§ 15. Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the aggregate cost to public funds of supplementary benefit paid to those involved in the miners' strike, and to their dependants, and of payments made after return to work and not so far recovered.
30. Mr. Dixonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how much was paid in supplementary benefits to miners' families in the recent strike.
§ Mr. O'MalleyDuring the strike £44,000 and £4.1 million respectively 264 were paid; fully recoverable post-dispute payments amounted to £123,000 by 19th March.
§ Mr. Bruce-GardyneWhat is the sense or the fairness of obliging taxpayers to subsidise strikers who cause them grave inconvenience or loss when vast union funds are apparently reserved to pay for a £250 night out for Mr. Gormley and his friends or a Rolls-Royce for Mr. McGarvey? Will the hon. Gentleman now take steps to ensure that the unions are obliged to finance their members if they strike, even if it means that Mr. Gormley and Mr. McGarvey have to eat and travel like the rest of us?
§ Mr. O'MalleyThe hon. Gentleman is apparently not yet aware that his party lost the General Election. The present Government have no intention of further poisoning industrial relations, as the previous administration did with the Industrial Relations Act. Furthermore, the mine workers and other sections of the community who may be involved in industrial disputes are also taxpayers, and we have a responsibility to see that their families are not brought into the poisonous atmosphere which the previous Government created in industry.
§ Mr. SkinnerWill 1st July be less than a million light years away? That is in relation to Question No. 5.
On this very vexed question, does my hon. Friend agree that it takes two sides to cause a strike? In this case it seemingly took only one—the members of the previous administration. As they were responsible for causing the strike, would it not be appropriate for them to recompense the taxpayers by allowing them to make a retrospective claim on their wages during the period in which they were causing the strike?
§ Mr. O'MalleyMy hon. Friend is quite right that it was as a result of the inflexible policies of the previous Government and the arrogance of the previous Prime Minister that the strike took place at all. If anyone has a responsibility for the expenditure of over £4 million of public money, about which the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and his hon. Friends complain, it is the previous administration.
Mr. DixonDoes the hon. Gentleman approve of the system of politics in Denmark, with its long tradition of social democracy, under which the first call in such a situation is not on the taxpayers' funds but on the union's funds?
§ Mr. O'MalleyIf the hon. Gentleman looked at the figures he would find that during strikes called last year a number of unions made strike benefit payments to their members. One thing that the hon. Gentleman should bear in mind, however, is that it was the Social Security Act 1971, of the previous administration, which acted as a positive measure to stop unions paying that kind of benefit.
§ Mr. KinnockWill my hon. Friend reject the barbarity which inspired the question from the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and those of his hon. Friends? Has any calculation been made of the average time that a strike would last in the event of payments being removed from the wives and dependants of striking miners or anyone else?
§ Mr. O'MalleyNo such calculations have been made, nor do they need to be made while the present Government remain in power because we have no intention of using the wives and families of strikers as a weapon against those strikers.
§ Sir G. HoweDoes the hon. Gentleman appreciate that neither side of the House is anxious to cast hardship on the wives and dependants of strikers by any change in this matter? Does he also realise that the whole country is and will remain concerned about the extent to which public funds can be seen to encourage the prolongation of industrial action? The whole country is and will remain increasingly concerned about the extent to which we are afraid that the present Government's policies will lead to acceleration of inflation, not least in the public sector.
§ Mr. O'MalleyI certainly do not accept the first part of that question. As for the second part, it comes ill from the Conservative Party to talk about the Government creating inflation when we look at the results of the previous administration.
§ Mr. Bruce-GardyneOn a point of order. Mr. Speaker. I beg to give notice 266 that in view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply I shall seek to raise the matter at the earliest possible moment.