§ Q5. Mr. Duffyasked the Prime Minister if he has agreed to the request of the Trades Union Congress General Purposes Committee for an urgent meeting on matters of mutual concern.
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir. I met the General Council of the TUC a week ago on 4th July.
§ Mr. DuffyIn view of the prompt and unqualified acceptance yesterday by industrial leaders of the right hon. Gentleman's invitation to join the tripartite working party, and presumably his anxiety for a similar response tomorrow 1405 from the TUC, will the Prime Minister indicate what grounds trade unions have for expecting that such a future relationship will always be conducted on a voluntary basis, given his Government's crucial departure from the principle of voluntarism in industrial relations?
§ The Prime MinisterI do not believe that those two things are comparable. This was not a point which was made to me by the General Council of the TUC. If Parliament passes legislation, as it has done, it applies to all citizens, including those in the trade union movement. What I emphasised to the General Council was that as a Government we wanted free, voluntary negotiations to continue in wage bargaining, and that I always understood that that was a principle to which the trade unions themselves attached great importance. The General Council agreed with that, and I hope therefore that it will feel able tomorrow to accept my invitation.
§ Mr. Biggs-DavisonIs there not a long history of fruitful co-operation between Conservative Governments and the trade union movement? Is not the trade union movement full of patriotic people who want the good of this country, and is it not therefore in the interests of the country that fruitful discussions should now take place between the Government and the representatives of the trade union movement to try to see that the economy proceeds on sound lines for the benefit of everyone?
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir. There has been a considerable number of meetings between the General Council, the Economic Committee and the General 1406 Purposes Committee of the TUC with myself and my colleagues over the past two years. These have been valuable. The House knows of the invitation which I gave to the TUC last Wednesday, which it is considering further tomorrow. Its main purpose in coming to see me was to discuss the Industrial Relations Act. I expressed the Government's view on that in the debate in the House on Monday of last week, and I discussed with the General Council again the position which I have set out.
I should also make it plain to the House that, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has pointed out to me, although I said in that debate that the cooling-off period was kept in the Bill which was presented by the Labour Government but never carried through the House, in fact that was not the case. Neither a ballot nor a cooling-off period was transferred from the White Paper into the Bill. I am glad to make that plain.
§ Mr. BidwellIf the right hon. Gentleman has not yet discussed with TUC representatives the effect of the devaluation of the £ on the rising cost of living as a result of the inevitable increase in import prices, will he now explain to it and to us how the Government expect to meet that situation?
§ The Prime MinisterI discussed the floating of the £ with the General Council—and the events which had led up to that—and the Council appreciated that one cannot say at this period of time what the course of floating will be. It showed no signs of wishing to exaggerate the consequence on prices of the floating of the £.