PEACEFUL PICKETING

HC Deb 30 July 1975 vol 896 cc1887-911

'(1) (a) It is hereby declared that a person exercising the right (in this section referred to as 'peaceful picketing') conferred on him by section 15 of the 1974 Act (peaceful picketing) may, at the place where he is attending, seek by peaceful means to persuade any other person (whether in a vehicle or not) to stop for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information from or to that other person or persuading him to work or abstain from working;

(b) any person who persuades any other person (whether in a vehicle or not) to stop shall use all endeavours insofar as is reasonably practical, having regard to the breadth of the highway, the number of persons desirous of stopping and the facilities for persons or vehicles to halt off the highway, so that the person or the vehicle in which he is travelling, as the case may be, does not halt at a point on the highway which obstructs the passage of other users thereof.

(2) Any person peacefully picketing shall be entitled to attend on any highway or at any other place to which the public normally have access without this constituting any offence or involving any civil liability though such person may have occasion to remain stationary or to pass or repass in order to exercise the right referred to in subsection (1) of this section.

(3) Those peacefully picketing shall not be guilty of any offence or be liable to any civil proceedings by reason of their exhibiting on or at the side of such highway or other place referred to in subsection (2) of this section or of suspending over such highway or other place (provided this does not obstruct the passage of vehicles or persons) of painted notices explaining and commenting on the trade dispute in question provided always that such notices do not constitute a criminal libel.

(4) In the application of this section to Scotland, reference to the highway shall be construed as a reference to any public right of way.

(5) In this section the term peaceful picketing shall mean the attendance of such numbers of pickets as may be reasonable having regard to the number of persons normally employed in the premises being picketed, the number of persons or vehicles normally seeking access to or egress from such premises and the number of possible entries thereto and exits therefrom. Without prejudice to the generality of this provision a picket stationed in the vicinity of any entrance to or exit from any premises being picketed or at any other point not less than one hundred yards from another picket so stationed and which does not exceed in numbers six persons shall not be regarded as unreasonable for the purpose of this section'.—[Mr. Rooker.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. J. W. Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I shall have no problem, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in applying your dictum on brevity, because if my hon. Friends' meeting upstairs does not end soon there will not be anyone in the Chamber to speak.

I shall not repeat the point that I made in Committee concerning aspects of peaceful picketing from the standpoint of obstruction of the highway. It was a long debate. I took 45 minutes to develop the point, but I do not intend to do that now. The arguments for providing measures to solve some of the problems of peaceful picketing and obstruction of the highway are self-evident to all hon. Members. In Committee I listened to the arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Minister of State and by Opposition Members. I have taken advice from a former hon. and learned Member of this House and have redrafted the clause, which now appears as new Clause 7.

I wish that the Government had taken the same approach as I did. I wish that after the clause was lost they had left the Committee, had meaningful consultations and come forward with something else. However, in the result a back bencher has had to move the clause again. I do not think that the reason for that lies with my right hon. and hon Friends on the Front Bench. My argument basically concerns the Home Office. It is there that we shall find the reason why the Government probably will not support me.

I have been a Member of Parliament for 18 months. I have been searching for the sensitive, careful, liberal approach that I was told would emanate from the Home Office. I am still looking for it. I do not believe that the Home Office is the guardian of our civil liberties. Evidence to the contrary over the past 18 months is non-existent. I attribute to the Home Office the most ulterior of motives for not taking action on this issue. I am convinced that in the near future it wants to use the new organisation which it has set up to combat mass picketing. I am convinced that it wants to see whether it actually works. The last thing it wants is to approve a change in the law which would do away with the need for mass picketing. I do not like it and I do not think that any of my hon. Friends like it. It goes without saying that Opposition Members do not go for mass picketing.

When there is an industrial dispute and the pickets lawfully put there have the means to communicate to other people, whether on foot, bicycles, horse-cart or vehicles, it is wholly unnecessary that they should be caught on technical breaches of the highway. There is no reason whatsoever for more than three, four, or half a dozen people at the outside at any one time to be involved in a picket. I support any move by the police to limit this action. I seek the right to communicate, which many pickets thought they had. However, because of the various cases up and down the country during the past few years, they have realised that they have not got that right. Certain pickets have ended up before the courts. They have argued that they were just standing there not doing anything unlawful. The magistrate has said "Yes, but you were not a reasonable user of the highway. As such, you were obstructing the highway. You are fined £50." That is what has happened in the past. We have now redrafted the clause to cover that matter.

Subsection (1) repeats half a dozen words of the former Clause 99. Subsection (1)(b) takes on board points made by both sides in Committee, especially the remarks of my hon. Friend the Minister of State which appear in column 1516 of the 28th Sitting of the Committee. I understand that it covers actual obstruction of the highway as opposed to technical obstruction. We do not want to create a situation where we have actual obstruction and people are told that they can do that only at places set aside for vehicles to be stopped and drivers to be communicated with and not be charged for the technical breaches with which they had been charged in the past. Subsection (2) rewrites the wording of the amendment as proposed in Committee, except that we have added the words or might otherwise obstruct by-passing or re-passing thereon". The addition of these words is to cover the situation where the courts have held that a picket moving on the highway nevertheless causes obstruction. Having reread the arguments put forward in Committee, I believe that this drafting meets the criticism which has been made against me and my hon. Friends.

Subsection (3) is primarily designed to deal with the private Acts of Parliament and municipal byelaws. For example, in the City of London a poster parade is illegal, but outside the City limits there is no reason why one should not take place. We must take account of the things that pickets would wish to do to communicate the details of a dispute.

Subsection (4) of the clause reproduces the second paragraph of the original Clause 99, so I do not see how there can be any argument against that.

Subsection (5) is designed to cover the numbers of pickets at a particular place. I hope that this will meet criticisms which came from the Opposition in Committee about pickets arriving from nowhere who have nothing to do with the dispute, who are not aware of the situation and who have gone along, as it were, as a rent-a-crowd. We are not stipulating that there should be only six pickets. The subsection is drafted so as not to limit the number to six.

We are saying that if six pickets were allowed within 100 yards of the premises, bearing in mind their size and the number of vehicles going in and out—the police have plenty of experience of that kind of situation—by and large pickets would not complain and would be able to wave away the overtures of the rent-a-crowd pickets. They would not complain if up to half a dozen pickets were allowed at each entrance to or exit from particular premises with the right to communicate and without the threat of prosecution for technical breaches of obstruction of the highway. That would be acceptable to most pickets. It would certainly have been acceptable in most of the industrial disputes in which I have been involved on both sides of the fence. as it were.

It is difficult to organise a picket. It is not the sort of thing into which people rush when there is a dispute at a factory. Many other things must be done if there is a dispute and people are laid off. For example, there is the guardian of the rest of the household who demands "Why go to the factory at six o'clock in the morning to form a picket line?" Contrary to popular belief, it is difficult to get people to picket early in the morning.

If picketing could be organised in an orderly fashion so that people did not fall foul of the law for offences of which they were not aware, mass picketing and all that flows from it would be a thing of the past. The Home Office would then have no chance of putting into operation the proposals that it has made.

I do not know whether my right hon. Friend will accept the new clause. If not, I shall ask my hon. Friends to support me in the Lobby so that we may show people outside that we tried to do something about this matter. When the Bill first came before the House it had a clause on peaceful picketing. After tonight it may not have such a clause. In that event, I hope that many people outside the House—the TUC, the trade unions and others—will ask why there is not such a clause in the Bill. I shall be the first to volunteer the information that I was among those who got rid of the clause in Committee. I shall be prepared to argue with any crowd at any meeting the reason for the new clause and to announce the roll call of hon. Members who supported me. At the same time I shall point out that the fault is not that of my right hon. Friend or the Department of Employment but that the finger should be pointed at the Home Office.

If it comes to a vote on the new clause, I shall consider it to be a vote of no confidence in those who run the Home Office whose responsibility it was to fulfil the promise made in the October manifesto by the Labour Party that something meaningful would be put into the Bill to advance the rights of those taking part in a dispute.

In the interests of keeping the debate short, I now close my remarks.

Mr. Foot

I am not endeavouring to bring the debate to an end. However, I think it might be of assistance if I comment now on my hon. Friend's speech and the new clause. We can then proceed to consider the best course for the House to take. I do not think that my intervention at this stage will abbreviate the debate, but we may be able to curtail the discussion. I am not in any way seeking to prevent other hon. Members from participating in the debate if they wish to do so.

It is a fact that when we first produced the consultative document on the Employment Protection Bill or the consultative document on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill way back in March or April 1974 we included the view that we would seek to alter the law on picketing to carry out the obligations and undertakings on this subject which we had given in our manifesto and during the election campaign. Those consultative documents were issued on behalf of the Government. Therefore, we in the Department of Employment have always taken the view that it was necessary to have some change in the law on picketing. That is the view that we have taken since March 1974. That view has not been concealed from the House of Commons in any sense. It was included in our original consultative document. We considered whether we could deal with the matter in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill when it was introduced in May 1974. We found difficulties in reaching a conclusion on how we should carry into effect what we desired, and we are still faced with those difficulties.

I know that it is extremely disappointing for my hon. Friends and many people outside the House who are especially concerned about this matter that we should have failed to find a solution to the problem. We have been searching for a solution. I promise my hon. Friend that we shall go on searching. We shall make a fresh search in the light of the new clause which he has proposed to see whether we can find a solution to the problem.

There are still some difficulties in the new clause. I do not know whether my hon. Friend will alter his view on how he will advise the House at the end of this debate, but it may be helpful if I give the Government's view on the difficulties in the new clause as drafted. I shall do so on the basis that we proceed to discuss the matter afterwards.

I should like to comment on the particular items and aspects of the different subsections of the new clause. I acknowledge from the start that my hon. Friend and those who have put their names to the new clause have approached the matter in a constructive spirit. They have taken account of what was said in Committee and sought to devise a new clause which meets some of the objections which were raised.

Subsection 1(a) re-enacts in substance Clause 99 of the Bill, which was defeated in Committee, but with one significant change. Clause 99 made clear that the act of attempting to persuade persons or vehicles to stop by peaceful means falling short of obstruction of the highway was protected. The new clause leaves out the reference to means falling short of obstruction of the highway". That omission of itself does not confer on pickets the right to obstruct the highway. Section 121 of the Highways Act 1959 provides: If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, in any way wilfully obstructs the free passage along a highway he shall be guilty of an offence". Subsection (1) of the new clause would not provide sufficient "lawful authority or excuse" to override that provision.

However, taken with subsection (2) there is the possibility that immunities for pickets against obstruction charges are here provided, although the extent of such immunities would be uncertain.

Subsection (2), first, would protect the act of attendance at the place, be it on the highway or elsewhere. That is unnecessary. Section 15 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act already does that. Secondly, it protects the act of passage and repassage. That also, in our view, adds nothing to safeguards for peaceful picketing. Passage and repassage are a normal user of the highway.

Thirdly, the subsection declares that no criminal or civil liability is to arise if a picket has "occasion to remain stationary" in pursuance of his right to seek to persuade others to stop. This must raise a legal doubt whether a picket has immunity for obstruction of the highways, regardless of what is said in the Highways Act. No doubt that is the intention of the new clause. The legal position would be very uncertain and could lead to some difficult and troublesome judgments.

7.30 p.m.

However, if pickets were held to be able to obstruct the highway without risk of prosecution, that would create the difficulties we have been seeking to overcome. Any provision which conflicts with the duty of the police to prevent obstruction and breach of the peace raises these problems. We cannot adopt the view that one group of individuals should have rights to stop others, thus conflicting with the rights of others to pass unimpeded on the highway.

If this subsection is not held to protect pickets against obstruction charges, however, it achieves nothing. It would only add to the confusions in the law on picketing—the confusions which all of us on this side agree must be removed. Confusion does prevail and we do not regard the present law as satisfactory.

Hon. Members will, no doubt, argue that if subsection (2) protects pickets against obstruction charges no harm can result because subsection (1) puts them under an obligation to try, so far as reasonably practicable, to avoid causing obstruction of the highway. The spirit of this subsection is appreciated, but it is not enought of a safeguard for the position of the police. The clause does not, of course, ever say that any obstruction caused may only be "reasonable". It says that the pickets' efforts to prevent obstruction must be reasonable. If these reasonable efforts fail, or it is not reasonably practicable not to cause obstruction, pickets would presumably then have unlimited protection for causing any degree of obstruction, and also, under subsection (2), for occasioning breaches of the peace. The difficult problem, of retaining adequate discretion for the police to act while assisting pickets to communicate, which the Government are still considering, remains, and is not adequately resolved by the amendment.

Subsection (3) of the new clause is unnecessary. So long as pickets means of communication are not defamatory and cause no obstruction they are already protected.

Subsection (5) is another attempt by my hon. Friends to ease some of the difficulties raised in previous discussions. It is an attempt to deal with the problem of mass picketing. It has certain technical defects which would not enable us to accept it in its present form, but in any case, it is clearly part of a package, the main item of which retains some of the difficulties I have sought to describe. There must also be some doubts about whether legislation to control numbers of pickets will in practice make matters easier for the police, who have to enforce the law, particularly when the criteria for enforcement are based on assessments of what is "reasonable". Control on numbers of pickets, like assistance to pickets in stopping vehicles in order to communicate with their occupants, is probably most effectively and flexibly dealt with by agreement between police and pickets, either in individual cases or in accordance with a general voluntary code of conduct worked out between those concerned.

My hon. Friends have clearly sought to deal with some of the objections that have been previously raised, and it is in this spirit that we have approached the new clause. I have sought to describe some of the difficulties which have prevented us from bringing forward the sort of proposals we hoped to produce. We wanted to secure the agreement of the trade union movement and the police who will have to carry out some difficult functions. So far it has not been possible to resolve this dilemma in a way which could enable us to present to the House proposals for a solution. We are still searching, and trying to get the solution. We are committed to doing so. That has been the position of the Department and the Government since last March or April, and the fact that we have not yet secured a solution demonstrates the difficulties involved.

I cannot make any commitment that we shall be able to secure a solution before the Bill becomes law, but we will make another effort to do so. We had lengthy discussions before the introduction of this Bill, and we will make fresh efforts before its last stages, but we cannot accept the new clause in its present form.

I accept that if my hon. Friend wishes to press his view he is perfectly entitled to do so. He and my other hon. Friends have, undoubtedly, worked out their plan with great care, and nobody is entitled to say this is a new clause that has not sought to deal with the problem seriously. We will look at it in that light, but I cannot make any commitment. We are still confronted with the difficulties I have outlined.

Mr. Carol Mather (Esher)

The Secretary of State is right to proceed with caution in this matter. The public would not welcome the clause. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is on weak ground, having voted against the Government in Committee. He now seeks to put forward this much stronger clause, but he might have got half way by accepting the Government's amendment in Committee.

This new problem which has arisen is causing great public anxiety and concern. No one wants to see a repetition of the events at Shrewsbury or the Saltley Coke Depot. I do not think we should weaken the powers to contain and control demonstrations of this kind. If the Trade Disputes Act had not been taken off the statute book, it would be easier to control some of these demonstrations, because the right of workers in different industries to combine in action would not exist.

It is our duty to understand and support those responsible for law enforcement. As the Secretary of State pointed out, it is the duty of the police to prevent obstruction and breaches of the peace. This kind of clause will make their job much more difficult and the whole situation far more confused. The Home Secretary receives advice from the police on how they would be able to manage in these circumstances. Chief officers have told him that they would find it extremely difficult indeed.

The amendment would give a striker greater powers than the ordinary citizen and greater powers than the ordinary Service man, who is not allowed to hold up traffic in the road outside his camp in order to allow a Service vehicle to get out. He cannot do that without the assistance of the police. I found myself in that position when I was serving in the Army. I had a column which I wanted to get out of the camp gate, and I stepped out into the road to stop the traffic in order to do so. The police appeared and said that I had no right to stop the traffic.

The amendment would, therefore, give a striker greater powers than are possessed by Service men in uniform. It would bestow powers upon the striker equal to the powers which the police possess to stop people on the public highway. I hope, therefore, that the House will not accept the amendment. It would create additional confusion in industrial relations. It would weaken law enforcement and might lead to fresh incidents such as those I have referred to, which cause such difficulty and concern. I therefore have no hesitation in voting against the clause.

Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Blackley)

The hon. Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) suggested that my right hon. Friend should proceed with caution, but some of us on the Labour side are concerned that there is no proceeding at all. Undertakings have been given in the past that the law on peaceful picketing would he looked into and rectified to take account of the fact that people no longer ride about on horses, and that essential supplies are moved by means of lorries. The law must be brought up to date to meet this new situation of modern transport. I would have thought that it was time that the Department of Employment and the Home Office came up with an answer.

It is not good enough to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) that there are various objections. There are always objections to any form of drafting, and I would have expected my right hon. Friend to have produced by now an alternative form of drafting to accommodate that new situation.

There could be nothing worse than the present imprecision of the law. The law has not prevented difficulties arising over picketing. It has not prevented mass picketing. Subsection (5) of the clause would appear certain to guarantee that there would not be mass picketing. Hadrian would not have kept his wall particularly well if there had been pickets 100 yards apart with a maximum of six. If that system had been employed by the legions of old no doubt the Picts would be in control at Westminster now. However, to say that that encourages mass picketing is entirely unfair. One depends in this matter upon the attitude of those involved—of the pickets on the one side and of the police on the other. There is the problem that there is the right to pass and repass on the highway, but there must be a right in a democratic society to communicate information for the purposes of furthering a trade dispute. The right to pass and repass applies as much to those who are picketing as to others on the highway. These two factors must be balanced. The problem is that inevitably picketing involves stopping people temporarily, and one cannot picket unless one stops another person.

The enormous merit of the clause is that, firstly, it deals with peaceful picketing and defines it. It provides that those who picket must use their endeavours to cause vehicles to halt off the highway, thereby limiting the obstruction of those passing by. What could be more reasonable than that? The question is: what if they fail in those endeavours? But what if they fail under the present law? At least the new clause gives some precision and definition and establishes the right to communicate in a situation where frequently there are pickets at a factory entrance wishing to speak to persons inside the cab of a lorry. It is not good enough to continue with laws which were drafted when the furthest distance one might be away from a person was when he was on the back of a horse. The law should provide for reasonable communication with people in motor vehicles, and that is necessary if there is not to be a greater danger of the breakdown of order.

My hon Friends who support the clause have acted responsibly and have drafted a framework within which it could be possible for pickets to go about their peaceful business.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Urwin

The Secretary of State said that he was in some difficulty about accepting the clause, which has been signed by 44 Labour Members. There are those of us who can begin to understand the reasons for his caution. Nevertheless, about 120 Labour Members are sponsored by trade unions and they represent a very large body of people any one of whom could be involved in picketing at any moment. At any time they could find themselves, either by direct intention or by implication, as one of a body of people exercising the right to picket. In this context, and bearing in mind some of the experiences of the recent past, it is almost inconceivable to think that we are enacting legislation which excludes the kinds of thing that my hon. Friends seek to include in the Bill.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will give me a forthright answer to my question. When does he expect to bring forward, if the provision is not to be put in this Bill, another piece of legislation which would meet the requirements of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker)? It is well within the bounds of possibility that while it would be impossible to gag my right hon. Friend or his colleagues, he is, metaphorically speaking, handcuffed. When may we expect the Home Secretary, for example, to come up with amendment to the conspiracy laws which might provide the opportunity we seek of giving effect to the aims of this new clause?

It is not fair to say to Labour Members that this is not the time to include in a new Act of Parliament provisions along the lines that my hon. Friend has sought to introduce. My right hon. Friend must be more forthcoming or face the prospect of a substantial number of Labour Members voting against the Government. That would not include me. In 11 years I have never voted against the Government, and it will be a sad day when I do. However, there is always the first time and I can afford to indulge in the luxury of selectivity. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State not to drive me into the Lobby against him on this occasion. If there is not a satisfactory answer, I may have to indulge in the other luxury of abstention.

Mr. John Evans

I shall be brief and not detain the House too long. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has given an undertaking that he will make a fresh search. I hope he will accept that that is rather like throwing a bucket of water over us.

As my right hon. Friend and many hon. Members know, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) and I submitted the bones of the new clause after Second Reading, because during the Second Reading debate we expressed our disquiet about Clause 99. There has been ample opportunity on Second Reading, during the Committee stage and today to return to the form of words which would have been acceptable to many Labour Members. I find it extremely difficult to understand at this juncture why that form of words has not been put forward today, because we deliberately abstained on the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) when he moved that Clause 99 should be deleted. We abstained in the clear belief that the Government would be forced to come back and clarify the position on picketing. It was with considerable dismay that we discovered that the Government had come back with nothing.

The brief of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State can only be described as a nit-picking one drawn up by the Home Office and not by his Department. I have listened on many occasions over many years to my right hon. Friend. I hope he will forgive me if I say that his speech was the worst one I have ever heard him make. It certainly was not his speech.

It is the Government's duty to come forward with legislation. We have read the debates carefully and we have tried to meet all the objections raised in Committee. The truth is that someone in the Government has constantly fudged this issue and refused to deal with the matter of conspiracy. The House will appreciate that we have tabled a proposal on that matter, but for some reason which I am not well enough informed in the ways of the House to understand, it has not been called. I make no quarrel with that, but we believe that our amendment met all the objections.

On 17th July in Committee my hon. Friend the Minister of State said in reply to a comment of mine: the police must be recognised as having two duties made upon them. They must have the duty to uphold the law passed by Parliament. They must also have the duty of preventing breaches of the peace." [Official Report, Standing Committee F, 17th July 1975; c. 1516.] We have tried to clarify the law because the law is in a state of chaos. I have served upon picket lines on a number of occasions. They were all peaceful pickets, but because they were in connection with the shipbuilding and ship repair industry they were always effective picket lines.

At present the law is determined by the local senior police officer. He decides what the relationship shall be among the police, the pickets, the people seeking to gain entry into the factories and the lorry drivers. In most industrial areas the police co-operate with the strikers and pickets. This often continues for quite some time and there are no problems. The picket line is always peaceful. Sometimes the senior officer is posted elsewhere and another police officer takes his place who interprets the law differently. Consequently the pickets cannot understand why the law appears to have changed. We know that the law has not changed. What has often changed is the police officer who was interpreting the law. That is why we have tabled the clause.

I agree with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghtonle-Spring (Mr. Urwin) about dealing with the trade union aspect of this problem. As a supporter of the Government, and having sat through 30 sittings of the Committee, I cannot understand why the Government are not using the Employment Protection Bill to clarify the law. It is the ideal vehicle. I am a back bencher, but if I cannot understand it how are the thousands of people outside ever to understand why the Government did not use this important piece of legislation to clarify the matter? There is no doubt that we have the dead hand of reaction of the Home Office sitting tightly on the new clause. It is a scandal that this important Bill is not being used to clarify something which at times can cause a great many problems.

The new clause is an attempt to solve the problems of affairs such as occurred at Saltley and problems of mass and flying pickets. If we cannot solve the problem by clarifying the law in a perfectly legitimate and straightforward way which everyone can understand, no one will have cause to complain if at some future date strikers believe that they are not getting a fair deal from the authorities, the police or the Government and they resort to flying pickets and mass picketing. I would submit that the responsibility for that would rest firmly upon the Government.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will retract what he said and accept the clause.

Mr. Patrick Mayhew (Royal Tunbridge Wells)

I agree with the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Evans) that Clause 99, which was in the original Bill, was no more than a fudging of this issue. It sought to pretend, under the guise of declaring the law for the avoidance of doubt, that the law as it exists confers a right, which is not the case. It was implicit in Clause 99, now no longer part of the Bill, that the law conferred the right to seek to persuade, but, rightly or wrongly, that right has not been part of the law.

The law has been settled on this point since 1906, and it has conferred a right to attend for the purpose of communicating or obtaining information or for the purpose of persuading, but it has not gone further. The reason for that is the conflict between two opposing interests. On the one hand there is the interest of the trade unionist or the employee who seeks to persuade people to support him. That was recognised and given some force long before 1906. On the other hand, there is the interest of the ordinary member of the public to be allowed to go about his lawful occasions. That is an important and valuable right and one not lightly to be interfered with. That was lucidly and shortly expressed by Lord Salmon in another place in the recent case of Hunt v. Broome. Perhaps I can weary the House with two or three sentences from what the learned law Lord said. He said: Everyone has the right to use the highway free from the risk of being compulsorily stopped by any private citizen and compelled to listen to what he does not want to hear. No doubt it is permissible, either by words or signs, to ask any man to stop on the highway and then to ask him to listen to what you have to say. He is free, however, to stop or go on as he pleases. If he does stop and then decides that he does not wish to listen or that he has heard enough, he cannot be compelled to stay. 8.0 p.m.

I have considerable sympathy with those who say that the law allows them to combine to give added force to their point of view in an industrial dispute. They see that for a hundred years the law has allowed them to be exempt from the ordinary provisions of the conspiracy law, for example. I agree with the point forcibly expressed in Committee that the mass of trade unionists in an industrial dispute reckon that there is not much point in having a right given one by the law to combine for the purpose of persuading if in this modern day of the motor car and the lorry, as distinct from the horse and cart, one cannot get a vehicle stopped.

I see the force of that. It leads, I believe, to this result. The pickets, the trade unionists in question, say "If the law gives us a right to attend to seek to persuade, the law cannot be so stupid as not to give us the opportunity to get our point across." At present neither the 1906 Act nor the 1974 Act does that.

As I hope I have made clear, I have considerable sympathy—I suppose that this will be regarded as a typical lawyer's hedge—with both sides of the argument. Picketing is now, unhappily, a fact of industrial life. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) when he said that there was very considerable public alarm at mass picketing. It is mass picketing which is the worst manifestation of the inadequacy of the law at present, and the worst manifestation of the harm that is done to our law as a whole by bad industrial relations.

I want to express what is possibly an heretical point of view, coming from someone who sits on the Opposition side of the House. I think that it is right that we should at least bring ourselves to consider whether we should not confer upon the police the right, in certain picketing situations, to stop a vehicle for a limited and reasonable time so that a picket may seek to persuade the driver. If this were the law, it would do away with the need for mass picketing. That, indeed, would have to be a condition of this amendment of the law. Mass picketing is by far the worst manifestation of the harm done by bad industrial relations and the worst aspect of the whole question.

I would be prepared to consider very carefully whether we ought not to confer upon the police what they have not got at present—the right to stop a vehicle for a limited period so that the picket may have the right to do that which he has the right to seek to attend to do; namely, to persuade.

Mr. Mather

if a picket had that right to ask the police to stop a vehicle on the public highway, that would give the picket powers greater than those of the ordinary citizens. The ordinary citizen has no power to say to the police that he has a reason for wishing a vehicle to be stopped. I think that this proposal is wrong. We should not have it.

Mr. Mayhew

I quite agree that it would place the picket in a position different from and more advantageous to the position in the example taken by my hon. Friend of being unable to go out into the road and stop vehicles to allow his convoy of Army vehicles to get out on to the road. But there are virtues in the law which are perhaps greater than that of consistency. There are occasions on which one has to make individual laws to meet individual circumstances. I would insist that there would have to be a ban on mass picketing. I would define mass picketing extremely stringently. Six, which is the proposal in the new clause. is probably a couple too many.

All I am saying is that this matter deserves the most careful consideration. I am sorry that it has not had that careful consideration by the Government. At this late stage I cannot understand why the original Clause 99 should seek to declare the law as to picketing when it was subsequently admitted that the Government had not given sufficient thought to the matter. The gallant attempts to grapple with the problem in the new clause do not come anywhere near what the law should require. In subsections (2) and (5) there are provisions which are far too vague and would give rise to considerable difficulties. I shall not bore the House with my views about them.

The purpose of my intervention—which I am afraid has been too long—is to indicate that one must look with rather fresh eyes at the whole of this terribly difficult problem, dealing with it as a fact of industrial life. I am sorry that the Government have not given enough thought to it.

Mr. Prior

Passions sometimes tend to get raised on this particular subject. So far we have had a very quiet and a good debate. We discussed this matter at some length in Committee. It is quite right that we should discuss it in the House again tonight, because it is a matter of very great concern to people outside the House and to people outside the trade union movement.

A large number of people feel that the law is in need of reform. Some would take the view that the law is in need of reform to prevent mass picketing. Anyone who actually witnessed what went on, for example, at the Saltley coke works and other activities around that time will know very well that this was not a position which ought to be sustained in a free society. There was great concern at that time and a feeling that, certainly as regards mass picketing, the law needed reform.

Therefore, up to a point, when the Secretary of State came forward in about March or April of last year with a proposal which he thought at that time could perhaps have been introduced as a code of practice, which would have followed the lines taken by the miners in the 1974 dispute, we were favourably disposed towards looking at it in that light, particularly as on that occasion the miners confined themselves to a small but specific number of strikers. They wore armbands to make certain that everyone knew they were members of the National Union of Mineworkers. That avoided some of the problems of flying pickets, and the "rent-a-picket" problem which we had had previously. Certainly the whole atmosphere was a good deal more orderly than it had been on previous occasions.

Therefore, it was perhaps with some disappointment that at that time, when we came to move amendments to the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, the Secretary of State said that he was not ready to come forward with any proposal. The right hon. Gentleman said that again tonight.

I must say to some of his hon. Friends who have spoken in the debate that I think that the Secretary of State was right in his answer. What is more, if they are to address their remarks to the Home Secretary, in many ways it would be better if they did address their remarks to the Home Secretary—although I hope very much that the Secretary of State will defend his right hon. Friend in lusty fashion. However, there is no doubt that many of his hon. Friends were having a good go at the Home Secretary. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Home Office".] I cannot believe that I am wrong, but if I am, I am open to be contradicted by any Labour Member.

My hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) raised the problems of the rights of individuals to proceed on the highway or about their lawful business. That was the point that the Minister of State took up in Committee, when he said: In conferring a right to stop a vehicle to persuade its driver or any other occupant, how far is one entitled to interfere with the right of the driver? There must be a point at which a driver has a right to proceed upon the highway. In establishing one right, one is reducing another."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F. 17th July 1975; c. 1515.] I believe that to be the nub of the problem.

The amendment, towards which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) sought to be sympathetic, seeks for the first time to limit the number of persons involved in a picket. It seeks to limit them to six, although subsection (5) of the clause says earlier: In this section the term peaceful picketing shall mean the attendance of such numbers of pickets as may be reasonable having regard to the number of persons normally employed in the premises". Therefore, six is not to be the maximum number. Any number can be employed picketing, although the normal and not unreasonable number is six.

Mr. Rooker

The right hon. Gentleman has read the interpretation reasonably correctly, but the new clause speaks of six pickets 100 yards apart. Obviously we are talking about more than six in total, depending on the number of exits from and entrances to the premises. We are not saying that the total of six at any one exit or entrance is reasonable.

Mr. Prior

It can be more than six. There is nothing in subsection (5) to stop there being more than six in any one place. As my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, six is probably too many in any case. The clause is not specific.

Mr. Arthur Lewis (Newham, North-West)

The right hon. Gentleman is always fair and reasonable. Does he not agree that at Fords, for example, there could be 60 or 70 pickets? That would not be too many. I do not know how many entrances and exits there are there. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is right. There could be two pickets at each of 20 or 30 gates at Ford's, which would not be excessive.

Mr. Prior

If there are many exits and entrances, the case for more pickets is made out. It shows how difficult it is to be precise in legislation. But what we would not support, and what would flabbergast the country, is the passage of legislation which legalised some of the activities that went on two or three winters ago.

Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth)

Is there not an inescapable inference that by defining peaceful picketing one is limiting, and in all probability excluding, the activities which the right hon. Gentleman has condemned?

Mr. Prior

That is what one would hope, but, as I have pointed out, that is not what subsection (5) says. Therefore, it needs a considerable tightening. That is why we thought that the proposal to introduce a code of precise rules was the only way in which to proceed. That was the spirit of our amendment in Committee and Report stages of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill last year.

8.15 p.m.

As the clause is drafted, it is not one that the police could enforce, as the Sec- retary of State has made absolutely clear. The Secretary of State says that he is still considering ways in which it might be possible to improve and more carefully and closely define the law. I believe that it would be hard to find a suitable and reasonable way to decide when a picket should have the right to stop a lorry driver and when he should not. I accept the arguments about our having moved out of the horse-and-cart age. We all do. But if we accept that point, we on this side of the House want to see precise conditions laid down about the number of pickets, the type of pickets and their code of conduct, and to avoid flying pickets and mass pickets. We do not believe that the clause can do that, and, therefore, my right hon. and hon. Friends will not be able to support it.

Mr. Foot

The hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) said that the Government had given insufficient thought to the matter. For many months we have had conversations, arguments and discussions on it. I trust that during that process some thought has been applied to it as well.

Our failure to appear before the House with a solution to the problem is not due to any lack of effort to secure one. We tried to assist, although we knew that it could not be regarded as a full solution, by Clause 99, which was knocked out in Committee. The hon. and learned Gentleman quoted Lord Salmon as saying that there was no right to persuade, but Lord Reid said in the same case that attendance must include the right to try to persuade anyone who chooses to stop and listen. Later he said that the right to attend for the purpose of peaceful persuasion would be meaningless unless this was implied.

Clause 99 attempted to express Lord Reid's views in that sense. We thought that it would be of some assistance, but it was knocked out by a variety of circumstances in Committee. We believe that that was a pity, although we do not claim that it was a solution to the problem and to the various other problems discussed by my hon. Friends and others in this debate.

I acknowledge the strength of feeling expressed by my hon. Friends in the debate and by their signatures to the amendment. I have spoken in the past about the representations of the General Council of the TUC. They have been very much on the lines of the clause. The General Council wishes us to proceed in that direction, and there is no doubt about its feelings either.

My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Urwin) asks "If we cannot deal with the matter in an Employment Protection Bill, when can we deal with it?" I fully appreciate his view. I still hope that we may have the chance to deal with it in the Bill. But it is understandable that hon. Members should tell me in the strongest possible terms, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Evans) did, that they find it difficult to understand why we have not yet been able to find the solution. For the reasons I gave earlier, we have not so far been able to do so. There is a dilemma and difficulty, and we have been trying to overcome it. Discussions have gone on in the attempt to do so.

I understand the strength of my hon. Friend's feelings. He may seek to force the clause to a Division, and that is his right. I regard his clause, as do the Government, as a constructive attempt to deal with this matter. We cannot accept it in its present form. There has to be a further search to see whether something can be built upon it. Certainly the clause is not just a reiteration of what was said in Committee. It is a genuine and constructive attempt to deal with the problem. It is in that light that we look upon it. This debate may have a good effect on the situation.

Within the period still left to us before the Bill reaches the statute book—there is one stage left—we will make another search to see whether we can find another solution. I cannot promise that we will secure that solution. In view of the lengthy discussions we have already had in seeking to find a solution, it is more difficult to be certain that we will be successful. We will make another effort and will look at my hon. Friend's clause in that light. I cannot make any further commitment because to do so would be to mislead the House.

If by any chance we still cannot secure an understanding which can be included in the Bill, we will have to continue with the search because as a party we are committed to reform the law of picketing. That is in our manifesto. I do not seek in any way to escape from that commitment. We have said candidly that we do not regard the proposals made by the Government so far as a fulfilment of that commitment. We will have to go further to secure fulfilment of that manifesto commitment.

Mr. Lee

Those who support this clause do not doubt my right hon. Friend's sincerity. Could he tell us in a sentence what is the nub of the difficulty which inhibits him from dealing with the matter in this Bill?

Mr. Foot

Perhaps my hon. Friend will read my earlier contribution. One of my hon. Friends was kind enough to say that it was the worst speech I had ever made. Believe me, I have made worse ones than that, and many hon. Members can verify that. If my hon. Friend will study the comments I made on the original proposal, he will see the nub of the question. He will see that it was the belief of the police that this would give powers of obstruction which could lead to difficulties. It is that conflict of opinion that we seek to overcome. There may be ways of doing this, including the possibility mentioned earlier of the police having the right to stop vehicles. We considered all of that with great care. It would mean that the police would have to be present on every occasion when picketing took place. There are other difficulties of that nature.

Each of those possibilities has been considered. We will make another search in good faith to try to find a solution which can be included in the Bill. If we cannot do so, we will bring one forward on a future occasion.

Mr. Prior

We would agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said about obstruction. My hon. Friends and I are interested in the idea of restricting the number of pickets, of getting away from flying pickets and mass pickets. We hope that in any solution which the right hon. Gentleman may bring forward he will bear that in mind.

Mr. Foot

My hon. Friend has made some proposals. I do not say that we are committed to them. His clause is bound up with the whole package. The mass picketing part may not be the insoluble issue. There are much greater difficulties.

Mr. Rooker

I want to help my right hon. Friend. In the forthcoming battle with those civilised, sensitive libertarians in the Home Office, it would be better for him to have a Division List under his arm. I shall not, therefore, withdraw the motion.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 91, Noes 335.

[For Division List 313 see cols. 1989–92.]

Question accordingly negatived.