§ 23. Mr. Hollandasked the Secretary of State for Employment what was the number of strikes in the motor vehicle and engineering industries lasting less than four days during 1970 and during the whole of 1972.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkThe official series of statistics excludes stoppages lasting less than one day, unless the total number of days lost exceeds 100. In 1970 stoppages included in the official series which lasted not more than three days numbered 211 in motor manufacturing and 423 in engineering. Comparable statistics are not yet available for 1972 and I shall write to my hon. Friend in due course.
§ Mr. HollandNotwithstanding the failure of the Department to produce figures which should be available, can my hon. Friend give any indication of the trend in the numbers of short-term wildcat strikes since the change of Government in 1970?
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkThese figures should be available by the end of next month. As for my hon. Friend's other question, 1971 was a considerable improvement on 1970 as regards short-term stoppages. There were little more 1088 than halt the previous number of stoppages in these industries in that year. The number of workers involved also fell substantially, as did the number of working days lost.
Mr. HeiferIs not the Minister talking utter and complete rubbish? What has happened is precisely what the Government were warned about, that if they brought in such legislation as the Industrial Relations Act all that we would get were bigger and better strikes, for which the Government would be responsible.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkThe hon. Gentleman is an expert on talking rubbish. He clearly has not listened to the reply. He came into the House with his supplementary question presumably written down or at any rate well noted mentally and he did not change it in the light of my answer, which showed a considerable improvement.