EMERGENCY POWERS

HC Deb 08 August 1972 vol 842 cc1627-55

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Regulations made by Her Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, by Order dated 3rd August, 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd August, shall continue in force, subject however to the provisions of Section 2(4) of the said Act.—[Mr. R. Carr.]

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, West)

When you intervened, Mr. Speaker, I was dealing with the dockers' delegate conference and trying to point out the difference there will be when that conference is recalled. It will then be absolutely essential that the new JonesAldington talks result in positive concrete proposals because the industrial situation has moved on since the previous delegate vote was taken. It is important to remember when talking of majority and minority votes that the 38 votes I have mentioned represent 75 per cent. of the work force and that because of the constitution of the conference the unregistered dockers have the largest proportion of votes.

What is now needed is action in regard to the stuffing and stripping of containers by these firms. There is no doubt that these companies moved from the ports so that as employers they would be free to employ such labour as they wanted. We have the market force at work, and the Government cannot complain if the dockers react by fighting for their share of that work. When we speak of putting registered dockers into the container depots we are talking about putting them in at higher rates than the employers want to pay their workers. In the case of the famous Chobham Farm firm there was a quite considerable discrepancy in the rates, and this must be bridged.

The Government must make it absolutely clear that if we want ordered industrial relations in the docks and do not want the industry to spread out, with all the problems that that would involve, the dockers must be given a right of employment within the container depots The dockers are not asking that those who are now working the depots should be sacked but rather that registered dockers should have the right to be employed there.

At the time of the 1970 General Election I was talking to the dockers in my constituency about the nationalisation of the ports. They made the point to me that it was no good just nationalising the major ports as they stood, because if we did not deal with the container situation there would be trouble. They were saying that through their union but there was no urgency then, and we know that in industrial relations matters it is only when people are put to the nth degree of stress and strain and the cord breaks that we have a strike. Then we set up committees and then we ask people like Mr. Jones and Lord Aldington to work night and day to find a solution because the matter has become one of national urgency.

The dockers, like the miners, have proved that they are very important people in the community. Our survival depends on the work they do. Therefore it is vital to see that at least the major employers involved in the container depots meet the point so that when the dockers' delegate conference reassembles there is something concrete to put before it.

We shall not be able to blur the issue. If anyone thinks that the delegate conference can be recalled and that nine of the dockers who abstained last time can be persuaded to support the Jones-Aldington Report as it stands at the moment, I do not think that he is being realistic. It will not be acceptable. I believe that many dockers who voted for the report realise now that perhaps there is a real chance to get concrete changes written into the proposals. As I said earlier, dockers have made the point to me that this is possibly their last throw. As a consequence they intend to fight very hard.

I do not think that even now many right hon. and hon. Members realise the seriousness of the present situation. Many believe that it will be only necessary to devise a form of words and to recall the delegate conference to accept, following which everyone will go back to work. It would be an absolute disaster if the recalling of the delegate conference resulted in a narrow vote or in the proposals again being rejected. The result might be separate strikes in individual ports, splinter action and reaffirmations of the strike. In those circumstances we should be on a slippery slope. Next time it has to be right.

I remind the House of what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said about the container employers. We have seen what has happened in the case of Lord Vestey. Frankly, some of these people have to be brought to heel because they are basically responsible for the present problem. If the dockers' case had been met earlier, it could have been offset—

Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)

I hope the hon. Gentleman will explain exactly what he means by his last few sentences concerning the Vestey group and the Vestey company involved in the dispute. At the same time, I hope he will agree that methods of handling cargo and of transportation are bound to change. No. Government of any complexion can guarantee to this House that the number of dockers employed will remain unchanged for any period of time in the future. Surely what the unions should do is to try to get alternative industry into areas where redundancies are likely to occur and, at the same time, to urge through the other unions and through the company organisations that additional retraining facilities must be provided.

Mr. Orme

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has made an extremely long intervention. It would not be fair to those of my hon. Friends who still wish to speak if I were to attempt to answer all his points. There are some obvious answers which I could give him. I think that the position of Lord Vestey was covered fully only the other day. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition slapped down the Prime Minister firmly on that. What is more, right hon. and hon. Members probably have read the "Insight" investigation with its revelations about the money made by the Vestey Corporation reselling its properties. It needs no further explanation from me.

I shall not take up what the hon. Gentleman has said since so many of my hon. Friends still wish to speak. I could answer his arguments. However, I want to make one further point, and it concerns social security. There is a misconception about social security and a considerable amount of colour is introduced into the argument. Trade unionists see the argument rather differently. They all believe rightly that they have contributed to social security. They do not consider it a charity. They regard it as a right. Therefore, when they ask for benefit they believe they are entitled to it.

If the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) knew the damage he was doing among trade unionists in this regard he might desist from some of the outrageous statements he makes. Social security for families, when properly applied for, is justifiable. At least, I should have thought so in a civilised society.

Dockers, particularly in the Orkney and Shetland area, offered to unload perishable and essential goods; then they were told they must accept their wages when they have previously paid them into a charity, and were denied social security benefit after having worked. That may seem to some people an odd compromise. It might almost seem a British way of resolving problems, but it has resolved vital problems. If it moves into other ports it would be disastrous. I should like to underline what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) said about it adding another dimension to the situation. It could become an issue, just as the Industrial Relations Bill became an issue at the last dockers' delegate conference, if the Minister brought in the troops to try, as it were, forcibly to remove cargoes now in the ports.

I now turn to the regulations themselves. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) said, they are extremely far-reaching. They give the Government powers which I should not like any Government to have. Under a Labour Government I voted against emergency powers just as I voted against them under this Government when the last lot of emergency powers arose out of the railway dispute.

These emergency powers are not being opposed. I assume that my right hon. and hon. Friends are trying not to heighten the position within the docks particularly whilst the Jones-Aldington Committee is sitting. That meets the immediate situation. However, the Minister will be under strong pressure if the regulations are brought into play in the next few weeks without the House first being recalled. I believe the House would have to be recalled in those circumstances, because we would be moving into another industrial situation. We would be going into a new phase. In consequence, I believe the House would have to be recalled. The Home Secretary would be under the strongest pressure to recall the House if any vital changes took place.

Like everybody else, I hope the dispute will be resolved. I have spent my working life in industrial relations, which concern free collective bargaining. That means making agreements. We have all been involved in that kind of thing. I recognise how intractable some issues can be. This is an intractable issue. In consequence, the Minister and the Government must realise that they bear a major part of the responsibility in this situation.

We have the background of the Industrial Relations Act. It seems odd for the Home Secretary to talk about us making political capital or debating issues which were not previously debated in the House. I recall that in 1964–65, under a Labour Government, when industrial disputes were raised in this House it was unthinkable for the Minister even to make comments; he just said "Negotiations are taking place. I am sure hon. Members will await the outcome of those negotiations", and so forth. That might have been right or wrong, but that is how such matters were conducted. Now everything is conducted against the background of a political court and the Industrial Relations Act. Those who have read the recent articles written by Lord Justice Devlin know that the law has been brought into disrepute.

Mr. Peter Rees (Dover)

Nonsense.

Mr. Orme

I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that many members of his profession are concerned about how the law has been affected, other than the Industrial Relations Act.

Many of us speak in this debate because of our knowledge of the far-reaching draconian powers which the Government are taking. We speak against the background of the docks issue which many of us know would have been difficult to resolve, but there was no need for a dock strike. It was forced on the dockers by the Government and by the attitude of the employers. It is against that background that those of us who feel passionately about industrial relations and the need for good industrial relations want to see this issue resolved. The Government have the major responsibility for the present situation.

Mr. Speaker

I understand that it is the desire of the House that the Opposition Front Bench spokesman should rise to speak at ten minutes to Eleven. That means that there are about 35 minutes left. I hope that it will be possible for the Chair to call two hon. Members from each side in that time.

10.17 p.m.

Mr. John E. B. Hill (Norfolk, South)

The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) criticised these powers for being extreme, but I think he will acknowledge that if emergency powers had to be taken at all they must be extreme powers to cover any eventuality.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is to be hoped that very little, if any, use will be made of the powers. The hon. Gentleman said that the strike had taken place against the background of fear on the part of the dockers, fear about their employment in future and about the possibility of their jobs disappearing as a result of technological change. That has obviously been a true and long-standing factor in this dispute but, as one of my hon. Friends said, there are other industries which have declining labour forces and are shrinking.

It is difficult to assume that any group of workers will have a prescriptive right to any job or type of job. It seems to me that in reaching a settlement, which we all want to see—and I mean a settlement of the whole future, and not just of this dispute—we must emphasise that the pattern of industry is continually changing, be it transport or any other industry. The difficulty is that it is not easy to ask the older members to change their jobs—there comes a time when it is difficult to be re-trained—but the younger members must face the desirability or the prospect of re-training for some different employment. After all, this is implicit in all our educational teaching.

I think that the hon. Gentleman has a point when he says that the difficulty here is that this shrinking of numbers employed from 80,000 to 40,000 is taking place against the background of unemployment, and this undoubtedly makes it more serious and more difficult to accept. But where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman is in thinking that this is the dockers' last chance or, even if they thought that, that they were right so quickly to resort to the ultimate sanction instead of waiting to see what the Aldington-Jones Committee would recommend.

It is in the public interest and part of the public good will that no long-established section of the working community should have a great sense of grievance, but one has to face the fact of changing technology and cushion the effects of the change as much as possible.

I shall touch on several points which have already been raised. I wanted to take part in the debate because I and my constituents are concerned about the flow of raw materials required for agriculture. Reverting to the vital question—in point of time—of the feeding stuffs supply, I was very heartened to hear what my right hon. Friend had to say in general. I emphasise that the difficulties are uneven. It may be that the big compounders have fairly large stocks in hand. The people I am concerned with mainly are those smaller compounding merchants who rely on home grown supplies and imported proteins, and farmers who mix their own feeding stuffs and use their own cereals.

At this time of the year, a few days before the harvest begins, or when it is just beginning, there is a great shortage of or virtually no existing home grown cereals in stock. Therefore, the smaller men are in this difficulty. I do not quite know what the time factor is. I have heard it put at about five days. I ask the Minister and the House to bear in mind that it will take at least three days for any proteins or other materials released at the docks to reach the animals, because time is taken up in transporting and compounding materials and then getting them out to the farms. I, too, have had reports that if one large enterprise in my constituency cannot get more supplies in the next five days, 1,500,000 five-week-old chickens will have to be slaughtered and buried.

Farm people, who have to cope with the vagaries of nature and the weather, find it hard to follow the mentality of people who allow perishable goods that are needed, whether for human or for animal food, to rot. They find that inexplicable because it seems to be throwing away a production opportunity. Many hon. Members have stressed that this strike throws other workers out of work. It inflicts great losses on perfectly innocent third parties, whether they be producers in the Channel Isles or, as we all ought to bear in mind, people in the under-developed countries needing every form of trade and sustenance that they can get, such as those in the Caribbean.

The serious worry of myself and many in my constituency is that by this stoppage the dockers are throwing away opportunities for themselves and for the country, and this must injure the public good will towards their general cause. Hon. Members have expressed the anxiety we must all feel—the hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) referred particularly to this—over the damage that can be rapidly inflicted upon the community as a whole in these matters. It is not merely a grave financial burden but one that is destroying opportunities for future trade expansion, and so, in a sense, it is building up the forces of unemployment ahead, instead of reducing them.

All the losses and many of the settlements tend to be inflationary because payments are made which certainly outrun productivity and production. I think that everyone is against inflation in general, but whenever their own particular interests or employment are concerned there is an exception. In those cases nobody cares sufficiently for the public interest and need which each emergency injures. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State stressed that the Government have a duty to protect the essentials of life for the whole community.

The dockers are in the forefront, because they are manning one of the bottlenecks in the economy. They are able to put pressure not only on their employers and others with whom wage bargaining is a necessary part of industrial relations but also on the users of their services and on the community as a whole.

Some very important questions arise. Employees in all bottleneck sectors—whether on the railways, on the docks, in electricity generation, or wherever it may be—can, if they stick together, hold up the whole nation's work and livelihood. Such people all too often feel that they have little to lose and perhaps something to gain by using what should be a weapon of last resort too early in the proceedings.

On the critical question of whether to strike or not to strike, many of my constituents who live and work in the countryside and in small towns, not in great conurbations—though we have a surprising amount of industry think that the balance has become tilted in favour of strike action, so that to strike ceases to be a weapon of last resort and is used as a direct bargaining weapon.

I hope that against the background of this emergency the Government will consider the need to redress the balance at least by ensuring that the Government do not appear to be insuring strikers against the costs of striking which they have traditionally borne. I know that it has been said that there is great hardship at a time of strike because the workers do not receive strike money. I accept this; but the fact remains that the public believe that on the whole the balance has become tilted slightly in favour of striking because the consequences are not financially as severe as they have been in the past. This may be a good thing from a social point of view, but from the point of view of the national economy it has unfortunate results.

We cannot continue risking interruptions to the economy which, as hon. Members on both sides have agreed, have a bad effect on our prospects. I doubt whether the ordinary citizen realises just how fragile our free democratic society is and how vulnerable it is to deliberate injury by any minority sectional interest which happens at the time to have power to injure it. I agree that this does not mean only sections of workers. There may be other sections of people with power to injure society.

We need to build some defences, in the community's interest, to prevent this injury from taking place in the future. As the hon. Member for Coventry, North said, our society rests upon a broad consensus, upon the mutual acceptance of obligation and responsibilities as well as upon rights. It rests above all on the constitutional authority of freely elected Governments and on respect and desire for the certainty and security which flows from the maintenance of law and order. I believe that the silent majority want and expect Governments to build adequate defences and prevent the injury that minorities have repeatedly inflicted upon the public interest in the past. Amid all the applications of modern technology and the inter-dependence of most sectors of an industrial economy, we have to reconcile the necessary freedom of any worker ultimately to withhold his labour and put pressure upon his employer with the maintenance of the public services and the national interest.

It is not easy. Unless all those who want to work for and not against this country concentrate their minds, their hearts and their energies on this necessity we shall destroy our own best prospects and present our competitors with the successes that we should have won for ourselves.

10.32 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara (Kingston upon Hull, North)

I have listened with interest to the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. John E. B. Hill) and, although I do not intend to pursue all his arguments, which are easily refuted, I feel that I must make one point.

It is impossible to isolate one section of the community and say that those people are making everybody else the victims of their action. Those people are themselves victims. They are victims of the change which is taking place in that community. If defences are to be sought they cannot be sought against that section of the community. A fence cannot be built around that single section. Instead, society must be organised in such a way as to be able to meet technical change, job loss and alteration in circumstances, in order to cushion the effects of all this upon particular sections of the community, be it the dockers, the miners, the railwaymen or even millionaires. The Government are failing to meet that problem.

This is the fourth state of emergency in two years—an average of one every six months. It is the second state of emergency declared in relation to the dockers. I am beginning to wonder whether under this Government, because of their industrial and social policies, the normal thing will be for us to live in a permanent state of emergency with occasional periods of grace when there is no emergency. That is what is happening as a result of the Government's policies. They are creating a situation in which they are not trusted by the ordinary working people. The people do not believe them. They have seen what the Government have done to the social services, to labour relations, and they have seen all the nasty little bits of legislation, like the 1971 Act, and they have had enough. In addition, the Government are seen to be taking away their jobs.

I do not want to deal with the containerisation dispute because it has been adequately dealt with by my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) and Salford, West (Mr. Orme). There is also the problem of the unregistered ports, the non-scheme ports, the pilot ports which have developed over the last few years and on occasions have been financed by public money. Two things have happened on the Humber. Ships are going up the Trent to places with small wharves which have blossomed overnight with the use of cheap labour to unload the ships. Great public investment in the major docks has been disregarded as more ships have used these wharves.

Second, there has been a growing tendency in what have traditionally been parts of the dock estate, as in my own constituency of Bankside, for wharves to be taken over and for strange interpretations to be put on the wording of the dock labour scheme, to such an extent that jobs which traditionally have been dockers' jobs have suddenly become jobs for non-registered dock labour. Because a cocoa mill or an oil and seed mill has been translated into a sawmill, a wholly different interpretation of the scheme, as, for example, at Barchard's wharf, has resulted in tremendous difficulty.

I take the example of Barchard's wharf because the situation there is of great significance for the Government in considering when emergency powers should be used by the port committees. In order to reach Barchard's wharf, ships will have to go down the River Hull, under a couple of bridges, past wharves and quays where registered dock labour is used. There is a strong rumour in Hull that a ship laden with timber is to come alongside that quay, a quay which has already been the subject of dispute before the Industrial Tribunal, which the National Dock Labour Board and the union lost and which has now gone to appeal.

The appeal will not be heard for a long time. If a timber ship arrives and seeks to land timber at that wharf, there will be trouble. I am making no threats when I say that. I am simply stating that there will be trouble if such a ship goes there while the dispute is on. There will be 2,000 Hull dockers about in the narrow streets of the old part of my constituency, with the congestion of lorries, with policemen about, and no room for people to move. There is little enough room there in ordinary circumstances. It is a bottleneck, and there will be trouble.

I ask the Government to make sure that instructions go out to my port committee that there shall be no landing of timber cargoes at wharves which are the subject of dispute or appeal at the moment. If there is such a landing, it will be a positive trailing of coats. I understand that the employer concerned will not say "Yea" or "Nay" as to whether it is the intention to land more cargo there. I believe, also, that he says that it is a question of when the shipments come. This is not good enough. We want positive action from the port committee.

I turn now to the situation in relation to the unregistered ports within the Humberside area. There were some ugly scenes on television last night, when dockers were seen to be treated very nastily. I believe that the boot has been on the other foot tonight, though I hope that it has not. I have heard a statement about the situation read by one hon. Member opposite. What I urge upon the Government is this. If ordinary decent God-fearing men like Kevin Brady, the former regional chairman of my union, are suddenly found in the police station being charged there will be great problems. These are not mindless militants; they are honest good men with families, with houses, with jobs which they are seeking to protect. The Government do not seem to understand where they are going in their policy of confrontation with ordinary decent people.

I hope that we shall have a statement from the Government about the situation in Lincolnshire. I hope also that we shall hear from them on another matter. When the pickets were seeking to go out from Hull today to picket the port, it was found that somebody had put a "black" on the bus companies which up to yesterday had been supplying the buses for them. Under the Industrial Relations Act, that may well have been an unfair industrial practice, but I am not concerned with that, and I do not want to have anything to do with that Act. What I am concerned about is reports that telephone calls have been made threatening drivers and the firms involved if they hired the buses out to dockers. The police have a duty to check up on any person who is threatening a breach of the peace, threatening to damage vehicles or injure men driving them. I hope that the Home Secretary will call for a report from the Chief Constable of Hull about what investigations he is making into this.

I have two final points. The first concerns the money being given to dockers who are over 55. The £4,000 is regarded as a great sum, and in many ways it is, but let us think of it in the docker's terms. He receives £4,000 and six-months' wage-related unemployment benefit. After that he goes on to basic benefit, and no social security. He cannot get on to social security until that money has been whittled down to £800. Does he blow it all or eke it out? Above all, what is his chance of being re-employed at 55 or over in a city with the enormous unemployment problems that we have in Hull, especially for men?

Secondly, it is not good enough that in the Jones-Aldington Report the problems of the unregistered ports are being put down for a second stage of the discussion. Humberside dockers, dockers in other areas, particularly the Port of London, are now discovering that the question of the non-scheme ports and the unregistered wharves is of primary importance, far exceeding for us the container issue. This problem must be solved.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)

I am pleased to make a brief contribution to the debate, because I have found it very interesting. The low profile of the debate will perhaps have contributed to helping to improve the situation in the country at large by ensuring that a settlement is more readily reached in the tragic dispute which faces the dockers and the country.

I was particularly impressed by what the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) said. I cannot say this very often when commenting on his contributions to debates, but I believe that his contribution tonight was very useful. He touched the very core of the matter in describing to the House the feelings of the dockers, people who are concerned about their future employment, people who see their industry changing. They see the method of transportation and shipment changing. Therefore, they are absolutely right to feel anxious about what is happening in their industry.

I should like to return to the basis of my interjection earlier in the debate, when I mentioned the textile workers. Here we have a similar case, where an industry has changed dramatically, where redundancies have occurred because of automation and because of the changes of methods of production. But they were not the best-paid workers in the country while the House is aware that the dockers are by any standard of today receiving pretty reasonable wages. What is more, the textile workers did not have the benefit of the recommendations of the Jones-Aldington Report. In that report there is the basis of a satisfactory solution to the problem facing us today.

I should have asked the hon. Member for Salford, West whether he considered that strike action was the answer to the problem that the dockers face. I do not believe that it is. I believe that by striking not only are they alienating public opinion but they are harming their own industry. I am of the opinion that the dispute is not just about their future but that we should draw into the debate the future of the drivers who are involved in the container dispute as well. But I do not wish to go into that aspect of the case in great detail tonight.

Several of my hon. Friends have raised the question of agricultural feeding stuffs and the effect that the strike is likely to have in a short time upon the agricultural industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. John E. B. Hill) spoke of hundreds of thousands of poultry which will shortly have to be slaughtered unless the necessary protein feedstocks are available. Tens of thousands of pigs will also have to be slaughtered unless the necessary feeding stuffs are made available to farmers. This is blatant waste, not only because it will result in higher prices to the housewife but because millions of people in the world get below a subsistence diet. That is not a satisfactory picture to present to the world as we destroy hundreds of thousands of tons of food and slaughter thousands of animals.

Hon Members have also spoken about social security payments. There is a growing concern in the country about the availability of social security payments to the families of those who go on strike. Many people openly advocate the withdrawal of benefits from all who go on strike, but I believe that it would be wrong to do so. Perhaps consideration should be given, however, to benefit only being paid to the families of strikers when they are on official strike or when the full, accepted negotiating procedure has been exhausted before the strike has been called. I do not wish to raise the temperature of the debate, because the fact that it has been in low profile has helped and I hope that those negotiating will take from it the message that the whole House and the country requires a settlement as soon as possible.

The Industrial Relations Act has given cause for criticism. It is being used by some to excuse the present dispute. Whether hon. Members opposite like the Act or not, it is a fact of life. It is the law of the country. Whether one likes a law or not, while it is a law it should be obeyed. It is perfectly right and legal to try within the constitutional rules to change or amend the law, and any future Labour Government will be able to change the law by majority of the House. But it must be done by a majority vote of the House and not by violence or intimidation.

I hope that all those involved in the dispute, on both sides, will consider the genuine interests of the country. I believe that if people perhaps paused before they took some impetuous action and considered the welfare of the whole community of the United Kingdom and all the effects their action would have on the economic future of the nation, we would achieve more harmonious industrial relations which hon. Members opposite have mentioned, and no doubt the performance of the economy and the country would benefit accordingly.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. Robert C. Brown (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)

In the few minutes generously allocated to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer), I want to make three points.

There can be no denial that on Tyneside there will be dockers sincerely hoping that the Jones-Aldington Committee can produce a report which will result in the recall of the docks conference and a return to work. I do not believe that Tyneside dockers are different from dockers elsewhere.

We hear a lot about holding the country to ransom from the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), but how did this dispute begin and why? If the people at the root of the dispute, the container firms, would give some simple assurances that would not cost them too much in terms of a climb-down I am certain that the Jones-Aldington Committee could quickly get the conditions for a return to work.

I appeal to the Home Secretary to take immediate steps to introduce price control should the dispute carry on. He has talked about the difficulty of enforcement, and I appreciate that in the short term it would be impossible to enforce fully. I appeal to him in the interests of the housewives of this country, particularly the wives of lower-paid workers, to introduce price control rapidly. The vast majority of the people are law-abiding, and, while it is not unnatural for anyone to want to turn an "easy buck", retailers are no different from any one of us. The very fact that there is a law will be the enforcement that the right hon. Gentleman needs.

10.53 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

The debate has been both interesting and important. It is regrettable that we have not had a full attendance, because the issues under discussion are of the greatest importance. The powers contained in these regulations are enormous.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) that no House of Commons should be prepared to give any Government such powers without the greatest scrutiny of the regulations and the motives of the Government. The Home Secretary seemed to try to avoid discussing the dock strike and tried to suggest that the House ought to consider the regulations in isolation from the present situation. We have these regulations before us now because we have a dock strike. Whether or not we like it, we have to examine the background of the strike, look at its causes and see whether anything can be done to solve the problem. I hope, as does the whole House, that troops will not be used and that many of the regulations will not be used. I am not a prophet, but if they are used I can see that the difficulties in solving the dispute will be that much greater.

It has rightly been said tonight that this situation in dockland has been developing for a long time. The other day the Secretary of State for Employment agreed that the Industrial Relations Act was not responsible for this situation. This is true, in the sense that the problem is one of long standing. It did not develop overnight. It is interesting to note that in the port of Liverpool 2½ years ago the dockers' in association with the lorry drivers set up a joint committee to consider the whole question of containerisation. In March of this year that joint body issued a model agreement, as it were, which the local employers were asked to sign. In fact, 30 employers signed that agreement before Heatons decided to go to the National Industrial Relations Court. When Heatons decided to go to the Industrial Relations Court, bringing the law for the first time into what was a normal trade union negotiating process, the problem became complicated and much more difficult to solve. Therefore, while the problem is one of long standing, nevertheless it is also true to say that the problem has been aggravated, complicated and made much more difficult because of the operation of the Industrial Relations Act. That is what we are talking about when we say that the Industrial Relations Act has complicated the whole scene.

What are the dockers concerned about? I think my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) made one of the best speeches in this debate—a speech full of understanding and knowledge of the situation in dockland. He ought to, because both he and I at one time worked on the Liverpool docks—not as dockers but in our own trades—alongside each other. We had constant contact with the dockers and we understand their problems. He—and, indeed, my hon. Friends the Members for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) and Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara)—pointed out that what the dockers are concerned about is their future employment. It cannot be said that the dockers have not assisted in technological advances through their trade union organisation. They have assisted all along the line.

Let me give some figures. In London in 1968 there were 22,379 dockers; in 1972 the number had fallen to 14,765. In the port of Liverpool in 1968 the number of dockers was 12,130; in 1972 the number had fallen to 10,198. There is a similar situation in Hull, with a reduction of over 1,000 dockers. In Manchester there is a reduction. The only port in this country where there has not been a reduction is Southampton, and in that case in those four years the number of dock workers has gone up by only 63.

That is what the dockers are concerned about. They are not on strike because they want more money; they want guaranteed employment—the right to a job. When they see certain employers leaving the dock estates, establishing warehouses 10 or 15 miles away, and then employing workers at reduced rates of pay, they consider it as a piece of effrontery on the part of those employers. That is why the dockers are on strike.

I understand that the Government have been doing a little leaning on those recalcitrant employers who seem to be making it difficult to achieve a solution of the problem. The dockers did not trust the container firms. They were not prepared to believe them. They wanted the Jones-Aldington report strengthened, because they did not believe that the employers would automatically fall into line—and how right they have been proved in the last 10 days! The situation has developed precisely as the dockers foresaw it developing. That is why we have the strike. In those circumstances, the Government must lean on those container employers and make them come into line and accept the Jones-Aldington report, thus giving the dockers the guarantees that they want. If they do that we might achieve a solution to the problem.

The question of supplementary benefits has also been raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale did a first-class job in helping to solve the difficulties in Liverpool. I trust that the Government will take on board all the points that he made and ensure that the same thing is done in the other ports—especially in Scotland, because the people of the islands obviously need the goods that the dockers are prepared to shift provided that their social security benefits are not interfered with because they take voluntary action in loading and unloading the ships that go to the islands.

The Government cannot instruct the Chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, but they can obviously talk to him, advise him, and tell him "This is our point of view. This is the position as it was before; therefore, we urge you to operate under the old interpretation." Surely the Government can assure us tonight that they will do that in respect of the other ports.

There is one more serious aspect of the social security question. When the relevant Measure went through the House last year I was on the Committee that dealt with it, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West, and we both pointed out that the Measure was an adjunct of the Industrial Relations Act and that the Government were building up for themselves future difficulties if they operated it. I can remember the speeches that we made in Committee.

I want the Government to note what my hon. Friend said. He said that the dockers might well make it a condition of a return to work that there should be no "subbing", because they detest that concept, which we warned the Government about.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) had the fantastic idea which many of his hon. Friends seem to have that workers on strike get social security benefit. They do not. If the hon. Gentleman suggests that the families of workers on strike should be put under the threat of receiving no benefit because the husband or another member of the family is on strike, it is the most disgraceful suggestion that I have heard.

Mr. Winterton

rose—

Mr. Heffer

I am sorry that I cannot give way because I have given a promise to sit down at ten past eleven so that the Solicitor-General will have time to reply.

I hope that the Government will take this point on board and will ensure that the Social Security Act, 1971, is amended at the earliest possible moment and that in the meantime the most generous interpretation is given to the Act so that dockers and other workers are not put in jeopardy.

I am very concerned, as I am sure most hon. Members are, about the regulations headed "Offences"; namely, Regulations 32, 33, 34 and 35, an Regulation 36 under the heading "Supplemental". Regulation 33 provides: No person shall trespass on, or on premises in the vicinity of, any premises used or appropriated for the purposes of essential services". I know that the Government will draw my attention to Regulation 38(1), the last paragraph of which appears to make the position clear: Provided that a person shall not be guilty of an offence against any of these Regulations by reason only of his taking part in, or persons to take part in a strike. That is all right. But in certain circumstances there can be an argument about whether picketing is loitering in the vicinity of premises connected with essential services.

I ask the Solicitor-General to give us a very firm assurance that these regulations will not be used in any circumstances against dock workers or other workers who are picketing in support of the present dispute, and that if dockers give out leaflets which explain the cause of the dispute they will not find themselves in difficulty under Regulation 35 because it could be interpreted as incitement, subversion, and so on.

My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), in opening the case for the Opposition, said that we might have to ask for the recall of Parliament if the situation became worse. If the Government contemplate using troops at any time within the next 28 days while these regulations are in force, I ask the Solicitor-General to assure us that they will not use troops unless they recall Parliament and give it an opportunity of discussing the situation. It seems to me to be absolutely vital that we should have that assurance.

Some of us, I must be quite honest, are not entirely happy that the Opposition are not opposing these regulations. Some of us perhaps felt that we should have followed the lead shown in relation to the miners' dispute, because the answer to disputes like this is not in the application of emergency regulations under the Emergency Powers Act but in the normal course of industrial relations matters of sitting round the table and solving the problem in that way. That is the only way in which to deal with disputes. Force, the threat of force, emergency powers, do not solve the problem. In the last analysis, it is only good sense and decent agreements on both sides that answer these problems.

11.12 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Geoffrey Howe)

It is right, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) says, that the House should have taken as much time as is available today to scrutinise closely the powers which Her Majesty's Government are seeking from the House. It is entirely right, as hon. Members have pointed out, beginning with the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and ending with the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), that the powers contained in these regulations are wide, and involve substantial alterations in many respects of the normal legal position.

It is for all those reasons that the 1920 Act provides for strictly defined parliamentary review both of the proclamation and of the regulations themselves, and lapse at the expiry of a calendar month, so that if, which certainly no one hopes or wants, the dispute should last for that length of time it would be necessary for the House to be recalled before 3rd September. I have noted, and my right hon. Friend has noted without making any comment on it, the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham, North, about the possibility of notice being given by the Opposition in respect of earlier recall. I say no more about that.

The point about the present situation is not that we are seeking to have authority for these regulations as an answer to the dispute. As the hon. Member for Walton said, no one visualises the taking of emergency powers as answering any dispute. The taking of these powers becomes necessary because the 1920 Act visualises the need that can arise in certain circumstances for the Government to exercise their clear duty to protect the essentials of life for the community, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out. The Government certainly do not seek the powers, and the powers would not be used in any sense for the purpose of strike breaking except insofar as it is inevitably inherent for the use of powers in the last resort to protect the community.

The regulations are distilled from the experience of successive Governments. Regulations 32 to 36, creating offences, are common in the same form as in 1949 and 1966 under Governments of the Labour Party, and almost exactly the same point has been raised in those debates, whichever Solicitor-General of whichever Government has been replying to the debate, as that raised by the hon. Member for Walton. I can do no more than draw to his attention and to the attention of the hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman) the limiting words in many of the regulations as, for example, the inclusion in Regulation 33(2) of words which make it plain that that offence can apply only to a person who … shall, for any purpose prejudicial to the public safety"— be in or near … any premises used … for the purposes of essential services …". The wider matters are governed by the proviso to Section 2(1) of the 1920 Act, which makes it plain that no powers can be exercised hereunder so as to make it an offence for any person or persons to take part in a strike, or peacefully to persuade any other person or persons to take part in a strike. In governance of that there is the wider proviso, referred to by the hon. Member for Walton of Regulation 38, which the hon. Gentleman has read, which makes it plain that peacefully persuading any other person or persons to take part in a strike cannot make any person guilty of an offence. The provisions of Regulation 35, to which the hon. Gentleman also referred, have to be read alongside those provisions as well. So in that respect the matter is as it always has been.

Even so, when all this has been said, the regulations are wide; but I should emphasise they are taken and required for precautionary purposes. This Government, like any other Government, can be trusted, despite the misgivings of the hon. Member for Coventry, North, not to exercise powers of this kind unnecessarily and not to do so except with discretion and care, bearing in mind the point made by both my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) and the right hon. Member for East Ham, North.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry said, the powers must be used, if necessary, with decision; but he also made the point, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. John E. B. Hill), that it would not serve the interests of the dockers, the farming community, or anybody else for the powers to be used prematurely, lightly or unnecessarily.

The importance of preserving the fragile balance of unity, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, South referred, is the responsibility of us all, of the Government and, indeed, of those on both sides taking part in an industrial dispute of this kind. But the Government, in the last resort, cannot escape from their duty to the community as a whole, whether to small or large farmers or to the inhabitants of the islands around our shores. It is right that both in the past and in this dispute the dockers have, in many respects, recognised their responsibility, too, and the Government will certainly do all they can to secure the continued cooperation of the dockers.

This is the importance of the point raised by several hon. Members about the possibility of the use of troops. The right hon. Member for East Ham, North, whose question was echoed to some extent by the observations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. James Hill), said that nobody would want troops to be used in any circumstances, save where it was absolutely unavoidable. Plainly and obviously, the Government would not contemplate the use of troops in this kind of situation, save only in the very last resort. Plainly and equally obviously, the Government are anxious to avoid that, if possible. But no Government at this stage in a dispute that could, although one hopes not, be of longer rather than shorter duration could give any final, open-ended or complete assurance that that necessity might not arise. The Government will certainly strive to avoid that necessity.

This is why co-operation, in the interests of the community, notwithstanding the inevitable casualties of industrial warfare, is so important. This is why, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food pointed out earlier, my right hon. Friends have already approached the trade union leadership for its co-operation in this matter. Arrangements so far have been made at local level, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State remains ready to discuss the matter further at national level if it becomes necessary.

In this context, some importance must be attached to the point raised by several hon. Members about supplementary benefits. This matter has been raised not unduly contentiously, although we know there is anxiety about it, by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who criticised the general principle. I do not wish to go back over that debate again at the moment.

I am more concerned with the point raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn), who is an old friend of mine from the other side of the Mersey when we both represented Merseyside seats, and characteristically he raised it with moderation. I accept what he said, that in certain circumstances in other industrial disputes supplementary benefit has been paid to people working in the kind of way that he described, carrying essential cargoes and transferring their wages to charity; but, plainly, a decision along the lines of that recently taken had not been taken in those cases. So far as I am able to understand it, in all the previous circumstances, whether by luck, or design, or good management, or whatever it may be, the facts as they have presented themselves in the context of paragraph 27 of Schedule 2 had not been given to or been appreciated by those responsible for taking the decision.

The difficulty which the hon. Gentleman identifies has arisen, and the hon. Member for Salford, West referred to the observations made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security. He drew attention to the real difficulties if the relevant paragraph of Schedule 2 were to be construed other than in the way it has recently been construed, if the matter were applied across the board. He said: Were we to allow people to earn money under any circumstances and then give it away there would be an enormous loophole in the law and it would mean that the taxpayer would be asked to really meet an open-ended commitment in circumstances of this kind. So the simple way out … is for them to do it without wages. They can then come along to the Supplementary Benefit Commission and receive help for their wives and families if they require it. To that the hon. Member for Kirkdale said, "provided the employers forwent their profit". That is not so easy, because there may be circumstances in which the employers have to do the transit themselves. There may be circumstances in which there is no profit for the employers. There are substantial difficulties in trying to approach this matter in general terms, and I have tried to put the matter as fairly as I can.

However, obviously in the present situation of a national emergency, where we are really concerned with supplies that could be matters of life or death for these communities, again, whether by luck or good judgment, in the past it has been met by co-operation which has not been impeded by any decisions of this kind. It is not for me, speaking as a Law Officer, to comment upon the accuracy of this decision, which, as my right hon. Friend said, is subject to appeal to the statutory appeals tribunal. All I can say now is that the facts of the matter have been well ventilated during the debate.

I hope that hon. Members on both sides appreciate the difficulties in expanding the matter into a more general issue. The facts will be looked at and considered by those responsible for the administration of the supplementary benefits scheme. I hope, too, that all other people concerned will understand the difficulties of the wider matter.

Mr. Heffer

These appeals usually take a long time. In the circumstances, cannot things be speeded up so that there is almost an immediate appeal on this question?

The Solicitor-General

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. I am not sure precisely how the tribunal is constituted, particularly at this time in the calendar year, but the matter has been well ventilated and it is not for me or for any other Minister to pronounce upon a matter when it is in that machinery. I am sure the hon. Gentleman's point will be noted.

The other matter which caused concern in a wider sense was the problem of animal feeding stuffs, which was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Oswestry, and Norfolk, South. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture dealt with the present position to the satisfaction of my hon. Friends.

On the question of food more generally, the problem of price control was raised specifically by the right hon. Member for East Ham, North and was touched on by the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Robert C. Brown). There have been increases in the price of bananas and lemons and some other fruits of that kind for which we are dependent on imports, but the retail prices of other commodities have been steady and there seems at present absolutely no reason why the price of essential foods such as bread, meat, eggs, dairy products and sugar should increase in the immediate future, because in respect of those matters we have reserves and there is plenty of food coming off our own farms. It is on that basis that it is clearly sensible that the Government should take price control powers in a situation of this kind. But they are reserve powers. It would not he as easy as some hon. Members have suggested to apply a system that would work fairly and convincingly, and that is why the position is as my right hon. Friend spelled out in opening the debate.

One other matter which was the subject of some concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldbury and Halesowen (Mr. Stokes) was in relation to picketing. In this as in other disputes, I think that the House is concerned about some of the incidents which have been reported. All these matters are subject to the general law and it might be helpful if I were to repeat to the House what I think has not been said here before; namely, what my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General had to say about this in March, so that there will be no doubt about it.

Peaceful picketing for the purpose of peacefully obtaining information from or peacefully communicating information to someone or peacefully persuading someone to work or not to work in the context of an industrial dispute is protected by the law. If picketing goes beyond these peaceful purposes—here I quote from what my right hon. and learned Friend said on 10th March— it can constitute a criminal offence. As the Donovan Commission explained in 1968, obstruction and intimidation of those wishing to work is unlawful.' So is molestation or threatening behaviour. It would be no defence to claim that such conduct was justified because it was done in the course of picketing. Nor do pickets have any right to require vehicles to stop so that they may communicate, for example, with the driver. If pickets, by sheer numbers, seek to stop people from going about their lawful business, or from going to work or from delivering goods, they are not protected by the law, since their purpose is to obstruct rather than to persuade. Indeed it is very hard to see how the attendance of large numbers of pickets can be justified in the name of lawful, peaceful persuasion. The law protects peaceful persuasion but it does not confer any kind of right to obstruct or to intimidate. The enforcement of the law is a matter for the police. They are charged with preserving the Queen's peace, and they must take such steps as are necessary to preserve it. If they reasonably anticipate that the numbers in attendance are such that there is a real possibility of a breach of the peace, or of obstruction of the highway, the police may request persons to leave or not to join a picket line. People who refuse to comply with such a request can be charged with obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. The rôle of the police in enforcing the law is often difficult. They have a duty to see that those who wish to picket peacefully are able to do so. They also have a duty to ensure that those who wish to go on working despite the peaceful persuasion of pickets can do so. These duties are, on occasions, not easily reconciled and the decisions of the man on the spot often have to be taken in difficult conditions. But it is the duty of the police to enforce the law". That is well understood.

Concerning the dispute itself, I repudiate in a sentence the suggestion that the dispute with which we are now faced is in any sense due to the Industrial Relations Act. Nor is it due to any kind of desire on the part of the Government for confrontation. The objective of the Industrial Relations Act was to improve voluntary procedures. That objective will not be helped by repeated cries for the repeal of the Act.

Of course the Government are aware of the problems of technological change. The Government have not been inactive in this particular dispute. The entire House agrees that the Jones—Aldington proposals are the basis of any settlement at which we can hope to arrive.

The right hon. Member for East Ham, North summarised aptly the need for reason on both sides in this dispute. The House may feel that it would not be right for the Government to be leaning too severely or fiercely in any direction. The hope of the House must be that as soon as possible we can get away from fighting over jobs to reasoning about them.

The present state of play with regard to the Jones—Aldington Committee is that it adjourned early this evening in order to meet again later this evening and again tomorrow morning. It would be wrong to conclude from the fact that meetings are continuing that the dispute is in any sense out of the wood; but plainly it is not without hope.

Meantime, the Government have a duty to seek these powers from the House They will be used with discretion. They are acknowledged on both sides of the House to be necessary, and I commend them to the House on that basis.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That the Regulations made by Her Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act 1920 by Order dated 3rd August 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3rd August, shall continue in force, subject however to the provisions of section 2(4) of the said Act.