BRITISH RAIL (INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE) (Hansard, 14 March 1973)

Mr. Edward Taylor
(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the decision taken by ASLEF yesterday to continue and intensify their strike action.

§ The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Maurice Macmillan)
Yesterday the ASLEF Executive decided on a further one-day strike of all its members on Thursday 22nd March, to maintain the ban on Sunday and overtime working and to continue to withhold co-operation.
The decision means that there will be no rail services on Sunday or on Thursday next week and the daily disruption of commuter and some inter-city services will continue.
Whilst British Rail are ready to continue negotiations with all three railway unions on a new annual settlement for implementation on 1st May and to continue discussions on the restructuring of drivers' pay with ASLEF and the NUR, these two unions do not agree about the relevant priority of the two issues. The NUR is already represented on the working party on drivers' pay. It believes that progress should be made in the national negotiations before there are further discussions on restructuring in the working party. ASLEF is demanding an improvement in the proposals already made on restructuring. The General Secretary of the TUC has talked to both unions but seemingly without success.
The industrial action being taken is in breach of the industry's own agreed negotiating procedures. Its effect has been that many thousands of commuters, particularly to London, have for three weeks had to put up with uncertainty and long, frustrating and uncomfortable journeys to and from work.
I very much hope that ASLEF will agree to attend the meeting now arranged by the British Rail for continued negotiations on the national claim with the other railway unions and call off its industrial action so that discussions can be resumed on restructuring.

Mr. Taylor
Has not the statement from the NUR and the other rail unions confirmed that this disastrous and damaging dispute is as much an inter-union battle as a dispute with the British Railways Board?

§ Mr. Leslie Huckfield
Rubbish.

Mr. Taylor
Have Mr. Feather and his TUC colleagues, who have frequently voiced their concern to bring about industrial peace and to protect the public, suggested any solution to the dispute 1293 between two of their member unions? Will the Minister give an assurance to the public, who are suffering so much inconvenience, that their inconvenience will not be in vain and that the Government have no intention of surrendering to irresponsible militancy?

§ Mr. Macmillan
This is not a matter of the Government surrendering—which they certainly have no intention of doing. It is not fundamentally a strike or industrial action taken by ASLEF against the Government's policy. The NUR has publicly expressed its dismay at the action ASLEF is taking, which is affecting the earnings of its members and which might put at risk the jobs of its members in railway workshops. I understand that the NUR is particularly concerned about the effect of industrial action at a time when the future of the railways is under review and when the NUR has launched a campaign for extending the rôle of the railways.

§ Mr. Prentice
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the statement he made did not contain a single word to indicate any steps which the Government propose to take to help solve this critical situation, and is that not indicative of the fact that in recent weeks the Government have locked all the doors leading to conciliation and arbitration? Do they not have the distinction of being the first Government since 1945 completely to abdicate from playing any constructive role in industrial relations?
Many of us who supported the railwaymen last year and on previous occasions and who have studied the ASLEF case and see a lot of merit in it would nevertheless hope that the ASLEF Executive will have regard to two important points. The first is that experience in recent years has demonstrated that the three rail unions do better to work together than separately and that this is needed all the more in the critical situation which current Government policies have imposed upon all working people. Secondly, it must have regard to the very great hardship its action is causing to hundreds of thousands of people, including its fellow railwaymen. In this situation many of us hope that it will call off this action and discuss with the other two rail unions 1294 the way in which to approach their common problems with British Rail.

§ Mr. Macmillan
I hope this is so. In so far as this is a dispute about pay rather than restructuring, ASLEF is seeking a £40 basic rate for all drivers as opposed to the present basic rate of £30.75—an increase of about one third. As for the question of intervention by the Government, the position is that negotiations are in train for a new annual settlement and the discussions are advanced. The NUR is prepared to resume discussions with ASLEF in the working party on restructuring and I do not think that that requires intervention by the Government.
A meeting of the Rail Staff Joint Council was arranged on 27th February to consider claims from all three unions, and it had to adjourn that discussion because ASLEF failed to turn up. The meeting was eventually held on 6th March. Discussion of these claims, including, I hope, discussion on restructuring, will resume at a meeting of the Rail Staff National Council on 21st March.

§ Sir S. McAdden
As the British Transport Commission is manifestly unable to provide any kind of service whatever on the highly-profitable and self-contained London, Tilbury and Southend railway line, will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State perhaps initiate discussions, with the co-operation of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries, with the British Transport Commission with a view either to selling the line off to the highest bidder or ending the frustrations of commuters by closing it down altogether?

§ Mr. Macmillan
That is a matter first for the British Railways Board and secondly for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries.

§ Mr. Spriggs
The unity of purpose of the three railway trade unions which existed in 1972 assisted greatly in bringing about a settlement with the British Railways Board. Is the Minister aware that anything that any hon. or right hon. Member says to destroy that unity will do more harm than good? [HON. MEMBERS: "What unity?"] May I appeal to every hon. Member to do nothing to destroy it?

§ Mr. Macmillan
It is not a matter of any Member of this House seeking to destroy the unity of the three railway unions. The NUR has publicly expressed its dismay at the action that ASLEF is taking.

§ Mr. Hunt
Will my right hon. Friend condemn the scandal by which ASLEF drivers can sign on each day, draw their full pay, and then find every excuse in the rule book for not working? Will he also tell us what has happened to Mr. Richard Marsh, whose low profile in the dispute has now reached vanishing point? Is it not time that Mr. Marsh spoke up and acted vigorously against the militants and on behalf of the long-suffering commuters?

§ Mr. Macmillan
The question of disciplinary or similar action must be left to the railway management concerned. As to the actions of the Chairman of the British Railways Board, I am not sure that lack of public utterances from such a source in a situation like the present necessarily implies a lack of action, concern or capacity to do something about it.

§ Mr. Huckfield
Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is not an inter-union dispute and that ASLEF is not in conflict with the Price and Pay Code? Will he accept that ASLEF does not want an increase paid now, and that all it seeks is the recognition that the British Railways Board promised for the drivers' skill two years ago? Does he realise that the best way to get the railways moving again is to stop his right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries from making stupid statements and to get the British Railways Board to convene now a meeting of the Footplate Pay Working Party, which the board has refused to do?

§ Mr. Macmillan
The problem is that the NUR, which is also a member of the working party, thinks it necessary that the pay negotiations should continue rather than that the working party should be resumed separately. The working party has had eight meetings on the wages structure—on 7th November, a two-day session on 30th November and 1st December, a two-day session on 18th and 19th December, and meetings on 16th January, 22nd January, 31st January, 23rd February and 26th Febru- 1296 ary. Now the NUR and the board consider it is time to get on with the general negotiations. The restructuring has been going on for a long time. It has always been part of the negotiations, and the other two unions are perfectly satisfied with the progress that has been made in the working party.

§ Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the particular hardship imposed in North-East Kent, the heaviest commuter area, which is having far and away the worst commuter services every day? It is the only county in the Home Counties with no Tube services as an alternative to relieve the load. My constituents are sick and tired of being promised ever-better services that they never get for higher fares that they have to pay. It has become a sick joke to say, "Travel by train and relieve the strain".

§ Mr. Macmillan
I must admit that I have a great deal of sympathy with my right hon. Friend's constituents. They have had an intolerable burden put upon them by ASLEF's action. Therefore, I join those who strongly express the view that the union should attend a meeting of the Rail Staff National Council on 21st March and meanwhile cease its industrial action.

§ Mr. Bagier
Does the Secretary of State agree that it is an extremely complex matter, which cannot easily be spelt out? There is more restructuring of wages to be done in the industry than only of the engine drivers' wages—hence the difficulty in getting all grades together. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is therefore all the more wrong that he and his Department do not take a much closer interest in the matter? Will he use his good offices to implore both sides to get down to the two separate issues—deciding what is to be the national wage claim for 1973, due to be paid from 1st May, and the far more complex matter of deciding a much fairer wage structure, which takes into consideration not only engine drivers but signalmen and all the many grades in the railway industry?

§ Mr. Macmillan
The problem is that ASLEF is asking that priority should be given to the restructuring affecting its members. That is what the other unions find difficult to accept. I do not think that any intervention by my Department 1297 would be in the least helpful at this stage. The negotiating machinery exists, and all that is needed is to have the procedures carried out. ASLEF is in breach of its own procedures in the matter, because the working party has never been regarded as being capable of producing a binding agreement. It is simply a method of making recommendations which can have a greater or lesser degree of acceptance in the annual wage negotiations.

§ Mr. Tope
As a daily commuter, and one who has suffered with hundreds of thousands of other people, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to express his and the Government's sympathy to the thousands whose working lives are being disrupted? Does he accept the justice of the NUR demand that its annual pay claim should be settled before any question of regrading is examined, bearing in mind that NUR personnel are among the lowest paid in the country? Does not the dispute show that the cooling-off provisions in the Industrial Relations Act are useless and should therefore be repealed?

§ Mr. Macmillan
It is not possible to use the cooling-off period in the present circumstances, because the emergency provisions of the Act are not met. There is no question about that. I agree that the matter is complicated. The NUR wants to return to the negotiating table. Any settlement within the pay limit allows room for restructing. That is one of the reasons why the pay limit was expressed in a form that allows a great degree of flexibility in its application.

§ Sir R. Thompson
Will my right hon. Friend convey in the right quarters my feeling and that of many other hon. Members who are well disposed towards the railways, and want to see an integrated transport system in which they play a bigger part, of our utter dismay that the dispute should drag on and our increasing reluctance to vote enormous sums of money for reorganisation of the system if it does go on?

§ Mr. Macmillan
What my hon. Friend said is true. One of the fears expressed by the other unions concerned is that the present type of action is not exactly a good advertisement for the comforts and otherwise of travelling by rail, nor is it 1298 an encouragement to further investment in the railway system.

§ Mr. Cohen
Having listened to the expert comments from all the former railwaymen on the Government benches, may I, as a former National Executive member of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, ask the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends whether they are aware that confidence in the excellent negotiating and consultative machinery to which the Minister referred, which has taken many years to establish, has been undermined to a large extent by the Government's attitude, exemplified by the Industrial Relations Act? Unless the Government are prepared to show the trade union movement, the railwaymen included, a change of attitude and a willingness to do something constructive, we shall, unfortunately, face the present situation for a considerable time.

§ Mr. Macmillan
The dispute has absolutely nothing to do with the Government or with the Industrial Relations Act, and ASLEF has made it quite clear that it has nothing to do with the pay policy. Bluntly, it is an attempt by ASLEF to jump the queue.