§ 10.0 p.m.
§ Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craigton)I am glad to have this opportunity of raising the case of a constituent of mine, Mr. Walter Morrison, who is a disabled person and on the Disabled Persons Register. He is a man in his late forties. He was previously employed in the building trade. He has been disabled for a considerable time. Some years ago he was trained as a screen printer and was so employed by a firm in my constituency called McCormick's Screen Printers for about four years until November 1971.
At the time at which I want to take up the story, Mr. Morrison was a shop steward at McCormick's factory. In late October 1971 McCormick's gave notice to Mr. Morrison that he was to be made redundant. Mr. Morrison strenuously resisted that notice from the beginning. He asserted that there was no redundancy at McCormick's and that the firm were using redundancy as an excuse for getting rid of his services. Mr. Morrison's union, the sign and display section of NATSOPA, asked for the matter to go to arbitration. That was a solution which was not accepted by the employers. Mr. Morrison was made redundant on 19th November 1971.
There was a considerable amount of feeling in the factory about this matter. The number of workers involved is quite small—namely, approximately 24. The workers concerned came out on strike because of Mr. Morrison's position on 24th November 1971. They were immediately sacked by the management. Apart from one employee, who was a foreman, none of the people who were sacked has returned to work for McCormick's. Mr. Morrison started a sit-in in the premises. That continued for some time but he was not reinstated by McCormick's. His trade union even- 558 tually dropped the action that it had against McCormick's, largely because the firm had threatened to close the factory unless industrial action was called off.
The firm subsequently re-employed other people and it is still in operation. At the time I felt that it was a pity that the Department did not use its conciliation powers, but that is not a part of the story that I want to deal with now.
Mr. Morrison did not accept and has never accepted since that there was a genuine redundancy situation. He was awarded redundancy pay of £139. He did not accent that until the very last month, which was six months from the date of his alleged redundancy. He was told that unless he accepted it there was a danger that no payment could be made. Even then he accepted the position and signed for the money that was paid to him, as he described it, as "under duress". There was no hearing on the merits of the redundancy situation because such a hearing normally only applies when an employee has been refused redundancy payment and there is an appeal to a tribunal.
Similarly, there was no opportunity at that time for Mr. Morrison to pursue his case as an unfair dismissal because the relevant position of the Industrial Relations Act did not come into operation until April 1972. However, Mr. Morrison raised the question, before he was dismissed on 19th November 1971, whether his employers in dismissing him were in breach of Section 9(5) of The Disabled Persons (Employment) Act. 1944, which states that an employer is not entitled to discharge a disabled employee without reasonable cause if in so doing he reduces the number of his employees below the quota which he is required to have for the purpose of The Disabled Persons (Employment) Act.
This point was raised first by Mr. Morrison in a letter to the then Secretary of State for Employment dated 7th November 1971, before he was dismissed from the firm. The first letter that he had in reply from the Department stated that the matter was being looked into and was dated 30th November 1971.
Soon afterwards McCormick's started to advertise again for screen printers. There was a good deal of coming and going, with Mr. Morrison applying for 559 his job back and the rest of it. But that never happened. He made various approaches, writing various letters to the Department and to a number of others. He wrote to the Prime Minister on 27th March 1972. Eventually he got a reply from the Department on 25th April 1972 which by that time was nearly five months after his dismissal. The letter apologised for the delay in dealing with his case and said that the matter of his dismissal in terms of the 1944 Act was being looked into. It also explained the various procedures that had to be gone through.
There was again a good deal of correspondence with Mr. Morrison, and he wrote again to the Prime Minister on 6th June 1972. On 8th June he had a letter from the Department saying that the disablement advisory committee in Glasgow would be meeting on 19th June 1972 to consider his case, the point being that, before any question of a prosecution of an employer under Section 9(5) of the 1944 Act could take place, there had to be a reference to the local disablement advisory committee and a report from that committee to the Minister.
One of the matters about which I complain is the manner in which the findings of these hearings are dealt with subsequently. The disablement advisory committee met on 19th June 1972. Mr. Morrison attended. McCormick's were not represented, but they sent a statement. Mr. Morrison was refused a copy of the full statement made by his employers so that he did not know the case that they were putting up against him.
It is not for me to say whether in terms of the question of redundancy the employers have a better case than Mr. Morrison. It is no part of my case to argue that because I do not know the full facts of the situation. However, the first and only time that the question whether Mr. Morrison was genuinely redundant was considered was at the disablement advisory committee meeting on 19th June 1972 in circumstances where Mr. Morrison, although able to put his own case, was not made aware of the case made against him.
Since the committee had to decide whether the employers had reasonable cause for dismissing him, which is the phrase used in the section, the question 560 arose whether the disablement advisory committee felt that Mr. Morrison was genuinely redundant or whether his employers were using redundancy as an excuse for getting rid of him.
The very unsatisfactory feature of this case is that the disablement advisory committee came to a decision but that to this day neither Mr. Morrison nor I—nor for that matter anyone else, apart from the Minister and the committee—knows what the decision was. Disclosure to Mr. Morrison was refused at the time. As the Under-Secretary knows, subsequently I asked for the decision to be disclosed to me. I was also refused it.
For the purposes of this debate it is my very strong conviction that the disablement advisory committee found in favour of Mr. Morrison. No other inference is consistent with what happened after the finding of the disablement advisory committee. I am as certain as can be, without having seen the papers, that the committee decided in favour of Mr. Morrison. If so, it must have decided that he was not genuinely redundant and, therefore, that the employers were dismissing him for a reason other than redundancy. It must also have recommended to the Minister—in my view, no other finding is consistent with what happened subsequently—that McCormick's be prosecuted under the provisions of Section 9(5) of the Act.
I repeat, by the time of the advisory committee's meeting, seven months had elapsed from the date of Mr. Morrison's dismissal. Since Mr. Morrison had got in touch with me I put down a Question on 27th July 1972 asking what the decision of the committee was. I was told that it was confidential and could not be disclosed to me.
On 3rd August I wrote to the Under-Secretary expressing surprise and concern and asking to be informed as soon as possible of the Minister's decision regarding prosecution. I got no reply to that letter—only an acknowledgement.
On 11th September I wrote again pointing out that it was then nearly 10 months since the dismissal and saying that it was a gross injustice to Mr. Morrison or anybody else in his situation that there should be this continual delay.
On 9th October the Under-Secretary replied that the reason for the delay—I 561 do not accept this—was that before the matter could be considered and passed to the Lord Advocate, who had the ultimate decision whether prosecution of the employer should take place, corroborative evidence had to be obtained, and that meant that various inquiries had to be made.
This was nearly 11 months after the date of Mr. Morrison's dismissal. It was extraordinary that the matter should have been before the disablement advisory committee and 11 months from the date of Mr. Morrison's dismissal the Minister was still talking about obtaining corroborative evidence. I understand that solicitors acting for the Department were extremely active. No doubt they interviewed the employer. They certainly interviewed Mr. Morrison.
On 20th October 1972 the Under-Secretary wrote to me saying that eventually the papers had been referred to the Lord Advocate for his decision.
On 14th November I wrote to the Lord Advocate. The Act provides that any prosecution has to be initiated within a year of the offence taking place and, as the offence in that sense had taken place on 19th November 1971, this was within a week of the end of the year. The matter went to the Lord Advocate and I wrote to him on 14th November, only five days before the year was up, asking what was happening.
On 20th November 1972, a day after the period had expired, the Lord Advocate wrote to me saying that in his view prosecution would not be justified. I am not criticising the Lord Advocate. I believe that he approached this matter as he approaches other matters—in a fair and judicial manner. Obviously if he felt that a prosecution were justified he would have proceeded with it.
In a situation where it has taken literally a year, right up to the last moment, for a decision to be made and in the intervening period the employee concerned has had no information about what has been going on, about the disablement advisory committee's decision, and so on, it would be surprising if the person concerned felt that anything like natural justice had been done.
Mr. Morrison is still unemployed. He has applied for various jobs. There is no doubt that in a sense, whether by deliber- 562 ate action or effectively in other ways, he has been black-listed by employers, screen printers, in Scotland.
I appreciate that Mr. Morrison is in some respects a difficult man with whom to deal. He is very persistent. He writes long letters to many people. He has been in touch with the Press, television, and so on. I have a feeling—and I hope that the Minister will reassure me about this because if it were true it would be serious—that the Department and others felt that Mr. Morrison was probably rather a nuisance and therefore his various complaints did not have to be taken seriously. That is a possible explanation of the considerable dilatoriness on the part of the Department in dealing with his affairs. The fact is that Mr. Morrison had uncovered an important point about the working of the Act and it is extremely unfortunate that his case was dealt with in the way it was.
I understand that there have been no prosecutions under Section 9(5) of the 1944 Act during the last five years. I understand, too, that since the Act came into force in 1945 there have been only five prosecutions. My complaints against the Department are as follows: first, that it was dilatory in that it took nearly a year to deal with this case. Secondly, as far as I can see there is no reason why, according to the provisions of the Act, the disablement advisory committee's recommendation should not have been made known to Mr. Morrison. To make it known to him would have been a matter of natural justice.
It seems to be a matter of policy, which is not laid down in the legislation, that the committee's findings were not disclosed to Mr. Morrison. I think that the case would have run out of time and never reached the Lord Advocate before 19th November 1972 had it not been for the fact that Mr. Morrison was persistent and I had put down parliamentary Questions and written to the Minister. If the complainant himself is extremely active, and if a Member of Parliament is active on his behalf, and still the papers go for decision only a week or two before the time limit is un, one is led to ask what would happen to some unfortunate complainant who did not have the persistence of Mr. Morrison or did not have the help of a Member of Parliament with his case. I think one can fairly conclude that nothing 563 would happen and that the matter of prosecution would never be considered by the Lord Advocate.
The 1944 Act is deficient in many of its provisions. I know that in an Adjournment debate I cannot argue about how it should be improved, but I must tell the House that there is a considerable feeling of unease among disabled workers about many aspects of it. The matter that I have raised is only one of them. There is the whole question of exceptions which allow employers to employ people who are disabled. These exceptions are granted at the rate of more than 20,000 a year. There are many other aspects of the Act which are unsatisfactory.
In recent years the disabled of this country have asserted themselves very much more effectively—and I support them wholly—than ever before. They have said that society gives them a raw deal and they are sticking up for their rights in a way that they did not do before. In this I support them 100 per cent., and that is why I have brought Mr. Morrison's case before the House this evening. I think that the Act is unsatisfactory but, more particularly, I think that the way in which the Department dealt with this case offended against the principles of natural justice to which my constituent was entitled.
§ 10.19 p.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith)The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) has argued his case with typical moderation and has made a number of charges against us. Having been involved with this matter over recent months, I know that the hon. Gentleman has been assiduous on behalf of his constituent, for which he deserves full marks, but I must disabuse him of one thing.
The hon. Gentleman may feel that but for his efforts we should have let things slide. I assure him that we should not and that the case was progressing. By raising the matter tonight the hon. Gentleman has perhaps in some way helped to speed things up but, whatever happens in the long run, there would still have been a proper decision within the time available.
564 The hon. Member makes three charges against my Department which boil down to these: first, undue delay—"dilatoriness", to use his word; second, injustice to his constituent; third, the procedures of the disablement advisory committee in not informing his constituent of the outcome of its deliberations, and certain other matters in respect of the evidence the committee took.
It is probable that this case could have been handled more quickly, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that my Department is reviewing the procedures for dealing with complaints under Section 9(5) of the Act to see whether there are ways in which it can be speeded up. I must, however, stress that a careful and painstaking review of all the circumstances of this particularly complicated case was clearly essential before reaching a decision as to whether to put the papers to the district disablement advisory committee as the Act lays down and subsequently, under Scottish law, to my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate.
We were meticulous about this. If there was a fault, it was because we were making absolutely sure that all the possible evidence was gathered. Hence the allegation of slowness. I can assure the hon. Member that there was no question of any dilatoriness or any lack of care or interest on the part of the Department. We went into this very thoroughly.
Initially a formal interview with the employer by the wages inspector—nowadays the wages inspectors go into these questions on behalf of the Department—was delayed for some weeks in view of the delicate industrial relations situation which obtained in the factory at the time. It was then necessary to review the case carefully within the Department before the all-important decision was taken to refer the matter to the district advisory committee. Clearly, the Department has to be satisfied that there is in its view a prima facie case for prosecution before taking that step.
After the district advisory committee had reported, it was necessary, as the alleged offence had occurred in Scotland, to refer the case to my Department's Scottish legal officers and for them to investigate the matter thoroughly, to seek further evidence and then to prepare the 565 case for submission to the Lord Advocate. This may seem a long and tortuous process but these are matters which can involve criminal prosecution and one needs to be very careful in the preparation of cases and the examination of the evidence.
There was one further hurdle, which the hon. Member will appreciate, because Scottish law is somewhat different from English law. Under English law the affirmation of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would be required before a prosecution could take place. Where Scotland is concerned, we could not act without a remit of the Lord Advocate.
I must make it absolutely clear, though, that what delays there have been have had no untoward effect on Mr. Morrison's position. In the first place, full consideration of the case was completed within 12 months of the alleged offence, so there was no question of a possible prosecution being statute barred by time. Therefore, there certainly was no question of allowing it to run over the period in which a prosecution could take place.
In the second place, and more importantly, the Department's handling of the case can have resulted in no injustice or hardship whatever for Mr. Morrison. The issue which has been in question and which the hon. Member has been pursuing is whether the employer should be prosecuted. There has never been any question, under the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act, of any remedy for Mr. Morrison himself, whatever view one may take of his case—and the hon. Member fairly said that there is a great deal of controversy around it.
But even if it were proved—I put this hypothetically—up to the hilt that Mr. Morrison or some other individual had been badly treated and a prosecution took place, there is no remedy in law under this Act for the individual. The Act, unlike the Industrial Relations Act of 1971, to which the hon. Member referred, does not provide a remedy for a registered disabled person who feels himself aggrieved under Section 9(5). We know that the Industrial Relations Act does so provide and that an individual can bring a case for unfair dismissal. But at the time that this came about it was not in operation and, therefore, this remedy did not exist for Mr. Morrison.
566 The 1944 Act which we are discussing makes no provision for re-engagement or for compensation. Therefore, any delay which may have taken place in reaching a decision has not affected the hon. Member's constituent's position in any material way. I hope that the hon. Member feels that that is an important point and that, whatever he may feel regarding whether or not the Act should have contained some provision in that respect, under the Act as it stands the constituent has not been harmed in this respect.
This is clearly a complicated and difficult case. Having considered it carefully and having taken into account the views of the district advisory committee and the evidence available, the Department thought it right to submit the papers to the Lord Advocate with a view to his considering a prosecution. However, he decided that the evidence available did not justify criminal proceedings. I agree very much with the hon. Member—he was very fair in saying this—that one does not question the Lord Advocate's decision The Lord Advocate is a man of great integrity who obviously arrived at the decision which he thought was the correct one.
If I may again refer to the other point which the hon. Member made about the district disablement advisory committee, he asked about the treatment of his constituent as regards this committee and the lack of information which was forthcoming from it to his constituent. The report of the committee is, in these circumstances, part of a possible prosecution procedure and it must, therefore, be regarded as confidential. The Department does not put papers to district advisory committees unless the Department feels that there is a prima facie case for prosecution. It was the employer who was in danger of prosecution, and he was not informed of the committee's report and what its deliberations were.
It is a fact that in a case such as this the individual concerned, the man or woman, does not have a right to appear before this committee. In this case Mr. Morrison went before the committee at its invitation, but there is no prescriptive right to do so; whereas indeed the committee is under an obligation to invite the employer to appear or to submit evidence, because it is really he who is likely to be the person to be proceeded against.
567 The hon. Member asked why Mr. Morrison was refused a copy of the employer's representations at the committee. This again is a matter for the committee, which is properly constituted and which carries out its own particular inquiry, and is not a matter for the Department. But I must remind the hon. Member that it is the employer who is in danger of prosecution. There is no suggestion of any action to be taken against the individual whose complaint originally initiated the particular inquiries.
The hon. Member said that he regretted that we did not use our conciliation powers at the very outset of this case. It was a difficult case. There was industrial trouble which grew out of this case. But our disablement resettlement officers use a great deal of conciliation when this type of case arises. We get criticised sometimes for not prosecuting enough under this Act. We believe in persuasion, We think that if we can persuade, this carries so much more weight with employers than using the big hand of 568 legality, waving a big stick at employers. It is a matter of opinion whether this is right, but on balance I think that we have done a very great deal at various times with certain employers who were about to get rid of a disabled person and thus go below quota, and who were persuaded eventually, through the good offices of some of our officers, to reinstate those people. In this case that did not happen and Mr. Morrison was not reinstated. Relations went from bad to worse. I assure the hon. Member however, that although there have not been very many prosecutions, the whole of the disablement area is under review at present, particularly the quota—a special document has been prepared on this—and that cases such as this one are those which have a relevance—
§ The Question having been proposed at Ten 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 Ten o'clock.