NATIONAL UNION OF MINEWORKERS (Hansard, 11 December 1973)

§ Q2. Mr. Strang
asked the Prime Minister how many times he has met officials of the National Union of Mineworkers.

§ Q13. Mr. Leslie Huckfield
asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement about his talks with the National Union of Mineworkers.

§ Q14. Mr. William Hamilton
asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent talks with leaders of the NUM; and what further plans he has for talks with the leaders of other major unions.

§ Q15. Mr. Adley
asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement following his recent meeting with the National Union of Mineworkers.

§ The Prime Minister
I have met representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers on two occasions recently—on 23rd October and on 28th November. I made a statement to the House on 29th November. I have no immediate plans for further meetings with union leaders.—[Vol. 865, c. 586–98.]

§ Mr. Strang
Does the Prime Minister agree that whatever happens in the next week or so it is already clear that recent developments on the international oil front will have an enormous effect on the development of the British economy, not to mention the world economy, in 1974? Does it not follow that the major economic problems we now face are different from the situation two months' ago, when the Government published their consultative document on stage 3? Would it not be prudent for the Prime Minister to consider revoking stage 3 and replacing it with a policy designed to meet the current major problems facing the nation?

§ The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues should consider the energy problem from two points of view. There is, first, the question of the quantities required to keep our energy supplies going, and, second, the question of price, which will make its impact on internal costs and prices and also on our balance of payments. As to the cuts in oil supplies, I remind the House that industry believes that not only can it maintain itself through economies but it can also keep the rate of expansion going when the cut amounts to 10 per cent. But the increased price of oil coming in is bound to have an effect on balance of payments and costs in this country. Both these matters only reinforce the need for us to have a counter-inflationary policy. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that stage 3 is too generous in these circumstances and ought to be revised in terms of what it allows, this is something which the Government ought to consider.

§ Mr. Adley
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the settlement yesterday by the National Union of Public Employees is a proper example of a trade union look- 198 ing after the interests of low-paid workers, and is an example to the National Union of Mineworkers? Does he agree that there is clear evidence that if the Government give in to the militant demands of the NUM, as expressed by the present make-up of the executive, the moderate element in the executive and the British public will be sold out for a very long time?

§ The Prime Minister
I was glad to see the decision of which my hon. Friend speaks. So far, 350 settlements have been registered under stage 3, covering 1½ million employees, but that does not include the settlement to which my hon. Friend referred.

§ Mr. Huckfield
Does the Prime Minister appreciate the seriousness of the situation about which I recently wrote to him, namely, that 30 men a week—skilled men who cannot be replaced—are leaving the five Warwickshire pits? Can he not understand that even if they received the present wage increase they would still be earning between £10 and £15 less than workers in surrounding factories? If the energy situation is as serious as he says, how can we afford to go on losing men of that calibre?

§ The Prime Minister
The rate of recruitment to the industry has remained steady, and 57 per cent. of those who are being recruited are miners returning to the mines. I have already given the House the position comparing miners after stage 3 with workers in the manufacturing industry after stage 3. If both miners and manufacturing industry workers accept the offers made under stage 3, the miners in comparison will be in a better position than they were after Wilberforce. This means that, compared with the beginning of 1972, when the Wilberforce proposals appeared, there is now a greater attraction to mining than to manufacturing industry.

§ Mr. Wyn Roberts
Will the Prime Minister confirm the fact that the package offered to the miners places them 8 per cent. above the level of wages in the manufacturing industry, and that it will not be to their benefit to abandon stage 3 and to return to leapfrogging?

§ The Prime Minister
That is the case. There can be no benefit to miners in trying to attract more people to the industry if they get an award outside stage 3 which 199 breaks stage 3 and merely leads to every other union leader being forced to make a claim equal to that of the miners'. We went through all this in 1972. This is why, in discussions with the CBI and TUC, we have tried to find a more sensible way of handling these affairs.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Will the Prime Minister confirm or deny the fact that even if the stage 3 settlement is accepted by the miners, the highest-paid miner will have a basic take-home pay of less than £40 a week? In those circumstances, those miners need no lectures on patriotism from Lord Hailsham or anybody else. They could have held the country to ransom from 1945 onwards, but they did not do so. Whom does the Prime Minister believe to be the more patriotic section of the community—the miners or the property speculators?

§ The Prime Minister
The position in the manufacturing industry is as I have given it. The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) wishes only to refer to basic rates.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Of course.

§ The Prime Minister
It is not a matter of saying "Of course". It is earnings, together with other benefits which miners receive, that in fairness have to be compared to the rest of manufacturing industry.

§ Mr. Goodhew
Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to the meeting on 20th October of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, at which the mineworkers, the engineers, the train drivers and the power supply workers got together to plan a strike of 5 million people in the New Year, with a view to wrecking stage 3, bringing down the Government, and no doubt bringing about chaos? Will the Prime Minister go on television and tell the people of this country that they are being duped by these Communists, who have no interests in this country whatever?

§ The Prime Minister
In all my contacts with the TUC, the mineworkers and other unions leaders, I have emphasised that this policy is in the interests of the country and that the law and the pay code have been approved by Parliament. Therefore, I have asked that wage arrangements should be made within 200 that code. I have already told the House and the country that certain remarks by miners' leaders to the effect that they wanted to bring down the Government have been withdrawn. Naturally, I accept that. I hope that no union or combination of unions would ever act with that motive. I do not think the British parliamentary system or the British nation would be prepared to tolerate that situation.

§ Mr. Kelley
Is the Prime Minister aware that stage 3 was revised in the warm glow of a rather hot summer, which is a rare phenomenon in this country? Does he not think it time that the Government reviewed this policy, in view of the fact that we shall have a hard winter? Since the situation in the mining industry is that coal cannot be produced to keep power stations active, will this not mean that in many homes Christmas dinners will not be cooked?

§ The Prime Minister
If the overtime ban were to be removed at the meeting on Thursday the coal could immediately be produced to get our power stations going, to give the industry the electricity and power it requires, thus avoiding increasing unemployment, which otherwise will be inescapable. If the hon. Gentleman wants stage 3 to be reviewed, I ask the House to consider what its basis will be. The offer to the miners is 13 per cent., and the most we believe we can get as a growth rate for this country in the forthcoming period is between 3½ per cent. and 4 per cent. The House must consider how a figure of this kind can be justified in terms of increase in growth, and must accept the fact that the miners are being put in a special position. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that as a result of the cut-backs in industry it is not possible to get that growth, the logical conclusion is that there ought to be a cut-back in the facilities of stage 3.

§ Mr. Rost
Is the Prime Minister aware that the majority of people believe that trade union leaders have done quite enough talking and that if the country is to survive we need less talk and a little more concern for the national interest?

§ Mr. Molloy
Will the hon. Gentleman volunteer to go down a mine and do some overtime?

§ The Prime Minister
I believe that the great majority of trade union leaders want to do what is best in the national interest. At the meetings that I have with them I shall continue to give them the fullest information about the national economy and the international economic situation, and ask for their co-operation with the employers in this position.

§ Mr. Alexander Wilson
Is the Prime Minister suggesting that in order to save this country the miners should work overtime? When considering package deals, will he bear in mind that mining is probably the most dangerous occupation in this or any country? In balancing the scales of his economics, will he put on them on behalf of the miners the thousands who die from pneumoconiosis and the thousands who are injured in the collieries? Will he put all those matters in the scales before coming to a decision not that 13 per cent. has been offered—because we on this side consider that wage offers are based on basic wages—but that other deals contained in the package have also been offered to other workers in British industry? Finally, does the Prime Minister agree that the miners are a special case and that stage 3 is in a hopeless position? Will he reconsider the position and give the miners their just rewards?

§ The Prime Minister
Because of the points listed by the hon. Gentleman, the scale of the offer made to the miners by the National Coal Board is very much greater than can be claimed by most other groups in the community. The plain fact is that the trade union movement—I fully accept its problems—has never yet been able to give any indication that it could establish priorities between the claims of different unions. Therefore, it cannot face a situation in which one group is allowed to have a special place and others cannot claim similar treatment, because it knows full well that as soon as one position is established everybody else claims the right to make exactly the same response.