      Rankin, John

      Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

      Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

      Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

      Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

      John, Brynmor

      Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

      Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

      Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

      Rhodes, Geoffrey

      Cohen, Stanley

      Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

      Richard, Ivor

      Coleman, Donald

      Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Concannon, J. D.

      Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

      Robertson, John (Paisley)

      Conlan, Bernard

      Jones, Dan (Burnley)

      Roderick, CaerwynE.(Br'c'n&R'dnor)

      Corbet, Mrs. Freda

      Jones, Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.)

      Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

      Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, c.)

      Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

      Roper, John

      Crawshaw, Richard

      Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

      Rose, Paul B.

      Cronin, John

      Judd, Frank

      Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

      Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

      Kaufman, Gerald

      Sandelson, Neville

      Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

      Kelley, Richard

      Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Kerr, Russell

      Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

      Darling, Rt. Hn. George

      Kinnock, Neil

      Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

      Davidson, Arthur

      Lambie, David

      Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

      Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

      Lamond, James

      Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

      Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

      Latham, Arthur

      Sillars, James

      Davies, Ifor (Cower)

      Lawson, George

      Silverman, Julius

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Skinner, Dennis

      Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

      Leonard, Dick

      Small, William

      Deakins, Eric

      Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold

      Spearing, Nigel

      de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

      Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Delargy, H. J.

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Stallard, A. W.

      Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

      Lipton, Marcus

      Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

      Dempsey, James

      Lomas, Kenneth

      Stodart, David (Swindon)

      Doig, Peter

      Loughlin, Charles

      Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

      Dormand, J. D.

      Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

      Strang, Gavin

      Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

      Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

      Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Mahon, Dr. J. Dickson

      Taverne, Dick

      Driberg, Tom

      McBride, Neil

      Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W,)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      McCartney, Hugh

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      Dunnett, Jack

      McElhone, Frank

      Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

      Eadie, Alex

      McGuire, Michael

      Tinn, James

      Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

      Mackenzie, Gregor

      Torney, Tom

      Edwards, William (Merioneth)

      Mackie, John

      Tuck, Raphael

      Ellis, Tom

      Mackintosh, John P.

      Urwin, T. W.

      English, Michael

      Maclennan, Robert

      Varley, Eric G.

      Evans, Fred

      McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

      Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

      Faulds, Andrew

      McNamara, J. Kevin

      Walker, Harold (Doneaster)

      Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

      Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

      Wallace, George

      Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

      Malalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

      Watkins, David

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Marks, Kenneth

      Weitzman, David

      Foot, Michael

      Marquand, David

      Wellbeloved, James

      Ford, Ben

      Marsden, F.

      Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

      Forrester, John

      Marshall, Dr. Edmund

      White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

      Fraser, John (Norwood)

      Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Freeson, Reginald

      Meacher, Michael

      Whitlock, William

      Galpern, Sir Myer

      Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

      Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

      740

      741

      Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

      Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Hnyton)

      TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

      Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

      Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

      Mr. William Hamling and

      Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

      Woof, Robert

      Mr. James A. Dunn.

      Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

      Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 7

      APPROPRIATE CONTRIBUTIONS TO TRADE UNION IN LIEU OF MEMBERSHIP
      Lords Amendment: No. 14, in page 6, line 37, leave out from "but" to "become" in line 38 and insert "subsequently".
      Mr. Dudley Smith: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      This Amendment clarifies the provisions relating to the date from which contributions in an agency shop or approved closed shop are payable. It ensures that the worker who is already in an employer's employment when an agency shop was established will be treated as a newly engaged worker if he subsequently transfers to work covered by the agency shop.
      The Amendment commended itself to another place. It was thought that there was a defect in the Bill which should be remedied. Perhaps the House will accept this as a very small but useful contribution towards improving the Bill.
      Mr. Ronald King Murray: The Opposition agree that this Amendment clarifies the Bill. However, that does not prejudice our total opposition to the principle of the Bill.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords Amendment: No. 14A, in page 6, line 44, leave out "construction".
      Mr. Dudley: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
      In view of the lateness of the hour, I move the Amendment formally.
      Mr. Heffer: Although he is trying to be helpful, I do not think the hon. Gentleman is being very helpful——
      It being Twelve o'clock the debate stood adjourned, pursuant to the Orders [25th January and 28th July].
      Debate to be resumed this day.

ENGLISH CHANNEL (SHIPPING CONTROL)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Weatherill.]
12 a.m.
Mr. Andrew Bowden: The English Channel is one of the busiest waterways in the world. Indeed, it could be described as the Piccadilly of the world's shipping routes. Danger to life is considerable in the Channel and is increasing, and pollution dangers after accidents are always present. At this time the Channel is overcrowded, but what about the future? A frightening picture can be painted of two massive one-million ton tankers approaching each other from opposite directions on a collision course. The tanker "Panther" exploded after a collision, so it can be readily appreciated that the damage, loss of life, and pollution that could be caused by two very large tankers colliding in the Channel would be nothing short of frightening.
The voluntary traffic routing scheme which has been in operation since 1967 has worked very well. Up to 95 per cent. of ships have observed the rules. It is the other 5 per cent. which have created the problems and which will continue to do so. What steps should be taken? There is a not inconsiderable body of opinion which believes that, unless further international action is taken quickly, Britain should consider unilateral action and that we should police and control the Channel ourselves without international agreement. This would be a drastic step and every possible course must be taken first.
I suggest that the time has come for the present voluntary traffic control scheme to be made mandatory. To set an example to the world, British ships should be compelled to observe a traffic separation scheme at the earliest possible moment. I hope that the British Government will be able to bring this into effect before the end of this year. Second, the area of the Channel which is

743
at present covered by the voluntary traffic separation scheme is far too restricted and should be extended substantially, particularly in the southern approach to the Channel. The Government and I.M.C.O. should consider a Special Channel Service to help and guide ships using the Channel. This service could not only help and guide ships going through the Channel but could also keep all ships in the area fully informed of movements; it could maintain a continuous traffic survey, and it could identify and report vessels that failed to observe the traffic control regulations. It could also play a part in helping to raise the level of seamanship and navigational expertise.
I turn to the question of oil pollution. Recently there was a sound and responsible editorial in the Evening Argus. Referring to oil on beaches in Sussex and elsewhere on the south coast, it said:
"But, on the whole, there appears to be a lot less than in previous years.
Credit for this should go first to the Board of Trade, who are responsible for dispersing the oil as soon as it is sighted.
Next in line for a pat on the back are the local authorities, who keep the water clear up to one mile from the shore.
And finally, there are the men who do most of the hard work spraying the beaches and shifting the shingle. They probably deserve our grateful thanks more than anyone else.
But although the situation has eased, there is no room for complacency… Oil pollution could still become part of our every-day lives."
No complacency—that is the key part of the editorial.
I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is far from complacent about the problem because oil pollution is an ever-present danger. I much regret that there is no statutory obligation upon ships' masters to report spillages of oil outside harbour areas. We should make it compulsory within our own three-mile limit and work to obtain international agreement for areas outside it. I am convinced that time, speed and warning for anti-oil pollution squads working on our coasts is vital. Recently, there was a spillage off the Sussex coast involving over 500 tons of oil. It was nearly seven hours before it was known to the authorities and antipollution squads in the area could be alerted.
744
Unless the Government take some action to compel masters to report spillages immediately, it will only be a matter of time before a number of beaches are hit by a large amount of oil without warning. I am naturally concerned about the beaches in Brighton, but this applies to beaches at every seaside resort. If pollution of this type were to hit these beaches it could have disastrous effects on the area, seriously damaging the prospects of visitors and tourism.
It is no exaggeration to say that major steps have been taken by both Governments in recent years to increase safety for shipping in the Channel and to minimise oil pollution, but there is still much to be done.
12.9 a.m.
Mr. Roy Mason: Before the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. Bowden) sits down, I would like to point out to him, as I survey the Benches opposite and indeed those on this side, that we have had recently the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, the Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Act and a debate on safety at sea, and on every occasion the hon. Gentleman was noticeably absent. The matters he has mentioned are history and have been repeated many times. He is fortunate in having obtained this debate, and he might at least have mentioned the sterling work done by hon. Members opposite and by my hon. Friends who have been helping to pass legislation in order to achieve just what he has been asking for. His hon. Friend who will reply has been most forthcoming and helpful in the House and in Committee in the past, and the hon. Member ought to have paid tribute to those who have worked when he has been absent.
Mr. Bowden: I have had a great deal of correspondence with my hon. Friend on many of these problems. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have been active in Committee at every opportunity. If I were amiss in not paying tribute as the right hon. Gentleman claims I should have done, I happily do so now. I was careful to pay tribute to the action not only of the present Government but of the last Government, because this is a continuing problem. A lot has been done, but I submit that a great deal more has to be done in the future.
12.11 a.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): I certainly want to pay tribute to the work done by hon. Members on both sides, including the right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason), in a series of pieces of legislation, some of which stem from the previous Government. I found the greatest possible help from those Members who have taken a personal part. To be fair to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. Bowden), in view of his constituency situation I know that he has taken a particular interest in this situation, and has certainly corresponded with me and has played his full part in the Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Bill in Committee. I am grateful to him for raising this important topic, which is not only of interest to his constituents and others who live along the Channel coasts but is a matter of vital concern to a maritime nation such as ours.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell the House of the measures which the Government are taking to improve navigation in the Channel and in the Dover Strait. The Dover Strait is one of the busiest international waterways in the world, with several hundred ships a day passing through. We should bear in mind that nearly 80 per cent. of these ships are not bound to or from United Kingdom ports. To help regulate traffic a voluntary traffic separation scheme was agreed internationally in the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organisation, and was put into operation in 1967. This scheme has resulted in some improvement in the collision rate but as my hon. Friend said, more needs to be done. Indeed, recently the need to improve the safety of navigation in the Dover Strait and adjacent waters has been highlighted by a series of collisions and strandings which have caused considerable loss of life and have posed a considerable pollution threat to our British coast.
The Government have therefore sought to get effective action to achieve an improvement in navigation and in the casualty rate. In doing so, we have sought to be realistic in recognising what is likely to be achieved, and we have also had full regard to the fact that this is an international waterway and that the
746
agreement of other maritime nations is essential.
In the first place, the United Kingdom proposed to the Maritime Safety Committee at its meeting last March that States should accept an obligation to impose a compulsory requirement on ships of their flag using the traffic lanes of the Dover Strait separation scheme to proceed in the prescribed direction of traffic flow. The Committee, I am happy to say, unanimously accepted the proposal, and, indeed, extended it to all traffic separation schemes throughout the world which have been adopted by I.M.C.O.
The Committee produced an appropriate amendment to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention for consideration by the I.M.C.O. Assembly at its next meeting in October. It also asked the I.M.C.O. Working Group, which is drafting revisions of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea in preparation for a Conference in 1972, to take account of the proposal. We have, however, been very much aware of the need to get quick action. As a result of our recommendations the organisation as an interim measure has recommended member Governments, in advance of these amendments being accepted, to make it an offence for ships of their flag to proceed against the prescribed direction of traffic flow in traffic lanes of traffic separation schemes adopted by I.M.C.O. We are confident, bearing in mind the results of our traffic surveys, that this recommendation will, in fact, lead to effective action by nations who control a large proportion of the relevant tonnage. We ourselves in the United Kingdom intend to make a Statutory Instrument applying to British ships to come into force before the end of the year.
In the second place, the United Kingdom have put forward proposals to amend and extend the present Dover Strait Separation Scheme. These were considered by the I.M.C.O. Sub-Committee on Safety of Navigation at its meeting in the week commencing 5th July and, with some reservations, have been put forward by that Sub-Committee to the Maritime Safety Committee recommending that they should be adopted. We hope that I.M.C.O. will agree to

747
these proposals and that they will come into force at the beginning of next year.
In the third place, the Committee agreed to a suggestion by the United Kingdom that there should be a meeting between States bordering the Dover Strait to consider what further measures could be adopted. This meeting, between Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom took place in London on 12th, 13th and 14th May this year.
At that meeting it was clear that none of the delegations was prepared to take action on a unilateral, or even multilateral, basis outside the general framework of a properly ratified I.M.C.O. agreement.
Mr. John Prescott: Terrible.
Mr. Grant: In view of what the hon. Member says, I must reiterate that it is important for us to live in the real world and to understand that a unilateral action is, I am afraid, not a viable proposition in a situation like this for a nation such as the United Kingdom. Everyone who thinks about it carefully will realise that that is the case. That was certainly the view of the delegation.
However, with this limitation, there was general agreement with the United Kingdom views. In particular it was agreed that measures should be taken to make effective the new mandatory traffic separation scheme in the Dover Strait. There was also agreement that negotiations should start for a regional search and rescue agreement, and that France and Britain would examine long-term measures for the improvement of safety, including the possibility of setting up a Channel navigation service. This would be a prelude to further discussions with other states.
We intend to play our full part in making effective the new I.M.C.O. recommendation about traffic separation in the Dover Strait. We are, therefore, establishing a radar surveillance station at St. Margaret's Bay and will use the helicopter stationed at Manston for search and rescue duties to identify vessels travelling the wrong way; we may also use surface craft for this purpose; and we intend to pass particulars of offending ships to their flag Governments for appropriate action. We also
748
intend to broadcast information to shipping about these vessels.
Mr. David Mudd: Would my hon. Friend give way briefly on this point? I should welcome what clarification he can give on what action he expects the Government of Liberia would take against unqualified, unskilled and unscheduled ships flying the flag of that nation and blatantly disregarding the safety regulations laid down by the Channel countries.
Mr. Grant: I stress that Liberia is increasingly playing its part in these organisations, but whatever the State is, whether it is Liberia or any other country, it is for that State to pass the internal legislation in order to provide offences of this kind, and it will be for us or whoever else may detect what we believe to be an offence in this respect, to report it to that nation for action to be taken. I have no reason to suppose that nations, including Liberia, concerned with shipping, will flout the international agreements in this respect.
We hope that once this system starts to operate there will be a substantial drop in the number of ships using the lanes in the wrong direction. The French Government have said that they may be able to help us in the identification of ships.
Earlier this year we instituted traffic surveys in the Dover Strait. These are continuing and will form the basis for evaluation in discussion with the French and other Governments of a possible navigation service to assist the movement of ships through the strait. Experience of operation of the radar surveillance system will also be useful for this purpose. In addition, work is being done on the forecasting of future traffic movements through the Channel and the possibility of traffic simulation studies.
Allied to all this we are most anxious to see an improvement in standards of seamanship and navigational competence in the Channel and indeed elsewhere. We in the United Kingdom intend to make regulations which will revise and extend substantially certification arrangements for officers on British merchant ships. Moreover, we are trying to work out proposals to put to the Inter-governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation and to the International Labour

749
Organisation in order to achieve minimum international standards of competence and training by other sea users.
I should warn the House that this is difficult and complex, because there are different standards of education in many nations which use the sea. Nevertheless, we are determined to encourage international bodies to raise the existing standard of seamanship and navigational competence. However, the British and French and other Governments are most anxious to make progress in this area. We are also pressing other Governments to ratify as quickly as possible the amendments to the Safety of Life at Sea Convention which have been agreed in I.M.C.O. and which require wider carriage of navigational equipment, in particular radar in ships.
The Government take the need to improve navigation in the Channel and to lessen the danger of oil pollution extremely seriously. This is such an anxiety to my hon. Friend and to all hon. Members who represent constituencies on the coast.
The vast majority of ships navigate perfectly safely, but we regard the accident rate as too high. The action which we are taking, and which I have explained, has two main strands. The first is to secure a quick improvement by the new rules on traffic separation and by pressing for the carriage of proper navigational equipment.
In the second place we are studying very seriously with other Governments how to make further improvements in the future such as the institution of a Channel navigation service—a step, which requires considerable work and international agreement. The service—I prefer that word to calling it a police force of some sort—would be of the greatest possible assistance to mariners and to all who use the Channel. If we can achieve this it will be a great step forward in safety at sea and in minimising the risk of pollution.
With regard to oil pollution generally, we are continually seeking to make progress in a number of ways. In the light of experience we are improving our own organisation to deal with oil slicks, for which my Department is responsible, as the Evening Argus recognises. We are responsible concerning oil slicks at sea
750
while the local authorities are responsible at the shore. Our organisation has improved very much over recent years, under both Governments, in the light of the experience which has, unhappily, been imposed upon us.
I must, however, reiterate once again that the most important steps forward in the control of oil pollution would be the acceptance by enough States of the amendments to the Oil Pollution Convention and ratification of the two 1969 I.M.C.O. conventions on the rights of coastal States and on compensation for oil pollution damage.
In that respect I am entitled to repeat, as I have said a number of times, that Great Britain has set an example to other nations by introducing and passing this Session two pieces of legislation which are of importance in this connection. If the other nations would ratify those conventions, however, this would force tankers to use the load-on-top system or some analogous system on a worldwide basis. It would be an enormous step forward in eliminating the amount of oil put into the sea. I believe we are on the road to success in this way and that there is increasing awareness of the need for action by nations throughout the world; but action, as opposed to mere desire, by other Governments is most important.
I hope that the House will agree that the Government are fully seized of the need to improve navigation in the Channel and are taking appropriate action.
Mr. Peter Emery: Before my hon. Friend leaves the pollution aspect—and I immediately declare an interest in this—may I ask whether he does not believe it right that those persons who in any way can be held responsible for pollution should meet the cost, whether incurred by the Government or by local authorities? This is not clearly understood. Those of us in the House who have been associated with these matters know that that is widely felt but it needs to be said much more strongly, because that is what the oil companies, the shipping companies and, I believe, the Government want.
Mr. Grant: That is precisely what will be achieved by the recently passed Merchant Shipping (Oil Pollution) Act.

751
I believe that this will have a dramatic effect and I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend said.
Mr. Bowden: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Grant: I am sorry, no.
Much remains to be done in this direction, but useful preliminary work has already taken place. Our approach is to concentrate on matters of practical value which will achieve real results, realising all the time that we are dealing with international traffic on the high seas. In all this work by my Department, we are assisted by a professional staff of master mariners with long seagoing experience, and not simply Whitehall civil servants, excellent though they are. We have professional expertise and my Department keeps in close touch with professional opinion outside, which is voiced by many different organisations.
12.29 a.m.
Mr. Roy Mason: In the 30 seconds that remain, I should like to say on behalf of the Opposition that we welcome the Under-Secretary's statement,
752
first, that it shall be an offence to proceed against the recommended traffic flows in the Channel as a whole; secondly, that in the Dover Straits separation schemes will be worked out and enforced by the end of next year; and thirdly, what the hon. Gentleman said about the Channel surveillance service, with radar, helicopters and surface craft. We have pressed for this and we are pleased to hear that it is being considered. Fourthly we welcome the fact that higher certification standards are to be required in the Channel.
We are sorry that it has not yet been said that there will be compulsory pilotage on large tankers and dangerous vessels. The Under-Secretary must recognise that it has to be established that unilateral action will in due course be taken by the Channel countries to control——
The Question having been proposed at Twelve o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock.